The Mother Act by Heidi Reimer

Author:Heidi Reimer [Reimer, Heidi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2024-04-29T00:00:00+00:00

VII

I don’t go back to the Westley Harbor Shakespeare Festival. They cancel three shows and find an actress who’s recently played the role and just needs to be rehearsed in. Two reviews mention that she’s good but the seam where she was grafted in when Judith Jones-Linnen left the production is obvious, the company not quite moving as one. I avoid the reviews of opening night.

I don’t go to RADA. Papa tries to convince me, but I refuse, withdrawing before the term begins. He offers to cast me for the Strolling Players tour—now that he’s again running the company from New York, I would be touring without him—and I decline that too. I am done with it all. Instead I apply—late—and am accepted to the biology program at Hunter College. I’ve always enjoyed my science courses. I like the meticulousness, the memorizable facts, the yes and no answers, and I have a vague idea that I could become a lab technician. I scarcely know what a lab technician is or does, but I picture a white coat and a microscope, maybe a computer, specimens to probe, data to analyze. I picture silence. Boredom. Predictability. Rational colleagues who will not demand unnecessary chatter. My personality will be irrelevant to the position I’m employed in, and I will have the job for years, possibly decades: a permanent location, a reliable paycheck, work that I leave at the end of the day.

I’m one week into the biology program when I know it’s a mistake. I feel bereft without the creative purpose of a role and a play, and I realize quickly that my interest in biology is insufficient to truly engage me. It’s possible my classmates feel no more passion for it than I do, but I’m used to giving full devotion to my work, and anything else feels unfulfilling. But it’s too late. I’ve already quit one pursuit. I refuse to quit another.

I have to take responsibility. I didn’t want to go back to Westley Harbor. I said it repeatedly. Sadie was clear there would be consequences.

But couldn’t she have enumerated them? If she had said, this means you’ll be so ashamed and afraid that you might not go to RADA. This means you’ll give up acting entirely. This means you’ll lose who you are.

Maybe she didn’t know all of this would happen. Still, I am angry with Sadie. Angry plenty with myself—but with Sadie too. For one night and one day, I allowed myself to enter her orbit. I lowered my defenses. I drank her champagne, wore her clothing, slept in her bed. I confided in her.

For one night and one day, for the first time ever, I felt close to my mother. And what happened?

I wrecked my life.

My mother is an expert leaver. A professional. I was coached, in this instance, by the best. In so-called trying to help me, all Sadie did was make me into herself.

I torture myself, imagining. We go for a drive that day, get breakfast, and then Sadie says, “I’ve pulled a couple runners in my life.

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