CHAPTER ONE

Make a Wish. In this course, you'll watch for shooting stars, search for heads-up pennies, throw coins into fountains, blow out candles on a cake. Make as many wishes as you want, then tell of their fulfillment to the class. Field trips include a walk to a shopping-center fountain, a shooting-star watch, and a penny search. Mondays, beginning August 4. Course cost: $15. Materials: Please bring birthday candles, a wishbone, and pennies to share with the class.

I WAS ON A LADDER on the stage, resetting a light. I had a wrench to turn the knob and was trying to loosen it while at the same time maintaining my balance on the ladder. The knob was resisting, either because it had been tightened by someone stronger than I was or because it was old and rusted. Most of the equipment in our theater was old because we had bought it used or borrowed it from someone who didn't need it. The tech run-through was in two hours; the only dress rehearsal was the next day, and the day after that was our opening. I remember thinking that I had about four minutes to get these lights where they need to be. I took hold of the wrench with both hands, and put more of my weight against it. The ladder wiggled. Many things that were meant to move here didn't, like the knob I was fighting with; other things that weren't supposed to move did, such as the ladder I was standing on. I regained my balance and looked down to see if there was someone standing around doing nothing who could hold the ladder steady for me.

Priscilla and Edward were on the stage, Edward on his knees pinning Priscilla's costume together. Tiffany was going over a speech that she hadn't quite memorized. Clara was collecting props. If I asked one of these people to hold the ladder, I would be slowing down another person. We might not be ready on time. As I remember it, Edward and Priscilla seemed to look up at me at the same time, to say something--to warn me?--but then they looked down again and went back to what they were doing.

Michael walked across the stage in his purple bike shorts, sweatshirt, and pink ballet shoes. He glanced up for a second and said, "Be careful up there."

I said, "I am being careful."

Then I fell off the ladder.

I FELT PAIN in my head before I opened my eyes. Michael was next to me. I looked at him, closed my eyes again. I looked at Priscilla and Edward on the other side of me, then at the white sheet that covered me, at a woman I didn't know, a nurse. Slowly I realized that I was lying in a hospital bed. Michael said, "Jenny, you're all right! Are you all right?"

"I don't know," I said. "It's hard to tell." I tried wiggling my fingers and toes, moving my legs, my arms, turning my head. There were some sore spots, but everything seemed intact. "Yes," I said to Michael. "I'm all right." My voice sounded quieter, more, tentative, than I expected. The small smile that I managed to produce hurt something on my face.

Michael looked across the bed at Priscilla and Edward. "She's OK! She talked to me. You heard her!" He started kissing me all over my face. "You're my angel! You know that, don't you?" he said. "I love you, Jenny!" He laughed with relief, held my hands, and kissed them. I closed my eyes again, feeling his warm breath on my skin, his soft lips touching me over and over.

Someone else was standing at the door of the room. I heard the nurse say, "No more visitors, please. We're taking the patient down to X-ray now that she's conscious. You'll have to wail. Are you a family member?"

Michael paused for a moment to turn and see who was at the door. I looked, too, but all I could see was the nurse, her white uniform top stretched tight across her broad back.

"A family member?" I heard the visitor say, "I'm her husband!" Then Todd pushed past the nurse into the room. He looked down at me, lying in the bed. His hair was plastered to his forehead, as if he had been running a long way. His mouth was slightly open, and it seemed to me that we all waited a moment for him to say something more, to ask a question. Michael's hands were still in my hair; my face was still damp in the places where his lips had touched me.

When Todd didn't speak, I said, "What time is it?" I looked at a big clock on the wall. "Oh, no!" I said. "We're supposed to be in the middle of a run-through! I've got to get out of here!"

Todd stood there for a minute at the side of the hospital bed, not saying anything. I tried to get up. "Jenny, don't!" Michael said. "Just rest now." He pressed a hand hard on my shoulder.

Todd opened his mouth to say something, closed it again, then walked quickly out of the room.

Priscilla, Edward, and Michael stood there looking at the door without saying anything. I was still a little slow, trying to piece together what was going on. Too late I said, "Wait." Todd was probably halfway to the elevator by then.

Chapter Two

COOKIES FOR CASH. Our own local Cookie King started out selling from a counter inside a photocopy store. Since then he's franchised thousands of counters in 11 states; developed his own successful brand of frozen cookie dough, available in supermarkets everywhere; and written a national best-seller about helping yourself to the cookies of life. His secret? A blend of spiritual openness and real butter. Learn how you can franchise a cookie counter or develop your own secret recipe under the guidance of the Guru of Goodies. Friday, August 15, 7-10 P.M. Course cost: $15.

NOW I'LL TELL you how I got up on that ladder in the first place.

One day as soon as the front doors of the bank were unlocked, a woman walked up to my desk to speak to me. I evaluated loan applications in a shopping-center branch of a big bank chain. The woman was in her forties, wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Ignoring the fact that I was on the phone, she said, "I want you to explain this to me." She said it loudly because she was upset. I could see the security guard straighten up, not exactly springing into action, but listening for what was coming next. I didn't have an office with a door that closed, just an L-shaped desk in the middle of the floor with a chair in front of it for applicants to use while they talked to me. Some of the people I worked with slid their eyes in my direction while pretending to go about their business. The woman put her purse down on the chair in front of my desk and took out a piece of bank stationery, a letter with my signature on it.

Into the phone, I said, "I have to go," and hung up on my husband, Todd, who was at a molecular biology conference in Colorado. To the woman in front of my desk, I said, "I'm sorry, I--"

"You don't remember me," she said in a voice much too loud for a bank. "Let me refresh your memory. I'm Marion Randall. I applied for a loan. I'm a newly divorced mother of three, who put on a dress and good shoes because I wanted to make a good impression on you. I did that, instead of just filling out a form and dropping it off, because I wanted to be a real person to you, a human being instead of a little number in the corner of a loan form. I sat here in this chair and told you about the custom cake business I was starting in my home. I said I wanted to do something that wouldn't require being away after my kids get out of school. Do you know what you said? `That must make them feel good, knowing you're there.' You said that." She paused, allowing time for me to take this in. "`I can do any kind of cake,' I told you. Remember? No, of course you don't. `Barbie, Batman,' I said, `a wedding cake decorated with fresh flowers, a cake in the shape of any number you choose, for anniversaries and birthdays and what-have-you.' And you said--I remember this clearly, even if you don't--you said, `I'm sure they're wonderful. It sounds like a great idea for a business, especially in a growing family area like this.' You seemed to like me, Ms. Brown. I thought we made a connection. I didn't call and pester you about my loan, did I? No, I waited without a word all those weeks because I had faith that you were seeing to my application promptly and fairly. Then I get this in the mail." She held a denial of her loan, a form letter, very close to my face.

I started to tell Mrs. Randall that she had me all wrong. She didn't have to dress up for me. The person she saw behind this desk wasn't who she thought at all. I did remember her. Of course I did. She wanted to borrow money to buy a station wagon for delivering her cakes to parties. I took a breath to speak, but she cut me off again.

"Why? I just want you to tell me why," Mrs. Randall said. "You owe me at least that much."

I said, "Here, let me show you something." In about half a minute, I typed her numbers into my computer to show her how they added up to a poor risk. I was going to add that to me, personally, the amount she asked for seemed quite modest. If it had been my own money, I would have written a check on the spot. I would have said, "Take it, and good luck to you! Come back and let me know how things are working out." But it wasn't my money. It's the people who really need the money you have to turn down. The people who already have a lot can get more with no trouble. It's like trying to buy a padded bra, if you're familiar with that process: It's almost impossible to find a one with a double-A cup. Padded Bs and Cs are no problem. But then if you're a B or C, do you need padding? Do you even deserve to have more than you've got already? This was the crux of what had been bothering me lately about my job; the essential unfairness of it was gnawing at me from the inside, making it harder and harder to come in every morning and sit there at my desk all day. I wanted to explain my true feelings about loan evaluation to Mrs. Randall--I would have to speak very quietly or ask her to step outside for a minute--but she didn't let me.

She said, "Can't you just look at my face and see that I would pay it back? Can't you see that?"

I looked at her. She had curly brown hair, beginning to gray, and hazel eyes. I would bet anything that she was the fun kind of mother who went on scary rides with her kids and didn't mind a lot of noise in the house, who let them play with the hose sometimes without making them change into their bathing suits. This was the kind of mother I would have tried to be, if Todd and I had not decided that we weren't going to have children. I said, "I'm sorry, Mrs. Randall. I'm very sorry." I was going to try to talk over with her other ways she might try to get the station wagon, not as part of my job, but because I wanted that cake business to happen. I was sure we could come up with something together if the two of us went over the situation systematically. But she didn't give me a chance.

She said, "I bet you're sorry. I just bet you're as sorry as you can be!" She started to choke up and stopped talking. Without looking at me again, she picked up her purse from the chair and left the bank.

I watched Mrs. Randall back her old two-door Toyota out of the parking lot. Then I sat there, staring at my computer screen, trying not to cry myself. The screen went black while. I was looking at it, the screen saver turning it off automatically, letting me know that I had sat there a full ten minutes without making a move. I looked at the black screen a second or two longer, then stood up and walked out of the bank.

I did not love my job. But as I used to tell myself every morning on the way to work, not everyone does. Millions of people do what they do all day, not because they have a burning need to but because they have to make a living and this is where they end up. They try not to put in a lot of overtime or work weekends if they can help it, and they make the most of holidays and vacations. I was one of those people.

I don't know if you've ever felt this way, but at that moment, I didn't like myself very much, didn't even want to be near the kind of person I was. I didn't like the house I lived in, my face, what I knew I would have for lunch. I felt like taking my clothes off right there in the middle of the shopping-center parking lot and setting fire to them, walking away to start over as a different kind of person. I didn't, though. Instead, I bought a frozen yogurt, looked at it for a while as if it might speak to me, answer all my questions, then threw it out. I stared into shopwindows at all kinds of clothes and gifts and food that I didn't want to buy. Then I started walking back to the bank because I couldn't think of anything else to do with myself I was looking in the window of the video store and not watching where I was going when I bumped right into someone. "Excuse me," I said, as a man backed away from me.

"Sorry," he said. "I mean, excuse me. I don't know where my head is at sometimes. You OK?"

"My fault," I said. "I'm fine. You?"

"Perfect," he said.

He started walking backward in the direction he had been going, while he continued talking. "Hey," he said. "Have a nice day!" He was wearing a red T-shirt. Across the front, it said, THE ANSWER IS YES.

I said, "Thanks. You, too." He turned around to walk forward. On the back of the shirt, it said, NOW, WHAT'S YOUR QUESTION?

I went back to the bank and sat down at my desk. I got to work right away, but I wasn't working on a loan. I was working on a way to go home early. A dentist appointment? A sore throat? A family emergency? As it turned out, I didn't leave early. I even stayed a little late, finishing up, filing. Todd was still at the conference, so there was no need to rush.

When I did go home, I put some leftover take-out lasagna from the night before into the microwave. I took out an old mug with a picture of a dog on it and filled it with water. Sometimes you can get a really beautiful thing that you love and break it or lose it the first day. On the other hand, there are ugly, pointless things, like this cup, that can stick with you forever, whether you like it or not. Todd's mother sent this cup to him in a box of kitchen things when he moved into his first apartment during college. I couldn't seem to get rid of it. Somehow, I couldn't bring myself to just drop the cup into the garbage can when there was nothing wrong with it. I sipped water from the dog cup and put my lasagna on a plate.

After I'd eaten, I called my mother in Connecticut, but she was out. My mother was a nurse. Lately she worked as a consultant to medical care facilities. She traveled a lot.

My husband, Todd, and I had not lived here in San Diego very long, not quite three months. We had been living in Cambridge, Massachusetts, when Todd was offered an assistant professorship at a university here. The house Todd and I lived in now belonged to the university, where he spent most of his time. We got it rent-free for a year as part of the deal Todd made when he was hired. For this neighborhood, it wasn't a very big house, but coming from an apartment, we didn't have nearly enough furniture to fill it. There were two empty bedrooms upstairs that we never went in.

To give myself something to do after I ate my lasagna, I decided to go for a walk. I put on a special outfit--shorts and a shirt with reflective stripes, shoes designed for walking long distances, specially constructed not to give blisters or bunions. The shoes reminded me of what I was trying to forget, Mrs. Randall putting on her good shoes to come to see me.

The answer is yes. Now, what's your question? That T-shirt slogan kept repeating in my head, like some Top 40 song I'd heard too many times. "Yes" was probably some kind of surfing or stereo equipment, I thought, or maybe a shampoo with built-in conditioner or a no-fee checking account. The T-shirt must have been advertising for some product I didn't know about, but I liked the sound of it anyway. Yes, I said to myself again. It was certainly a very positive slogan, whatever it was promoting.

I set off down the street. To build strength and endurance, I looked for hills. In a few minutes, I came to a shopping center I had never seen before, then a lot full of new town houses just being framed. I hoped I could find my way back. I kept walking and came to an older neighborhood I hadn't seen before. I had been walking for about twenty minutes when I started to get thirsty. That lasagna was way too salty, I thought. I didn't have any money with me, so I would have to find someplace with a drinking fountain. I walked some more until I saw a building that looked like a school. When I got a little closer, I saw that letters had been pried off the concrete front wall, leaving rusty shadows that still spelled out CORONA VISTA ELEMENTARY. The lights were on inside. If it was open, maybe there was a fountain or a bathroom where I could get some water.

On the door of the building was a piece of cardboard with the word SCHOOL written on it with a black marker. I pulled on the handle and the door opened. I could hear people talking inside and some loud music coming from one of the rooms. There was another hand-lettered sign on a door, saying, REGISTRATION AND INFORMATION. I went into the office.

An elderly woman was sitting at a desk. She was having trouble with a computer. She was hitting it, banging it on the side, and frowning at the dark screen. Without looking at me, she said, "Down the hall, last door on your left."

I said, "Pardon me?"

"You're acting for the first time, aren't you?" she said.

"I'm sorry, I--"

"Didn't bring your checkbook? First class is free. See me next time."

"Thank you, but I was just--"

"You've got two minutes!" She almost shouted at me. She shook the computer. The screen suddenly brightened and filled with words. "Ah. There we go!" She looked up at the acoustic ceiling. "Thank you!" she said. She began to type. I went out. "Have a good class!" the woman barked after me.

"Right. Thanks," I said. Maybe there was water down the hall somewhere. I glanced into some classrooms on my way. Loud music was blasting from giant speakers in one room. I looked in. Some old people and some very heavy younger ones in exercise clothes or shorts and baggy T-shirts were doing small jumps and slow turns. The teacher, a man, who was a lot younger and thinner than most of the students, was wearing purple bike shorts and a sweatshirt. He had a baseball cap on backward and battered pink ballet shoes with holes in them where his big toe was sticking out. "Woo!" he yelped to the class, clapping his hands. "We're kickin' some butt now!"

An old man in front let out a cry of enthusiasm, "Yeah, baby!"

A very heavy woman at the back said, "Somebody stop me!" and did a pirouette, pausing several times on her way around to put a foot down and steady herself before continuing.

The floor was buzzing under my feet from the volume of the music. I would have stood there longer, but the teacher noticed me then. He waved, calling out, "Glad to have you!" I smiled and walked on down the hall. In the next room, a woman who looked about sixty was learning how to hold a violin. I saw a drinking fountain at the end of the hall.

As I passed the last classroom, a woman stepped out. "There you are!" she said. "We're all in here waiting for you!"

I looked around. There was no one in the hall but me. I said, "No, I just came in to get a drink of water. I was on a walk, and--"

"OK, get your drink, and then we'll start." She went back inside the classroom. "She's here," she said to a roomful of people.

The fountain was very low, as if it might have been designed for kindergartners. I bent and drank for a long time, planning to sneak away while the woman was occupied with her class. I looked for a red EXIT sign over a back door. I didn't see one. When I finished drinking, the teacher was standing in the doorway, giving an opening speech to the class, starting it there so that I could hear. "You're going to learn a monologue in this class, perform it several times for the class, then work with a partner on a scene and perform that, too." Her hair was dyed a purplish red and pulled up into a ponytail on top of her head. It bounced around enthusiastically as she spoke. She had on earrings that were small globes twirling on their axes, and she was wearing a pair of blue-green overall shorts with white cowboy boots. She motioned me into the room. I didn't want to interrupt, didn't want everyone staring at me while I explained that I didn't belong here, so I went in silently and sat down. Maybe there would be a break and I could tell her that I wasn't supposed to be in the class.

"You're all going to surprise yourselves," the teacher went on. "You may not believe me now. That's OK. I know what I know. I'm Rory, and this is Acting for the First Time. Anybody in the wrong room?" I realized that this was my chance, but she didn't leave enough of a pause for me to say anything. "Good," she said. "Let's begin. These are the speeches we're going to be working on first. They're from Spoon River Anthology. Some of you probably remember this from high school. Doesn't matter if you don't. It's dead people talking about their lives. No plot, just people taking turns talking. I want you to memorize your speeches before the next class."

She handed me one of the photocopied speeches. I took it. I did remember it from high school, from some English class. Rory talked about acting for a little while, then some of the class members got a chance to read their speeches, just to get a feel for what we would be working on. My hands got sweaty worrying that she might choose me to read. After each reading, Rory talked about what the character might be trying to express in the speech, what it meant. Before I knew it, an hour and a half had passed, and the class was over. Rory looked at me and said, "Next time." She thought I was disappointed about not getting a turn to read my speech.

I went out, taking the paper with me. After I'd sat there the whole time, I couldn't very well return it and tell the teacher I wasn't enrolled. It had gotten dark outside. I walked home, surprising myself by remembering the way with no trouble at all. I wouldn't go back there, of course. I wasn't going to take an acting class. What for? I worked in a bank.

--From The Answer Is Yes, by Sara Lewis. © July 1998 , Sara Lewis used by permission.

Excerpted from The Answer is Yes © Copyright 2012 by Sara Lewis. Reprinted with permission by Harvest Books. All rights reserved.