Good Riddance(71)

“Which you define as . . . ?”

“An unhealthy yearbook obsession channeled into some kind of show! Why else would you need a guided tour of hangouts frequented by the class of 1968?”

“What yearbook? The one that’s history? You saw to that.”

Ouch. That was new, that edge. If we hadn’t been on the turnpike, I’d have pulled sharply over to the side of the road and braked with a decisive jerk. Instead, I remained silent, knowing there was a service plaza coming up that would serve my purposes.

He must’ve been aware that I was stewing because he tried to make conversation, starting with the unwise question of when I’d last seen Geneva.

“Not since the emergency room. The last conversation we had was after the yearbook went missing.”

“Went missing? Or met a shredder at FedEx?”

I was no longer proud of that. I admitted: bad that I’d destroyed my mother’s prized possession; good riddance when I thought of it as Geneva’s so-called intellectual property.

I could hear the click-click of his typing. “Are you writing down what I said?”

“Just making a note.”

“Be sure not to tell me why,” I huffed. A sign announced that the Charlton Service Plaza was upcoming, a mile ahead. At the half-mile point, I put my blinker on.

“Bathroom?” he asked.

“No. We’re pulling over, and I’m not moving until you tell me what this secret project is.”

He pointed to the glove compartment. “I don’t think you can hold me hostage if the rental car’s in my name.”

“Try me,” I said.

I pulled into a spot inconvenient to bathrooms, drive-through refreshment, and fuel. Jeremy busied himself, leaning over the front seat, patting his garment bag flat on the back seat, turning it over, patting it some more. “Just making sure my charger and camera are in there.”

“Are they? Is that settled? Anything else? Or can you now tell me what the fuck you’re writing?”

“C’mon, Daff. What more do you need to know? I’ve told you it’s for the stage—”

“And set in New Hampshire, which I find more than annoying.”

“Listen . . . New Hampshire, okay . . . the place is sort of a character in the story. I need to evoke it without actually setting it there.” He tapped the stick shift as if to say, Now we can go.

“There’s still something missing, something you’re not saying.”

“Trust me, you’ll be the first person to read it. I want to get it into really good shape. Then we’ll discuss—”

“Why do you care what I think of it? You’re the pro. I’m no script doctor. I don’t know what makes a play work.”

He slid downward until his head was resting on the back of the seat. “Believe me, I need you on board.”

“Because . . . ?”

“Because . . . it’s a one-woman show.”

That explained his stalling, his nerves: He knew I’d never go along with a play about my mortal enemy. I said, “I could never give my permission for that.”

“Without even reading it?”

I shrugged. I supposed it wouldn’t kill me to read a project that would never see the light of day. I’d probably find it satisfying to see Geneva portrayed as a bigger-than-life thief and villain. “Maybe it has potential,” I said to be charitable, “but I don’t think you’ll ever get her permission. She’s probably writing her own one-woman show as we speak.”

“Her own show?” he repeated. “Whose did you think I was talking about?”

“Geneva’s!”

“Not Geneva’s,” he said. “Yours.”





37


Be Nice



We discussed his pipe dream of a project for the rest of the ride. “Let’s just say you got this off the ground. Who’d play me?” I asked.

“You’d play you.”

That introduced a new level of shell shock. I, who knew nothing about the world of theater, expounded anyway. “A producer would want a name actress. Not a nobody, especially a nobody whose only experience was a month of acting classes and understudy to the female lead in a fully clothed high school production of Hair.”

“But the charm would be that it’s your story. And don’t think of a one-woman show as acting. It’s essentially stand-up, and I’ve seen you do stand-up.”

“No, you haven’t!”

“Not in a club,” he said. “In life.”

“Ridiculous. Forget it.” But after another few miles, I asked, “Not that I’m warming to the idea, but how long would I have to stand up there talking about myself?”

“I won’t know until it’s finished, but I’d say ninety minutes max.”

“Could I sit on a stool or would I have to move around the stage?”

“You could sit on a stool part of the time, and when you were talking about something that riled you up, you could pace.”

I thought about the exercises from acting lessons, supposedly using our bodies as . . . I forgot. Conveying emotion? Acting from the inside out, the Stella Adler method. Or was that outside in? I might have a well of hatred for Geneva that I could tap from either side.