A Dream for Addie (6 page)

“Yeccch,” said Gloria.

“If you ever really get to be a prima ballerina, Tanya,” I continued, “you'll probably be a dope fiend or a split personality or something.”

“Ha!” said Tanya.

“Yeah,” said Carla Mae. “You'll probably be dancing around in a padded cell!”

“In a ‘Green Goddess' strait jacket,” said Gloria, and she cracked her gum furiously, right in Tanya's ear. Carla Mae and I cracked ours too, and Tanya clamped her hands over her ears with an anguished expression.

“Now, listen,” I said, when the frantic chewing had stopped. “I have this fantastic idea for a project for all of us.”

They all stared at me expectantly. I was notorious for having brilliant brainstorms.

I waited for an appropriately dramatic pause. “I think we should all get Constance Payne to give us dramatic lessons!”

There was stunned silence for a moment.

“You're out of your mind!” hissed Tanya. “What do we need with dramatic lessons?”

“Listen,” I said, trying to sound very logical. “Didn't we agree in our New Year's resolutions that we were gonna do all kinds of self-improvement stuff? And now it's almost Easter, and what have we done? Not one, single, solitary project!”

“I take dancing lessons every week,” said Tanya haughtily.

“We know, we know!” said Carla Mae. “You've been doing that for years, so that's not an
improvement
for this year.”

“Well,” said Tanya, “I don't see how dramatic lessons are going to improve me. I don't want to be an actress.”

“Great dancers are supposed to be dramatic on the stage,” I said. “It would probably help you a lot—later in your ballet career.” I winked at Carla Mae and she smirked. Tanya's pretensions as a great ballerina were a running joke among the rest of us.

“I bet it's expensive, though,” said Gloria.

“We can collect pop bottles and stuff to raise the money,” I said. “I don't think it would cost more than fifty cents each. I think that's what we should offer.”

“That's a lot,” said Gloria.

“Yeah, but we'll only take a few lessons, because she won't be here that long.”

“I don't know,” said Gloria.

“Oh, come on!” I said impatiently. “Everybody give me fifty cents tomorrow, and I'll go and see her after lunch.”

“I don't know,” said Tanya. “Fifty cents?”

“Yeah,” said Carla Mae, “that's expensive … and after what happened at the style show and everything.”

I knew one last thing I could do to get them to agree. I spit on my hand and held it out to them. That was the signal for our secret oath, and they couldn't go back on it. They all hesitated for a moment.

“Is it a pact?” I asked, and started to chant the oath. “Faithful friends through thick and thin, if we lose or if we win …”

I stared at the three of them, and one by one, they reluctantly joined in, spitting on their palms and reaching across the table to shake hands in unison as we continued the oath.

“Signed in blood and sealed in spit, our loyalty will never quit. Cross your heart and hope to die, stick a needle in your eye. Vow to keep the secret code, or turn into an ugly toad!”

The next day I rode over to Constance's house on my bike, taking along the things from her purse. I couldn't resist trying on her sunglasses. I had never owned a pair of sunglasses, and I felt terribly glamorous and mysterious in them. I put them on right over my own glasses and wore both pair as I pedaled down the street. I took them off before I knocked on her door, because I didn't want her to think I was making fun of her.

I had approached Gloria and Carla Mae and Tanya with the idea that the dramatic lessons would be good for the four of us, but I was also thinking of it as a project to take Constance's mind off her drinking and give her some company. We would be helping to save a great star. I didn't know what to expect when she came to the door. She was barefoot, and her hair was a bit disheveled. She was wearing her black and red kimono again. When she saw me, she looked embarrassed.

“Hi!” I said brightly, as though nothing had happened.

“Hi,” she said softly.

I handed her the things, and she took them, giving me an apologetic look. “Come on in,” she said. “I … I just wasn't feeling very well yesterday …”

“I know,” I interrupted. “I mean, it's OK. It was just a dumb style show.”

“Thank you for not being angry,” she said, and she put her arm around my shoulder as we walked into the living room.

As soon as we sat down, I launched into my request about the acting lessons, telling her that we would really appreciate it very much to have a chance to be exposed to someone artistic like her.

She looked startled, then laughed an odd laugh and said she didn't think she was the kind of teacher we ought to have, and anyway, she had to get back to New York.

I was very disappointed at her refusal. “Boy,” I sighed, “I wish I was going with you. I hate it here sometimes.”

“You don't know how lucky you are to live in Clear River,” she said. “New York can be a terrible place!”

“I bet I'd love it!” I said.

She smiled. “You probably would.”

I realized then that she really understood. She was the only person I had ever mentioned my daydreams of New York to who didn't seem opposed to the idea. She actually knew that I was serious, and she knew I'd like it.

“Maybe you'll get to go someday,” she said.

“Not if my dad has anything to say about it,” I said. “He thinks I should get married or be a schoolteacher or something. He never wants me to do anything that's exciting!”

“Well, parents are like that. They worry about you. They want you to be safe. My parents were the same way. They didn't want me to go on the stage.”

“That would have been awful!” I said. “Think what you would have missed! You couldn't have been a famous actress if you'd stayed here.”

“Well,” she said, “there are other things in life …”

“That's what Dad always says, every time I talk about being an artist or going to Paris or New York. He acts like it's going to the moon or something!”

“He just wants you to be happy.”

“Staying here wouldn't make me happy in a million years,” I said. “I mean, I like it, but I just don't want to sit around here and do nothing for the rest of my life! I want to see what's going on in the world! I want to visit every country and eat every kind of food and see every museum and read every book and do something that's never been done before! I don't want to be like everybody else!”

I stopped, amazed at myself making that big speech to her. I realized that even though I didn't know Constance very well, I had told her a lot of things I had never discussed with anyone else. I think she knew that.

She looked at me quietly for a moment and then she said, “I guess I owe you
something
for what happened yesterday. If you really want me to give you a lesson, I will.”

“You mean it?” I said, excited.

“Sure,” she smiled.

I jumped up and gave her a big hug, then pulled out the two dollars in change we had collected and dumped it on the table in front of the sofa. I said I knew it wasn't much, but it was all we could afford for the first lesson, and she could teach us all at once in a group. She tried to give the money back to me and said she wouldn't charge us, but I insisted and said we wanted it to be strictly professional.

I said we would be there at four that afternoon and ran out before she could change her mind again.

Chapter Five

At four that afternoon, we were in Constance Payne's living room, ready to become great dramatic actresses. She was dressed in a plain blue suit with a white blouse, and she had brushed her hair back neatly and put on makeup. I had been afraid that she wouldn't take us seriously as students, but on the contrary, she talked to us about acting with great intensity and seemed to believe we really wanted to learn.

We had all been prepared to start out with a big death scene or something equally dramatic from the latest Broadway hit, but much to our surprise she asked us to do something that sounded like a children's game to us.

Carla Mae and I were to pretend that there was a big spring dance approaching and that I was trying to get Carla Mae to double-date with me. I would go with my favorite boy and she with hers, and the object was for Carla Mae to hesitate to accept and for me to insist on it.

Constance called this “improvisation,” and it seemed rather silly to us … just playing “let's pretend” like little kids. But just before we started, she whispered something to Carla Mae that the rest of us couldn't hear. Then she told us to behave just as we would if the circumstances were real, to talk to each other as we usually did.

Carla Mae and I began our imaginary conversation.

“Hi!” I said, not quite sure how to start. “Heard about the big spring dance next week?”

“Yeah,” Carla Mae answered. “Sounds neat.”

“I'm gonna invite Billy Wild, so you wanna double-date, you and Delmer Doakes?”

The others giggled when I mentioned the boys Carla Mae and I liked the best.

“No, thanks,” she answered.

“How come?”

“I just don't want to, that's all.”

“Well, why not?” I asked.

“I just don't.”

“Well, you have to have a reason.”

“Says who?”

“We always do everything together,” I said. “Why wouldn't we go to the dance together?”

“Well,” she said slyly, “maybe I've made other plans.”

“What other plans?”

“Never mind.”

“What is this?” I asked, getting annoyed. “We have a pact not to keep secrets from each other!”

“This is different,” she said.

“Why is it different?”

“You'll find out,” she said smugly.

“Well, that's just dumb! Why can't you tell me?”

“I just don't want to,” she said.

I was losing my temper. “This is just dumb!” I said, turning to Constance. “We're supposed to talk to each other like we really do, but she would never do that.”

“Are you sure?” asked Constance, smiling a bit.

“Yeah,” I said, not really very sure at all.

“Keep trying,” said Constance. “Maybe you'll find out what's going on.”

I turned back to Carla Mae. “OK!” I shouted right in her face. “Once and for all, what's going on?”

“I'm not telling,” she said frostily, and sat on the edge of the sofa. The others were snickering.

“All right for you!” I said. “You can just forget about being my best friend.”

“Fine!” she retorted.

“This is really stupid!” I said, leaning over her and trying to intimidate her. “I don't see how we're supposed to do this scene if you don't cooperate!”

“Well, I
am
cooperating!” she shouted, rising and trying to tower over me. “Constance told me to pretend I already invited your boyfriend myself, and I didn't want you to find out about it. That's why I wouldn't go and wouldn't tell why.”

Tanya and Gloria howled with laughter, and I groaned and flopped down on the sofa.

Constance laughed. “Now, did that argument seem real to you?” she asked.

Everybody agreed that it had.

“Why do you think it seemed real?” she asked.

“Because,” I said, still burned at being tricked. “She really was keeping a secret from me, and it made me mad.”

“Right,” said Constance. “You weren't just playing ‘let's pretend.' You were really arguing, yet you were doing it in pretend circumstances. Understand?”

“I guess so,” said Gloria, sounding vague.

“You don't
act
something,” Constance said. “You
do
something. You do something
real
in imaginary circumstances.”

Suddenly I understood what she was talking about, and my anger evaporated. “I get it!” I said excitedly. “That's neat!”

We were all fascinated with the illustration she had just given us, and I began to believe that there was a lot more to acting than I had ever imagined.

Constance then set up an improvisation for Tanya and Gloria, in which Gloria would describe a new boy she liked, and Tanya would disagree. It worked out very well, with Tanya getting all hot under the collar about how awful the boy was, and Gloria defending him until Tanya tried to end it by pointing out that he wasn't even a real person, just imaginary. Gloria shut her up by asking if he was only imaginary, then why was Tanya arguing about him. That sent us all into a fit of giggles, and Constance told them they had done very well.

“I didn't know acting was so easy,” said Gloria.

“Well, it isn't really,” said Constance, smiling.

“Yeah,” I said. “We're just making up our own lines so it seems real. What do you do when you hafta read someone else's lines?”

“Yeah,” said Carla Mae. “Like Shakespeare, that's so hard!”

“Well,” said Constance, “it's really the same thing.”

“What do you mean?” asked Gloria.

“Well, you were trying to tell Tanya how much you liked the new boy,” said Constance. “How handsome he was—that he was neat and cute and a sharp dresser. And it's the same thing when you're doing something in Shakespeare.”

She paused for a moment, thinking of an example.

“For instance,” she went on, “Cleopatra says that Antony's ‘face was as the heavens; and therein stuck a sun and moon, which kept their course and lighted the little O, the earth.'”

We were all watching her intently. None of us knew anything about Shakespeare, because in Clear River you didn't study that until you got into high school, but we knew who Cleopatra was, and we were fascinated with what she had to say about Antony.