Acts of Love

by Judith Michael

  Luke watched the house fill up again. He felt the aura of anticipation as people took their seats, he saw the expectation in their faces, and he knew this was the true magic of the theater. The second act began and, as in the first act, he made mental notes of corrections and changes to be discussed with the cast and crew the next day. But then the energy of the audience and the actors swept him up and from then on he watched and listened uncritically, buoyed by the exhilaration that came only at such rare moments of accomplishment and fulfillment. From the corner of his eye he saw Kent smiling and crying at the same time, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. "Can't believe it, too fantastic," he said softly to Luke. Luke put his arm around his shoulders and gave him a quick hug. "Great play," he murmured, and then they watched the final scene unfold before them.

  "Bingo," Monte whispered as the sound of sniffling came from the audience. Luke saw men as well as women fumbling for tissues and he knew Monte was right. Bingo. The jackpot. To lead an audience into another world and to make them believe in it so completely that their emotions were those of the characters on stage.

  I can't imagine more power than that. .. as if nothing is closed to me, as if there is nothing I cannot do.

  The applause began the moment the stage went to black. The critics ducked out to write their reviews for newspapers and television, but the rest of the audience stayed in place, their applause filling the theater and washing over the stage as the cast took their curtain calls. After that every-

  146 ~ Judith Michael

  one went to Roland's, where the air was charged with a volatile combination of satisfaction, gaiety and tension that was like mild hysteria; the noise level rose as gaffes were relived and lighting, props and costumes critiqued as if for the first time. Luke had predicted that, and he knew that the next day, when they came together for another rehearsal, most of what was being intoned tonight would have been forgotten.

  What he had not predicted was that Abby would propose a toast to him—"To Luke, a director fully as good as his reputation, and a pleasure, 2i supreme pleasure, to work with, putting all my doubts, my grave doubts, to rest."—or that Cort would tell him that now he, too, wanted to be a director and he was sure Luke would help him get started, or that Kent would walk around all evening in a kind of daze, uncharacteristically quiet, even modest, as he accepted congratulations and responded to the one question that everyone was asking, saying that, yes, he'd started a new play, and, yes, Luke had seen some of it and liked it, but he couldn't say anything else; he couldn't talk about it because things that got talked about usually didn't get written.

  And neither had Luke predicted their reviews—everyone in the theater knew that was bad luck—so he fell silent with the others as the early editions of the newspapers arrived, and shared with them the rush of excitement when Abby read the reviews aloud, dramatizing their praise and dropping her voice to a sepulchral murmur when she came to anything negative.

  The rest of that week in Philadelphia was much like the weeks before it: they rehearsed every day as audience reactions revealed weak spots or lines that did not get the reaction they had expected. Each afternoon, in the quiet time before the performance, Abby read novels, Rachel wrote in her journal, Cort napped, Monte and Fritz and the lighting director played poker, with Kent watching. And Luke walked.

  He knew the streets of Philadelphia from other out-of-town openings, so he walked with barely a glance at his surroundings, lingering only among the faded red brick buildings where the United States had been born, but even there letting his thoughts float free. After we open came again and again, drifting through other images, lurking behind his actions so that when he stopped for a red light or glanced into a shop window, there it was. After we open in New Yor.

  Well, what? What happens after we open in New Yor}(?

  Something different, he mused. Something new.

  The thought had been there since his grandmother's death, fueled by a recurrent restlessness and impatience. He wanted . . . something. And after they opened, he would find out what it was. And go after it.

  He prided himself on that: knowing exactly what he wanted, moving straight toward it, ignoring obstacles or riding over them to get where he wanted to be.

  But sometimes I've been wrong about what I wanted.

  The streets of Philadelphia receded and he saw himself standing in that forest near Watmough Bay, taken by surprise, stunned, feeling betrayed as he watched Jessica in her garden.

  Very wrong.

  Unless. . .

  He had reached his hotel. It was almost time to go to the theater for their closing night in Philadelphia, and his thoughts were shifting to the play. But one thought lodged itself before he pushed through the revolving doors into the lobby.

  Unless I wasn't wrong, and she's exactly what I thought she was in her letters.

  The next day everyone packed up and moved back to New York. They would rehearse once in the Vivian Beaumont before opening with previews leading to the formal opening night in the third week of September. This was so familiar to Luke that, no matter which cast and crew he was working with, he could almost plot their actions and emotions in the five nights of previews and then on opening night.

  But still, standing with Monte and Luke at the back of the theater as the lights came up on stage, revealing Abby in her chair on her sun porch, and the audience broke into applause, his throat was dry, his hands clenched. Stage fright, he thought. Directors have it, too.

  He began to relax in the second act, though he was alert to every sound in the audience and every small movement on stage. And that was why he saw Abby take three steps to reach Cort when she should have been leaning forward in her chair, her body reaching out to him. Now, as Cort stood looking out the window, she was beside him, her hand on his arm, and as she spoke he turned until he was facing her and could put his arms around her immediately instead of going to her in her chair, as he had always done.

  "You've changed," Abby said softly, her face turned up to his. "For a

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  while I thought I didn't recognize you; you were so different. Perhaps you didn't recognize yourself. Because nothing was planned. You didn't wake up one bright day determined to change your life; it happened to you and it was as if a chasm had opened between then and now. You were so surprised. I saw it in your face when you blurted out that you didn't want to spend Thanksgiving with me. No, you wanted to spend it with Martha, no doubt in her bed, and why shouldn't you.? But I was surprised, too—I almost felt betrayed—until I looked for the Daniel I knew. And of course I found him: my fine loving grandson, different but still the same, changed but not transformed. And now you must embrace what you are. And I promise I will help you. If you will let me."

  Luke looked into the distance. A chasm. For a while I thought I didn't recognize you. Nothing was planned. Now you must embrace what you are. It was as if he were hearing the lines for the first time. My God, he thought, she told us. In letter after letter, all the clues were there.

  Monte nudged him. "I like it, the way she stands there and he turns while she's talking, the whole bit. Was it your idea-f*"

  Luke shook his head. "I asked her to sit on the edge of her chair; I thought there should be some space between them. But you're right; it is good."

  His tension built again as the third act began, and he concentrated fiercely on the actors and the audience reaction. But as the act built to its climax, and people in the audience sniffed and fumbled for tissues, he met Monte's eyes, and then Kent's, and spontaneously the three of them clasped hands. "You're on your way," Monte said to Kent beneath the applause that began a few minutes later, and Kent pulled away to wipe his eyes with the sleeve of his tuxedo.

  Luke kept his eyes on the stage as the lights came up and the cast moved forward, holding hands, smiling into the smiling faces in the audience. Rachel took a step forward, then Cort, and then Abby moved ahead two steps, to stand by herself and make a deep cu
rtsy, looking to left and right, acknowledging the applause that rose higher for her.

  Then she raised her hand. Luke's eyes narrowed and he heard Monte murmur, "What's she up to.?" as the audience quieted. Even those already moving up the aisle stopped and turned to look back. "Kent Home," Abby said ringingly. "A brilliant young playwright. This is his first play and he should be here with us." She held out her arm.

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  The applause rose again. Kent looked wildly at Luke. "What should I do?"

  "Get up there," Luke said. "It's true: that's where you should be. You deserve it."

  "But so do you. I mean, where would I be if—"

  "I'm exactly where I belong. Go on, now; they're waiting."

  As they watched Kent lope up the aisle to the stage, Monte said, "I told you she was a smart lady. She just balanced the scales. When somebody says she's a terror, somebody else'll remember this."

  Kent stood between Abby and Rachel, holding their hands. He bowed, Abby whispered to him, and he bowed again, more deeply. The lights went out, then came on again as the applause continued. Three curtain calls later, the stage remained dark and the houselights came up. The audience began moving toward the double doors that the ushers had flung wide. Opening night was over.

  Later, when he wrote about it in his journal, as he did with every play he directed, Luke described the party at Corelli's; the silence that fell, hours into it, when the newspapers were delivered, and then the rush of excitement as Abby, once again, read the reviews aloud. "All raves," he wrote. "They found more flaws than did the critics in Philadelphia—I'd have been surprised if they hadn't, and in fact a couple of points in the Times review are good enough for us to adopt them (and make me wonder how I missed them)—but everyone had high marks for Abby and Rachel, nice words for Cort, and praise for Kent. 1 got a line about my 'powerful, insightful direction with a constant thread of tension and self-discovery holding everything together.' More than enough to satisfy all of us."

  He closed the journal and slid it into the top drawer of the desk in his library. He had used it as a log of each of his productions, ever since Constance suggested it when he was directing his first plays in college. "It will force you to think about why you choose some options over others," she had said. "It will make you more aware of yourself."

  I should have kept a log of my trip to Lopez, he thought. Why I went. Why I left.

  He stretched out on the couch. His tie and tuxedo cummerbund were off, his shirt open at the neck, and he propped his head on the arm of the couch and closed his eyes. It was after four in the morning and he was tired, but too energized to sleep. He knew that in the morning he would feel a

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  letdown, with no rehearsal to attend, no schedule to follow, no play in formation, but for now he felt only exhilaration and triumph.

  But as he lay there, he was not thinking about the play, or the reviews. He was thinking about letters. Writing them was like keeping a log, or a diary, he thought, organizing and trying to make sense of one's choices, even gaining some feeling of control over the events that crashed and tumbled through one's life. So that no matter what happened, one could turn to a piece of paper and a pen . . .

  He opened his eyes. That was one of the reasons he could not get Jessica out of his mind: because so often her letters echoed his own life and thoughts. And so powerful were those echoes that every time he read a letter, especially late at night when he was tired and most open to suggestion, he opened a door to her and she walked through it. He had willingly, even eagerly, brought her close and made her a companion, a clear voice commenting on his days, and sharing them.

  But the woman who walked through that door and became his companion was not the woman he had seen on Lopez Island.

  And I should have nown she wouldn't be. She left clues in all her letters.

  He walked out onto the terrace. The air was cool and fresh from a brief rainstorm just ended; by now the heat wave of August was barely a memory. As the clouds pulled apart into fragments beyond the dark steel of the George Washington Bridge, the sky turned pale opal shading to violet, with the city's skyscrapers outlined crisply against it, washed clean by the rain. Luke sat in a wicker chair in the corner where he liked to eat breakfast and, as the sky brightened and a brilliant daylight swept away the shadows and dim crevices of night, he thought about Jessica. Not the Jessica of the New York and London stage, but the Jessica of Lopez Island. A different person. And she had told them she was—if they had read carefully enough to see it.

  By the end of my stay in Arizona, I'd changed and I couldn't bridge the chasm and go bac.

  I won't —/ can't — go bac to what I was — too much has happened — so I have to get used to this.

  All my connections to the people and places and things that once defined my life are gone, and I have nothing to remind me of that other Jessica except my memories.

  I miss what I've lost, oh, Constance, I do miss it, and you're the one person

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  in the world who can truly understand that, and understand my anger.

  What's gone is . . . everything.

  Two women, Luke thought, exiling themselves to isolated places. But Constance had no choice but to leave the stage. And Jessica must have felt that she had none either.

  He was asleep. He dreamt of his grandmother, and of Lena in The Magician, and when he woke to the smell of coffee and opened his eyes to see Martin arranging his breakfast on the brass chest beside his chair, he was remembering Lena's speech to Cort at the end of the play. I looJ^edfor the Daniel I knew and of course I found him . .. changed but not transformed.

  He had not waited to find out whether she was transformed. He had stayed hidden in the forest, angry, dismayed, then turned and bolted. Why? What had made him so angry?

  "Well, my dear Luke." He could almost hear his grandmother's husky voice. "You're used to everything going as you expect it to, without failures or major struggles. With Jessica, you'd been so sure of what you'd find that when something quite different appeared it was as if you'd been kicked in the rear. And you didn't like it."

  "Mr. Cameron, congratulations," Martin said, pouring his coffee. "The reviews are quite glowing. I would call it a genuine triumph."

  "Yes, we think it is," Luke said, sitting up. "Thank you, Martin."

  "And I do thank you for my ticket. You know how exciting I find opening nights."

  "I'm glad you were there."

  When Martin left he reached for a plate of sliced melon and strawberries. Changed but not transformed, he thought. The woman he knew from letters, the woman he thought he had fallen in love with, might still be there. Or she might not. Her letters had become almost brittle after the accident, then sick with despair, then cool, chatty and remote, without the verve and optimism of the letters that had traced her brilliant career. So why would he think she was not transformed?

  He had no way of knowing. Because he had run away.

  He knew then that he would go back. He had to find out if the woman who haunted his thoughts was still there. He had caught only a glimpse of her; he could have been wrong about everything. It might have been a trick of the sunlight, of the shimmering reflections off the water, of the shadows and fickle light in the forest where he had stood. After all, she had

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  written about a man she had met, about helping to direct a performance oiPygmalion, about friends she had made on the island. He had been too swift in his judgment; he should not have left.

  So he would go back, and he would stay long enough to get to know her as she was now. But this time he would write first so there would be no surprises. The letter took shape in his mind as he drank his coffee. "Dear Jessica Fontaine. I'm sure you know that my grandmother died last spring in Italy, but I want to tell you about the time I spent there, closing her villa. . . ."

  He would write abo
ut finding the box of her letters and about the collection of rare plays Constance had left to her. He would say he wanted to bring them to her personally. He would ask her to telephone at her convenience, to set a time for his visit. Right now would be best, he thought. No rehearsals, no schedules, no play in formation. Right now would be perfect. He only needed her reply, and he would be on his way.

  L

  I

  OPEZ ISLAND

  T

  he familiar shape of Lopez Island rose from the turbulent waters of Puget Sound, dark beneath a pounding rain. The plane bucked and lurched as Luke tried to see the airstrip. "Shark Reef," the pilot said, tilting his head to indicate it. "And Rock Point Beach. Almost home." He banked the small plane, fighting the wind as he leveled off and roughly set down, braking hard to stop. He grinned at Luke. "Not my smoothest, but not too bad. Do you want to wait for a few minutes till it lets up?"

  Through the streaming window Luke saw Angie's cab drive close to the plane. "No, I'll—" A crash of thunder directly overhead cut off his words. "How long do these usually last.?"

  The pilot shrugged. "Five minutes, an hour, hard to tell."

  "I'll make a dash for it."

  "Up to you." The pilot opened the door and pushed down the folding steps and Luke moved past him. Instantly he was soaked. He turned to the pilot. "If you'll hand me my suitcase and that cardboard carton . .."

  "Hold on." The pilot threw a large piece of plastic over the carton and handed it to Luke, who took three steps and put it on the backseat of the cab. His suitcase was next, and then he sat beside Angie in the front seat.

  "Don't they have raincoats and umbrellas in New York?" Angie asked, inspecting his dripping suit.

  "New York was seventy degrees and sunny. I'll dry off at the inn. You don't have to wait for me."

  ~ 155 ~

  156 ~ Judith Michael

  "I will if I don't get another call. Maybe Robert'U give you the truck again."