Nicky was surprised. “I don’t understand.”
“When he was a boy, he almost died from scarlet fever. When I met him, it was the first thing he told me. He said, ‘I’m on borrowed time.’ He told me he had a bad heart. We were at a mixer and the band was loud, and I thought he said he had a sad heart and I said I could fix that. He laughed and said, no, a bad heart. And through the years, he’d remind me. And one time, I got impatient with him when we were fussing about something and I said, ‘Everyone is on borrowed time.’ And he said, ‘The difference is, I know it.’ Why didn’t I believe him?”
Mrs. Allison’s sons and her family members pushed through the entrance door and spotted her. They encircled her as she wept and comforted her, and soon, they moved together to go. Nicky handed off the luggage to a neighbor. Mrs. Allison hadn’t noticed, but Nicky knew she would want her husband’s clothing. All of it would matter later. Nicky watched as Mrs. Allison, shored up on both arms by one of her sons, left the hospital. Family is essential; they scoop up their own to rescue them in tragedy, to bind them close, to shore them up and heal them. Those who don’t share their name or their grief or their history are left behind. A witness is only that, a passerby who observes a moment in the landscape of a stranger’s life story. But Nicky had heard the wings, and now the death of Gary Allison was part of his story too.
*
Nicky drove around aimlessly in No. 4 after he left the hospital. He stopped for coffee and had a cigarette. Not ready to return to the garage or go home, he found himself on Broad Street.
He parked the cab behind the Borelli Theater near the stage door, climbed the steps, and tried the door, relieved when it opened easily. The theater was a lot like a church in that way: usually, no matter the time, you could find an unlocked door to enter. He flipped on the work lights and walked out onto the stage, where the set pieces from Twelfth Night were marooned in the circles of light. The rowboat that washed up on the chicken wire shore of Illyria had been propped against the flat, its oars tucked neatly inside. The forest, a collection of papier-maché trees, flanked the wings. As Nicky stood at the edge of the pretend forest, he wished it would multiply and grow into acres, filling a painted landscape of mountains beyond it. He imagined walking into that world and never returning to this one.
But no such luck. After a time, he walked off the stage and up the aisle to the stairs that led to the mezzanine. He took a seat in the dark theater in one of the red velvet seats, worn from use and time, which suited his weary body just right. The scent in the air, of paint and chalk, stale perfume, and peppermint soothed him as he leaned back and stretched his legs out onto the mezzanine wall. The clutter of overhead lights, rigged on black, reminded him of a traffic jam, their metal shells layered one over the other, flaps open like the hoods of cars. He liked a theater in repose between performances, every aspect at rest; all that was needed were the actors, the crew, and the audience. Despite all he’d been through that day, the theater still gave him a sense of possibility.
Nicky had watched most rehearsals from the mezzanine over the past three years, and remembered them in detail. On the first day of rehearsal of every new production, Sam Borelli had a ritual. He gathered the company and crew on the stage to introduce them to one another for the first time. There would be forty or fifty of them, but Borelli knew each person by name, and when he introduced them individually, he’d give a quick snapshot of the job they did and why they were great at it.
A spear chucker was given the same deference as the leading man, the set designer as the costume assistant, the prop master as the director himself. Borelli insisted that the theater belonged to everyone, regardless of their role or position, and that came with a personal responsibility to be excellent, to be alert, stay focused, and do one’s best work because each artisan’s contribution had a direct effect on the outcome of the play and therefore the audience’s experience.
Nicky remembered Mrs. Borelli observing rehearsals from the last row of the orchestra. Calla, he remembered, was in and out. He hadn’t paid her much attention; she was younger than he and helped out on the various crews, but he had little interaction with her. He was surprised when it was announced she would take over the company. Evidently he wasn’t the only person at Borelli’s keeping a secret.
Nicky found himself drifting off to sleep, when he heard, “Anybody here?”
He sat up in his chair and saw Calla Borelli onstage looking around the empty theater for signs of life.
He waved, “Up here.”
“Nicky?”
“Yeah.”
“That was fast. Did Mrs. Mooney send you a telegram?”
Calla Borelli held a mop and bucket as she stood in a pool of light onstage.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Come down and I’ll tell you.”
Nicky joined her onstage. “Allow me.” He picked up the cleaning supplies. “How can I help?”
“Put them back in the supply closet. Monsieur and Madame are now sparkling.”
“Why do you clean the bathrooms?” Nicky followed Calla downstairs to the costume shop.
“They needed it.”
“You could have the janitor do it.”
“I had to cut back on his hours.”
“Him too?”
“It’s okay. They gave him more hours at the bank.” Calla opened the doors of the supply closet. Nicky loaded the equipment inside before following her into the costume shop.
“Does it seem to you there are more banks in Philadelphia than ever before?”
“You know what my dad says. Better a cabaret on every corner than a bank. If there’s a cabaret, at least you can sing about the pain.” Calla buried her hands in the pockets of her work coveralls and looked at Nicky. “I went over to the garage to see you today.”
“You’ve finally come to your senses and figured out that Frank Arrigo is never going to amount to anything, and you’d be better off with a cab driver?”
“No. I wanted to ask if you’d take over the role of Sebastian in Twelfth Night. Peter Menecola is out.”
Nicky didn’t know what to say.
Calla took his silence as the sign of a tough negotiation. “I know I fired you from the company, and that might give you pause.”
“Why wouldn’t it?” he said softly.
“But one has nothing to do with the other. Tony and Norma came to me and were impressed with how well you did, and they believe you could play the part. I believe you can too.”
“Are you playing Olivia?”
“Cathy’s back.”
“Hmm.” Nicky folded his arms and leaned against the work table. “I don’t know.”
“Five dollars a show.”
“You’re giving me a raise after you canned me?”
“You could look at it that way. So do you want to do it?”