Born with Teeth: A Memoir (17 page)

Egan found me in Barbados and insisted that the hotel management inform me of his phone calls. The woman at the front
desk would make her way to our bungalow, gently rap on the door, and call out, “There’s a phone call for Miss Mulgrew,” and I would look frantically at Beth, because it was too soon, because I couldn’t bear it, because I wanted to forget, and so Beth would trudge up to the front desk where Somerset Maugham once collected his mail and return after a short while, shaking her head and saying, “You know, you’re going to have to talk to him sooner or later.”

I cannot remember in all of my life a time when I deliberately sought my father’s strength, but as the music swelled in the church and the last of the guests had been seated, and our cigarettes were nearly burned to the nub, I rested my head on his shoulder for a moment and whispered, “Oh, Dad, I feel so tired.”

My father stood straight, as he always did, but maybe this time just that bit straighter as he adjusted his tie and pulled on his jacket. Then he turned to me, looked me directly in the eye, and said, “You know, Kitten, you don’t have to do this. Just say the word and I’ll go in there and call the whole thing off.”

Beth was already at the altar. From where I stood, I could see the blue-and-white floral dress she’d borrowed from me the night before. Robert Egan waited on the other side. The “Wedding March” had begun, and the first notes were discordant, which made me laugh. I took a last drag from the kernel of my father’s cigarette, flicked it out the open window Cagney-style, and, taking my father’s arm, said, “Fuck it, Daddy, let’s do it.”

We lived in a succession of houses. The first belonged to Robert, and it sat at the top of Queen Anne Hill in Seattle. It was small and blue, and upside down, so that our bedroom and living room were on the ground floor, and the dining room and kitchen were on the basement floor, down a flight of stairs.

Our first son, Ian, conceived on our wedding night, was brought to this house after a remarkably easy labor and delivery. It took that baby no more than forty-five minutes to come squalling into the world, whereupon a chorus of nurses burst into song, “Look at him, he’s a nine-point-nine, almost a ten! A perfect baby!” I vaguely remember being served a dinner of steak and champagne in my room afterward. Robert poured champagne into my glass with the fastidiousness of a heroin dealer. I hadn’t had a glass of wine or a cigarette in nearly nine
months. Robert had implemented these inarguably sound rules to protect the health and well-being of the baby.

How right my husband had been. For here, in my arms, lay a perfect babe, and because I had been so good for so long and had grown so plump and indolent, nothing much mattered to me but continuing my regimen of deliberate sloth. But now I had an accomplice, whereas before—during the long, dry, uneventful pregnancy—it was just me, alone, lying in my wide canopy bed that was far too big for the tiny bedroom in the little blue house.

Ian and I were natural partners in crime. As long as we were left to our own devices, it was bliss. I’d plump up the pillows, soft drink and snack nearby, while Ian lay in the crevice of my arm, suckling away. We watched old movies, and sometimes we’d drift off, only to be awakened by some delicious urge—to eat, to suckle, to coo, to play. Ian Thomas was a very beautiful baby, and eminently watchable, and he had, from the very beginning, an unusual gravitas. Newborns do not generally inspire respect, but that is what I felt for Ian. While appreciating his utter helplessness, I could not help but admire the steadiness and intelligence of his gaze. He was not an infant to express discomfort in conventional ways. Instead, he would turn those deep blue eyes to mine and simply stare at me until I got the message. This method of communication suited both of us.

I hired a professional photographer to come and take a series of photographs of mother and son. I wanted them in black and white. The photographer lobbied for color shots, but I said no, black and white, and nothing posed. The day before the photo shoot, I called a hair salon and told the lady who answered that I’d pay any hairdresser she had available two hundred dollars to make a house call. A young man arrived, and I led him down the stairs to the kitchen, where I had draped a sheet over a
chair. Holding Ian in my arms, I instructed the guy to cut my hair.

Shorter, you mean, he asked, and I said, No, cut it all off. The photos have survived, and they show mother and son staring directly into the camera, somber and alert, acknowledging the intruder but not necessarily welcoming him.

The natural tension that existed between Robert and me would periodically erupt into a spat, though seldom damaging or long lasting. The tension was a taut line tying me to him and him to me, almost a way of expressing our solidarity. Instead of touching, we teased. He didn’t bark his displeasure, but bit with criticism. I, in retaliation, withdrew into myself, where I could dwell for days in a cold, distant chamber. It was a way of life we understood, despite our better instincts. We didn’t sulk, we didn’t complain, and we did nothing to examine the nature of our love.

Reconciliations were swift, and celebratory. There were many dinner parties, shared with excellent friends, and long nights of exhilarating conversation about the theater. We were passionate about the theater and loved talking about it. Dan Sullivan and his petite, quiet wife, Cecilia, were a staple, as were John and Joanne Procaccino. Mark Jenkins, a statutory member of the acting company, introduced us to his wife, Vicky, whose WASP-y reserve and pioneering spirit fascinated me. Tall and lanky, with long, thin ash-blond hair tucked back with a single bobby pin, she was capable of writing a chapter in a novel, preparing dinner for eight, and changing the tire on her vintage Buick, all in an afternoon. She was altogether my kind of person. In that cold, wet place, these were the relationships that sustained me.

My idyll with Ian came to an abrupt end when Robert told me that he wanted me to play the part of Kitty Strong in the world premiere of Michael Weller’s play
The Ballad of Soapy
Smith.
I was contrary, insisting that it would be better for me to stay home with the baby than to be a part of such a large ensemble. Anyone could play Kitty Strong, I argued. Well, I’m directing it and I want you, Robert countered. Okay, I said, I’ll do it, but then you have to let me go to Anchorage to do
The Philadelphia Story
at the Alaska Rep. Tracy Lord is a part every actress wants to play, and you know it, I declared.

“When?” Robert wanted to know.

“Rehearsals begin immediately after
Soapy Smith
closes, so I’d be on my way pretty much the next day. And, of course, I’m taking Ian with me,” I responded, gaining confidence.

“We’ll see about that,” Robert said.

“Yes, that’s right.” I laughed. “We’ll see if you want to be stuck with an infant for two months!”

“You’re crazy,” Robert demurred, “and who the hell wants to go to Alaska in the middle of winter to do a Philip Barry play?”

“I do,” I said. “Obviously.”

A few weeks later, I was in my dressing room at the Seattle Rep being laced into Kitty Strong’s corset. For weeks I had been nursing Ian, whose appetite was voracious, and hadn’t quite shed the pounds necessary to return me to my fighting weight, so the unfortunate wardrobe mistress, sensitive to all of this, had to pretend that there was a malfunction with the hooks and laces rather than admit that my waist would never be twenty-four inches again. With every agonizing tightening of the laces, Ian, resting happily in his Moses basket at my dressing station, would emit a little coo of delight, which sent a signal to my brain that my baby was hungry, whereupon my milk would let down, the laces were promptly undone, and the entire process was aborted while I saw to my infant’s afternoon tea.

The stage manager stuck her head in and said, “Kate, there’s a call for you in the greenroom—it’s been transferred from
Administration. I’ll look after the baby while you take it, but hurry up, we’re at fifteen minutes.”

I walked quickly to the greenroom, wondering who on earth could be calling me on a late Friday afternoon at the theater. It must be a job offer, I thought, something glamorous and lucrative—and on location! I picked up the phone, already flush with anticipation, and I heard a familiar voice on the other end of the line, a voice I did not associate with the theater, a voice I both respected and feared.

“Kate, it’s Dr. Shy calling. I hate to interrupt you at work, but I thought you should know that the results of last week’s tests have come back, and it looks like you’re pregnant again.”

“But, Dr. Shy,” I sputtered, “that was just a routine postpartum visit, I didn’t want a pregnancy test! I can’t be pregnant, I’m still nursing! I’m still bleeding! I’m about to go onstage! What are you talking about?”

“It’s unusual, I know, but not unheard of. You’re about eight weeks along.” Dr. Shy sighed. “Congratulations.”

When I accused Robert of lasciviousness, he said, “Oh, stop complaining. You should be delighted to be having another baby! It’s meant to be!” A self-congratulatory dig.

Alaska moved me. The audiences were so hungry for entertainment that I could have walked out and sung “Happy Birthday” standing on my head and they’d have been delighted. Every night, the curtain call was explosive. Boots were stomping before the curtain fell, men hollered in loud, harsh voices, wild hooting erupted from the back of the house, from the orchestra, from the mezzanine, all the way into the lobby. It was raw, and exciting.

Hidden beneath an abundance of bearskins, Ian and I flew across the Alaskan wilderness in a dogsled. We stopped at an outpost for a hot drink, and when we came through the door, a silence fell, unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. Not a woman
in sight, and here I was, in a white fur-lined parka, holding a beautiful baby in my arms, both of us pink cheeked from the bracing air, asking for a hot toddy. The bartender shook his head, didn’t smile, didn’t say a thing. A beer, then, would be fine, I said. He put a thick brown bottle in front of me and stood there, waiting. I took a sip, and nodded. Eight or ten men stood at the bar, each with a beer in hand. Rough hands, dirty and callused, with blackened, ragged fingernails. As I drank, I kept my head down, but I could observe those hands on top of the bar, and as my eyes slid from hand to hand, it slowly dawned on me that every hand on the counter of that bar was disfigured. Most were missing one or two fingers, but one man looked as if his entire right hand had been mangled in something and had been mutilated. They smoked with any two fingers; they drank using their left hand. They never once looked at me, but they took in every part of me with a still and intense concentration.

Robert flew up to spend Christmas with us and gave me a present, unexpected and unique.

“Garland Wright is directing
The Misanthrope
at the Rep, and he’s interested in you for Celimene. The problem is, you’ll be almost eight months pregnant by the time it closes, and Celimene is a grand coquette, so it would complicate the plot, if you know what I mean.”

“But look at me, Robert! I carry low and my hips are so narrow, you’d have to study me through opera glasses to catch on! Did you tell Garland how I look?” I demanded.

“He wants to see you for himself, then he’ll make his decision.” Silence. The beginning of a smile played at the corners of his mouth, and Robert added, “But Garland wants to set it in the French Revolution, and you know what the clothes were like for the French aristocracy.”

“Commodious,” I offered. “Extravagant.”

“Big,” Robert declared, and now we were both smiling.

Two weeks later, I stood facing Garland Wright in a fitting room at the theater. He asked me to turn around, slowly. Standing next to him was the costume designer Kurt Wilhelm. Each held a forefinger to his mouth, as if trying to solve a puzzle. Wilhelm stepped forward, asked, May I, and with a measuring tape calculated the distance from my neck to just below my breasts.

“A high whalebone corset, just above the abdomen, and a very low bodice. A robe à la française, expensive fabric with a beautiful drape, and, of course, all of the appropriate undergarments. Chemise, hoops, petticoats, drawers if necessary—will she disrobe?”

Garland looked at me, grinned wickedly, and said, “Oh, yes, indeed she will.”

“And, you know, with the Fragonard wig…” Kurt Wilhelm held up his hands, the idea of the wig so marvelous that it defied description.

“Well, madam, shall we begin?” Garland came forward and lifted my hand to his lips. “It’s time to meet your Alceste.”

In the rehearsal studio, a man leaned over a table, intently studying a script. When he heard me enter he turned and, never taking his eyes from mine, moved toward me with the grace and confidence of a natural actor, a man born to play Alceste, built to dazzle and devastate this Celimene. Daniel Davis and I embraced each other from the first moment as if it was simply meant to be, this union, which for some reason or another, fate had annoyingly delayed.

Rehearsals for
The Misanthrope
were joyful and utterly unpredictable. Kevin Spacey brought an unexpected edge and dangerous charm to Philinte, while the scenes between Arsinoe and Celimene evolved into a kind of lethal dance, daggers concealed beneath layers of velvet, glinting only now and again,
thrusting with intent at the end, when all is lost for Arsinoe. But it was my scenes with Daniel Davis that were exquisite miniatures, at once seductive, passionate, and—something else, a surprise—tender, honest, poignant.

When, each night, Alceste kneeled between my legs and slowly, sensually cut my corset up the front with the tip of his knife, and my swollen stomach was suddenly revealed in all its protuberant glory, the audience as a collective audibly gasped, and Danny and I would look at each other with the kind of lustful exultance that only two actors can feel when a moment, in front of eight hundred people, reaches perfection.

Beautiful babies and beautiful parts, however gratifying, did nothing to change the constitution of Seattle. It was a cold, rainy, provincial city where I felt isolated and lonely. We had agreed, at the beginning of our marriage, that Seattle would be only temporary. Heavily pregnant with Alec, I entreated Robert to remember our promise to each other. To live in a place where we could both thrive. I knew that New York was out of the question for Robert and was not unhappy when we undertook the long drive to Los Angeles, en famille, shortly after
The Misanthrope
closed. Robert had been offered a job as producing director of the Center Theatre Group, under the artistic directorship of Gordon Davidson. Gordon had been running that ship for many years, and he understood the value of a young man whose gifts included not only dramaturgical and directing skills but a wife who loved to throw herself on a stage and could do so at the drop of a hat.