Page 141 of In Harmony

It took months of late night phone calls and secret Skype sessions to break through the numbness. To pull myself together. By January, I got a job at a clothing store in Edmonton, and from that first paycheck to the last from a boutique in Austin, I saved for my return to Harmony.

Now I saw Bonnie twice a week at her downtown office on Juniper Street. She was kind enough not to charge me for her time, and I vowed to make it up to her somehow. On my own. If I were starving to death, I wouldn’t ask my parents for a dime. I’d never be dependent on them or helpless without their money, ever again.

I rode my bike downtown. Past The Scoop, where tourists and locals crammed every booth, down to the theater. I locked my bicycle to a parking meter out front and glanced up at the marquee.

Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House

Final Performances this weekend!

When I returned to Harmony three months ago, one of the first things I did was visit Martin. Stepping back into the theater felt like coming home, and Marty’s arms closed me up like a benevolent, kind father. He was about to start auditions for A Doll’s House, a play about a young woman who is tired of being treated like a precious doll by her older husband and bucks 19th century conventions and leaves him to find herself.

Martin thought I’d be perfect for the part. Nora was the opposite of Ophelia. Treated like a pretty toy by her father and husband, but instead of succumbing, she fights back. Fighting back was something I was slowly learning to do. The play gave me a road map. Bonnie’s therapy was rebuilding my shattered self-worth. And Harmony had given me the peace to let it happen.

In the lobby’s dim, coolness, I waved at Frank Darian, our stage manager. He waved back from the box office where he was preparing for this Friday’s performance.

In the theater itself, the lights were low over the stage, casting spooky shadows on the sets. The chairs and tables of a 19th-century well-to-do home felt like a haunted house, waiting for Len, Lorraine, and myself to come give it life.

I found Marty upstairs in the offices with a pile of paperwork in front of him, as usual

“Hello, sweetheart,” he said. Out of professional courtesy, he only called me sweetheart when we were alone. I didn’t mind the fatherly endearment. Martin had been a better dad to me than my own.

And to Isaac.

“Hey, Marty. What’s the news?”

“Nothing good, I’m afraid,” he said. “The city council wants to move forward with the proposal to consolidate the entire block, including the theater. It’ll attract investors for restoration.”

“You don’t think you’d get lucky with some benevolent investor who’d let you run the HCT like you want to?”

“I should be so lucky,” he said. “I’m more concerned we’ll get a callous corporation that doesn’t care or understand what I’m trying to do here. It sucks, as you young people like to say. Especially since we just got back on track, thanks to Isaac.” He glanced at me. “I’m sorry, does it bother you if I mention him?”

“You ask me every time and the answer is always the same,” I said. “No.”

Hearing his name hurt like hell, like pressing a bruise that would never heal. At the same time, I loved hearing how Isaac was taking care of the HCT from afar.

As predicted, after Hamlet, Isaac was snatched up by the casting agent and immediately went to California. He got a small role in a big movie, and his pay got HCT caught up on its back taxes and current with its rent.

I picked up a few bills to file, kept my gaze down and my words casual as I asked, “How is he? Still nothing?”

“Not a word,” Marty said. “I guess we could open an entertainment magazine. That’s the only way I get the news about him.”

“His last movie did well. Rave reviews.”

“Did you see it?”

Long Way Down had been playing at the Guild Movie House for weeks, but I could never muster the courage to buy a ticket.

“No,” I said. “I’m not ready. Did you?”

He smiled sadly. “Six times.” He reached over and patted my hand. “He went quiet on all of us, sweetheart. You, me, Brenda and Benny. I can’t even thank him for the money. An LLC wires it every month and all the correspondence I’ve tried to send…” He shrugged. “Nothing.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I knew he’d be…upset with me, but I never expected him to cut you off too.”

“It’s not your fault, honey,” Marty said. “It’s what he does. How he copes with loss. He locks himself in his own mind and only lets the emotions out on the stage. Or the movie set, these days.”

He watched the pain flit over my face. “I know it hurts. You did what you thought you had to do to protect Isaac. And now he has a brilliant career ahead of him, and he’s making plenty of money doing what he set out to do. And you, my dear, have a brilliant career head of you. Your Nora is sheer brilliance.”

“No.”