Circles (9 page)

“No, I want to go to Berkeley. It’s a good school, and it won’t cost as much.”

“But maybe you’ll get a scholarship.”

They talked and talked, and suddenly it was nearly eleven.

“I should go,” Mark said, looking at the clock.

Cindy stood up. “I wish you still lived around here,” she said. “It was always easier talking to you than anybody else. But I should finish some work I have to do for chem.”

Mark jumped up. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

She put an arm around him and looked up at him. Yes, there were lights in her eyes, but maybe not for him. Maybe not for anybody. Maybe she just had lights in her eyes. He could still smell the onions, apples, and cinnamon in her hair. “Because,” she said, “I was enjoying myself. I always enjoy myself with you.”

She smiled at him, and he smiled back at her. Yes, he always enjoyed himself with her too, but they were friends. That’s what they were. He had missed her because you miss a friend, and he knew he was very lucky to have a friend like Cindy.

“We should get together,” he said as they walked down the stairs. “Would you meet me sometimes in the city?”

“Sure,” she said. “I’ve got my license now. I can drive in.”

“Let’s set something up in a couple of weeks,” he said. “And we should call each other from time to time.”

“I wanted to call you,” she said, “but I thought maybe you were busy with your new friends.”

“No,” Mark said. “I don’t have any new friends—at least, I don’t have any friends like you.”

“No kidding?”

“No kidding.”

Yes, he was very lucky, he thought as he drove home. Very lucky to have a friend like Cindy. It would be great if she came into the city. Maybe she’d like to do a little stargazing up on Mount Tarn with him, although her main interest was geophysics. He definitely would call her from time to time. He was lucky to have her as a friend.

But if he was so lucky, how come he was feeling so unlucky? How come he was feeling that something terrible had happened that evening? What was it? What had happened? Nothing. That’s what had happened. He had hoped—he had thought—that he and Cindy would get together, but, somehow, it hadn’t happened. And that was the terrible thing that had happened.

He tried to remind himself that Cindy’s friendship was a rare and precious thing, but he felt bitterly disappointed. And he knew that it was not friendship he was longing for.

Chapter 9

A smiling man opened the door. “Hello,” he said. “I’m Roger Kronberger, Helen’s husband. Come in, come in.”

“Thank you, Mr. Kronberger,” Beebe said, passing through the door and into a long, dark hallway. She hesitated, turned back to him, and asked in a low voice, “How is Mrs. Kronberger?”

His smile wobbled. “Oh, fine. Just fine. Here, let me take your coat. She’s in the living room, and I know she’s been looking forward to seeing you. It’s very nice of you to think of her. A number of students have called and written. She got a marvelous letter from a student she had fifteen years ago—one of those talented kids who’s now acting in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. She was always very proud of him.”

She would have been proud of me, too, Beebe thought jealously.

Mr. Kronberger laid her coat down on a bed in a small room off the hall, and led her to the living room.

“Look who’s here, Helen,” he announced, his smile firm again.

Mrs. Kronberger was sitting on the sofa, a book in her hands. She closed it, took off her glasses, and smiled up at Beebe. “What a nice surprise,” she said. “Come and sit down”—she patted a place on the sofa next to her—”and tell me what’s been happening with the play.”

Mrs. Kronberger’s face looked flat and unnaturally rosy. Beebe realized that she had grown used to seeing her in the dim light of the auditorium. There, her face appeared gaunt and pale with deep, shadowy places. Here in the brightly lit room, the shadows were gone from her face, and the pink color of her skin was startling.

And she has blue eyes, Beebe thought as she seated herself in the designated spot. I always thought she had dark eyes.

The blue eyes, above a smiling mouth, were looking at her as she seated herself carefully on the sofa. “What would you like?” Mrs. Kronberger asked. “Tea ... milk ... or ... Roger, do we have any soft drinks?”

“Oh, that’s all right,” Beebe said quickly. “I really don’t want ...”

“No, we don’t,” Mr. Kronberger said regretfully, “but we do have apple juice or Calistoga water.”

“I really don’t want anything,” Beebe said solemnly. “Please don’t go to any trouble.”

“It’s no trouble at all.” Mrs. Kronberger laughed, and her husband echoed it. “We’ve been waiting for you, and Roger even baked some cookies.”

“Oh, I really didn’t want you to ...”

Mrs. Kronberger leaned over and patted Beebe’s hand. “Now, Barbie,” she said, “Roger and I are dying for our tea, and we insist you have some too.”

Barbie?

Mrs. Kronberger smelled like somebody sick even though she was rosy and smiling like somebody well. But it was a somebody entirely different from her usual cranky, scowling self with a face full of dark shadows.

Beebe gave in and said, “Thank you.”

“So what will you have?” asked Mr. Kronberger.

“Uh—whatever you’re having.”

“We’re having tea.”

“Oh, that’s just fine.”

“But we do have milk.”

“I’d like tea. Really, I would like tea.”

“If you’d rather, you could have apple juice or Calistoga water.”

It took some further exhausting insistence on Beebe’s part that she really would prefer tea before Mr. Kronberger went off and left her alone with Mrs. Kronberger.

“Now then, Barbie, tell me what’s happening with the play.”

“Beebe,” she corrected.

It was bad enough that Mrs. Kronberger didn’t know her name, but that she should call her Barbie was humiliating. She didn’t look like a Barbie. She didn’t act like a Barbie. It was such a terrible insult that even though she knew suddenly that Mrs. Kronberger was a very sick woman, and that some allowances needed to be made, she could not allow anyone—not even a very, very sick woman—to call her Barbie.

“What?” Mrs. Kronberger’s smile wavered.

“My name,” said Beebe very slowly and distinctly, “is Beebe. Beebe Clarke.”

“Oh dear,” said Mrs. Kronberger, the smile lingering. “I always thought your name was Barbie.”

“But Barbie is a terrible name,” Beebe said. “It’s for somebody silly and conventional, like a Barbie doll. It’s not like me at all. I would hate it if my name was Barbie.”

Mrs. Kronberger narrowed her blue eyes and squinted at Beebe. She also stopped smiling and began to look a little like her old self.

“It is a terrible name,” she agreed, “and I apologize. Of course, Beebe is—well—that is rather an unusual name.”

“It’s a nickname,” Beebe explained proudly. “My real name is Beatrice. It’s from
Much Ado About Nothing.
My mother is an actress. She was playing Beatrice when she met my father. And that’s what they called me. Only I couldn’t say Beatrice when I was a baby.”

Now Mrs. Kronberger picked up her glasses, put them on, and inspected Beebe’s face. Her glasses were tinted, and her eyes didn’t look so blue.

“Now let me see,” she said, “you play—Lady Capulet, is it?”

“No,” Beebe said bitterly. “I only play Lady Montague, and last year I was an attendant in
Twelfth Night.
I didn’t have a speaking part, but you let me understudy Viola’s role. You said since I knew it, and Viola—-Jennifer—never got sick, you said it would be okay. And this year, I’m also Juliet’s understudy.”

“Oh yes,” Mrs. Kronberger said. “You’re the girl with the amazing memory.”

“My memory isn’t amazing,” Beebe said. “I know all those lines because I read the plays so much. Over and over again. I love the plays. And so does my mother. We read them together sometimes. Out loud.”

“Tell me about your mother,” Mrs. Kronberger said. “What’s her name? What plays has she been in?”

“Her name is Barbara Clarke—and nobody ever calls her Barbie.”

“Barbara Clarke? Hmm ... I don’t think ...”

“Oh, she hasn’t acted for years—since I was born. She used to act before that. People thought she was wonderful, but my father got sick, and .’ . . she couldn’t.”

“I see,” said Mrs. Kronberger. She took off her glasses and looked helplessly in the direction of the doorway. “Roger should be bringing in our tea soon. He’s not the handiest man in a kitchen.”

“Should I help?” Beebe began to rise.

“No, no, dear, just stay where you are, and tell me what’s been happening with the play.”

Beebe hesitated. She knew she shouldn’t be piling all of her sorrows and disappointments onto this sick, sick woman, but that was the reason for her visit, and she was convinced that Mrs. Kronberger would want to know the truth and, knowing it, would take some very strong action. She leaned closer to Mrs. Kronberger and said, “She’s ruining it! She’s murdering it!”

“She’s what?”

“She’s destroying the play,” Beebe said in a furious rush of words. “She’s taking everything apart. She’s changing the lines. She’s adding different characters, turning it into a comedy.
Romeo and Juliet
into a comedy! And nobody can stop her. The kids—they stand around, and they complain behind her back. Some of them say they’re going to the principal, and some of them talk about a petition, but every day she changes something, and nobody does anything. Yesterday, she took out those stunning lines that Romeo speaks when he thinks Juliet is dead. You know what I mean:

“...O my love! my wife!

Death, that hath suck’d the honey of thy breath,

Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:

Thou art not conquer’d; beauty’s ensign yet

Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,

And death’s white flag is not advanced there.”

“ ‘Pale,’ “ said Mrs. Kronberger. “It’s ‘death’s pale flag,’ not ‘white’ flag.”

“Are you sure?” Beebe asked. “White makes more sense since it means surrender. The white flag of surrender.”

“Of course I’m sure,” Mrs. Kronberger snapped. “I’ve known that play a lot longer than you have.” She put her glasses back on, and Beebe said happily, because Mrs. Kronberger was now acting like her old, cranky, fussy, caring self, “Yes, Mrs. Kronberger, I’m sure you’re right. But Mrs. Kronberger, she’s destroying the play. She’s violating the play. She’s even written a new prologue about two schools, Capulet High School and Montague High School, and taken out the most important line in the whole play.”

“What line is that?” Mrs. Kronberger demanded.

“ ‘A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life,’ “ Beebe recited angrily. “She’s substituted, ‘A pair of high school kids caught in the fight.’ Please, Mrs. Kronberger, you have to do something.”

Mrs. Kronberger was looking at her solemnly. “Why didn’t you take my Shakespeare class?” she asked.

“I was going to take it next term,” Beebe answered. “I’m only a junior, and I had to get some other things out of the way first. But I was planning on taking it next year, and now ... and now ...”

“Now,” Mrs. Kronberger finished, “now, you’ll have to take it with somebody else.”

“There is nobody else,” Beebe said, almost accusingly. “You’re the only one I wanted. You’re the only one who ... who ...” She wanted to say, “You’re the only one who knows more than I do about Shakespeare,” but it sounded so conceited she just left the sentence unfinished. For a moment or two there was silence. Then Mrs. Kronberger said, “I’m not the only one. Don’t make that mistake, Beebe. There’s never an only one in anybody’s life.”

“It’s not fair,” Beebe said. “It’s not fair.”

“No,” said Mrs. Kronberger, “I suppose it’s not. Life is often not fair. And neither is art. Think of poor Romeo and Juliet. Art wasn’t fair to them.”

“But art is different from life,” Beebe said. “Art can make sense of tragedy. Shakespeare’s language can make suffering meaningful. It demeans his art to turn the play into some kind of slapstick comedy.”

Mrs. Kronberger smiled. “You sound like a college professor, Beebe,” she said. “Is that what you want to be?”

“No,” Beebe said. “No. I want to be an actress.”

“An actress?” Mrs. Kronberger shook her head. “Why would
you
want to be an actress?”

And there it was—the unkindest cut of all. It didn’t slice into her with a dagger, but it came with the clarity of a simple, undeniable fact. Two and two are four and “Why would
you
want to be an actress?” What Mrs. Kronberger meant, of course, was why would somebody like you who was only an attendant in last year’s play without a speaking part, and was only Lady Montague with just a few lines in this year’s play—why would somebody without talent want to be an actress?

“My mother,” Beebe murmured. “My mother wants me to be an actress.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Kronberger, “lots of mothers want their children to be actresses and actors.”

“But my mother thinks I’m talented....”

“Yes.” Mrs. Kronberger sighed and shook her head. “Lots of mothers think their children are talented.”

“But if I don’t become an actress,” Beebe cried, “what will I do?”

“Why, you’ll have to figure that one out for yourself, won’t you?” said Mrs. Kronberger, almost crankily. “And getting back to
Romeo and Juliet,
what is it you want me to do?”

“Make her stop,” Beebe said fiercely. “Make her do the play the right way, or get us a different faculty advisor.”

At this point, Mr. Kronberger carried in a tray with a teapot, sugar, spoons, cookies, and napkins, and set it down on the coffee table in front of the sofa.

“Dear,” said Mrs. Kronberger, “you’ve forgotten the cups, and maybe Beebe would like milk in her tea.”

“No, no milk,” Beebe said impatiently, and then, remembering her manners, she added, “I mean no, thank you.”

“I’ll be right back,” Mr. Kronberger said, hurrying off.

Beebe kept her eyes on Mrs. Kronberger’s face, and Mrs. Kronberger raised her eyes from the tea tray and said, almost kindly, “I’m sorry, Beebe, but there’s nothing I can do.”