Thursday morning, November 19
Without Beth, the last minute had nowhere to go.
Willa could hear it happening before Mae said anything. Jo's question hung in the theater, Willa gave the answer she'd written on the bus, and the two of them stood waiting for an ending to arrive.
“I've stopped trying to have a better childhood,” Willa said. “The waiting list's too long.”
It was a line. It wasn't the end of anything.
Jo moved one hand toward her, then let it fall.
“And?”
“That's it.”
“I know. I'm asking.”
From the aisle Denise said, “If you stay there, Willa, she can't get to you.”
Willa moved half a step. It improved the picture and changed nothing else.
They'd been at it an hour. Owen was elsewhere. In the work lights, Willa could see Denise rubbing her neck in the aisle. Mae had a cup she'd forgotten to drink from.
Willa had asked to try the ending without Beth before they began. She'd expected an argument. Jo had said all right, which was worse in a way: now the failure belonged to the version Willa wanted.
“Let's take a minute,” Mae said.
Jo put the microphone in its stand. Willa kept hers in her hand.
“I know it isn't there yet.”
“Good,” Jo said. “Then we're all having the same morning.”
Willa looked toward the seats. Mae had gone to speak to Denise. There was no private room onstage, but there was the small privacy of two people too tired to look around.
“We can find something else,” Willa said.
“We can. We haven't.”
“It's not as though there's only one joke.”
“No. There are thousands. We need the one that ends this.”
Willa turned the microphone in her hand. Her ring clicked against it.
Jo winced.
“Sorry.”
“Take it off.”
“The ring?”
“Unless you can take the noise off.”
Willa slipped the ring into her pocket. It was a cheap band she'd bought herself. She still hated being told to remove it.
Her mother sat on the stool. In the work light, she looked smaller than she had at Rafi's. Her shoulders were rounded, the red sweater caught up at one hip.
“What did she say?” Jo asked.
“Who?”
“Beth. At dinner. The dumplings.”
Willa looked at her.
“How do you know?”
“She called last night. Asked whether I'd eaten. Said you two had.”
“She called?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
“That she was busy. That she loved me. That she wasn't doing the picture. Some of it in a less agreeable order.”
Willa looked down.
“Good.”
“Yes. Good.”
Jo rubbed her thumb along the edge of the stool.
“I didn't ask you to fix her.”
“I know.”
“You've looked like that's what you've been sent here to do all week.”
“I want to do the set.”
“Then do the set. Not a version that stands up there telling everybody you're a better person than the set.”
The words hit hard enough for Willa to feel them in her face.
“That's not what I'm doing.”
“I hope not. It's a terrible act.”
Willa turned away. Jo didn't call her back. They let a few seconds go.
Willa could walk off. She could say the whole thing had been a mistake. Mae would let her leave. Her mother might even call the opener a gift she'd been unable to accept, which would be unbearable and not wholly wrong.
Willa turned back.
“I don't want to spend the rest of my life doing the only joke that works.”
Jo looked up.
“Neither do I.”
The answer was so quick, so unadorned, that Willa lost the reply she'd prepared.
Her mother stood and took the microphone again.
“Was I a terrible mother?”
Willa couldn't answer. Jo tried it in a light tone, which made it sound like a favor nobody should refuse. Willa answered in kind and the exchange went dead in a different way.
Mae came down the aisle.
“Can I hear?”
Willa nodded.
They did the last two minutes, leaving out Beth. There were lines that worked, one very well: Willa said she'd been raised by a woman who turned every disaster into a career opportunity, then asked why the disaster hadn't received a percentage.
Jo answered, “You're here, aren't you?”
Willa laughed, surprised. It hurt. It was good. She kept going.
“I thought this was an apology.”
“You keep thinking pay comes with conditions.”
“It does.”
“Then you should have read the childhood.”
The exchange was harsh and alive, but when they reached the soft part, Willa could hear them change costumes. Her mother became tender. Willa became a daughter who could receive tenderness. Both changes were too visible.
Mae sat on the edge of the stage.
“Don't announce the nice bit.”
Jo lowered the mic.
“I'm not announcing.”
“You're smoothing your skirt.”
Willa looked at her mother's free hand. It was resting on her thigh. Jo saw it too.
“Occupational hazard.”
They tried again. Willa didn't let the previous laugh fade all the way before giving Jo the next line. That helped. Jo forgot to touch her skirt.
“Whatever else,” Jo said, “when you called, I came.”
Willa saw the folded towel under her mother's knees, a dark spot where the water had soaked through.
“You did.”
“I'd come again.”
Willa looked at her, and for a moment there was nothing available that didn't mean something. Her throat tightened.
“I know.”
Jo didn't go on. The silence held longer than they'd meant it to.
Mae looked down at the page instead of at their faces.
“There,” she said.
Willa laughed once, not because anything was funny, to clear her voice. “That's not an ending.”
“No. It's a place where the ending can happen.”
Jo put a hand on her shoulder, briefly.
“Water?”
Willa nodded.
Her mother went to the stool and handed her the bottle. Willa drank too quickly and had to stop to swallow.
“Don't make yourself ill for eleven hundred people. They'll bring their own troubles.”
Willa smiled.
She sat in the front row with the bottle.
Mae came over while Willa was still drinking.
“Can we hold what we've got until this afternoon? Run it with everything else, then settle the end.”
Willa nodded.
“I know you don't want Beth in the same way.”
“Not the same way,” Willa repeated.
“We can find a cleaner turn.”
Willa didn't ask what cleaner meant.
Jo was putting the cards in the chocolate box. She looked at Willa from the stage.
“You were good in the middle.”
“So were you.”
“Yes. We're a terrible waste when we're not.”
Willa laughed.
She went back up the steps and helped her mother gather the things from the stool. Her ring was still in her pocket. She put it back on only after they were out of the theater.