I gave myself a stern lecture in the bathroom mirror. Or the “WC” mirror. Or was it a “looking glass” like in Alice in Wonderland’?
Whatever it was I was looking into and whatever tiny room I was in with the itty-bitty sink and pull-chain toilet, I gazed at my pale expression and reminded my sorry self that I had never been particularly good in social settings and that this evening was further proof.
“Try to be polite, Miranda. Get some information, and then get out of here. Don’t make these people remember you for all the wrong reasons.”
Taking a minute to comb back my dark hair, I gathered my shoulder-length mane up in a clip and found some lip gloss for my dry lips in the side pocket of my shoulder bag.
Slightly freshened, I returned to the drawing room. The guests had gathered in an organized circle, and a game of some sort had begun. I stood at the back, observing. It took me only a moment to realize what type of game had been initiated. This was a company of actors and other theater aficionados. They were playing a form of charades, of course.
The guest who stood in the center of the room recited a line from a play, and everyone else tried to come up with either the play’s name or the line that followed.
I hung back as a large man took to the center of the room and called out, “’What light through yonder window breaks?’“
The group laughed at his attempted falsetto.
Young Scrooge was the quickest to shout out, “Romeo and Juliet’.”
Hearty pats on the back were in order for nimble Scrooge, who then moved to the center and recited one of his lines from the performance that evening.
“’Do not force me to look any longer at what I have become. Tell me instead what is to come.’“
The immediate response came from Andrew, as he delivered the following line in his Spirit of Christmas Present stage voice: “’And so it shall be!’ That would be from A Christmas Carol, of course.”
The group rumbled with comments on how, from then on, the lines should be from plays other than A Christmas Carol, especially because the Carlton Heath adaptation had so mercilessly slaughtered the original lines, making the quotes less than authentic. Everyone gave Scrooge a kind word or two, saying he’d done just fine.
Andrew moved right along with, “’Does it occur to you, Higgins, that the girl has some feelings?’“
“My Fair Lady,” someone called out.
“Also known as… ” Andrew prompted the group, as if this were a trick question. To add to the clues, he continued with the next line, ‘“Oh no, I don’t think so. Not any feelings that we need bother about. Have you, Eliza?’“
“’I got my feelings same as anyone else,’“ I said, filling in the next line under my breath. Only one person heard me. That person was Ellie.
“Well done, Miranda! You should receive extra points for coming up with the next line.” To the group she said, “The play is My Fair Lady. Why are you stalling, Andrew?”
“Ah!” Edward stepped forward and said with a triumphant flash, “My Fair Lady, originally entitled Pygmalion.”
A collective “of course” sigh rippled across the room.
“Miranda, were you in a performance of My Fair Lady at one time?” Ellie asked.
“No, I’ve never been in a play.”
“Really? Neither have I. I like you better by the moment. Here I thought I was the only one in this group who was inexperienced on the stage.”
I didn’t respond to her comment because I couldn’t say I was inexperienced on the stage. I just had never officially been in a performance. My mother had played the role of Eliza Doolittle on a stage somewhere when I was around six. She taught me how to read with that script.
Edward was in the circle now. He paused, thinking, glancing around the room. He looked at Ellie, as if seeking some bolstering of his courage. She glittered and glowed and blew her dashing husband a kiss. The charming moment led me to believe that Edward was much more humble than his circumstances would have suggested. I felt a fondness for both of them, which surprised me because I barely knew them.
Edward kept looking at Ellie, and then his sweeping gaze turned to me. In that moment, he seemed to have found his line. I told myself I could be imagining the connection, but when I heard his line, I knew I had inadvertently inspired him. It was my name. He delivered Miranda’s final line in The Tempest:
“’O wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world that has such people in’t!’“
No one in the room responded. They looked at each other with shrugs and mumbles.
"Where did he come up with that one?” Ellie shook her head at her husband and showered my arm with her fairy dust.
“It’s from The Tempest,” I said, being sure to keep my voice low.
“The Tempest?” she asked. “Shakespeare, right? How do you know all these lines?”
I shrugged, hoping to appear naive. I hadn’t seen a production of The Tempest. I knew the line because I had read the script many times. During my years with the television-less Doralee, I read. I didn’t go to plays, but I read dozens of them, many times over.
Edward repeated his line with an eyebrow partly raised in anticipation of victory at the parlor game. “Anyone? Anyone at all? Even a guess?”
I felt fairly certain it wasn’t polite to one-up a host. Ellie didn’t seem to think the same way.
“She knows it,” Ellie said, pointing at me. “Go ahead, Miranda.”
All eyes turned toward me.
I froze and then realized the best way to get all eyes off me was to say the answer. “The Tempest.”
Edward looked impressed, or maybe the better way to describe his reaction was “intrigued.” He bowed and made a sweep of his hand to show that the floor was mine. I had forgotten about that part of the game. It was my turn to stump the experts. I didn’t want to be in the center of this group.
“That’s okay.” I raised my hand and stepped back, closer to the fireplace. “You can go again. I don’t have any ideas. Just, please, go again.”
“But it’s your turn,” Ellie said.
“Really, I can’t… I don’t have… ”
My expression must have reflected my discomfort because Ellie, the perfect pink hostess, stepped forward. “Miranda gave her turn to me. And I have a good one. Are you ready?”
I appreciated Ellie more in that moment than she could ever know.
To avoid further embarrassment, I backed up a few feet from the rest of the group and stood beside the leather chairs by the hearth.
Ellie dove in with a line I didn’t recognize. Another woman knew the play, shouted the answer, and gleefully took the spotlight.
I noticed Katharine across the room and remembered why I had been invited to this party in the first place. Glancing around for a clock to see what time it was, I wondered when I needed to leave for the train station. I spotted an antique clock tucked in among the decorations on the mantel. Taking two steps closer to the fire to see the correct time on the small face, my eye caught a lineup of family photos in an assortment of frames. In the first photo, a little girl stood beside an elaborately decorated Christmas tree. She wore a frilly dress with a wide sash around the middle and shiny black Mary Janes with white, cuffed ankle socks. She stood up straight, sporting a great big cheesy smile. Her arms were so closely pressed to her sides that her very full skirt was flat on either side while swooping out in the front and back like a canoe with a ruffly petticoat.
Next to that sweet picture was a larger photo. This one was of a little boy wearing pajamas and a pair of brown felt reindeer antlers. His expression was pure eight-year-old glee as he peered inside the partially unwrapped Christmas gift on his lap.
Moving on to the most ornate frame next to the clock, I drew closer, and my breath caught in the back of my throat.
It was the picture. The photograph. Father Christmas and the wailing boy. The exact photo I was carrying in my purse, only the picture on the mantel was larger and less faded. And in an ornate frame, just as Katharine had said she remembered. The picture was here. In this home.
I sank into the leather chair beside the fire and felt the room fold in on me.
How can this he? Who are these people?
The truth I had been seeking all these years was so close I could touch it. Only I couldn’t move. I could barely breathe.