Act One, Wish One

by Klasky, Mindy

  Lucky for me.

  Maddy, Jules, and I now lived in the second-floor apartment. In deference to Dad, I had the front room, a spacious bedroom that was built into the turret on the corner of the building. Maddy’s and Jules’s bedrooms looked out over the backyard; they might not be able to glimpse the lake from their windows, but they had the same hardwood floors, the same solid plaster walls, the same long-polished oak door frames. We enjoyed a gigantic living room, and a kitchen that more than met the needs of three women who were always on the run.

  And we paid about one third the market rate for our rent.

  That discount more than made up for the handful of things that weren’t ideal about the house. Our downstairs neighbors, the Swensons, were in their seventies. They occasionally phoned upstairs, asking us to walk more quietly across our hardwood floors. Maddy, Jules, and I sometimes resented the fact that the Swensons got to park in the single garage and in the driveway, while we had to forage for street parking. And there was always a debate if we had Chinese food delivered after nine o’clock at night; the drivers from Hunan Delight absolutely could not grasp the idea that they should ring the buzzer for upstairs, rather than downstairs.

  Nevertheless, the arrangement worked pretty well. (Read: We could forgive a multitude of neighbor sins for dirt-cheap lodging.)

  I unzipped my backpack and took out the January rent check. My roommates and I might have a sweetheart deal, but payment was still due promptly. I handed it across Dad’s desk and said, “Here you are. Signed, sealed, and delivered.”

  “Thank you.” He slipped it under a paperweight shaped like a gavel; I knew that it would be deposited by noon the next day. “How are you, Kira? How are things at Fox Hill?” Dad hated the fact that I worked in the theater; he worried—justifiably—that it was economically unstable.

  I shrugged. “I’m fine. But you should know, I’ve left Fox Hill.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “I thought we had an agreement, Kira. When you finish up at the dinner theater, you’ll take the LSAT.”

  The Law School Admission Test. The standardized test necessary for me to apply to any law school in the country. Dad had pushed me to take it since the day I graduated with highest honors from the University of Minnesota. I’d majored in English (a compromise—he had argued hard for Poli Sci, and I’d wanted a degree in Art, Design, and the Performing Arts). Despite my mother’s aspirations, I had absolutely no desire to be a lawyer. I knew too much about how the profession worked; I’d been raised with stories of associates slaving away, trying desperately, frantically, to prove that they were worthy of elevation to the partnership.

  I kept my voice light through years of hard practice. “That wasn’t precisely our agreement, Counselor. I said that I’d take the LSAT if I lost my job. I started my new job today. Before Fox Hill formally let me go.”

  Dad frowned. “And this new position? Where is it?”

  “The Landmark Stage.”

  “The Landmark? There was an article about them in the paper last Sunday!”

  “Yes, there was,” I said, deciding not to take offense at the surprise in his voice. “You are looking at the Landmark’s newest stage manager…extraordinaire.”

  He smiled fleetingly, but then pursed his lips. “And let me guess. This new show is something outrageous and edgy. Something that will alienate three-quarters of your potential audience before you even open the door.”

  “We’re doing Shakespeare, Dad. Romeo and Juliet.” There was no need for him to know about our little gender shift—not right now, in any case.

  He nodded slowly, but I could see him marshaling his legal arguments. “When does the play open?”

  “The first week in April.”

  “And how long does it run?”

  What was it with the cross-examination? I wasn’t sure how long the play would run—I hadn’t even thought to ask. It was important, though, to make my new employment sound solid. Stable. I took a gamble that my father would not be intimately acquainted with the performance schedules of local theaters and gave the answer for a typical play. “Eight weeks.”

  “And then what?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “What happens after that? After Romeo and Juliet closes?”

  I sighed. I’d been so excited by Teel’s little magic trick that I hadn’t even begun to think about the next step in my career. “This show is going to get me noticed, Dad! Everyone pays attention to what the Landmark does. The director is a genius! People are going to see the show, other directors, other producers. I could go from the Landmark to the Guthrie, Dad!”

  “You could,” my father agreed. He got up and walked around his desk, sitting in the client chair next to me so that our knees almost touched.

  Despite the fact that the firm had gone to “office casual” several years back, Dad still wore a suit and tie every day. He thought such an image was most appropriate for a lawyer of his stature; it was expected of a name partner. Nevertheless, he’d shed his jacket while he was working, and he’d loosened his tie with a couple of impatient tugs. Now he glanced at the photo of my mother, as if he were consulting with her on the next thing he was going to say.

  “Kira, I know there’s a chance that you could go to the Guthrie. There’s also a chance that when your show closes, you’ll be done. Finished. Not for any bad reason, not because of anything you can control. But you’ve chosen such a difficult field. Theater is so unreliable.”

  “Dad, I’m a grown woman now. If I want to take chances, I’m allowed to do that!”

  “You’re right. You are. But I’m not doing you any favors if I let you take those chances without your completely understanding—and assuming—all of the risks.”

  My stomach turned over. “What do you mean?”

  “As you just said, you’re not a child anymore. I shouldn’t treat you like one. I shouldn’t subsidize your rent, pay your way at the Lake of the Isles house.”

  I glanced at the check I’d just given him. “You’re kicking us out? Me and Maddy and Jules?”

  He shook his head. “I wouldn’t do that to you. We have an agreement. We always have.”

  I remembered to breathe again.

  He went on, though, before I could enjoy too much relief. “Part of that agreement, though, is that you’ll support yourself. If things fall apart in the theater, you need to have somewhere to go, something to do. You need a safety net.”

  “I do have one!”

  “What, serving burgers at Mike’s Bar and Grill?”

  I flushed. I was going to say working as a hostess at Mephisto’s. Dad was right, though, as usual. The servers got better tips.

  I forced myself to take a deep breath before launching round 3,427 in our endless dissection of What Kira Should Be When She Grows Up. “You know what theater means to me, Dad. I’ve told you about that feeling I get when I walk into the building, when I start a new show, when I realize the potential that’s there.”

  He nodded. Well, that was better than having him interrupt to interrogate me.

  “You also know that I have a great deal of respect for what you do. I’d be an idiot not to.” I gestured out the window, at the dusky Minneapolis skyline spread before us, already growing dim with the winter’s early sunset. “Maddy and Jules and I know just how lucky we are to live where we do, and I know that your practice has brought us a lot of that.”

  His eyes narrowed as he tried to identify the parameters of my rhetorical technique. I could see the wheels turning inside his head, calculating how to dissect my points, how to craft his own argument in response. I hurried on before the deposition could resume.

  “But the simple fact is that I don’t feel the same way about the law as I do about the theater. I don’t get that same rush when I walk into a courtroom. I don’t get all trembly inside when I look at the closing binders on your bookshelves. That’s not a statement about you, or about your firm. It’s just a statement, a fact, about me. About how I feel. About who I a
m.”

  “There are ways of compromising, Kira.”

  I immediately pictured myself stage managing Inherit the Wind. Witness for the Prosecution. A Few Good Men. Plays about the legal process. That probably wasn’t the sort of compromise he meant.

  Dad pressed on. “In the past, I’ve argued for your following a traditional path—taking the LSAT, going to the best law school you can get into, accepting a job at the best firm that will have you. But you don’t have to work at a large firm. You could specialize in lawyering for the arts—museums, theaters, other cultural institutions. You can combine your loves.” He interrupted himself, raising a hand in anticipation of my protest. “You can combine your love, singular, for the theater, and your practicality, your common sense, your ability to organize and communicate. All the characteristics that make you a wonderful stage manager.”

  Man, he was really good at this. But I wasn’t about to cave that easily. “I don’t get it, Dad,” I said. “We’ve talked about my being a big-firm lawyer for years. Why are you only bringing up alternatives now?”

  He sat back in his chair and caught his lower lip with his teeth, shaking his head. The action made him look twenty years older. Much less certain. Much less sure. “I’m worried about you, Kira.”

  “Worried? I’m—”

  “An entire year has gone by.”

  What was the deal with the calendar? Did every single person I knew have the date of my failed wedding etched on their reminder list? Sure, I had been counting the days, but it had never occurred to me that anyone else was so concerned.

  He held up a hand to keep me from retorting. “It’s been a year, and I don’t see anything changing. We’ve never really discussed what happened, and that’s all right. I’m your father, not your best friend. But it’s obvious to me that you aren’t happy. It’s obvious that you’re dissatisfied with the direction your life has taken.”

  A protest died in my throat. I looked down, suddenly blinking away tears. My elastic-waist sweatpants filled my vision, silent confirmation of everything my father said.

  He dropped his voice. “Kira, I’ll be honest with you. Before you got here tonight, I had decided to make you move out of the Lake of the Isles house, to make you face reality, instead of coddling you in your made-up little theater world.”

  My eyes shot up, but he shook his head, holding up a hand to keep me from protesting.

  “I was going to tell you that. But your news about the Landmark made me change my mind. You’ve gotten out of that dinner theater; you’ve taken the first step in a year toward moving on with your life. But I’m still worried. I still need to see more.”

  “What’s ‘more?’” I sounded like a sullen teenager, but I couldn’t help myself.

  “More is knowing what comes after. More is knowing where you’ll go after this show closes.” He took a deep breath and reached for a sheaf of papers on his desk. “More is taking the LSAT in June. The application is due on May 13. I’ve prepared all the pages for you. You just have to sign.”

  “You what?” I was so astonished that I almost dropped the papers that he handed me.

  He shook his head. “Just expand your options, Kira. I can’t stand to see you like this any longer. I can’t stand to know that you’re so unhappy, while nothing ever changes.”

  I wanted to fight back. I wanted to tell him that he was punishing me because he’d spent too much money on the wedding, money that I’d never asked him to spend, serving the perfect dinner to two hundred of his closest friends and business associates. I wanted to tell him that he was pushing me into law because he wanted to boast to his partners, wanted to tell them that I’d gotten into Harvard or Yale or whatever. I wanted to scream that he didn’t always get what he wanted, he couldn’t always shape the world into some perfect, flawless entity that functioned precisely as he mandated.

  But he already knew the world wasn’t perfect.

  The portrait of my mother at my back reminded him of that every single day.

  He only wanted what was best for me. And how could I argue that having options wasn’t the best course? I didn’t have to go to law school. I just had to take the stupid test.

  But I wasn’t going to give in quite that easily. “Okay,” I said, but I rushed on before he could even register my acquiescence. “I’ll take the LSAT, if I don’t have another theater job lined up by the May application deadline.”

  “A theater job as good or better than the one you’ve got at the Landmark,” he bargained.

  “I won’t go back to Fox Hill,” I assured him. There probably wouldn’t even be a Fox Hill to go back to.

  I could see that he wanted to say more. He wanted to place more restrictions on me, make more demands. But he settled for extending his hand.

  Ever since I was a little girl, we’d sealed our deals with a handshake. I’d agreed to try Brussels sprouts, agreed to make my bed every morning, agreed to be home by my too-early, completely unfair, totally overprotective curfew. I folded my fingers around his and shook firmly.

  He leaned forward and kissed my forehead, making me feel like I was five years old again. “Thank you, Kira. I knew that you’d see reason.”

  I smiled and sat back in my chair. Who was I kidding? I was never going to be a lawyer. I had a new job at the Landmark. And, if worse came to worst, I had two unused wishes up my sleeve.

  CHAPTER 5

  IN THE END, I chickened out on going to Mephisto’s. I felt bad—John’s invitation had seemed genuine enough, and I could practically taste one of Mike’s burgers. But I’d spent too many months avoiding the place, too much time worrying about whether TEWSBU was there, what he was doing with his post-me life.

  Besides, I hadn’t seen Jules and Maddy since getting the Landmark job. My entire life had been turned upside down in the best of all possible ways, and I hadn’t had a chance to gush about it with my housemates.

  Alas, I’d apparently spent my entire allocation of luck finding the brass lamp and summoning Teel. Traffic was terrible on Hennepin as I left Dad’s office, and it was well after seven by the time I got home. I needed to park three blocks away and walk back to the house. When I finally got to our walkway, I saw that the lights were on downstairs. I consciously resisted the temptation to slam the entry door. It wasn’t the Swensons’ fault that parking spaces were scarce around the lake.

  By the time I got upstairs, I was in a foul mood—and ravenous besides. Maddy took one look at me and said, “Hunan Delight?”

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  Jules chimed in from the sofa, where she had her ballet-perfect legs thrown over the couch’s arm. “We’ve just been waiting for you to get home, so we could order. Who knows when we’ll all be home at the same time again?”

  Home. The apartment that Dad might raise the rent on, if I didn’t square away another theater gig. If I didn’t take the LSAT.

  No reason to bring down my housemates with that little wrinkle. Yet. Instead, I mustered enthusiasm to say, “That’s right! Maddy, you start tech rehearsals next week, don’t you?”

  As a lighting designer, my housemate’s life would be crazy for the next seven days, while the cast learned to perform their play with all her lighting cues in place. Maddy would be in a foul mood, too. She hated making changes to her design when actors couldn’t remember to stand in specific spots to deliver specific lines.

  Her current show was called Jack and Jill; it was a kiddie production that retold Mother Goose rhymes. Maddy had been grumbling over her lighting design for months, complaining that the director had the imagination of a rock, regularly insisting that Maddy’s design be “brighter!” and “happier!”

  “Yeah,” she said, putting on a brilliant fake grimace. “And Jules is heading out of town with Justin.”

  “Not till Sunday!” Jules said. Justin was her long-time boyfriend, a lawyer who would have made my father proud. Justin’s firm was based in Los Angeles, and they had a retreat every winter, bringing in all th
eir lawyers from across the country to enjoy fine wine, gourmet food, and endless seminars on how to sue corporate America. Jules had decided to accompany Justin for the three-day retreat, and then they were going to indulge in a well-deserved vacation.

  I pouted just a little. Maybe my father’s life plans for me weren’t really so far off. Law firm life—wining, dining, and enjoyable recreation with a perfect boyfriend? Oh. That’s right. I didn’t drink. I certainly didn’t need to eat any more. And I didn’t have any boyfriend, perfect or otherwise.

  Maddy must have sensed my change of mood from parking-frustrated to love-life-morose. She waved the Chinese menu in front of me enticingly. “What’ll it be?” She already had the phone in hand.

  “Hot and sour soup, with an extra packet of crunchy noodles,” I said. “And crispy sesame chicken.”

  What could I say? Even if Chinese food could be healthy, I didn’t need to obsess about making it so. And despite the conversation with my father, I was feeling celebratory.

  I had a genie on my side.

  Maddy nodded and started punching in numbers as I shuffled back to my bedroom. Slipping out of my Converse All Stars, I tossed my backpack onto my desk. There was a soft clunk, and I remembered that I’d shoved Teel’s lantern deep into the recesses of the bag that morning. I’d been strangely reluctant to leave it behind in the apartment; it was almost as if I feared my position at the Landmark would evaporate if I didn’t keep the thing with me.

  Glancing over my shoulder toward my open bedroom door, I considered taking out the lantern, bringing it into the living room to show Maddy and Jules. They’d never believe my story about Teel if I didn’t bring absolute proof. I pulled out the lamp, staring at it in the light from the overhead fixture.

  It gleamed as if it were lit from within. There was something…satisfied about its appearance, something peaceful. Serene. Just looking at it made me feel peaceful and calm.