Her expression immediately turned somber. “What a sad, sad situation,” she said, her voice laced with pity. “She had such a promising future ahead of her.”
“And you no longer think that’s the case?” he asked, annoyed by her condescending tone.
“How could it be? No one wants to see someone without an arm onstage. It’s uncomfortable. The audience will be so focused on that, it will ruin the production.”
She said it with such pious certainty that Ethan nearly lost it. He made himself tamp down his anger. Yelling wouldn’t accomplish a thing. He needed to educate her, instead.
“Do you think when I’m sewing up a bad gash in my clinic, my patients care that I have no leg?” he inquired.
She blinked at the softly spoken query. “It’s not the same thing. They come to you for medical care, not to be entertained.”
“Let’s go at this from a different direction,” he suggested. “Is Cass a good actress?”
“Of course. I had such high hopes for her before she was injured.”
“Isn’t a good actress supposed to be capable of engaging the audience in the play, making them forget all about reality?”
“Yes, but it’s hard to ignore that the child has no arm, Ethan. It would be cruel to put her in front of an audience and allow people to feel sorry for her.”
“I think it’s just as cruel to rip her dream into shreds without even giving her a chance.” He leveled a hard look into her eyes. “You crushed her spirit.”
“Well, I never intended to do any such thing,” she said indignantly. “I just did what I thought was best for her and for the production. I didn’t want her subjected to ridicule.”
“Is the person you cast a better actress?”
She hesitated at that. “Sue Ellen’s a beautiful girl. You met her just now. I’m sure you saw that for yourself.”
“That isn’t what I asked. Is she as talented as Cass?”
She looked flustered by the question. “She’s quite competent,” she said eventually.
“And you’re not the least bit worried that she’ll blow her lines and be subjected to ridicule, as you put it?”
“I intend to work closely with her,” she insisted. “She won’t blow her lines. Sue Ellen has the lead. I can’t very well take it away from her now.”
Ethan sighed. “Look, I didn’t come here to get you to change your decision. I was just hoping to give you another perspective on some possibly unintended consequences of what you did when you kept Cass out of the lead and even out of the cast.”
“She needed a reality check,” Mrs. Gentry insisted. “Better that it come now, rather than down the road from someone who won’t care about her as people here do.”
“I disagree. If she has no talent, a time will come when she needs to face that,” Ethan told her. “I don’t think it was up to a high school drama teacher to destroy something she’s worked toward for years, and certainly not based on whether or not she has an infirmity.” He held her gaze, his expression unrelenting. “Just something to think about.”
He turned and walked away, then stopped and faced her again. She was still standing exactly where he’d left her, obviously shaken. “By the way, I have to ask,” he said. “Were you focused on my missing leg while I was delivering my lines, Mrs. Gentry? Or did my message come through loud and clear?”
She looked vaguely chagrined by the question. “You made your point, Ethan. I’ll think about what you’ve said. I’m not so old I can’t learn from my mistakes.”
He gave a nod of satisfaction. “All I’m asking.”
* * *
Ethan was sitting behind the desk in his office catching up on patient notes when the door burst open and Cass came bouncing in, the color in her cheeks high, her eyes sparkling.
“What did you say to Mrs. Gentry?” she demanded. Though she tried to sound indignant, it was evident she was thrilled by the outcome.
Ethan feigned innocence. “What makes you think I said anything?”
“Sue Ellen was all gaga because you were in the office. She couldn’t stop talking about it. She told everybody you came to see Mrs. Gentry. The next thing I know Mrs. Gentry apologized to me. She apologized to me! It was crazy. I never thought she’d do that.”
“Are you going to be in the play, after all?”
“No, but she promised she’d consider me for the next one. I’m going to work with her on this one as, like, an assistant or something. She wants me to run lines with Sue Ellen, as her understudy, which totally sucks, but hey, somebody definitely needs to do it.”
“You can live with that?” Ethan asked, though it was evident that she was eager to put her previous disappointment behind her.
“Come on,” she scoffed. “I deserved to get the lead, but Mrs. Gentry told me she was wrong. That’s huge. Teachers usually don’t admit stuff like that, not to their students, anyway. I guess I can cut her some slack.”
“Then I’m glad it worked out for you,” Ethan said. “I have to say, though, I was looking forward to seeing you onstage, knocking everyone dead with your performance.”
“You’ll probably get to,” she said with a hint of laughter in her eyes. “Sue Ellen is so not going to learn those lines. Mrs. Gentry will freak. Sue Ellen will puke. And, bingo, I’ll go on.”
Ethan couldn’t help laughing at the welcome return of her self-confidence. “That’s the spirit. You might want to temper it around Sue Ellen, though.”
She gave him an impatient look. “I’m not stupid,” she said. “Gotta go. I need to memorize those lines.”
“I still expect to see you here on Thursday.”
“I’ll be here,” she promised. “I figure I’m going to owe you from now till forever because of this.”
“You don’t owe me a thing,” he said. Just seeing a smile back on her face and a spark of excitement back in her eyes was
