5
The Navigation System
On Thursday Larissa called the Jag dealership to schedule an appointment for service. “Have you had the car for three months, Mrs. Stark?” Brian, the service manager, intoned into the receiver. He had a seedy voice.
“Um, no,” she stammered. “But I think the oil might be low.”
“Has the oil light gone on?”
“No, but the car’s making a funny noise at higher speeds, like a rattling noise.”
“What kind of speeds?”
“I don’t know. Seventy?”
“Hmm. Okay. Bring it in tomorrow, we’ll check it out.”
When Larissa hung up she wondered if there was a way they could tell that she’d never taken the car on the highway, had never gone above fifty in it; that it was smooth as silk—all the way to fifty. How high was self-immolation-by-lying-to-service-station-flacks on the list of venial things human beings were taught not to do?
On Friday she brought the Jag into the shop. She looked for Kai’s amber bike, but couldn’t catch a pumpkin glimpse of it. Brian, a tall, scrawny man with thin greasy hair, shook his head. “We’re busy before the weekend,” he said. “You really had to bring it in early. I told you to bring it in by eight, and here it is, nearly ten. Can you leave it till Monday?”
Not to have her car for the weekend? But then she’d have to explain to Jared that there was something wrong with it, and Jared knew about cars, he might get upset, go in, or call. Might demand another car. Perhaps cancel the deal. So much scrutiny. Too much.
“No,” she said. “I can’t leave it, we’re going away. Please, can you try for today?”
“Miss, I don’t know.” She loved it when they called her miss—her, a wife, a mother.
She tried cajoling, using the voice she used on her children. “Come on. Maybe it’s nothing. Just a simple oil change.”
Brian looked into the monitor. “Car brand new, factory-delivered four weeks ago. I don’t think it’s the oil. Who sold you this car? Kai?”
That’s all she needed, an in. “Yes. Is he here? Maybe he can help?”
“Nah, he’s not. Besides he’s not a mechanic.”
“Yes, but I have a technical question for him. I lost the card with the keyless entry code.”
“I can get you that. I’ll have to call the factory.”
“And,” Larissa continued, “I wanted to see if he could order me a navigation system.”
“A nav? Really? Well, I can do that for you. He’s not here anyway.”
“Will he be back on Monday?”
“Dunno.” Brian wasn’t looking at her as he typed up her order on the computer. “He had a funeral or something. Had to fly back to Hawaii, I think. We don’t know if he’ll be back. He just left abruptly.”
A funeral!
“Don’t worry. I’ll help you.” Brian grinned. “I do this stuff. Kai just sells the vehicle. All the after-sale service, I do. Sign right here. I’ll call you in the afternoon. Do you need a ride?”
“I kind of do, yeah.”
“Hmm. Lemme see.” Brian paged Gary, the other salesman, who gave Larissa a ride home. On the way they barely talked. Except for the words she couldn’t help.
“So what happened to my salesman?”
“Who? Kai? No one knows. He took personal leave. Our manager asked him when he was coming back and he said he didn’t know.”
“Is he coming back?”
“The way he left, we don’t think so.”
“Did he clear his desk?”
“Never had anything there to begin with.” Gary shrugged as he drove. “Weird guy. But a good salesman, I’ll give him that. Very good.” He smiled. “The ladies liked him.”
“Did they?”
“Yeah. He could really turn on the charm when he wanted to.”
“Huh,” said Larissa, staring straight ahead at Springfield Avenue. She enjoyed the grilled cheese sandwiches at the Summit Diner. Maybe she could go back to having them. “I didn’t see much of that. Neither did my husband. Make the next right on Summit.”
Gary laughed. “No, the husbands never saw much good in him, that’s true.”
What was she going to do? After she was dropped off, she rushed to Michelangelo’s school; she was the mystery reader that afternoon and had plumb forgot.
Of course the car was fine. “I can find nothing wrong with it, miss,” said Brian when he called later. “You gonna come pick it up?” She thought about asking Maggie to drive her to the dealership, but didn’t want it to get back to Jared that there might be a problem with the car. Gary came to pick up her and Michelangelo, and Larissa had to pay a hundred and thirty dollars to Brian for doing nothing.
Afterward she took Michelangelo for ice cream at Ricky’s. The boy had yum-yum bubble gum and she a crazy chocolate; they sat at one of the outdoor tables and licked their cones and chatted. It was an unseasonable sixty-four degrees, sunny, windy. Michelangelo talked about Jumanji, the book his mother had picked to read to his class. He didn’t understand why so many kids were scared by it, because he wasn’t scared at all, and he watched the movie like thirty-one times. Well, you are a good brave boy, Larissa said, licking her crazy chocolate through clenched teeth, through a tight throat.
He might not be coming back. That was something she wasn’t ready to get used to, the suddenness of it. Sitting next to Michelangelo in his blue camo pants, dripping melting bubble gum ice cream on them and licking his fingers, Larissa watched her son for a while with her arm on his back. Kai wouldn’t leave his bike behind. She was sure of that. He wouldn’t leave his Ducati Sportclassic behind.
But what if he didn’t leave it?
On the one hand, such a welcome breath of liberation.
On the other, emptiness that felt like pale death.
Monday morning she met Maggie for a quick coffee before her play meeting at ten. They discussed Dylan, who was demanding drums for his birthday, and Maggie, usually indulgent, this time was terrified. “Drums, Larissa. Do you understand?”
Larissa understood. Drums were loud.
“No one else in the house will be able to live.”
“There’s no one else in the house.”
“Ezra likes it quiet so he can read.”
“Frankly a little less reading…perhaps drums are exactly what you need.”
“Don’t joke, it’s not funny.”
“You’ll be fine. Put Dylan in the basement.”
“The basement is where our whole life is! Our pool table is there. Our air hockey. My treadmill. I know I never go on it, but it’s still there. My washer and dryer.”
“So don’t get the drums.”
“He says he can’t live without them.”
“We say that about a lot of things.”
“He doesn’t.”
“So? He’ll learn not to be able to live without something else.”
“Hah.”
“Seriously, divert him. When Michelangelo wants a lollipop three minutes before dinner, I don’t give in. I give him a crayon instead.”
“I hope your child doesn’t suck on too many of those,” said Maggie. “Because how long can you fool a six-year-old? Soon he’ll figure out a crayon is not a very tasty substitute. Dylan is sixteen. He can’t be talked out of things that easily.”
“Easily? You have met Michelangelo, right?” Larissa got up. “So offer Dylan something else. I gotta go. Creative meeting with your husband and Leroy.”
Maggie laughed. “Ah, yes. Waiting for Godot. Ezra is treating this like a Shakespearean tragedy in and of itself.”
“Isn’t it?” Larissa was wearing jeans, a jeans jacket, a white T-shirt, a bandanna around her hair.
“Who’s going to take you seriously at this meeting?” said Maggie. “You look twelve.”
Why did she beam? It was too late for that.
6
Much Ado About Nothing
Atensely waiting Ezra pulled her aside as soon as she entered the s
chool lobby. “I have to talk to you,” he said.
“What’s up?”
“Not here. My office.”
“No.”
“No, we can’t go to my office?”
“No to whatever it is you want to ask me in it.”
They walked speedily down the hall and into Ezra’s comfortable, chaotic, book-lined chambers. It must be nice to be head of the department.
She fell into his visitor chair. “Whazzup?”
“I’m not asking you anymore. I’m begging you. You have to save us.”
“Ezra, I told you a thousand times. I’ve thought about it. I talked to Jared about it. To you. To Maggie. To Bo. I’ve written to Che about it.”
“How is our little professional protester?”
“Not pregnant. But I’m talked out.”
“Will you hear me out?”
“Ezra, you got Leroy. What’s wrong with him?” She smirked. “Besides wanting to stage a two-man play for spring?”
“Leroy said he’d prefer not to do it,” admitted Ezra. “His kid is failing math.”
“So you want me to do it so my kids will fail math? My kid is already failing English!”
“They’re honor students!”
“Not Asher. Not Michelangelo. He glues all day. Can’t get far in life with glue, Ezra.”
“Bring him. Bring them both. I’ll tutor them.”
“You’ll tutor Michelangelo.” Larissa looked down into her hands with incredulity. “Tutor him in what? Obstinacy? Sculpture?”
“We’ll pay you.”
“Jared works his ass off all week. We can’t both be away from the kids.”
“You won’t be away. Studies have shown that children benefit from seeing their parents be successful at something other than parenting.”
Larissa stared at him. “Are you making this crap up?”
“Yes.”
She laughed. “Ez, what am I supposed to do when Emily has cello in Chatham, and Asher a track meet in Maplewood, and I’m in Short Hills in the afternoon directing Godot? You haven’t thought this through.”
“I have, too. We’ll rehearse on Saturdays. And please, not Godot.”
Larissa said nothing. Ezra took that as encouragement.
“It’s just for two, three months. Play goes on in June. If you don’t want to continue next fall, we’ll get someone else. I promise. Denise will come back.”
“Denise is going to leave her baby and come back?”
Straightening his red tie, Ezra adjusted his falling-down crooked glasses, beaming at her. “We have a deal?”
Larissa shook her head. “Ez, do you remember how the parents hated me at the Hudson School?”
“No, they loved you. But a little diplomacy here at Pingry wouldn’t kill you.”
“It’s either the play or diplomacy.”
Ezra nearly clapped. “So we’re set? Auditions are next week.”
“How can that be? We haven’t chosen a play yet! Or should we stick with Leroy’s terrific suggestion? In an instant it all will vanish and we’ll be alone once more in the midst of nothingness. What, that’s not inspiring enough for spring?” Larissa smiled. This diversion for her…it was ideal. The offer came along at just the right time. This would take her mind off things, let her get back on track.
“Lar,” Ezra said, helping her up from the chair, “let’s go and announce the good news and choose a play. Try to think of something appropriate.”
“How much time do I have?”
Ezra looked at his watch. “Can you think while we walk down the hall?” He pulled her up by her elbow. “Hurry. Meeting started fifteen minutes ago.”
“How can the meeting have started? We’re not there!”
“Come on,” he said prodding her out. “Fret as you walk.”
“Ezra, you’ve gotten very demanding since you’ve become department head.” Picking up her purse, she took out a lipstick. “I liked you better absent-minded and lackadaisical.” Without a mirror, she applied a shade of pink beige to her lips.
“We don’t have an hour fifty-five, Larissa,” Ezra said, watching her.
She didn’t want him to know she was grateful. She wanted him to think she was grudging. Otherwise, how to explain her sudden exhilaration?
But no matter how welcome the distraction, the everyday stress of theater, the demand of it made her anxious even as she rushed down the sunlit hallway. “What if I can’t do it, Ez? What if it’s just too much for me?”
“You’ll be fabulous. We don’t want someone who never reaches. You always reach, Larissa. For places other people can’t go. That’s why we need you.”
“Plus you’re desperate.”
“That, too.”
They stopped at the double doors of the conference room. He looked her over before they came in. “So how come today of all days you’re dressed to go ride the go-karts?”
“Because I thought I was coming in as the set decorator,” Larissa rejoined, opening the doors. “This is what painters wear.”
Inside the conference room, buoyed with black coffee and a sense of his own importance, Leroy, though having relinquished the coveted position of director, clearly did so resentfully. His first action after they all sat down and got some water was to distribute to each of the eight seated people copies of Godot, and embark on a long sermon punctuated by no periods on why it was the greatest play of this or any century.
Larissa could tell that there were some people at the table who did not think a set decorator was qualified to be a director, despite Ezra’s excited recital of Larissa’s credentials: theater and English double major at NYU, summer stock theater (the Great Swamp Revue and Jersey Footlight Players) director of the acclaimed theater department at the Hudson School. Larissa could tell neither Leroy nor Fred, Ezra’s assistant, was impressed.
“Leroy,” Larissa said in her no-nonsense voice, palms down on the table, her manner sober, “I appreciate your recommendation, and we can all agree to the quality of Godot, but we need a different direction. Something more lighthearted. I was thinking of a Shakespearean comedy.”
Leroy had no intention of giving up. “Godot is a comedy.”
“Well, yes. A tragicomedy. But Godot is wrong for spring, with all due respect. The air of bleak existentialism as read mostly by a cast of two, with a set of one scraggly tree is not the joyful experience most children and parents associate with a spring production. I’m thinking of something more inclusive and multi-parted. A little funnier, a little less angst-ridden.” She smiled amiably at him. He did not return the smile. Ezra, though, smiled exquisitely at Larissa.
For the next ninety minutes, Larissa, Ezra, Fred, Leroy, Sheila Meade, Vanessa (Sheila’s assistant), Vincent (Leroy’s), and David, the line reader, pounded out the possibilities. Leroy shot everything down. As You Like It was not funny enough (“certainly not as funny as Godot“), Midsummer had too much confusing dialogue, and Much Ado was too long. (“Godot, on the other hand, is brilliant, funny, deceptively short, and will be simple to stage and direct.”)
Larissa kept quiet. Ezra had to prod her. “Well, Larissa, you’re the director,” he said. “What do you think?”
“Choosing a play is a collaboration,” Leroy announced haughtily.
“Yes, but the director has final say,” Ezra pointed out. “Lar, what say you?”
“Well all have to agree so we can throw our support behind it,” Leroy announced, with Vincent nodding next to him.
Larissa suddenly realized it was nearing one! She had to go. Knowing that time was running short tensed her into silence. She had to get into her car right now and drive away.
Wait. Wasn’t she going to forget about Stop&Shop? Wasn’t that the purpose of all this? Wasn’t she freed from the constraints of the supermarket parking lot? Accept the position of director, straighten out, back on the rails.
If she left now, she would barely make it there for one.
She felt fourteen pairs of eyes on her as if t
hey expected her to decide; at the very least to speak. “Okay, here’s what I think,” Larissa said. She was out of time. “As You like It is meant to be performed outside,” she stated. “We can do it inside, but it won’t be as good, and outside is impossible.” She tried not to sound impatient or hurried. “I suggest Comedy of Errors. It takes place in one day, serious subjects such as death by hanging and slavery are pushed aside for the sake of the joke, and all action is physical rather than internal, which makes it easier to rehearse and execute successfully.” She fell silent, waiting for them to agree. From Leroy’s barely suppressed sneers, Larissa guessed he was not a fan of The Comedy of Errors. Sheila said she preferred to do As You Like It. Twenty-six-year-old Vanessa, who was trying on theater for size before she fled into the world of fashion design, agreed with her boss. Vincent agreed with his. Young Vincent painted sets with her, so Larissa was miffed at his backstabbing, while Fred, who worked with Ezra, fancied himself smarter than anyone (including his boss) and therefore had to have an opposite opinion on everything just to prove his intellectual superiority. David, the line reader, thought because he read lines with the kids, he was qualified to make staging decisions. Ezra was, as always, bemused. Noncommittal, but bemused.
Well, whatever. At one time, back in college, in Hoboken, theater consumed Larissa. Being on the stage herself, what power! But that was over ten years ago. Dionysus was not her god anymore. Oh, sure, if you gave in to him, surrendered yourself to his charms, he would make you good, he would make you great. But it was a Faustian deal you made with him. And while Larissa accepted Ezra’s offer, she accepted it for her own reasons and was not about to dance with Dionysus again. She just didn’t care that much anymore.
“Why not Tempest?” Leroy suggested sourly.
“Maybe Taming of the Shrew?” Fred piped up. Oh, so he was unhappily married, Larissa thought, him and his bow ties and French berets. He certainly looked unhappily something.