The Reluctant Thespian
When were the auditions?
I didn’t try out for this part.
The play-- no, I must say
I do much better with farce.
This mask chokes off my air;
Who wrote the script? How long ago?
I understand that nothing’s fair,
But I don’t want to do this show.
When were the auditions?
I’m really not right for the part...
The audience is seated?
Yes, I’m standing on my mark.
***
Everybody except the beach party chaperone had left for the Pavilion by the time my mother and her friend Isabelle finished primping. The two stragglers walked toward the island's main road knowing their hair and starched cotton didn’t stand a chance in the South Carolina humidity. When Isabelle wished they had a car, my mother said, “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.” And that’s when Isabelle thought of hitchhiking. You’ll see it was in love’s best interest that social standards were relaxed during wartime.
As it turned out, Fate sent these beggars a convertible with two fellows in it, students at the University, happy to give them a lift. They were headed to the Pavilion, too. My father was the handsome one in the passenger seat, a ringer for young Brando.
Later that night “Brando” boasted to his friend, “I’m gonna marry that little girl.” And he did. Two days after finishing Midshipman School at Northwestern. They had a sweet wedding on a freezing night just after Christmas, the church so cold Mama’s teeth chattered through the whole ceremony. The newlyweds had only a few days together before my father reported for Navy duty, but three days were all they needed to plant the seed that eventually would be me.
My father was stationed in California while my mother lived pregnantly at her mother’s house. After a couple of months, Mama took a train from South Carolina to the West Coast to visit her new husband. I think it was courageous for a nineteen-year-old with morning sickness to make that long, rattly train trip. No doubt her courage was fueled by the power of young love.
When my mother got to California, she and Papa shared a single bed in the basement bedroom of a wealthy San Diego widow. Mama told me a story about standing for ages at a bus stop one day, waiting for a ride to La Jolla. A number of buses stopped, but not one to La Jolla. When their bus didn’t come and didn’t come, they asked a passer-by and learned that a La Jolla bus had come and gone several times while they waited. They had been looking for a different spelling, something involving an “h” and maybe a “y.” Babes in the woods, those two.
[Note: Photos from the town you'll read about in Dancing on Mars are posted at the end of the blog.]
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