was saying, and in response she said, “I see.” She was trying not to see the director’s fidgeting,his eyes moving again and again to his watch. His mildly curious gazes out the window at Broadway below them. She let her voice drop, get real quiet, hurt but not defeated, and said, “I also see that everybody thinks it’s all right for Mama to be a tyrant. But all the tyranny in the world will never put a God in the heavens!”
“Thank you, Miss Moon, thank you very much,” the director said, arch, false, hurrying her out with his glance, urging her to be quick about it, to gather up her things and get out so the next person could come in. She thought she would throw up, she wanted to, right there in the middle of the office, so weak was she with disappointment, fatigue and hurt. But she didn’t, despite the upheaval in her stomach, the horrible air in the closet-sized room, the smoke from the director’s cigarettes, and wondering how she would be able to walk down the four flights of stairs to the street when she wished at that moment to merely stand completely still—still so that she could decide who she would be now and how to stop hurting.
It took her half an hour to walk down the steps to the street, because she kept stopping to think about what she would tell Lincoln, what he would say. She stopped twice and just sat on the cement, dust-caked steps. “Miss Moon,” he had said, “thank you very much.” She was Pearl Moon now. Pearl Moon. It was a name that came to her one night in a dream shortly after they moved to New York. In the dream, she was alone in a small boat rowing toward a horizon that slipped farther and farther away the closer she came to it. She stopped rowing and looked up at the sky and saw the moon glazed with stardust that filtered, sparkling, onto the surface of the water. She started rowing again, and rowed to a point just beneath the moon’s embrace. In the vortex of that luminous, breathless light she felt herself touched by the hand of what she decided to call God.
Nobody would name a child Pearl Moon. A made-up name, atheatrical name, a name too beautiful for a real person. And that’s why she chose it. Because she wanted her life to be filled with ecstatic moments of grace like the one that had come to her in the dream. Pearl Moon. That was the name on the head shots she’d had made, and the postcard résumés that she figured were in the desk or trash can of every casting agent in Manhattan. Pearl Moon.
When she opened the door and walked onto Broadway, Pearl felt the city’s tangible, overwhelming and irresistible presence momentarily snatch her breath. She passed the theaters, their marquees blazing as though neon-lit in the late afternoon July sun. When they had first arrived in New York she had spent whole days just walking around Times Square and the theater district, breathing in its promises, completely unaware of its efficient, perfected cruelty. The fast-food chains, the theaters, the adult bookstores catered to specific, essential appetites. Walking the streets of Times Square, Pearl had discovered her own appetites as well. The building she had just left was like many of the anonymous structures that loomed over Times Square. Sometimes it seemed as if she had been inside most of them; auditioning, trying out for a part, huddled in hallways with hundreds of others, hoping for a miracle in the form of a part. The auditions were terrible, endless periods of exposure unlike anything she had ever known.
In the year since their arrival, she and Lincoln had started virtually from scratch. Nobody cared that he had won a regional award for the trilogy of plays he had written for her, even fewer cared that the Renaissance South Theater had been written up in national magazines and papers. What had they done lately? What had they done in New York? Pearl was a member of the Negro Ensemble Company apprentice program, but she hadn’t been on stage in a year, and she worked
“Thank you, Miss Moon, thank you very much,” the director said, arch, false, hurrying her out with his glance, urging her to be quick about it, to gather up her things and get out so the next person could come in. She thought she would throw up, she wanted to, right there in the middle of the office, so weak was she with disappointment, fatigue and hurt. But she didn’t, despite the upheaval in her stomach, the horrible air in the closet-sized room, the smoke from the director’s cigarettes, and wondering how she would be able to walk down the four flights of stairs to the street when she wished at that moment to merely stand completely still—still so that she could decide who she would be now and how to stop hurting.
It took her half an hour to walk down the steps to the street, because she kept stopping to think about what she would tell Lincoln, what he would say. She stopped twice and just sat on the cement, dust-caked steps. “Miss Moon,” he had said, “thank you very much.” She was Pearl Moon now. Pearl Moon. It was a name that came to her one night in a dream shortly after they moved to New York. In the dream, she was alone in a small boat rowing toward a horizon that slipped farther and farther away the closer she came to it. She stopped rowing and looked up at the sky and saw the moon glazed with stardust that filtered, sparkling, onto the surface of the water. She started rowing again, and rowed to a point just beneath the moon’s embrace. In the vortex of that luminous, breathless light she felt herself touched by the hand of what she decided to call God.
Nobody would name a child Pearl Moon. A made-up name, atheatrical name, a name too beautiful for a real person. And that’s why she chose it. Because she wanted her life to be filled with ecstatic moments of grace like the one that had come to her in the dream. Pearl Moon. That was the name on the head shots she’d had made, and the postcard résumés that she figured were in the desk or trash can of every casting agent in Manhattan. Pearl Moon.
When she opened the door and walked onto Broadway, Pearl felt the city’s tangible, overwhelming and irresistible presence momentarily snatch her breath. She passed the theaters, their marquees blazing as though neon-lit in the late afternoon July sun. When they had first arrived in New York she had spent whole days just walking around Times Square and the theater district, breathing in its promises, completely unaware of its efficient, perfected cruelty. The fast-food chains, the theaters, the adult bookstores catered to specific, essential appetites. Walking the streets of Times Square, Pearl had discovered her own appetites as well. The building she had just left was like many of the anonymous structures that loomed over Times Square. Sometimes it seemed as if she had been inside most of them; auditioning, trying out for a part, huddled in hallways with hundreds of others, hoping for a miracle in the form of a part. The auditions were terrible, endless periods of exposure unlike anything she had ever known.
In the year since their arrival, she and Lincoln had started virtually from scratch. Nobody cared that he had won a regional award for the trilogy of plays he had written for her, even fewer cared that the Renaissance South Theater had been written up in national magazines and papers. What had they done lately? What had they done in New York? Pearl was a member of the Negro Ensemble Company apprentice program, but she hadn’t been on stage in a year, and she worked
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