Free The Uncoupling by Meg Wolitzer Page B

afternoon of auditions, the cast list was posted. Dory had tried to stay uninvolved, but she couldn’t do that. She was pretty sure that Willa would get some sort of nominal part, even though Willa wasn’t an actor and likely had no natural ability. Over the years, when Dory had come to watch Willa perform in small classroom presentations, she had worn a mother’s bright, excited expression as she observed her daughter’s stiffness and listened to her muted speech, whether Willa was a Navajo woman, or Turkey-Lurkey, or, once, a hydrogen atom. Now, Dory just wanted to see Willa’s name printed on the cast list. It seemed important that Willa’s name be there, and even though Dory felt it would, she still worried in a slightly sickened way that somehow it would not.
    Carrying her coffee down the hall toward the teachers’ room that morning, walking past the glass showcase and the exit sign, she heard shouts up ahead. Girls and a few boys were collected by the bulletin board outside the auditorium, and Willa was somewhere in that cluster. “Oh my God,” one girl said to another. “I knew you’d get it.” Dory walked over, and the girls parted so that the teacher could get a glimpse too. At the top of the sheet, she saw:
    LYSISTRATA . . . . . . Marissa Clayborn
    Marissa, coolheaded and straight-backed, was allowing herself to be hugged by her friends. Of course she was Lysistrata; it was a good fit. Fran Heller had explained that there wouldn’t be any understudies. She’d never needed them in her entire career in high school theater; probably, Dory thought, this was because the actors would be too daunted at the idea of telling Ms. Heller they were sick and couldn’t make a performance. It would be easier to perform with a fever, delirious. Well below Marissa’s name, somewhere near the bottom in a heap of the willing, were the names of the others—kids who just wanted to be in a play, any play, and didn’t need the glory of a big part:
    CHORUS OF WOMEN . . . . . .
    Lucy Neels
Carrie Petito
Julie Zorn
Jade Stills
Willa Lang
    Willa. Yes! thought her mother . Willa had made it. It wasn’t much, but she was in, and that was enough. Rehearsals would start that afternoon. It had been snowing all day, and when the bell rang, Dory found herself in coat and scarf, returning to the hallway by the auditorium. She stood beside the showcase, which held old framed photos of previous theatrical productions and a big silver loving cup that had been given by a long-gone graduating class to the cast and crew of You Can’t Take It with You . The inscription read, “With our heartfelt thanks, from the class of 1969.” The silver was tarnished, but the words were still legible. Dory sometimes saw that loving cup behind the glass and thought of all the kids who had been in the plays here at the school, then left, getting older and older. A high school play was a time of high emotion and meaning; if you were in a play, you felt as if the play mattered. The success or failure of any production seemed like a real reflection on you personally. Dory had wanted Willa to be part of such an experience, and now it looked as if she would.
    Dory walked toward the auditorium, and when she got close, one of the doors was suddenly pushed open from inside, and all at once Dory was like one of the students who were always dying to get a look into the teachers’ room. She stopped right where she was and swung her head to see inside, though from here all she could see was dimness, with shapes moving distantly. There came the sound of girls laughing; was that Willa in there already? Even though Dory’s coat was on and Robby expected to meet her at the exit near the parking lot so they could drive home together, she very much wanted to go in. If she was really late, he would assume that something had come up, and he’d just go home on his own; this was how it worked between them. So now she grabbed the door before it shut again, and she slipped