The New 21

What Amy has practiced saying in front of Gina's bathroom mirror is not, strictly speaking, true. What she has practiced saying, what she has choreographed a wry smile to is (eyebrows raised, eyes wide): "Oh, didn't you hear?" Then (close-mouthed grin, bottom lip pluckily upthrust): "Johnny left me at the altar."

In reality, he left her six months before they were due at the altar, shortly after Amy returned to their apartment with a coil of stamps purchased at the recommendation of a pigeon-breasted postal employee.

"I ended up getting the 'love' stamps, Johnny," she had said. "I hope you don't think they're too trite. But the mailwoman said breast cancer stamps would be downbeat, and I think she might be right. And I don't think we're the kind of people who use flag stamps, do you?"

And he had said, "Aim, I just don't think I can go through with this."

But when Amy, eyebrows raised, lip pluckily upthrust, shows the revised, choreographed version of the story to Gina, Gina applauds and tells her it is much more dramatic that way.

"And I think wry is definitely the way to go. If you were, like, lachrymose it would scare people off."

"Do you think I've got enough raised eyebrow? Too much raised eyebrow? Wait, can we do it again?"

"When are you guys getting married, anyway?"

"Oh, didn't you hear? Johnny left me at the altar."

"A little less eyebrow. You're making your forehead wrinkle. And don't pop your eyes so much; it looks like you have a thyroid condition. When are you guys getting married, anyway?"

"Oh, didn't you hear? Johnny left me at the altar."

"The thing you did with your mouth that time was good. You got some dimple action going. One more time?"

"Yeah, I want to get it down cold before I see my mother's friends." Although Johnny offered to let her remain in his apartment "as a roommate," Amy has decided to go home for the three months until Gina's roommate's lease runs out.

"When are you getting married to that nice boy, dear?"

"Oh, didn't you hear? Johnny left me at the altar."

But when Amy's mother greets her at the front door with, "Oh, Ameleh, that bastard," and fails to comment on Amy's having dyed her hair an implausible shade of blond, Amy realizes that she will not have to perform her story for her mother's friends.

"I don't know what's wrong with her," Amy tells Gina on the telephone later that week. "She hasn't criticized my weight or my hair or anything. Not even offered to take me to her hairdresser."

"I meant to ask you," Gina says. "What is up with your hair? Have you been straightening it, too? It looks bizarre. It looks horsy."

"Did you know Kim has a horse? Johnny told me. He told me Kim named him Oceancookie." Kim is a law clerk at Johnny's office who has just passed her bar exam.

"That bitch. But honestly, Amy, maybe you should dye it back. Or, hey, maybe red. It would be kind of Dante Gabriel Rossetti-y."

"Do you know that Rossetti's model OD'ed on laudanum? Married him, and then OD'ed."

"You never see laudanum around anymore."

"And then he buried some of his poems with her in this, like, grand romantic gesture, but then reconsidered several years later and dug her up again to retrieve them. Isn't that such a guy thing to do?"

Mostly it sounds unhygienic. I hope he disinfected the poems once he'd pried them from her skeletonized hands. Aim, are you sure you don't want me to look for a sublet for you? Aren't you bored stiff? The Cape is dead this time of year.

"I'm doing script development," Amy says, which is actually a euphemism for taking out lots of videos from the library and watching them one after another while writing things like Lolita: too risqué? on a legal pad and slowly double-underlining them.

"Script development," she says again. "Do you think that Zade could do Lolita? Johnny could play Humbert Humbert!"

Zade is the nonprofit children's theatre Amy and Gina run together, which Gina is managing by herself while Amy is on the Cape. It was incorporated as "Scheherazade"; by the time Gina objected, the paperwork had already gone through.

Gina said, "If you're really going to stick out the three months, you should find something to do. Why don't you try out for the winter show at the ACT? Theatre is where they have to take you in."

Alden Community Theatre hosts a college repertory company during the tourist season. It is where, one summer, seven years ago, Gina had played Ado Annie to Amy's Laurie in Oklahoma! Johnny had played Jud, which, as Amy reflected recently, ought to have told her something.

"That's home, Gina. Home is where they have to take you in. Anyway, I've sworn off auditions."

"Oh, come on. Reinvent yourself. Thirty is the new twenty-one."

Amy says, "I am not thirty. I am twenty-eight."

But when Amy goes down to breakfast the next morning to find the Cape Cod Times at her place, folded open to the classified ads, with the "Temporary Help" section circled in yellow highlighter, she says, "Actually, Ma, I'm going to try out for the winter show at the ACT."

"Honey, that's hardly a full-time job, even if you get in. Last year, when they did Brigadoon, they had Jerry Arnold play the Gene Kelly part. God only knows who made that casting decision. Actually, do you want me to talk to Jerry about substitute teaching for you? Because that could always lead to something more. Jerry said the middle school's looking for an English teacher, and you could--"

"Ma, I've got a job. With real paychecks and everything."

"I'm just saying that it never hurts to have something to fall back on--"

"Benefits! I have benefits! Health insurance!"

"Okay, Amy," her mother says, pouring milk over her bowl of Special K. "But when you decide you want me to talk to Jerry, you just let me know, dear."

Instead, Amy finds in the CapeWeek section of the paper an audition notice for Camelot at the ACT.

Camelot, by Lerner and Loewe, 7 p.m. Oct. 11-12
Alden Community Theatre, Water Street
Roles for Guenevere, 20s; Morgan Le Fey, 20s; courtiers.
Performances: December 12-14, 19-21 and 26-28

She exhumes the sheet music to "Many a New Day" from the piano bench, and, haltingly accompanying herself on the old upright, practices the song while her mother is at work. On a Thursday night, she drives to the ACT and waits in the lobby, mouthing the lines she is to read. When she is called into the theatre to audition, Amy dimly recognizes one of the two men examining the papers strewn on the stage.

"Mr. Arnold?"

"Amy! It's great to see you. Call me Jerry. How are you doing? What brings you to the Cape? Your mother said you were living up in Boston with your fiancé. Have you two gotten married yet?"

"Actually, Jerry, Johnny left me at the altar." Amy, lip pluckily upthrust, can feel the dimple flicker into her right cheek.

"Oh. Well." He looks at the paper she's filled out. "Well. 'Many a new day will dawn.'"

"Yes," agrees Amy. Mr. Arnold clears his throat elaborately.

"Well, Amy, perhaps your mother told you I'll be directing?" Amy shakes her head. "Oh. Well, I'm also Arthur--we've cast the men already--and so let's go ahead and have you read some lines with me and Ben here." He nods at a lanky kid who can't be more than seventeen. The kid smirks and gives Amy a long appraising look. "From 'This splendid dream'?"

"Zees splendid dream must be med a ooniversel réalité!" Ben says. When Amy starts at the vaguely Gallic accent, he explains: "Lancelot is French. Lancelot du Lac."

"Oh," Amy says. "I'm sorry, would you mind reading that again?"

"Zees splendid dream must be med a ooniversel réalité!"

"Oh, absolutely. It really must. Can you stay for lunch, Arthur?" Amy does not find it at all difficult to follow the parenthetical directive to "frost a bit."

Amy's misgivings intensify at the first cast meeting when Jerry Arnold explains his vision for the show.

"So we're setting this in the Kennedy White House," he says. "You get the resonance? It's Camelot. And this is Camelot. Plus, there's the Cape connection with the Kennedys, so the show works on all of these levels. Amy, I'm seeing you in a pillbox hat."

After the meeting has adjourned, Amy touches Jerry's elbow and whispers, "Jerry, can I talk to you about something?"

"Sure. What's on your mind?" Instead of whispering, he seems to be projecting his voice.

"The thing is, when Jackie called the Kennedy White House 'Camelot,' I don't think she meant that Camelot was an allegory. I think she was just referring to the atmosphere--you know, 'Don't let it be forgot/That once there was a spot/For one brief shining moment that was known/As Camelot.' Whereas you're envisioning a sort of parable. So I'm just not sure that having Lancelot be Bobby Kennedy works. I mean, I'm fairly sure Jackie didn't have feelings for Bobby."

But see, Amy, there's this tension because he and JFK are brothers and also he's Attorney General, which I'm making analogous to Lancelot's role as Arthur's greatest knight.

"The other thing is, I'm quite sure that neither Lancelot nor Bobby Kennedy was meant to be pubescent. I mean, I can understand having a teenaged Morgan Le Fey--she's a witch, and can slow down the aging process or something." Morgan Le Fey, Ben's girlfriend, is a sullen girl with long, straight black hair who wears lots of eyeliner. "But I'm just not sure how plausible it is to have Lancelot-slash-Bobby Kennedy be so young. Or so French." She decides against adding, "or so lascivious."

"Ben's tall for his age, and he's got a great voice. But I think you might be right about the accent thing; I'll talk to him about it. Really, though, you shouldn't worry about the play--I've got a vision. I didn't teach social studies for twenty years for nothing! Don't forget to see Martha about costume fitting; she's found this pink shift that I think will be just perfect."

"So now Lancelot and Arthur are supposed to do these Boston accents," Amy tells Gina. "And I'm supposed to do this Jackie O. voice. Jerry has me watching videos of her White House tour. And I've got to wear this wig Jerry's borrowing from a Jackie impersonator in P'town."

"Well, I think it sounds wonderful. If something is camp it really ought to be inadvertent. Otherwise it is camping."

"Ugh. And the kid who plays Lancelot keeps leering at me."

"Leering? Are you sure?"

"Well, it might be more of an ogle. Either way, though, it's kind of awkward."

"You shouldn't dismiss him out of hand, Aim. Rebound relationships heal all wounds."

"I don't think that's how that's supposed to go. Anyway, he's seventeen. And I'm not on the rebound. I have yet to rebound. I've just hit the court."

"Johnny's a bastard. I never liked him, Aim."

"I know. Some good that does me now. Any Kim sightings?" Amy gnaws at the cuticle on her ring finger.

"Actually, yeah. Johnny brought her to Vicky's birthday party Sunday. I snubbed them for you."

"Really? Blatantly snubbed?"

"Oh, you would have been proud, Aim. So I'm standing by the bar, and Johnny sees me, and you can just see relief pour over his face because Kim's clinging to him--she doesn't know anyone there, of course--and it's very awkward because nobody wants to talk to them. Because everyone thinks he's been a huge prick. Actually, I don't think Vicky would have even invited him if Mike hadn't insisted. Anyway, so Johnny comes over to me, his face all lit up, Kim trailing in his wake, and I look at him very coldly and turn around--"

"How coldly? Like, repulse-an-ugly-but-persistent-guy-who's-hitting-on-you coldly?"

"Oh, at least that coldly."

Did he leave?

"Well, he did go ahead and order a couple of drinks, but he left shortly thereafter. I'm pretty sure that was my handiwork."

"Thanks, Gina. I knew I could count on you."

You know, I don't want to toot my own horn, but snubbing is one of my talents. That and decoupage. Oh, I almost forgot I sent you a package today. We got a script for a new musical that actually looks pretty good, although in one song divorce is rhymed with to love lost, which I think might have to be changed.

"What's it about?"

"Okay, I know you're going to be dubious, but it's a musical interpretation of What Maisie Knew. It's called Maisie! You know, with an exclamation point. Maisie!"

"And you rejected Lolita! with an exclamation point out of hand."

At breakfast one day, Amy's mother clears her throat delicately.

"Yes, Ma?" asks Amy.

"Are there any interesting men in this play? Obviously Jerry's a little old for you--"

"Ma, he was my junior high principal."

"I said he was a little old. But if there are other men, Ameleh, you won't be so sharp with them, will you? That can wear on a person. I'm not saying you drove Johnny off, but--"

"Ma! Could we please not talk about this?"

" I just want you to be happy."

I know. Amy tries to look at the script, but finds herself reading the same line over and over. She turns her attention to her toast.

Amy's mother uses her spoon to trace a couple of elaborate figure-eights in the milk in her cereal bowl. She looks up and says, "You know, Ameleh, I have this lipstick I got in an Estée Lauder bonus. It's a sort of claret. It's all wrong for me, but I think it would look great with your coloring."

Amy begins to sigh, decides the gesture is too adolescent, stifles it, and instead says, "I'm all set, Ma, thanks."

"You don't think it's true, do you, Gina? Do you really think I'm too sharp?" Amy asks on the phone.

"There's no such thing as too sharp."

"You know the Dorothy Parker poem that goes, 'If I were mild, and I were sweet,/ And laid my heart before your feet'?"

"No."

"'And wear my eyes discreetly down,/ And tremble whitely at your frown,/ And keep my words unquestioning/ My love, you'd run like anything!'"

"No, but it sounds pretty good."

"Yeah, but Gina, what if Dorothy Parker's wrong and my mother's right?"

"Then you and I are doomed to spinsterhood."

"I can't be a spinster. I don't know how to crochet. Or tat."

"I've got a leg up on you, then: I can knit."

"At least Lancelot likes me."

"Lancelot the leerer?"

"Lancelot the ogler. So the other day, during the first dress rehearsal, he kept barging into the women's dressing room, ostensibly to see his girlfriend--but I have my suspicions. I think I'll have to let him down gently. Or, ooh, maybe harshly."

"No, you know what you should do, Amy?"

"Tell his girlfriend to break up with him while the up-breaking's good?"

"No, you should tell him that yours is a star-crossed love, and you only regret that circumstances prevent you from-- something like that. He'll remember you forever. He'll tell his children about you."

"You wouldn't suggest that if you knew the kid. He's got this affected accent--not when he's in character, but just normally. It's sort of quasi-British. Like Madonna."

"Maybe he'll grow up to be a writer and immortalize you. Just try it: 'I only regret that circumstances prevent us from consummating'--maybe not 'consummating.' Wait. How about, 'It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done--'"

Amy says, "Maybe it won't come up."

But it does, just before the second act on opening night. Amy feels the first act has gone better than she has anticipated; the applause didn't even sound ironic. Now, standing in a shallow replica of the Blue Room as the overture begins to reprise itself tinnily, she can feel Lancelot fidgeting beside her.

"Ben. Calm down," she whispers between clenched teeth.

"I can't," he wails. She looks at him. He is staring at the curtain before them and twisting his skinny necktie. He glances at her, returns his gaze to the closed curtain, and then begins singing: "'I loved you once in silence--'"

"Ben! They'll hear you. Also, that's my song. I think it's out of your range." Amy rotates the clasp on her string of pearls to the nape of her neck. "Please shut up."

"No, I mean it, Amy," he says. "'And mis'ry was all I knew./ Trying so to keep my love from showing--'"

"Oh, for Christ's sake."

"'Then one day we cast away our secret longing--'"

"Listen, Ben--"

He stops singing and looks at her hopefully.

"Ben. I'm sorry, but I feel we cannot cast away our secret longing."

"But that's what I'm saying, Amy! We can!"

Amy shakes her head gravely. "No. I only regret that circumstances prevent us from--from doing that. But it is a far, far better thing that I do, Ben, than I have ever done." She hopes he has not yet read A Tale of Two Cities in high school. "And if we should part, think only this of me: that there is a woman, somewhere, who--thinks of you." The overture is waning. She also hopes he has not read Rupert Brooke.

Ben looks at her, sighs raggedly, and then smiles and straightens his shoulders.

"I will. I will," he says. Amy raises her eyebrows, widens her eyes, and smiles a close-lipped smile.

The overture ends. Slowly, the curtains part.