The Prodigal
Thirty-eight
“MR. AMES, MISS PERKINS would like you to come to her dressing room. Would you come with me, please?” I looked at Wendy, Melody, Lissa, and Bree. They flicked their fingers at me, so I went with the house manager. The show was supposed to start in ten minutes. There were flowers all over Allie’s dressing room. More flowers, I thought, than there were people in the audience. Allison threw herself into my arms as soon as she saw me.
“Tony! I’m so scared!”
“Allie, honey. You’ll be fine. This is what you live for.”
“What if they don’t like me?”
“They’ll love you.”
“What if they do like me? Am I ready for this, Tony?”
“Hey! Allison. I fell in love with you the same morning Jonathan did. You are my Diva. You’ve been in Seattle for a year now. People love you. But that’s not all. You’ve played racquetball in the fucking World Championships. You’ve won the fucking Intercollegiates. You’ve won the fucking Opens. You’ve even kept forty tweens occupied for a week at a time. Everyone here is in awe of you—including me.”
“Tony, you’re so… You’re such a bullshitter. Kiss me like you mean it and be in the center seat of the front row. This is for you as much as for me.”
I kissed her. In fact, I kissed her until there was a knock on the door. “Two minutes, Miss Perkins,” the voice said.
“Thank you, two,” Allie called back. She kissed me hard and pushed me away. “Go to your seat. I have to repair my lipstick. It’s showtime!”
And what a show. Allie sang, danced, and did stand-up improv.
“He was standing right there between me and the finals of the women’s open championships with my favorite racquetball player on the court. I yelled, ‘Move yer bloomin’ arse!’ He didn’t get it. That was our last date.” The audience cracked up. Jonathan and David were sitting beside us, but at intermission I noticed that Jonathan was pacing the lobby like an expectant father.
“You okay, Jonathan?” I asked.
“This is it, Tony. We risked it all on this second act. She’s spectacular. I just hope everyone is ready.”
“I’m sure looking forward to it, and it doesn’t look like anyone left.”
“Let’s hope.”
I understood about thirty seconds into the second act. The piece wasn’t from a script. It was the last four thousand plus words of Ulysses.
Rio and I had read Joyce’s Ulysses for Literary Criticism and Critical Reading classes, looking at all the critical analyses of the piece from 1904 to the present. The last episode of Ulysses is a soliloquy by Molly Bloom, Leopold’s long-suffering wife. There’s no punctuation and no capitalization. Unless someone had a copy of the book reading along, they’d never know if Allison’s soliloquy cut any of the original. It rambles on and on, and takes you all through her life. Allison handled it masterfully. Over half an hour lying in bed talking. It was so beautiful that we didn’t even think twice when Allie pulled the covers down and started examining her breast as she talked about Leopold wanting to know if she’d squirt a little breast milk in his tea. The end was beautiful, when she said,
…I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.
There was an instant’s pause as the lights slowly dimmed. Before it was fully black, the applause had begun. With only a hundred people in the room, ‘thunderous’ might not be an apt description, but when the lights came up on the stage again and Allie was still lying in the bed, the entire room was standing and still applauding. She just looked at us. There was a slight smile on her lips as she acknowledged our presence and the applause gradually died. People sat as they realized there would be an encore. When they were completely quiet, Allie’s eyes came to rest on me. I saw her take three deep breaths and then flip the covers away from her perfectly nude form lying on the bed—an exact duplicate of my painting as she stretched her hand out to me.
Sono andati? Fingevo di dormire
perché volli con te sola restare.
Ho tante cose che ti voglio dire,
o una sola, ma grande come il mare,
come il mare profonda ed infinita...
Sei il mio amore e tutta la mia vita!
The song from La Bohème by Puccini she had sung to me in the hotel in Chicago two years ago. The audience was captivated as her clear beautiful tones rang out a cappella in the little theater. We were spellbound, either by the music, or by the daring pose as Allie sang the number completely nude in front of us.
Molly Bloom had left the audience with watery eyes. Mimi, her hand raised with a pink muff held in it as she lay her head down, left us all weeping. The lights faded and it was a few moments before the first tentative applause started. It built in wave after wave as the lights came up on an empty stage. Allie entered in a simple dressing gown and curtsied. The applause continued several minutes.
“That was it! That was the scene in the painting. I’ve always loved the painting, but now I understand it,” Lissa said as she hugged me. We were escorted to the lobby where we met Allie. I gave her a hug and a deep, passionate kiss. There was applause from around us and a line started almost immediately. We signed twenty-seven posters. By my estimate, that grossed more than the ticket office. Jonathan was beaming and as soon as we were free and Allie dressed, we were ushered out to a limousine and taken to the W Hotel where Jonathan had prepared a fabulous reception. I was stunned by Allie’s dress, such as it was, when I helped her out of her coat. It was slit to her waist on the sides and plunged nearly to her navel in front.
“Allie,” I said softly, “tell me to butt out if it’s none of my business, but you aren’t being used or exploited, are you?”
“Thank you, Tony. I know you’d come to my defense if I needed. I might appear nude on stage, but I’m not a stripper and I’m not a door prize. It’s okay. And besides, I’m coming home with you tonight.”
That was a relief and the way Lissa, Melody, Wendy, Whitney, and Bree hovered near Allie all evening, I could tell I wasn’t the only one feeling protective. Jonathan and David were never far from her either and managed a crowd that I’m sure was at least twice the size of the attendance at the theater.
The next two nights the house was packed, and the review that came out in Saturday’s paper was about as positive as you could get. Allie would be going on tour.
And then I was plunged into the school year. I attended Bychkova’s class Monday and Wednesday mornings and wracked my brain the rest of the time for a final project. I was coming up dry. I ran all over the PCAD and SCU campuses, downtown, up on the hill, anywhere I thought I might get an inspiration. Nothing came.
Clarice was on me, too. She wanted new pieces to show and had me slated for Las Vegas in October this year. All I had to give her were the Cherokee Suite and Delectable Morsels, the suite of three paintings of the girls in Tempe. I honestly hadn’t painted anything worthwhile since the piece Penny dubbed Hope and I wasn’t showing that to Clarice. I was surprised to find that Kate’s prints were selling like crazy and she had an exclusive gallery in each of the seven major markets. I didn’t sell anything unless I was there to tell the story and twist a few arms.
I wondered if Kate even knew she was selling.
Damn it!
“Coach, I’d like to not play racquetball this year.”
“Yes, that doesn’t surprise me,” Sam said. “In the aftermath of Nationals and the World Games, I’m not surprised at all that you don’t want to play. Congratulations, by the way.”
“Huh? For what? I’m a disgrace. I didn’t represent our school well.”
“Maybe. But once the dust settled and the IOC got involved, your last opponent was disqualified, you were reinstated, and ultimately awarded fourth place. You weren’t there to play the consolation match.”
“Shit. Er… sorry, coach.”
“Yeah. But what are we going to do? We’d better go see Cary.”
Coach Jacobson and I walked across campus after he called to see if Cary could see us. Cary had a new batch of dual degree candidates and his schedule wasn’t as flexible as it used to be, but he said he had time if we got there right away. When I explained, he nodded.
“What do you think, Coach?” Cary asked.
“Tony’s done a good job of getting a racquetball program going here at SCU,” Sam said. “I expect we will have over a dozen players this fall. Since Miss Grant, or shall I say Mrs. Ames resigned as coach, we’ve managed to hire on another good coach for the team. Not quite the same caliber, but I’m sure she’ll be able to keep the team moving forward. I think Tony has fulfilled his obligation. And if he decides to pursue a master’s degree, he still has another year of eligibility.”
Master’s?
“You are going to lose some funding, Tony,” Cary said. “Your academic scholarship will cover tuition, but there won’t be housing.”
“It will still cover tuition?” I couldn’t believe my good fortune. I had assumed I’d have to come up with the whole ball of wax. I’d talked it over with Melody and Lissa and they agreed I was covered with my painting. Assuming I could get back to painting.
“That part’s never been an issue,” Cary explained. “It’s an academic scholarship and your grades have been no problem at all. It’s a little sad to see you give up the sport, but it’s not required for your degree.”
“Give me a little time and I might be back to playing,” I said, thankful at least not to have the pressure of going to Opens on me.
Still, the question was what would I paint? What story would I tell? I had to come up with something that combined my English and Painting majors. That meant a story told in a painting.
I was up late at night—sometimes all night—and dragged myself to Bychkova’s class. First papers were due at the same time as my final project proposal on the eighteenth of September. I’d have to be at the office until midnight. And I still didn’t have an idea.
I was tempted to pull out my new paintings, but I didn’t dare.
I locked the door at midnight and practically ran for my car. I passed some poor student who was hurrying to the office with a paper, but I didn’t acknowledge her. It was after midnight. Her paper was late. Tough shit.
It was raining like a son-of-a-bitch. The bright clear weather of summer broke all at once and we were having a thunderstorm that was reminiscent of the Midwest. Halfway home, I decided I needed new wiper blades. I almost rear-ended a car that was pulled to the curb with its rear-end still sticking out in the street. Asshole!
I didn’t pause to go to the kitchen when I got home, but stripped off my coat on the way downstairs. I had to come up with an idea. Now!
My head was in a fog. This was it. My final fucking project proposal was due Friday and I had no idea yet.
Hell! Damn prodigy! Fuck it all anyway!
I’d painted a simple figure of two women as part of Doc’s mural at PCAD almost three years ago. It launched a career. I’d done portraits, had exhibitions, painted an entire side of a fucking building, sold my paintings to a goddamn museum. Now I was supposed to produce the work that would be the culmination of my college career, tying together my pending degrees from PCAD—BFA in Visual Arts with an emphasis in Painting—and SCU—BA in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing. My last year of college.
It was nearly one a.m. on my birthday and I was exhausted. Happy goddamn fucking pisshole of a birthday. I should call it quits for the night.
Melody and Lissa were asleep. Wendy was cuddled with them. The rain outside was a fitting counterpoint to my mood. It announced a wet cold winter was coming early to the Pacific Northwest. I didn’t want any of this. Fuck it all! I’m going the fuck back to Nebraska.
Sounds familiar. Every time things looked like crap, my solution was move back to Nebraska. And what? Become a farmer? I scratched some more notes on the page and a quick sketch. Maybe I should do a pastoral scene of the old farmhouse—tell the history of my family that Granddad used to talk about. I could get out of town while I worked.
My phone rang. Shit! Don’t you know I’m working?
“Me, myself, and I. Which asshole do you want to talk to?” I barked as I pushed the phone against my ear.
Silence.
“Hello?”
“Tony?”
No way!
“Kate? Is that you?”
“Hi, Tony. I suppose I shouldn’t be calling this late.”
“I’ve missed you. You can call me anytime.” I shoved my papers out of the way. Who cares about a stupid school project? Kate!
“Yeah. About that…” Her voice faltered. I’d wanted so desperately to hear from her. It sounded like she was having trouble talking. Where is she? I wanted to go find her and hold her. Like I always wanted to.
“Kit… Kate? Are you all right?”
“Um… Tony… can… may I… come home? Please?”
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