Lights, Camera, Amalee

by Dar Williams

  Ms. Farraday provided four green cartoonish plants. “They’re my sofa cushions,” she explained. I saw that she’d gathered in the sides and tops at different angles with green thread to turn the rectangular pillows into odd plant blobs. She placed them on the stage.

  Hallie’s sister Anna came up beside me and asked, “You’re making the movie about endangered species?”

  “That’s right,” I said. “Is that an important thing to you?”

  “Yes,” she answered with the same quiet seriousness that Hallie had. Then she jumped up onto the stage — like a panther, I thought.

  Ms. Farraday talked the dancers through the piece. I could tell that the girls had become panthers the same way they had become monkeys in class. I couldn’t take my eyes off them.

  Ms. Farraday said not to worry about seeing all the dances now. She said she felt confident I would get what I needed by filming from the angles she suggested.

  And so I went home. We went to the restaurant that night, and John showed me that he’d found a light green shirt and a darker green shirt to go over it.

  “It’s just an option,” he said, as if I was a stern director who might yell at him for the suggestion. “We can nix it if you want. I just thought this would give the appearance of a lighter underbelly.”

  I told him we’d look at it with the mask and decide.

  Carolyn appeared beside me at the table and looked at John’s choices of shirts. “I’ll help you with costumes tomorrow,” she offered. “And I have something from Betsy, who sends her best wishes.”

  Was that the moment that I realized tomorrow was almost here? It wasn’t such a big deal, I’d thought, but now it seemed huge!

  I went home and put out a few other things that I thought would be helpful, like the frog book, the mask book, and a couple of desk lamps to add extra light if we needed it. I looked at the pile of stuff. Dad came by and said, “Looks like you’re ready to go.”

  It looked like the kind of pile a person puts together when she has no idea what she’s doing. Maybe that’s what Sally’s blood is for, I thought, to just go ahead and leap. Like a frog, flippers and all.

  I set my alarm for eight a.m. I woke up at six thirty. When I opened the refrigerator, I saw a big bowl of fruit salad that Dad had obviously stayed up to make. I could imagine him thinking he had nothing to offer except his ability to drive me to the set and then deciding to chop up some fruit as his humble gift. I had some, along with as much cereal as I could eat, which was only a mouthful.

  When I heard Dad stirring, I made his coffee. John had taught me how to make the perfect cup. I even heated up some milk. “Thank you for the fruit salad,” I said, handing him his mug. “You didn’t have to.”

  Just as I’d guessed, he shrugged and said, “I couldn’t think of what else I could give you today.”

  “You gave me my sane blood,” I told him.

  “Your what?” he asked. “Good coffee, hon.”

  “Sally had crazy blood and you have sane blood. And I have both,” I explained.

  “You know, I think she would have been astounded by you,” Dad said, without commenting on my comment. He didn’t judge. “And she would have loved to be here today. She would be very proud of you.” This was one of the first times he’d ever put my mother and me in a sentence together. It made us related, and it was hard for both of us to talk about that.

  “Well, I’m glad,” I said, unsure of how to tell him how much I wished she could be here now that he’d put the picture in my head.

  We headed off for the movie set with the big pile of things I hoped would get us through the day, plus the fruit salad.

  We got everything loaded into the room by ten. As I was setting up the tripod, John arrived with two big trays of food. He had a girl assisting him, balancing two aluminum trays of biscuits and scones. It was Hallie.

  John cocked his head toward her. “I snagged this little helper in the parking lot,” he said. “She’s very helpful. I’ll keep her!”

  John was exactly the kind of person I would have tried to keep away from Hallie, afraid that she’d observe that he was too talkative, too bald, or just … too much. But she seemed to love him. “Should I get that coffee machine, John?” she asked quietly. It was her voice, but without any tinge of warning that she was about to be mean.

  “Hm. How ’bout you get that tray with the silverware and stuff? The car’s open.”

  “Sure. Hi, Amalee,” she said. “This is exciting.” She disappeared.

  “What a sweetie,” John said, and I shuddered in spite of myself.

  Phyllis and Carolyn started dragging in five beautifully painted chairs whose backs were made of solid wood. Each chair had a different theme painted on the wood. One was all pond colors with a lily pad painted on the back. Another was bright green with a stripe of light blue and orange here and there. Another was spray-painted gold with bright green leaves. The fourth had pond colors, but there were dark green forest trees peeking in from the sides. Minnesota trees, I guessed.

  I couldn’t stop staring at the fifth chair, though — the chair for Frog X. It was just green, with gold stars painted around the edges. The other chairs looked like they were impatiently waiting for their frogs to sit on them, but this chair actually looked lonely. I thought of Dad talking about my mom this morning, about how she would have loved to have been here today.

  Phyllis and Carolyn noticed that I wasn’t smiling. “This is the gift from Betsy,” Phyllis said. “She saw the chairs at a tag sale, and she took Carolyn to look at them for the frogs. Did we go overboard?”

  Carolyn looked nervous — at least for Carolyn — as she explained, “We tried not to make them too elaborate. We don’t want to upstage the narrators. I don’t think we did. Are you worried?”

  “They’re wonderful,” I assured them. “They’re perfect.”

  Joyce showed up ten minutes later with a plate of brownies. “Snazzy chairs!” she exclaimed. “Oh, fruit salad!” She set down the brownies and served herself a bowl of fruit. Then she had a couple of scones and some orange juice. “These are heavenly scones, John!” she said.

  “No, not from heaven. All the ingredients are local, in honor of our Hudson Valley ecosystem,” John corrected her earnestly.

  I was busy looking at the magnificent chairs through the movie camera, making Dad sit in each of them with the matching frog masks in front of his head. The masks matched the chairs without looking like they were disappearing into them, especially if I filmed at a slight angle. Also, I was pleased to see that when I pulled the chairs out from the wall and hid a couple of lamps on the floor behind them, the already light wall became an empty, washed-out screen of white, like we were all floating along on a cloud.

  With that more or less set, I got the sound ready. I hooked up the CD player and speakers and tried the first CD we’d made with everyone’s voice. A new track would start after each person spoke. Each track was less than a minute. If things went smoothly, we could keep going, and if someone messed up, we could just go back and redo his or her part. Everyone liked the idea that this was like lip-synching a music video, but without the lips.

  The voices sounded clear and “clean” as Ned had said. I looked at the five noble frog thrones as I listened to each frog talking about the environment, and felt the same thrill Sarah must have felt onstage. Mr. Chapelle would approve of how much the sound of these voices, and even the positions of the chairs, were telling the story.

  Ned arrived and confirmed that everything was in place. He pulled out a portable stereo and plugged everything into it. “The sound is a little better on this one. They’ll hear it better through those cool masks.” I was very glad he was here, just in case there was a problem. He took a peek at the room through my camera as if he and I were director-partners. “Oh, great, great,” he murmured. “Those chairs against the bright white background. Very dreamlike.” Dad came over and took a look, too. He said it was very sophisticated.

  “H
ey, stop making me so un-nervous!” I complained. Dad and Ned laughed.

  Lenore arrived with her mother. She jumped when she saw Hallie at the food table, laughing with John. I wanted to reassure her that Hallie was behaving better than when she was with Ellen, but Lenore seemed so nervous, I didn’t think anything I could say would help.

  Marin and Sarah arrived before noon. Marin shot a look at the chairs and looked over at Carolyn and Phyllis. Phyllis gave her a thumbs-up. “You were a part of this?” I asked Marin.

  “We did them outside Carolyn’s gardening store,” Marin said. “Carolyn taught me a lot of new things. I’d never painted furniture before.” Carolyn was making sure Marin had an adult artist to show her the ropes. Phyllis was nodding with approval that this “plan,” probably her idea, had worked.

  No wonder the chairs matched the masks so well. “They are incredible,” I said. “You have to pick one out to keep after the shoot!” I imagined everyone in Marin’s family staying out of her room because the wild chair colors would be too much for them.

  Lydia came in, holding Julie’s hand.

  “We have some bad news,” Sarah said when she got a chance.

  “Julie’s just going to watch,” Lydia said gently. I noticed that Julie had been crying.

  Sarah added, “We told her she didn’t have to be a frog if she didn’t want to be.” Marin looked worried.

  I knew better than to show my panic. Julie looked like a tiny wreck. Who would be Frog X? Not me, obviously. I looked at Hallie. I looked at Lenore. I looked at Phyllis and almost laughed. Phyllis could not be a frog. Lenore’s mother was helping Lenore put the boards in order. She looked up now and said, “Lenore can be a frog if you need her to.”

  I also knew better than to groan.

  Joyce approached Julie with a few brownies on napkins. “Do you think you could watch and eat a brownie at the same time, Julie?” She handed brownies to Lydia, Sarah, and Marin. “How do you like those spiffy chairs?”

  “They’re pretty,” Julie whispered, taking the brownie.

  I pulled out a long-sleeved green shirt and green leggings for Lenore to look at. “Try these on, Lenore,” I said, hoping that she wasn’t horrified that her mother spoke up.

  “Are you sure?”

  I looked at Julie and said, “I was feeling bad, because I knew the gloves and flippers would be too big for you. Maybe they’ll fit Lenore.” I nodded to Lenore, as if to say, The easier you make this, the better it will be for Julie. I didn’t want to beg Lenore to be Frog X. Frog X was very special, and the truth was, I was really upset that Lenore was going to play her, but that’s what had to happen.

  “Maybe she’s like a frog Cinderella. The flippers will fit and reveal that Lenore was supposed to be Frog X all along,” I said into Julie’s ear. Julie smiled.

  “Hey, Julie,” Sarah called to her sister, “you can also be the mask straightener for us, if they get wobbly.” Julie frowned. “Or not,” Sarah said, putting on her mask. John had disappeared to put on his costume, and he came back looking perfect. He had simple dark green pants with a lighter green shirt, and when he put on his mask, we all laughed. This was my favorite part of theater. John looked like a somewhat tired, older frog, while Sarah looked like a very alert, purposeful frog who was determined not to let her two-headedness get in her way. Marin put on her mask and it looked beautiful with her matching outfit. She looked more delicate, like a frog you could hold in your hand. Curt arrived, already wearing his clothes. He nodded to everyone as I introduced him.

  “What a cutie-pie!” Joyce gushed to Phyllis. Curt pretended not to hear. He sauntered over and put on his mask.

  “I’m poison frog! Hi-YAH!” he said, doing a karate kick. Julie ran over and straightened his mask.

  “It’s my job,” she explained, standing on one of the chairs to reach Curt’s head.

  The masks changed everyone who put them on, and Lenore was no exception. She was Frog X. She was the frog who didn’t know what to bring to the party and hadn’t come with her friends, the shy, nervous frog, the one you might not notice if she disappeared.

  “You look great, sweetheart,” her mother said encouragingly. Lenore folded her arms and slumped a bit.

  “You do,” I said. Everyone murmured their approval. “You’re a natural, Lenore,” I added. “Why doesn’t everyone put on their flippers and gloves and we’ll see if this works?”

  I had everyone sit in full costume on their chairs. Again, I needed to be creative with the camera to make it look just right, but I enjoyed the challenge, and it made for more movement in the film to have each frog shot from a slightly different angle. The way everyone made space for me as I walked around with the camera made it all the more real. I was directing. We were ready to start.

  The movie began with John walking in, waving to the camera and sitting down. Next came Sarah, then Marin, then Curt, and finally Lenore, who walked with the least confidence.

  I turned on the CD and each frog stepped forward to “say” the lines. John set the tone by looking completely natural and conversational. There was no hopping. At one point, John leaned up against his chair, looking almost like a college professor who happened to be a huge frog.

  Lenore did not walk around, though. She stepped forward and only made little gestures with her hands. She was nervous, but her nervousness was so honest that I didn’t stop the camera and ask her to do anything different.

  Looking at her, I realized that I had one more reason that we should protect animals from extinction. We shouldn’t give up on them. Lenore herself was awkward and nervous and not asking for anything but the right to survive. That’s all she’d been doing when I’d seen her over the last year: She was surviving. From what I could tell, she didn’t stand out in her classes for being smart. She wasn’t an athlete, she definitely wasn’t funny, and she probably still wasn’t particularly nice, but I wanted her to feel like she fit in the world, because who was I to say she didn’t? And who was I to say things would not get better for her?

  Everyone asked to start over once or twice. It was easy to do. I took the opportunity to pull the tripod and camera over for a new angle. When we finished, Sarah asked if they could do it again. It was already four o’clock.

  I said, “Why don’t we take a food break and see how we feel?” I thought of all the camera angles I could do even better and hoped everyone would be up for a second try.

  Everyone said they would love to run their parts again, even Curt, who was eating fruit salad with Julie and telling her that he was a Super Villain called Poison Frogman. Hallie talked with Phyllis. Dad asked if I needed anything, like aspirin. The room was air-conditioned, the first shooting had gone well, and so, no, I didn’t need an aspirin. “Do you?” I asked.

  “Oh. Yeah. I do. Why do I always do that to you?” He went off to get some water.

  The second time around, everyone was more relaxed, including me, and besides trying some more interesting angles, like one from above as Marin talked about living in the rain forest (she did camouflage with her chair from this angle, but that seemed perfect for the rain forest), I saw that I could edit in some great moments, like John pretending to kiss Marin, mask to mask, and Sarah touching Curt’s shirt and writhing in a pretend death.

  We were completely done by seven o’clock. John rushed back to the restaurant, and Dad decided to give him a break by ordering pizzas to be delivered to our house instead of taking us all to John & Friends. Dad grabbed some stuff and went home to greet the pizza person.

  Joyce drove me home. “So?” she asked.

  “I feel great,” I said.

  “How did you know I was going to ask you how you were feeling? Are you feeling just great, or are you feeling other things? Are you sad that you’ve cleared this big hurdle? Did you like hearing the script? Did you like how it was recorded?”

  “There were things I would have wanted to change, but the fact that the script was done and I couldn’t do anything about it let me focus
on the camera part, and I loved that.” How else did I feel? “I wish my mother had been there,” I said, a statement that had more weight than I’d meant for it to have. “Sally, I mean.”

  “Oh, I know your mother’s name,” Joyce said, and then she gave me a huge gift: no more questions. We drove silently until we got home.

  It felt weird to have Lenore and Hallie in my house again. Hallie had only been over once, and that time I sensed that she had disapproved of everything from the living room couch to Dad’s computer. But now she was sitting and laughing with Curt, Marin, and Sarah. Lenore was sitting with Phyllis and Carolyn, which felt like a good match.

  Phyllis was doing her best to make Lenore feel comfortable.

  Dad was in the kitchen filling up a cooler of ice for the soda. “That was really fun!” he said. “I can’t wait to see how it turns out. You want to show me what you have so far? You need some help?”

  “No and no,” I answered. “I want it to be a surprise.”

  “Fair enough,” Dad said. “You got that from me, you might say. Oh, but speaking of surprises, Ned is coming over with his sister, who moved up here a few years ago and convinced him to move to New Paltz.”

  “Okay,” I said, thinking that wasn’t much of a surprise.

  “Do you know what Ned’s last name is?” I realized I didn’t. Dad told me, “It’s Severence.”

  Out in the living room, we heard Ned’s voice saying, “Hi, everyone. Do you know my sister?”

  And another voice said, “I know some of you.” To Joyce and Carolyn, she said, “Hi, I’m Ann.”

  Ms. Severence was my sixth-grade English teacher! And she was my favorite teacher. We’d had a good end of sixth grade, but I’d spent so much time trying to impress her. I still felt tongue-tied around her.

  Well, you can’t hide out here all night, I thought, pushing myself out of the kitchen.