In Harmony(11)

I frowned. “He stopped talking for six whole months?”

Angie nodded. “Maybe longer. He was in our third-grade class. Before he got pulled it was weird to see a little boy—what…? Eight years old? Not saying a word?” She shook her head. “Poor guy.”

My mind conjured a little blond boy with smoky green eyes having the words punched right out of him by his tragedy. “What got him talking again?”

“Miss Grant, the fourth-grade teacher, directed a little show and convinced him to be in it.” Angie raised her hands. “The rest is history.”

I nodded slowly. She gave him someone else’s words to speak.

“But he lost a year of school,” Nash said.

Caroline nodded. “He’s eighteen. No, wait…” She counted on her fingers. “He’s probably nineteen by now, right?”

“That’s got to be hard,” I said.

Jocelyn shrugged and dipped one of her fries in ketchup. “It’s paid off. His acting is going to make him famous.”

“Speaking of which,” Nash said, checking is watch. “We should get going. Oedipus isn’t going to gouge his eyes out all by himself.”

Angie whacked his arm. “Hello? Spoiler alert?”

“I know the story,” I said, unable to keep from smiling. Unable to not like Angie, who linked her arm in mine as we strolled down the sidewalk. I flinched at first; I wasn’t a fan of being touched, but Angie was warmth to my ice and I let her, as our breath trailed clouds down the twinkling winter streets.

“So, any thought about my offer?” she said. “Yearbook is heading into crunch-time and I could really use the help.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think it’s my thing.”

She pouted. “You sure? Because—”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” I said, my voice hard. I forced it to be soft again. “Sorry. We just moved nine days ago. I’m still getting my bearings.”

“OMG, of course,” Angie said with a wide smile. “I’m pushy as hell—”

“You think?” Nash muttered under his breath.

Angie scowled at him over her shoulder and leaned back into me. “You do your thing, Holloway,” she said. “Whatever that is. But my door is always open. Always.”

“Thanks.”

Angie’s words warmed me too, for the rest of the walk to the Harmony Community Theater.

Do your thing, whatever that is.





Willow



Compared to the other shops of downtown Harmony, the building that housed the community theater was almost embarrassingly run-down. The turn of the century columns at the entrance were smudged with years of car exhaust. The cement steps leading to the entrance were cracked. Inside, dust motes danced in the soft illumination from the elegant stained-glass ceiling lamps.

After we bought tickets from a small box office, Angie and her friends talked amongst themselves while I strolled up and down the lobby, perusing the gallery of black and white photos. Some were historical shots of the building. According to the captions, HCT had been in operation since 1891, when Harmony was a small collection of sparse buildings separated by wide, unpaved roads. Horse-drawn buggies and women in dresses with big, feathered hats traversed the wide expanses of dirt.

One long wall was hung with photos of past performances—a time-lapse reel of styles, costumes and plays from 1900 to the present. Both my pace and my gaze slowed down at shots from the past five years. Nearly all of them featured Isaac Pearce. He wasn’t always the lead, but he was in every one.

And he’s different in every one, I thought.

Even in early productions, when his youth was evident in his softer, rounder features, he could make subtle changes in his facial expressions or change how he carried his body—tricks that transformed him into a completely different young man in each role.

“Peel your eyes off of those photos,” Angie said, tugging my sleeve. “It’s time to feast upon the real thing.”

We entered the main theater with its two sections of plush seats. The velvet had once been vibrant red, but now it was dulled to a tired maroon. The red velvet curtain across the proscenium had also seen better days. Wall sconces sent columns of light climbing up the walls and into the interlocking arches in the ceiling.

Oedipus Rex had been running for two weeks in this tiny town, yet by my guess, the 500-capacity theater was three-quarters full.

“Hasn’t everyone in Harmony seen this already?” I asked Angie, as we took our seats.

“More than once,” Angie said. “Tomorrow’s closing night and is sold out. People come from all over. Down from Braxton and Indy.”

“Even up Kentucky,” Jocelyn said from my other side. “Theater is big in the Midwest.”

“Universities in Ohio and Iowa have prestigious schools for theater arts,” Nash said. “Our little place draws some VIPs.”

Angie polished her knuckles on the front of her sweatshirt. “We’re kind of a big deal.”

“If it’s such a big deal, can’t they afford to fix it up?” I asked, fidgeting as a spring in my chair cushion poked my ass.

Angie shrugged. “Martin Ford—the owner—took it over ten years ago from the previous guy, who ran the finances into the dirt. Nearly went bankrupt. Now Ford is doing his best to keep it afloat.”