Page 39 of Sawyer

“Edgar, I have been calling you,” says Ivy, stepping onto the stage holding a pretend vase of flowers in her hands. Her body freezes at the sight of me, but her hands relax at the same time, and I swear I can hear the crash of the vase on the stage floor. Her eyes widen. Her voice is a whisper when she murmurs my name. “Heathcliff? Is it you?”

“Catherine!” I growl, crossing the stage with urgency to pull her into my arms. I only draw away to cup her face in my hands, scanning her visage carefully. Her eyes. Her pert nose. Her flushed cheeks. Her rosy lips. I whisper close to her ear. “My love.”

“Heathcliff, you’re here!” she exclaims, tearing herself from my arms and rushing to Edgar. She flings her arms around his neck. “Oh, Edgar! Edgar, darling! Do you see? Heathcliff’s come back! He is here!”

“Don’t strangle me for that!” says Edgar. “He never struck me as a marvelous treasure. There is no need to make a scene, Catherine.”

“I know you didn’t like him,” she says, bubbling with happiness. “Yet, for my sake, you must be friends now.” She takes his sleeve and pulls him toward me. “Edgar, darling, this is my Heathcliff.” She stands back, waiting for us to shake hands. When we don’t, she looks at me, wounded. “Heathcliff…please.”

For her sake and hers alone, I hold out my hand. “Linton.”

“Heathcliff,” says Linton curtly, taking my hand in his for a single unneighborly pump.

“Now that we are friends, shall we have tea in the parlor?” suggests Catherine.

Reeve rushes out onto the stage with a small round table. Aaron follows her, holding three folding chairs, which he sets up for us. We sit down, pantomiming tea.

“I shall think it a dream tomorrow!” Catherine cries, sitting between her husband and me, her childhood friend and former lover. She takes my hands in hers. “I shall not be able to believe that I have seen, and touched, and spoken to you once more. And yet, cruel Heathcliff! You don’t deserve this welcome. To be absent and silent for three years, and never to think of me!”

“A little more than you have thought of me,” I tell her, weaving my fingers through hers without a care for her pale, stupid husband beside her. I stare at her face, and the anger I have carried for her is eclipsed by a deep well of love, yes, of love, and even of gratitude for how happy she is to see me. “My only plan today was to have a glimpse of your face before leaving, but your welcome has put these ideas out of my mind; I’ve fought through a bitter life since I last heard your voice, but, my darling, I have struggled only for you!”

“Mr. Heathcliff,” says Linton between clenched teeth. “Your tea.”

I release Catherine’s hands to take the imaginary cup from his hands.

“Edgar,” says Catherine. “You are sulky.”

“I am tired,” he corrects her.

“But Heathcliff is here! We’re celebrating!”

“I think tea should be over now,” says Linton.

We all stand up and Catherine reaches for me again, embracing me warmly. When she leans away, she smiles at me.

“You will come again, Heathcliff? You will not leave the moors without a farewell to me.”

“I have no plans to leave at all.” I glance at Edgar dismissively, then back at my love. “If you are here, Catherine, let me live here too. After all, I am the new master of Wuthering Heights.”

“Scene!” yells Bruce.

“Christ,” exclaims Wyatt, running a hand through his hair. “Does Edgar have to be such a whiny little pussy?”

“I’m afraid so,” says Bruce, hustling up to the stage to discuss Edgar’s character and motivations with Wyatt.

Meanwhile I turn to Ivy. “What do you think?”

“About the scene?” she asks. “It was good.”

“No,” I say. “About Edgar’s character. I mean, Heathcliff busts into his house, and he’s, like, making pass after pass at Edgar’s wife. It’s pretty bad.”

Ivy nods. “But Catherine allows it. She even encourages it.”

“Why is that?”

“The story’s pretty clear,” she says. “By this point she thinks Edgar’s a spoiled child, fancy to the point of weak. Here comes Heathcliff, full of childhood memories and testosterone. And now, he’s rich, too. He’s irresistible to her.”

“I guess.” I think about the Edgar-Catherine-Heathcliff love triangle, which invariably leads my mind to another triangle—one that includes Clark, Ivy and me. There’s a question I’ve been dying to ask Ivy for months, and now is as good a time as any. “Can I ask you something?”

---