In One Person

Martha Hadley as a training-bra model, I was still frightened by what I’d seen in those faces in the audience at the First Sister Players.
    I told Grandpa Harry about watching some of our fellow townspeople, who were caught in the act of watching him. “They didn’t care that it was make-believe,” I told him. “They just knew they didn’t like it. They
hated
you—Ralph Ripton and his wife, even Mrs. Poggio, no question about Dr. Harlow. They
hated
you pretending to be a woman.”
    “You know what I say, Bill?” Grandpa Harry asked me. “I say, you can make-believe what you want.” There were tears in my eyes then, because I was afraid for myself—not unlike the way, as a child, I had been afraid backstage for Grandpa Harry.
    “I stole Elaine Hadley’s bra, because I wanted to wear it!” I blurted out.
    “Ah, well—that’s a good fella’s failin’, Bill. I wouldn’t worry about that,” Grandpa Harry said.
    It was strange what a relief it was—to see that I couldn’t shock him. Harry Marshall was only worried about my safety, as I’d once been afraid for his.
    “Did Richard tell you?” Grandpa Harry suddenly asked me. “Some morons have banned
Twelfth Night
—I mean, over the years, total imbeciles have actually banned Shakespeare’s
Twelfth Night
, many times!”
    “Why?” I asked him. “That’s
crazy
! It’s a
comedy
, it’s a
romantic
comedy! What could possibly be the reason for
banning
it?” I cried.
    “Ah, well—I can only guess why,” Grandpa Harry said. “Sebastian’s twin sister, Viola—she looks a lot like her brother; that’s the story, isn’t it? That’s why people mistake Sebastian for Viola—after Viola has disguised herself as a man, and she’s goin’ around callin’ herself Cesario. Don’t you see, Bill? Viola is a cross-dresser!
That’s
what got Shakespeare in trouble! From everythin’ you told me, I think you’ve noticed that rigidly conventional or ignorant people have no sense of humor about cross-dressers.”
    “Yes, I’ve noticed,” I said.
    But it was what I had failed to notice that would haunt me. All those years when I was backstage, when I had the prompter’s perspective of those front-row faces in the audience, I had neglected to look at the prompter herself. I had not once noticed my mother’s expression, when she saw and heard her father onstage as a woman.
    That winter Sunday night, when I walked back to Bancroft, after my little talk with Grandpa Harry, I vowed I would watch my mom’s face when Harry was performing as Maria in
Twelfth Night
.
    I knew there would be opportunities—when Sebastian was not onstage but Maria was—when I could spy on my mother backstage and observe her expression. I was frightened of what I might see in her pretty face; I doubted she would be smiling.
    I had a bad feeling about
Twelfth Night
from the start. Kittredge had talked a bunch of his wrestling teammates into auditioning. Richard had given four of them what he’d called “some smaller parts.”
    But Malvolio
isn’t
a small part; the wrestling team’s heavyweight, a sullen complainer, was cast in the role of Olivia’s steward—an arrogant pretender who is tricked into thinking that Olivia desires him. I must say that Madden, the heavyweight who thought of himself as a perpetual victim , was well cast; Kittredge had told Elaine and me that Madden suffered from “going-last syndrome.”
    In those days, all dual meets in wrestling began with the lightest weight-class; heavyweights wrestled last. If the meet was close, it came down to who won the heavyweight match—Madden usually lost. He had the look of someone wronged. How perfect that Malvolio, who is jailed as a lunatic, protests his fate—“‘I say there was never man thus abused,’” Madden, as Malvolio, whines.
    “If you want to be in character, Madden,” I heard Kittredge say to his unfortunate teammate, “just think to yourself how
unfair
it is to be a heavyweight.”
    “But it
is
unfair to be a heavyweight!” Madden protested.
    “You’re going to be a great Malvolio. I know you are,” Kittredge told him—as ever, condescendingly.
    Another wrestler—one of the lightweights who struggled to make weight at every weigh-in—was cast as Sir Toby’s companion, Sir Andrew Aguecheek. The boy, whose name was Delacorte, was ghostly thin. He was often so dehydrated from losing weight that he had cotton-mouth. He rinsed his mouth out with water from a paper cup—he spat