Acts of Love

by Judith Michael

  "Well, look who's here," Monte said as Kent came in. "We always start on time," he told him.

  "Sorry." Kent put a bulky string-tied package on the table and began to work at the knot. "Listen, you've got to see this; it's the most—"

  "Later," Luke said, his eyes on the actors.

  Kent turned. His body grew still and then curved forward in an arc of pure intensity, as if he were being drawn the length of the room and into the cast... as he truly was, thought Luke, glancing at him. He was hearing his lines—all of them, the entire play—delivered for the first time by professionals and Luke knew that they sounded to him even newer than they had at the casting. He turned to Luke, his eyes glistening. "It sounds okay," he whispered. "I mean, it sounds ^oo
  Luke smiled, for the first time beginning to like him. But he did not take his eyes off the actors, and Kent and Monte watched with him as the first act of the play unwound. Luke was tense and watchful, but he was also exhilarated. This was one of the best times: everything beginning, everything unformed, a world waiting to be created. The week before, the cast had gathered around an oval table in Monte's office and twice read the play aloud without any attempt to dramatize it. It was a way for them to hear their lines in context with all the other lines, and to hear the play as a whole. Now, in a bare room, on a makeshift stage beneath glaring lights.

  86 ~ Judith Michael

  speaking above the wheezing air conditioners, they were taking their first steps in building their characters and constructing a story, and so this time there was emotion and laughter as they read their lines and moved about, and they eyed each other like strangers getting acquainted, circling, touching, sitting, standing, finding their own rhythm and their own space that set each of them distinctively apart from the others but always kept them part of a whole.

  They all felt the same exhilaration that Luke felt, and the undercurrent of anticipation built as voices grew stronger and the shape and momentum of the story became clear. When the first act ended, there was a brief silence, like that of diners savoring a good meal. Then, slowly, they began to move away from the stage, relaxing, preparing for the next act. Cort sat down at the table where Monte was opening a package of croissants. "What's this?" he asked, gesturing toward the bulky package Kent had carried in.

  "I want Luke to see it," Kent said. He untied the string. "Marilyn designed another set. I told her to go all out; get really dramatic. Here's the model." He pulled off the wrapping paper.

  There was a long silence.

  "All those dark little rooms," said Abigail. "It looks like a whorehouse."

  Kent flushed. "No, it—"

  "Marilyn designed this.?" Monte demanded. "She wants to build this set.?"

  "Well, actually, she said it was up to all of you."

  "When did she do this.?" Luke asked.

  "Well, I was at her studio, and she showed me this ... she'd done it for another play, as a kind of experiment, and never used it—"

  "For obvious reasons," said Abigail.

  "And I thought ... all these rooms, you know, all the parts of Lena's psyche, it would be like looking inside her head. I mean, this play is about how we learn to trust ourselves enough to believe that other people will love us for what we really are, not some kind of image they have of us, and I thought these rooms would be a metaphor for all the ways Lena acts and , thinks. . . ." His voice trailed away.

  "Metaphor," Monte said. "Fritz will have a heart attack."

  "Fritz won't see this," Luke said. "Kent, we're not using it. It may'^ay

  something special to you, but it won't to audiences, and that's what we have to think about. I've already asked Marilyn to simplify the other design and she—"

  ''Simplify? She didn't tell me that! I mean, I was there all weekend—"

  "Which we weren't going to tell anyone," Marilyn said, coming up behind him. "What a gallant gentleman you are, Kent."

  Kent reeled back. "I didn't know you were coming this morning."

  "I brought sketches for Luke." She turned her back on Kent, unrolling a large sheet of paper. "What do you think?"

  Luke and Monte bent over it. "This looks good," Luke said. "Monte?"

  "Nice idea, living room, bedroom, screened-in porch. And you've got the windows and doors sort of off center like before, but not so much. I like it. Luke?"

  "I do, too. Do you have a model, Marilyn?"

  "I've started it. I can have it in a couple of days."

  "Bring it in when it's ready. We can't make a final decision until we see it, but I think we're very close. Thanks, Marilyn. This is a good job."

  "It's a good play," she said quietly. She looked around the room. "I thought you'd be rehearsing."

  "That was the idea," Luke said drily. "We're about to start again; do you want to stay?"

  "If nobody minds. I love this part of it, the beginning."

  "Have a seat." Monte pulled out the chair beside his.

  Luke walked toward the stage. "I'd like to start again and go through all three acts without stopping. We'll break for lunch at one o'clock. If anyone has comments or questions, hold them until afternoon. Okay. From the top."

  Kent stood behind Marilyn's chair. "Could we go out later? I mean, lunch or coffee or whatever you want. Please."

  She did not turn around. "I'll think about it."

  "Kent," Luke said. "We're starting."

  "See you later," Kent said, and touched Marilyn's shoulder as he walked to a chair near the stage.

  At the end of the first act, Luke waited for comments or complaints, but there were none. "Act two," he said, and picked up his pencil. His Hst was already several pages long, and he knew how many hours lay ahead, in his office and at home, when he would go over each point to find ways

  i ~ Judith Michael

  to communicate his ideas to the actors, to incorporate their suggestions, if possible, and to shape each scene so that, one by one, they buik to a final scene that audiences would feel was inevitable and right.

  "Luke," Abigail said, "I'm going to be on stage at the beginning of the act instead of coming in later."

  Kent's head shot up. "But—"

  "Go ahead and try it," Luke said. "And then go straight on, Abby; any way you feel comfortable."

  They settled into the play, and the rehearsal filled the rest of the day, with a brief break for lunch in which Marilyn and Kent disappeared for fifteen minutes and he came back alone. "It'll get worked out, or maybe it won't," he said cryptically to Luke. At the end of the day Luke sent his actors home with a promise that the next day they would talk about their parts. "We'll go over everything: questions, problems, any kind of discomfort with your lines. It will probably be the only day we devote to that and nothing else. Day after tomorrow we'll be rehearsing again."

  A few minutes later the lighting director arrived. "I know it's earlier than I usually get started on a play," he said, "but I just saw Marilyn's model and I'd like to sit in on a few rehearsals. I had some ideas when I saw the model. . . ."

  He and Luke went over the sketches in his notebook, until Kent grew bored. "Think I'll take off," he said to Luke and Monte, and they nodded, still talking about lights.

  When the lighting director left, Monte pushed back his chair and stretched. "I feel deprived; only one meal today. Gladys would be thrilled. I'll tell her I planned it that way. You ready for a drink.?"

  "In a minute. Marilyn wants to do costumes, Monte. I told her it was all right with me."

  "Fine with me. She's dressed a lot of shows. She's good. Classy, too."

  Luke was looking at his schedule. "Sketches of costumes by the end of next week. By then Marilyn should have the new model to Sprowell for set construction. He's slow; I like to give him plenty of time. When are you seeing Aiken?"

  "Tomorrow before I come over here. Luke, has he ever managed a theater before?"

  "In San Francisco. Why?"

  "He's too calm. He makes me nervous."

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  C T S of LOVE ~ 89

  Luke chuckled. "If you're nervous enough, he'll catch it from you, and then you'll feel better. He's good, Monte. When you get a schedule for ticket sales and theater posters, let me have a copy. And you'll talk to him about theater parties?"

  "Right."

  "Okay, then, the budget. Did you talk to Tracy?"

  "I thought you were going to do that. It doesn't matter; I should have done it. I'll call her when I get home. Five o'clock tomorrow, assuming she can make it?" rme.

  "Anything else?"

  "No, that's it." Luke walked around the room, gazing at his tape on the floor, the chairs and boxes the cast was using for furniture, the table where he and Monte sat, heaped with everyone's cups, leftover food and Styrofoam containers that would all be cleaned up before they arrived the next morning.

  "Luke, let's go."

  He nodded and forced himself to walk away. Once rehearsals began, he was always reluctant to leave. They all were like that as the play sprang to life. In another month it would seem as if, for them, there was no city, no climate, no families: only the theater. But Monte was waiting, one hand on the doorknob. "I don't mean to rush you; it's just that I invited somebody to join us for a drink and she's always on time."

  Luke looked at him. It had been a long day, heavy on drama. "Why?"

  "Why did I invite her? Because you're always looking for new ideas and she's got some terrific ones. Because you'll like her. Because / like her."

  "I'm not looking for new ideas when I'm just beginning a new play."

  "I just met her, Luke; I got enthusiastic. Humor me."

  Luke strode ahead and Monte puffed, barely keeping pace, as they walked crosstown on 44th Street. As they neared the Algonquin, Luke at last slowed down. "One short drink," he said. "I'll give you that much."

  "It won't be punishment, Luke; you'll like her."

  Amid the clusters of fringed velvet couches and armchairs in the Algonquin's inner lobby, an attractive woman waited. "Luke Cameron, Sondra Murphy," Monte said. "You haven't ordered?" he asked Sondra.

  "I waited for you."

  Monte hailed a waiter and they ordered drinks and then sat for a mo-

  90 ~ Judith Michael

  ment in silence. Sondra, serene and assured, seemed content to wait indefinitely, but Monte began to fidget. "I've got this idea about adapting some of Sondra's books for the stage," he said to Luke. "Children's books, about a bear named Abbey. Of course, we'd have to change the name."

  Sondra was contemplating Luke's impassive face. "I don't think it will work," she said to him. "When I met Monte at a dinner party it seemed cruel to clamp down on his enthusiasm—it's so refreshing—but I don't think my books have anything for adults, and certainly not for the theater."

  Luke looked at her with interest. She was blond and attractive, with strikingly vivid features; confident, and not captivated by Monte's vision. "Why does Monte think it would work for adults?"

  "I don't like to speak for him—"

  "Go right ahead," Monte said.

  "Abbey has a lot to say about the world through her adventures. She tours Japan, she meets the American president at his inaugural ball, she goes to Paris for a Fourth of July party at the American embassy, all the time commenting on people and politics. Monte thought that could be the core of a play or a musical."

  "You're right, it wouldn't work," Luke said, and they smiled together, as if Monte had temporarily disappeared. "But is all that firsthand?" he asked. "You've done all the things your bear has done?"

  "All of them. I've been involved in politics for a long time. But I don't write political books; these were fun projects with my daughter."

  They talked on, with Monte listening, and when they parted, Luke said that he hoped to see her again. It probably would not happen; they both were too busy and their lives were too far apart, but he was drawn to her, partly because of her attractiveness and the clear way she spoke about herself and the political and social worlds she inhabited, but also because she reminded him of Jessica. They both were women who created their own reality without waiting for others to do it for them. The kind of woman I could stay with. The kjnd of woman my grandmother would approve of

  "You were right," Monte grumbled when they turned to walk up Seventh Avenue. "Waste of time."

  Luke laughed. "I had a better time than you did. Just don't have any" more ideas about new shows until we've taken care of this one. Keep a diary. I'll read it in a few months."

  His step was light as he walked toward home. Sondra Murphy had

  been a good tonic: someone who had nothing to do with the world of make-believe or gossip, someone whose life was rooted in gritty realism. Maybe that was why Jessica left the stage, he thought. No, of course not. Sondra and Jessica were not really alike. It was just that his thoughts these days, wherever they started, had a way of ending up with Jessica. And I need to get bac to her letters; it's been a long time.

  But The Magician was in its fourth week of rehearsals before Luke had a chance to return to Jessica's letters. Every night, coming home from an evening out, he would sit at the desk in his library, working on his notes for the play and on the script itself. And often there was a midnight call from Claudia. "I miss you, Luke. Tell me how you are. Tell me about the play."

  "What have you been doing?"

  "Nothing."

  "Monte told me he talked to you the other day and said you should call Gladys, that she could find things for you to do."

  "She's unbearably dull, Luke, even if she is Monte's wife. And I'm not sure he likes her, either. Do you know what he called her? The volunteer queen of the eastern seaboard, always knocking herself out for some good cause or other. God, can you imagine anyone describing me that way?"

  Luke let that pass. "Why not call her? You don't know what to do with yourself and she has jobs that need doing."

  "Washing the feet of poor people."

  "I think the only one who still does that is the pope. Look, damn it, she and her friends do a lot of good things that wouldn't get done if they weren't around. And it makes them feel good. It might make you feel good, too. Call her, Claudia. Give it a chance."

  "Well, I may get to it one of these days. I'm not excited about it, you know, Luke; I really don't think I'm a good works kind of person."

  There seemed to be no answer to that, so Luke made none. He looked down at the fanned-out sheets of Marilyn's watercolor paintings; one of the dresses for Lena bothered him and he was trying to figure out what was wrong with it.

  "Luke, tell me about the play," Claudia said. "Please, you know I love to hear about it. Is Cort still complaining?"

  It was against his better judgement, but it seemed to keep her happy

  92 ~ Judith Michael

  and away from rehearsals, and so he told her more than he ever told an outsider about what went on within their small group. "Not as vociferously. He's discovered how powerful his part is in the third act."

  "But you said Kent was rewriting something for him? You made him do it?"

  "I asked him to try it, that we could always change back, that nothing was written in stone. And he agreed, but what he really thought was that stone was too common; he thinks of his pages as cast in bronze, hammered to perfection for posterity, so my comments weren't exactly welcome."

  Claudia laughed, a long merry laugh that coiled around him, and Luke found himself wanting her close; he could feel his arms around her. He needed someone outside the theater to listen to him, to laugh with him, to share the dramas, small and large, that filled his life. Then he caught himself. Not Claudia. Not ever again.

  But he'd been working too hard. He'd seen Tricia only three times in the past month and had been distracted when they were together, and Claudia's voice was warm, her laughter intimate.

  hnd I'm lonely.

  No. He backed away from it; it contradicted his image of himself. Not lonely. Just a little low. And tired.

  "So
then what happened?" Claudia asked.

  Luke stared at the drawings, his head resting on his hand, and pictured Claudia, sitting at her telephone, making small circles with her right foot as she always did, wrapping a strand of hair around her finger, slipping it off, wrapping it again, gazing into space.

  "Well, Kent actually rewrote parts of the first and second acts, but then Abby would charge in like the cavalry, her chin up—I don't know how a cavalry has its chin up, but if anyone could figure it out, Abby could— saying, 'It does not wort{. Luke, I will not tolerate this ... it is wrong, wrong, wrong!' "

  "Oh, perfect." Claudia was laughing again. "I can just hear her. And everybody shuts up as soon as she does that."

  "Exactly. Even Cort. But the first act is weak because he's not putting himself into it; he really doesn't like it—"

  "Luke, why don't I come over for a while? Just to have a visit, much nicer than a telephone call. You could even offer me a drink. Please, Luke, wouldn't you like that?"

  He would. He wanted companionship, and Claudia knew the people

  Acts of L

  o V E ~ 93

  and the vocabulary of the theater as Tricia did not; that was one thing— perhaps the only thing—she had learned in their marriage. But not Claudia, he thought again. It never worked. Within an hour of their coming together, she slipped from companion to dependent, looking to him to provide her with activities to fill her hours, ideas to fill her thoughts, a structure for her life. Luke knew that there were people who seemed unable to organize their life in a way that was meaningful and productive, but he did not intend to spend time with them. Even—especially—an ex-wife.

  So it would not be Claudia to whom he would turn for companionship.

  Well, who, then? Who's going to come along to fill this gap that seems to be bigger and more noticeable than ever before?

  "Luke? Did you hear me?"

  Probably no one. If it hasn't happened yet, the chances are . . .

  "Luke!"

  "No, you can't come over. I'm exhausted, Claudia; I have a few more notes to finish and then I'm going to bed. I'll call you."