Regeneration X (25 page)

I had to tell her nothing has changed. But, how can I be the same without feeling false? How can I not worry if she’s thinking morbid thoughts? How do I not watch her for signs? How do I keep acting the same, telling her my problems, which are petty by comparison, when she’s struggling to want to live?

Every time I looked at her, I worried. Every time I spoke, I was self-conscious. She noticed and said she was going to give me a week to snap out of it. I laughed and asked, “Or what?”

She laughed, too, and said she was going to call Michael and ask him one pertinent question: whether he’d be okay with me dating Miles. If I was going to make her regret having told me, then she was going to have to express her concerns as well, with an intervention in kind. “I’m worried about you, too. Now there’s a good girl,” she chided.

“You’re twisted, lady.” But as you can imagine, my blatherings resumed shortly thereafter.

Chapter Twenty-two

I fear’d he did but trifle,

And meant to wreck thee; but, beshrew my jealousy!

By heaven, it is as proper to our age

To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions

As it is common for the younger sort

To lack discretion.

—William Shakespeare,
Hamlet (2.1)

・
・
・

PARKER HASN’T SPOKEN TO ME FOR NEARLY two weeks. I hadn’t seen him for more than a few minutes outside of class, either. I’ve tried a number of times to meet his eyes if we pass one another, but he’s always conveniently looking away; his peripheral vision must be excellent. He’s so much like Michael—rather passive. And even though his anger was palpable when we spoke, it was tempered, again very like my husband’s.

It’s ironic. No matter where a person is in life, he or she attracts the same type of lover, over and over.
 

Parker is also undramatic, preferring to keep our problems private. Every time our group goes to the Swan he comes up with some excuse why he can’t make it. Some of the others have asked me what was wrong or if he’s said anything to me. I try to be noncommittal in my reply, keeping my head down to dodge the glares of self-interest. I’m sure some of the group are interested if only for the drama, pun intended, like Mel and Alex, who are a bit more prone to the sensational than Sima and Robert. Annabelle is somewhere in the middle, and I am sure she and Mel had a lust for more than just gossip when it came to Parker. You’d only have to see him once to know there was going to be competition from the beginning. If I were the competing type, I would have had to sprint and keep on running. I decided I would let him relay the happy news that I was no longer in the race.

Parker seemed to come around little by little. In our Improv class, our instructor Fenton Stern asked us to write out a simple memory from childhood and bring it with us to the next class. We were not to share this memory with our classmates prior to our next session. Easy peasy. Not quite, since while I’ve had plenty of practice regurgitating the past, retrieving memories was an undertaking. Just when I thought the need for this was over, it wasn’t.

I’m happy to say however, what we did with the memory was both amazing and rewarding. We talked a bit about play structures and instructions, and then took the remainder of the first half of our class time to rewrite our chosen memories into play script format. In the second half, we reenacted those memories. While we played ourselves, our classmates improvised as other characters in our memory. Parker took on the role of my uncle in the following scene:

SCENE:
It is December in Chicago on a Saturday morning. UNCLE JOHN, CHARLEY, and JEN are seated at the dining table having breakfast. AUNT VIV and CHARLEY’S MOM are milling around the kitchen.

UNCLE JOHN:
Let’s go to the city to see the Christmas tree, what do you say?

JEN and CHARLEY:
Yay! (excited)

CHARLEY’S MOM:
It’s very cold, so we’ll have to bundle you up really well. (Charley’s Mom wraps a scarf around Charley’s neck and snaps the collar of her coat hood, also slipping mittens on her hands and snow boots on her feet.)

AUNT VIV:
(Bundles up Jen likewise in a coat, gloves, boots, and scarf.)

SCENE:
In a sedan UNCLE JOHN is driving. CHARLEY and JEN are shuffled in the back seat of the car where they sit stiffly in silence, looking out at the city through the car windows. The car is warm and stuffy. Reaching the city, they park some distance away from State Street where the Christmas tree is displayed. In the wide medians between lanes of traffic there is ice and crushed acorns or some kind of husk-like ground cover. The curbs of the streets are lined with mounds snow and ice, and there are traces of white outlines marking previously salted areas.

CHARLEY:
(Stomps on the husks crunching ice and acorns under her boots.)

UNCLE JOHN:
Where’s your nose?

CHARLEY:
(Puts a mittened hand up to her face) My nothe, it’s gowne. It’s fallen ofth! Begins to frantically search the ground, among the husks.)

JEN:
It’s right there! (pointing)

CHARLEY:
Where? Where? (keeps looking over the ground)

UNCLE JOHN:
It’s there child, I was kidding. Charley! It’s there honey. It’s back, it’s back, there it is (talking hold of CHARLEY’S hand and rubbing the fingers he then touches his hand to CHARLEY’S face)

CHARLEY:
(Panicking up to this point, until UNCLE JOHN’S voice penetrates her teary hysteria. She reaches up to feel her nose, relieved, she starts laughing.)

We had only enough time to do a few memories. Mine was easy compared to some others, with the exception of the twist Professor Stern added to my scenes. “All players must use American English language and intonation for their character’s voice in Charley’s scenes.” For me it was very difficult to get into the role of a child, even when playing myself, but for the others it bordered on hilarity. I hadn’t had this much fun in a long time.

At end of class, Parker met my eyes and smiled at me from his seat across the room. He tapped the side of his nose. It must have been our little scene, which
cracked the ice
—what a little bit of humor and simple touch could do was amazing. I felt wonderful for once having brought something to the class no one else could. I smiled back.

After class, he came up to me and said simply, “I’d like it if we could be friends again.”

“Awesome,” I replied with an exaggerated smile. I knew Mel, Alex, and Annabelle were watching so I took the liberty to lean in, put my hand knowingly on his forearm and say, “Just FYI, I didn’t tell the others … anything. I was pretty sure you wouldn’t want the gossip just as much as me.”

“Cheers,” he replied.

At least I would see him now during our collective gatherings, I assumed. Truthfully, however, I was not exactly relieved; this meant we would no longer be dating and, unfortunately, the flutter I had been niggling for came into existence only a moment ago when he smiled in my direction. I felt a tingle when I touched him even though he was wearing a long-sleeved shirt. Suddenly, it seemed an interest (beyond the physical), in someone other than Michael was possible. I had closed the window, but cracked the glass.

May 2, 2026

While college kids back in the US are sunning on the beaches of Key West or Cancun and acting drunk and very disorderly, my classes have resumed here. Last week though, during ‘holiday,’ we explored the nearby enjoyments of our new home too. Inez and I went to Paris. I’ve been, more than a few times before, but if you don’t know this already, it’s not possible to get enough of Paris.

Sometimes when we go to Paris, I assume we are visiting Inez’s home just because she speaks and acts French. A few times, I even implied she’d returned home; she seemed so comfortable with everything. But, then, she appears composed anywhere. I think about her induced persona quite often now, but I don’t say anything. It would just upset her.

So anyway, traveling through Europe is wonderfully different from interstate travel. Most countries are relative in size to states, but crossing the borders here, you experience varying histories, cultures, values, beliefs, on and on. It was a wonderful four days, full of promenades and cafes, good food, great company, and shopping. We came back Wednesday, but planned another short excursion for the weekend. We decided to visit Edinburgh, since neither she nor I had ever been.

Originally, we considered taking a train, but found the flight was more economical and we arrive in a shorter amount of time. It was only a 50-minute flight from LHR to EDI. We took an early flight so we arrived and found our way to our hotel, Salisbury Manse, just in time for breakfast. Let me say, the Scots know breakfast as the English know teatime. The included breakfast was not a chintzy deal. We had roasted tomatoes and portabella mushrooms, herb sausage and sliced ham, boiled eggs, tarts, fruits, cheeses, coffee and orange juice. After such fortification, we were ready to explore.

The Royal Mile, Edinburgh, is gothically stunning, but I’m sure it looks quite ominous in more typical Scottish weather. The weather during our trip was exceptionally warm, sunny and dry for this time of year. Global warming? Our exploration culminated at Edinburgh Castle. To put it simply, I adore this place. There is a building called St. Margaret’s Chapel, built just a few years after the turn of the first millennium. The history of such a place is unfathomable. I’m sure Parker has seen this building and Edinburgh already, but if we were dating, I might have suggested this as a weekend getaway. One of his decidedly non-teen interests is history as seen through architecture.

We headed back down the Royal Mile, taking it slow, walking up and down the street and closes and into a few random shops. On a whim, I purchased a few small bottles of scotch whiskey and a kilt in the MacKenzie Clan tartan. I planned to mail the scotch to Michael. I doubted I would ever find use for the kilt, but it was so beautiful I couldn’t pass it up. I also scored on a mini book bound in red plaid, The Lady of the Lake by Sir Walter Scott. At 9pm, we went on the Mary King’s Close tour under the city. Our tour guide was wonderful, and the tour—long and good—more informative than visual.

Note to self: Unfortunately, we’d have to leave the seaside town of Portobello, the Scottish Royal Botanic Gardens, the National Gallery, the Haunted Edinburgh tour and the real neighborhoods for another trip.

Second term started and my classes are equally as challenging as before, but I’ve concluded I wasn’t really cut out for acting. Memorizing lines and my timing was fine, but I have difficulty capturing the tone and mood of the character within the scene. Maybe if my movements, imagination, and expression abilities were more impressionable I would have felt more natural playing the roles. I
feel
as if I’m acting and it showed when, obviously, it isn’t supposed to. Luckily, because we’re still ‘play-acting,’ we’re amateurs. Our repertoire consists of roles in Elizabethan dramas, a certain amount of suspension of disbelief is allowed. Still, I’m self-consciously aware of my lack of talent compared to Mel and Annabelle, for example. There’s a noticeable difference between my style and theirs.

My professors have all, at one point or another, asked me to try harder to get in the frame of mind of the character I’m portraying. Most have even tried to help by directly informing me what to visualize as far as my surroundings go, and what I should be feeling in particular scenes.
 

“
Ariel
, keep in mind you are wearing a wispy gown with a long train” or “
Viola
, the hall is to your left. Not just there, over … over … yes, now make an entrance.”
 

Renovation can only do so much. It has come to a point where unless I suddenly become extraordinary, I will not experience the outcomes I desire.

Inez and I have been practicing lines at home. I find it difficult to take direction from my classmates; they are learning, too, is my excuse. Point of fact, criticism and advice was easier to take coming from Inez; it’s her maturity and lack of self-interest. At home, I made an almost-believable frolicking fairy who had a ridiculous way of speaking. When I’m back in class, however, I didn’t seem to have gotten any better than the last time I tried the same speech. I couldn’t seem to frolic and speak at the same time. Thankfully, none of us are at the point of putting on an entire play, at least one that didn’t obviously come off as a school production. For now, our instructors have been giving us short speeches from various plays and characters which we try to perfect before moving on to another challenge. This both identifies and expands our range of portrayable emotions.

The problem is, I’m too set in my ways and even thinking this prevents the flexibility I need to be any good—it’s a self-imposed mental block. Acting is really not what I thought it would be; this is not to say I wasn’t enjoying myself. But the reality is most actors start off on stage with sets as backdrops; in other words, not on an actual location. This diminishes my fantasy considerably. I am left with imagined adventures in costume. Of course, I could have chosen the drama on-screen route, but many of my favorite British thespians were classically trained for stage performance, and I wanted to get the right training to follow their example. I was yet adamant about re-trenching my path the right way.

Seeing my limitations now, I could have switched to the on-screen track of study in hopes I would be better on camera, but this didn’t seem realistic, either. So, when I started having doubts of my acting success, before jumping the gun on any idea of switching tracks, I sat in on two sessions of Drama for Screen courses. I found screen actors rarely perform on location, either. Instead of a set backdrop, they perform in front of a green screen and locations are added by the special effects team later.

There might be the off chance for on-location work, but it isn’t very common. Apparently, since 2010 and possibly earlier, the practice of on-location acting was mostly phased out because working locally greatly increases the production budget. Also, after all the reality-based programming finally dwindled, the next phase of public interest was science fiction and fantasy. I imagine actual locations for these types of movies are hard to come by unless the producer finds the ideal setting, just as New Zealand was for the filming of The
Lord of the Rings
and its prequels. Now, this would have been a dream come true. I am sure I would have made a passingly good elf, even if I’m not a very good Midsummer’s faerie; the LOTR elves did not prance.