Acts of Love (45 page)

“Monday afternoon for Augie Mack, the scene designer. I'm still talking to a couple of lighting guys; give me till next week on that. I'll let you know what time for the Drama Theater, probably this weekend, early in the
A.M.,
before the tours of the Opera House begin. Do you have any idea how much you've changed since we first met?”

Jessica looked up from her list. “Changed? How?”

“How, she says. Listen to you. All of a sudden you're all put together; you know what you want and how to get it, or to get other people to get it for you. I'm very impressed. Particularly since I think I played a small but meaningful part in getting you out of those dumps you were in.”

“You did.” Jessica smiled. “And now I'm ordering you around. I apologize.”

“Don't. I like decisive people. Now, here's my list of things to do. Oh, by the way, will you be home at seven-thirty?”

“Yes.”

“Good. That's when the fax machine arrives.”

Dear Luke, here is my fax number. I'm about to go out so I won't write now, but this weekend I'll tell you all about
Journeys End.
We have a cast and we're on our way. Jessica.

Dearest Jessica, here's
my
fax number.
The Magician
is sold out through March, which makes everyone very happy. Monte no longer worries about what he calls its “ultimate success”; as far as he's concerned, we've made it and he's looking around for another play. I've just given him Kent's new one, all three acts, though we agree the third still needs a lot of work. Would you like to read it now or when he's finished with the revisions?

I spent the weekend at Monte and Gladys's place on Kiawah Island (as big as their place in Amagansett). The beach is just outside, with joggers at all times of day and night, and, when everyone is asleep, only the sounds of the waves to break the silence. It was a lot of space and a lot of silence for one person and I thought about you all weekend. You would have enjoyed the conversations and the people. It was a weekend when all the vacation homes were filled with couples and I was more aware than ever of how the world prefers partners; how it subtly nudges to the side single people who, among many logistical problems, remind others that they, too, may be alone one of these days—and who wants to be reminded of that?

I hope I don't sound self-pitying. I enjoyed Monte and Gladys, but I did miss you. Congratulations on finishing your casting; do you have photos of your four people? Tell me about them. And about yourself. All my love, Luke.

P.S. I note from the time of your fax that you were getting ready to go out at about eight p.m. Are you having a busy social life?

Dear Luke, I went to dinner with one of our cast members, who is taking a leave of absence as assistant director of the university drama department. I plucked him from a group of students he was leading through the Wharf and it may be a gamble that fails, but what a triumph for him and us if it works]

It's late Monday afternoon now, very hot and humid, but in my living room it's blessedly cool and quiet. Today we had our first read-through, so I can tell you about that and the cast at the same time.

She wrote steadily for an hour, adding to her descriptions many of her ideas for staging the play. It was like thinking aloud; like talking to herself. It was like writing to Constance.

Thank you for listening to all this. Writing helps me make sense of all the parts that make up a play. I never realized how many thousands of details directors have to remember and make time for. I'm learning so much that sometimes it seems I'll burst from the sheer mass of it, but then I think of writing to you and putting it all in order and that's enough to make everything seem manageable again. Aren't faxes amazing? It's the closest thing to a conversation. Jessica.

Dearest Jessica, a telephone would be closer. All my love, Luke.

The telephone rang. “Jessica, it's Edward. Will you have dinner with me tonight?”

“No, I don't think . . . I'd rather stay home tonight, Edward. I'm sorry.”

“Tomorrow night, then. One more dinner before rehearsals begin. I'm afraid of a lot of things changing after that.”

There was a pause. “All right, then, tomorrow night.”

“I'll come by for you as usual. Eight o'clock?”

“Yes.”

As usual.
After only one dinner together, he was trying to push her into a shared history. She liked him; she was drawn to him and enjoyed his company, but now she felt pressured and she reached for the telephone to tell him she could not go with him tomorrow night, either. But then she glanced at the one-sentence letter that had come that day from Luke. Everyone pushes, she thought. Everyone wants at least some degree of control. And dinner with Edward will be pleasant.

Dear Luke, I prefer the fax. Jessica

Edward drove, his face stern as he dealt with traffic, and they went to Bilson's, on the upper level of the International Passenger Terminal at Circular Quay. The restaurant, sleek in silver, black and gray, with a single flower on each table, made Jessica think of a stage set with the harbor as a dramatic background. Edward had reserved a table beside the wraparound windows that gave a panoramic view of the Opera House, the single steel span of the Harbor Bridge, and the bustle of boats trailing foamy white wakes across the choppy water. Below, lovers and families strolled on the Quay, stopping to watch slack rope walkers and mimes, a woodworker building models of sailing ships, and tourists lined up to board a paddle-wheel showboat with a jazz band playing on the upper deck. Daylight faded as Edward and Jessica ate, and the lights of Sydney came on, outlining the bridge and the city's skyscrapers, illuminating the sail-like roof of the Opera House, and casting a pale glow on the water that was reflected in the restaurant's silvered ceiling.

Looking up at ripples that seemed to be moving above them, through the windows and out to sea, Jessica smiled. “I feel like a mermaid. Or at least my idea of one. What a good set this would make.”

Edward waved the waiter away and refilled their wineglasses himself. “Maybe you'll use it in your next play.”

“Maybe.” She smiled again, familiar now with his attempts to get her to talk about herself. At their first dinner she had turned all their conversation back to him, always having a new question or comment ready when one of his answers began to wind down. She knew now about his family in Canada, his brothers and sisters, his father's career as a concert pianist and sudden death from a heart attack when Edward was sixteen. “My mother married again and we felt betrayed: a wedding less than a year after our father's death, and a stranger in the house. In fact, he was good to us and we had a good home, but we all left, one at a time, as soon as we graduated high school. Three of us went to college; the others found jobs in Toronto, Detroit and Los Angeles. We've never been together again.”

“You must miss them.”

“Not at all. Once in a while I miss knowing that people are somewhere close, but that's a weakness I try to conquer; a throwback to a time when I was young and wanted someone around to listen if I had a complaint or a problem. I suppose most people spend their lives searching for that, but I stopped long ago.”

“Because you found it in the theater. Isn't that what you mean? That's as close to a family as you'll find. You haven't been married?”

“Once. We're still friends, but she's in Canada, and neither of us is any good at writing letters. Well, the theater. I'm not really in it, you know; at least I wasn't until now.”

“But you said you'd acted in Canada.”

“Not in major theaters.”

“But still, that feeling of sharing, of creating something in harmony, don't you take pleasure in that when you have it?”

“I don't know. It seems that I'm a very poor sharer. There's so much at stake when you open yourself to criticism—”

“It might be admiration.”

“Possibly, but not likely. Most people find things in me to criticize. That's not a complaint; I understand what they see. I'm not smooth or sophisticated or witty; I hoard my emotions; I usually see the dark side of things. My mother said I was a nice kid who measured my life in empty rooms and roads I walk alone.”

Jessica caught her breath.
“Is
that how you measure your life?”

“Mostly. I'm good with students, so I don't qualify as a hermit; it's just that I have no real intimacy. But that's not a complaint, either. We do the best we can with our lives and usually it's enough to make us moderately happy. I'm telling you more than I've ever told anyone; you're a good listener and you don't give the impression that you'll take advantage of any of this.”

“Advantage?
Good Lord, why would I?”

“People do, usually for power.”

At that, she had changed the subject, not wanting to linger in his bleak landscape. But now, sitting across from him at Bilson's, she led him to talk about it again. “Where is your mother?” she asked.

“She and her husband bought a condo in San Diego. They like being warm.”

“You don't see them at all?”

“Not for years. And we don't correspond; everything seems much too long and complicated to put down on paper. Some of us telephone now and then, but we've drifted so far apart that we find ourselves talking about the weather. I don't even think of them as part of my life anymore; they're something left behind, like people I've met and apartments I've lived in. And that's fine; I don't need them and they show no signs of needing me. The truth is, I've been satisfied to be alone all my life; I find it hard to give what people seem to need, so everything ends in unhappiness. I'm best at my work, where there's always a distance between people and there's no confusion about where we belong or how we're supposed to treat each other. I'm content with that.”

Jessica contemplated him, thinking that he made her life of the past few years seem like a joyous social whirl. “I think in some ways you're very courageous, and I admire that, but I think you need people more than you admit. Why else would you ask me to dinner?”

“I asked you to dinner because your eyes are magnificent and I wanted to look at them for a long time. Why are
you
here?”

“To listen to extravagant praise.”

“Why do you fend me off when I ask you questions about yourself?”

“Because I want to talk about you. How can you be an actor when you're so alone? Actors learn by being part of the world. You've been alone since high school.”

“Except for the small blip of a marriage that lasted six months. Yes, but I do look at people, I analyze them in my mind, I think about them. The only thing I don't do is get close to them.”

“Poor man,” Jessica said softly.

He reached across the table and covered her hand with his. “You mustn't pity me. Especially now, when I have you to talk to. Thank you for being so understanding; I haven't felt this comfortable with anyone in years. You're an amazing woman, mysterious, fascinating, sensitive—” He stopped. “You'll call that extravagant praise.”

“Yes,” she said, but she did pity him, and admire his honesty, and the warmth of his hand on hers was enough to make her body stir and open to feelings she had tried to clamp off as soon as Luke left, and so her voice was soft, and she let her hand stay where it was.

“I want to see a lot of you,” he said. “As much as possible. We've made such a fine beginning . . . I'm worried about what will happen when we begin rehearsals.”

Jessica felt a flash of annoyance. She pulled her hand away. “We'd better talk about the play before we go any further. If we don't agree on that, we don't agree on anything.”

His face folded into the long, melancholy lines it had had when she first saw him. He dragged his hand back to his lap. “You're going to tell me the play comes before everything.”

“In just those words. I'd like you to feel that way, too.”

“How can I, when I've just found you? No, don't frown, please, Jessica, please listen. It's true that I can be alone—that I
am
alone—but when I'm with you, even after such a short time, it's as if I've found an anchor. I'm usually afraid of getting close to people, but you make me feel at ease, with myself, with the world. I never meant to say the play isn't important, but I'd throw it away in a minute if I thought it would destroy what we have.”

“We have very little,” she said coolly. “Two dinners, which hardly adds up to a passionate love affair. Edward, this play means everything to me. If I fail . . . Well, I can't fail. This has to be my success, the kind of success I can build on, and nothing can distract me from that. I'm glad we're friends, but I won't go beyond that. Not yet.”

He hesitated, then nodded brusquely. “Whatever you want.” He signaled to the waiter. “Check, please.”

“I'm not ready to go,” Jessica said calmly. “I'd like another cup of coffee. And cognac.” She struggled with pity and arousal and annoyance. She knew he saw this as a rejection—and there had obviously been many in his life or he would not so vehemently have made a virtue of solitude—and she wanted to bring back the smile that had briefly lightened his face. She wished for his hand on hers, again; the warmth, the weight of a man close to her, wanting her. The trouble was, when she contemplated going to bed with him, her thoughts skidded away, straight to Luke, to every moment they had spent together, in bed and out. But I wouldn't sleep with Edward anyway, she thought, not as long as he acts like a child who's pouting because he can't have what he wants at the exact moment he wants it. He'll be good in the play—he'll be terrific if he works at it—and that's all I want from him. At least for now.