12. Night at the Operetta
Disclaimer: I do not own The A Team movie or television series or any of the delightful characters found on The A Team.
Over the years John Smith escorted his mother numerous times to the Broadway-Capitol Theater but for some reason, he sensed this evening was different.
Earlier, they boarded the red and cream GM coach bus close to the Wyoming Street terminus. As was her habit, his mother chose to ride the bus rather than be jostled on the Michigan Avenue streetcar by factory workers going home from their shifts.
After he got his driver's license and his 46 Chrysler Royal, he suggested he could drive her to the venue. She would hear nothing of it. The coach ride had become so much a mother-son tradition from the time John was six years old and able to behave himself at the opera that she was reluctant to change it. So John didn't insist.
As usual, his mother was nervous and excited on the way to the opera house. Her energy rubbed off on her teenage son. She clasped her white gloved hands together in her lap, occasionally tucking a stray lock of her hair back into place as they rode in companionable silence to their destination. That hadn't changed.
What has?
Did he really need to give it much thought to come up with the answer?
The last time his mother was on stage was almost half a year ago.
Before my father died.
Finances were tight since then. John took an after school job as a busboy at the Roma Cafe on Riopelle Street in the Eastern Market neighborhood of Detroit. His mother rented part of the house to a black man from the South who worked shifts at the Ford River Rouge automobile assembly plant. He hoped to someday move his family to the city.
She gave voice lessons to young girls whose parents had starry visions of their daughter becoming the next Maria Callas or Renata Tebaldi. Most of them did not have the talent or the passion to pursue their parents' dreams. John's mother had the passion.
He had never witnessed such intense grief as that his mother showed when she thought he wasn't watching. This was her return to the stage she loved. This was a step toward her healing. He was certain of it. He stole a quick sidelong glance at her as they left the bus. The passion was there in her eyes.
They walked past the grand fountain named after Russell Alger, former United States senator and governor of Michigan. A statue of a Roman goddess with sword and shield stood in the midst of its watery spray. How the female with the stern face and clothed in a flowing gown symbolized the state of Michigan, John could never figure out. He resisted an urge to ask his mother for a penny to toss into the fountain. The wish he wanted to make was impossible to fill.
I'm the man of the family now. Time to put away childhood things.
His mother pressed a nickel into his hand. She gave him an amused look. With twinkling eyes, she murmured, "Go ahead. Toss one in for me. I'll make the wish."
Flicking the coin with his thumb from the end of his finger, he watched it sail in an arc and plunk softly into the water. Before it settled to the bottom of the pool to join all the others, mother and son turned toward the main entrance to the opera house.
The grandeur of the spacious lobby with its plush blue and red carpet, enormous chandeliers and ornate woodwork never failed to impress him. It was every potential bride's wish to be married here. He knew that because it was what Corinne Schaefer told him she thought about when she considered her future. If he allowed himself the luxury of envisioning it, he could almost see himself in a traditional tuxedo as she, dressed in a mist of white lace and satin, stood beside him in the Great Hall to take their vows.
"I must hurry now and get backstage. I'll see you in your usual seat, Johnny?" His mother placed one hand on his cheek as she gazed into his eyes. For a moment she seemed to be worried he would not be there when she glanced into the audience.
She should know I won't abandon her now. Especially not now.
"I'll be there, Mom, you know I will." He tried hard not to flinch away with embarrassment at the maternal fussing she was doing over his appearance, stroking back his hair with her gloved hand, straightening his shirt collar and tie.
She pulled away and clasped his shoulders to give him one more scrutinizing look. Then she smiled, a tender warm glow in her eyes. Her voice was choked with emotion as she murmured, "I wish your father would have come with you to watch me just once before he died. He used to all the time before we were married, before he became so involved in his work."
John didn't know what to say. So he gave her a quick hug and a peck on the cheek. "I'll be there," he emphasized and watched as she smiled again and disappeared toward the backstage area.
Moments later as he settled himself into his seat in the third row, center, behind the conductor's podium, he sighed. He didn't even know which operetta his mother would be performing nor what role she would be singing that night. She had been a mezzo-soprano for her entire operatic career.
The Pirates of Penzance. Gilbert and Sullivan. Some interesting parts in that one.
He scanned the program for his mother's name.
Helen Smith as Ruth. There was a time not so long ago she would have been cast as Mabel, the love interest of Frederic, the Pirate Apprentice, instead of Frederic's nursemaid.
He wondered if being given an older female's role bothered his mother at all. It bothered him for some reason and he didn't know why.
It wasn't until the duet between Frederic and Ruth that he understood.
Armando Briggs, portraying Frederic the pirate apprentice, sang the first line, "Oh, false one, you have deceived me!"
His mother, dressed in a long hoodless cloak which covered her pirate's garb, questioned him. "I have deceived you?"
Briggs lifted his chin and turned away resolutely, his face an angry scowl. "Yes, deceived me! You told me you were fair as gold!"
John's mother clutched at his sleeve as if to beg for his attention. "And, master, am I not so?"
He faced her and gestured with one hand. "And now I see you're plain and old."
In the audience, John winced.
Plain and old?
His mother replied, "I'm sure I'm not a jot so."
"Upon my innocence you play." If he didn't know the accusation was part of the operetta, the teen would have been up on stage asking the young man to clarify his statement.
"I'm not the one to plot so." As Helen placed her hand upon her breast in a feigned proclamation of innocence, Briggs hurled his next observation. Again John grimaced.
"Your face is lined, your hair is grey."
The teen peered up at his mother on stage. Was she wrinkled and grey? He had not noticed before how much the death of his father had physically changed her.
Or is that the stage makeup?
"It's gradually got so." She cast her gaze to the floor of the stage in a meek admission of the accuracy of his statement.
Briggs pushed past her and climbed a small slope disguised to look like a sand dune. He cast another accusation at her. "Faithless woman, to deceive me, I who trusted so!"
Throwing herself at his feet, clutching one leg tightly to herself, Helen begged his mercy. John's stomach was in turmoil. He hoped his mother never became as desperate for a companion as this role painted her.
Why couldn't she have been Mabel?
The answer was in the final declaration she made. "My love unabating has been accumulating forty-seven year."
He had to think. Was his mother really forty-seven years old? His heart sank as he did the quick calculations.
No, she's fifty-four.
But looking at his mother's face as she stormed off in mock outrage at the young pirate apprentice, he knew she didn't feel that old.
And to him maybe she would never be that old.