Tom Lake

Lara’s story resumes. The next morning, Lara, Duke, Sebastian, and Pallace drove to the cherry farm. Along the way, they stopped at an antique store, where Lara bought napkins to gift to Nelson’s aunt and uncle. From the moment they arrived, Lara felt an immediate connection to the place. Nelson welcomed all of them, despite the fact that they weren’t invited.

Duke admitted that the farm represented a different Michigan than the one he lived in. Nelson agreed, telling them about the magical summers he had spent there as a child. They all agreed that, while Tom Lake was beautiful, the farm was on another level.

In the present, Emily interrupts the story to confirm that Duke has been at their house. She then assumes that this is the story about the happiest day of Lara’s life because of Duke’s presence at the farm. She insists that Lara should’ve told her, but her sisters remind Emily that knowing that Duke had been there might have made her obsession worse. Nell points out that this story is about Lara.

Lara’s story resumes. When Nelson brought them inside the house, his aunt, Maisie, began adding place settings to the table. Maisie, who called Nelson “Joe,” reported that Joe said Lara was going to be a star when her movie came out. When Lara gave her the napkins as a hostess present, Maisie was deeply touched.

In the present, in her mind, Lara describes to Maisie the changes in the house that have happened over the years. Lara has kept many things that were Maisie’s, including the canisters in her kitchen, but the kitchen changed when they removed a wall. Now, she remembers how the kitchen was that day, when they were all crowded into it, and how young and beautiful they all were.

Lara’s story resumes. Joe introduced everyone to Maisie and her husband, Ken. Lunch was delicious, and ended with cherry pie. Duke told them that he had wanted to live in a place like this when he was young. After lunch, Joe gave them a tour of the orchards, which had been in his family for five generations. Sebastian asked who would take the farm over from Ken and Maisie, and Joe admitted that since their children weren’t interested, there was a chance the farm wouldn’t be around much longer.

Duke quoted Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, saying that he’d always wanted to play Lopakhin. Lara wondered if Joe would cast Duke in his next play. Joe took them up the hill to the family cemetery; then they cut through the thick dark woods surrounding the farm and came out on a beach on Lake Michigan.

In the present, when Joe comes down to the beach, Nell tells him that his identity in the story has been revealed at last. He laughs that he had asked Lara to the farm as a date—but then she had brought Duke as her date. When Nell asks if he was already in love with Lara, he answers honestly that he wasn’t, because she was so clearly in love with someone else.

Nell and Maisie don’t understand why Joe quit being a famous director to be a cherry farmer. Emily brings the conversation back to Duke again; Joe says that Duke would’ve quit acting that day to grow cherries. Emily reminds everyone that the topic was supposed to be the happiest day of Lara’s life: When the day began, she was with Duke, but when it ended, she was with Joe. Lara replies that it’s not that simple. Lara and Joe never dated at Tom Lake—they met again later, and fell in love. However, their daughters don’t believe them—they are convinced their parents fell in love at Tom Lake. Lara and Joe realize that because they’ve never told the whole story, their daughters filled in the rest by themselves.

Lara’s story resumes. The cast of Our Town was waiting behind the curtain for opening night. Lara comforted Uncle Wallace, who was nervous. She was not. However, she did get nervous about playing Mae in Fool for Love. They were rehearsing already, and she was terrible.

After opening night, Joe left for the cherry farm, but Our Town continued. Uncle Wallace’s ability to perform deteriorated. Finally, one night, Lara held him up through the third act, without the audience seeing. Gradually, all of the actors became aware of what was happening with Uncle Wallace, and helped her. After speaking the final lines of the play beautifully, Uncle Wallace collapsed onto Lara’s lap when the curtain fell. Blood poured from his mouth, soaking her dress. Eventually, an ambulance arrived and took him away, but they wouldn’t let Lara go with him. She was convinced that she could have saved him, and wondered why she kept acting instead of stopping the performance.

The next day, Lara was terrible in rehearsal. While everyone assumed it was because of Uncle Wallace, she knew it was because she was awful at the role. Finally, they called off rehearsals, and Lara went to the hospital to visit Uncle Wallace. Uncle Wallace survived, although he didn’t quit drinking and it was his last performance.

In the present, Nell brings up Uncle Wallace’s incapable understudy—she’s been waiting for him to reappear.

Lara’s story resumes. With Uncle Wallace in the hospital, the assistant director, Gene, went to find Lee, the understudy. But when Lee refused to step in, Joe returned to Tom Lake to play the Stage Manager himself.

In the present, Emily asks when Uncle Wallace died, and Lara and Joe try to remember. Maisie looks it up on her phone—Uncle Wallace died when he was 56, and Lara is now 57.

A neighboring farm is holding an outdoor movie night, with everyone socially distanced. Emily, Maisie, Nell, and Benny decide to go. Lara and Joe stay home, washing the dishes. Lara asks why Joe had accepted the role of Stage Manager, which meant driving from the farm three days each week. He only meant to do it until they found a replacement, but he continued because he was in love with her.

Lara’s memories resume. Lara went to Uncle Wallace’s cottage to pack his things, and Duke went with her. He looked through the man’s possessions and stole some prescriptions. Lara cried about having to play Mae even though she was terrible—she knew she was only suited to play Emily. Duke opened the freezer, discovered rows of vodka bottles, and opened one to take a swig.

Duke’s alcohol addiction was always a problem, but became much worse when rehearsals for Fool for Love began. The characters drank throughout the play, and Duke decided that they should drink real alcohol during rehearsals. Lara was the only one to object, but because she was also the only woman, they dismissed her. She joined in the drinking, although it meant that she was always drunk for the Our Town shows at night. Everyone else’s performances improved with drinking except hers. Each day between rehearsals, Lara went swimming with Duke because she was afraid he would drown if she didn’t.

In the present, Lara decides to go to the movie after all. She walks through the pear trees to the neighbors’ house, remembering that when the children were young, they only played with the neighbors in the daytime—they were all afraid to walk home through the pear trees at night.

She walks over the top of the hill and sees Duke’s face projected on a sheet. Families are scattered on the lawn, and Joe has also joined her daughters on their blanket. They are watching The Promised Man, the movie that turned Duke from a television star into a serious actor. He won an Oscar for his role as a man struggling with addiction, and trying to keep his life from falling apart.

It is a heartbreaking story. Lara remembers seeing it in the theater with Joe. They had decided to preview it, as Emily was deep into her fixation with Duke, and pestered them to let her see it. They both left the theater in tears, upset by Duke’s portrayal and the fact that the movie was too close to his real life. They never told Emily they saw the movie and later, she saw it herself, but didn’t tell them.

Now, Lara stands on the hill and watches her family watch the movie. She leaves early—she doesn’t want to see the movie again, and she wants to be asleep before they get home, so that she doesn’t have to talk about it.

The next morning, the girls are already out in the orchard when Lara wakes up. When she joins them, they avoid the topic of the movie until Joe brings it up. Lara can tell by their reaction that they dissected it last night. Joe asks Lara if the movie had been that sad the first time, and she says that it had. After Joe leaves, Nell asks Lara if Joe was good as the Stage Manager. Lara begins to tell the story of that summer again.

Lara’s story resumes. At Tom Lake, the cast of Fool for Love kept drinking. Sebastian still came out, but more often to see Pallace than Duke. One day, the director ended rehearsals early, and Sebastian agreed to play tennis with Duke. Duke, however, was so drunk he stopped the match to vomit, lying in the grass.

Lara played next and found that with some tequila in her system, she played better than ever. She even won one honest point against Sebastian. Because she was so good, Sebastian began encouraging and coaching her, until she suddenly dropped to the ground, feeling as if she’d been shot. Sebastian and Duke thought it was the heat, but Pallace, a dancer, immediately knew it was her Achilles tendon.

In the present, Lara’s daughters break into the story, surprised at this information that they never knew. She shows them the scar from the surgery. Nell immediately sees the implications: Lara couldn’t act for the rest of the summer, which means that Pallace, her understudy, played both Emily and Mae.

Lara’s story resumes. Pallace made it clear that Lara couldn’t go on stage that night and left to get ready to play Emily. Lara thought Duke would protest, but instead he asked Sebastian to drive Lara to the hospital. Sebastian carried her to his car, and Pallace gave her a bag packed with clothes and toiletries. Lara didn’t blame Pallace for being excited. In the car, Sebastian—familiar with the injury as an athlete—told Lara she would have to have surgery and wouldn’t be able to walk again for months.

In the present, Nell insists that if Joe had been there, he would’ve taken Lara to the hospital. He did go visit her in the hospital after the play, but she was asleep. Emily is disappointed that Sebastian didn’t stay at the hospital, but Lara had told him to go and see Pallace’s performance. At the time, she hadn’t thought to call her parents—she considered herself to be an adult.

Lara’s story resumes. In the hospital, Lara woke up to the phone ringing. It was the movie director Bill Ripley, calling to check on her—she had put him down as her emergency contact at Tom Lake. He wanted her to return to LA because her movie was finally coming out and he wanted her to do publicity. She pointed out that she’d just had surgery, and would be on crutches for six weeks. She wished her grandmother were there, but pressed on ahead alone.

When Lara was ready to check out, Sebastian picked her up. Duke and Pallace were both too drunk to come; Lara realized that Pallace was already slipping into the character of Mae. At Tom Lake, they moved Lara into Uncle Wallace’s old cottage, but there was no sign of Duke. Sebastian told her that Pallace was spectacular on stage. Lara fell asleep in the cottage and woke up to Duke kissing her.

In the present, Lara’s daughters break in to ask if Duke ever came to the hospital to see her. He did not. Maisie and Nell are not impressed by his lack of care. Lara never played Emily again; in fact, she never acted in anything again. They compare the end of her acting career at age 25 to their own circumstances during the pandemic, but Lara says they’re not comparable.

Lara’s story resumes. Lara attended Our Town that night in a wheelchair, taken by Joe. On the way, he showed her a sweet cherry tree that he’d found, different from the unkempt, neglected cherry trees on the rest of the property. As Stage Manager, Joe was different from Uncle Wallace, confident and trustworthy. Pallace was fantastic, making the role of Emily her own; Lara suddenly understood that she wasn’t Emily anymore.

Lara wondered why they hadn’t just cast Pallace as Emily from the beginning, but she heard murmurs in the audience about Pallace being Black. By the end of the play, however, everyone was entranced by Pallace’s interpretation of the role. Lara cried, both because Pallace was so good and because it was the end of Lara’s time in that world.