“Your aunt Jo keeps me informed, when I see her. I haven’t seen her in a while.”
“Well, this time you’ll have to give her the news.”
“Okay.”
“I’ve been accepted at the Abbe Theater School. I’m going to study there and read with the actors when they audition.”
“That’s wonderful.”
“Thanks. I knew you’d approve. Hey, I called your house. Your phone was disconnected.”
“We sold it.”
“You loved that house.”
“It was too much to keep up with.”
“I understand. You’re talking to a guy who lives in one room. Besides, you’re a career girl. Do you really need a big house?”
“Even if I did, it wouldn’t matter. It’s gone.”
“How’s it going at the theater?”
“We’re working hard. Doing A Midsummer Night’s Dream right now.”
“Great play.”
“You know, my dad always said to direct what you’re feeling, and I’m feeling like I’m living in a very strange world.”
“Why’s that?”
“Frank Arrigo got married.”
Nicky sat up. “To you?”
“Nope.”
“His loss.”
“You’ll never guess who he married.”
“I don’t know. Faye Emerson from the television show.”
“She’s already married.”
“Forgive me. I don’t have a television set yet. I don’t know who is married and who isn’t.”
“You only know pretty ladies who you don’t watch on television.”
“Right.”
“Frank married Peachy DePino.”
“My Peachy?” Nicky was stunned.
“She’s not yours anymore.”
“I guess not.”
“Big wedding at Palumbo’s. Somebody said Mario Lanza sang ‘Be My Love.’”
“Pure corn. I hate that song.”
“Me too.” Calla chuckled.
“She got Mario Lanza?” Nicky was mystified.
“Frank got Mario Lanza. Frank thinks big. He’s built her a big mansion in Ambler.”
“Is that all?” Nicky felt peevish. Frank had even stolen the site of his personal epiphany as the place to reside with his former fiancée.
“There will be more. Much more,” Calla assured him.
“All of it could have been yours,” Nicky teased her.
“The marker was too high.”
“You’d have gotten used to it. You would have adjusted to the altitude.”
“I doubt it. Hey. Maybe you should come home sometime and see the circus for yourself.”
When Calla hung up the phone, she knew Nicky wouldn’t come home anytime soon—not for a visit, not to see the play, even if it was his favorite. He hadn’t come to any of the others since he moved away; why would this one be any different? Whatever he was doing in New York was so much more compelling than any production at Borelli’s—or at least, that’s how he made her feel. She wanted to tell Nicky that Peachy DePino had met Frank at the theater around the time Frank was trying to sell the building out from under her. But that might have hurt him, and she wouldn’t do that.
Calla had kept the biggest news to herself. The theater was closing. She had run through the money that she had inherited when the house was sold, and the current slate of productions had not done better than break even for the company, despite their best efforts to promote them. Calla wasn’t sleeping, haunted by her own regrets.
Nicky hung up the phone in New York. He felt odd. Calla seemed happy to hear from him, pleased about his news, but distant. Maybe she was upset about losing Frank. He couldn’t figure out why. Arrigo was nothing more than a big hunk of cheese, and everyone knows cheese is only an accompaniment, not the meal. He was surprised that Peachy had married him, but on the surface of things, they did seem an awful lot alike. Nicky was happy for her. After all, the acquisition of Peachy DePino’s long-term security by way of a proper marriage was another indulgence paid on the road to Nicky’s salvation—or, as they say at the Steinway & Sons factory, another piano off his back.
11
At twilight the blossoms on the trees along Riverside Drive swayed like marabou feathers in the breeze. The windows of the Abbe Theater studio were propped open, as Nicky had just washed them. He could hear the muffled cheers and whistles from the fans watching a softball game in Riverside Park. The field lights pulled on and glowed in the trees like white moons as he dusted the window seats. When he was finished with that task, he collected the sides left behind by the actors who had come through to audition for the summer production, Of Mice and Men.
The last student had signed out of the studio, leaving Nicky free to give the large studio, waiting area, and office a good mopping and dusting. He’d assembled the buckets, mops, and rags when his boss, Gloria Monty, came out of the studio, stuffing her purse with a script and her notes, which spilled out of a folder in bits and pieces like confetti.
Gloria was a high-energy dynamo, slim, sleek, and small, built like a cigarette. She cursed and crammed the bits of paper inside before snapping the handbag shut. “Sorry you had to hear that.” She laughed.
Her dark brown eyes were expressive; her matching hair was chopped into a bob. She had college-girl style, preferring trim pencil skirts, sweaters, and low-heeled shoes to day dresses. Though she wore simple wool swing coats, her hats were works of art. Gloria would use typewriter ribbon on the crown, or line the brim with a row of cocktail picks. There was a swizzle stick twist of the avant-garde Elsa Schiaparelli in her otherwise traditional style.
Nicky noticed that the best directors, including Gloria, had a distinctive style. Sam Borelli wore the same tweed jacket with a tan-and-black weave to every rehearsal, but his neckties expressed a flair. Sewn by hand by Vincenza, they were made of bright silks in shades of turquoise, magenta, and purple. Calla certainly had a knack for fashion. The directors who taught at the Abbe School were original too. The professor who taught character study wore silk tunics and Nehru jackets.
Nicky pumped the mop into the fresh soapy water.
“Now the prince turns into Cinderella,” Gloria joked.
“As long as I’m the prince once in a while, I’m fine with being Cinderella, or even her understudy.” Nick grinned.
“You’re not the only person around here pulling two shifts. I have to go home and make Robert dinner.”
“You’re a good wife.”
“I’m a better director.”
Gloria sat down on the top of the receptionist desk in her hat and coat and lifted her feet off the floor so Nicky could mop under them. “How long have you been an actor?”
“I worked at a theater in Philadelphia before I moved here. I did a little of everything.”
“That’s why you do anything we ask around here.”
“I consider this church. I’m here to serve.”
“You’re very generous. And you’re a natural.
“I can’t take any credit. I learned everything at that Shakespeare company.”
“Oh. That’s why you know how to read with actors. And that’s how you know the classics.”
“I appreciate when you let me sit in during auditions.”
“You’re the first person to ever thank me for that job. Most actors hate doing it. It’s a chore.”