Page 2 of Potion Sickness

She came to auditions to keep me company while I was there taking notes for a story pitch, or at least that was her excuse. We both know she was mostly there for the free wine Vivian put out.

She hadn’t been in the door five minutes when Englebert announced, to the entire Community Center, “That one. That is my Lady Macbeth. Decades ago, I saw her portray Abigail Williams in this very building and I have been waiting patiently ever since for someone to make proper use of her talents.”

Vivian agreed on the spot. Pru said no. She pointed out that she hasn’t done any acting since before the Obama administration, that the drama teacher had cast her out of desperation, and that Englebert had watched that production through the gymnasium window because the school had a firm ‘No Familiars Allowed Indoors’ policy. None of her arguments helped.

Vivian, with Englebert in tow, visited Pru’s office in attempt to convince her. She said no again. Then my Aunt Genie – Pru’s mom – heard about it through the rumor mill at Hemlock Hill, her nursing home, and told Pru she’d already seen her in the crown and that it was ‘very sliming.’ Whether that was an actual psychic prophecy or just an elderly woman successfully manipulating her daughter, it worked.

“You know what my mother said when I visited last?” Pru lifts her head off the script. “She said, ‘don’t worry about the play.’ Which means I should definitely worry about the play.”

“Or she meant not to worry about the play,” Hannah says.

“You’ve met my mother.”

“Point taken.”

“Prudence.” Englebert has taken up his position at the head of the dining room table, on the chair with the extra cushions. He requisitioned it weeks ago and everyone now calls it ‘the director’s chair’ -- everyone including, to my despair, me.

“The line is not ‘out, damned spot.’ The line is ‘out – damned spot.’ The dash is doing enormous work. She is commanding, and the command fails, and she must gather herself before she can name the thing she’s commanding. You are giving me ‘woman scolding a misbehaving dishtowel.’”

“I am a woman scolding a dishtowel. That’s my range. I’ve told Vivian that.”

“Your range is a matter for me to determine, and I have determined it to be considerable. You have the finest instrument in the production.”

“He means she’s loud,” Emma says, to Addie, quietly.

“I mean nothing of the sort.” Englebert draws himself up. “I mean that when Prudence Wardwell stops apologizing for the verse and simply performs it, everyone pays attention. You could feel it Thursday, in the sleepwalking scene, before she ruined it by laughing.”

“Damien did the face,” Pru says.

“Damien was in character.”

“Damien was doing the face he does. The soap opera face, where he finds the camera. There is no camera, Englebert. It’s the Duskboro Community Center. He’s making eye contact with a basketball hoop.”

I’ve been hearing about Damien Carter for six weeks now but have yet to lay eyes on him. He grew up here, in Carter estate out on Quarry Road. He left for New York the same way I left for Boston, except his exit had headshots. He was in soap operas for the better part of a decade – Hannah’s mother remembers him from one of them, she told us all about it. He played a character named Dr. Blaise Harlow, who died twice. After that, he did some Broadway. Vivian claimed his stage experience is ‘extensive’, which is a rather generous description of two short-lived plays and an understudy credit.

He and Vivian ran in the same crowd in the city. When she needed a Macbeth, she made a call, and Damien, whose career is apparently at the point where a call from Duskboro gets returned, came home to a hero’s welcome and a lead role and his old bedroom in the family house.

“You just have a vendetta,” Hannah says.

“I do not! It was twenty-something years ago. I was indifferent then and I’m indifferent now.”

Annabel raises her eyebrows. She is presumably the only person here that doesn’t know the story. It’s not exactly something Pru likes to share voluntarily.

“We dated for eight months,” she explains. “We were seventeen. He was my John Proctor. He drove a convertible in Vermont, which should tell you everything you need to know.”

“And then,” Hannah prompts.

“There is no ‘and then.’”

“There’s absolutely an ‘and then’,” Hannah tells Annabel. “He looked her up in the city. More than once.”

“Three times over decades.”

“He sent flowers to your office,” I say. “Only a few months ago. You told me all about it.”

“There were flowers,” Pru concedes. “With a card. The card said ‘for old times sake’ and I again would like to make clear that the ‘old times’ were eight months long and I spent two of them grounded.”

“What did you do with the flowers?” Annabel asks.