Since You've Been Gone

“Do you not like the Beatles?” Frank asked, sounding shocked, as we finished our cool-down and started walking back toward my house. “Do you also not like sunshine and laughter and puppies?” I just stared at him, waiting for Frank Porter to reappear and realize he was being a little crazy, but apparently Frank was just getting started. “I don’t think the Beatles get enough recognition,” he said, speaking fast. “I mean, when you look at their body of work and how they changed music forever. I think there should be federal holidays and parades.”

“Well, you can work on that,” I said, as we arrived back in front of my house. “In case you need another summer project.”

Frank laughed and looked toward the house, wiping his sleeve across his face. “Think you could spare a water?”

“Sure,” I said automatically, not thinking about anything except how thirsty I was as we headed up the driveway together. I opened the front door and we stepped into the dark and cool of the mudroom, and it wasn’t until the door was shut behind us that I suddenly realized what I had done—invited Frank Porter into my house.

He’d already seen my father in his robe, and I had just hoped—if he was going to come inside again—that I might be able to convince my parents to wear actual clothing. I suddenly realized I had no idea what Frank might be walking into.

I just crossed my fingers that the house wouldn’t be too much of a disaster, that my parents would be quietly typing in the dining room, and that Beckett wouldn’t be lurking in doorways, lying in wait to terrify us. “My parents are probably working,” I said. “So we might need to keep it down—”

But as soon as we’d crossed through the mudroom and into the house, the sentence died on my lips. My parents were not only away from the dining room and their laptops, but they were in motion, pushing the sofa against the wall while Beckett skated around the TV room on his sneakers that turned into skates when he leaned back on his heels. Stacks of plays were balanced in his arms, and the cat seemed to be deliberately as underfoot as possible.

“Um,” I said as I closed the door to the mudroom, causing everyone to stop for a moment and look over at me. I was very grateful to see that neither of my parents were wearing robes or sweatpants, but my mother had her hair in curlers and my dad was wearing two ties around his neck, so I wasn’t sure this was that much of an improvement. “What’s going on?”

“Emily, thank god you’re home!” my mother said. She grabbed a stack of plays and papers from the ground and thrust them into my arms. “Go put these somewhere. And then could you see if we have anything to eat? Is there something in the freezer? Mini bagel micro whatsits?”

“I finished those last week,” Beckett said, skating past me. “So no.”

“I should probably go,” Frank said to me quietly, but apparently not quietly enough because my dad straightened up from the couch and spotted him.

“A boy!” he said, relief in his voice. “Wonderful. Come help me lift this.” He squinted at Frank through his glasses. “Hey, don’t I know you?” he asked.

“Seriously, what is happening?” I asked, stepping slightly to the left to stop Frank from going to join my father. Both my parents looked at each other and then down at the floor and I suddenly worried that they’d really let the bills slide this summer while they’d been working, and everything in the house was about to be repossessed, or something.

“Living Room Theater,” Beckett finally piped up when it became clear my parents weren’t going to, as he skated deftly around the cat. “They forgot.”

“Wait, here?” I asked, my stomach plunging, as I suddenly understood why everyone was running around. “Tonight?”

“Tonight,” my mother said grimly, depositing another stack of plays into my arms. “We weren’t exactly prepared.”

“Living Room Theater?” I heard Frank echo behind me.

“Did someone cancel or something?” I asked.

“Well,” my mother said, “we technically did volunteer to host it this year. But that was before we knew we would be writing. And your father thinks that e-mail is interfering with his creative process, so he missed the reminders.”

I closed my eyes for just a moment. “How soon?” I asked.

My dad looked at his watch and winced. “An hour.”

“Um, what’s Living Room Theater?” Frank asked me, as this information seemed to panic the rest of my family, who all sprang into motion again.

“Well, unless you leave now,” I said, realizing it might even be too late as my mother dropped a stack of printer paper into his arms, “I think you’re going to find out.”

JULY

One year earlier

“Explain this to me again,” Sloane said as we—me, Sloane, my parents, and Beckett—walked up the driveway to Pamela Curry’s house. “You guys don’t get enough theater during the school year?”

My mother smiled and took a step closer to Sloane, linking her arm through hers. The two of them had gotten along right from the beginning, and a lot of times when she stayed over, I’d come downstairs in the morning to see Sloane and my mom sitting across the kitchen table from each other, talking, almost more like friends than anything else. “It started a few years back,” she said. “At a theater/English department meeting about parking, of all things. We ended up talking about all the plays we loved, and how they had to be so carefully selected at the college—not to offend anyone, to cast as many students as possible, come in under budget, all the usual concerns. And then someone . . .”

“Harkins,” my dad piped up from the other side of our group. “Remember? He got this thing going and then left when he got tenure at Williams.”

“Anyway, Professor Harkins suggested that we get together once a summer—both the theater and English departments—and put up a play that would have been impossible to do during the school year. No props, no costumes, everyone holds the book.”

“Sounds fun,” Sloane said as we reached the front door, and my mother knocked once and then just pushed it open and stepped inside. Living Room Theater tended to make things a little more casual, and there was usually enough chaos going on before the show that people weren’t bothering with details like answering the door.