WHEN GREG finished reading Donna Merrick’s column he threw the paper down on the kitchen counter and went to the refrigerator for a beer.
“What’s the matter?” asked Ariane.
“Nothing,” he said. “Forget it.”
“You’re annoyed.”
“Yes. I’m annoyed.”
“Because of this article?” She picked up the paper.
“Yes! Because of the article. What else would it be?”
“Is it because of that business about artificiality?”
“No, it is because—forget it.”
“I think I see a little green-eyed monster sitting on your shoulder.”
“Huh? What do—”
“Envy, Greg.”
“Envy? You mean do I envy you? Is that what you mean?”
“Yes, I guess that is what I mean.”
“Well, maybe I do. Yes. To tell you the truth, I do. You do seem to be the star here.” He picked up the paper and shook it. “But that’s okay. That doesn’t really bother me. Attention wasn’t what I was after. Well, maybe. I don’t know. You’ve got a little bit of fame. Maybe I envy you for it. That’s okay. I’ll get over that.”
“Good.”
“But here’s what really bothers me: you’re out of control.”
“What?”
“You’re not—you’re not what we agreed on.”
“What? I’m not doing what we agreed on?”
“No. You’re not the character we agreed on.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re turning yourself into someone different. You’re not the girl you were. You’re a different character.”
“What character? What did we agree on? What are you talking about?”
She couldn’t help herself. She turned toward the kitchen window and shrugged at the people in that section of the audience, in the cheap seats with poor sight lines, some of them with only a partial view.
Greg said, “That’s what I mean.” He waved his hand in the direction of the audience outside the kitchen window. “That’s exactly what I mean.” He grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her around to face him. “You’re becoming a ham. You play to the audience. This isn’t what I had in mind when I—”
“When you what?” she said, standing strong and stiff, jutting her chin at him.
“When I invented you.”
“Invented me? Did you say when you invented me?”
“Yes. When I invented you. I did invent you—not as a person, but as a character.”
“Oh, brother,” she said. She turned her back on him and faced the audience directly. “My mother tried to hand me the Ariadne role,” she said, “and now he’s trying to make me into Galatea!” She stepped to the window and looked through it, as if she were talking to a neighbor just across the way. “You know,” she said, “the statue that comes to life, and the sculptor falls in love with it? Maybe you saw the musical—” Suddenly she spun around again as if something had just occurred to her. Pointing at Greg, she said, “Wait a minute! I’ve got it backwards, haven’t I? You’re not trying to make me into your fair lady. You’re trying to make yourself into Pygmalion!”
Greg slammed the kitchen door on his way out—hard enough to make the frame wobble in a way that it never would have if Ariane’s house had had walls. When it stopped wobbling, Ariane turned to the audience again, and with a mischievous smile said, “I guess I made him see Red.”
[to be continued]
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