The Girl of the Lake by Bill Roorbach

Author:Bill Roorbach
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Published: 2017-06-13T04:00:00+00:00

The Tragedie of King Lear

DURING THE INTERMISSION OF The Music Man at the Rocky Pond Summer Theatre, Miller Malloy stayed in his seat. He’d never been to the place without his late, beloved wife Lou, who was the theater buff he’d never been, an actor, in fact—at least she’d been one in her college years. He’d never been to any show alone before, but there it was, loneliness in a beautiful old theater built in a venerable New Hampshire dairy barn back in the 1920s, a very familiar musical, a surprisingly robust and talented cast, many reasons to smile, many to weep. He examined all the biographies in the playbill. Some of these folks had been around the block more than once. The female star, playing Marian the Librarian, had played the title character in the TV series Supergirl, it said, but Miller had never seen the show, no idea how impressed to be. At the back of the little booklet was a notice in jovial font, no doubt an advertising slot that hadn’t been filled:

ATTEND! FUND-RAISE! DONATE!

VOLUNTEER! ROCKY POND!

During the second act he couldn’t concentrate for the possibility of volunteering. He saw himself staffing phone banks, cleaning the toilets backstage, taking tickets at the door, attending cast parties. Then he saw all that again and added a position on the theater’s board of directors, eventually gave himself the chairmanship, bringing his extensive corporate experience to bear, making the company hum, the retired savior. By the time the last stirring note of “Till There Was You” was sung (that Supergirl was dynamite!), he practically owned the place. And that was before the smashing finale and reprise of “Seventy-Six Trombones,” which made his heart pound luxuriantly.

Next morning, the last Saturday of his solo vacation, late August, he found his excitement hadn’t abated. And so he went to the Rocky Pond Summer Theater box office when it opened and bought another ticket. Then he asked after the company manager. Who, it turned out, was the one selling the tickets—a chubby, cheerful young woman in overalls and kerchief, indefinite tattoo on her hand. Or not that young, fifties—Miller couldn’t tell anymore.

“Oh, we’d love it if you’d volunteer!” she said. And pulled him by his own, inkless hand. “I am Marcia.” Backstage, nothing whatsoever was going on, yet even abandoned it was a lively place: dressing rooms, props he recognized from the night before, costumes on racks, graffiti more and less amusing, a large blackboard filled out in a grid, neat lines of permanent paint—the title of every Rocky Pond production from 1923 forward, room for only nine more.

Marcia said, “I need someone to get ice for the cast party tomorrow. And, really, if I gave you money, someone to do all the shopping? We need cold cuts kind of thing, cheese, crackers, soft drinks, not too much wine, if you please, even less beer, maybe a big bag or two of chips. Napkins, all that stuff. Paper plates, what have you. Your first job, should you decide to take it on!”

“Happy to take it on.

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