With the Monday holiday, they had a little under three days before the next performance of Same Time Next Year. The evenings that week were shared between work on A Marriage Proposal and The Hermit of Walden. It frustrated them some as Mike was often not available during the day, although he promised to do better once they were past Same Time Next Year. It meant they had to concentrate on Chocolate, Roses and Sex during the day.

Realistically, they were ready to go with it; much of their practice was just marking time, but there was something about Chocolate that didn’t sit quite right with Brett. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he figured it was very much a girl thing versus a guy thing.

Since there was very little staging involved, they did most of the practices for Chocolate in the living room at the house. The only furniture that was really needed for the play was a single chair; sometimes Meredith sat on it, sometimes stood next to it, and sometimes moved around the stage while Brett and usually Kellye looked on.

Finally, on Wednesday afternoon Brett thought that maybe he’d figured out what he didn’t like about the play. “The hell of it is,” he said after Meredith had completed a run-through, “is that you’re making the girl sound like a lipstick lesbian.”

“Hey,” Meredith replied, wondering if this was another or Brett’s teases or not. “Left to myself I am a lipstick lesbian.”

“Right, and that’s kind of the point. I know when I first read the script, I wasn’t thinking like that, and it just struck me what I thought the character sounded like to me. Have you ever seen anything by Rita Rudner?”

“I’ve heard the name, but that’s about all. She’s a comedienne, isn’t she?”

“Yes, and a very good one. She has this very dry, very droll delivery, almost sarcastic. That’s what I was hearing when I first read the script for Chocolate, not the gushy, girly way you’ve been delivering it.”

“Well, you might have a point on that,” she replied thoughtfully. “I guess you’re right, when I first read the script I saw it as sort of gushy and girly. But I’m not fully clued in to what you’re saying.”

“You might be right and it’s just yanking my chain,” he said. “But why don’t you head over to the mill and borrow Samantha’s computer for a while, since the link here is just so damn slow? I’m sure there have got to be a few Rita Rudner videos to be found on the Internet. You’ll see what I mean by her style. It’s quite striking, and honestly I think Chocolate would be funnier done that way.”

“Let’s go over and see,” she suggested. “Frankly, I’m tired of sitting around here anyway.”

“I’ll go with you. I could stand getting off my dead butt myself. Are you coming, Kellye?”

“Sure, what else is there to do?”

In a few minutes they were sitting in the office over in the winery. The Internet connection there was a world better than it was at the house, and it didn’t take long to find some videos of the comedienne, and after a half hour of watching them, Meredith finally spoke up. “You’re right. She is funny, and that delivery is striking. Let’s go back over to the house and give Chocolate another run-through. I mean, I’m not quite sure in my own head just how some of it is going to work in that style, and it may take me a few tries to get it right.”

Back at the house, she ran through Chocolate another couple of times, reaching to find the new interpretation the first time, but she was much smoother the second time through. “It’s certainly funnier the new way,” Kellye commented as she got to work on their dinner. “The old way seems, well, more plaintive, hell, more whiney. I see what Brett was talking about now. The old way does seem more gushy and girly, almost too feminine. Let’s face it, done the new way the girl has an attitude that’s missing in the old style.”

“Well, piss,” Meredith shook her head. “Now what do we do? I agree, while I like the old version, if I can work out a couple fluffs, I think the new interpretation is funnier. But I’m not sure that’s the way Janine wanted it played.”

“How do you know that?” Kellye pointed out. “I know you’ve been exchanging e-mails with her. Does that tell you anything?”

“Not that I can think of,” Meredith shook her head. “Shit, I don’t know what to do.”

“Tell you what,” Brett suggested. “Why don’t you work on the new version a little more, just to smooth it out some? Then let’s sit down, oh hell, during the Saturday morning session for Odd Couple, and see what the cast thinks.”

“That would eat up a lot of time.”

“You wouldn’t have to do the whole thing,” he shrugged. “Just a few pages. I’m not sure I’m right on this, but I’ve seen it too often. Maybe an outside opinion would be useful.”

“All right,” Meredith sighed. “I can’t think of any better ideas.”

“I have a better idea,” Kellye said. “Why don’t we talk about it some other time? Dinner is just about ready.”

“You’re right,” Brett agreed. “That is a better idea.”

They were still using a card table for the kitchen table. As usual, Kellye had put together a pretty good meal, and by unspoken but mutual consent, they dropped the subject of Chocolate for at least a few minutes.

“Big day tomorrow,” Kellye said. “I’m going to take off in the morning and do some shopping for this weekend, and the truck from the restaurant wholesaler is supposed to be in during the afternoon. The ladies from the church are supposed to be over not long after that to pick up some things. They’re going to do some cooking at home on Friday, just to make life a little simpler. I’m really wondering how this is going to come out.”

“If it’s anything like the church dinners back home, it ought to be interesting,” Brett said. “There’s this one big church in town, a Catholic Church, and every fall they put on a roast beef dinner. They get most of the town there and people from elsewhere, and I’d be willing to bet that they get people that never set foot in a church any other time of the year.”

“The food is good?”

“The food is fantastic. I understand where Lu is coming from on the beef and noodles, since the Catholics have a recipe that’s as good or better than the roast beef, which is superb. I’m sort of wondering if the Methodists will do it any better.”

“Well, you’re going to find out, since that’s what they decided on for this weekend. I think Lu really got through to Marty on that one. I’ll bet there are a bunch of old church ladies who have been busy making noodles ever since this morning.”

“Wow, homemade noodles, too? That really ought to be interesting.”

“I have to admit,” Kellye smiled, “I’m looking forward to seeing how this turns out. At least we’re not going to be eating prime rib four dinners straight. It was tough enough with three of them last weekend.”

“Well, that’s one of the downsides of acting in a dinner theater, I guess.”

One of the nicer spots of the week came on Thursday, when Marty brought copies of the weekly papers from both Coopersport and Oxford into the theater where Brett, Meredith, and Kellye were working on the Olivia and Florence roles of The Odd Couple. “They don’t get to give play reviews very often,” Marty said. “This may be the first time ever for something that’s not a high school play.”

“A good review?” Brett asked.

“Couldn’t be better. It seems the same guy reviewed it for both papers, and he just about falls over himself praising everything. Even the food!”

“The food?” Kellye asked. “Was he here Friday night?”

“Apparently not,” Marty said. “It looks like he must have been here Saturday night. I don’t know, I didn’t notice the guy. Thank God he wasn’t here on Friday. We really dodged the bullet on that one, folks.”

As they had done the week before, on Friday afternoon Brett and Meredith tried to take it easy, just getting rested up and their minds clear for the show that evening. A couple of hours before the performance Brett had a couple of things to do over at the mill, so, wanting some exercise anyway, decided to walk over to take care of them and see what was happening in the kitchen.

As he walked into the theater he was instantly aware of a wonderful smell. There was some serious cooking going on, and he could tell. Curious, he walked back to the kitchen, where he found Kellye standing at the door, just watching half a dozen church ladies, or maybe more, bustle around the room. Most of them had gray hair and looked roughly as old as the hills, but they were working hard. “So how’s it going?” he asked Kellye.

“I’m just trying to stay out of the way,” she reported, “standing back and watching, I’ve learned a few things I never knew. I can already see you were dead on about the church ladies’ cooking. This could be really interesting.”

“Good, they’re running true to form.”

“This is going to be so different from last Friday night it isn’t going to be funny. I wouldn’t have believed it if I wasn’t seeing it.”

Satisfied that things were going well, Brett did what he had to do, and went back to the house, where he and Meredith continued to get ready for the play.

By now the whole crew had most of the rough edges worked out for how they were going to present things to the audience – not only the play, but the wine sales, handling the crowd, and things like that. As had become usual, Marty stood up in front of the audience before the play started, thanked everyone for coming and pointed out that wine was going to be available by the glass or by the bottle. Customers could get it either at the wine bar, or from one of the hostesses who would be coming around the tables. Then he said, “Let’s get on with the show,” went back to the makeshift light panel, and lowered the house lights so Brett and Meredith could sneak onto the stage in the near darkness.

Any rough edges of the performance had been ground down; the first act went very smoothly, with no fluffs that neither he nor Meredith could detect. The two of them stopped briefly in the kitchen, where plates had been prepared for them, and took them back to the makeshift dressing room where they could eat in peace and try to stay in character.

They were partway through their meal when Marty came into the room. “That was really funny,” he chortled – Brett had often wondered what a chortle could be, but now he had no doubt.

“What was that?”

“About ten minutes into the play that asshole from the health department bulled his way in here and told us he’d have to shut down the kitchen. I waved that copy of the Cottage Food Law that Lu gave me with the bit highlighted about church fundraisers being exempt and pointed at the sign that announced it was a fundraiser. Well, he huffed and he puffed, but I had him by the short hairs and he knew it. God, I hate officious bureaucratic assholes who think they can run everything.”

“He might cause you some trouble in the future,” Brett pointed out.

“Maybe so, but not so long as I have that line in the Cottage Food Law on my side. I have really got to do something nice for Lu for that. She’s already getting her beef and noodles out of the deal but she deserves more. Besides, after Lu brought that up, I happened to think of a couple of interesting lines in the state law regarding wineries. I didn’t even get to jam those down that asshole’s throat.”

“You know, Marty,” Brett laughed, “you’re fun when you’re vindictive.”

“Hey, I used to be a banker. I could dispossess widows and orphans with the best of them,” he chortled again, then went on. “So how do you like the beef and noodles?”

“God, I thought Lu was bullshitting us,” Meredith said. “This is really, really good. If I have this for three meals this weekend I’m going to be on a fasting diet for the rest of the week.”

“How about you, Brett?” Marty asked.

“I don’t know,” he responded. “It’s about on the level with the Catholic Church back home, so it’s hard to make a call. It might be the Catholics use red wine rather than white in the sauce, but I can’t tell for sure.”

“It’s costing me a lot more than I hoped for,” Marty nodded, “but so long as we continue to get good crowds, it ought to be worth it.”

“How did the ticket sales go tonight?”

“A little under a hundred, I’m not sure since there were some last-minute walk-ins. I figure that’s right around the break-even point with the new meal setup, so I can’t complain. Wine sales are going good, though.”

“Good, it sounds like we’ve gotten away from all that crap from last week.”

“Sure have,” he smiled. “Hey, I’d better get back out to the wine bar and help Samantha.”

The second part of the show went as well as the first. At the end, Brett and Meredith went over to the dessert line to greet customers, while Marty got up on the stage and announced, “This will be the last weekend for Same Time Next Year, next week we’ll be performing two shows for the price of one. One of them is a real classic, and the other one is brand-new. I think you’ll enjoy both of them. On top of that, the ladies of the Funston Federated Methodist Church tell me that next week they’ll be serving Amish-style chicken. I think the meal tonight was wonderful, but they tell me that’s even better. We will be selling tickets over at the wine bar and on your way out.”

Once again, Brett and Meredith did their encore performance, Sunrise on 44th Street, just to make the evening feel a little brighter. It capped off a great evening.

They didn’t even have to do the dishes – the church ladies had that chore almost wrapped up by the time the show was over with. That gave a handful of them the chance to sit around in the quiet afterwards with glasses of wine, and give a review of the evening of their own.

“I don’t really have much to add,” Brett said. “Except that maybe we’d better be done with Sunrise as an encore after this weekend. I think we’re going to get some repeats, and we shouldn’t bore anyone with it.”

“We have some other candidates for encores,” Meredith said. “We’ll just throw one into the rehearsal schedule.”

“We had a few minor bugs tonight, but I’d expect some with this being the first night the church ladies did dinner,” Marty said. “Despite those, if every night goes this smoothly, I think we’ll be on the way to something.”

“I sure hope so,” Brett said. “But it’s what you don’t expect that gets you.”

“True. Anyway, I can think of a few little things we can add here and there, and there’s no reason we can’t continue to improve the quality of the experience for our guests. Good job, folks. We’ll just see what we can do better next time.”

The next morning was the regular Saturday practice for The Odd Couple. The cast was getting settled into it now; there was still plenty of rehearsal work to do on it, but everyone was thoroughly off the book by now. They were working on interpretation, performance, and stage directions, though again, it would take having the actual set available to get all the details ironed out. That was still a couple weeks away.

Once the rehearsal was over with, Brett told the cast, “We’ve got a little problem we’d like your opinion on. We have two differing views on the interpretation of Chocolate, Roses and Sex. What we’ve decided is that Meredith is going to do a few pages of the play in one of the interpretations, and then go back and do the same pages in the other. We’re hoping you people can give us an idea of which way to go.”

“All right,” Meredith said. “I’ll start it with the way I originally envisioned it.” She started in on “The girl’s” speech – her name was never given – and went through it in what Brett had started to call the “lipstick” version. She took a moment’s breather, then told the group she was going to do it in the way Brett had suggested.

“So,” she said when she’d finished the material again, “what does anyone think?”

“I thought the first version was good until you did the second version,” Lu said. “The second version is funnier, more biting. What was good before now seems pathetic in the first version.”

“I think I have to agree with Lu,” Rachelle said. “She seems a little, well, swooshy in the first version. I mean, I think I can see why she’s having trouble finding a guy to hang out with since if I was a guy, I don’t think I’d want to spend any time with her.”

“Rachelle, I have to take the opposite tack,” David said. “The first version, she’s pathetic and whiny, but she also seems feminine and vulnerable, which is appealing. The second girl, well, she’d be fun to hang out with for a while, but most guys would tell you that in the long run, she’d be on their ass all the time. That’s not as much fun.”

“Say what you will,” Jody pointed out, “but that was one hell of a lesson about acting. I mean, exactly the same words, certainly the same actress, but two different presentations, literally two different people talking to you, and you form two different opinions about them. I don’t think I ever realized just exactly what acting actually meant until I saw that. That was a great job, Meredith.”

“Thanks, Jody,” Meredith smiled. “That’s one of the nicest things anyone has ever said about my acting. But I don’t think we’re any closer to deciding which version to perform.”

They wound up sitting around discussing it for close to an hour. In the end, the more sardonic, biting version seemed to get a little more support than the very feminine version. “Well,” Brett said finally, “I suspect that’s all the decision we’re going to get on that one. I’ve always been more in favor of the sharper, dryer one, while Meredith goes the other way. What do you think, Meredith?”

“I wish I knew what was right,” she sighed. “And I wish I knew how Janine felt about it. But while I think I still like the older version, I’m reluctant, but ready to concede to doing the new one.”

“All right,” Brett said, “I think that’s what we were looking for. Thanks for sticking around and helping us out with this, folks. Same time next Saturday, not next year, and by then we’re going to be getting a little more serious. We’ve still got a lot of work to do, but we’re getting there.”

“Can we make it Saturday afternoon?” David asked. “I’ve got an appointment I had scheduled long ago that’s going to be tough to miss.”

“Yeah, I’ve got the same problem too,” Sharon agreed.

“Is everybody good to go if we made it one o’clock?” Brett asked. “We’ll just have to be careful to not go late.”

It was fine with everyone, so Brett thought he had the possibility of sleeping in late next Saturday. That would be a refreshing little break.

After everyone but Brett, Meredith, and Kellye filed out, Meredith was still uncertain. “I’m still not sure that was the right way to go,” she said, “but the decision had to be made somehow, so we can go ahead from there.”

“Well, we’re plowing new ground with this,” he said. “We don’t have other people’s performances to judge this one by.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” she sighed. “Let’s go get something to eat, then get in a little rest before we have to start the performance tonight.”

That night they did Same Time Next Year again, and by now they had it nailed. Everything else went smoothly, and Marty and Samantha seemed pleased afterwards. The next afternoon was the Sunday matinee, the last performance of the first show of the season, and once again everything went about as well as could be asked for.

Brett felt sad as the performance came to an end, and Meredith admitted it as well. Though the two of them had done many performances of the play together – and who knew how many rehearsals – there seemed to be some vague feeling that this would be the last time they’d be performing what had become a touchstone in both of their lives.

“But who knows?” Brett said. “Hell, we may be doing Same Time Next Year the same time next year. You never know what’s going to happen.”

“Well, in a way, I hope we do,” she replied. “But then, in a way, I hope we don’t, either.”

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