Confessions Of A Falling Woman And Other Stories

things that are out of your control. What if this, what if that? I've got plenty on my plate right now without dipping into the long view.

The door opens and Eric is ejected, looking like he just blew the game and would really like to pound something. I'm up.

When they bring me into the room, David Stover, the director, says 'Ah, good to see you again, Dan,' and the wax museum stirs perceptibly from out of a sluggish doze. They sit up in their chairs and turn their expectant smiles on me. 'How about the scene with the reporter?' Stover suggests.

When you hit it out of the park the first time, everyone wants to see you do it again. So you go in and try to re-create that moment. You measure out the same pauses, repeat the same gestures. Every inflection is exactly as it was before – but lifeless. Dead. Deader than the wax museum's vacant gaze. You can't step into the same stream twice. Whoever said that, it's lamentably true.

The scene started out flat, I could feel it, but I'm chugging along, trying to pump some life into the corpse, gearing up for that moment in the scene where it sparked yesterday. But that moment comes and goes, and nothing. Stover takes a slug of his coffee and then stares into the bottom of the cup. Helen Wolfe, the casting director, lets her eyes wander to her watch. The only one still in the room with me is Arthur Haines, and he looks worried. Sweat begins to blur my vision, I've lost my place in the script. I can feel myself drowning up here, and the voice in my head is hysterical, screaming DON'T PANIC! DON'T PANIC! DON'T PANIC! DON'T PANIC! DON'T PANIC! DON'T PANIC! Then bingo, something clicks, and I let the water close over my head, I give in to the terror. Which happens to be exactly right for the scene. I'm underwater and I'm thrashing, but there's a rhythm to it now. I can feel the panic channeling into the character. The lines come from nowhere, spilling out of my mouth, one after another, as if I'd just thought of them. It doesn't get more real than that. I crash through to the end of the scene, my heart ricocheting off my ribs. A little over the top, but I've definitely got their attention.

We take a breather, sixty seconds or so to wipe the sweat out of my eyes and catch my breath. Shift gears, on to another section, this one at the beginning of the play. This time, things go more smoothly. I sail along, right past the first point where they might have cut me off. Good sign. Two pages, three, four, past another break, and all the way to Hal's exit.

At the end, Stover takes me back a few pages and gives me an adjustment.

'How about this section again, starting with Sheila's entrance. Pick up the cues faster this time. No pauses, no thinking. It should be rapid-fire, like screwball comedy.'

This is not criticism; this is a sign of interest. It means 'I'm thinking you're right for this, but before I sign you on, I need to know one thing: if I tell you to do something, can you just do it and not give me any crap about motivation?'

So we run it again, this time in high gear. I'm firing the lines at the reader, and she's batting them right back. Arthur Haines is nodding vigorously, and several times he barks with laughter. You gotta like a guy who's in your corner and doesn't make a secret of it.

Stover is more circumspect, but there are subtle tells if you know where to look.

He rubs his palms together briskly and makes a note.

Translation: You can take direction. Good. Great.

He asks Helen Wolfe a question, sotto voce, without taking his eyes off me.

Translation: Do we have to see anyone else for Hal? Or maybe, Who is his agent, again? Something along those lines.

Afterward, as I'm taking my leave, Helen turns her maternal smile on me.

'The play goes into rehearsal in two weeks. Would that present any conflicts for you?'

I feel that little ping a gambler gets when he's been dealt a flush. It's all I can do to keep from laughing giddily at the absurdity of the question. Of course, I don't have any conflicts, Helen. I haven't had a conflict in years. What I actually say, after a suitable pause, is that there's nothing that can't be changed.

And then a gesture that needs no translation: Haines winks.

It's three a.m. I'm watching Gene Kelly and Judy Garland in For Me and My Gal. They're a vaudeville team and just as they get their big break at the Palace, Kelly gets drafted. He slams his hand in a trunk so he can get a deferment, but his sacrifice isn't appreciated by Garland; in fact, she cuts him loose because he's put his career before his country. But it's a musical and it's Gene Kelly, so not to worry, they'll get back together in the end. The movie is pretty slight, but Kelly and Garland are so committed, they actually make the turkey fly by sheer force of will. When Judy Garland sings 'How you gonna keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen Paree,' she's practically pole-vaulting across the stage, her brow gleaming with sweat, her elbows pumping. In the Method-trained smugness of my youth, I was critical of performances this big, but nowadays I find I really like to see actors throwing themselves over the top. I want with all my heart to feel that simple exhilaration again. I'm tired of subtleties.

Robin is sleeping in the next room, and Puck has been patrolling the rooms all night. He'll come in here for a few minutes and start to settle down, and I can see him trying to forget about the suitcase parked next to the bedroom door. I tell him that it's okay, no one's abandoning him. 'The two of us guys are going to batch it for a few days,' I say with Gene Kelly – influenced joviality. He wags his tail limply, humoring me, then trundles back down the hall to check again on the status of the suitcase. Earlier, when I leashed him up, he hesitated at the door as though this might be some kind of trick. It was the shortest walk in years, one quick piss at the front door and then a dash back to the apartment to make sure she hadn't slipped off without us. His anxiety is palpable.

I know just how he feels. Theoretically, I got what I wanted – I'm staying here – but it's not sitting well on my stomach. This morning, I called Robin after the audition. I had worked out the beginnings of a nicely contrite little speech that would culminate in an offer to bag the whole commercial thing and just go up to her dad's place as planned.

'Last night was entirely my fault,' I began and left a little opening for her to contradict me.

'It doesn't matter whose fault it was.'

This wasn't the encouragement I had been hoping for, but I agreed that, no, it didn't matter. 'What matters,' I continued, 'is that our marriage comes first. You're wrong to think that my career is more important.' Actually, when I was imagining this conversation, I think I may have counted too heavily on her to jump in somewhere, but she seemed to be waiting for me to finish. 'That's never been true.'

'Okay.' Her voice registered that, yes, she had heard me but she wasn't about to be taken in by a word of this malarkey. 'I'm on another line. Can we talk about this tonight?'

'I'm working tonight, but, yeah, sure. Actually, I was just calling to say that if you want me to, I'll weasel my way out of the first refusal thing. We'll just go ahead and go.'

She sighed audibly. 'I don't want you to 'weasel' out of anything, Dan.' And she hung up before I could backtrack and substitute the word 'weasel' with something less, I don't know what, less weasely.

We never actually did talk about it. When I got home from work, she asked me how the audition went, showed polite interest when I told her that it went well, and then moved seamlessly into a laundry list of instructions on how to survive her absence – when to water and feed the various plants, which of the vets to speak to about Puck's medications, what was still at the dry cleaner's – instructions that might, it occurs to me now, be intended to keep the place running without her indefinitely. Her manner was pointedly casual and gracious.

I repeated my offer.

'I can call Zak in the morning and get out of this commercial thing. Honestly, I don't mind.' And suddenly I didn't. Go figure.

Robin turned, and for a moment there I thought she might haul off and belt me, that or burst into tears. Whatever emotion she was struggling with, though, she managed to suffocate.

'No, it's probably best this way after all.'

I don't know exactly what that means, except that it's the kind of line they used to give to Olivia de Havilland all the time. The wispy bravery of it was supposed to make you admire her gentle courage. But Robin is not the Olivia de Havilland type. She's more like Bette Davis, sarcastic and plucky and not about to let anyone step on her, thank you very much. This quiet restraint is unsettling.

So she's going up to Maine tomorrow where she'll spend the week with her family, kayaking, dining on lobster and mussels, generally lounging around the beach. I'm going to stay here, hunker down in front of the air conditioner and watch TV and maybe, if I'm lucky, spend a day dressed up in a rodent suit. Mulling it over, I'm