Willa by Heart

by Coleen Murtagh Paratore

  My heart leaps. Yes. Thank you. Talk about answering prayers. Finally that dreary woman came to her senses and realized what an awful mistake she made and that I, of course, am the perfect Emily. I run down the stairs.

  The director is sitting by the fireplace. “Miss Havisham,” she says, coming to shake my hand, her long, lean arm outstretched. She is wearing a black blouse, long black skirt, and shawl. “Thank you for seeing me.”

  “Sure.” My heart is racing. “Can I get you something? Coffee? Water?”

  She shakes her head no. “I have an offer for you,” she says, “an invitation.”

  My head is pounding. “Yes?” I say, trying to appear calm, trying not to sound too desperate, but unable to stop the huge smile springing out across my face.

  “I realize it is the proverbial eleventh hour, but I hope you will consider joining our humble troupe in the distinguished role of …” She pauses, probably for the dramatic effect.

  Emily, Emily. “Yes?”

  “Stage Manager.” She says this as if it is the most exciting news in the world.

  “What?” A pin pops my smiley-face balloon and all of the air whooshes out.

  “Yes,” the director says, clearly pleased with herself. “I realize this must come as a shock to you. I actually had cast you in that role in my mind from the start, but you read for the part of Emily. And so I cast my second choice, young Gerald from Cotuit, but alas, young Gerald has had a medical emergency and cannot fulfill his obligation. I need a Stage Manager. Fast. Someone who can learn the lines in a matter of weeks. We open June twenty-first.”

  “But I tried out for Emily,” I say quietly. Don’t cry, Willa, be strong. Don’t embarrass yourself in front of this cold, cruel, black-hearted … woman.

  The director focuses her lighthouse rays on me. “You see the world through a poet’s eyes, all the colors, all the nuances. Emily is not so introspective. Emily doesn’t think so much—she just does.”

  I let that sink in a bit. “But that’s the best part. Emily is—”

  “You may not realize this, Miss Havisham,” the director interrupts, raising her hand in the air as if to say Cut. “But I was watching you carefully the night of auditions. I studied each potential player as she or he entered the theater hall. What I noticed about you was how you took it all in—the room, the people, the ripped curtain, the overturned coffee cup, the kid picking his nose by the ticket booth, even that tiny sparrow flitting from rope to rope above us … you were awake and aware of it all. That is the role of the Stage Manager in Wilder’s town. The Stage Manager is the omniscient, the all-seeing eye. Our Town, metaphor for every town, everywhere, every age, begins and ends with the Stage Manager. Only this one character sees the past, present, and future. Only this one knows the stories of all the others on the stage and off of the stage, how all the threads are connected, how each connects to the web, and how it all so miraculously, so majestically, makes sense. I am asking you to play the lead, Miss Havisham. Will you accept?”

  The lead? I feel a strange rush of emotion. Me?

  “What worries you?” the director asks, cocking her head to the side, studying me.

  “I don’t know if I can….”

  “I would not ask if I were not certain,” the director says. “I believe you have the mind, more importantly, the heart.”

  Then she smiles.

  And perhaps because it is the first time I have ever seen the director smile, it is especially moving. All of a sudden I feel confident. “All right,” I say. “I accept.”

  “Good.” She stands abruptly, turns to leave. “Practice tomorrow, seven p.m.”

  ***

  I bike straight to JFK’s house. He answers the door. I tell him my news.

  “Awesome,” he says. “That’s great.” He hugs me.

  “Come on in,” he says. “My parents will be back soon.”

  He grabs two bottles of water from the fridge and hands me one. We go downstairs. “Want to play bumper pool?” he says.

  I’ve played only once or twice before, but I’m actually pretty good. JFK seems surprised. He wins. “How about Ping-Pong?” he says.

  “Sure.”

  It’s close, but I beat him.

  “Whoa,” JFK says. “Where’d you learn to play like that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I say, smiling coyly. “One of my other boyfriends taught me a few tricks. I can’t remember who….”

  “Come here,” he says, laughing, lunging toward me.

  I giggle and run. He chases me around the Ping-Pong table. We’re both pretty fast. He tags me and tackles me down on the couch. We crack up laughing. My heart is pounding, I’m all out of breath.

  “There better not be any other boyfriends,” he says sweetly.

  He kisses me. He smells so good.

  I think Ping-Pong’s my new favorite sport.

  CHAPTER 20

  Summmer on Old Cape Cod

  I declare, you got to speak to George. Seems like something’s come over him lately….

  … All he thinks about is that baseball.

  —Our Town

  Saturday is sunny and warm, perfect for the first picnic of summer.

  Sam is marinating chicken and ribs in his famous, secret-recipe honey barbecue sauce. When Sam fires up the grill later today and that delicious aroma wafts through the air, every mouth in Bramble will be watering, wishing it could come to the party.

  Unfortunately, JFK and his family aren’t coming. A rained-out baseball game got rescheduled for this afternoon, and the field is way out in Wellfleet.

  “You know Cape boys and their baseball,” Mrs. Kennelly said when she called.

  Well, I didn’t, but I do now. Baseball, baseball, baseball. It seems like JFK has a game or a practice, or a game and a practice, every single day.

  Mom and Sam and I head out to the picnic tables.

  My friends from school start showing up. Tina and Jessie Shefali. Luke and Emily. Alexa, Gus, and Ruby and Chris Ruggiero. Finally JFK is off of Ruby’s radar screen.

  “Volleyball,” Luke shouts, and we head over to the net.

  As we’re finishing our game, Nana arrives in a loopy straw hat, carrying cellophane bags of penny candy for all my friends.

  “I love you, Nana,” Tina says, giving my grandmother a kiss on the cheek.

  “I love you, too, sweetie,” Nana says.

  Nana is a big, big hit with my friends.

  “Your mother looks so happy today,” Tina says.

  “She’s got that dreamy look. On Forever Young they call it the mommy glow. It’s so in to be pregnant right now. No more mousy maternity clothes. It’s all about showing off your baby bump.”

  “Baby bump?” I say. Forever Young is Tina’s favorite soap opera. It’s one of the many things we don’t have in common. It’s a wonder we are best friends.

  Mrs. Saperstone comes next, pulling a red wagon behind her. “I made a batch of gazpacho,” she says. “I hope that was okay?”

  “Okay?” Sam says. “It’s wonderful. My favorite. Thank you.”

  “And this is for you, Willa,” Mrs. Saperstone says, handing me a book. “You enjoyed Wuthering Heights so much, I thought this might strike your fancy.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. S.”

  Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier. I open the book and read the first line: “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” Nice. “First things first,” I say when it comes to books. I want that first line to hook me and reel me in. This one does. “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” Nice.

  Sulamina Mum and Riley come, each carrying a pie.

  “Sorry we’re late,” Mum says. “Just took these out of the oven.”

  “Mmmm, smells so good,” my mother says, setting the pies down. “I may keep one for myself.” She laughs. “And congratulations on your engagement, Sulamina!”

  “Thank you,” Mum says. “And thank you for letting us have the reception here, Stella. Willa said you already have anot
her wedding scheduled the day before.”

  “No problem,” my mother says. “After all you’ve done for me and Willa, it will be our absolute pleasure.”

  Riley gives Mum a big kiss. “Am I the luckiest man in the world or what?”

  “I might have to challenge you on that,” Sam says, putting his arm around my mother’s waist. My mother smiles. I think back to that other Memorial Day picnic, when my mother was so uptight, too afraid yet to let Sam into her life, into our lives….

  I photograph this moment in my mind. All the happy faces. My family and our friends laughing, talking, playing croquet and horseshoes … the tables heavy with food … puffy blue hydrangeas and red rambling roses climbing the fence. It’s like some Norman Rockwell painting. Summer on Old Cape Cod, I’d call it. What do you think, Norman?

  Thank you, my heart prays. Thank you.

  Sulamina Mum is watching me with a quizzical expression on her face.

  “What?” I say.

  Mum looks around. “I was just thinking how nice it is we’re all here together on this sunny summer day. Especially you teenagers. Fine young people. All of you.”

  Mum stares into my eyes.

  I know it’s one of those moments when Mum wants me to understand something, but she’s in no hurry, she’ll wait as long as it takes for me to figure it out myself. “What?” I say again. My friends are running toward the pond, laughing.

  “Come on, Willa,” Tina shouts over, “let’s take out a boat.”

  “Be right there.” I turn back to Mum. “Give me a hint at least.”

  “Plenty of food to go around. What’s one more friend at the table, right?”

  Slowly it dawns on me. Mariel. “Are we talking about favor number three?”

  Mum’s face lights up with a smile. “That’s my girl,” she says.

  Well, at least JFK isn’t at the picnic, I think as I bike to Mariel Sanchez’s house. The waste treatment plant smells like dead fish decaying on the beach. If it smells this bad at the start of summer, I wonder what it’s like in August.

  Someone has stuck a row of tiny American flags under the dirty Oceanview Inn sign. It’s the only indication of a holiday. The place is eerily quiet except for the droning of an air conditioner in the window of the office. I think of the beautiful house I live in. How lucky I am. I remember the letter I wrote to the paper about Come Home Cape Cod. I hope they get the money to build lots of houses for people.

  As I get closer and pass by rooms, I hear all the television sets, different channels, a baby crying, a man shouting angrily in a language I don’t know, every window cranked in hopes of a breeze.

  When I knock on number 6, a man says, “Come in.” My stomach is flipping like a fish on a hook. Then, even before I can turn the knob, the door opens.

  Mariel stares at me with wide eyes. She has a book in her hand.

  “I know,” I say, smiling awkwardly. “You’re probably wondering what I’m doing here.”

  “Invite your friend in,” Mr. Sanchez says, wheeling toward me, nodding. The microwave beeps, and he wheels back around to it, opens the door, takes out a plate of food. “Nico, Sofia,” he says, “wash your hands.”

  I hear giggling, and then the twins poke their heads out from underneath the bed. “Boo!” they shout, thrusting chocolate-coated palms in the air toward me.

  “Oooh, you scared me,” I say, playing along.

  “I told you, no candy before dinner,” Mariel says.

  Nico and Sofia hug Mariel the way little kids hug their mother when a stranger is near.

  “We’re having a barbecue at my house,” I say, “and Sulamina Mum is there and Mrs. Saperstone.”

  “Oh, I see,” Mariel says, “they told you to invite—”

  “No,” I say. “I came to tell you that I’m going to be in Our Town after all. The Stage Manager. I thought maybe you could fill me in on what I’ve missed at practices.”

  “Truly?” Mariel says.

  “Truly,” I say. “Do you have a bike? If we hurry, we’ll be just in time for my father’s famous barbecued chicken.”

  “Of course you will go,” Mr. Sanchez says. He smiles, shooing his daughter away. “Go, Mariel, go enjoy.”

  We bike alongside each other. The rim on the front tire of Mariel’s bike is green. The rim on the back is orange.

  “Mrs. Saperstone told me how you saved the Bramble Library,” she says.

  We start talking about books. Mariel loved Their Eyes Were Watching God too. Right now she’s reading The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I make a mental note to put that on my summer list. Mariel says she and her father plan her lessons in the morning before he leaves for work. Mrs. Santiago, the lady in number 7, watches Nico and Sofia when Mariel needs to run errands or go to the library.

  “No wonder you swim so early in the morning,” I say. “It sounds like that’s the only time you have to yourself.”

  “It is okay,” Mariel says quickly. “In a family everybody has to do their part.”

  Before I know it, we’re back at the inn, walking toward the picnic tables, laughing about the director.

  “What’s with all the black?” Mariel says, giggling.

  “I know,” I say. “And what the heck is her name, anyway?”

  And then Tina and Ruby are standing there, staring at us.

  “We wondered where you went, Willa,” Tina says, not smiling.

  Ruby is looking down at Mariel’s old sneakers.

  I introduce Mariel to my friends, painfully aware of how Tina and Ruby are sizing up Mariel’s clothing. Green shorts, too long for the style this summer, pink T-shirt with chocolate fingerprints on the front.

  Mariel follows their gaze. She swipes at the chocolate, making the stains worse. “I should have changed,” she says.

  I feel my face getting hot. I look at Tina and Ruby with their perfect clothes, perfect hair, perfect summer-pink pedicures. “Come on, Mare, I’ve got a shirt you can borrow.”

  When we walk inside the inn, Mariel says, “Your home is beautiful.”

  As we head upstairs, I realize Mariel is more my mother’s size. I fish a few shirts out of my mother’s drawer. Mariel chooses a plain white pocket tee. My mother has a dozen of them. I start to say, “Don’t worry about returning it,” but then I remember how insulted Rosie was on Mother’s Day, and I decide Mariel is probably proud too.

  In my room Mariel moves to my bookcase like metal to a magnet. “Wow,” she says, running her hand along the spines, just the way I would if I had just seen all these books. She tilts her head to read the titles. “Yes.” She nods, smiling. “Yes,” clearly recognizing some favorites of her own. “These are all yours?” she says. “You own them?”

  “Yes.”

  Mariel looks at me. “You are lucky.”

  I smile and nod. “I know. Listen, anytime you want to borrow—”

  “Thank you,” Mariel says, “but the library serves me fine.”

  I think how sad it is that Mariel doesn’t own the books she reads. It must be hard for someone who loves books so much not to be able to write notes in the margin, circle lines she loves, draw little smiley faces and stars next to her favorite passages….

  The first picnic of the summer is a smashing success. After dark we roast marshmallows in the old stone fireplace. “Look,” Mariel says, pointing, “a firefly.” Tina squints her eyes at Mariel, not smiling, but my other friends seem to like her okay.

  Nana offers to put Mariel’s bike in her station wagon and give her a lift home. “Thank you for inviting me, Willa,” Mariel says. “I had a wonderful time.”

  “She’s nice,” I write in my journal later.

  But when I close my eyes to sleep, I picture Mariel hugging JFK. I picture them kissing during the wedding scene of Our Town, and I am wide awake again.

  Why did I invite her to my house? Introduce her to my friends?

  What was I thinking of?

  CHAPTER 21

  Cheesecakes

/>   EMILY: Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?—every, every minute?

  STAGE MANAGER: … The saints and poets, maybe—they do some.

  —Our Town

  Sam is leaning against his desk leafing through a well-worn book when we file in to English class. It’s June, and I feel that old familiar seesaw inside. Worried about finals, excited about vacation, worried about finals, excited about vacation. And this June I’ve also got two weddings and Our Town to think about too.

  I look back at JFK. He winks at me and smiles.

  We’ll have the whole summer together. Just the two of us. Well, as soon as baseball is over, that is.

  When we’re settled at our desks, Sam adjusts his glasses and reads aloud:

  “A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;

  How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.

  I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.”

  My mind wanders, wondering about the little son Sam lost years ago. Did he have Sam’s eyes? That Sam-smile that melts your heart?

  “Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass,” Sam says.

  “Every summer I return to Whitman’s grass and Walden’s pond. And each summer I find new treasures.”

  Sam flips through Leaves of Grass. I know he’s looking for some passage he has circled. It was Sam who taught me always to read a book with a pen in my hand.

  Sam finds what he’s looking for and continues:

  “I celebrate myself, and sing myself,

  ….

  I loafe and invite my soul,

  I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.”

  I look around the room. All eyes are on Sam. It is impossible to be bored or sleepy or distracted when someone is so passionately sharing his joy.

  “This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the water is,

  This is the common air that bathes the globe.

  “‘Bathes the globe,’” Sam repeats. “And this,” Sam says, leaning forward, “this takes my breath away….”