The False Exit Page 29

  She ignored him.

  Most of the audience had cleared the lobby and taken their seats in the house. Anna Marie stopped in front of the corner where Kevin was shot. She was still and void of expression. Bill walked up to her. She stared into the corner. Bill tried to put his hand on her shoulder. She rejected him with a shrug.

  “It’s a lobby. It’s just an empty stupid lobby, Bill! I’m standing in the lobby of the theatre that I love. I love this place! Okay! I once loved a man who was killed here. He betrayed me! So, what? It’s just a lobby and what happened here was just a moment in time. It was a moment that can pass through me like each and every other moment of my life. It happened and it’s over.” She grabbed a deep breath.

  “Anna, are you okay?” Bill asked with a cautious step toward her.

  “I am,” she said stepping away from him. “I’m okay.” She nodded her head, yes and continued to stare into the corner. "I’m okay because I’m NOT my life. I’m the person moving through my life. I can’t control what happens, but I can control the person that it happens to. I will find joy in this journey; regardless.” She looked up at Bill, “If it’s with you that I find my joy—so be it. If it isn’t with you—so be it. I’m going to start enjoying my life again. I will enjoy it all by myself if I have to. That being said, you need to get up there and deal with that board! The show goes on whether we are ready or not. Just so you know, I’m ready! I’m ready to move on! So I suggest you get up there because I’m going in there now, and I’m going to start enjoying my life again. I’m going to start right now by enjoying this show!”

  He watched her exit into the theatre and immediately return through the doors again.

  “False exit!” she said. “I forgot Annie. I’m going to go get Annie and then, I’m going to start enjoying this show!” She exited out the side wing in order to cross backstage unseen.

  Bill allowed the moment to catch up with him. He shook his head as he finally started back up the steps. “False Exit!” he repeated with a laugh. The more he thought about it the harder he laughed. He climbed into the booth still grinning. Only Anna Marie would come up with the old school theatre term. “False Exit!” he laughed again.

  He’d tried to explain the meaning of the term to his students many times over and was never fully successful. He would say that a false exit required the actor to leave the stage with an overly dramatic flair of absolute finality and fool the audience by the perfect timing of their immediate return. The return he’d often explained was generally for something foolishly forgotten or to continue to argue a point. The comedy lies in the fact that the return completely demoralizes the original dramatic exit. Anna Marie had demonstrated it with classic precision. It was good to have her back, he thought. “False Exit!” he was still chuckling as he took his seat at the light board.

  The show was remarkable. The audience stood all the way through the curtain call. As the curtain dropped, the house manager made her way to the stage and announced Mary’s proposal to Clifford. Bill hit the couple with a spot light.

  Verde called out, “Kiss Cam!” Clifford kissed his bride-to-be, in front of the cheering audience and comically grabbed at his heart. Liz leaped from the stage and handed her grandmother a bouquet of flowers. The audience broke into another round of applause.

  As the crowd broke up, Clifford announced he would be celebrating with non-fat ice cream at Kendal’s Kones with anyone who cared to join them.

  “Can I ride with Liz?” Annie asked.

  “You shouldn’t invite yourself,” Anna Marie replied.

  “I’d like to take her,” Liz said. “She can help me carry all my stuff to my car. I’ll put her to work,” she teased.

  “Okay, Liz. If you’re sure you don’t mind, I’ll help Bill shut down. We’ll meet you there.”

  Liz took Annie by the hand and headed to the dressing room to pack up.

  “Liz,” Mark called to her, “great job tonight!”

  “Thank you,” she said. She kept moving.

  “Can I talk to you?” he asked.

  She stopped. “Let me get my stuff out of the dressing room first, Okay? I don’t want the volunteers to pick anything up and move it before I get a chance to organize myself.”

  “Sure,” he said. He waited as she stepped into the dressing room with Annie following behind.

  “Does that guy like you?” Annie asked as they packed up.

  “No,” she said. “He likes someone else.”

  “He looks like he likes you,” Annie said.

  “How can you tell?”

  “I can tell,” was all she said.

  “Do you like him?”

  “No,” Liz said.

  “Yes you do,” Annie said.

  “How can you tell,” Liz asked as she threw a pair of tights into her bag.

  “I just can,” she said. “I notice a lot of things.”

  They stepped into the hall with their arms loaded. The cast and crew had scattered quickly.

  “Wait here,” Liz directed Annie as she dropped everything beside her. She stepped a few feet away. Mark followed her.

  “What's up?” she asked.

  “Liz, I just wanted to let you know that I broke up with Shayla.”

  “Again?” she said sarcastically.

  “I wish things had worked out differently between us,” he said. His eyes were mesmerizing. He stepped closer to her. Liz fought the urge to fall into him.

  “Me too,” she said.

  “We can change that,” he said. He braced himself with one hand on the wall behind her and moved even closer.

  “I am afraid we can’t,” she said.

  “You know we have something. There is a lot charisma between us.”

  “There is,” Liz agreed.

  “Will you meet me at Shorty’s later? We can talk about it,” he flipped his hair and she watched his curls land on the side of his forehead.

  “Talk about what?” she felt her heart melting.

  “We can talk about us. Why do we keep missing each other?”

  “Missing?” she stared at the shape of his lips. He noticed. He pushed his face closer to her.

  “Missing the opportunity to have something real.”

  “I am pretty sure that has everything to do with you. You pull me in and then you push me away.”

  “Push you away? I don’t mean to do that. Is that what you think?” he stepped closer to her. She could feel the heat from his body.

  “You mess with me,” she said.

  “Mess with you? You mess with me,” he said. His voice was soft and low. “You mess me up! I don’t know what I’m doing. I can’t get you off my mind.” He moved a piece of fallen hair off of her cheek.

  “I have to go,” she said in almost a whisper.

  “Come on, Liz,” He leaned in. She ducked under his arm.

  “You had your chance!” she said. She scooped up her things, grabbed Annie’s hand and quickly walked away.

  As soon as they hit the parking lot, little Annie said, “I thought he was going to kiss you.”

  “So did I,” Liz said.

  “Did you want him to kiss you?” she asked.

  “Nope,” Liz said.

  “You should have kicked him in the nuts!”

  Liz stopped walking. She stared at the girl for a moment. “You did not just say that?” she said.

  “Yes I did, if you don’t want a boy to kiss you, you kick him in the nuts! You should have kicked him in the nuts.”

  “Well, I kind of did,” Liz said. “When you get older, you’ll see that there are different ways to do that.” She grabbed Annie’s hand again, put her chin up and started toward her car again.

  “Oh, is it because he wasn’t hurting you?”

  “Well he was. He was hurting my feelings.”

  “Oh, so you kicked his feelings in the nuts?”

  Liz grinned. “I guess you could say that!”

  “But, you still like him.”

  Liz stopp
ed again. “I do!” she said. “I really do.”

  “But—he just wants to kiss you?”

  “Exactly!” Liz said.

  They took a few more steps. The girl said, “He is a shark! There are lots of other kinds of fish in the sea. There are better ones.”

  Liz smiled, “There sure are, lots and lots of them! You’re a pretty smart girl; aren’t you?”

  “Yeah, my dad told me a lot about boys.”

  “He did?”

  “Yeah, because I liked a boy in my class and he didn’t like me back,” she said.

  “That’s why he said there are a lot of fish in the sea?” Liz asked.

  “Yeah. He also said that whenever I go looking for boys, I should stay away from the sharks and the puffer fishes! The sharks are the ones that just want to kiss you for no reason. The puffer fishes are the ones that get angry for no reason and they blow up at you. He said no clown fish either. Sea turtles and angel fish are the best! He said the turtles know how to take it nice and slow, and the angel fish are the good boys.”

  “That is good advice,” Liz said. She squeezed the little girl’s hand. She knew the child would be devastated if she knew what she did. Her dad was a clown, a shark and a puffer fish. He certainly would know what kind of men to tell his daughter to stay away from! Liz grinned. She felt somehow validated from the words of a man who would know.

  Bill pulled the ghost light to the center of the stage and clicked it on. Anna Marie stepped out from behind the curtain.

  “Where is Annie?” he asked. “You didn’t forget her again, did you?”

  “It’s all new. What can I say?” she said.

  “You might want to put a bell on her.”

  “Bill!” she grinned. “I sent her ahead with Liz.”

  “What a night, huh?”

  “What a night,” Anna Marie repeated.

  “A proposal!”

  “Yup, a proposal!”

  “A great show!”

  “A really great show!”

  “I did pretty good job running the new board without any presets.”

  “You did a great job without any presets.”

  “You yelled at me!”

  “I yelled at you,” she blushed.

  “You finally stepped into the lobby.”

  “I finally stepped into the lobby.”

  “You lost Annie.”

  “I didn’t lose her!”

  “You found yourself!”

  “I found—.” She paused and her voice cracked with emotion. “—you.”

  “You know, I’ve been here all along, waiting.” he said.

  “I’m sorry it took so long,” her voice was still broken with emotion.

  “I would have waited until the end of time,” he said.

  “You are good man, Bill.”

  “I love you, Anna Marie.”

  “I love you more,” she smiled.

  He wiped a tear that fell from her cheek. “I’ve seen you ugly cry a lot lately,” he teased.

  “I’m sure I look a mess,” she blushed.

  “That is by far the prettiest tear I’ve ever seen fall from the prettiest mess I’ve ever looked at.” He pulled her close and gently kissed her. Suddenly, the ghost light flashed. He dropped his embrace.

  “My word!” he said softly in a defeated tone. “That man is going to follow me to my grave.”

  Anna Marie looked at the light. It flashed again. Bill clearly wanted to leave. She grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the light. She reached below the bulb and clicked off the switch. “Kevin has no power here because—I’m no longer wounded.”

  They stood in the center of the stage with the glow of the generator lights casting shadows on them. “It’s good to have you back!” he said.

  “It is good to be back,” she said.

  “I told you.”

  “Told me what?”

  “I told you everything was going to be okay!”

  “Actually you told me more than that. I think you told me that I would know love like I had never known before.”

  “Do you?” he asked.

  “I do,” she said.

  He looked at her seriously and said, “say that again.”

  “I do?” she said.

  “I like the way that sounds coming off your lips. Would you consider saying that in front of a preacher?”

  “If that was a proposal, it is a pretty lousy one,” she giggled.

  “How about this?” He got down on one knee. She gasped. “Anna Marie, I have loved you for a lifetime. I will always love you. Are you willing and ready? Will you marry me?”

  “Yes! Yes! Yes, I am!!!” she squealed. She laughed and kissed him at the same time.

  The ghost light flickered again.

  “Oh my God,” Bill said. “I thought you turned that thing off?”

  “I did,” she said. “This is crazy! Let’s get out of here!”

  She grabbed his hand and they hurried off the stage. They stepped through the back curtain and Bill stopped. “Wait!”

  “What?” she asked.

  “False Exit!” he answered.

  He let go of her hand. She watched him walk back to the center of the stage. “Hey Kevin!” he called into the darkness. “I’ve got Anna Marie and she’s got your little girl. I promise you—I’m going to love them! I’m going to love them both—the way you should have!”

  Anna Marie crept back up beside him and took his hand again. Bill nodded his head, “Rest in peace, Buddy. Rest in peace.” The light flickered again. He smiled and whispered into the darkness, “Good night, Kevin!” He looked at Anna Marie and said. “It’s time to move on!”

  With the perfect combination of dignity, humility and love they all took their exit—stage right. And because it was an act of true love—there would be no more False Exits.

  Author’s Notes

  “There is no darkness

  but ignorance”

  -William Shakespeare

  On our darkest of days, we are often distracted with negative thoughts and emotions that can easily lead us to paralyzing ignorance. It is that very ignorance that threatens our ability to find a way out. Yet, if we remember that wisdom, growth and healing can be found in our most difficult and challenging times—with grace as our guiding light, we may never be lost in the dark again.

  With all of life’s great joy and regardless of the goodness we project, hardships will find their way to us. Just as sure as the sun will set each evening and waves will break at the ocean shore—we will be challenged. We may not have control over what will happen to us in this life, but we do have control over how we choose to react, grow and change based on what we learn from our trials. Imagine the ignorance of a man standing ridged and knee deep at the edge of the ocean while commanding the waves to stop knocking him down. The man who chooses to duck under the waves, jump over them, dive straight into them or rise to the top and body surf to the shore is a joyful man! What fun! And so it is with the darkest of times. When we allow wisdom to impart—we can learn to play in the waves and surf our way back to the light regardless of how rough or deep water becomes.

  False Exit is a story of healing, growth and forgiveness. There are several false exits to encounter throughout the storyline. The most obvious is Kevin’s exit from this world and his questionable return at the beginning of the novel. While it may be interesting to try to determine if Kevin has returned in some sort of spiritual embodiment, or if he is simply conjured up by the memories and subconscious minds of those who knew him, it is ultimately unimportant. All that really matters is that the characters learn to deal with their own unfinished business in order to move on from their reactions, choices and distractions based on the result of his destructive life. Once the lessons are learned, the hearts are healed and the final step of forgiveness is in place, the characters move out of the darkness and exit into the light with grace and dignity.

  As I finish these notes and prepare to take my exit from this particu
lar creative journey, I am simply grateful. I would like to thank my initial readers, Karin Scott and Theresa Casey for their preliminary comments and suggestions. I am also most grateful to my professional proofreaders Scott Ryan and Anne White who were referred to me by the famous and generous hearted Piers Anthony. Mr. Anthony’s encouragement continues to inspire my work. Scott, Anne and Piers have once again endured my mistakes and gracefully corrected me as we continue to bond in our “e-friendships”.

  As a theatre teacher I often remind my students that there is no show without an audience. So it is with a novel. There is no book without a reader. Therefore, it is with a humbled heart and deep gratitude that I present a final bow to you—my precious reader! Thank you!

  ~Nancy Anne Lane