A Live Coal in the Sea Part 35

'Sorry, Taxi,' Mac said. 'This is not a vacation. No theatre for you.'

'I have my own money.'

'Nevertheless,' Mac said, 'you are to stay home at the seminary. I gather you have quite a bit of schoolwork to catch up on.

Taxi shrugged. 'Okay.'

When Camilla finished the dishes-Mac had an evening seminar-and went to check on Taxi, he was not in the apartment. She left the building, crossed the close, and went to the main entrance. The student at the reception desk said he'd seen Taxi go out with the teenage daughter of one of the professors.

Camilla would not have called Luisa, but Luisa happened to call her.

'I'm sorry,' Luisa said. 'But this is not atypical behavior for Taxi. Don't make too big a deal of it.'

'I agree. I won't call him on it. Do I overreact?V 'Understandably, occasionally. Do you still love Taxi?' 'You don't turn love on and off like water in Camilla said.

'But do you?'

'I don't know. Sometimes and scar tissue doesn't feel.' 'And you blame yourself for 'Of course.'

'Don't. You're not responsible for how you feel. You're responsible for what you do, and considering everything, you and Mac have done pretty well.'

a faucet,'

I feel nothing but scar tissue, not feeling?'

A Live Coal in the Sea,305 'But-here I am talking about my scar tissue, and Taxi's the one who's been so terribly wounded.'

Luisa gave an impatient grunt. 'A lot of people get terribly wounded. The media saturates us with false images of happiness and security, but it's a lie.

That's why I and the rest of my ilk stay in business.'

Taxi made it halfway through his senior year and was expelled. When Camilla and Mac drove up to the school to bring him home, he was not there. Finally, cutting through the subdued panic, one of the girl students went to the headmaster's office and said that Taxi had gone to join a small theatrical company in Boston.

'Let him be,' they were advised. 'If he can make it on his own, perhaps that's what he needs.!

'Who knows what Taxi needs?' Luisa asked rhetorically. 'Even Taxi doesn't know.

Perhaps Taxi most of all.'

But Taxi did well in the theatre. Frankie was happy in art school, bringing friends home for the weekend, building a good portfolio of her work. She seldom talked about Taxi. After she completed her degree she moved out of the seminary apartment and into a loft with three other aspiring artists. She got a job with a prestigious gallery. She called her parents regularly. Everything she was doing was right and proper, but Camilla and Mac missed her.

'I think I'm having empty-nest syndrome,' Camilla said, as she and Mac sat in her study before dinner.

'That's natural,' Mac said. 'I am, too, even though I'm enjoying the peace and quiet.'

'Frankie wasn't exactly noisy.' 'No.'

And Taxi hadn't been around to make noise.

Madeleine L'Engle306 Mac added, 'But you know what I mean.' Yes.

When Frankie married it was just a continuation of normal patterns. The wedding was in the seminary chapel, with Mac officiating, and Camilla was torn between a joyful sense of completion for her daughter and loss for herself and Mac.

Frankie and Ben moved to Seattle, where Ben became a partner in his father's small publishing house, dealing mostly with technical books for a small but steady market. Frankie called at least weekly. Camilla and Mac made occasional trips to Seattle. They would probably have gone more often if there had been grandchildren to visit.

"Aunt Frankie sent me her new book," Raffi said. "It's terrific. Stuff you taught her about astronomy, and wonderful stuff of her own about Orion and hunting stars."

She had come across campus to have dinner with Camilla. Camilla, looking at Raffi, whose cheeks were flushed with cold, her nose pink, drew her into the warm living room. Raffi laughed. "It's winter, Grandmother. More snow tonight."

She pulled off her woolen cap, shrugged out of her pea coat, and tossed it and her backpack onto one of the chairs. "Dinner's nearly ready," Camilla said.

"Let's go into the kitchen. I've made that pasta you like, with artichokes and cherry tomatoes and black and green olives and other goodies." "Whoopee, I'm starved." Raffi followed Camilla into the kitchen. A large pot on the stove was steaming, and Camilla put in a small package of fettuccini. "This is the kind that cooks quickly. Three minutes." She set the timer. Started to ask, "What's on your mind?" but stopped. Raffi would tell her whatever it was when she was ready.

Raffi took a long wooden spoon and stirred the pasta. "Good news, Grandmother."

"Wonderful. I'm ready for good news. What?"

A Live Coat in the Sea>307 "Mom called. Dad's contract's been renewed for three more years. He was given some kind of a scolding, which made him livid, but if he was as stinky at the studio as he was at home, he deserved it."

"But he has the contract."

"Yes. Mom says she'll call you tonight. So now maybe we can relax."

Camilla nodded slightly and stirred her sauce, redolent of onion and garlic, cilantro and other herbs. She glanced briefly at Raffi, who said nothing more until the timer pinged. Then the girl took mitts and drained the pasta into the waiting colander, raising a cloud of steam.

"We're doing a section on poetry in Freshman English." "Are you enjoying it?''

"Sure." They heaped their plates, then moved into the dining alcove. Raffi spooned Parmesan cheese onto her pasta. "I keep digging at you, Grandmother, trying to get at the truth, why Dad wanted to pull the rug out from under me."

"He-" Camilla started.

Raffi rode over her. "I know he was frantic about his contract, but what I'm coming to see is that truth is complicated, and the same thing can have a different truth for dif ferent people." She got up from the table, went into the living room, and dug a bulky textbook out of her backpack. She brought it to the table and opened it to a marked page. "Listen to this. We had it today. It's by Emily d.i.c.kinson.

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant That's my dad, isn't it? Maybe he can't help telling it slant. Maybe he got slanted and can't straighten up?" Without waiting for an answer, she returned to the text.

Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth's superb surprise Is the explanation kind, Grandmother, or is it cruel? I'm not sure I get this.

Well, there are two more lines:Is Emily d.i.c.kinson saying that if we know too much too soon we can't take it?"

"Perhaps." Camilla offered Raffi salad. "That's one of her poems I don't think I've heard before."

"Packs a wallop, doesn't it?" Raffi helped herself to salad. It was as though the ordinary acts of cooking, of eating, eased the truth, made it kinder than it would be if not slanted. She put down her fork. Then she said, "My dad's a very successful actor."

"Very."

"So on one level that's a truth, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"He's got what he wanted. His contract's been renewed. But he's still not happy a lot of the time. He's not manic depressive or anything, but he does swing up and down."

-Like the Cepheids, Camilla thought. "The down times don't last forever."

"The last time I was home, he got out an alb.u.m of pictures of himself and Aunt Frankie when they were little kids. He showed them to Mom and me, and then he stuffed the alb.u.m in the garbage. After he went to bed Mom got it out and cleaned it off and put it away. Now I guess I know why there aren't more pictures of Dad and Aunt Frankie after they were about four."

"Harriet and Grange must have taken pictures," Camilla said, "but we never saw any."

"What about after? After they were killed and-my dad came back to you?"

Madeleine L'Engle308 As Lightning to the Children eased With explanation kind The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind A Live Coal in the Sea309 "We took pictures. There are several alb.u.ms." "Where?"

"I gave a couple to your mother. And there are a few over there" --she indicated the living room and the wall of books "on the shelf with all the sc.r.a.pbooks of Taxi's clippings, playbills, reviews, articles from TV magazines, and so forth."

"May I see them?"

"Of course. The sc.r.a.pbooks are pretty much duplicates of what your mother has."

"The photo alb.u.ms?"

"They're there, on the bottom shelf. There aren't that many after your dad and Aunt Frankie got into high school." "Did Aunt Frankie go to college?"

"She went to art school. She has a B.F.A. She dated an editor for a while-is that the right word? Do people still date? Or are they an item?"

Raffi laughed. "It doesn't matter. What about the editor?" "He was the one who got her ill.u.s.trating books for children, and doing book jackets. The year she broke up with her editor friend, she wrote her own first book-you know it."

"Yeah, the one about the twins who were separated..." "And then she won the Caldecott Medal with her third book."

"Oh, yes, the beautiful one about the white wolf."

"Then she and Ben married and moved to Seattle, where Ben came from.""So she and Dad were sort of like the twins in the first book ... Except the twins got back together."

"Except," Camilla said.

"Oh, Grandmother, it's sad. I hardly know my Aunt Frankie at all. She sends me really nice presents for my birthday and Christmas, and sometimes she writes me wonderful letters, but I don't know her. I hate that."

"I hate it, too," Camilla said.

"Was Aunt Frankie at-at any of Dad's weddings?"

Madeleine L'Engle310 "Yes. She came East when he married your mother. They liked each other. If it weren't for geography, I think they would have been good friends."

"What about the others? The first two? I know about them because sometimes when Dad's being ugly he slaps my mom by making comparisons."

"Sharilee didn't last long. Frankie did meet her, but we never got to know her."

When Taxi married Sharilee Swann ('Who thought up that name?' Frankie demanded), Camilla and Mac had not yet met her. The wedding was at city hall in Chicago, where Taxi and Sharilee were playing in a musical together. Taxi's pure boy-soprano voice was long gone, but he was now a pa.s.sable tenor, and he knew how to put over a song. The charm with which he sang made up for any lack in his voice.

The night of the marriage he had called, sounding very young and excited.

'Mom!

Dad!'

They were, of course, asleep.

'Sorry to wake you but I had to tell you! Sharilee and I are married! Her parents are the pits, so, we had to do it this way. I'm really sorry, Dad, you know what I really wanted was for you to marry us.'

Mac had answered the phone, which was on his side of the bed. Camilla slid out and went to the extension in the kitchen, hearing Taxi say,'... you'll adore Sharilee. She really under stands me, all my moods, my needs. She's so gentle and sweet. She's only nineteen, but she's had a tough life, and she's learned a lot.' Holding the phone between shoulder and ear, Camilla filled the kettle and turned on the gas. She and Mac would need something warm to relax them before going back to sleep. She reached for the two worn mugs, reminders of the days in the Church House.

She murmured, 'Of course we're longing to meet her, Tax.

A Live Coal in the Sea>,311 When the show comes to New York-' There was no point in saying, No, Taxi!

You're too young, much too young ...

'I hope it gets to New York, Mom. We got mixed reviews here.

At least he had called them.

They had honored his right to break away, separate himself, to find out who he was outside the warm nest of his parents who were not his parents. Ever since he had left school, he had made his own way financially, asking them for nothing.

They had, he had told them, no rights. Love conferred no rights, and anyhowthey did not love him or they would never have let Red and Harriet ...

'Mom?V 'Yes, Taxi?V 'Wish us luck?V 'Of course, darling. More than luck. Many blessings.' 'I'll call you again.'

'Thanks, love.' She closed her mouth and kept from saying, 'Soon.'

They did not hear from him again until three months later, when the show came to New York and died quickly from the faint praise of the critics. They went, with Frankie, -to opening night, applauding Taxi's songs and looking at Sharilee with doubt and concern. She was certainly not the nineteen years she claimed to be.

Under the heavy makeup, the lines between nose and mouth were deeply graven.

Her voice, too, was harsh, and did not, as the critics pointed out, blend with Taxi's warmer one.

Sharilee was outraged at the reviews, at being compared unfavorably with Taxi, whose youthful freshness and wistfulness pleased both audience and critics.

Camilla and Frankie went to the theatre for closing night, and then went back to Taxi's dressing room to help him pack up his belongings.

'She's a marvelous actress,' Taxi defended, carefully put Madeleine L'Engle31,2 ting his makeup in a green metal box. 'The role wasn't a good vehicle for her.'

'You were terrific, Tax,' Frankie said. 'I'm glad I was able to get away to see it again.'

'Me, too,' Taxi said, though he did not ask Frankie how her art cla.s.ses were going. 'I do want you to know my Sharilee. She reminds me a little of you.

That's what first drew me to her.'

Camilla thought two women could not be less alike. She wondered when the scales would drop from Taxi's eyes.

But it was Sharilee who soon ended the marriage, moving in with an older actor who, at that time, had more prestige than Taxi, was making more money.