Maggie decides that what people are seeing at her movie nights is merely the rough draft for something else. After screenings she stays up late selecting the sequences that garnered the best reactions, and she starts to edit them together. The card table in the playroom grows littered with egg cartons holding rolled-up bits of film. Sometimes the cutting and splicing seem like the wilful destruction of what gained life on the screen, but in her mind there’s a greater film waiting to be realized, along with someone waiting to watch the thing. When she tries to apprehend who it is, she realizes it’s her father. Strange to find him still abiding there after so much distraction. Three months have passed since he wrote. By now anything could have happened to him. But surely Gran would call if something was wrong; Gran wouldn’t pass up a chance to make Maggie feel guilty.
What would her father say if he saw the film? No doubt the believer of the last few years would condemn it, accuse them all of worshipping false idols. But she can imagine the younger man, the one done in by a desk job and his mother’s sanctimony, being attracted by the promise of their life. She can even picture him joining them up here.
It was at Christmas that he gave her the Super 8 camera. She had gone back to Syracuse and told him how much she hated teaching, how she couldn’t get over her stage fright and the daily humiliations at the hands of eight-year-olds. Admitting such things seemed easier than talking about his plans to become a missionary. Before she knew it, though, he was telling her he had the answer to her problems. She should come with him to Laos and work at the mission.
His enthusiasm for the idea was so heartbreaking that she didn’t say no right away. She didn’t mention Fletcher, either, because they’d only been dating a few weeks and somehow she sensed her father wouldn’t be glad to hear she had a boyfriend.
Christmas morning she sat with him in the living room and unwrapped the box he handed her, discovering the camera within. She should have said thank you right away, but there was no gratitude in her, only confusion. She had never expressed the slightest interest in such a thing.
“How much did it cost?” she asked. Had he borrowed from Gran? He always hated doing that.
“It shoots in colour,” he said, ignoring her question. “And it has a zoom.”
“It’s too much,” she told him, but that wasn’t the response he wanted.
“You remember your Brownie Starflash? You loved taking pictures.”
“I was a little girl then.”
“You could bring it to Laos. You could film our work there, show people back home what it’s like.”
Suddenly she realized what was inside her along with the confusion. It was anger, a white-hot rage she’d never felt before. The camera wasn’t a gift, it was a bribe. Did he think she could be swayed so easily? Did he think she had nothing better to do than take pictures of him?
“Dad,” she said, “I’m not going to Laos.”
How strange it was to call him that. When she was a child, she’d had no need of any name for him, because whom else could she have been addressing?
The camera went back into its box, and when Maggie returned to Boston, she didn’t take it with her. Her father never said a word. He was still hoping she would change her mind, hoping she would bring it with her to film life in a foreign country. It’s what she has ended up doing, too, if not in the country of his choice. She tries not to feel too guilty about the pleasure and solitude that filming brings. The time alone may not be in the spirit of a commune, but the camera is one thing she doesn’t want to share.
The bathroom door’s ajar when she knocks on it, the camera in one hand and the tape recorder slung from a shoulder. She can see Rhea sitting on the toilet with the lid down, reading a magazine and watching over Judd and Jeffrey as they bathe in the claw-footed tub.
“All right if I film in here?” Maggie asks.
“Go ahead,” says Rhea. “There’s no shame in these parts.” She has a tinkling voice that gives each word its own particular tone but lays emphasis on none, like a pianist running through scales. Turning to the boys, she snaps, “Jeffrey! I saw that, young man.” Her dress is practically a sack, and with her pageboy haircut, her thin face, and her small body, she seems rather like a child herself, yet she’s lordly and indomitable in the humid air, commanding the boys to soap and rinse. After tucking away the magazine and adjusting her dress, she cranes her neck to glance in the mirror by the sink, while Maggie kneels and frees her hands to hold the camera by squeezing the microphone between her legs.
“Can I ask you a few questions?” she says to Rhea, focusing on her through the lens.
“Film us! Film us!” shouts Judd. Jeffrey joins him in the chant, but it’s quelled by a maternal glare.
“She’s always filming you,” Rhea tells them. “Right now she wants to talk with Mommy.” Brightening as she shifts back to Maggie, she folds her hands in her lap. “So what do you want to know?”
“Why don’t you tell me what it’s been like for you up here?”
Rhea sighs. “The boys have pink eye. Yesterday Dimitri burnt his elbow.” She pauses and laughs. “There I go again! My sister always says to me, ‘Rhea, you’ve got to stop defining yourself by other people’s crises.’ ”
“Where does your sister live?” Maggie asks.
“New York. Fashion writer, no kids. Rest of my family’s in Lexington.”
“You miss them?”
“Nah, it hasn’t been long enough. You miss yours? I heard about your father—” She makes a face as if she has given the wrong answer on a game show.
“I’m all right,” says Maggie. “Go on, tell me how you’ve found it here.”
Rhea thinks a bit before she answers. “Well, I guess things are mostly the same. There are little twists like the accent, and the store clerks are so rude. I don’t expect them to be just like Americans, but they could at least be nice. Right, Judd?” She speaks in the direction of the bath. “You should be nice to people?” Maggie pivots to capture the top of Judd’s head nodding.
“I can’t imagine living here permanently,” says Rhea. “I want the boys to grow up with their grandparents and aunts and uncles around.” She peers past the camera. “You’re not really going to spend your life here, are you, Maggie? For God’s sake, whenever I leave my toothbrush by the sink, somebody else uses it.” She wrinkles her nose. “Maybe I shouldn’t say this, but there are plenty of spongers, too. Not naming any names.” Suddenly she stares straight into the camera. “You know who you are!” she booms, then laughs. “It’s a nice old house, at least. You think it was really part of the Underground Railroad? I don’t believe it, but you never know.”
“That’s great,” says Maggie, drawing away from the viewfinder.
“What, is that all?” Rhea sounds disappointed.
“I’m out of film,” Maggie explains.
“Oh—good,” says Rhea without much enthusiasm. “Now we can really talk.” In a friendlier tone, she asks, “How are you doing?”
“Why, what have you heard?”
“Oh, nothing. We just never seem to chat, do we? It’s Brid’s fault. You can’t get a word in edgewise.” A second later there’s a geyser of water from the tub and a high-pitched cry of pain. “Judd, don’t kick,” she orders, then waits for peace to return before she speaks again.
“Fletcher has got quite the set-up here,” she continues. “It isn’t much of a commune, but it’s cute how straight he wants things to be. Some folks think he’s only slumming it here after Cybil Barrett dumped him, but that’s just silly, right?”