“I get it.”
“So when you tell us what’s happened, let us in on what you’re feeling.”
“I’m afraid I’m going to lose Olivia when she finds out who I really am.”
“That’s a thought.”
“Is it correct?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re the director.”
“You’re the actor,” she shot back.
“You’re the boss.”
“You’re the storyteller. They’re paying to see you. I’m not up there when the audience shows up and sits in their seats. You have to make sense of it for them. Every play is an argument. You’re stating your case.”
“I’m following.” Nicky nodded he understood.
“You bring the words to life and give them emotion and meaning.”
“Fancy talk.”
“You ever had a fare in your cab and the guy gets in and you don’t know why, but you just like him on sight?”
“Yeah.”
“You can talk to the person?”
“Yeah.”
“And you’re driving the guy where he wants to go and he asks you a question and you tell him a story. You don’t think too much about the details, you just tell him what happened. It’s natural. You just tell the story, the details, deliver the information. That’s all acting is. Tell what’s on the page like you’d tell a guy in the back of the cab something you heard that you thought was interesting or funny or even disturbing—or scary, which these lines can be if a man thinks he’s going to lose the woman he loves when she figures out he isn’t who she thinks he is.”
Nicky nodded. “I know a little something about that.”
“So use it,” Calla suggested.
Tony Coppolella pushed the stage door open, and soon the actors filed in for the rehearsal Calla had added to the show schedule to incorporate Nicky into the play. He didn’t hear the door open. He didn’t hear Josie laugh backstage, or Hambone trip when he came up from the dressing room. All the while, he was thinking about what Calla had said.
Nicky had long suspected that there were two levels to life—the street level, where he drove the cab, upon which people lived and worked and shopped, ate and slept, made love, argued and settled their differences, and the other level, the depths, beneath the grid, the pavement and sidewalks, deep into the earth, under the rivers, through the silt past the stone and clay, under the layers of rock, deeper still to the magma, the tectonic plates, farther down and in, as far as one could go, to the center of things, where feelings were buried and could only be mined if a human soul bothered to dig.
Nicky had come to the knowledge of this duality of the surface and the depths early on in his life because he had grieved before he learned to read. He believed that anyone who suffered loss knew it was the only thing in the face of anything else in the human experience.
Grief was the alpha and the omega of all that resided in between thought and feeling, and between inertia and action. There was room for nothing else in the presence of grief except understanding. Understanding was the deepest level of empathy. Perhaps—and Nicky would have to think about this—this was what he had to summon within himself if he was going play a part, if he was to become an actor. He would have to show an audience what it was to feel what it meant for a man to go through something. He knew it was possible, because he had seen it from the wings when an actor, using the words of a playwright, told a story that belonged to the audience.
Calla had her theories about the theater, but Nicky had begun to have his too. He’d play the scene as she blocked it, listen to his fellow actors, and stay in the moment. If he did those three things, he might become Sebastian in Twelfth Night. If he didn’t, Nicky was certain he’d lay the biggest egg South Philly had ever seen.
* * *
Nicky pulled the new No. 4 cab up in front of 832 Ellsworth Street and grabbed the brown bag off the front seat before making his way up the walk. He knocked on the screen door. “Mr. Borelli?” He knocked again. The interior door was open. Nicky peered in. He saw a light on in the kitchen. “Hey? Mr. Borelli?” He knocked harder.
Nicky had been around enough old people to know that one didn’t hesitate to check on them. He pushed the screen door open and continued to call out to Calla’s father as he made his way back to the kitchen. There, he looked through the window and saw Sam sitting in the backyard. He exhaled a sigh of relief.
Nicky had turned to go outside to join Sam when he saw a toolbox opened, with the contents in disarray, scattered on the kitchen table. “Mr. Borelli!” he hollered on his way out to the backyard. “Calla sent you dinner. Said to tell you she’d be late. Tony’s wife made a platter of roast pork sandwiches.”
“My favorite.”
“So I heard. And there’s a couple of pizelles in there.”
“Thanks. How are you doing in the play?”
“I can’t tell.”
Sam smiled. “That’s good. A man that thinks he has the world by a string ends up being choked by it.”
“I was less terrified in France in a foxhole.”
“You’ll get past that. You have to fall in love with the words. When you do, you’ll serve them.”
“Good to know. Rehearsal was rigorous but the actors were really helpful. Do you want me to get you something to drink?”
“There’s a beer in the fridge. I’ll get it.” Sam stood up. “You want to join me?”
“Sure.” Nicky followed Sam into the kitchen. “You fixing something?”
“Tried. Something wrong with the sink. I was waiting for Calla’s fella to come over and take a whack at it, but you know the old saying, a shoemaker’s kid goes barefoot, well, the contractor’s girlfriend’s father doesn’t get his sink fixed.”
“I’ll take a stab at it. But get me that beer. I’m not a professional.” Nicky took the flashlight, got on his knees, and looked under the sink. “You need a new joint. The rivets are shot.”
“That’s all?”
“I think so.” Nicky rummaged through the tool kit and found the pieces he needed to fix the pipe.
“I don’t want to leave this place a wreck.”
“Where are you going?”
“When I die.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t want to leave Calla with a mess. The theater is enough of a responsibility. If I leave this house in pretty good shape, my daughters should be able to sell it.”
“Where would Calla go?”
“I hope that she’s settled soon.”
“That’d be nice.”
“It’s what you want for your children. You want them to have security—even when you’ve lived the life of an artist.”
“What’s that like? To be an artist?” Nicky asked.
“All it means is that you did what you wanted with your life and you didn’t make any money. Not a bad trade off. It’s what Twelfth Night is about. Every character in the play is trying to find happiness.”
“Love.” Nicky peeked out from under the sink.
Sam nodded. “Or meaning. Shakespeare answers the question ‘Why do I matter?’ by the end of the play. That’s a big freight for a comedy.”
“I’ll say. If you don’t mind me asking, Mr. Borelli, why the impostors? Why all the disguises and mistaken identities?”
“I think Shakespeare was saying find truth however you can, put on a different hat, or suit or mask, and see where it takes you. It may lead you to the life you should be living. It will lead you to what is pure and noble.”
Nicky emerged from under the sink. He ran the water in the sink, knelt down, and checked the pipe.
“You fixed it. Thank you!” Sam was impressed.
“Have Frank take a look anyway. I believe in experts having the last word. I better shove off.”
“What about that beer?”
“I’ll be back for it.”
“Could you do one more thing for me? Could you take these tools back to the theater? I had Calla loan t
hem to me from the scene shop.”
“Sure.” Nicky loaded them back into the toolbox.
Sam reached into the refrigerator, pulled out two more bottles, and handed them to Nicky. “My daughter likes a cold beer at the end of a workday. Would you mind bringing her one?”
* * *
The only entrance open at Borelli’s was the stage door, which had been propped open with a brick. Nicky pushed it open with his hip. He carried the toolbox onto the stage, where Calla was sitting cross-legged against the proscenium wall, reading a ledger, with her prompt book opened and propped on the floor. The work lights were on full blast.
“Miss me?” Nicky sat down next to her.
“No.”
“I fixed your sink.”
“You did?”
“Your dad paid me with two beers. But he said to give you one of them.” Nicky handed her one of the cold beers that he’d placed in the toolbox.
“He’s a piece of work.”
“He sure is.” Nicky snapped the lid off Calla’s beer and then his own.
“The man has no patience. I told him Frank would swing by tomorrow to fix it.”
“Too late. Your father had all the tools out like a surgeon.”
“But he has no idea what to do with any of them. I always wondered what it would be like to have a father who could fix things. The knob on our bedroom door fell off when I was eight, and it still hasn’t been replaced.”
“One man can’t be everything. Can’t do everything.”
“It’s worth the search, though, don’t you think?”
“If you’ve got the time. And you’ve got the time. You have youth and beauty and that long list of unreasonable demands on your side.”
“I’ve got time.”
“You can’t take a compliment.”
“Yes, I can.”
“Say thank you. I think you’re pretty. What’s the big tingle?”
“It’s not a big tingle at all,” Calla said defensively.
“Sounds like it. You almost curdle. You fold up. You recoil. You can’t take a social nicety.”
“I can!”
“You don’t. You close your eyes halfway.” Nicky demonstrated. “Your lids go down by half. Like garage doors.”
“Lovely.”
“I think so.”
“Are you flirting with me?” Calla kept her eyes on the ledger.
“No.”
“Good. Because you’re about to get married to Miss DePino.”
“You’ve heard of atomic bombs?”
“Yeah.”
“The day I marry Peachy DePino, a giant pink gas cloud is going to explode over Our Lady of Loreto Church. It will burst forth from the heavens in a fireball made of lace and smoke and rose petals and Jordan almonds. No one will survive it. Not even you.”
“Will you?”
“Nope. We’re all going down for the cause.”
“But a worthy one. A man. A woman. A sacrament. True love. Nothing like it.”
“You’ve seen enough Shakespeare to know.”
“I grew up with it. My parents. That was a real love story.” Calla closed the ledger.
“You’re lucky. That was the saddest part of losing my parents. And the worst part of being an orphan. I never saw a love story that I could say was mine.”
“Forgive me. What a clod. Bragging about my parents.”
“You should! Revel in it! What is better than hearing about two people who loved each other and made a life and a family. It’s like something out of a play. Almost doesn’t seem possible offstage. What I wouldn’t give to have known my father with my mother in love—together, you know, just the two of them, in the kitchen, laughing, making a sandwich, or holding hands on the street, or seeing my father open a car door for my mother. The absence of those things are what makes you an orphan—it’s the ordinary everyday expressions of love you miss.”
Calla looked away.
“Hey, I’m boring you.” Nicky nudged her.
“Not at all.”
“You sure?”
“It’s what everyone wants.”
“Is it what you want?”
“Of course.” Calla felt her cheeks flush.
“I remember your mother. She was a beauty.”
“She was.” Calla looked down at her hands because they reminded her of her mother’s.
“You look just like her.”
“I look like my dad.”
“No. You look like her. You really do.”
“Thank you. You couldn’t pay me a higher compliment.”
“That was it? I’ve been trying to figure out how to impress you and I stumble upon it blind. Go figure.”
“That’s it.” Calla laughed.
“I’m sorry you lost her.”
“It’s been hard. And really difficult for Dad. I haven’t been able to get him back since she died. The grief took him over, and he got sick. But I’m determined to get him well, and have him direct the next production. He doesn’t want to do it, but I’m going to make him.”
“You took all this on for him?”
“It’s the family business.” Calla smiled.
“I understand. I work in one, you know.”
“But I love the theater. Maybe not as much as my dad, who sacrificed everything for it, but almost as much. He spent all of his time here when we were kids. Mom would pack his lunch and bring him his dinner here. I probably spent more time in this mezzanine than I did in my backyard at home.”
“Did your mother mind?”
“Whatever made him happy made her happy.”
Nicky’s thoughts went to Peachy, who thought happiness was a joint venture, not a personal search. “They don’t make them like your mother anymore.”
“No, they don’t. But she’s gone—and maybe that has something to do with it. She worked so hard to make our lives comfortable and happy that she sacrificed her health and her peace of mind. Her whole life was my father and her daughters. We were her world. And I don’t know if that’s good.”
“It was good for you,” said Nicky.
“Yeah. But what about her?”
“Mothers don’t think about themselves. When my mother was dying, she said, ‘When you’re happy, I’m happy, and I’ll know it, even in the next world. So promise me you will always be happy.’”
“She guilted you into being happy.”
“I didn’t see it that way.”
“My mother guilted my sisters and me into being good and working hard in school, really, everything. Guilt was her tool. But it was effective.”
“It builds loyalty. You had her all those years. I’d have taken my mother, guilt and all, any terms set, I would have agreed to them just to have her around.”
“How old were you when she died?”
“Five. Almost six.”
“And you remember her?”
“I do. I like to think I remember every word she said, but that’s just wishful thinking. I fill in whatever I can’t remember like it’s a scene in a play and then I watch it in my mind.”
“I find myself doing the same thing with my mom.”
“You have to. Who will remember her if you don’t? Who knew your mother in the way you did? In my dreams my mother is young and full of pep and quite the beauty. I remember how she brushed her hair. And what she wore. And how she laughed. And her perfume. You know, whatever you wear reminds me of my mom.”
Calla held out her wrist and put it under Nicky’s nose. “It’s called Bella Arancia. I get a big bottle at the feast every year.”
“It’s nice.”
“Thanks. There’s a Calabrian couple that have come over here every summer for years, and they make cologne themselves. Mine is made with Sicilian blood oranges. You should get Peachy a bottle next feast.”
“I never buy her perfume. She gets a discount at the department store. So she wears Arpège.”
“Fancy.”
“Very. I like it. But she doesn’t smell like an I
talian garden in the summertime. You know, like my ma.”
“Someday you’ll have a daughter, and your mother will be back. That’s how it goes, you know.”
“You think so? I hope it’s true. I’m beginning to forget the small details and I’m afraid the memories of her will eventually fade altogether when I move out of Montrose Street. I’ve lived in that house all my life, and it’s the only house I lived in with my mother. I’m reminded of her every day when I come and go. When I walk out the door, I feel like I’m leaving her there somehow.”
“What does that say about us?” Calla wondered.
“What do you mean?”
“We never left home.”
“There must have been an important reason for us to stay.” Nicky shrugged.
“I had to take care of Dad.”
“And I wasn’t ready to get married until now.”
“How did you know you were?”
“You just know. How about that handsome devil with the delicate, upturned schnoz you’re seeing?”
“Frank is very nice.”
“The future mayor of Philly. Important man. That’s some stature right there. The very definition. He’s climbing the ladder. You better invest in some nice hats.”
“I don’t exactly fit the role, do I?”
“You can do anything.”
Calla blushed. The only person who had ever said those words to her and meant them was her father. And those particular words had given her the confidence to direct her first play. “Not according to the Philadelphia Inquirer,” she said as she gathered the pages from her prompt book. “We’re done for today. You need to rest. You have Shakespeare to master—and I have accounting to do. ”
“I heard this new actor Nicky Castone is going to turn things around. Take the old barn out of the red and put it in the black.” Nicky stood, extended his hands, and pulled Calla to standing.
“That would be nice, because I heard from Mario Lanza’s agent and he’s gone to Hollywood. He won’t be back to South Philly anytime soon to save us,” Calla admitted.
Nicky held Calla’s hands. “You don’t need Lanza when you’ve got Castone.”
“I have to lock up.”
Nicky let go of her hands. “Work. Work. And more work,” Nicky teased as he followed Calla to the stage door, past the prop table, where there were stacks of flyers and posters to advertise the production.