Acts of Love

by Judith Michael

  102 ~ Judith Michael

  Dearest Constance, I've saved all your letters and taken tkem out to read and reread in tne darkest nights. Tnank you tor writing without demanding replies; tkank you tor not scolding me again, tkank you lor your patience in all tnese twenty montns. Twenty endless montns, nut tnen tkey didn't stretck to two years, as originally predicted, so I skould be grateful. And ot course 1 am. I kave my kealtk back, my energy, I bave no more pain, wbick seems a miracle after living witb it ror so long, tke scars and bruises and swelling on my race rrom all tke plastic surgery are gone, and I kave a new lire kere, on tkis most peacerul and keautirul island. You'll say it's a long way trom New York, and so it is, but tbat's part ot its cbarm. I've lost all interest in tbe tbeater, you see, so wbat better place to be tkan a tiny spot wkere tkeater as we know it does not exist?

  Luke scowled at the words. They made no sense. Recovered, free of pain, whole again . . . why wasn't she singing with joy, filled with exultation and excitement and hope.f^ She wrote of life, but sounded as depressed as she had in her letters from the hospital. And what was she talking about when she said she was not interested in the theater.? There was no way in the world Jessica Fontaine would lose interest in the theater. It was her life.

  I met a woman soon after I got to Arizona, a publisker of ckil-dren's books, wko asked me to illustrate a manuscript ske was planning to publisk. It was a sweet story and I could paint ckildren—my new specialty—so I said yes and I kad suck a good time witk it tkat I was sorry I tinisked so quickly. I'm sending you a copy; you skould kave it soon.

  Tkat was my first job and suddenly I was getting offers from all over, including France, England, Italy and Holland. By now I've illustrated books in just about every style from 19tk-century Russian to folk-art American, and tkat was wkat kept me sane tkrougk twenty montks of recuperation, four more surgeries, and mind-numbing tkerapy on alien-looking mackines tkat figkt back wken one pulls, puskes, raises, lowers, rotates, straigktens, stretckes or curls tkem. You would not believe tbe number of ways tkere are to stress one s muscles and make tkem acke tke next day. I was sure I'd end up as contorted as an octopus trying to scratck an elusive itck, but

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  C T S of LOVE ~ 103

  er. e

  to my astonishment my strength came Lack and I felt wkole again.

  So now nere I am on Lopez Island. I'm staying in a ckarming place called the Inn at Swifts Bay wkile I tuild a kouse on a lovely plot I kougkt: tkirty acres witk a private keack in a tiny cove kounded on one side ky forests, and a cliff of reddisk-gold rocks on tke otk I worked witk tke arckitect in designing tke kouse, including tk fountain in tke courtyard tkat reminds me of your fountains in Italy, and I used tkat for my stationery, as, of course, you've seen. Best of all, I'm keginning to ke kind to people again. I tkink it's only wken we're deeply unkappy akout sometking tkat we're unrelentingly unkind. I kave enougk books to illustrate to keep me kusy for at least a year, a woman to do cleaning and cooking wken I move in (ske irons, too, wkat a klessing!), and I've taken up korsekack riding. I like it even ketter tkan walking, especially on tkis island, witk forests, cliffs and keackes on tke perimeter and farms and fields in tke center. I kear roosters crowing in tke morning (actually tkey keep it up all day; are tkey supposed to do tkat?) and tke lowing of cows, and not anotker sound: no people, almost no cars . . . ok, an occasional seaplane coming from Seattle and circling kefore landing. I flew on it myself, to get kere, and wondered, for just a moment, wketker I was flying from, or flying to.

  I'm so glad you feel ketter tkan you did last montk. I tkink of you all tke time, wkatever I'm doing, and I tkink kow interesting it is tkat Dotk or us kave settled into suck good places.

  Ok, yes, one more tking. I've met a man.

  Take care of yourself. I love you. Jessica.

  Luke felt a surge of dismay. I've met a man. And.'' Was she in love with him.'^ Were they just good friends.'' Had they just started dating and she was thinking she might fall in love with him.f* Were they engaged.'

  Angrily he pulled the box to him to take out the next letter. But his hand stopped in midair. What's wrong with me? I'm acting as if I'm jealous.

  As of course he was, he realized in the next moment. Because, somehow, against all reason, he had fallen in love with her.

  "I

  think it's pretty conservative," Tracy Banks said, the point of her pencil resting on the number at the bottom of the budget for The Magician. "Salaries, renting the theater, Kent's advance and yours, and insurance, telephone, your production secretary . . . you know all that."

  Luke nodded. He was having trouble concentrating, his thoughts skipping with every pause to Jessica's letters. He frowned to show that he was focusing on the numbers as Tracy went through each of them. Then he sat back. "Well, we'll try to shave it a little, but you're right: it's probably pretty conservative. Thanks, Tracy; just let me know when the numbers start to go through the roof."

  "I'll let you know a long time before that. And Monte calls me every day, you know, checking up. Too bad he's not my lover; then I'd be thrilled with all the attention."

  Luke was smiling as she left. He clipped the pages of the budget together and slipped them back into their folder. A million dollars to get to opening night. And that number would shoot up if they didn't have solid ticket sales in Philadelphia and in their week of previews in New York. After that, performance expenses would have to be met by performance revenues. He put the folder into his file drawer. A great play, he thought, with fine actors and talented people behind the scenes. And it all rests on money. One of those facts of theater life that don't occur to us when we direct our first play in college and revel in the romanticism of it. Then we start our apprenticeship in some little hole-in-the-wall

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  Acts of L

  o V E ~ 105

  company in Chicago or New York and we're plunged into the constant grinding battle to raise money and we think, Oh, but when I get to Broadway things will be different. And sometimes they are. But most of the time they aren't.

  He stood at the window behind his desk, watching a building superintendent water the trees in a rooftop garden across the street. The water ran out of the bottom of each pot, glistening silver in the sun. Nearby, a mother settled her infant in a stroller, then lay back in her recliner and picked up a book. With one hand she pushed back her hair and it caught a slice of sunlight, glinting tawny gold. Jessica's hair, he remembered, had been tawny gold.

  He looked at his watch. An hour before rehearsal. Just enough time. He left the office, merging with the languid crowds on 54th Street, making his way through them with gathering urgency to Fifth Avenue and then to the public library. Cool air curled around him as he crossed the marble lobby and turned into the periodicals room. At a long table he opened the volume of the Reader's Guide dated eight years earlier, the year his grandmother had moved to Italy, and found "Fontaine, Jessica," followed by a list of publications that had run stories about her that year. It was long, and he looked at his watch again. Time for a few. He paced impatiently until the librarian brought him the issues he had requested: The New Yorker, Town & Country, Vogue, Redbool^.

  Town & Country had run a five-page story, and when Luke turned to the first page he found himself looking at Jessica, a full-length portrait, standing alone on the empty stage of the Martin Beck Theatre, looking pensively into the camera. She wore a deep blue satin evening gown that left her shoulders bare; her hair hung in long smooth waves halfway down her back, and her hands were clasped loosely before her. She seemed relaxed and confident, perfectly at home. Beneath the photo was a caption.

  Jessica Fontaine, winner of this year's Tony award for Best Actress in Clifford Odets' The Country Girl. "Not since the retirement of Constance Bernhardt have I seen anyone with this formidable talent," says producer Ed Courier. "Perhaps justifiably, since Ms. Fontaine was a protegee and close friend of Ms. Bern-hardt's and credits her with much of her
success."

  106 ~ Judith Michael

  Luke read the whole story, lingering over the photographs, taken in Jessica's apartment in New York, in her country home in Connecticut with an attached studio for painting and wooded trails along the river, where she walked in the early mornings, and at the Martin Beck, in her dressing room, on stage, and outside the stage door, where crowds gathered every night for her autograph. He had forgotten the haunting quality of her beauty. It was not conventional and therefore was somehow elusive, as if in trying to picture exactly what Jessica Fontaine looked like, one had to pursue her. Her eyes were magnificent, large, heavy-lashed, a clear blue-green, but a little too close together for perfection; she had a brilliant smile but in stillness her mouth was a trifle too full, almost pouting; her chin was a smidgen too pointed, her forehead a bit too high, her eyebrows a fraction too heavy. Her skin was luminous and her hair the dark gold of a lioness, but on every other count she just missed the classic look of perfect harmony.

  But none of that mattered because there had been vibrancy and radiance in Jessica's glance and smile, and in the moods that swept across her face that made her beauty unforgettable. And of course, Luke thought, there was her acting, which no one who had seen her ever forgot: her emotional intensity, her low musical voice that effortlessly reached the last row in the upper reaches of the top balcony, the gestures with her hands and long fingers that could rivet an audience's attention as they made a moment fraught with importance, the impact of her presence as she strode across the stage or hobbled or drifted or dashed, all eyes following her to see what she would do next. My grandmother was like that, Luke thought. And only a few others.

  He turned the pages back and forth, skimming the text and pausing at photographs, and whenever she was quoted he recalled her voice and heard her say the words. He stopped at one line.

  "I've thought about other ways of living, and I do have hobbies that give me great pleasure, especially painting, but nothing makes me feel fully alive and in touch with myself as the theater does. Without it, I could never feel whole."

  So why had she told Constance she'd lost interest in the theater? It was as if she'd said she'd lost interest in breathing. Which is exactly how I feel.

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  CTS of Love ~ 107

  Luke thought, and Constance, too, who never got over it. Because it never goes away.

  "Mr. Cameron," the Hbrarian said at his shoulder, "you asked me to tell you when it's almost ten."

  Luke looked at his watch. "Damn. I forgot. Thanks." Reluctantly he closed the magazine and left the library. He walked the few blocks to the rehearsal studio but, on the way, ignoring how late he was, he went into a bookstore and found the children's section. A clerk saw his frown and came to help. "These are by author," Luke said.

  "Of course. How else would you find what you want?"

  "I'm looking for an illustrator."

  "Oh. Well, we have an index of illustrators; I can look it up. His name? "

  "Her name. Jessica Fontaine."

  "Oh, I know her books. She's very good, very unusual." The clerk squatted to take a book from the lowest shelf. "Children love her illustrations. Probably because they have so many secrets."

  "Secrets?"

  "Well, at least one in every painting." The clerk walked down the aisle, pulling books from different shelves. "And she does real paintings, not run-of-the-mill illustrations. Did you know she's won two Caldecott Medals?"

  "No."

  "She never went to the ceremonies to receive them in person; I understand she's quite reclusive."

  "And the secrets?"

  "All the paintings have something hidden in them: a face, a figure, an animal, a word, sometimes a sentence. As if she's saying that life is full of surprises and you never know what you're going to find. Of course children know that better than anyone, don't they?" She handed Luke twelve slim books. "I don't know which ones you want; as far as I know, these are all she's done."

  "I'll take them all." He swung the plastic bag from one finger as he walked the long, hot blocks crosstown from Fifth to Eighth Avenue. I'll look at them tonight, he thought, and read some more of the letters. But even as he thought it, he knew that that was no longer enough. He had to see her. And so he would travel to the San Juan Islands, as soon as he could get away.

  "Leaving?" Monte glared at him. "You've got to be kidding. Well, of

  108 ~ Judith Michael

  course you're kidding; what ^m I getting excited about? You wouldn't leave a play in the fourth week of rehearsal."

  "I said as soon as I can," Luke murmured. "What's with Rachel and Cort? They're behaving as if they hate each other."

  "They do, at the moment. Just before you got here he criticized the way she read a line yesterday, she told him he didn't know the first thing about character development, he said she didn't know anything about character, period, or she wouldn't be hanging around with Kent Home—"

  "What.?"

  "They went to dinner last night."

  Luke looked around. "Where is he.?"

  "She wanted a Diet Coke; he went to get her one."

  Luke gazed at the actors sipping iced drinks. "Maybe he'll take up with Abby next."

  Monte snorted. "She's three times his age."

  "And the classiest woman here. I'll talk to him when he comes back. You'd think he'd be more careful, to make sure everything goes—"

  Kent walked in, hugging a brown grocery bag patched with wet. "Afraid I'd lose it," he said, putting it down on the table. The wet spots had torn open and cans were jutting out. "God, I only walked a block, but, you know, cold cans, all that condensation ..." He looked at Luke. "Something wrong? You were late," he added, as if whatever was wrong could be fended off with an accusation.

  "Sit down," Luke said.

  "Sure, but let me deliver this first." He took a can from the bag and carried it to Rachel, opening it as he went. They spoke a few words; then he came back and pulled out the chair beside Luke. "Shoot."

  "We'll talk at lunch. Let's begin," he said to the cast. "Exactly where you left off. I have a few notes from yesterday, so let's stop at the end of act one and go through them."

  Kent pulled out a small notebook. "I did my own last night. Cort's playing this whole act too sweet ... I don't know how he does it, but he takes my lines and makes them jelly. You've got to sit on him, Luke. And Rachel should be dumber at first; she doesn't see what he's really like. I mean, she falls in love with him but it's more excitement than love, because he's really not a nice guy. Not yet."

  Luke nodded. "I know. We're working on it."

  Acts of Lo

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  They listened to the actors, who had known their hnes since the second week but were still working on who they were, and how they would grow in relation to the others. There was too much moving around, Luke thought; their lines were lost in superficial activity. But that always happened in the growth of a play, and it did not bother him. And then, suddenly, the three actors on stage came together and for a few moments everything flowed and merged and was just right. It was as if the sun had broken through heavy clouds and everyone felt it. Monte was sitting straighter, Kent was grinning, and Luke was standing, driven from his chair by a surge of excitement.

  Then it was over. In the middle of a line, Abby suddenly wheeled and strode to the front of the imaginary stage, gesturing toward Rachel. "Luke, I will not tolerate this. She's like a toy some child wound up. Didn't anyone ever tell her to stand still? "

  "Me?" Rachel said. "What was I doing?"

  ''Moving," Abby declaimed, still looking at Luke. "Constantly, perpetually, interminably. It's like being in an amusement park with those cars that keep bumping each other. I won't have it."

  "I thought I was getting out of your way," Rachel said. "You know, so I wouldn't upstage you."

  Abby's eyes flashed and her neck lengthened. "You could never, ever upstage me."

  "Rachel," Luke s
aid mildly, "the idea of walking is to get somewhere. If you have a specific place to go to or away from, then do it. Otherwise, just stand still and react to the others. You should move in ways that feel natural, but you always should have a reason. Any problems with that?"

  "No. I'll try. But. . . wasn't itgood for a few minutes? You know, just perfect?"

  Kent nodded dreamily. "It was."

  "It will happen again," said Luke. "That's the wonder of it. Okay, let's go over my notes."

  They sat around the table, pouring cold drinks, leaning forward in a small tight group with Monte at one end and Kent and Luke at the other. Luke glanced at his pad of paper. "I'd like to see everything happen a lot faster beginning about two-thirds into the first act, the lines coming on top of each other, the reactions split-second. This is the time when all of you first get an inkling that everything you've thought for a lifetime may not

  110 ~ Judith Michael

  be true, and I'd like that to build, like a crescendo in a symphony. One way to get into that is to do the lines in slow motion. Abby, would you start.^* At the moment you come in from the sun porch. But don't lose the meaning of the lines; the trick is to hold on to the sense of what you're saying at all times."

  He sat back and listened to them struggle with it. This was one of his favorite exercises, one that required intense concentration and made each phrase sound different not only to the actor speaking it, but to the rest of the cast as well. Speaking and moving in slow motion made everything seem larger and clearer as they had to focus on every syllable, and as they did so they often found new meaning in what they were saying and a new understanding of their emotions. It usually took about three minutes for them to feel what was happening, and when Luke saw their faces change he knew they had reached that sudden moment of feeling their characters expand. Cort and Rachel smiled at each other, their tiff forgotten. Abby put her arm around Rachel. The two supporting actors, who had only a tew lines in the first act, watched enviously.