Twin Cities, MN - June 2015
Stepping away from
characters and even my usual author posts today to honor the friend who first
encouraged me to write The Beat on Ruby’s
Street. I met Susan Jeffers at a party in New York when we had both come to
the city to be actors. Someone introduced her and when she stepped forward, I
thought immediately of a young Jane Alexander; a city-sophisticate with a
smoky-dark voice, long chestnut hair and brown eyes.
Little did I know she
was from Springfield,
Illinois, a much tinier town than I was from (Englewood Cliffs, NJ by way
of Brooklyn). It didn’t take us long to become deeply enmeshed in a friendship
cemented by our mutual passions for theater, acting and writing.
Anyone who knew her will
tell you how much Susan loved words and how important it was to her to find the
right one, whether she was writing, editing or just sitting around talking
story with you. Talking story was one of our favorite things to do because you
could gossip endlessly about people and get away with it. That was because the
people you were talking about weren’t real.
Ruby popped into my head
for a number of reasons I’ve explained elsewhere—on my website and in this post. But when I talked to Susan about it, Ruby came alive in ways she hadn’t
before. In fact, Susan originally talked about writing it with me, but then
realized her work as an editor at Scholastic and other projects would make that
impossible. “Besides,” she said, “Ruby is really your baby.” And I knew she was
right.
She did edit the
original manuscript with her usual thorough attention to detail, researching
whether common law marriages were legal in New York (in fact they aren’t) and
other issues that would be likely to trip me up with my readers. She needled me
gently when she felt plot points weren’t working, and praised me when they
were. And she made sure, always, that I was able to say what I wanted to say
with clarity, while holding fast to my vision and Ruby’s voice.
Susan was also a superb
actor and writer. She wrote the first and only radio play that I was
featured in with another old friend, Jorie Latham, so I got to play the lead
role of “Cara Standard” and hear the play broadcast on WBAI in New York. She was there when my play A Body of Water
opened off Broadway in New York at Circle Repertory Company and cheered me on
at numerous readings of other plays. And she was the first person to encourage me to be a playwright
as well.
We had been acting for a
while when I decided I wanted to write a musical. I had a composer and I myself
was a lyricist, but had no idea how to write a play. I asked a playwright
friend who said she didn’t think it would work for her, but she thought I could
write it myself because I knew so much about the subject matter.
Susan thought so too. “But
I don’t know anything about writing a play,” I said.
“But you know plenty
about being in one,” she replied. “And you could write a scene, couldn’t you?
One little scene?”
I did, and found I loved
writing it—so my life as a playwright was born. But we did a lot more than work together. We laughed, partied late into the night, swam, cried, danced, whispered together and kept each other's secrets. Susan was the kind of person who would go to hell and back for her friends and she certainly did for me, more than once. She is irreplaceable in ways I can never explain but in ways everyone who has ever had a friend they cherished will understand. Now she is gone, at least physically, and yet I have her presence always in the corner of my eye.
In March of this year,
Susan became terribly ill and it was discovered she had Stage III ovarian
cancer. She died on May 23 but a few days before that, I had a dream that I
went to visit her in Springfield and she was standing there waiting for me when
I got off the bus. “Come on,” she said, in that smoky voice of hers. “Let me
show you my town.”
I woke with an empty
heart and the knowledge that I’d probably never see her again. But I hope some
day she’ll be waiting for me when I get off the bus. And I’ll say, “Hey, darlin’!
Come and show me your town.”
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