Idea in Stone (13 page)

“Yes there is.”

“I don’t see—”

“I want to direct.”

“Stefan,
God
wants to direct. Do you really think—?” She stopped and scrutinised his face. “Yes, actually, I think that’s a good idea. You grew up around this stuff, and no one has your particular, um, insight into the author. You’re going to need one hell of a stage manager, though. More of a production manager-slash-assistant director, to fill in the blanks for you. And I know who that should be.”

“Whatever you say, Helen.”

“Exactly. You keep saying that.”

~

“How’s this?” asked Stefan, handing a scribbled draft of a casting notice across the bistro table to Helen. She took the page. He looked at his empty hand. It was shaking. He steadied it around the cup in front of him. He’d been drinking too much coffee during these regular meetings of theirs. He wondered if he might start vibrating so much that others wouldn’t be able to see him.
I’ll be the Ultraviolet Man
, he thought. Then he shook his head and pushed the cup away.

“You might want to change this bit,” said Helen. “It sounds like he dies.”

“But Seth does die in the third act.”

“Yes, the
character
Seth dies, but this makes it sound like the
actor
dies. Actor’s Equity tends to frown on snuff theatre.”

“Oh,” said Stefan.

A bell rang as someone opened the bistro door. Stefan looked up, and found himself transfixed, trying to figure out the sex of the person who’d walked in. He or she put down a large portfolio case, then took off a raincoat and hat and hung them on the coat-rack just inside the door, then ran large fingers through the close-cropped hair on the top of his or her head. Each finger of one hand was home to a large ring like those given to winning athletes. Each ear was adorned with small gold hoops from the lobe to the top of the ear. The person looked toward Stefan, who shot his eyes down to his papers, sure he’d been caught staring. The figure picked up the portfolio case and walked over to their table.

“Charlene!” said Helen. Charlene leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “So good to see you.”

“Nice to see you, too,” she said.

Stefan stood. “Hi, I’m Stefan.” She shook his hand. Her strong grip didn’t come as a surprise.

She sat. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

“Oh,” he said, “do you know my mother?”

“No. Who’s your mother?”

Stefan had longed all his life to hear those words. Already he liked Charlene. “It doesn’t matter. What did you mean, ‘finally’?”

“Helen gave me your play a few months ago.” Stefan looked to Helen, whose magnified eyes looked up innocently. “I loved it, and was looking forward to meeting you.”

“Well thanks. I only adapted it, though. My dad wrote it.”

“Oh,” she said. “Well, I figured I should show you some of my work, to see if we might work together on it.” She unzipped the case and pulled out a large stack of sketches, paintings, and photographs, which she handed to Stefan. He took them carefully, not accustomed to handling artwork. He pored over them, drinking them in. One set held an entire city neighbourhood, while another suggested a fantastic forest with curling purple trees and vines under a moonlit sky—all achieved with simple lines and swaths of colour. From her dense, large-scale productions to simple, sketchy intimations of time and place, Stefan found himself moved by each to a different time, place, and mood.

“I hope you don’t mind,” she said, “but I did a few sketches after reading your play.” She gave these to him. He knew these places—the department store, the apartment, the hospital, the trench. Somehow she’d plucked them from his mind and put them on paper.

“You’d really be willing to work with us?” he asked. Charlene smiled. “How can we be this lucky?” He turned to Helen. “How can we be this lucky?”

Charlene answered. “I’m just getting back to work now—I’ve been out of commission for a while. I had a pretty serious operation.”

Mmm, the one where you went home with your penis in a jar
, thought Stefan. He felt guilty for the thought. “Well, whatever,” he said, “we’d be honoured to have you come on board, if you want to. Here’s the budget.” He figured he might as well push his luck before he got too accustomed to the idea of her working on the play.

She looked over the figures. “Yeah, I can work with this.”

“Holy crap!” said Stefan, elated.

“We’ve got to work on your poker face before the auditions,” said Helen.

~

Norman Wallace bought a pint at the bar, then made his way over to the booth where Stefan sat and Helen parked.
He looked bigger on television
, thought Stefan. But then, most people did.
Except my mother,
he considered. Perhaps there was an outside limit on how much television could change your stature, and Delonia was at it.

“Hello,” said the actor, slipping into the leather-padded booth.

“Hi,” said Stefan, struggling to keep from giggling. He often met famous people through his mother, yet there was still something exciting about meeting television and movie actors for the first time, as if the camera rendered them holy when it spared them its attention, and Stefan, chosen company of such a one, was granted some of that importance. Here Stefan was meeting another of those luminous people, one whom he’d watched on television since he was little. Stefan never particularly liked Norman Wallace on
Broom Mates
, that never-ending Canadian show about the neighbourhood curling team. The show had enjoyed an undeserved immortality thanks to Canadian content laws. Maybe it was not Wallace himself but Wallace’s character ‘Horchek’ he didn’t like, always causing problems for the others with his arrogant superiority.

Stefan had no illusions anymore that meeting the famous would be of any particular benefit to him. You had to be ambitious about something for that to work, and until now Stefan didn’t have anything they could help him with. Besides, he knew the entertainers themselves would never be the ones to go after, being more subject than anyone to the vagaries of their industry.

But his son,
thought Stefan,
oh, his son. Maybe he can introduce me. Imagine if we got along, and...
Immediately his mind played out a sequence of events that spared him leaving and putting on the play, wrapped up instead in their affair, moving in together, relieved forever of any responsibility but being in love. He checked himself. It wasn’t going to happen. The actor who played Wallace’s son probably liked women. He’d also be in his late forties now, not the fresh-faced twentysomething Stefan used to pine for. The two actors probably weren’t in touch anyway. The show ended suddenly, when the network came up with a last-minute replacement for its time-slot, something even worse that didn’t last long. But it did the job of eliminating
Broom Mates.
Sitcomikaze
, thought Stefan, smiling into his beer.

Now Stefan had a chance to hire Norman Wallace to be in his show.

“Thanks for meeting with us, Mister Wallace,” said Stefan.

“Please,” answered the man with affected effort, “Norman.”

“Thank you for meeting with us, Norman,” said Stefan. “Helen says she gave you the script and you might be interested in the part.”

“Absolutely, young man. I thought the play was thoroughly enjoyable, and made some very good points.”

“Well, thank you. I’ll pass that on,” Stefan replied, hoping he wouldn’t have to explain. Wallace didn’t seem to know the play’s history, or was too self-absorbed to think about it. Stefan found it odd to hear him talking without the Ukrainian accent he had in the show. He wondered how much of ‘Horchek’ was fiction.

“Norman,” said Helen, “I understand that you’re interested in doing some theatre this summer. “

A deft handling, thought Stefan, of “So, you’re unemployed”.

“How would you like to travel to Scotland to act in the world’s largest theatre festival?”

“Ah, theatre,” said Wallace fondly, dreamily. “You know, before that horrible television show I enjoyed several seasons at Stratford.”

“Yes, I rememb—” Helen began.

“Oh, yes, those were grand years. Olivier told me he was jealous when he saw my
Coriolanus
.”

Ugh
, thought Stefan. The only thing that annoyed him more than real fame was trumped-up fame.

“Could you get me another drink, son? A single-malt, neat. Thank you.”

“Uh, no problem,” said Stefan.
I’m the director
, he thought, heading to the bar.
What kind of an audition is this?
He took a breath of the pub’s visible atmosphere.
Chill. Wallace will be good for the show
.

Two hours later, Stefan could see that Helen was struggling to stay upright in her chair. Her magnified eyes fluttered beyond her control. Wallace was still talking. Stefan had stopped trying to follow what he said. Something about being drunk onstage with O’Toole. Stefan’s head snapped up. “Of course, those reckless days are over,” Wallace quickly corrected, aware for the first time, it seemed, of being under evaluation. “My wife wouldn’t stand for any of that, on-stage or off.”

Wallace looked out the pub’s window for a minute, then excused himself to go to the bathroom.

“His wife is dead,” said Helen, leaning forward. She spoke in a hurried frog
sotto voce
even though Wallace was out of earshot: “She died last year, and he’s been a wreck since. Hasn’t done any work at all. That’s why we can get him. Everyone’s worried he can’t do it anymore, but I know he can. He’s a pro. He won’t let you down. And you can get him for scale.”

“Helen! You’re heartless!”

“I’ve got a heart. It’s just very small.” She downed her drink. “Shut him up and make him an offer.”

~

Stefan felt self-conscious about his legs. They were skinny and pale, sticking out of his long skateboarder shorts. Before leaving the house, he looked at himself in the mirror. With his drooping hair, his thin frame, and his short stature, he looked like a teenager.
Far from it
, he thought. But it was too late to change. He had to get over to the rehearsal hall Helen booked for the auditions. He put his headphones on and headed out, avoiding Delonia and Cerise, who were in the back garden.

The day was hot, and the sun made the sidewalk shine blinding and white. Stefan’s spirits were buoyed up by the energetic music in his ears. The song ended, and another began. He didn’t like this song, because it started with a spoken bit. Stefan didn’t understand why, but recorded music didn’t conjure up the second voice. As soon as the spoken passage began, though, that other voice poked through.
Didnae
.
Gunnae
.

How can you miss someone you don’t know?
he wondered. Before he could answer himself, he fast-forwarded to the musical part of the song.

~

Stefan felt even more self-conscious of his legs. What a picture they made, Helen and he sitting on the side of the cheap wooden table opposite the actor—Stefan looking like a camp counsellor and Helen just being herself. Fluorescent lights buzzed above their heads. The varnish on the floorboards was worn through, and the white walls were peeling, exposing a layer of sky blue. Long mirrors hung on one wall with a wooden bar in front of them.

The young man was formally dressed, wearing an ironed white shirt with a tie, dress slacks, and a tweed jacket.

Stefan looked over the head-shot and résumé he’d been handed. He nodded and hmm-ed as he examined it, though it might as well have been a stock analysis for all it meant to him. He passed it over to Helen, his hand trembling with nerves. Stefan looked at the actor and smiled. The actor smiled calmly back. Stefan felt like he had no right putting this man on trial, asking him to do his act. Stefan had never been through this; he got all his vocal work using a demo tape.
How do these actors put up with this?
he thought.

Luckily, the actor expected the audition to be the usual drill, so he led himself through it, standing up and moving away from them, offering first to do a classical piece, which Stefan didn’t really understand. Then he did something from a modern play called
Downstairs from Father
, which wound up with him agonising about his father’s death. Stefan caught himself picturing what he’d have for lunch.

The actor finished, and Stefan found himself babbling to the man, saying that they had lots of people to see and it would be very hard to decide, and they didn’t know how long it would take them to choose the cast. Helen cut him off. “Thank you,” said Helen. “We’ll let you know.” The actor nodded, thanked them, and left.

“You don’t have to tell them anything,” said Helen. “In fact, it’s better if you don’t give any indication at all. That way you don’t lead them on.”

“Oh.”

“So what did you think?”

“I dunno,” said Stefan. “Not much of anything. I was thinking about myself—I was kind of nervous—”

“Yeah, I got that.”

“I found it was hard to pay attention to him.”

“Good,” said Helen. “Listen to your instincts during this process. Imagine you were an audience member watching him in a show, and you found yourself drifting like that. Who knows what the reason was? Maybe he just broke up with his girlfriend. Maybe he wasn’t sure of his lines. The point is that you, watching him, didn’t feel connected to him.”