A Dropped Stitches Christmas (14 page)

“The loneliest woman in the world is a woman without a close woman friend.”

—George Santayana

B
ecca brought this quote to a Sisterhood meeting when we were partially through our treatments. She was intense about everything and friendship was important to her. She’s the one who always made sure the Sisterhood was well and healthy. Back then, I sometimes thought we kept going because of her sheer will to see us make it through together. With her, there was no looking back. I used to think that she might be saving our lives back then. I know it wasn’t true; she didn’t do anything medical. But it felt like it all the same.

We are onstage. It is the moment for the play to begin. And then I see Becca. She is sitting beside Lizabett and she gives me a quiet thumbs-up. I give her a smile that comes from the center of my being. She is here.

And then Randy clears his throat and the play begins.

Randy and I have our lines down like we were born knowing these roles. The first scene takes place in a weathered old house. Dust and barren landscape show out the window.

Joseph is talking with Mary’s father while Mary wanders back to a corner of the room. There is a small Christmas tree and Mary sits beside it. There is a crèche under the tree and Mary picks up the ceramic figures, clearly daydreaming about them. The spotlight shows a silhouette of the Biblical nativity scene on the wall behind Mary and the saxophonist plays a melancholy tune.

Because the main action is taking place in the middle of the Great Depression, the talk between the men on the side of the stage is of crops that are failing and money that is due to the bank. A wedding ring is quietly mentioned by the younger man, but it’s clear that it had been ordered and then returned.

Mary looks up at the mention of the ring and then back at the crèche in her hands. The silhouette of the nativity scene changes on the wall behind her.

I know the Mary of the Bible didn’t have a wedding ring, but I wonder whether she had the usual things a young girl had to celebrate her newly married life back then. There was no marriage feast mentioned for her. I wondered earlier, when I read about the wedding feast that had Jesus turning the water to wine at his mother’s request, if Mary was so intent on seeing someone else’s wedding feast go well because she hadn’t had one of her own.

I’m a little surprised at how holy the play starts to feel. I know it’s a first attempt by a young playwright, but it has deep feeling in it. A miracle occurred thousands of years ago and this play shows how the ordinary people who were there might have felt at the time.

Before I know it, intermission is here.

The curtain closes and I look at Randy.

“We’re doing it,” he says.

“Good work,” the director says from behind us. “Be sure and get a drink before you go on again. You’ll get thirsty in the second half if you don’t.”

There’s a gap in the curtain at the edge of the stage and I see a quick glimpse of Lizabett as I walk backstage. She has her head bent down and I suspect she’s writing in the Sisterhood journal. I wonder what she’s saying.

Hi, this is Lizabett. I never knew this play was so powerful. I’ve sat through many of the rehearsals, but there’s an intensity to this performance that was missing in the rehearsals. I think it is Carly’s acting. And, to be fair, they never had the silhouettes on the wall in the rehearsals. These keep reminding the audience of the Biblical story even as the actors show the Depression-era story. It is like a play within a play within a play kind of a thing.

That would be a good quote if someone is ever reading this to get information because they’re doing a biography of the famous actress, Carly Winston.

I know Becca is impressed. Her eyes didn’t leave the stage when the play was going on. The only reason she isn’t sitting here beside me now is because she had to use the restroom.

Before the intermission is over, I need to describe the stage and the costumes a little more. I know a copy of the script will survive, but no one will know twenty years from now what everything looked like.

The house in the first scene looks like whoever lived there had been poor for a long time. Fine crack lines went through the yellowed paint on the wall. Nothing matched. The sofa was brown and worn. A navy throw blanket was draped over the back of the sofa. The small Formica table in the corner had three mismatched chairs sitting under it. One of the chairs had its back broken.

The whole house would have to improve to be considered a fixer-upper.

The costumes, of course, were also threadbare. It looked like there had been some kind of print at one time on Mary’s dress, but the color had faded until it was all just an uneven beige. All of the shoes, even Mary’s, were scuffed and looked like they’d been worn by someone who was plowing a field. Joseph wore patched overalls and a battered straw hat.

All of the costumes looked like they had seen more than their share of sweat and dust.

In contrast, the silhouettes of the nativity scene that are being shown on the walls look so peaceful. For the first time, I’m sort of getting the point of the play. Most of us have often looked at the nativity scene in such a spiritual way that we’ve forgotten that Mary and Joseph were flesh and blood like us. Their feet had to hurt after a long day’s walk and their journey hadn’t been one of ease and luxury. They might have had money troubles just like the Depression-era Mary and Joseph.

Someone just dimmed the lights so the intermission is almost over. I look up as I see the actors file past the gap in the curtain at the edge of the stage. I give a smile to Carly and I think she sees me.

I never knew an intermission could go so quickly. I was glad to see Lizabett, though, and I saw Becca walking down the aisle so all is well. I put some hairspray on my hair, because I ride in the back of the pickup in the next scene and I don’t want my hair to bounce. I also readjusted the pillow under my dress so that I’ll continue to look pregnant. Then I drank half a bottle of water because this dusty look is making me thirsty.

The curtain opens again, and we’re on our way. By now, Randy and I are leaving the old farmhouse with a table and two chairs and some suitcases in the back of this pickup. We only have a couple of scenes, though, before the pickup breaks down and we are forced to hitchhike to where we’re going.

According to the script, we’re being forced to travel because of a special kind of census that the government is taking. There is a lot of grumbling about the government in the script, but no one seems to be willing to ignore the census.

We are able to get a ride in the back of someone’s old pickup. There are also several cages of live chickens in the back of the pickup; we only have a cardboard suitcase with us. As we ride, there’s a silhouette on the stage behind us that shows Mary and Joseph crossing the desert. Mary is riding on a donkey.

The back of the pickup is really just a big prop and it vibrates to indicate that we are moving. I’ve been on the vibrating pickup in rehearsals, but this is the first time that the live chickens have been here with us. There is enough squawking going on that it’s hard for Randy and me to get our lines out.

The chickens are also flapping their feathers and Randy sneezes. Twice.

“Bless you,” I say without thinking. Then I notice that the safety pin that’s supposed to hold his shirt together is unhooked and will poke him if nothing is done so I reach over and hook it for him. It’s the kind of thing Mary would have done for her Joseph.

“Thanks,” Randy says with a grin as he gives me a quick kiss on the forehead.

I hear a sigh in the audience and I know it has never occurred to someone out there before that Mary might be fond of her Joseph.

Soon night is starting to fall onstage and the pickup comes to a stop. There are snow flurries falling. Mary and Joseph are in the town that represents Bethlehem and they get down from the back of the pickup with their suitcase and look around them.

It is a small town and it’s crowded with people. Everyone has their arms wrapped around themselves for warmth. Joseph points to the flashing Motel 6 sign and he and Mary start to walk toward it. The sidewalk is crowded with people and there are fires burning in a couple of cut-down trash cans. People are gathered around the fires with their hands outstretched.

The desk clerk at the Motel 6 shakes his head and points to the No Vacancy sign before he relents and tells Joseph that the restroom in the gas station across the street is always open. There’s a hallway that the restroom as well and it would have room for a pallet. His brother owns the gas station and won’t mind if Joseph and Mary use the two rooms for the night.

When Joseph says they have no blankets, the clerk gives him a short stack of folded, clean towels.

“I wish it could be more,” the clerk says. “But at least the area there is heated. It’s going to be a cold night this close to Christmas.”

The clerk points to a blinking snowman that sits in the lobby of the motel.

Joseph takes the towels and he and Mary head over to the gas station.

Throughout this section of the play, a series of silhouettes showing Mary and Joseph in the real Bethlehem two thousand years ago is displayed on the stage walls behind the actors.

It is easy for me to pretend to be Mary by now. I know how everything is going to go. I already see the shepherds gathered around one of the fires as Randy and I walk across the stage to the gas station.

The hallway leading to the restroom is wide and clean. The desk clerk was right that there is a place to set up a bed of sorts that would be a little out of the way. If nothing else it will be warm.

The saxophonist has moved into a musical selection that is a little impatient now.

I think that must be how women feel who are about to give birth. I suspect Mary felt the same way.

The stage wall of the gas station is clear. It makes a good place for the silhouettes to be projected and there are now scenes of Mary and Joseph in the manger behind Randy and me.

I like the feeling that the Biblical Mary and Joseph are following Randy and I around as we represent them in this play. I feel serene just thinking about Mary doing some of the same things that I am doing. She and Joseph must have made a bed out of straw just like we are making one out of old towels.

There are a few empty cardboard boxes in one corner of the hallway and a calendar on the wall with the month of December 1937 showing.

The spotlight in the play cuts to the scene on the other side of the stage with the shepherds standing by the trash-can fires. Now that the light isn’t so intense on me, I can look out in the audience and actually see things.

I notice Marilee is seated several rows behind Lizabett and Becca. She must have been here all along; I just didn’t know where to look for her as I glanced through the curtain during the intermission. I look around and also see the two friends of Randy’s who came: the ones who think I’m really a blonde.

I don’t understand guys. I admit that right off. I thought Randy liked
me
and wasn’t so interested in whether or not I had a certain blond look. He sure didn’t sound like it when he was introducing me to his friends, though. Of course, I might be misreading him. I could just be overly sensitive because of my mother’s reaction. Maybe it’s mothers I don’t understand.

I know my mother’s not out in the audience, but I can’t help but look for her anyway. It’s so different than it was when I was competing to be the Rose Parade Queen. My mother was at every little judging event they had. Nothing would have kept her away from the main event. Of course, I had become a blonde for the competition and I think my mother was looking at that competition and my new blondness as a way to show that she, my father and I belonged in a place like San Marino.

I don’t think I won the Rose Queen crown because I was a blonde, but I suspect my mother believes that, even though there’s no rational reason for it as many of the queens have been brunettes. I wish now that I had tried to win the competition looking like myself.

The spotlight is still on the shepherds talking by the fire when there is the wail of a new baby that’s just been born. The shepherds all look up and then see the angel standing beside them. The angel is dressed in spotless white and towers over them. They clearly think they’re seeing something supernatural and they start to move away. Well, run really.

“Don’t worry,” the angel commands in a deep voice. “I won’t harm you. I have good news for you. Nearby, a baby was born of a virgin. He is the Messiah.”

The shepherds stop running and a couple of them fall to their knees.

The angel shakes his head. “Don’t worship me. The baby born tonight is the one you should worship. Listen and I’ll tell you how to find Him.”

While the light is on the angel, I wiggle the pillow out of my costume and Randy slips it behind a stage wall at the same time as someone brings in a doll and sets it up in one of the cardboard boxes that had been in the corner of this hallway. The doll is wrapped in a towel.

By the time the light swings back to Randy and me, I am kneeling by the baby’s box and so is Randy. We have arranged ourselves as much as possible to match the silhouette behind us of the real nativity scene.

The street noise outside has been muffled and we only know the shepherds are standing outside the open doorway when one of them clears his throat. Randy tells them to come in and see the baby if they’d like.

The outside noise completely fades away now and the saxophonist plays “What Child Is This.” The shepherds stare at the doll in the box and don’t shuffle their feet like they have previously in rehearsals.

We all know we’re pretending, of course, but I feel that we’re all thinking about what we would have been feeling now if this were the real nativity scene. The silhouettes on the wall behind us keep reminding us that something amazing happened two thousand years ago to humble people in an even more humble place.

The wise men come into the scene at the end, looking like the rock stars they are supposed to be. They don’t have crowns, but they have rhinestones on their shirts and gold fringes on their pants. They’ve got bags of gold in their hands and guitars strapped to their backs.