Only in the Movies (16 page)

It was Pelletier’s turn to take a deep breath. She plastered on an I’m-patient-and-understanding look. “Your notice of appeal”—she lifted the pages I had written—“talks about
your
grade.”

“Yes.”

She smiled. “So …”

“But Mr. Panofsky, when he gave me the grade, was careful to emphasize that I was responsible for everything that occurred ‘once the theatre doors opened’—I think those were your exact words. Right, sir?”

Panofsky flushed. “Well, yes. Or words to that effect.”

I let that go. “Thank you. I am here as stage manager. I’m speaking for the whole production. Not for myself.”

To my surprise, the Vulture gave a barely noticeable nod.

“Point one,” I began, working hard to be calm and not speak too quickly, “another teacher, who isn’t here today, gave the musical composition and performance an A+.”

Something interesting seemed to be happening with the panel of judges. Their unified front looked shaky. The Vulture was hard to read. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, although I didn’t have the impression he was against me. Panofsky’s wide eyes and body language told me he was lost, still trying to catch up with me. Pelletier, by the half-amused look in her eye, seemed to sense what I was up to.

“The musicians are under the auspices of the music program,” Panofsky sputtered.

“They were part of the production,” I reminded him. “Alba directed them at rehearsals, and I cued them for the performance.”

I paused. Panofsky looked at his hands, clinching his fingers tighter. The Vulture nodded again.

“Go on, Jake,” the principal said.

“Vanni received a first-class evaluation, which, I know, didn’t count as a grade. But Mr. Panofsky made a point of mentioning it. Vanni was also part of the production.”

I stopped again. I had come to the hard part.

“How can the production be first-class and a failure at the same time? Okay, the performance didn’t go as planned. I can’t explain what happened without intruding in private business, but—”

“Jake,” Pelletier cut in, her voice quiet and even, “the whole school probably knows about Alba and Chad. Certainly the three of us do. You’re not uncovering any secrets here.”

“Okay, let’s say they had a spat,” I conceded.

“More like a seismic catastrophe!” Panofsky said with a sneer. “And they positively ruined the performance! You simply
cannot
treat Shakespeare in that manner! Especially here at York. This is a school for the arts. That sort of adolescent tantrum might be allowable in an … an
ordinary
school, but we have professional standards. Our graduates—”

“Just hold it right there, sir,” I said. I was about to stray from the point I was making, but I didn’t care. “School for the arts or not, this isn’t the professional theatre, and we’re not middle-aged actors and musicians and artists. Alba and Chad fell apart and—at least according to you—ruined the performance. But isn’t that what a school is supposed to be—a place where we can screw up and make a mess of things and still be safe? And learn from our mistakes? You’re supposed to get us
ready
for the professional world, not
be
the professional world.”

“But—”

“Alba has phenomenal talent. You know that better than I do. Chad is really good too. In the rehearsals they were terrific. I know. I was there for all of it. The grade they got from this school will probably ruin their chances to get into a college theatre program that can match their potential. And what was the reason they fell apart during the performance? They were in love!”

“That has nothing to do with it! It’s irrelevant to the issue,” Panofsky exclaimed, red-faced.

“With your permission.”

I had almost forgotten him in the heat of the argument, but the Vulture had finally spoken, and his tone of voice chilled the room. He nodded to each of his colleagues. “Ms. Pelletier. Mr. Panofsky.”

He paused. His lids lowered and returned to their places. “You say, sir,” he said, his raptor eyes on Panofsky, his words rumbling out of him like empty barrels rolling off a wagon, “that love has nothing to do with it. If you examine our literature program, if you investigate every novel, play, short story, poem, you will find that a very large number—perhaps most—are about love. Love, like life, informs all the arts. Why do we teach these works if we believe they have no relevance? Why put love, as it were, on the curriculum, with all its passionate, tragic, comical, exhilarating and, yes, messy manifestations—and then deny it, pretend it doesn’t matter when it appears in the lives of our students? Romeo and Juliet were teenagers, as was Ophelia. And Alba and Chad were enacting a scene that is famous for its brilliant presentation of a conflict of wills that is part of a courtship. At the same time they were struggling to cope with the admittedly untidy presence of love in their own lives. And
they managed by some deep sense of dedication to their art to make it through the scene without damaging each other and without—I said it at our first evaluation meeting, and I’ll say it again now—with
out
ruining Shakespeare’s play. They brought it to life. The audience, who ought to be the real judges of the performance, were thrilled.”

Locheed paused and seemed to reach inside himself for something. “And is this panel going to repeat its judgment that Jake and his colleagues
failed
?”

He stopped again and calmed himself. “Let us not treat literature as if it were a dead thing at the bottom of a museum showcase. I see no reason to continue this hearing. I call for a vote. I move that Alba, Chad and Jake be given an A+.”

Pelletier was taken by surprise. “Mr. Locheed, you can’t—”

“I already have. I have called for a vote.”

“I second the motion,” I said.

“Jake, be quiet,” Pelletier snapped. “You can’t second it. It’s not a legal motion, and you have no standing.”

“Okay, then, I vote for Mr. Locheed.”

“Shut up!” Panofsky shouted.

“Let’s remain calm, please,” Pelletier urged. “Jake, if you have nothing to add, perhaps you’d excuse us.”

I looked at Locheed. How he nodded to me without nodding, I don’t know, but he did. I got to my feet.

Before I closed the door behind me, the voices rose like sparrows bursting from a hedge.

L
ONG BEFORE
I
LEARNED TO HAMMER
a nail into a board without bending it or to saw a straight line, my father taught me never to get personal with a client. He meant that even when a customer is unhappy with you, or you’re working for someone you don’t like very much, you don’t let those feelings get in the way of your craft. You put the same effort into the job. Your pride in your trade is what motivates you, he told me many times, not money or praise.

So when Pelletier gave me my next assignment a couple of days after the hearing, I put my resentment aside and accepted the job with as much grace as I could scrape together. She and Call-Me-Saul had sketched a rough set design for the school’s finale show,
The Pirates of Penzance
. It was meant to suggest the deck of a sailing ship without being too realistic. Panofsky wanted to place the musical in a more modern context, he explained. I wasn’t familiar with
Pirates
, so I didn’t really know
what he was getting at, but I nodded wisely. It took a day or two to work up a proper layout and then get Pelletier’s and Panofsky’s approval before I got down to the construction.

The call for auditions had gone out by then. Because of the
Shrew
disaster, Alba and Chad were allowed to try for only minor roles. Alba had accepted the ruling. Chad had cursed, then swanned off, saying he had better things to do anyway.

I toiled away alone in the school’s workshop, wearing my yellow safety hat and my steel-toed boots, measuring, cutting, nailing, immersed in the hollow whine of the exhaust fan and the odour of fresh sawdust. On my third day, as I was crosscutting a length of spruce with a handsaw, a voice broke through the fan’s noise.

“Hey, stranger! Time for a break.”

I looked up to see Vanni at the shop door, a couple of takeout cups in her hands, her carryall slung over one shoulder.

“I’ll meet you onstage.” Without waiting for a reply, she ducked back out the door.

I finished cutting the board, took off my apron and tossed it onto the bench, then shook the sawdust out of my pant cuffs. I locked the shop and walked down the hall to the theatre door. Crossing the backstage area, I found Vanni on the main stage of the darkened auditorium. Dressed in a loose-fitting dress and open cardigan, she was sitting on the proscenium, feet dangling over the edge. She looked back over her shoulder when she heard me approach.

“Double-shot cappuccino for the hired help, chai for the writer,” she announced, handing me a cup. “From the Blue Note.”

I sat down beside her and pried off the lid. The coffee was still hot. “Thanks,” I said. “You’re an angel.”

“True enough,” she replied.

There was an energy coming off her, although she couldn’t have looked more relaxed. Her shoes dangled off the ends of her feet and she was leaning back on one arm, sipping her drink. I waited. Finally, she put down her cup, pulled her tote bag closer and removed a small oblong package wrapped in brown paper.

Holding it out to me, her eyes bright with excitement, she said, “For you. As promised.”

“What is it?” I asked, breaking the taped seal and removing the paper. It was a small, thin hard-bound book covered in green cloth. “Water Beads” was printed in gold on the front, and under it, “Pentameter Press.”

“Your book,” I said, turning it over in my hands.

“Partly my book. I contributed five of the fifty poems—and the title.”

“I’ll think of it as yours anyway.”

“It’s yours now. Open it.”

On the title page Vanni had written, “ To Jake,” and under that, “
Like gold to aery thinness beat
,” and under that, “Love, Vanni,” with the date.

“Thanks, Vanni. And congratulations. It’s beautiful.”

“You’re welcome, and thank you,” she replied.

“What does this mean?” I asked, pointing to the quotation.

“That’s for you to find out. It’s from a poem.”

I opened the book, flipped a few pages. “One of yours?”

Vanni smiled. “No, someone else wrote that line. John Donne.”

“I’m proud of you,” I said, and she smiled again, wider this time.

We sat quietly for a while, sipping our drinks and looking out over the ranks of empty seats ascending into the gloom of the auditorium.

“You’ve seemed kind of low these days,” Vanni remarked.

“I guess I’ve had a lot on my mind.”

“Still waiting to hear from Pelletier?”

“No, that’s not it.”

“Some things to work out?”

“Sort of.”

We were silent for a moment.

“Aren’t we a pair,” Vanni sighed.

I didn’t reply. Vanni’s tone of voice was unusual for her. The indirect irony, the edge were gone.

“We have something in common,” she said.

“We have lots—”

“We’re each of us in love with someone we can’t be with.”

Even though I was accustomed to Vanni’s mental leaps, this one took me by surprise. She hardly ever talked about my feelings for Alba, and had never admitted she loved her too. My passion for Alba had disappeared, but Vanni didn’t know that.

I thought about how lonely it must be for Vanni. Lots of people accepted gays and lesbians—maybe most people, at least those our age. Even so, it must be hard to find someone to be with. And there was always the possibility you’d end up in a quandary like Vanni’s, in love with a girl who was straight, who must have seemed as if she was on the far shore of a river, impossible to reach.

“In the movies,” I mused, “love solves everything. The sun goes down, the music fades and everybody’s happy.”

“But in life, love complicates things.”

“Yeah.”

“Will you always love her?” Vanni asked softly, still looking into the darkened theatre.

I thought long and hard before I replied.

“I don’t love her. I only thought I did.”

Vanni’s head snapped around, her eyes searching mine. “What do you mean?”

I cleared my throat. I hadn’t planned this. I wasn’t sure how to proceed.

“There’s a story there,” I said, trying a smile.

Her eyes, deadly serious, fixed me like arrows. “Tell it. The long version.”

“I didn’t intend to say anything.”

“Spit it out, Jake.”

“Remember the day I got the phone call telling me my dad was sick?”

She nodded.

“Mom told me it was his heart. On the way to the hospital, in the taxi, I thought, He could die. He might even be dead by the time I get there. I was terrified. I’d never felt so alone in my life. I wished I had someone with me, just to be there. But it wasn’t Alba I thought of.”

I swallowed hard.

“It was you.”

I heard a sharp intake of breath. Vanni turned her head toward the empty theatre again. I rushed ahead, anxious to get it all out before I lost my nerve.

“And while Mom and I waited in the Emergency room, after we’d heard he was going to be okay, well, the happiness and relief were like a small explosion inside me. I ached to talk to someone, to share the good news. I took out my
cellphone and without even thinking about it started to key in a number, but then I remembered you can’t use cells in the hospital. The thing is, Vanni, the number I entered was yours.”

Vanni had begun to cry. She sat quietly on the edge of the proscenium, hands tucked under her legs, and tears trickled slowly down her cheeks.

“I’m aware that it’s impossible,” I continued, “and I’m sorry to upset you this way. I realize we can only be friends, but you know what? You’re my best friend, and I’m okay with that.”

Suddenly, Vanni launched herself over the edge of the stage, landing on her feet with a jolt. She spun around and grabbed her carryall, knocking over her chai. She was crying full out now, her shoulders heaving, her face red and hot and wet with tears.

“I’ve got to go,” she blurted between sobs.

“Don’t. I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I shouldn’t have—”