Lolly and the women were soon writing furiously on sheets of paper that Lolly had handed out. They spent about ten minutes writing and then sharing what they had written. Lolly seemed to have something insightful to say about each piece. Then she turned to Jen with her wide smile. Jen felt she was looking at a complete stranger.
“Jen, I mean Doc, is going to be working with us to help us learn some acting techniques, and she is also going to help us put together our production. So I’ll work with the writers and she’ll direct the skits or whatever it is we decide to do. Doc has been working on her doctorate degree in Theater Arts from Florida State University. She’s also an accomplished actress. You may have seen her in that Pizza Delight commercial? Anyway, she does tons of theater around Tallahassee and just recently directed the Young Actors Troupe in some Shakespeare adaptations for the Shakespeare Festival.”
Jen was glad Lolly left out the dipsomania and sleeping with a married man part out of the brief intro. Lolly looked at her expectantly, and Jen figured it was show time.
“One thing actors always do is warm up,” Jen said. “And this exercise will help me learn your names as well. It’s called Sound and Motion. So, if you’ll all stand up. Stay in your circle, though. Now what we do is each person says their name out loud and follows it with some kind of motion. Then the rest of the group has to say the name and do the exact same motion. Like I’ll say, Doc,” Then Jen lifted her arms and twirled once. “Now you have to say Doc and do the same thing I just did.”
The thing Jen liked about this exercise was that she could nearly always identify even in this simple exercise who had the brassiness and the imagination for good theater and who was going to need work.
No surprise that Daffy with the big smile could project and come up with a fun dipping dance motion. Alice, the Native American, was a little more shy but was obviously well liked. Nicole added a snap and a strut to her motion but her voice didn’t carry well. There were various levels of enthusiasm – a key ingredient for theatrical success – but one surprise was the quiet woman who looked vaguely middle European. She had been slightly aloof up till the instant she announced her name, “Sonya,” with a flourish and then did a few moves from a belly dance.
“Good,” Jen said with a smile when they were done. Lolly seemed to be happy with the results as well, and Jen had a tiny hope that perhaps this group of women could create something exciting, something beautiful, together.
Her initial impressions were confirmed in the next exercise—an improvisation in which one character is hiding something from another.
“Lolly and I will demonstrate,” she said. “Okay, Lolly, there’s something you’re hiding. Something you don’t want me to know.”
Lolly nodded. They stood at the end of the room with the women forming a half-circle around them.
“What’s wrong?” Jen asked.
“Nothing. Why do you ask?”
“You seem distracted.”
“I’m not distracted.”
“You just poured salt into your coffee,” Jen said, indicating an invisible cup of coffee. She noticed the women register the pretense. You could tell when an idea traveled, and this was a new idea for them.
“Um, that’s part of a new diet,” Lolly answered. “Haven’t you heard about it? I saw it on Oprah.”
“Really?” Jen asked, skeptically. “You don’t watch Oprah.”
“You don’t know what I do when you’re not around. I watch Oprah, Sally Jesse Raphael, Montel. All of them.”
“Why is that? Is something wrong?”
“No, I told you nothing is wrong.”
“There must be if you’re watching all those personal advice shows.”
“I just find them entertaining.”
“Really? Hey, what’s this? A letter?” Jen picked up an imaginary envelope. Lolly reached out and snatched it from her hands.
“None of your business.”
“But it is my business,” Jen said and then lowered her voice, “I’m your husband.”
Several of the women laughed in surprise. Lolly pretended to put the envelope behind her back.
“Are you going to tell me?”
“It’s test results from a biopsy I had. I have a lump in my breast.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to leave me?”
“Leave you? I’ll never leave you. Open the envelope. What do the results say?”
The women leaned forward, watching in anticipation as Lolly pretended to open the envelope. Then she smiled.
“Curtain,” Jen said. Then she dropped out of character and faced the women. “That’s how we signify the end. You don’t want to drag the scene out too long. It’s something you sort of develop a feel for, so until you get the hang of it, I’ll call curtain for you. But do you get the idea? Good. I have a stack of cards here with secrets on them that you can use for your improv or you can make up your own. Okay, let’s have two volunteers.”
From the Journal of Nicole Parks
In my dream I was having dinner with my mom in a Paris restaurant. I’d never been to Paris before, but for some reason I was there in my dream at this little café on the rue something or other, eating plate after plate of delicious pastries all dripping with cinnamon and chocolate and vanilla icing. And I was saying to my mom, “Oh, you don’t know how much I’ve missed this sweetness.”
Something woke me up out of this nice dream. Someone in the dorm was moaning. The longing I felt just moments earlier turned into raw fear. Who was making that god-awful sound? It sounded like a ghost, like the dorm itself was haunted. A chill clenched the back of my neck and a shiver traveled down my body from my scalp to my toes. I finally raised my head out of the bed and that’s when I thought I’d faint from sheer terror. Someone was floating over in the corner of the room. I grabbed that ugly green wool blanket and pulled it up to my chin. Quiet as I could be, I kept watching it and slowly I started to realize it wasn’t a ghost. It was Viola Carpenter sitting up in her bunk. It looked like she was fighting someone.
Finally, she fell back on her bunk and the moaning ceased. It took me a long time to fall back asleep after that. Viola’s moaning was just one more reminder that there were lives here I couldn’t even begin to imagine.
After that I couldn’t help but keep an eye on Viola. I noticed that she forever seemed to be losing things—her glasses, her coffee cup, everything but her Bible that she toted everywhere with her. She was quiet and ladylike, but not exactly approachable. I was surprised she had signed up for the drama class. She didn’t seem the type but she had come to class and participated willingly so maybe she was and I just couldn’t see it.
One Sunday morning I got dressed up for church. I put on my make up extra careful—we’re allowed to have make up if we buy it from the canteen where the mascara is almost seven dollars, so you don’t let it out of your sight ever—and my one good pair of black shoes. I wore a painted silk scarf around my neck that I’d made in a crafts class and they had let us keep. I took special care with my hair, combing it in a flip down on my neck. It’s funny what a woman can do to make herself beautiful with nothing. Daffy was just as bad as me. We liked to dress for church and the two of us were in the bathroom primping when Viola came in, and I felt a burst of inspiration.
There was a row of sinks along one wall and a couple mirrors across the room on the opposite wall. I watched her bend over the sink, brushing her teeth nice and thorough like when out of my mouth came an invitation.
“Viola, why’d you come sit with me and Daffy in church today?” I asked.
Daffy’s