Anne Siddons - Fault Lines

“Well, I do see. And I’m totally impressed,” I said as lightly as I could, and smiled at her. “It was a beautiful job, Tink. How on earth did you do that? Seem so frightened? Cry like that? I didn’t know you’d ever felt like acting might be something you’d like to try—”

“I wasn’t acting,” she said earnestly. “I don’t know what happened, quite. I was sitting there, scared out of my skull and sure I was going to throw up, or stammer, or something, and then I heard Aunt Laura’s voice and it was so…I don’t know how to say it, but it made me feel so… bad . It was like something exploded behind my eyes. I started to cry, and I couldn’t stop, and I was scared of her; I forgot completely it was only Aunt Laura—”

“That is acting,” Caleb Pringle said, smiling at her. “That’s just what acting is. On your part and your Aunt Laura’s. She called it out, maybe, but you’re the one who let it go. I don’t know what else you’d call it if it wasn’t acting. Too bad you can’t stay and be our Joan.”

He spoke to her, lightly, but cut his eyes toward me.

“Don’t even think it,” I said.

“Mom…” Glynn began, her voice pleading, rising.

“Met, listen…” Laura began.

I got up out of my seat.

“The test is wonderful and Glynn will love having the tape, and you were kind, and that is that,” I said. “There will be no talk now or ever about her doing Joan or any other movie at any time. We are going to the airport now and catch our plane, which is something we should have done a long time ago.”

“Met, don’t you realize what this means? There’s going to be a nationwide talent search; it’s the role of the century for a new actress!” Laura cried. “How can you say no? Let her do it this once; she doesn’t necessarily have to have an acting career, just this one role—there’ll never be another young Joan as good as what you just saw. Pring will tell you that.”

“Laura, what part of no is it you don’t understand?” I said. “Besides, it’s Mr. Margolies’s decision; how can you just assume—”

“Margolies would say yes,” Caleb Pringle said mildly. “Margolies is going to go right through the roof of his Turkish bath-house when he sees this. He thought we had our Joan last night, didn’t you know? You saw how he looked at Glynn. But you have to test; sometimes the camera just kills them. That obviously isn’t the case here.”

“I don’t care what the case here is,” I said. “You can show him the test or not. But Glynn is not doing this movie. Get your things together, Tink; we’ve got to make tracks.”

She did not argue with me, but she did not move from the seat, either. She stared at her hands. Then she looked up.

“Daddy would be so proud,” she said softly.

I felt as though she had hit me in the stomach. Was that it? Something of her own, something that was, without any doubt in the world, on any level you chose to regard it, extraordinary, to show her father? Something he would have no choice but to notice? Either that, or the subtlest form of manipulation, and one of the oldest. The child’s ultimate weapon: Daddy would let me.

“You know good and well Daddy would hate it,” I said tightly. “Now come on. Let’s go.”

“Your mother’s right,” Caleb Pringle said to her. “It’s probably no role for a sixteen-year-old. I thought all along we’d have to use an older girl for Joan, but I just wanted to see…I never meant to cause a family rift. Tell you what. Why don’t you go in my office and call your friends back in Atlanta? Gloat unforgivably. Tell them you were offered the part in the movie but you turned it down. Rub it in six ways to Sunday.”

Glynn broke into a slow smile.

“Can I, Mom?”

“Be my guest,” I said. “Gloat till you drop.”

She followed the cheerful Molly Shumaker out of the room, and I turned to him.

“Thanks for that,” I said. “I’d have ended up as the world’s heaviest heavy.”

“It was my fault,” he said. “I should have run this idea by you before. Frankly, I was hoping the test would convince you. But I don’t push people; it never works out.”

“She’s just too young,” I said, feeling defensive and a little foolish, a lioness who had charged what she thought to be a threat to her cub, and found it a shadow.

“It’s not the kind of world we want for her or that she could handle. Some young women could, with one hand tied behind them, but not Glynn. You must see that we’ve got a fight with anorexia on our hands.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” he said. “We see a lot of it out here. Of course to a filmmaker it usually just means that the victim will film like a dream. You’re right; it’s a dangerous world for some youngsters. She could well be one. I sensed a pretty sound armature under there, though.”

“I hope you’re right,” I said. “Sometimes she just seems so fragile.”

Glynn came back, her slowed steps speaking of disappointment.

“You can’t tell me they weren’t impressed,” Laura said.

“They weren’t there,” Glynn said softly. “They’re out here. Up north somewhere. Marcia’s dad wanted her to come spend some time with him, and she hates his second wife, so her mother let her ask Jess. I think it’s Palo Alto or somewhere; I know it’s a long way away from here. They’re going to stay a month.”

Poor Glynn, I thought miserably. Jess is really gone now. How on earth can she replace a best friend?

“Palo Alto,” Caleb Pringle said. “Really? I have a vacation place not thirty miles from there. Up in the Santa Cruz mountains, in a place called Big Basin. It’s really something, if I do say so myself. Up there in those redwoods, it’s like being right under the eye of God. And the air is so clear you can taste it, and the quiet so deep you can hear it. It saves what’s left of my sanity. Listen, why don’t you all drive up there and spend a little time? Glynn can see her friends and wave the tape in their faces, and you and Laura can kick back and relax, and I’ll come up in a few days and we can hike and sightsee and spend some quality time together. Eat; we’ll eat till we drop. I’m a great cook. I’ve got to recharge before we start Arc or I’ll fall apart in midfilm, and Laura could use some rest before she goes into it, and I’d love to show all of you that part of the country. God, but it’s beautiful.”

“Mom,” Glynn cried. “Please say yes! I could go stay with Marcie and Jess; her dad has a pool, and they belong to this marina club thing, and Marcie says there are some of the coolest guys there, and there are two whole weeks before I have to leave for camp—”

“No,” I said.

“Met,” Laura whispered, a soft, anguished sound.

“We can’t, Laura. How many times can I say it? Don’t tease about it.”

“Well, some other time,” Caleb Pringle said pleasantly. “It’ll be there when you come back.”

“Met,” Laura said carefully and precisely, “I’ve got something in my bra poking me in back. Come see if you can find it for me, will you?”

“If you’re wearing a bra I’m wearing a wet suit,” I said, but I followed her out of the studio toward the ladies’ room. Better the session I knew was awaiting me be conducted in private.

She held the door for me and I went in and turned to face her. She leaned against it, head down, hands clasped over her breast, and then lifted her face to me. I was expecting one of her finer histrionic performances, but I saw instantly that this was to be no performance. Her face was white except for hectic red splotches on her cheekbones, and her mouth trembled uncontrollably, so that for a moment she could not speak. Tears were running down her face.