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Summary
Chapter 15
Lara wakes and heads to the orchard, where her daughters and Joe are already picking. They briefly discuss how sad The Promised Man was, and then Lara continues recounting her experience during the rehearsals for Fool for Love. The small cast were all drinking real alcohol on set and had to cut many sessions short due to drunkenness. One day while playing tennis with Sebastian and Pallace, Duke, having consumed tequila all morning, vomits and has to sit out. Sebastian steps in to give a now-unoccupied Lara a tennis lesson, which she feels totally invigorated by, but midway through, she leaps to make a serve and collapses onto the court. She feels like she’s been shot, which the athletic Sebastian recognizes as a sign that she’s ruptured her Achilles tendon.
In the present, Lara’s daughters ask about the injury, starting to bicker with one another about which part of the story is the most important. Lara confirms that the rupture was complete, forcing her to be off her feet for six months. Nell puts together that this injury made Lara drop out of both Our Town and Fool for Love, which obligated Pallace to take over her roles. Emily is angry that Nell cares about the play and not the injury. Nell bursts into tears, and Lara sees in a flash that the weeping is partly for her, and partly because Nell is also feeling fear and loss for her own stalled career. Just as Lara’s time in Tom Lake was cut short by the injury at the peak of her youth and beauty, Nell’s acting career has been ruptured by the pandemic. Back in the 80s again, Lara describes how Pallace said a distracted goodbye to her before leaving to prepare for her new roles, and Sebastian drove her to the hospital.
Chapter 16
Nell asks Lara about her time in the hospital, and wonders if Joe ever went to see her. Joe somewhat sheepishly admits that he did, while she slept. He pretended to be her brother and sat by her bedside. He always left before Lara woke, because he didn’t want her to know how deeply he felt for her at that point. The tone of Lara’s story changes as she resumes it, explaining that after her injury, Bill Ripley calls her unexpectedly. Her movie is finally being released, and despite the fact that she’s injured, he needs her back in town for promotional work. She knows she can’t walk or six weeks, so she refuses to agree immediately although he pressures her, and abruptly hangs up the call. Sebastian comes to pick her up from the hospital and take her back to Tom Lake to finish out her summer contract. At her insistence, he puts her in a wheelchair and brings her to watch Pallace perform as Emily in Our Town. In the present, her daughters interrupt her and press her about why she never acted again after her injury. Lara thinks about how much she loved Emily’s world, but that she knew she would never play her again after seeing Pallace do it. The girls ask her how Pallace was as Emily, and Lara says, truthfully, that she was spectacular.
Analysis: Chapters 15 & 16
As Lara recounts her experiences after rupturing her Achilles tendon and withdrawing from both Tom Lake plays, Tom Lake sheds light on how the burden of moral and ethical responsibility shows up in different ways for different people. Lara also begins to demonstrate frustration with her daughters in this section, as she feels torn between annoyance and hurt at Emily’s behavior and her usual protective, maternal love. Lara’s horrific injury initially seems like a horrible stroke of luck, but it is important to note that though Duke plies her with tequila in their Fool for Love rehearsal, the injury is not anyone’s fault but Lara’s: she literally does it to herself. She hurts her leg by overextending herself playing tennis against Sebastian, whom she wants to impress. Her Achilles tendon rupture forces her out of both Our Town and Fool for Love within a day. Although it’s painful and immensely frustrating, it also does the good work of removing her from the chaotic, alcohol-fueled environment of the theater and from Duke’s immediate orbit. This injury, while disruptive, ultimately steers Lara away from a life that was becoming increasingly unstable and dangerous. It also brings the idea of the human body’s physical vulnerability to the reader’s attention for the first time since Albert Long’s hemorrhage. Duke and his co-cast members have been burning the candle at both ends and abusing their bodies. Lara’s injury stops her from participating in the daily ritual of getting drunk onstage. Although it halts the momentum of her acting career and pushes Duke and Pallace together, the Achilles rupture also prevents Lara from continually enabling Duke’s alcoholism onstage.
In the present day, when Nell begins to cry after learning about her mother’s injury, her tears reveal more than just sympathy for Lara’s past struggles. Nell’s reaction speaks to her own fears about how the pandemic will affect her acting career. Nell is now forced to cope with circumstances beyond her control, just as she fears that her mother might have been forced to do in her Broadway auditions. Nell only has a certain amount of time during which her youth and beauty will help her succeed as an actor. She knows that she’s relying on a depreciating asset, and also knows that she might be pushed into sexual situations in exchange for attention from directors and executives. The conversation about Charlie between Lara and Nell points to how responsibility and sacrifice often go hand in hand, particularly in creative fields. Lara wishes she could tell Nell that none of her past matters and that she’ll never be hurt, but she can’t. She knows that being an actress involves interacting with people who have the power and desire to take advantage of vulnerable young women, and she feels tremendously sad and helpless to stop it. For her own part, Nell is beginning to understand that no matter how hard she and her sisters may work, external factors—whether it’s an injury, inevitable physical aging, or sexual harassment—can dictate the course of their lives. Lara’s Achilles rupture acts as a lens through which Nell views her own frustrations.
The idea that people must always choose between two paths recurs as Lara watches Pallace perform as Emily in Our Town. As Lara sits in a wheelchair and watches Pallace step into her shoes, she thinks about how much she loves the world of Emily Webb. Watching Pallace is bittersweet, because it makes Lara realize that she may never play the role again, and that even if she did, Pallace’s version of the character might be better. This moment is also a subtle metaphor for Lara’s conceptual understanding of parenthood. Pallace’s version of Emily’s “life” is totally different from Lara’s, even though the two women are saying the same lines and playing the same part. Just as Lara must step aside for Pallace to take over the role of Emily, she must eventually step aside for her daughters to create their own lives. She has to let them interpret their roles as young women on their own terms. As hard as Lara works to set an example for her daughters to build on, she also a responsibility to let go and allow the next generation of Nelsons to ‘play Emily.’
