Soldier on, folks--I think it gets better. Next week. And forgive the fomatting because I've lost the tab battle against Blogger, which seems to accept tabs in principle but not practice.
Part One
I.
We came from old money. How old? The seventeenth century, according to the grotesquely detailed genealogy of my family. The Wells first saw wealth through shipbuilding. James Wells, whose company constructed merchant vessels, began the family trend of gathering money without actually working for it. He ordered, or commissioned, or hired, but he never lifted, or made, or even drafted. People say that the Wells haven’t sweat in over four hundred years.
Since then, the family moved to railroads, then to automobiles, and by the time Katherine Wells was born—the first female in three generations—the family dealt mostly in auto parts.
As I’ve said, I was the first girl in the family in a very long time. My mother didn’t really know what to do with me; having read too much Jane Austin, the only activities she could think of were dancing and playing the piano. I took ballet from the age of five—which still seems to me a ridiculous age to begin to learn anything. Though I don’t remember, there must have been roughly three years where I learned nothing other than to stand near the back, out of the way of the talented girls. It came over time though, and while I was never the star of any show I had enough grace not to stand out for the wrong reasons.
My mother was the kind of women people call ‘sweet’ while really meaning ‘well-intentioned but mostly embarrassing.’ When she laughed, which was too often, she was like someone on fire. Her laugh took on a wailing quality and she raised her hands and slapped them against her hips. But she was the kind of woman you felt very bad for disliking because she was never unkind.
My father was unhappy all of the time. Not quite miserable, just displeased with the world. If he was satisfied with something, he would make a ‘humpht’ noise, which only an expert could identify as satisfaction. He yelled very rarely, but was open about disciplining children and employees in a similar manner. “Katherine, I’m very disappointed with your grades this term.’ ‘Johnson, I’m not pleased with the numbers this quarter.’
Perhaps you can infer from my family life that I was in desperate need of attention. And the right kind of attention. Although my mother would applaud my recitals she would also applaud a TV show that pleased her.
I will write off my parents at this point. I haven’t done them justice, I’ll be the first to admit. They’re archetypes—the foolish mother, the distant father—but archetypes fit well into a tragedy. Characters should be easy to identify: the clown, the friend, the mentor, the lover. They'll all appear.
At school, I began to take an interest in drama, which happened to be the perfect outlet for an attention-starved young girl. My career started in a production of Our Town, which I think every single drama class in every single English speaking country has performed twice per decade. I played Emily, the teacher called me a natural, and I couldn’t have been happier. I’ll spare you the full details, though. While exciting to a fifteen year old girl, a tired high school production of an overdone play is actually as boring as it sounds.
But it was then that I decided I wanted to act. Not because of any real passion for drama as an art form, but because it seemed like a dodge—a job that wasn’t one. I had to do something for a living. Nothing was ever suspected of the Wells women. There hadn’t been one in over a hundred years, and back then, their only duties were to marry into more money. I couldn’t just live a Jane Austin novel, playing piano, taking in cotillions, and waiting for a husband. But at the same time, I was spoiled and I had spent a life surrounded by people who never actually worked. Acting seemed perfect. It was like playing for a living. And who doesn’t want to be a celebrity?
After I made my decision I announced it at dinner one day. “I want to act.”
“Don’t worry, dear. There’ll be another play this time next year,” my mother said.
“No, I want to do it for a living.”
“I’m sorry?” my father said. “You want to make a living through acting?”
“That’s right.”
“But dear,” mother said, “you can’t make a career of that. How will you eat?”
“I could still come here, couldn’t I? Or will the two of you put me out of the house.”
“Katherine,” father said, “don’t be smart with your mother.”
“It’s not as if I’ll have trouble with money. And it’s something I’m very interested in.”
“Humpht,” father said. “I suppose I don’t see why not.”
“Really?” I only ever expected resistance from my father, in all things.
“But you’ll have to do it right.”
Comments
Happy to be of service.
EXTERMINATED!