“Are you hungry, Connie?” I asked. “Gene’s back in the kitchen getting ready for opening, but he’s been having me test out new French fry concoctions. I’m sure he’d love your opinion.”
“French fry concoctions? Any good?”
“Fabulous, I’m afraid to say.” And as if by magic, Gene handed three plates of fries through the kitchen opening. He also handed me a cheeseburger with avocados and salsa, Connie’s favorite.
“Connie darlin’,” Gene said, “let me know what you think of those cinnamon French fries. Sully seems quite taken with them but I’m not sure I trust her judgment.”
“Hey now,” I said, “just because I’m addicted to grease and sugar does not mean I’m a pushover for anything in that food group.”
“Anything you say, Sully,” Gene said. “If you ladies want anything else, just let me know. We’ve got another hour or so before we open. I may need some help behind the bar tonight. Connie, if you’re free—”
“Not tonight, sorry, Gene,” Connie said. “I can help you set up, though.”
“Good enough, then,” Gene said. “I’ll take what I can get. Your fault there’s so much to do. You’ve got me on a cleaning jag.”
I walked the plates over to the table Connie and I were sharing. She pulled another table over so we’d have more room to work. Then she went back to her phone, fingers flying.
“Who are you texting?” I asked.
“Not texting, tweeting,” she said. “I’m letting folks know about the testing of French fries. Suggesting we think about beer pairings. It may get a few folks to drop by.”
“You’re quite the pair, aren’t you?” I asked. I noticed Connie blush. Since Gene had been a friend of my father’s, I always thought of him as my father’s age. But truth to tell, he was probably a generation younger than my dad. Connie was about ten years older than I was, with her youngest finally away at college. So maybe there was more going on between them than Gene just giving Connie a part-time job to help her make ends meet. He had been a widower for ten years, and nothing would make me happier than to see him with somebody. Same went for Connie, though I had to admit I’d always pictured her as alone. I thought of her as so dedicated to her work and her kids that there wasn’t room for anything else. Obviously I was projecting. Just because I’d decided to fly solo that winter didn’t mean that everyone else needed to make the same decision.
I looked over at Connie as she took a bite of her cheeseburger and closed her eyes.
“Gene makes the best burgers,” she said.
“I agree. I could live on them.”
“You sort of do, don’t you?” Connie smiled. “You’re here every day, practically.”
“I am,” I said. “You know how Gene takes care of me. Being with him reminds me of my dad, and I like that feeling. I don’t know how I would’ve made it without him.”
“I appreciated him offering me some work after A Christmas Carol closed,” Connie said. “When the car broke down last month, I wasn’t able to come in as much. But he’s kept an open-door policy, which I really appreciate. He’s a nice guy.”
“Just a nice guy?” I asked. The color rose on her cheeks again and she smiled a half smile.
“None of your business,” she said. “So listen, have you heard from Dimitri?”
“Not directly, but Harry called a little while ago. He’s worried about Dimitri. He’s also worried about himself. It sounds a little tricky down in Boston.”
“Tricky is one word for it,” Connie said, taking a bite of a regular fry. I pushed the cinnamon fries toward her and gestured toward the frosting dipping sauce. She looked dubious but picked one up and dipped it into the frosting. “Wow, that’s good,” she said, picking up another fry. “The production sounds like a nightmare to me. Dimitri asked me to come down. The Bay Rep has a resident stage manager, so they don’t need me for that. Dimitri said he’d try to figure out another official job for me.”
“Besides his minder?”
Connie laughed. “I always enjoy the challenge. I’m taking a bus at five o’clock.”
“Where are you going to stay?”
“With him, for now. The company rents some apartments for out-of-town artists and Dimitri got a two-bedroom. He wants to get me on the Bay Rep’s payroll. He’s talking to … Bat?”
“Babs,” I corrected her. “Short for Barbara. It doesn’t really suit her as a nickname. She’s a little more no-nonsense than a ‘Babs’ sounds. You’ve met her, I think. She’s married to Hal Maxwell.”
“Hal Maxwell, the advertising guy from Boston?”
“That’s the one,” I said. Of course, “advertising guy” was an understatement.
“Do you know Babs?” Connie asked.
“You know how small our world is. I’ve met her a few times. How are she and Dimitri getting along?”
“Okay I guess,” Connie said. “The only complaint he has is that she keeps telling them there’s no budget for changes. But he says you’ve helped him get used to that over the years.”
“From what Harry said, it sounds like this is trickier than just throwing money at the problem.”
“In order to save this production, Dimitri feels like he’s got to make some bold moves. He promises he can do them on a shoestring. He just needs to bring in his own people to help.”
“Tell you what, Connie. Let me give Babs a call. Sounds like this is a managerial nightmare. Who knows, maybe she needs a sounding board too. No promises, but I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks, Sully. That’s all any of us can ask,” Connie said, finishing up the fries. She stacked up the dishes and stood up.
“You don’t happen to have Babs’s number—”
Connie took her phone out of her pocket, her fingers flying over the screen. “Just texted it to you.”
“You’re always prepared, aren’t you?”
“Stage managers. It’s in our blood. Always be prepared.” Connie picked up the plates and walked back toward the kitchen. I opened the text and hit the number.
Babs picked up the phone on the second ring. I’ll admit I was surprised. I never picked up calls from unfamiliar numbers. Every time I thought better of myself and decided to pick up an unknown number, I got bitten—relegated to the charms of a political campaign or a computer voice who wanted my input, my money, or both. No, better to let voicemail pick up and then call folks back. Maybe running a larger theater in Boston didn’t afford you the luxury of screening calls.
“Babs Allyn,” she said. I did the same thing, answering the phone with my name rather than a “hello?” Manners were morphing in this new century, mostly not for the better.
“Babs, it’s Sully Sullivan. From the Cliffside—”
“Sully, how great it is to hear from you. You saved me going through my desk desperately looking for your business card. I wanted to get in touch with you about our production of Romeo and Juliet. Have you spoken to Dimitri lately?”
“I haven’t spoken to Dimitri,” I said, waiting for her to go on. This was her theater, her story to tell. I certainly knew how I’d feel if someone tried to tell my story. Besides, I didn’t want to let Babs know that Harry was telling tales out of school.
“Well, I’d be surprised if Dimitri doesn’t call you tonight. He stepped into quite a mess, none of it his making, and his frustration is mounting—”
“Dimitri is enormously talented. He can be given to drama sometimes—”
“Given what’s going on, he really isn’t being that dramatic. He’s asked whether Connie … ?”
“Connie Reed. Resident stage manager at the Cliffside.”
“Right, right. He’s invited her down. He wanted to bring her on as stage manager, but that would be tricky. Our stage manager is a member of the company and has a season contract.”
“Connie’s terrific. Very tale
nted.”
“I’m sure she is. I’m going to suggest to Dimitri that Connie be his assistant director, which will get her on payroll but will keep the peace in the company. It’ll also give her more agency than if she came on as his assistant.”
“Isn’t there an assistant director already?” I asked. The Bay Rep had a strong mentorship program, and they always had assistant directors.
“A woman named Marcia Bartusiak—”
“Marcia interned with us last summer. I think I may have written her a recommendation for your program. She’s wonderful, knows Dimitri well …”
“She’s excited about Dimitri coming on board and decided to stay to work with him on the show. It’s been helpful for him, since she’s been here all season.”
“She knows Connie too. They’ll both be good for Dimitri.”
“And there’s enough work for both of them, trust me. We have to do some recasting today. Dimitri suggested calling someone named Stewart Tracy. He said he’s worked at the Cliffside?”
“Several times.” Stewart Tracy was a very talented, very handsome, very charismatic actor who I knew very well. Very, very well. “He’s a terrific actor, and more than capable of stepping in late in the process. He saved our bacon in December with A Christmas Carol. I don’t know if we could’ve pulled that show off without him.”
“I’d love to hear more about that whole situation,” Babs said. “I didn’t know you used to be a cop until I read it in the paper after everything—after it was all over.”
“Well, I don’t need my cop skills very often in this job.”
“I may need some of them, but not for Romeo and Juliet. Yet. Listen, I don’t suppose you’d be willing to come down too, just to stay for a couple of days and help settle things down?”
“Come to Boston? I guess I could. My work right now is mostly on computers and in the cloud, as they say.”
“The cloud is both a blessing and a curse. I don’t trust it completely, do you?”
“I don’t, and neither does my accountant. He has me backing up everything in three places, including on memory sticks I bring home once a week in case something happens at the office and/or to our online backup system.”
“Oh, that’s a good idea. I’m going to steal it. After this show opens. So, what do you say about a road trip?
“It might be fun to be around a rehearsal again. I can probably crash with Harry.”
“Harry Frederick? That would be great. It would save us some money we can put somewhere else.”
“I know that game,” I said. “Take from one pot to add to another.”
“That’s how I run the business. As long as the bottom line stays the same and we meet our ticket goals, it’s all good. On this show, those two scenarios are a challenge, but I’m trying.”
“I’ve been there, more than once. I was worried sick about A Christmas Carol, but it ended up making a decent amount with some creative scheduling of additional performances.”
“I can’t wait to hear the stories about that. Also, honestly, while you’re here, I’d love to see if you could help me sort through another mess that’s risen up lately. Personal, not professional. I need some advice.”
“I’ve always found talking things through helps a lot. Happy to be a sounding board. In fact, I just had a board member talk me through a budget for a grant I’m working on for the Century Foundation that’s due in a couple of weeks—”
“Jerry and Mimi Cunningham’s foundation? I know them well. Too well. That’s another story. Actually, they’re hosting a reception I have to go to tomorrow. Command performance by my husband. Maybe Hal could get you on the list. Will you be in town by then? It always helps to pre-game things a bit with them, chat up your proposal. I don’t want to rush you, of course. But I do need to learn some of your Dimitri techniques ASAP.”
I laughed. “No real techniques, but I’m happy to teach you what works for me. Tell you what—I’ll drive Connie down this afternoon,” I said. Connie had come back to the table and put down two cups of coffee. I lifted my mug up as if toasting her. “Look forward to seeing you tomorrow, Babs.” I ended the call and double checked to make sure the line was clear.
“Whoa, you’re a magician. Was it hard to talk her into that?” Connie asked.
“That’s the odd part. It wasn’t hard at all.” I texted Harry, asking if I could stay with him for a few days.
For sure, Harry texted back. There are keys in the bottom of the urn on the front step just for cases like this. Go to second floor, find your guest room on the right!
Be there tonight, I texted back.
He sent a smiley face emoji and a martini glass emoji in response.
I got a twinge in my gut, the kind of twinge I used to have back when I was a cop. The kind of twinge that told me there was more to the story, more to the situation than first appeared. I’d learned not to ignore my gut back then, but now? It was only a play. It wasn’t life or death.
Or so I thought.
• Three •
I was always a quick packer. It helped that I wore all black these days, and layers were my friend. Connie and I were on the road by five o’clock. We spent most of the drive to Boston going over my grant proposal for the Century Foundation. I knew what a production center should have—I’d included washers, dryers, steamers, and racks for the costume shop; tools, lumber storage, and a painting room for scenery. But when I’d talked with technicians and run things by Connie, the wish list had gotten more specific, and the opportunities for compromise got greater. The Cliffside wasn’t looking to build a palace for production; we just needed a practical place to store, build, paint, administrate, and create. Connie had been instrumental in helping me focus while I was working on the narrative for the grant. We’d decided to include both a covered lanai to go over part of the audience and a rebuilt stage for the amphitheater. I was hoping that a grand vision of our facilities would make our proposal more enticing.
“So what happens if this funding doesn’t come through? I suppose it could wait until next year,” Connie said.
“No, I don’t want to wait. It took too long to get the town council to approve the use of the land. Even if all we do is build the shell of the production center, with two floors for concessions and box office this summer, we need to get the barn raised this spring. I don’t want folks to have time to change their minds. ”
“Barn raised?”
“Dimitri and I have been calling it a barn raising. An architecturally appropriate barn, of course. Colonial clapboard painted white, black trim, red doors. Large opening on the side facing the theater for load-ins and load-outs. All very New England from the outside.”
“And very concrete, strong, and open on the inside, from the looks of the drawings,” Connie said, flipping through the documents.
“Very concrete. We’ve already poured the slab.”
“Is that what that is? I saw it by the theater but couldn’t imagine that construction had really started.”
“We had the ground flattened at the end of the summer, as you know, so we could get a jump start this spring. There was that warm snap in October, and someone in town offered us his extra concrete from a project he was working on.”
“Extra concrete? That was enough?”
“Do you know Ray Cooney?”
“Who doesn’t? He’s one of the town elders.”
“He’s a cranky old buzzard. He was also friends with my father. He wanted to make sure the town council couldn’t pull a fast one after the first thaw, so I think he pretended the concrete was extra. Anyway, the first part of the project is done. They’ll lay plumbing and electrics over the slab and box them in. This is going to be a functional building.”
“It’s so exciting,” Connie said. I looked over at her as she studied the drawings. She’d started grinning from ear to ear. The project
had been on the dream list for years, well before my time with the Cliffside. The happiness on her face made me even more determined to pull it off.
“The goal is to make the building as fire-safe, snow-proof, and rodent-deterring as we can make it,” I began. “Solar panels on the roof to offset costs. Plus we’re going to be benefiting from the new school that’s being built. Getting extra concrete and other construction castoffs. The timing is tight, but by taking advantage of the construction goodwill and the fact that we aren’t being picky, we’ll save a fortune. Between you and me, Eric Whitehall is working on a bridge loan in case we need it. I’m hoping it won’t come to that—the project hits all the criteria for the Century Foundation and also a few other grants we’ve applied for. We’ll know where we stand by mid-March.”
“Sounds great,” Connie said. “Really great. We’ve been fantasizing about this for so long, I can’t believe we’re finally going to have a production space of our own.”
She sounded so happy, I didn’t dare burst her bubble. I was a wreck about the finances, but I kept moving forward. If not now, when? At least that was the plan. I had to take a leap of faith that it would all work out. Problem was, I was always lousy at jumping.
We got to Boston before we knew it and I set my phone GPS to the apartment where Dimitri was staying. I’d lived in Boston for years and knew my way around, but I’d come to depend on the traffic alerts and alternate routes the GPS told me about. There was a lot of construction going on these days, and many familiar paths were blocked.
With a Kiss I Die Page 3
