Heart of Glass (12 page)

Although Stanley and I were buddies and spent so much time together just sitting around the tent, I couldn't confide too much in him because of his religion. Sharing my recent sordid past with him—sex, abortion, smoking, ­drinking—seemed inappropriate, and I feared that if he knew the truth about me, he'd judge me in some way or shun me. He wouldn't have done either, but I felt embarrassed about my wanton behavior and found that I often edited myself when I was talking to him. In many ways he was the perfect guy: thoughtful, kind, funny, sweet, and nice looking. But I knew I'd never cut it as a Mormon.
Too bad,
I thought.

The next show was the musical
Camelot
, which Richard
Geer would be directing. I was playing young Wart, pulling the sword out of the stone, and would be in the chorus as a lady-in-waiting, dancing around in a long dress and a wimple. I found a bestie in Barbie, who was playing Guinevere. She was about five years older than me, slender, with ­flaming-red hair and a wicked sense of humor. She was a badass and didn't take any shit from anyone, especially the men in the cast. She hated the guy who played Lancelot so much (he was a pompous windbag and not a great actor) that she took her contacts out before the show so she couldn't see him. Barbie adopted me in a big-sister way, and I was grateful to have a gal pal to hang out with.

One night after
Camelot
had opened, Richard came backstage, again, to give notes in the dressing room. Barbie was tired of his barging in every night, so she just stripped down to her panties—she didn't wear a bra—while he stood there blushing and stuttering. I thought she was awesome. She had a boyfriend who was off somewhere working as an actor. She showed me his picture, a glossy eight-by-ten of him naked except for his mustache and a bow tie. He had one leg up on a chair and was striking a defiant pose for the camera.

She had grown up in Boulder and had a condo in a complex there. We started driving down there on our days off and spending the night and next day there. Since she knew the way well and drove way too fast, we always made good time. We'd whip down the two-lane roads, blasting Grace Jones singing “Pull Up to the Bumper”
with windows down and an open, cold bottle of Moët champagne stuck between
my legs for sustenance. A Steamboat Springs eccentric, a zaftig lesbian lingerie heiress who insisted that we call her S.O.B.—we never knew why—lavished each of the actors with a case of Moët on every opening night, so we were always well stocked.

Barbie and I arrived at the apartment, took a late-night swim in the pool, and flopped into bed. Boulder was a crunchy place, full of Deadheads, flower children, and followers of Jack Kerouac. The Naropa Institute clung to a mountain overlooking the town; an Oxford-educated Buddhist had founded it, and Allen Ginsberg taught poetry there. The town had a grungy, groovy vibe, which normally held no appeal for me, but at least you could buy the
New York Times
, browse at bookstores, and get a decent cup of coffee. Civilization!

I had recently received a summons for my former roommate Harvey's trial, forwarded to me through the mail by Jenny. I called the court from Barbie's apartment, as I had no phone number of my own—Barbie saved me from taking a roll of quarters to a phone booth. The trial was set for late August in New York. I was able to convince the clerk that I didn't know anything about Harvey personally. We didn't hang out—I just rented a room from him, and he gave me a suitcase and a TV. Since I was now in Colorado and wasn't a strong enough witness to be flown in by the government, they released me. It was a relief—I had been worried about testifying against Harvey and seeing him being dragged
away in handcuffs. Also, I had simply nothing to wear on the stand.

Finally, the show in which I had an actual speaking role,
The Importance of Being Earnest
, opened. It was directed by the smart young guy who'd hired me in Minneapolis. Playing the peculiarly charming Cecily was a blast; I wore a blond Gibson-girl wig that made me look like Carol Channing and skipped around frivolously with a paddleball toy. Barbie was playing Gwendolen, and we had such fun sparring during the tea scene that we had difficulty keeping our composure.

Robin arrived in Steamboat a few days after our
Earnest
premiere in the wee hours on a bus from the Denver airport, looking a little green and dazed from her long trip from Boston.

“Thanks for schlepping all the way out here!” I hugged her and grabbed her cotton Gap duffel bag.

“You're welcome,” she slurred, zombielike. “Where the hell am I?”

“The Rocky Mountains, girl.” I made a sweeping tour-guide arm gesture, even though it was dark and we were in a bus station parking lot.

“East Jesus is more like it. Why are you doing theater on the prairie, for God's sake?”

I shrugged. “It's a start, right?”

As it was around four thirty in the morning and eleven thirty in London, we drove over to watch Prince Charles and
Lady Di get married on the little, crappy black-and-white telly in the theater office. We watched in the dark, the TV casting a nearly lunar glow on us as the future princess got out of the coach in front of St. Paul's Cathedral and floated up the red-carpeted aisle, swathed in a cloud of taffeta and lace.

“Wow, that dress looks like it might swallow her up,” Robin said.

“Yeah.” I sighed. “She's the same age as me.”

“And the similarities end there. Jeez, look at that ring! Nice rock.”

We were two girls in the middle of nowhere watching a fairy-tale wedding taking place in a glittering city that we had once called home. It was like everything you'd ever dreamed about in the movies: a shy, lovely young woman plucked from obscurity to marry one of the world's most eligible bachelors. Pure fantasy. The faces of the men we would marry were still a blank. Maybe those guys were out there somewhere, but who knew if we'd ever find them.

My sister took in the play that evening, after we had both had power naps. I could hear her laughter from the audience; she was enjoying herself. Afterward, she sneaked back to the dressing-room tent.

“You were great! What a kooky play.” She smiled at me.

“Thanks. It's fun.” Robbie's support of my acting never wavered. She came to see me wherever I managed to work, and it meant a lot.

I drove her down to the Denver airport, and we popped into a place that looked like a HoJo's, called Denny's, for din
ner before she got on the plane. We sat in a booth, eating club sandwiches and sipping on enormous iced teas loaded with crushed ice, and talked about the future, the fall specifically. She was planning to take some classes at UMass Boston—maybe study the classics or film—she wasn't sure. I guessed I'd head back to New York when the play ended. I told her that Daddy was coming to Steamboat soon.

“That's nice,” she replied.

“It's too bad you'll just miss him.”

“Yeah.”

There was an awkward silence. A wave of guilt swept over me as it dawned on me that perhaps I had Pollyannaishly dragged my sister into reuniting with our father and maybe she hadn't been ready at Christmas. I had been focused on how I'd feel better having her with me. Perhaps I'd unwittingly pushed her into something she didn't want. I had forced my way into Daddy's life, carving out my own space; my sister was different—maybe she didn't feel the connection I'd grabbed on to and embraced. I realized in that moment that whatever relationship Daddy and Robin forged, it would have to be achieved between the two of them, without me. I searched for a way to tell her this, apologize maybe.

But suddenly Robin leaned over the table and said in a low voice, “Don't look up right away, but I think there are policemen outside.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see little black flecks darting around, popping up and down, like in one of those
shooting-gallery carnival games. “Um, I guess we should get the check?”

“Yeah, maybe, before we get taken hostage.”

“Let's just do this.” I pulled a twenty out of my purse and put it on the table.

We rose stealthily and slowly ambled out of the restaurant past about ten cops squatting in the low bushes outside with their guns drawn. Losing our nerve, we squealed and made a break for the parking lot. The officers ignored us, storming into the restaurant. Screams and shouts erupted from the Denny's dining room, followed by silence. Hiding behind my car, I turned to ask a guy crouched down behind a tree next to us what was happening. Apparently an armed gunman had been inside, planning to rob the place, but someone had tipped off the cops. Police and thieves were seemingly never far away from the Lawless sisters. We got into my Honda and drove away.

“Close call,” Robin said as she lit up a cigarette.

•   •   •

My father came to visit and see the show, causing a bit of a stir, as he was a sort of regional-theater celebrity. As everyone crowded around him—the director and some of the other actors—I felt like Jimmy Lawless's daughter for only the second or third time in my life. I wondered if people thought I had some special advantage because of who my father was. No one in the company knew that we'd only recently reunited or that I'd had a crazy-train childhood, in
stead of growing up with him. Unexpectedly, I didn't feel nervous at all knowing he was out in the audience. It gave me a feeling of security—as if he was rooting for me—and made me want to do my best.

At dinner after the show, he told me how relieved he was when I made my entrance and said my first lines. “You can't teach that, you know. You've definitely got ‘it,' kid.”

“Thanks, Daddy,” I gushed.

He told me he had been worried that if I wasn't good, he wouldn't know what to say to me, regaling me with funny stories about going to see friends in shows who were terrible and having to go backstage and say something nice. He'd say, “That was the most amazing thing I've ever seen!” or “Do you do that every night? Incredible!”—not wanting to lie.

“Soon, I'll be known as Wendy Lawless's father!” He laughed, and so did I. I was thrilled that he liked my performance. I had lived up to his expectations and gained his respect as a fellow actor. I was giddy with happiness. He drove off in his big black Buick LeSabre the next day to play Falstaff in
Henry IV, Part 1
in Denver. Someday, I hoped, it might be me going off for a big role somewhere. For now I was happy with his encouragement and just to be working.

At the end of the summer the tent came down, and we all dispersed. Being in a theater company was intense yet fleeting. You quickly became a family with your coworkers, then it was over—and you never knew if you'd see each other again. Some people I'd never want to see again, but others wrote down their contact information on the clipboard that
was passed around on that last day and I promised to write letters or call. Many actors went back to Denver. Barbie returned to her condo in Boulder, where she said I'd always be welcome. Stanley and I caravanned in a torrential rainstorm, following each other's car as far as Kansas City, where we spent the night at a hotel in the Plaza section of town. I remembered staying in this same hotel with my mother and sister while visiting my dying grandfather eight years previously. Stanley and I shared a room, sleeping in separate double beds. The air-conditioning in our room was broken and couldn't be turned off.

“Can I get in with you?” I asked after failing to fall asleep for what felt like ages. “I'm freezing!”

“Sure, Wendell.”

We cuddled spoon-style for warmth beneath the covers, not speaking. I could feel his breath on the back of my neck and a hardness that pressed into my lower back. Politely ignoring the latter, I said good night. We got up before dawn the next morning—he was headed to DC to work at the Arena Stage in the box office, and I was headed back to New York.

“Well, little ole Wendy, you take care.”

“You, too.” I embraced him.

“Let me know where you finally end up.”

“I will. Good luck with your job.”

“Oh, and thanks for the English Beat cassette.”

“Sure, Stanley.”

We got into our cars and drove off on our separate journeys. Watching him in my rearview mirror, I saw Stanley riding toward his new job, his marriage to Old Valerie, and four or five perfectly blond Mormon kids. He had it all figured out: a map of the future. I was driving into the ­unknown—but at least the sun was starting to come up.

chapter six

SPRING AWAKENING

After my stint in Wild West theater, I returned to Manhattan, not knowing where else to go. I moved back into my room at Ninety-seventh Street; it was almost as if Pete and Jenny had it waiting for me. After turning heads in a tiny town in Colorado with my personal style, I needed to work a bit harder to get noticed and stand out in the city. To go along with my spiky do, I took it up a notch by wearing suits and ties. A pair of white Keds high-tops completed the androgynous look that I fancied made me look like little David Bowie.

Some people, though, seemed threatened by my macho style.

“What are you? Some kind of Nazi?” a male friend of Pete's asked me one night at dinner.

I was about to open my mouth when Pete stepped in and quipped, “No, Wend's just feminine—in a butch sort
of way.”

Rodney, my old boss from Barnes & Noble, had vanished, and my job had been filled by some new kid fresh off the bus. Since I couldn't type and acting jobs weren't falling from the skies, I capitalized on my skill set—talking on the phone. I got a job at an Italian deli on Lexington in the Forties, Piatti Pronti. This lunch place catered to office workers in Midtown, and I took the orders for delivery. I thought I could probably make a killing teaching most of the people I talked to how to speak properly. Many were simply unintelligible, squawking into my ear in a thick Queens or Brooklyn accent. Sometimes I had to ask them to repeat or—if it was especially garbled—spell their orders, addresses, and names. It was crazy busy from noon to three, the phone ringing and everyone yelling, and then I was back out on the street, heading home by four.

After work on an especially gorgeous November afternoon, I thought I'd take a nostalgic stroll up Fifth Avenue and maybe take the crosstown bus at Eighty-sixth Street, walking the eleven blocks home. Along the way, I dreamed of my million-dollar idea of teaching speech classes to accent-challenged New Yorkers. I headed west along Forty-second Street past Grand Central Terminal, and turned up Fifth at the stately New York Public Library, with its imposing marble lions, Patience and Fortitude, keeping sentry at the steps. I peered through the glass front of Scribner's bookstore, with its ornate beaux arts ironwork and vaulted ceilings, looking like a place far too serious for me to go inside. Just past Saks Fifth Avenue, I could see the opulent neo-Gothic
spires of St. Patrick's Cathedral, where my sister and I had once watched on television our mother, swathed in her mink and sporting a dramatic fluttery, black chiffon head scarf and Persol sunglasses, mount the steps to attend Senator Robert Kennedy's memorial service. I was looking in the windows of Saks, contemplating going inside to breathe in the high-end-department-store smell of leather and fresh lipstick, when I ran into Nina Franco, who was on her way out, clutching one of the store's classy taupe shopping bags with the curly script.

I had met Nina the summer I was seventeen, at a small theater in New Hampshire, the Peterborough Players, where we were both apprentices. I had been very much in awe of her; she was outspoken and accomplished and had a serious boyfriend, who was the youngest actor in the Equity company. Nina was a few years older than me and had recently graduated from NYU undergrad. She was brainy, spoke at least two languages besides English, and was well connected in the New York theater world.

“Omigod! Hi, Wendy Lawless!” Nina gave me a big hug. She was about five feet tall, in heels, with perfectly streaked, long brunette hair, and her nose was just a little too big for her face, which kept her from looking like any other pretty girl from the Upper East Side. She had a lovely smile and perfect teeth.

“Hi, Nina!”

“I just got out of Georgette Klinger on Madison and was doing a little shopping. How are you?”

Nina was the first person I'd ever known who claimed to go regularly to get her blackheads sucked out at Georgette Klinger, the first fancy facial spa in Manhattan, opened by a Czech beauty queen who'd fled the Nazis and who used to make beauty creams in her kitchen before she opened her first salon. Nina dressed well, and dramatically, all in black, making her look like a chic imp. If I was thrift shop, Nina was definitely Saks.

“I still remember how amazing you were in that Tennessee Williams play.”

Nina was referring to the apprentice production at the end of the summer where I got to be in
This Property Is Condemned
, the story of a young girl walking down some railroad tracks, haunted by the death of her beautiful older sister. It was a great part, and I had gotten some compliments from the actors in the company who had attended the show.

“Thanks, Nina. Gosh, what are you up to?” I noticed her face looked all dewy and blemish-free.

“I'm directing an Equity showcase, and I'm casting it right now. I can't believe I ran into you because you'd be perfect for it. Are you available?”

I was almost always available. I nodded at Nina.

“This is amazing. Come the day after tomorrow, say around six p.m.—here's the address.” She scribbled on a scrap of paper from her purse.

“Wow, really? Thanks! Oh, what's the play?”

“It's
Spring Awakening
. Wedekind. Do you know it?”

I nodded eagerly. Nina was an intellectual, so of course
I had never heard of the play. But I didn't want her to know that.

“I can't believe I ran into you today. It's like it was meant to be! See you soon.” And she was gone, clicking away down the street in her black, high-heeled boots surrounded by a swirl of orange fall leaves as they flew off the trees.

I ran past St. Patrick's and Cartier to Fifty-third Street, jumped on the E train, and got off at Port Authority. I booked it across Forty-second Street praying that the Drama Book Shop in Times Square would still be open and have a copy of the play. I raced up the narrow staircase to the second floor and breathlessly asked the oily-haired clerk at the register which section Wedekind's
Spring Awakening
would be in.

“That's gonna be in German expressionism. All the way in the back,” he said without even looking up from his copy of
Backstage
.

I found the play, bought it, and started to read it on my way back to Jenny and Pete's on the train. The play was dark, incredibly sad, and filled with all kinds of taboo stuff—rape, masturbation, flagellation, abortion, homosexuality, and suicide. It was about this group of German teen­agers living in a small village in the 1800s whose parents keep them completely ignorant about sex, with disastrous results. The kids are also under huge pressure at school, where they have to be at the top of their class or be expelled or become garbage collectors. I could see the appeal for Nina—it was out there. The play was scary and weird and had a heightened quality of theatricality
and otherworldliness. I wondered what part I'd be reading for.

Two days later, I sat in a dingy basement hallway on Tenth Avenue outside the rehearsal room where the auditions were taking place. I was reading for the part of Wendla—the lead—but I was sure that all the young women were reading that part. There were four girls, school friends, in the play—I figured Nina was considering casting me in one of those roles, if I got lucky. There were some older actors there, too, in their late twenties maybe, and I wondered if any of her Yalie pals were here; I probably didn't have a chance of getting in the show.

I briefly thought about just fleeing, running out the door. I was super nervous; this seemed so much more serious than performing in a tent in a small mountain town, which I now felt almost embarrassed about. But I desperately wanted to impress Nina. They called my name and I went in and hoped they wouldn't notice my hands were trembling. The actor who'd already been cast as the leading boy, Melchior, was reading with me.

“Let's do Wendla and Melchior's first scene together.” Nina nodded at us. “Start when you feel ready.”

We did the scene; Wendla is very trusting and innocent. She has a crush on Melchior, but in a schoolgirl way—she's only fourteen. It seemed to be going well when Nina stopped us about halfway through.

“Good. Now, I'd like you to improvise the rest of the scene. Just put your scripts down and use your own words.”

I was terrified—I'd never improvised anything before, except my own life. I looked at the other actor, hoping he would say or do something first. Wendla, I realized, wants to know what it's like to suffer—something she's never experienced in her happy, placid, sheltered childhood. Then, I had an impulse; I picked a script up off the floor and smacked myself across my legs with it.

“Hit me!” I felt as if this weird energy had taken me over. I slapped him on the chest with the script.

He grabbed the script away and then gingerly tapped me.

“That didn't hurt at all. Hit me harder, Melchior.” I beat on his chest with my hands. I shouted, “Harder!” Then I pushed him.

He brought his hand high above his head, as if he were going to strike me hard. Then he froze. He looked at Nina and smiled as I held my breath.

“That was great, guys!” Nina beamed. “Wendy, I want you to play Wendla.”

“Really?” I couldn't believe it—I had faked my way through the audition, and it had worked.

“Yes—what do you say?”

I stood there for a minute, dumbfounded, then managed to squeeze out, “Uh . . . sure.”

“Fantastic! We'll start next week.”

We would be rehearsing at night, so people could go to their day jobs or make their other auditions. We were to rehearse for about four weeks, then perform for two weeks at a church on the Lower East Side Nina had snagged. She'd
called in favors all over town so we'd have sets, costumes, lighting—just like a professional production. It would even have original music, scored by one of Nina's composer friends. There was no pay, but we'd be given subway tokens to go back and forth and an occasional dinner-break delivery from the corner deli on late nights. I ran home to tell Pete and Jenny.

“Yeah for you, sweetie! You did it!” Jenny gave me a big hug and a kiss.

“Awesome, Wend,” said Pete with the sweet smile that displayed his Indian-corn teeth. Their love and support was palpable and meant the world to me, and I felt so fortunate to have my little family in my corner, cheering for me. They assured me that they would be there opening night. Jenny and Pete were the best.

The cast and crew of
Spring Awakening
started ­rehearsals—­
I felt a little intimidated by the other actors, all of whom had some kind of formal training, which I did not. I was playing a tragic, sexually confused, insecure young girl. So I pranced around onstage scantily clad in my underwear, playing a version of myself. I found my last scene, before I die of a botched abortion offstage, especially painful to perform. I cried every time we did it, thinking of the baby I'd aborted the year before and whom I would never know. It may have looked like acting, but that pain was real and never far from the surface. I couldn't stop those tears.

Usually after rehearsals, the cast and crew went to a dive blues bar called Dan Lynch's nearby on Thirteenth Street
for a few drinks. Sometimes, Earl and Clyde, two African American janitors in their late sixties, came along with us to throw back a couple of beers after they closed up the church for the night.

One night, a group of us straggled into the bar through its beaten-up wooden saloon doors, the only light inside coming from the neon beer signs that hung in the window. The air was moist with sweat and smelled like cat pee and watered-down drinks. I was dancing by myself to a guitar player named, improbably, B. B. King Jr., and his band, while the cast and crew hung out at the bar. B.B. was ripping his guts out on the stage and singing in a guttural howl through the wall of cigarette smoke. Clyde sauntered up and started dancing with me. I turned toward him—he was an amazing dancer.

“You can't dance by yourself, girl,” he shouted in my ear. I turned to him and we became a couple. He had so much style and cool; his moves were fluid and matched the music. I was sort of pogoing, the popular club dance of the moment. I was such a white girl.

“You're an incredible dancer, Clyde,” I yelled back. He smiled, mopping his face with a crumpled bar napkin.

“You want to know my secret?”

I nodded, running my hand over my scalp and wiping it on my skirt.

“Listen to the music and dance to one instrument at a time.” I watched him do it—he switched from following the guitar, to the bass, to the drums—stepping around the floor
like a man less than half his age. I tried to copy him, but he felt the music in his body in a way I just didn't.

From the dance floor, I saw Nina's brother, Lincoln—an artist who was doing the sets—sitting at one of the tables, looking at me intently. I had noticed him before, but he was usually immersed in painting and hammering. He was a big guy, barrel-chested, with a strong face that was handsome, but you could tell he couldn't care less about shit like that. That he didn't care made him seem sexy to me. He had a rumpled Julian Schnabel–esque aura about him, a kind of bad-boy thing. It was real—he wasn't pretending to be a hard-drinking, wild-haired, paint-spattered artist—he really was. I'd heard he had a live-in girlfriend and that sometimes he got so drunk he fell down. All that just made him more alluring to me. He had never looked my way—until now.

The set ended, I thanked Clyde for the dance—he nodded and smiled, moving off to where he'd left his beer—and I went over to the bar to order a bourbon. Lincoln sauntered over and stood next to me. He ground out his cigarette in the ashtray and lit another, exhaling the smoke from his nostrils in a heavy plume.

“Hi,” I said. I climbed onto a barstool and sipped my drink, trying to play it cool.

“Hi.”

I recrossed my legs, showing off my black tights, short, black tube skirt, and the baggy, long, emerald-green sweater I'd bought in a Boston thrift store. He studied my legs, and
then, seeing a hole in my tights, put his finger there, rubbing it around on my bare skin. He just kept looking at me, with no expression. His actions did the talking.