I Loved You Wednesday (26 page)

“You know, Chris. This whole thing is progressive. It just keeps growing. I’m spending so much goddamned time being on guard, watching you, getting you out of trouble or waiting to have to defend myself against absurd accusations, I’ve none left to be me. Well, you want to know something? I’m tired of being the Mr. Goody-two-shoes Hall Patrol Monitor. I’m sick of not being able to step out of line. Tell you what? Let’s switch roles. I’ll be Dennis the

Menace for a while. Let’s see how much you enjoy being Chief of Police!”

“You hate me!”

“Chris, I promise if you so much as dare fall back on that bullshit line again, I’m going to slam you against the wall!”

Slumping down into the corduroy chair, Chris asks, straight and honest, “What should I do?”

“I’m asking you to look at what’s going on, look at what you’re doing. All this neurotic sabotaging. Didn’t any of your analysis teach you anything?”

“Come on, Steve. The only thing I learned in analysis was how to cross my legs like a lady while lying on a couch. Don’t you see? I gave up my place to show how secure I finally am about us. To show you that* thing with Bradley Saturday night meant nothing. I wanted you to be confident
we’re all
that matters.”

“Confident, my ass! Confident until your next caper. Things started so well this morning. You got up on the right side of the bed. I guess it was just too much to expect you to stay in that mood all day. As always, you had to sink the boat!” Whatever that internal explosion is, it’s not going away. In fact, the more heated I get, the more it builds, burning a hole now in my stomach. “Just what exactly is going on in that crowded mind of yours, Chris? Just what are you thinking? Tell me. Tell me so I can help.”

Chris looks down, staring straight at the floor. Neither of us speaks for a long, long while, and the only sound is the quieting of my very heavy breathing.

At last Chris looks up at me. “You think I’m headed for a mini-breakdown, don’t you?” she asks very softly.

“I don’t know what you’re heading toward, Chris. But I sure wish you’d let me in on it.”

“Admit it, Steve. Tell me. You can. I’ll understand. You’re sorry we started this. Sorry we ever got this involved, huh?”

And I guess that’s it. The festering explosion gushes from within, up through my throat, and out it cracks.

“THERE, CHRIS! YOU DID IT! YOU FINALLY DID IT! YOU WILL SIMPLY NOT UNDERSTAND ME! WELL, IT HAPPENED. IT TOOK WEEKS OF WORK BUT IT HAPPENED. IT FINALLY HAPPENED. SNAP. JUST LIKE THAT. THE LAST STRAW AND NOW THE GODDAMN CEILING JUST CAVED IN. YOU’VE MANAGED TO MAKE ME CONFUSED AND EXHAUSTED AND FURIOUS AND DISGUSTED AND HOSTILE AND MISERABLE AND NERVOUS AND IRRATIONAL AND ANGRY AND NOW TO TOP IT ALL OFF—AND I’VE GOT TO HAND IT TO YOU CAUSE AT LONG LAST YOU DID IT, CHRIS—I’M NOW THOROUGHLY RIGHT UP THERE WITH YOU—
YOU FINALLY GOT ME DEPRESSED/”

Chris looks down at the floor again. “I’m sorry,” she mutters sadly.

“YOU’RE SORRY? TERRIFIC! BUT NOW WHO’S GOING TO CHEER
ME
UP?
YOU?
MISS MEDEA?”

Chris stands and walks slowly to the bedroom doorway. “I’m sorry you’re depressed, Steve. Very, very sorry.” Then, as she walks into the room, closing the door behind her, she delivers her final Sunday punch, ending the match in a TKO, adding, “But don’t blame me. Just remember... I was the one who warned you it would happen.”

Chapter Thirteen
 

Why is it the Forces That Be (Mother and Father Nature) insist on keeping us forever dangling between alternating levels of failure and success in both our love lives and professional endeavors?

Do they refuse us happiness in both areas at once since such might be construed as heaven before our time and simply not in the nature of things?

I wonder.

Tossing around within the confines of MY corner of the bed, weighing the validity of this theory, I reason since things with Chris have suddenly grown so stormy and confusing, I can probably count on my career’s jumping forward with alacrity some time in the near future.

Switching on a bit of wish fulfillment and ESP, I see myself landing that coveted role of Alfred in
March into April
at last.

Proving my theory correct and reinforcing my clairvoyance, Pat calls the following morning.

“Hello?”

“Good news. Good news. Good news!”

“Hi, Pat.”

“Wait till you hear this, Steve. Are your people working for you, or not?”

“What’s up?” I ask, trying hard not to get too excited.

“Call Mike Douglas and set the deal yourself, Joan! Do I look like somebody’s lackey? Figure it out, then let me seethe figures. And call Allan Carr and find out about George Maharis’ availability! Now, Steve . . . where were we?”

“You had good news.”

“Right! Well, one of our clients, Cam Savage, has been doing
Barefoot in the Park
in winter stock at one of the Kenley theaters in Ohio. But he’s come down with a bad case of hepatitis, and since they didn’t take the trouble to hire an understudy, they’re
desperate
for someone who’s done the part before and can step in practically
immediately.
We had a meeting here this morning, and I convinced everyone to give you a shot at it. Fifteen hundred big ones for the two weeks remaining in the run. How ‘bout that?”

“Sounds terrific,” I say, only slightly disappointed.

“You bet! Okay, now the first thing we must. .. . What? I don’t know any Leonard! . . . Who? . . . Oh,
that
Leonard! Right! Isn’t he the producer with the limp? Yeah, I’ll take it. . . . Steve, I gotta get off. Got a crisis on the other line. I’ll call later with details.”

“Fine.”

“What made me go into this business, Steve? It’s the lowest. HELLO, LEONARD, DAR LING!” Click.

I wake Chris and tell her the good news about the job. She’s not enthused.

“How can you leave at a time like this?” she wants to know.

“Like what?”

“When we’re working things out!”

“You mean neither of us is ever going on the road again?”

“I can’t speak for the future, Steve. I know I don’t want you to go now.”

“Come on, Chris. It’s a big opportunity. If I come through for them with this, the agency’ll really push me. Can’t you see that? And it’s great money!”

“But I turned down that big job in Texas for you!”

“Which I told you was crazy, remember!”

“All right.” Chris sighs, turning over to go back to sleep. “If your career is more important than you and me. Suit yourself.” “Oh, come on! Spending some time apart might be just what we need right now.”

“There are some actors who’d sell their souls for success.”

“Oh, yeah? Well, mine goes for much cheaper. I’d take a little peace of mind!”

Later on in the day Pat calls back with details. And she really means it when she says they need someone practically
immediately
. I’m to fly to Dayton tomorrow, rehearse for
one day
(while performances are canceled) and then go on the evening after.

Needless to say, I spend the rest of the day poring over the
Barefoot
script, rememorizing all those lines I knew by heart barely three months ago.

Chris sits with me, although she claims it’s against her better judgment, cueing and going over the script.

That evening she prepares a lovely veal dinner capped with a bottle of wine. Afterward I go back to my
Barefoot
script for another couple of hours.

We get into bed fairly early, around eleven, and ultimately stay up most of the night, communicating as we’ve come to communicate best: no frictions, no hassles, just us.

A perfect going-away gift.

Several hours later, at six thirty, I struggle to get up, having an eight o’clock flight to catch.

I dress, throw some things into a suitcase, down a fast cup of coffee and, just before leaving, wake Chris to say goodbye.

“I don’t want you to go!” she whimpers, folding her arms around my neck, drawing me close to her.

We kiss for a long time, and when I finally manage to unlock us, I place a calm finger on her lips, saying, “Listen to me. If things have gotten a little strange around here lately, I want to apologize.”

“You don’t have to apologize, silly.”

“I promise to work harder.”

“Me too.”

“I’m going to stick around, no matter what, understand?”

“I understand. But what about Mr. Taylor?”

“Who?”

“My landlord. I gave him notice, remember?”

“Oh, right. Yeah.” I pause a moment, carefully choosing my words. “Um ... why don’t you tell him you’ll be keeping it a few more months. That apartment is the one insurance we’ve got against each other. Let’s not fence ourselves in just yet, okay? We don’t need that kind of additional pressure right now.”

“All right.”

“You agree with me?”

“Sure.”

“I’d better get going.”

“I love you.”

“And I love you, Chris. More than ever. Got it?
More
than ever!”

If you’ve never been to Dayton, I can’t think of a single attraction to make you change your mind about not going.

While I wasn’t expecting a throbbing metropolis, I was prepared to arrive someplace that would perhaps faintly resemble civilization as we’ve come to know it. But honest, cold, gray and dismal, it’s worse than Philadelphia! Fortunately, it doesn’t matter that the city (town?) is most unappealing to my level of
joi de vivre
anyway, as I’ve no time to savor it, being met at the airport by the frantic managing director of the theater and whisked immediately away, straight to the theater to rehearse for the duration of the day.

Hours later, at six o’clock, I’m sent to my hotel and told to check in, unpack, have dinner and be back for more rehearsing ... in an hour.

I do as instructed, grabbing a fast and lousy ham and swiss sandwich in the process and am, at seven o’clock on the button, back on the theater stage, harried, hassled and nauseated.

We rehearse until eleven and, by Equity ruling, must quit. It’s been an impossibly long day, and I look forward with great anticipation to drowning myself in a very wet shower just as soon as I get back to the hotel room.

But no, the managing director and the stage manager have a different idea. After dismissing the rest of the company, they ask if I’d be willing to go back to one of their apartments to continue rehearsing. For the good of the play. Although Fm pretty much burned out, I welcome their slave driving.

Some three hours later Fm so tired and brainwashed, I can’t remember if Fm playing Paul or Corie. A little after that, once I start stuttering and slurring my words, the managing director decides it’s time to stop the whipping and calls the rehearsal to an end.

Returning to my hotel room, I somehow manage to keep at least one eye open during the fifteen seconds it takes to get to the bed, flop facedown and fall directly to sleep.

Four hours later, at 7 A.M., the stage manager rings me awake, announcing it’s time to get up and be onstage in forty minutes.

Just to show them I’ve got the stuff it takes, I arrive at the theater thirty-five minutes later.

After a fast “Good morning!—sleep well?—let’s get to work!” greeting, we start rehearsing again, stopping only to have my wardrobe adjusted and tapered, working pretty much nonstop until noon.

In the half hour allotted for lunch, I try calling Chris at the apartment, but she’s not there.

We work the rest of the afternoon, wrapping at six thirty. I continue going over lines in my dressing room until the stage manager comes to get me again, about an hour later.

Returning to the stage with him, we run through, for the last time, the rather intricate new-to-me blocking for the fight scene in the second act.

After that I return to my dressing room, put on my makeup and, before I know it, the stage manager announces over the speaker, “
Half hour, everyone! Half an hour to curtain!”

As I’m getting into my stuffy lawyer’s suit costume, one ofthe stagehands bangs on my opened door, yelling, “Phone call for you, Butler. Lady says it’s an emergency!”

I have no idea what that cryptic message means as I barrel down the stairs to the pay phone in the Green Room.

“Hello?” I ask, slightly winded.

“I . . . don’t . . . undershtand . . . any of it.”

“CHRIS?”

“I ... had ... no .. . idea....”

“WHAT THE HELL’S THE MATTER?”

No answer.

“CHRIS, WHAT’S WRONG?! SPEAK TO ME!”