Chapter 23
“What shall I do?” she said . . .
—Gertrude Chandler Warner, The Boxcar Children
The idea came to her a few depressing days after Clint had left. By the time she had her fountain working again, she knew
what she was going to do. Two days later, internet photos showed her coming out of her favorite bookstore, sunglasses pushed
to the top of her head, and carrying an old designer tote loaded with books. Typically, the tabloids only cared about how
she looked.
Dancy Flynn, still trying to heal from her devastating divorce, styled a trip to the bookstore with flared Paige jeans, an ironic Vote for Pedro T-shirt, and a Louboutin tote.
With her new, shorter hair and makeup free face, fans are convinced she hasn’t bounced back from her grief, and rumors continue to swirl that Dancy is refusing her friends’ pleas that she get help.
Her ex, in the meantime, is eagerly awaiting the birth of his first child with girlfriend Bisa Simmons and preparing for a new film with pop star Gillian Mays.
Dancy plunged into her work, spending hours doing research before she found the courage to begin writing. She sat at her computer
all day, deleting more than she kept, and stopped only to catch a few hours of sleep and take Watch out.
There was only one person who knew what she was working on. “A one-woman stage show? That’s a brilliant idea.” Erin cheered
her on as if Dancy were one of her kids.
“Or a stupid one,” Dancy said. Talking about it, even with Erin, upset her stomach.
“We don’t have to be perfect,” Erin declared in her teacher voice. “We only have to try our best.”
“I hate you.”
Erin laughed.
Through letters, memoirs, and snippets of interviews, Dancy would stage a show using the words of other women to reveal facets
of all women’s lives, including her own—the bimbo and the nerd, the rule breaker and the rule follower. She would highlight
women—both historical and ordinary—who’d loved well and women who had loved foolishly. To pull this off, she had to strip
herself to the emotional bone, be open about her upbringing, her rape, her miscarriage—the events that connected her to women
everywhere. It was a risky plan full of pitfalls, but she was going to do it, no matter how terrifying it might be.
July turned into August. Roth and Bisa got married in a low-key affair on a private island in the Caribbean, and Dancy kept working deep into the night.
She wouldn’t let herself watch the Stars’ preseason games, but she saw the reports.
In game two, Clint misfired on his first four pass attempts before he pulled himself together.
In game three, the Stars had six points on the scoreboard from two field goals—but no touchdowns.
By late August, she’d finished writing the show, cleared copyrights, and come up with a name, The Women We Are. Now she needed a place far from LA where she could workshop the show in front of a few people before she even thought about
mounting a real production.
“Explain the workshopping thing to me,” Erin said when they spoke.
“It’s like a preview, a stripped-down production before a small group to get feedback on what’s working and what’s not. A
chance to identify problems and fix them. But I can’t workshop it around here without word getting out, and I’m not nearly
ready for that.”
“Do it at the Shore Theater!” Erin exclaimed. “In Lake Isabella. You’ve passed it in town. An old movie theater the city bought
for the community twenty years ago. It’ll be perfect for your workshop.”
“It would be, but . . .”
“I’ll make the arrangements and find an audience.”
“Erin, you’re already so busy. You can’t—”
“Not another word. I’m doing it. All you have to do is show up.”
Everything was suddenly happening too fast. It was one thing for Dancy to work by herself, but having an actual performance
space with an audience made it frighteningly real. Showing up was easy. Finding the courage for what would come next was the
challenge.
Clint was failing. The first two games of the regular season were a disaster.
His rhythm was off, and he was so slow getting out of the pocket that he’d been sacked four times against the Chiefs.
Inexcusable. All the internal pep talks in the world weren’t fixing him.
In the locker room after the game, no one would quite meet his eyes.
Unlike some of his teammates, he hadn’t slacked off during the summer, and he was in top condition. Still, he was thirty-four,
playing against guys in their early twenties. But age wasn’t the issue. The issue was failing. He wasn’t meeting anyone’s
expectations—not the coaches’, not his teammates’, not the fans’, and most of all, not his own. And the more he failed, the
worse he played. The tumult had gotten to him: the press hammering away, the fans believing they owned him, and the suffocation
of attention that grew with each season.
Summer and the lake were supposed to have prepared him, but he wasn’t prepared. For the first time in his career, his personal
life—the knowledge that he’d become one more betraying asshole in Dancy’s life—followed him onto the field. Football had always
meant everything to him, but now he couldn’t see how it mattered in a world bruised by war and famine. People were dying,
and the planet was either flooding or roasting. In the face of so much tragedy, who cared if the Stars won another game? It
all seemed pointless.
His phone pinged with a text from Erin. Dancy wanted to stay in the caboose for a couple of nights in late September. Was
that okay?
Why hadn’t Dancy asked him herself? He told Erin it was fine. But it wasn’t. Right now, nothing was fine.
Fallen leaves carpeted the path to the caboose. Watch dashed ahead of her, his yak in his mouth. If she’d left him behind with a dog-sitter, she could have flown instead of making another arduous three-day drive. But Watch was part of her journey, and she couldn’t leave him behind.
Stepping into the caboose felt both odd and wonderfully familiar. She opened the windows to the crisp fall air. Everything
was mostly as she’d left it. The ragdoll was still perched with The Boxcar Children between the fresh bed pillows. She opened the book to its next-to-last page and remembered that the children’s grandfather
moves the old boxcar into his beautiful garden.
She wished she could move the caboose into her own garden. She imagined sitting on the rear platform and gazing up at the
stars. Occasionally sleeping there. She wondered if Clint ever slept out here.
She closed the book, picked up the ragdoll, and gazed at its lopsided face. She hadn’t lost her desire for a child, but she’d
somehow compartmentalized what had happened in a way that felt healthier. She wondered if her desperation to be a mother could
have as much to do with finding purpose in her life as it did with craving a baby.
It was barely noon. After unpacking the few groceries she’d bought, she drove into town, leaving Watch behind. Erin was working,
and she’d left the keys to the theater at the local visitors’ center. Dancy donned her mask and sunglasses to pick them up.
Keys in hand, she parked close to the stage door, unlocked it, and began unloading the simple props and costumes she’d packed.
The Shore Theater wasn’t large, maybe one hundred seats in tiered rows, but it held that distinctively musty smell of theaters everywhere, a combination of dust, paint, and maybe sweat. Different smells from the hot lights, coffee, and Porta Potties she was accustomed to on film sets.
Erin had collected the basic furniture Dancy needed: a few chairs, a side table, a small desk, an easel, and a freestanding
black metal clothing rack. Professional set design, lighting, and sound would come only if she officially mounted the show.
Dancy retrieved the rest of the show’s costumes from her car trunk, hung them on the clothing rack, and steamed the wrinkles
out. She’d designed her own costumes, but she didn’t possess the technical skills to construct garments with hidden Velcro
fasteners and other complexities that would allow her to get in and out of them quickly, so she’d hired Willow Reese, a professional
whose work she’d always admired. Paying her had put the first significant hole in Dancy’s budget. If she went further, she’d
have to stop being picky and book any commercials she could get so she could pay for everything she’d need: facility rental,
stage crew, advertising, and so much more.
Erin had twenty people lined up to watch, none of whom knew who or what they’d be seeing. Dancy shivered with nerves.
Believe in yourself.
Clint drove directly home after the game instead of joining his teammates for drinks at their favorite club.
Dancy should be in the caboose by now. The Stars had three losses in a row.
For a decade, he’d been one of Chicago’s hometown heroes.
But who was he without football? Would his dozens of friends still be his friends if he were a mechanic or sold insurance?
Who’d really care about him if he couldn’t put on one of the best air shows in the NFL?
Not that he’d put on any kind of air show today.
He dragged himself inside and grabbed a beer. When he finished, he logged onto his computer and played Fortnite with a bunch of strangers who didn’t know they were playing with a legend.
Dancy checked in with Erin the next morning before she left for school. “Shane’s not coming to the house anymore,” Erin said,
filling a pink thermos with coffee. “But he shows up when I leave school in the evening or when I’m out for a walk. He’s always
sweet and reasonable.” She twisted the thermos cap tighter than needed.
Dancy handed over a tote imprinted with a big red apple. “He’s love-bombing you.”
“The man who’s never held a steady job says all he wants is to take care of me.” Erin jammed the thermos in the tote. “As
if I can’t take care of myself.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to talk to the police?”