time, weighing the ins and outs of Archie's wife attending the same lit fest as Archie's mistress.
'A mother knows.' Sheila touched one of the small ones. 'Teddy had a pointy head at birth and Roger's was much rounder,' she said.
Teddy was moving about but I thought I could see a little point on him. And it occurred to me that the wife's presence might be the train wreck needed to end Magda's takeover.
Sheila continued, 'And Roger has a birthmark above his right bum.' Sheila touched the place on her own body but thought better of showing her flesh. The extra pounds she carried and the hairstyle dating from the year of her marriage both added years to her appearance.
Omar crossed his arms, blinking rapidly.
'How can I help you?' I asked Sheila.
'I'm here to see Archie, of course,' Sheila said. 'I know my way to the ballroom.' She moved toward the door but Omar blocked it with his body.
'I'll get Archie and bring him here,' Omar said. 'He's watching the scene.' Omar stared at me again. 'Don't go anywhere,' he said.
'Oh no, I want to surprise him,' Sheila said, unusually calm for someone about to confront her husband's mistress, a look I'd seen before. Perhaps my mother had confronted Sue and I'd lived through it, oblivious.
'I don't think that's a good idea.' Omar shook his head, beseeching me to back him up.
At that moment, Archie would be in his usual position in the back of the ballroom, heads together with Magda's scarf, defending Magda's adaptation of the text. The last thing he expected to see was his wife.
Sheila lifted a fussy twin, while the other put fuzz from the floor into his mouth. She lowered her eyes as she spoke. 'The same individual who invited me here today made certain I understood the lay of the land.'
'Vera invited you?' I asked.
Omar closed his eyes.
The oldest boy tugged on her arm and Sheila pulled a tiny board book from her diaper bag. I would have backed off at that moment like a sensible person, but something about the mother sharing the little book with the baby made me want to act on her behalf. As if doing something for Sheila would help my mother.
'Let's go,' I said. 'Archie's in the ballroom, I'll take you.'
Omar slumped into the chair he'd pulled out for Sheila. 'I'll wait here,' he said.
Sheila stood just outside the ballroom door, her face flushed; perhaps finally understanding the risk of confronting her husband and his mistress. Up to this moment, the affair was in the abstract, she could deny it. Now the horror she'd imagined would reveal itself in the flesh. Her eyes darted from her children to the threshold while inside a chorus of actors pressed Fanny to cooperate with the theatricals. I peeked around the door to see Archie and Magda against the back wall, arms touching, oblivious, right where I wanted them.
Suddenly Nikki, playing Julia Bertram, flashed through the hall, rushing past me, the force of her stage presence displacing the mother and children to the side where all five shared the threshold. Nikki called out in her professionally trained voice, turning every head in the room—actors, directors, and patrons alike, to see who spoke so urgently:
Julia:
That should have been the end of the scene, where patrons give the actors a round of applause, but it didn't happen that way. The boy in the doorway distracted the patrons from their obligation to applaud; speaking as though he were part of the cast, his line confusingly fit the action as he said, 'Father!'
But the boy wasn't speaking to the actors. He and his mother were looking at the back wall where the entire audience turned their curious gaze—where Archie Porter stood blushing furiously. After hesitating, as if to consider his options, Archie walked away from Magda to kiss his wife on the mouth and lift one of the babies. Patrons responded with warm applause and murmurs as the upstaged actors retreated to the Freezer. When Archie put one baby down and picked up another, Sheila beamed. Archie's ponytail didn't look nearly so hip next to Sheila. It looked gray. In the context of his three kids, it looked silly.
I stood on tiptoe and craned my neck to see Magda's reaction. She turned on her heel and retreated out the back door, her scarf billowing in her wake like a flag on an enemy ship.
Fourteen
Sixby complained I was preoccupied when he arrived to brainstorm our follies act. 'You need to snap out of it,' he said when I failed to respond. 'We need a clever act.'
I didn't want to snap out of it. I wanted to be alone with Willis in my recent memories. 'How about a one- woman show:
'Ooh, I've never done a one-woman show,' he said, leaning back in Claire's chair, flipping through his book. He'd dressed in Regency breeches and white cotton shirt—on his day off, his jacket flung on the chair. 'What would Magda say?'
Magda was busy at the moment, putting up a fight. Hard to believe she would fight for scruffy old Archie. But sometimes it seemed Magda was winning, displaying her exotic charms, exposing an inch of firm brown flesh as she abandoned her modest garb in favor of tight jeans and cropped tops. Omar's comment: 'Forget scarves and veils. The attire-oppressed women of the world are on hold while the future of Archie Porter is decided.' And Vera worried that since Archie had moved back into his own rooms with his wife and children, Magda clearly had more time on her hands to pursue her funding goals.
Sheila's campaign suffered on the appearance front although her loose black pants and paisley tunics performed the public service of concealing her motherly midriff bulge. However, on another battlefront, Sheila was the Mother of His Children, a winning strategy she engaged at every opportunity, launching the children in the ballroom where they talked during scenes, the pub where they screamed, and the Freezer where they jumped on the furniture. Sheila's tactics were hard to ignore.
Accelerating her own battle plans, Vera urged me to prepare a real lease and business plan for Lady Weston by the end of the week. I tried to make her understand that Randolph would have to sign it this time around. I wanted to discuss this with Willis but he was still absent. He'd never been away this long and I had no way to reach him. The secretary at the church said he'd gone to London and she didn't know what his plans were.
'What are you doing?' Sixby asked, standing and walking to my desk where he sat on the corner.
'I'm calculating the proceeds from the teas.'
'How much?'
'I'm still adding. I'll let you know.' I suspected an exchange rate mistake because the total was running well over six thousand dollars so far. We charged twenty GBP per person for tea and sold scone mix the volunteers packaged and donated, but the total seemed high. If we held a tea every Wednesday, we could clear over fifteen thousand dollars before the end of August. Unless the volunteers grew tired of providing scones.
'I know.' Sixby snapped his fingers. 'Why not borrow one of your roommate's gowns,' he said. 'We can go up to my room and improv: Anhalt and Amelia Unchaperoned.'
Sixby's remark made me realize how my life had changed. In a previous version of me, an uplifting piano sonata would have been playing in my head as I basked in the attention of this handsome actor. A month ago, I would have jumped at the chance to improv with Sixby. Back then Sixby was Shakespeare, Darcy, and all the male protagonists I'd ever fallen for rolled into one. Now, Willis was all I could think about. And Willis was nothing like Sixby. My Jane Austen sat on the other side of the desk making an alphabetical list of all of the unsavory men in her novels. She'd gotten as far as Mr. Collins.
'What's the book?' I asked Sixby.
'Love poetry. I've been contemplating the mysteries of love.' Sixby sighed. 'Shall I read?' he asked.
'Only if you are very quick,' I said, ready to run upstairs again. Willis could have returned in the last
