Chapter Mrs. Bennet #7
MR. TARANTELLO
Mary sat alone on a folding chair under the ghost light in the HB Studios rehearsal space.
She studied the marks made with tape on the floor and wondered if Tony Lo Bianco or Ellen Burstyn had ever stood at them to deliver a performance.
Probably. There was more history in this small gray building tucked between the regal brownstones on either side than there was at the Whitney or the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Sometimes Mary felt the past play through the space, like a cold wind blowing through old bricks, which made her shiver.
She envisioned the past, back when Marilyn Monroe and Paul Newman took classes on this very stage.
It probably had not been painted since they were young, and now they were both gone to actor heaven.
She thought about Herbert Berghof, who founded the school, and how it had grown.
Mary had no idea who paid the rent on the space, and how, after most of Greenwich Village had been upgraded and its buildings renovated, this compact, magical theatrical space survived.
She knew only that she was happy it had.
A tall man around Mary’s age stood in the door, backlit by the foyer lights.
His appearance surprised her, which made her heart beat fast. As he moved into the studio, she remembered him.
He was around her age and had a mop of black hair and the rugged build of a workingman.
But he wouldn’t be a workingman because they don’t generally visit HB Studios.
The men of HB Studios who took classes with her were pale, thin, and dyspeptic.
Mary remembered that he had sat in on a couple of classes, but she hadn’t introduced herself because she had to rush home to make dinner for her parents.
But today, she was free. Her sisters were staying over for one more night, and they promised to take care of dinner for their mother.
Their father was still in the hospital, and that gave Mary peace of mind.
She had a recurring nightmare in the days since her father fell.
It was a strange dream where she was in the kitchen, heard the terrible thud, and raced up the stairs to find a hole in the floor, her mother shouting, and her father gone.
It was the case of the disappearing father, which could not be solved in a dream.
“I know you.” Mary smiled.
“How?”
“Didn’t you sit in on my playwriting class?”
“It’s your class?”
“Not just mine”—she blushed—“the one I take with everybody else.”
“I’m teasing you.” He smiled and looked around, spotting a folding chair along the stage wall.
He crossed the stage, picked it up, and walked back toward Mary.
She took a good look at him in the light.
He had thick eyebrows and a straight but prominent nose.
He was smiling, and had a beautiful set of white teeth and a dimple in his right cheek. Mary began to sweat.
He placed the chair next to hers and sat down. His scent was delicious, a little cedar and pine. Of course a rugged man would smell like a tree or a forest in snow or Christmas.
“I’m Joe Tarantello.” He extended his hand.
Mary took his hand. It was like a paw. His touch thrilled her, but she pulled her hand away quickly so he wouldn’t notice. “I’m Mary Bennet.”
“I know. You won the playwriting prize. One of them, anyway.”
“How do you know?”
“Mrs. DeMatteo said to read the plays. She let me sit in. I know her husband and told her I was interested in plays, and she said, ‘Why don’t you audit?’ ” He smiled. “Here I am.”
“So—you know people.”
“Isn’t that a requirement of show business?”
“I don’t consider the theater show business,” Mary said.
“Then what is it?”
“Literature with wings.”
He laughed. “You’re fancy.”
“Do you think so?” Mary patted her bangs to make sure they were flat.
Sometimes her bangs flew up like cheap window shades.
She hoped she looked good. She had put on mascara that day, and only because she had time.
Her sisters were doing all her chores, including the laundry.
When she left, Jane was washing the front windows with vinegar and newspapers.
For once, she was glad to have arrived at a destination early. “No one has ever called me fancy.”
“You’re pretty. For a writer.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. The beauty in the theater seems to go to the actresses.”
“Because it doesn’t matter what a writer looks like,” Mary said defensively.
“God, you’re cute,” he said.
Mary blushed.
“That’s a line from your play,” Joe reminded her.
“Oh right.” Mary instantly felt foolish.
“But you are cute, whether you wrote the line or not.”
“Thank you.”
“You seem disappointed,” he said.
“I’m not disappointed; I thanked you for your compliment, didn’t I?”
“I don’t throw words around. Cute is step one on the way to pretty, which is one rung below beautiful.”
Is this guy serious? Mary looked at him. Who is he? she wondered. She checked the time on her phone.
“Class starts in ten minutes,” he said. “That’s what it says online, but it never starts on time.”
“You’ve only come to two classes.”
“You noticed.” Joe leaned back in the chair, which created a weird angle. He could observe Mary without her consent. So she scootched her chair back to be even with him. She turned to him.
“I notice everything. You wore a blue plaid shirt last time, and it reminded me of a blanket that was given to me when I graduated from high school. I see everything, and I feel everything. That’s the job of a writer, even though I don’t make my living writing. I teach piano.”
“So you play?”
“Not so well, but I know enough to teach children the fundamentals. And when they have talent, I send them uptown to a great Russian teacher at the New York School of Music. Yulia Dusman. Now, she’s a great pianist.”
“And you don’t think you are? Who told you that you weren’t a great musician?”
“My dad.”
“And you believed him?”
“Of course. He’s my father.”
“You should never believe anything your parents tell you. They make every decision based on fear. See, you were probably a great pianist, but your dad didn’t want you to become a musician because it’s a lousy lifestyle.
You’re working nights in dark rooms. Not safe for a woman, and then there’s the smoke inhalation. Can’t be good for your lungs.”
“Or maybe I’m just not that good.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“You haven’t heard me play.”
“Don’t have to. You have beautiful hands. Beautiful hands mean two things: a person is adept at either playing an instrument or writing.”
“Or sewing,” Mary added.
“Or sewing. A lost art.” Joe nodded in agreement.
“How do you know all this?”
“Because no one in my family wants me to write. And I was over at the DeMatteos, and the Mrs. caught on fast that I loved to write. And she gave me some encouragement.”
“You’re lucky,” Mary said. “She saw who you are without you ever having to explain it.”
“See, you get it.” Joe grinned.
Mary looked away because the proximity of his mouth to hers was close. She slid away from him in the chair as far as she could. He slid toward her to make sure he remained close.
“So where do you live?” Joe asked.
“The village.”
“Around here? Too expensive for me.”
“It would be for me, too. I live with my parents,” Mary explained.
“Why?”
“Because all my sisters moved away.”
“Your parents are old?”
“On their way.” Mary smiled. It made her laugh. If you asked her mother, she’d say she was ancient, but she just turned seventy.
“Mine, too.” Joe squinted at Mary as if to read her or observe her in form and line like a painting. “The good news is you’re from a big family so you have help.”
“They try.”
“Are you close to your family?”
“Very!” Mary blurted.
Joe put his hands in the air as though he was under arrest. “Hey, I’m just asking.”
“I don’t understand that question,” Mary said. “A family is always close, even when they aren’t in contact. It’s the nature of what a family is in the first place.”
“You think so?”
“I believe it.”
“Maybe you’re on to something. Can I ask you a question?”
Mary nodded. She was in a conversation with a man whom she was attracted to and a man who also intrigued her. She couldn’t remember a time when both of those things had happened at the same time in the same conversation.
“Why do you write?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Mary answered truthfully. “Why do you?”
“Because I have no other outlet for my feelings,” Joe said, as though he had not admitted something so deep that perhaps should never be said out loud. He went on, “Writing is as good a way to connect to your feelings as anything else.”
“True. But it’s a lot of work. You can just have your feelings, sit with them, act on them in life—without becoming a writer.”
“So, you have thought about why you write.”
“Maybe because my father was a writer,” Mary said. She discovered the truth as she said it. She had not made that connection before this conversation with Joe.
“Would I know his work?” Joe asked.
“Don’t think so. He wrote a nonfiction book about shipbuilding—well reviewed, but it didn’t sell.”
“That’s too bad.”
“You know it’s impossible to make a living as a playwright,” Mary said.
“Maybe you will succeed where your father didn’t,” Joe said. “You’re not the only person I know who went into the family business.”
“Did you?”
“I have a day job,” Joe admitted.
“What is it?” Mary asked.
“I’m a plumber. I do some electrics. Contracting.”
Mrs. DeMatteo entered from the back of the theater.
She was tall and thin, with white hair pulled back into a low chignon.
Her full lips were bright red. She wore navy slacks and a white blouse, with an Hermès scarf tied loosely at her neck.
She placed a large, open leather tote on a seat in the front row.
“Good afternoon, Mary. Joe. Good to see you. How are you?”
“Better now. Is class starting on time?” Joe asked.