Set Me Free (39 page)

The one time Amelia didn’t feel agitated, the one time she could relax, could fully look Victor in the eye and not feel embarrassed,
could put her arm around Lydia and believe entirely in their friendship, was when she was onstage.
The Tempest,
and acting in it, had become Amelia’s refuge.

Acting felt the way playing duets had felt. Good. Flowing. There were rhythms and pauses, courteous interruptions, moments
when you raced ahead. She liked playing music with Wes, so she had let herself believe she liked Wes, maybe even loved him.
Acting made her understand this. It made her understand that she’d been wrong to think she had a crush. She hadn’t liked Wes
like that,
but it had been easier to believe that than this other, more complicated truth: she loved merging, through art, through music,
with someone else.

Amelia’s friendship with Lydia limped along, a little bedraggled, a little torn. What made Amelia feel good about Lydia was
simple: she trusted that when this was all over-—and by “this,” she meant the play, the school year, the Benson visit—she’d
be able to sit
down and explain everything to Lydia, and Lydia would do what she’d always been able to do. Lydia would love her, if only
because Amelia had taken exactly one hundred dollars of Wes’s eleven-hundred-dollar bribe and bought Lydia a Walkman and a
music-store gift certificate. Amelia was planning to give it to her friend when the summer began.

Wes surprised Amelia by writing a letter. It was earnest and handwritten, and it profusely apologized for accusing her of
tattling. He’d found out through the grapevine that it was a third boy who’d gone to the principal and confessed that Jackson
Rice had touched him inappropriately, then added he’d heard Jackson was “hooking up” with some other boys too.
So I guess I’ve got to learn a lot about men and the lies they tell,
Wes wrote. He had started seeing a therapist, and he noted enthusiastically that he was making “real progress.” It was this
therapist who had urged Wes to send the letter. Wes wanted to hear from Amelia whether or not his presence was welcome at
Ponderosa during the exchange. He understood if she never wanted to see him again, but he would be honored, truly honored,
if she would let him come. He wanted to see her again, to tell her about Juilliard, how good New York City would be for him.
Could he come? Amelia wrote back a simple yes. She decided that his visit would give her the chance she wanted to press Wes’s
money back into his palm. To tell him he had no right to treat another person the way he’d treated her.

T
HE
T
EMPEST
SETTLED
the agitation in the pit of Amelia’s stomach. That didn’t mean it was easy. The play was hard. Memorizing lines was hard.
Creating a character, no matter how many times she met alone with Helen for “character work,” was hard. Doing homework on
top of all that was hard. Amelia didn’t even try to practice the violin. No matter how difficult things felt, no matter how
exhausted she was, every day was laden with excitement. It was as though
The Tempest
were single-handedly giving everyone at Ponderosa the chance to see a future. Even Victor had
renewed hope about college, as soon as he found out there were scholarships for actors. Lydia was already sending away for
brochures from conservatories as far away as Boston University.

Then there was the matter of the cast parties. There were going to be two of them. One after the show, in the gym, when the
lights went up and the set was shoved back against the wall and all the parents and teachers mingled and congratulated the
students and everyone ate cookies and drank juice. Then, despite the lectures they’d gotten as a student body, as a cast,
as a set of individuals, the kids were organizing a party of their own. Elliot worked hard on those kids at assembly: “We
are inviting children from a very different student body into our homes. In doing so, we are making a promise, to their parents,
their teachers, and to them. That promise? We, as their hosts, will look out for their best interests. I know I don’t need
to remind you that holding a party where there will be drinking, or reckless behavior of any kind, is not only illegal, it
is irresponsible. And I’ll thank you to remember that holding such a party under the noses of this institution will result
in serious consequences.” I missed the rest of that lecture. I had to step outside and roll my eyes.

Naturally, the question of the party set Amelia on edge. Not only would she be disobeying her father’s personal and professional
wishes by attending, but there was the matter of Sadie and Wes. They would be there too. As would Lydia and Victor.

O
N THE DAY
of the performance, the cast spent the morning in a dress rehearsal and most of the afternoon correcting lighting errors
and fixing the prop business they’d fouled up in the dress. Amelia did not see Sadie or Wes at all, but she didn’t think about
them. She and the cast had entered that fabulous phase when the play is going to happen. No matter what. There is nothing
more that can be fixed. There are no more lines to memorize. There is only the play as a whole to discover, as it becomes
something new: a living thing with its own rhythms, its own humor, its own heartbeat.

Elliot came backstage while Amelia was applying smudges of brown to her face.

“It’s supposed to be dirt,” she said.

“Very convincing.”

She went back to her makeup, expecting him to step away from her in order to make some kind of general announcement to the
cast. Everyone else seemed to anticipate this too; a hush had fallen over the makeshift dressing room. But he squatted next
to her and lowered his voice. She looked at him, surprised, as he began to speak.

“I just want to tell you to break a leg. I know you’ll be fantastic. Helen’s been telling me how talented you are. I know
how hard you’ve worked—”

“Thanks, Dad,” she said. It wasn’t that she was dismissing him. It was more that she was nervous. She wanted to believe no
one was going to be out there in the darkness, watching her.

He stayed beside her. He was fiddling with the top button of his dress shirt.

“Leave it undone,” she said.

“Is that the style?”

“Yeah. You only button it if you’re wearing a tie.”

“Oh.”

She set down the pancake makeup as she said, “Dad. Can I help you with something?”

“I just wanted to say—” He cleared his throat. “I just wanted you to know why I chose this play.”

She rolled her eyes. “I know. I already know. Because of the colonialism, and the native stuff, and the slavery, and you wanted
to do a Shakespeare play to show Benson how ‘world-class’ we are, Dad, I’ve already heard this lecture.”

“I chose this play because it was your mother’s favorite. Her absolute favorite play in the world.” His voice faltered, and
he lowered his eyes. But he went on. “I took her to a production of it in Central Park in the dead middle of winter, when
she was pregnant
with you. I knew how disappointed she’d be later, when she read about it in the
Times
and couldn’t go. She was so enormous that she couldn’t even fit into my clothes. So I went down to the Salvation Army and
found her a muumuu and a man’s coat just so she could go see that play. It was the middle of winter! Who does a play in the
middle of a snowfield? Totally impractical. But it was sunny, and really, the light on the snow made the whole world feel
like a fairyland.

“The actors performed while moving through the park. Your mother loved it. I knew she was going to love it. We tromped through
the snow with the actors, as though we too were part of the production. And even though Astrid was huge, and even though it
was freezing, she smiled the whole time. Even though she couldn’t sit for two hours, and she had to keep moving. It was one
of the happiest days of my life. And I didn’t even know it. I guess you never do.”

This was the most Amelia had ever heard her father say about her mother in one sitting. Her father seemed so soft and kind.
She put her hand on his cheek. “Thank you,” she said.

Helen came into the dressing room. “Fifteen minutes!” She glowered humorously at Elliot. “All nonactors are strongly encouraged
to take their seats!”

Elliot pecked Amelia on the cheek. “Break a leg,” he whispered. As he walked to the door, he began to clap. “Break a leg,”
he said to each of the other children. He smiled and waved and popped out the door.

That was not the last time Amelia saw her father whole. She saw him after the play was over, when she was drenched in adrenaline
and thrilled at what they had all just made. But when he gave her a hug, and told her how proud he was of her, it was not
real talking. It was not just the two of them. Everyone was watching and excited, and the audience was boisterous and the
actors were giddy, and all Amelia was thinking about was getting out to the cast party. All she was thinking about was the
next big thing that would make
her feel as happy as being inside the play had made her. So although Elliot’s words to Amelia about her mother were not the
last words he ever spoke to her, they were in the ways that matter. She can still see him sometimes, waving to her from the
doorway. She can still taste the possibilities of truth his words offer as they swirl inside her. And then he is gone.

Once upon a time, a group of children put on a play. This play was about a storm on the ocean, and a shipwreck, and a tired
but powerful wizard, and his innocent daughter, and their slave, and their sprite, and the men who were shipwrecked, who feared
they were dead but weren’t. In order to put on the play, the children had to work very hard. They had to memorize and build
and paint and ponder and sew and worry and hammer and wait.

They were waiting for the night when the play was ready.

They were waiting for their audience.

None of the children had ever put on a play before. So they didn’t know quite how things went. They didn’t know, until the
night they performed their play, whether it was any good or not.

It was good.

It was so good that the babies in the audience did not cry. It was so good that the old men in the audience did not fall asleep.
It was so good that the dogs in the audience did not bark. It was so good.

There was a girl who was bright like a song in her everyday life, but she disguised her songness and played the slave, who
was a beast, and everyone forgot she was not really a he. There was a boy who was sleek and new like a pine sapling in his
everyday life, but he was so good that he disguised his pineness and played the wizard, who was all bluster and power, and
everyone forgot he was not ancient and magic. There was a girl who was rowdy like a hurricane in her everyday life, but she
disguised her rowdiness and played the daughter, who was still and curious, and everyone forgot that when she laughed, the
world shook around her. There were many other
children who accomplished similar tasks. They left themselves. They became the play.

The words the children spoke when they became the play were words the audience had never heard. When the children spoke those
words, they made the room electric and hushed and rapturous. The hairs on the arms of the children and the audience stood
at attention. The breath in the lungs of the children and the audience filled with something that was not only air.

The room became an island. A storm blew in, and the people inside and outside the play were afraid. A wild ocean lapped at
the edges of the room. The island was full of the sounds of magic, magic that misled the bad and tempted love for the good
and conjured feasts and secured justice and set a good man free.

It was this man who came to the edge of the island at the end of the play and reminded the audience that there had to be an
end. The end would be brought by clapping. This man, who was the wizard, who was really the boy like a pine, begged to be
released.

Though the audience did not want to leave the island, they knew it was time. All the words were gone. All the children were
exhausted.

And so the people clapped.

A
MELIA

Where-We-Have-the-Parties
Tuesday, May 6, 1997

T
he children gathered out in the darkness after their play. They whooped in their cars as they drove, speeding up the gravel
road. Amelia’s body was buzzing, as though in disbelief of what it had just accomplished. All those words! They’d come out
of her in the right order! Her mind smoothed over the memory of how inevitable it felt: once the shipwreck began, the play
was a long line of dominoes. First this, then this, then this. No other way to go. No way to end what they’d begun. No way
she could have forgotten her lines even if she’d tried. No way she could have stopped midstage, looked out at the audience,
made a time-out sign with her hands, and said, “I’m Amelia,” even if she’d wanted to. That was what made her feel buzzy and
exhausted and exhilarated all at once as she hurtled through the night with Lydia by her side. That was what made her shiver
and feel a little afraid. She
wasn’t
Amelia when she was Caliban. She was only Caliban. It was a scary and powerful and perfect feeling. She wanted to feel it
again.