Remember, Vinnie?”
A sheepish Vincent barely nodded, hoping Leroy and Fred wouldn’t see him agreeing with her!
Larissa exchanged an impatient glance with Ezra, that reluctant-to-intervene people-watcher. “Fred, I don’t understand what the issue is. What’s wrong with Comedy of Errors?”
“What’s wrong with Much Ado About Nothing?” he countered. “We didn’t stage that three years ago, did we?”
“I still think Tempest is a good idea,” Leroy weighed in. “It’s not an actual tragedy, you know.”
“I know,” Larissa drew out. “Do you really want to stage it?”
“Let’s say yes.”
“Can I ask you, Leroy, why are you so suddenly adamant about The Tempest? In my hands I’m still holding the play you were adamant about an hour ago.”
“Well, if I can’t have the one I really want …”
Vinnie and Sheila and Fred nodded in assent.
Ezra finally spoke. “How do we feel about Much Ado?”
Leroy first looked at Larissa, as if to gauge her imminent reaction. Then he said, “I like it. It’s a fine choice.”
“What do you think, Lar?”
Now he speaks! “It’s fine for fifteen-year-olds?” said Larissa. “On the one hand we have Comedy of Errors, 122 pages, light, external, easy to set, funny, just right for spring. On the other we have Much Ado About Nothing, about betrayal, shame, humiliation, infidelity, death, itself only one bad performance away from becoming a tragedy.”
“That’s what makes it so rich and rewarding,” said Leroy.
“According to you, Larissa, every comedy in Shakespeare is a breath away from becoming a tragedy,” said Fred.
“And not just in Shakespeare,” muttered Larissa.
“Okay, then how about Midsummer Night’s Dream?” interjected Ezra as the situation was about to become untenable. (About to?)
“Midsummer Night’s Dream,” repeated Larissa in a slow voice, (poorly) hiding her supreme irritation, “deals with lovelorn triangulating. It’s too adult to be performed by fifteen-year-olds. Then again …” She didn’t even have to glance at her watch. She knew it was one o’clock. Getting up, she grabbed her denim suede purse off the back of the chair.
“You’re leaving?” said Ezra. “But we haven’t finished.”
“You’re right,” Larissa said. “But you know my opinion. Discuss amongst yourselves. Tell me tomorrow what you’ve decided.”
“Should we do a casting call this afternoon?” asked David the line reader, already thinking ahead.
“Choose the play first.”
“Larissa …” That was Ezra.
“I really have to go, guys. Honest, I have no dog in this fight. It’s the end of March, the play opens in June, that’ll be barely eight weeks after auditions to rehearse. Not a lot of time. Whatever you decide, I’m fine.”
Ezra followed her to the double doors.
“Lar, what are you doing?” he said quietly. “They think you’re storming out.”
“Aren’t I?” She patted him on the sleeve, “Make nice with them, as only you can.”
“We have to have a decision!”
“Am I the director, or are you? Or is Fred? Or perhaps Leroy wants to direct from the sidelines. I hear there’s a play he’s just dying to do,” she added with a brisk smile, pleased with herself. She waved Godot in front of Ezra.
“Stop it.”
“Gotcha. Well, I’m going to tell you how it’s going to work.” She placed her implacable hand on the metal bar, ready to push open the doors and sprint. “If you want me to be the director, I have final say. That’s how it works. What play we do, whom we cast, how we stage it, what I cut. I decide.” She nodded in Fred and Leroy’s direction. “No devil’s advocate arguments from the peanut gallery.”
“Fine. Decide.”
“I’m going to torture you and give you what you want. Much Ado About Nothing. Betrayal, shame, humiliation. In spring. I’ll see you.” She blew him a teasing kiss and ran down the hall in her Frye boots. Ran. From Pingry to Stop&Shop was 5.2 miles and twelve minutes if she made all the lights and there was no traffic. She made no lights, and there was a mob of traffic. She made it in nine minutes anyway.
He wasn’t there.
Granted, it was 1:20 and perhaps he had come and gone, but then it was 1:30, then 1:40 and he wasn’t there. Larissa bought some steak for dinner, potatoes, frozen corn, peanut butter—1:50—cereal, coffee, sugar, tea, dry dog food—1:55—and then reluctantly went to stand in the express line and listened to a heavy, sour woman (perhaps Fred’s spouse?) behind her say, “Looks like you have more than twelve items there, dearie.” And Larissa said, “All righty, I’ll play.” Normally, she wouldn’t have done it, but this is what happened when small inflammations festered into giant sores. “Let’s count together. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve—look at that! Exactly twelve.” Larissa gave the embarrassed woman a cold stare. “Unless of course, you want to count each of the steaks as a separate piece. But we might have to count your six English muffins individually, and then where would we be?”
The woman mumbled something about the sign saying TWELVE OR LESS.
“Yes, and I’ve got one of those. Twelve. See?” Harrumphing to the cashier, Larissa pushed her items down the conveyor belt.
“Cash back?”
“No,” Larissa barked to the register girl. “Just the receipt, please.”
Still steaming, she bagged, paid and without a backward glance of smug contemptuous self-satisfaction pushed her cart outside. She was almost at her car when a voice behind her said, “Boy, you really showed her.”
She whirled around, swirled around like a tornado on boots, and in front of her Kai stood, looking worn and pale, unshaven, scraggly, unwell and sad, holding a coffee and a brown paper bag in his hands.
“Hey,” she said, her heart thumping, her voice shaking a little. Damn! Larissa hated that old witch even more for forcing her to be unlikeable when he was nearby. “Everything okay?” What to say? What to say! “Haven’t seen you in a while.”
“Yeah … I had …” He bowed his head. “I know,” he said, without looking up. “You have time to grab a bite?”
It was 2:07. Larissa had exactly seven minutes to grab a bite, and then she stood a thirty percent chance of being five minutes late to pick up Michelangelo. She wished that once, just once …
“Hang on,” she said. “Let me call my friend.” While he waited, Larissa called Donna, whose kids were walkers, asking her to please keep Michelangelo for ten minutes because she was running “a tiny bit” behind. Though she and Larissa had spoken barely two words the whole year, Donna was gracious. She and her own kids were headed to the playground. Could she take Michelangelo with them? “Oh, he’d love that. Thank you so much. I owe you one …”
Larissa turned to Kai. She stood dumbly in the parking lot, and her steak in the Jersey sun was going to reach room temperature, oh, in say, fifteen minutes, just long enough for her to get home and throw it out.
“Did you already eat?” he said, holding his brown bag in his hands. “We