Chapter 30 #2
“No. I bought me this one.” For all the cocktail parties I never went to after joining the firm and ceasing to have any life outside of work.
“So you’re feeling better?”
“Had my last dose of antibiotics this morning.”
Mom pats my hand. “I’m glad we’re going to the final show.”
“Me too.” Seeing only this one performance will keep me from looking like a sad puppy for showing up at all the others.
“I’m surprised this production isn’t on campus.”
The Old Globe in Balboa sure does feel swanky for a college-student play. “Apparently, it’s not just a campus production. It’s some sort of collaboration between the theater department and the San Diego whatever.”
The air is damp and cool and accented by all the eucalyptus trees as we walk into the Globe. “Eucalyptus smells so much better when it’s fresh,” my mother observes. “There is a spicy earthiness that never translates.”
“I don’t know.” Lately, I’ve become attached to the smell of eucalyptus regardless of the source.
“Nice seats. I do hope your Benedick has an equally good Beatrice onstage.”
“Molly!”
I turn to see my father standing in the aisle. “And Bea! Fancy seeing you here,” my father says.
I bristle. “What is Dad doing here?”
“George! What a surprise! I didn’t realize you were going to be here tonight.” Mom waves him over.
Dad gives Mom a peck on the cheek. “My clients, the Gilberts, have their granddaughter in town looking at colleges. She’s leaning liberal arts, and I invited them to come see SDSU’s liberal arts in action.
I didn’t realize it’d be so tricky to get seats at the last minute. Had to pull quite a few strings.”
I don’t buy it for a second.
“How are you, sweetie?” Dad says, a little too stiffly for my taste. “Mom says you weren’t feeling too hot a couple of weeks ago.”
“I’m fine.”
The lights flicker. “Well.” Dad twists the program in his hands. “We’ll catch up after the play.”
Like heck we will. “Why did you have to bring Dad?”
“Oh, honey. Don’t be ridiculous.” Mom checks her phone before turning it off. “How would I have possibly organized anything like this at the last minute?”
“Hmm.” My mother, perpetually up to something.
“You can sit there pouting, but I wouldn’t recommend it. You’re the only one wearing white. Very easy to spot in this crowd. I’m sure your friend is keeping an eye out for you.”
“Mother, please.”
“Please what? Speak in complete sentences, dear. We’re trying to put our most cultured foot forward tonight.”
“‘My tongue will tell the anger of my heart or else my heart, concealing it, will break.’”
Mom levels me with her Starship Cruiser stare. “I don’t think you’re a shrew, Bea. I don’t think you’re a cactus. And I don’t think you’re happy pet sitting.”
“I’m perfectly happy.”
“I don’t know what is going on and why you still aren’t speaking with your father.”
“Because he told me I wasn’t worth talking to until I came back to work.”
“Oh, nonsense. You ambushed him on his birthday. You ruined his party.”
“I waited an entire week after the party was over.”
“You refused to let him save face at the office by giving a two weeks’ notice.”
Unbelievable. “If I’d known you were going to bring Dad, I wouldn’t have invited you.”
“Of course you would have. You wanted a ride.”
“Can you blame me? I was nearly dead two weekends ago.”
“Don’t remind me.”
The lights die, and the play begins.
My breath catches when I see Mike onstage. In his element. Fantastic timing. Speaking Shakespeare like the lines are his own thoughts. He outshines the Beatrice on the stage. And for the record, it is not lost on me that my sisters and I all share character names from the Bard’s plays.
“Why did you name your girls after Shakespearean heroines?” I ask Mom at intermission.
“I thought it was bougie.”
“Mother.”
“I was an English major before I went to law school. I wrote many a paper on Shakespeare, and not only are Beatrice, Juliet, and Portia intelligent, articulate, strong characters, they’re also beautiful and compassionate.
” Mom looks at me. “I didn’t rank my favorite characters and dole out names with birth order accordingly, if that’s what you’re asking. ”
“Really. You’re telling me that the character who poses as a lawyer and argues like one to save the day isn’t your favorite?”
“Not my favorite. But I do find the association very clever. And I was planning on being a lawyer.”
“Why didn’t you see it through?”
“Dreams change,” Mom says with a wistful smile.
I flinch because I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. “They don’t. They get forced onto children. We get to be lawyers because you sacrificed everything for us. That’s not fair, Mom. No one asked you to make that sacrifice.”
Mom laughs. “No, they demanded it. Constantly, every single day.”
“We’re grown now. There’s nothing stopping you from your dream.”
“I can’t be a lawyer.” Mom sniffs.
“Why not?”
“It’s what your dad does. What would it even look like if I went to school—”
“And showed him up? Stole his thunder? You know what this”—I gesture to Mom—“looks like right now? An excuse. You can outwit any situation. You pretend not to remember every single case you clerked on, but I know you do. You follow the Supreme Court the way some people follow sports teams.”
“Sweetie, it’s too late. Some ships sail off into the sunset.”
“Bull. You are Molly McKinney. You are an unstoppable force of will. You could open your own practice. You could teach. You could be the greatest judge in history. It’s not what I want for myself, but it’s what you want for you. So do it. You took the LSAT once, you could do it again.”
“And what about you?” Mom says.
“I don’t know.” I have to fight not to scream. “Don’t you understand what I’m saying? I’ve had to live your dream. It’s only recently that I’ve realized it isn’t mine. I’m trying to figure things out. But I didn’t have any wiggle room to put even a toe out of line growing up.”
“That’s not true.”
The house lights flicker.
“Isn’t it? ‘Look here, Bea, if you take AP US history as a sophomore and a semester of government over the summer, you can have an open period junior year. Except if you fill it with criminal justice, you can actually graduate high school a semester early.’ ‘Bea, look at this. Transfer students have a higher acceptance rate if they start out at a junior college. How many semesters would it take to get your GEs out of the way?’ ‘Bea, if you just push a little bit harder, you can apply to law school early.’ ‘Bea, four years of undergrad is for other people who don’t have their future figured out.
You can count clerking at your dad’s firm as an internship and be done in three. ’”
“Stop! You wanted to go to law school.”
“Yeah, because I wanted to make you happy. Because I didn’t realize I could do what Adam did and make my own choice.”
“Maybe I pushed you too hard. But it doesn’t explain why you are posting interviews with cats on Instagram and walking dogs for a living. You can do anything with a law degree! Nonprofits, business consulting, teaching.”
“Okay. So can I use my degree to turn the page now, so we can enjoy the rest of my…” I fumble for a word to describe who Mike is to me. “Mike’s play?”
“My Mike?”
“I didn’t want to say landlord.” I wanted to say friend. I desperately wanted to say boyfriend.
Mom’s eyes narrow. “Sure. We can do that.”
The houselights dim, but I know Mom’s eyes are still on me. I try to act casual. I try not to hold my breath, but the best part of the entire play is about to happen.
Mike, lovesick, emotional, elated, slightly bewildered, has never been better onstage, and I have the best seat in the house for seeing it all. If I close my eyes, I can imagine that he’s saying the words to me.
There are people in this world who are just fun to watch. They pull you in. They have an energy that is more magnetic than everyone else’s. Or maybe they’ve just managed to make the energy that we all have deep inside ourselves come to the surface.
Mike is commanding, charismatic, and a complete pleasure to watch. That cliché about hanging on words? Mike gives it new meaning. Everyone in this theater is living for his next word and falling in love.
“‘I love you with so much of my heart there is none left to protest.’”
The theater audibly swoons when he says this.
It’s a good line, and Shakespeare penned it for Beatrice, but it’s easy to see why they gave it to Mike in this production.
His delivery makes me free-fall. It’s that dash of bewildered that I find so endearing.
Euphoria is one thing, but being present enough to be baffled by it is…
special. There’s sincerity here but levity, too, and my gosh, I wish he were saying this to me.
This scene is earmarked for Beatrice. In so many productions, Benedick is little more than a set piece by the end of the scene, but my eyes cannot leave Mike.
“He’s sensational!” I hear the people behind us whisper.
And I want to smile and claim him. That’s my boyfriend.
That’s my best friend.
That’s my lover.
That’s my husband.
That’s the father of my children.
But I don’t get to. I’ll never get to. He’ll belong to someone else, and I’ll forever be the little harpy who rented out his back unit and stole his cranberry juice and begged for cookies because she was too afraid to take a chance.
Unlike the Beatrice of this play, I will end up a spinster.
I’ll grow into the role I’m already voluntarily assuming with other women’s cats.
I was supposed to find myself in La Jolla. Instead, I found Mike, but I’m too immature, stunted, spoiled, bitter, prickly to do anything about it. I am a cactus, hear me roar.
I sulk in my chair, arms folded, for the rest of the play. I want to say I can barely watch the final scene. The declarations of love, the I’ll stop thy mouth line. But let’s be real. I’m here for it. I’ve already survived seeing Mike kiss another woman. I can happily do it again and compare notes.