Just Another Kid (15 page)

A
t last came the big day, the 22nd of December, when we had our party and put on our play. I don’t suppose there was a play anywhere that had been more rehearsed, more clucked over, more thought about than this one. We did decide to use the auditorium. With the lights turned on, it proved to be a shabby little room, painted penitentiary blue, with an equally shabby little stage and literally moth-eaten curtains. Even in its heyday, it must not have been much. But the curtains and the lights did work, after a certain amount of adjustment, and it was a real stage.

Cleaning the auditorium was just as gruesome a job as I’d feared it might be. Ladbrooke and Shamie devoted several recess periods to furniture moving, but it soon became apparent that we’d never have it ready in time, spending only fifteen-minute periods on it. I allowed the children to stay after school a few afternoons, and in the end, Shamie asked to come in on the final Saturday to finish the task. Then Geraldine wanted to join him and then Mariana, so I felt obliged to come too. Ladbrooke, seemingly unable to accept that we could cope without her, showed up unexpectedly. She and Shamie appeared to have the same need to make this all perfect, and together, they tackled the grittier jobs of vacuuming down the cobwebs backstage and scrubbing the stage itself. Mariana and Geraldine and I contented ourselves with wielding spray polish and dusters.

By the last week, the play had taken on a life of its own. It had gone far past the point of being simply a Christmas play. We were obviously out to trap something more elusive. Because of this, the need for perfection reached a fevered pitch and, as a consequence, tempers began to fray. Curious George, who had remained in protective custody in the locked filing cabinet when off duty, had to have a stand-in during rehearsals because Shamie and Geraldine treated him so roughly when they argued. I needed to call regular time-outs to get everyone to settle down. Incessant bickering over who did what, who wore which costume, who said which lines when, went on through lessons, recess, lunch and free time. I counted the hours until it was all over.

As could be expected from this kind of buildup, when the 22nd finally arrived, the children were all too strung out with anticipation to do anything constructive in the morning. Geraldine, Mariana and Shamie quarreled nonstop, all three ending up in tears at one point or another. Dirkie hooted, clapped and constantly annoyed Ladbrooke with suggestive behaviors. Shemona withdrew to the far corner of the room and curled up in a fetal position. Leslie twirled, twiddled and nicked her fingers in an unending pattern of self-stimulation. Acknowledging that the morning was a lost cause, I threw away the plans and let the children go down to the auditorium, where we went through half a dozen more rehearsals of the play.

At lunchtime, I went home and changed clothes, putting on a skirt and makeup, my concession both to the parents and to the specialness of the occasion. On the way back to school, I stopped at the supermarket and bought six bars of chocolate with almonds, one for each child. Only after I was out in the parking lot did I remember that Leslie couldn’t have one, so I went back in and got her a small bag of diabetic candy from the special foods section.

Back at school, my change of clothes was greeted with astonishment. Mariana, looking genuinely stunned, came running over.

“Teacher,” she said with great feeling in her voice, “you’ve got
legs!
”

Dirkie, already clothed in his innkeeper’s costume, came over too. He bent down and with one finger gingerly touched the pantyhose over my shin.

“Dirk, as a general rule, it’s best not to touch people’s legs without asking.”

“Just looking,” he said and stood up again. He regarded my face, his gaze searching. “It looks like you’ve got caterpillars on your eyes.”

“It’s mascara, Dirkie.”

“What’s it there for?”

“To make me look nice.”

“Oh. When’s it going to work?”

I smiled. “Perhaps you ought to go see if you’re needed somewhere.”

Ladbrooke appeared. She’d stayed through the lunch hour with the children and was beginning to show the wear and tear of stage management. Wiping perspiration off her forehead with one hand, she too gave me the once-over.

“You say one thing about the way I look and you’re going to be doing this on your own.”

“Should I have changed? That’s what I’m wondering.” She looked down at herself. The designer image had been shed quite some time back. She was clad in jeans, dirty at the knees, and a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

“I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“I’ll stay backstage anyhow. I don’t want to get out there with all the parents. You can do that part.”

I nodded.

“Do you know where the frankincense and myrrh have gotten to?” she asked.

“Did you look upstairs on top of the filing cabinet?”

She nodded.

“On the shelf where we kept it before?”

She nodded again.

“Then look in the teachers’ lounge. I put the chocolate coins in there to keep anybody from eating them. Maybe the rest of it’s in there too.”

“Okay,” she said and departed.

Soon after, the parents began arriving. Mrs. Lonrho showed up, wildly overdressed in a fur coat and spiky high heels, as if attending a Broadway first night. She looked charmingly out of place in the shabby auditorium. Mariana’s mother came in a leopard-skin outfit à la Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, and had glitter sprinkled in her hair. Tom Considyne represented the other end of the continuum. He shuffled in wearing a pair of frayed Levi’s and a Western shirt with a sheepskin vest over it, giving the impression that he might need to dash out to round up the cattle at any moment. He was the only father to attend. Indeed, he was the only man in the room, and with his great height, he was impossible to miss.

My entire group was behind the curtains on the stage, so I was left with sole responsibility for welcoming everybody. I went among them, making the obligatory small talk and pointing out the refreshments. Carolyn’s children tore back and forth, squeally and overactive with excitement. Her parents mixed with mine, chatting amiably.

I felt obliged to go over and talk to Tom Considyne, who looked decidedly ill at ease. He was next to the refreshment table, absorbed in the task of choosing cookies. He took two and nibbled them, then took two more.

“You know,” he said, as I approached him, “it took me about three weeks to discover this was where Ladbrooke was disappearing to every day.” He reached for a fifth cookie.

“She’s making all the difference in the world here,” I said.

“She’s never done anything like this before in her life.”

“She’s super with the kids. Very sensitive to them.”

“I can’t imagine it. She hasn’t figured Leslie out in seven years.”

“Maybe it’s different with kids who aren’t your own. I don’t know. But she’s been a lifesaver for me.”

He helped himself to a cup of punch and drank it all in one go, then set down the empty cup on the edge of the table. “It surprised the hell out of me when she told me. I’d never thought of her as the type to do charity work.” He shrugged. Then he smiled down at me. “And I must say, I’m damned curious to see this play.”

I went from Tom Considyne to Mrs. Lonrho, who was sitting in one of the seats in the front row. “I think we’re going to be done with Curious George this afternoon, when the play’s over. Perhaps the best thing would be for me to give him directly to you, and you can take him into safekeeping.”

Mrs. Lonrho nodded.

“I don’t know if Geraldine still feels as strong as she did. She hasn’t said anything since that episode I told you about, but I haven’t wanted to take a chance.”

“I don’t honestly know what to do with Geraldine some days,” Mrs. Lonrho said. “She’s so sweet and biddable most of the time, and then you go and cross her and she’s so vindictive.”

“Well, I think the matter may have settled down. But you might still want to keep an eye on Curious George for a while. Geraldine doesn’t seem to forget about things easily.”

“No,” Mrs. Lonrho said. “One thing Geraldine doesn’t do is forget.”

I rose and went up onto the stage and parted the curtains. Behind them, a bevy of costumed figures was scurrying about. I slipped in and shut the curtains behind me. Ladbrooke, red faced from the heat, came over. She had a piece of green Christmas tinsel slipped through the rubber band holding her hair back.

“You don’t belong here,” she said, and smiled.

“No, you don’t belong here,” Shamie joined in. He had a beard drawn on his face with eyeliner pencil. Taking hold of my arm, he attempted to push me back to the other side of the curtains. Geraldine and Mariana laughed and came to join him in pushing me out.

“
We’re
going to do this,” Ladbrooke said cheerfully. “You go sit down in the audience and enjoy yourself. We’re in charge now.” She laughed and so did the children. They pushed me merrily back onto the apron of the stage and closed the curtains in my face. So I returned to the front row and sat down next to Mrs. Lonrho.

With the help of a scratchy Christmas record, the play was heralded in with a lusty rendition of “What Child Is This?” Shamie and Geraldine marched on. Geraldine had a costumed broom between her legs to represent the donkey. Her veil was crooked. The gold tinsel garland that was meant to be her halo was attached to a pair of feeler-like deely-boppers that bobbed and bounced as she walked.

Dirkie was hanging out of his cardboard window, waiting for them to get across the stage to him. “Go away,” he shouted to them, when they were only halfway to Bethlehem. “There’s no room in my inn.”

“But we’ve traveled a long way,” Shamie replied. “And my wife is heavy with child. Please, give us a place to stay. We can’t go any farther.”

“There’s no room,” shouted Dirkie again, and he leaned farther out of his window. Then,
crash
, the whole works fell over.

Shamie, with the aplomb of a seasoned actor, looked down at Dirkie, lying at his feet and said, “See, God smote you for that.”

“Okay, okay, you can use my manger. Out in the garage,” Dirkie replied.

Curious George dutifully appeared, wrapped in the receiving blanket. He was laid into the art box, overflowing with straw. The scratchy record came on again, and Shamie and Geraldine belted out “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” while Mariana stomped across the stage to Leslie and Shemona.

“Okay, you guys, go see Jesus now,” she said.

“That’s not what you’re supposed to say,” Shamie whispered loudly.

“Say: ‘Behold, I bring you good tidings,’” came a voice from behind the curtain.

Mariana turned and looked offstage. “Say what?”

“Behold, I bring you good tidings.”

“Oh, yeah.” Mariana turned back to Shemona and Leslie. “Behold, I bring you good tigers. Now, you guys go see Jesus.” Her halo had become disengaged from its deely-boppers and it fell across her eyes. She shoved it back, so that it hung from one of the bouncing projections, like a quoit on a peg.

Shemona rose and dragged Leslie to her feet beside her. Shemona went over to Mary and Curious George, while Leslie burst into laughter and tore offstage. The scratchy record returned, and Shamie and Geraldine belted out “We Three Kings of Orient Are.” Geraldine kicked Mariana, and she joined in the singing. Ladbrooke’s hand appeared, shoving Leslie back onstage.

Dirkie, wearing a cardboard and tinfoil crown, walked in, carrying a basketful of bath salts, incense sticks and gold coins, or at least the gold paper was in the basket. Even from where I was sitting, it was pretty easy to see the chocolate stains around Dirkie’s mouth.

There’s something about innocents portraying innocence that is impossible to take with a dry eye. I’d been too involved to watch most of the plays and performances in my career, but seeing this one and knowing what had gone into it, I went soggy as a bowl of cornflakes. My eyes misted over about the time Mariana lumbered onstage and they never cleared. I felt idiotic for being so sentimental and was more than a little concerned that I might actually cry and somebody’d notice. But that twenty minutes embodied so many hopes and dreams that I couldn’t help feeling them.

Afterward, while Carolyn’s children were onstage doing their party piece, I went back to where my children were changing out of their costumes.

“Well, what did you think?” Shamie asked. He still had his drawn-on beard, in contrast to his Sunday school white shirt and black wool trousers. “Was it good? Did you like it? Did our Auntie Bet like it?”

“It was gorgeous. It really was, you guys. You did an all-out job.”

“Dirkie just about spoiled it,” Geraldine said scornfully.

“But he didn’t, did he?” Ladbrooke said.

Wrinkling her nose, Geraldine turned away.

Dirkie was hugging me. I hugged him back. “No, you didn’t, did you? It was perfect. It was a perfect play.” Then I lifted up my bag of candy. “Here’s a present for everyone.” I gave Leslie her special candy and then a chocolate bar to each of the other children. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, Teacher,” Mariana said.

“Yes, Happy Christmas, Miss.”

“Happy Christmas.”