Trust Exercise(27)

Sarah extracts it. She turns on the iron, waits patiently for it to heat, and then irons the shirt with great care, even using the sleeve form. When she’s finished she folds it with buttons centered and sleeves underneath, the way she’s seen men’s shirts come from the dry cleaner’s, and then she takes it into the costume shop and hides it on a high shelf, above the boxes of notions and buttons, stuff that currently isn’t in use.

In the course of the week and weekend, two more shirts appear, of the same sort and in the same place, and she does the same thing with them both. She watches Manuel for signs of unease. He always looks slightly uneasy. He never makes eye contact if they happen to pass near each other. Their enmity is an agreed-upon fact and requires no further acknowledgment. Joelle is his dresser and he and Joelle are now buddies, they’re constantly laughing and joking in Spanish. Joelle might even know Manuel’s address but Sarah doesn’t think of asking her, no longer cares where Manuel lives and doesn’t recall why she did. She isn’t aware of a plan for the shirts. She’s just stealing them, because they make her angry, though whether at Manuel, or Mr. Kingsley, or both, she isn’t sure. Her anger is intense but obscure.

The last performance, as always, is a two p.m. Sunday matinee, which, as always, feels anticlimactic, but there has to be time for the strike. After the show they’ll all remain to strike the set for however many hours it takes.

Manuel’s mother reappears for this final performance, without the father this time. Instead she’s accompanied by a young woman, slender, serious, conservative slacks and blouse from, perhaps, T.J.Maxx or some other large store that sells cheap office wear. She has a black purse with a very thin strap. She resembles Manuel, like Manuel is a full head taller than the mother; she walks close to the mother, sometimes taking her arm. This time, the mother appears more at ease, the young woman unsmiling and watchful. It’s the mother who leads the young woman, with visible pride, to the taped-off row of VIP seats. They settle themselves, tip their heads together, converse only with each other in the midst of the house’s exceptional noise, all the greetings and huggings and jokings and families trying to find six or thirteen seats together, it’s the final performance. Sarah leaves the light booth where she’s been sitting with gay Greg Veltin, goes back to the costume shop, but it’s too chaotic in there, all the cast members in costume and makeup fawning over Mr. Freedman, the costume designer, and giving him gifts. She waits until the first act is well under way, Mr. Freedman watching tonight from the house; then rooting through the costume shop’s wealth of potentially useful garbage finds a plastic shopping bag with handles and slides the three ironed shirts in, in a stack. Settles them flat on the bottom to keep them unwrinkled. Tonight everybody is toting a sack of something, mostly gifts for Mr. Kingsley, teddy bears that say “Thank You!” or boxes of chocolate, despite Mr. Kingsley having recently said, “I’m on very strict orders from Tim: NO MORE CHOCOLATE. Let’s say thank you without calories!”

Once, she would have filled a box with pain au chocolat at the bakery, because despite orders from Tim, Mr. Kingsley’s great passion for chocolate is known. She would have tied the box closed with a ribbon, paid for it out of her wages, bought Mr. Kingsley a card at Confetti!: The Celebrate Store and toiled over just what to say.

This show, she’s not giving a gift. She does not think he’ll notice.

The show ends, the ovations end, cast members with their makeup very imperfectly removed bound out of the dressing rooms to be gushed over by their family members and to line up for pictures. Impromptu and fragmentary encores. “Sue me, sue me, go ahead, sue me, I LOVE YOOOO!” Then family members are reluctantly drifting away, cast is due back onstage in ten minutes for strike, they should get off the rest of that makeup. Manuel has a word with his mother and the woman who must be his sister, goes back in the boys’ dressing room where his brand-new secret shirts constantly disappear. Sarah, standing in the piazza outside the main theatre doors with the bag, not sure which lot they’ve parked in, almost misses the mother and sister, catches sight of them just as they’re stepping outside. She has to run to catch up. “Excuse me,” she calls. If she had planned this, she might have worked out how to say it in Spanish. Joelle could have helped. But clearly, she hasn’t planned this. “Excuse me. These are Manuel’s, to take home.”

The women turn toward her, surprised. She thrusts the bag at the mother, so she has to accept it. “Manuel’s?” the mother says skeptically, glancing inside.

“They’re a gift, from Mr. Kingsley, for Manuel,” Sarah says, very clearly, although in English. But the sister can surely speak English. “Because Manuel is his boyfriend,” Sarah adds, quickly turning away.

“What did you say?” says the young woman sharply. But Sarah has dashed down the hall, disappeared.



* * *



“… AND YOU’LL KEEP these director’s notebooks for the whole of spring term. Any questions?” asks Mr. Kingsley.

“Where’s Manuel?” Colin asks. They have not seen Manuel since the Guys and Dolls strike. That was back before Christmas. A whole month ago.

Sarah watches Mr. Kingsley’s face closely. Culpability is what she would like to discern. Disquiet is all she expects. She finds neither, nor anything else. “Manuel’s having family issues,” Mr. Kingsley says smoothly. “Hopefully he’ll be back with us soon.”