To Wish or Not to Wish

by Mindy Klasky

  I stumbled into the kitchen. On the counter, next to the stove, was a shining thermos. One of my mugs sat beside it, the handle beckoning to my hand. As I stepped closer, I saw a loaf of bread wrapped in a white napkin. A small pewter pot of butter was buried deep in the linen folds—just like at Garden Variety. Timothy must have raided the restaurant to set out the treat for me.

  I burrowed beneath the linen and touched the bread. It still had a hint of warmth, just a whispered reminder of the oven. All of a sudden, the rich, yeasty aroma made my stomach clench. Sure, Timothy’s midnight omelet had been an unexpected treat, but that had been hours ago. A lifetime ago.

  I tore into the bread like a starving woman. I bolted the first hunk without butter, relishing the crunch of the crust between my teeth. I forced myself to slow down, to chew, to swallow. As I slathered butter onto the second chunk of bread, I saw that Timothy had left me a note.

  “Erin—Thought you could use the rest. Enjoy tea and breakfast, then take a long bath (check the fridge).”

  He’d signed it with a capital T—the initial dashed off like an afterthought.

  Check the fridge.

  I opened the KitchenAid door with a little apprehension, only to find that my empty refrigerator had turned into an herbal garden. Safe from Tabitha’s feline interest, sheaves of lavender rested on the top shelf. The fragrant flowers were bright in the well-lit interior. A small jar nestled between the stalks. I unscrewed the lid and dipped a finger inside. A salt rub, apparently made with some high-end oil. I sniffed. A touch of eucalyptus, by the smell of things.

  Tears sprang to my eyes.

  Maybe I was so emotional because I wasn’t fully awake, after my unplanned sleepathon. Maybe I felt like sobbing because I was nervous about the night to come, about my Broadway debut. Maybe that tiny ache pounded in my temples because I was hungry, because I hadn’t bolstered my body’s defenses with all of the bread that Timothy had left, with any protein, with anything approaching a balanced diet.

  Or maybe I was just touched that someone—no, that Timothy—had reached out to me. That he had done all of this for me. That he had realized how panicked I was the night before, that he had fed me, that he had recognized how much I needed to sleep… That he had even understood how starving I’d be upon awakening… That he had cared so much about me.

  My tote bag was lying on the kitchen counter. I dug around in it until I found my phone, then punched in his number before I could convince myself not to. Four rings, then voice mail. I didn’t leave a message. I couldn’t sort out my words; everything sounded too dramatic, too deep and meaningful, too desperate.

  I swallowed hard and snapped the phone closed, tossing it onto the counter as if I were afraid it might bite me. It skittered across the granite, coming to rest against my desiccated lily. The phone was reflected in the clear glass of Tennessee’s fishbowl.

  Okay, so, I’d failed at the Master Plan—failed and left all the evidence in plain sight, as a constant reminder of how much I had to learn, of how much I needed to accomplish, before I’d be fit for a real relationship, for an adult give-and-take with a man worth my time. Like a mantra, I repeated to myself that I’d killed my plant, killed my fish, let my cat get pregnant.

  I knew that I was supposed to start at the beginning. I was supposed to build up to a real relationship with a live, breathing man. I was supposed to take baby steps, to prove to myself and to Amy and to all the world that I could handle things. That I was an adult. That I was mature.

  To hell with the Master Plan.

  It was all a ridiculous game, anyway. Who was to say that a peace lily was the right type of plant? Why was a goldfish more important than a neon tetra? Why was Tabitha the cat I was supposed to care for—couldn’t I have waited until I found a cat on my own, adopted a kitten from the shelter, chosen another feline companion, one that wasn’t in heat when she arrived on my doorstep?

  All of it—the plants, the animals—they were just a way to avoid making a commitment. To avoid taking responsibility for who I was. Who I wanted to be.

  The Master Plan was a way for me to isolate myself, to cut myself off from the real world, from responsibility. The Master Plan built a wall around me as effectively as any wall that Laura Wingfield had ever erected, with her precious, fragile spun-glass animals.

  I was stronger than that, though. I was strong enough to run my life without the Master Plan.

  As soon as I reached Timothy, I would tell him exactly how I felt. I would kiss him and not draw back out because of some stupid sense of obligation, some idiotic belief that I owed myself, that I owed Amy, that I owed some unattainable, textbook ideal that had seemed like a really great concept when I’d just lost the boyfriend of my dreams. Lost the boyfriend of my nightmares, as things turned out. In the end, Sam had not been worth one split second of emotional agony.

  From this day forward, I was going to do what I wanted to do, not what was dictated to me. That’s what I should have done a long time before.

  Better late than never.

  I pulled my trash can out from beneath my sink. Refusing to make a ceremony of my action, refusing to give the stupid Master Plan any more power over me than I’d already given it for the past three months, I dumped the dried-out peace lily into the white plastic liner. A small cloud of dust puffed up as it hit the bottom, a reminder of just how long I’d delayed taking charge of my life. I steeled myself against feeling guilty and tossed the fishbowl after.

  Literally and figuratively dusting the past from my palms, I poured a mug of tea from the thermos Timothy had left behind. The scent of Earl Grey rose from the steam, a perfect complement to the armful of lavender that I excavated from the refrigerator. I carried the herbs into the bathroom and turned on the water in the tub. While it filled, I headed back to the kitchen, grabbing another generous hunk of bread and spreading it with warm, soft butter before I picked up my mug.

  I made the bathwater as hot as I could stand it. The lavender floated on the surface, tiny petals spreading as they soaked up the water, as they yielded their fragrance. I stripped out of the clothes that I’d worn to rehearsal the day before—a lifetime ago—and I took the opportunity to roll my neck around, to work out the worst kinks of tension that had settled deep inside my muscles, inside my bones. Grabbing a couple of extra towels, I rolled one into a pillow, positioning it to cradle my head against the tub’s hard rim.

  Making sure that my tea and the salt scrub were within reach, I eased myself into the water. The heat melted my bones, soothed my muscles. The scent wafted over me, enveloped me. When I closed my eyes, I drifted away—I could have been anywhere, anytime.

  I couldn’t say how long I soaked in that luxurious bath. At some point, I used the salt scrub, rubbing it into my elbows, into my knees, working it between my toes. For long minutes, I leaned back against my towel pillow, closing my eyes and thinking that the finest spa on earth could never be more luxurious than this.

  As the water started to cool, I decided to run through my lines. Each and every word perched on the tip of my tongue, ready to tumble out. All of my hesitation from the night before, all of my uncertainty, had been washed away during the night. I couldn’t say if the lines came easier because I’d successfully run them with Timothy the night before, or whether they’d fallen into place because I’d slept on them, or if they’d become accessible because I was so perfectly relaxed. Whatever the reason, I did not stumble over a single word. As I spoke, I could picture where I was supposed to stand, what I was supposed to do. The entire show was laid out before me, like a movie that I could pause on a DVD, a recording that I could break down frame by frame, second by second.

  At last, it was time to emerge from the perfection of my bath. I wrapped myself in a gigantic bath sheet, luxuriating in another towel to gather up the dripping ends of my hair.

  I took my time getting dressed. I dawdled over choosing slacks. Ultimately, I went with the always-appropriate-for-Manhattan black, sleek trousers
that hugged my body just enough to show they cared about my making my best impression. I added a wintergreen peasant blouse, pleased with the way the fabric complemented my skin tone. My cheeks still glowed pink from the heat of my bath.

  I towel-dried my hair. The costume mistress would tuck it under a wig for my role as Laura. That way my spoken-word character’s mousy brown mess could be traded for lustrous locks in the end-of-show dance extravaganza.

  Similarly, I didn’t bother with makeup. I’d get a full palette of the stuff once I arrived at the theater. We were well past the years when actors wore orange pancake makeup, but the experts would load me up with a much thicker foundation than I typically used on my own. They’d go light on the blush, and my lips would stay relatively natural in tone, but my eyes would get a heavy dose of mascara and eyeliner. They would sparkle from the last row in the theater.

  I slipped on some strappy sandals. I loved the way they made me feel, as if I were queen of some private domain. The heels clicked on the tile floor in the kitchen as I headed out to finish off the loaf of bread. I supplemented the creamy butter with the last of the cheddar cheese, which Timothy had left in the fridge. There were a few bites of fruit salad, as well, not as sparkling, not as bright, as it had been for my surprise midnight meal, but welcome all the same.

  I could get used to having food in my kitchen.

  Tabitha came to investigate as I swallowed the last of my late lunch. Or early dinner. Whatever—the theater forced us actors to keep strange hours. I bent down and scritched the cat’s head, eliciting immediate purrs of approval. Feeling festive, I gave her a full can of fresh food. She was eating for an entire litter of kittens, after all.

  That thought reminded me that I still had to coerce my sister into taking at least two of the kittens. I had been totally scattered when I’d talked to Amy the day before. I glanced at my watch. She must be in class at this hour. Oh, well. I could leave her a message.

  “Hey, Ame, it’s me. I should have said this yesterday, but I was a little nuts. I’m leaving tickets for you at the box office—they’ll be under your name.”

  I knew that she’d make it. No matter what she had on her calendar, no matter what classes or study group, my only sister wouldn’t miss my Broadway debut. As I savored that phrase—my Broadway debut—I thought about the breezy message I’d just left for her. Stars of shows always left tickets at the box office.

  I was the star. I could do whatever I wanted to do. The theater staff would cooperate. They always did. Besides, there was no way that I’d be asking for more than Martina had demanded.

  I wrinkled my nose at the thought of our dearly departed diva, and I collected my script and my tote. I looked around the kitchen one last time before trying to call Timothy again. Another four rings. Another pickup from his voice mail. This time, I did stammer out a message: “Hi. It’s me. Um, Erin. Um, thanks, um, for everything. I mean, um, the bread was amazing. And, um, the lavender. Um. I’m heading over to the theater. Um, I’ll leave a ticket for you at the, um, will-call window. Um, thanks.”

  There. That had been brilliant. Why hadn’t I done that before, when I’d first gotten his voice mail? I grimaced and wished that I could invent a device that would let me delete stupid messages I’d left on other people’s cell phones. Oh, well. There was nothing to be done for it now.

  I looked around the apartment. I was out of things to do. I was out of tactics to delay my trip to the theater. I was out of details to distract myself.

  It was time to head uptown for my opening night on Broadway.

  As soon as I set foot in the theater, time sped up.

  My leisurely sleeping in was immediately a thing of memory. My luxurious bath could have happened months ago. My calm, cool and collected stroll to Times Square might never have happened.

  The house manager tracked me down first—he wanted to know how many tickets I needed. I told him that I was only expecting three guests—my sister, Justin and Timothy. He looked at me like I was speaking in tongues. “This is the first night of previews,” he reminded me unnecessarily. “Everyone has a ton of guests first night of previews.”

  I smiled and said, “I didn’t know that I’d be going on until yesterday. I’ll hit you up for more tickets, later in the run.”

  Those words sounded so sweet on my lips—later in the run—that I didn’t even see the house manager scurry away.

  Ken grabbed me next. He was bouncing on the balls of his feet, so full of energy that I wanted to add a tether to keep him from launching into the catwalks. “Let’s run through the first scene. I want to make sure you’ve got it—it was really rough yesterday.”

  Again, I found my serene smile. “I’ve got it, Ken,” I said. He hollered for the other actors, and we ran the scene. I tried not to be offended by his amazement, by his pure and utter shock that I had the scene down cold. He had us continue through our paces, linking up spoken scene to spoken scene, skipping over the song and dance numbers in between.

  I was warmed by the applause of my fellow actors as Tom delivered his final line. They all stared at me, obviously astonished by what we had accomplished. Yesterday’s disastrous rehearsal was rapidly becoming a distant memory.

  The choreographer grabbed me next. He led all of the dancers through a vigorous warm-up, starting out with stretching exercises, leading into some aggressive form of yoga. We finished by going through the show’s most challenging combinations. Of course, with my Teel-backed abilities, I had no problem with that part of the show.

  Nor with the singing that we did after that.

  Acting, dancing, singing—I’d dashed through all of my onstage obligations. I had clearly surpassed everyone’s expectations—the cast was virtually humming around me as we wandered back to the dressing rooms. Rumors started to percolate about reviewers in the house, about journalists waiting to write about our creation.

  The stage manager announced, “Half hour,” warning us that we only had thirty minutes before the show began. I called out, “Thank you!” automatically, falling back on the etiquette of years of doing plays.

  I knew that I should take this last snippet of time to review the script, to walk through the blocking, to test myself one last time.

  But I didn’t need to.

  I was ready to go onstage as Laura Wingfield. I was ready to star in Menagerie!

  I left the dressing room and went backstage, savoring every minute of this incredible night. I stood in the shadows behind the set, listening to the growing hum of the audience filling the house.

  “There you are!” I jumped at the voice, whirling around even before the exclamation had faded away.

  “Shawn!” My fellow understudy stood in the shadows. A bouquet of long-stem roses sprayed across his arm, gigantic petals of pink and yellow and peach giving off a fragrance so powerful they might have been dipped in air freshener. “What are you doing here?”

  He sashayed forward and kissed me on the cheek. “Mmm,” he said. “Lavender.” I probably blushed, but my cheeks were invisible in the dim light backstage. Shawn thrust his magnificent roses into my arms. “You know I wouldn’t miss your debut, sweetie!”

  Those tears that had plagued me earlier in the day were suddenly close to the surface again. “Shawn—” I said, but my voice broke.

  “Now, stop it. The last thing you want is to ruin your makeup.”

  I attempted to smother my emotions by burying my face in the flowers. “These are amazing,” I said. “You shouldn’t have.”

  He tucked a rogue spray of baby’s breath back into the arrangement. “I shouldn’t have been such a bitch yesterday.” He rolled his eyes in exaggerated condemnation of himself. “I just couldn’t believe that you had done what we’d talked about so many times before. You had the courage to get rid of Martina, and I’m left standing in the wings!”

  “Shawn, you know that I did nothing of the sort!”

  His smile was wicked as he shook his head. “Of course not. My lips are sealed.�
� He mimed turning a key in a lock.

  “Shawn—” I started.

  “Hush, sweetie. Congratulations. I know you’re going to knock ’em dead.”

  I swallowed hard. “Thank you. Let me just go put these in water.”

  He took the roses back from me. “I’ll take care of that for you. What else are we understudies good for, on opening night?”

  “Shawn—” I began again.

  “Hush,” he said. He danced three steps toward the dressing room before he turned back. “And, Erin, sweetie? Break a leg!”

  I started to protest, but he only laughed. The old theater good-luck mantra would never be the same for me. I settled for shaking my head and sighing as my partner in crime—or at least backstage gossip—disappeared around the corner of the set.

  Before I was truly ready, the stage manager called all of us actors to our places. The house lights dimmed, and the audience grew quiet. The house lights went out completely, and we actors quick-walked to our spots, striking our poses for our opening scene.

  And then the curtain rose.

  My first lines were waiting for me, like old friends who were thrilled to learn that I had finally come to visit. My body remembered where to move as I spoke. Instinctively, I mastered when to look back at my fellow actors, how to share the scene with them.

  The audience was with me from the very beginning. I heard them gasp at one cutting line, laugh at a touch of comic relief. The applause after my first song shook me to my toenails—I’d never realized how powerful the ballad could be, how much empathy it could evoke from the crowd. I froze in the spotlight, accepting the adulation, preserving that long, perfect moment before the play moved on.

  As the spotlight went out, freeing me to dart offstage, I sneaked a glance into the audience. Impossibly, I could see Amy and Justin sitting in the very front row. I was astonished to realize that Teel was beside them, fully decked out in his doctor persona. I wondered how the house manager had found him a seat, how the ticket had become available, but I didn’t have long to dwell on the problem. I glanced to Teel’s left, looking for Timothy, but he wasn’t there. I looked to Amy’s right. No Timothy there, either.