Edward spoke to his aunt with a well-rehearsed but genuinely felt patience. “We were discussing the marquee. It isn’t big enough, and there’s only room for two names. That’s why I’m not up there. If the company were bigger, they’d probably list all the actors.”
Christine’s eyes showed a bit of life as cognitive wrinkles formed round her temples. She remembered again. Edward was her nephew, but more like her son, and he was starring in a play. Or was he? “But you are in the play, dear?”
“Yes. For sure, Christine. I’ve got a big part.”
Maternal confidence returned to her voice. “Oh, I’m so proud of you. Your mother would be proud too. I just know it. I’m terribly excited to see the inside. It’s been ages since I was in a theater.”
Past the front of house, a short hallway led to two-hundred seats facing a fifty-foot stage. The auditorium was a grand hall with a burnished, golden-brown hardwood floor. A single wide light shined over the three clearly defined sets. At stage left, a dining table covered with silverware and plates, in the center, a living room with a posh-looking sofa, and on the right, a twenty-foot black tower with the titular balcony on top. Two offices overlooked the audience from the back, and far above the seats, a horseshoe-shaped catwalk housed the lights. The ends of the catwalk hung ten feet from the stage.
Christine strained into the last seat of the darkened back row. “This was a splendid idea. If I came during a real performance,” she tittered, “it would be too much for my nerves. I hope I don’t fall asleep. You know how awful I snore.”
“Does it bring back memories?” asked Edward.
“Memories of what, dear? I’ve never been here, have I?”
He sighed. “I meant memories of your acting days.”
A chortle escaped her mouth. “I was never a real actor. Not like you. Not like…this. Although, I will say that balcony reminds me of a play I did at The Renaud. It was called Jezebel something or other. I was a princess in a tower. There were knights all around me, riding on broomsticks, no less. It took quite a bit of concentration not to burst out laughing at them all clicking around the stage.”
He tried to check his watch in the dark. “I suppose it’s time for me to get ready. Will you be all right back here alone?”
Christine thought long and hard about the question. “Where’s the toilet?” Edward motioned toward a door near the fire exit. “Then I’ll be fine. Don’t fret over me.” Her knuckles trembled against her lips. “I had some advice for you. What was it?”
“You can tell me later. I really should get to the dressing room. Costume, make-up, the whole shebang.”
“No, I’ve got it.” Her eyes lit up. “I’ve remembered now. If you forget a line, say something in the spirit of what the line was. The audience doesn’t care when you flub bits of dialogue. They only care about the sweep of the thing. Good luck, dear.”
Edward headed down the aisle, hopping onto the pine floor of the stage. As he wiped a bit of psychosomatic sweat from his head, the sound of Maura Lewis’s fluty, liquid voice came from behind a slit in the curtain.
“What’s doing, Eddie?” Maura absently chewed the ends of her blue-black bob. The torn nylon over her knee, which had been yanked repeatedly, revealed a small rainbow-colored bruise. She leaned to one side, pulling on the curtain to maintain her tortured posture. “Did you bring your auntie?”
Edward waved an arm at the seats. “She’s in the back. Not feeling very sociable, I’m afraid.”
Maura called out. “Hello, Miss Filius!” Her voice reverberated before vanishing into the darkness of the auditorium. After a few seconds she asked, “Why isn’t she answering me?”
“Dunno. She might already be asleep.”
“You said she was old, but is she uh…” Maura twirled a finger around the temple of her lovely head. “Plum loco en la cabeza? I mean, official like?”
Edward moved closer, whispering so Christine wouldn’t hear. “Just a rough day. She’s fine.”
“Eddie, I wanted to ask you something,” Her eyes drifted downward over her freckled face. “Are you still going to the hospital after rehearsal.”
“Yeah.”
“For a delivery?”
He nodded. “Garfield Hospital. Why?”
“Acksherly, I was planning on going that way, and I was wondering if I could get a ride.”
“Of course, I—”
“But then I was thinking that maybe you wanted to go with me.” Maura’s foot kicked an invisible object. “See, David Brouthers is having himself a shindig tonight.” She made eye contact. “Do you want to come?”
Edward’s mouth moved, but he didn’t say anything. The plan had been to ask Maura out after the play was finished. He had never expected her to take the first step.
The silence lasted so long that she finally blurted out, “You don’t have to, I’m just spitballing.”
“I thought the party was next week.”
A wry smile formed at one corner of her mouth. “Well, yeah, a fella, he can have more than one party. David’s having one next week and he’s having one tonight. I just thought I’d ask you—”
“What kind of crowd is it?”
“Oh, you’ve never seen anything like a David Brouthers shindig. Guaranteed. His dad owns a building up north…Wait, why am I whispering?”
“Because I was whispering. You’re copying me subconsciously.”
“I’m such a lamebrain. Anywho, the building is um… whatdyacallit?” She snapped her fingers. “Oh, you know.”
“Apartments? Offices?”
“That’s it—dilapidated. The plumbing doesn’t work and the floor’s ripped up. It’s going to get torn down next year so David doesn’t care what happens to the joint. His shindigs can get a lil’ crazy. Acksherly, a lot crazy. After everyone gets drunk enough, there’s usually a séance or—”
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, I’ll go with you.”
“Really?” Maura gave him a toothy grin. “Swell. I promise we’ll have fun. I’ll tag along with you and your auntie after rehearsal.”
Edward frowned. “Oh, but I still have to stop at the hospital. Then I have to drop Christine off at home. What time do we have to be there?”
“We can show up any old time. And, I don’t mind waiting. It’s no skin off my ear.”
He tilted his head at her. “Nose.”
“Huh?”
“Nose. It’s no skin off my nose.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s ear,” Maura said.
“Never. No one has ever said that before you said it just now.”
“Why would skin come off your nose?”
“Why would it come off your ear?”
She shrugged. “Maybe it’s an Ohio saying.”
They squeezed through the narrow wing on the way to the dressing room where Allison Miller sat next to her beau, fiddling with a rhinestone hair clip in front of her mirror. A large assortment of old clothing filled the wardrobe, causing a must to linger over the redolent sawdust trapped in the nooks and crannies throughout the room.
Maura wrapped her arms around Allison from behind, pecking her on the cheek. “Adorable.”
“Oh, please.” Allison’s hair was so dense and stridently cut that it made a sort of wool-knit cap around the top of her head. Jenny had suggested the look as a representation of upper-class chic. “I miss my long locks. Look at me.” She pouted. “I’m a little Roman boy come to life.”
Timothy Brown’s head remained buried in the morning paper. “I call her Claudius. Still ought to need a shield for the full effect though.”
Maura tossed her purse over a chair. “Jeeze Louise, Allie. You’re a looloo, and the hair suits you. It’s a very popular cut. Besides, you’ll always have a great rack. No haircut can take that away from you.”
Allison chuffed. “Jenny must have taken one look at me standing next to Lisa and decided right then and there to have me all frumped up. It’s unendurable.” Sh
e poked at Timothy’s newspaper. “Honey, what is so fascinating about the news that you can’t take a moment to tell me how wrong I am?”
“Eight dead, twenty-two wounded. Jesus Harold Christ.”
Edward looked at the article over Timothy’s shoulder. “From the bombing?”
Timothy smashed the pages together. “No, Eddie, from the Cubs game. Yes, from that bombing.” His face grew suddenly haggard, his eyelids drooping. “They done killed three office clerks and five regular Joes. One of ’em in a goddamned stroller.”
Allison bent the clip back and forth, searching for the right position. “Do they know who did it?”
He shook his head. “FBI’ll have to find out.”
Edward took hold of the paper, searching for the front page. “Why can’t the police do it?”
“Are you kidding?” Timothy asked. “Chicago cops’re nothing but a bunch of Mick monkeys. Can’t even match their socks. They still haven’t done figured out who killed the mayor two years back.”
“Hey, genius.” Allison punched Timothy’s shoulder. “I’m Irish.”
An involuntary snigger formed on his mouth. “Everyone got themselves some atrocity in the family history. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
She forced the clip into her hair. It pushed down at an odd angle so she tried again, growing more frustrated. “Fiddlesticks! Would you help me, babe? My hair’s so tight, I can’t get it to stay where it’s supposed to.”
When Timothy stood, his broad shoulders stretched against his cotton undershirt, leaving the short sleeves misshapen over his biceps. He gently shimmied the fake bauble back and forth until it rested in its proper place. “You’re looking good for a boy.” He kissed the top of her head.
Maura glanced at Lisa’s table. “Where is grandma? She’s usually the first one here.”
Lisa’s heels made hollow clicks on the stage as she walked across the balcony’s shadow. Rowan’s prediction had been correct. A night of fitful fever dreams led to veins of bloodshot panic sprouting from her flawed irises. The second hand of her watch ticked forward like a timer and her ribs compressed over her stomach, producing shallow, wholly unsatisfying breaths. She poised herself just outside the dressing room, listening to the chit chat of her cast mates.
Nothing from the pre-show routine suggested anything unusual. Maura mashed a nearly unusable nub of lipstick against her mouth and left a cherry kiss on her mirror for luck.
Timothy’s mouth rounded over a plum, ripping off half of it in a single bite. “When the big cities burn down, the country’ll have all the food. Y’all don’t know how to hunt or how to farm. All gonna starve to death.”
Edward stumbled about in his nervous little steps, slapping at his cheeks while mangling an array of tongue twisters. “Pad kid poured curd pulled cod. Pad kid perked… Pak did… Drat, I had it!”
Allie hid her naked body behind the folding screen, damning imagined fat on her thighs. Everything seemed normal. Lisa quietly settled into her chair and opened the boxes of makeup and jewelry.
Allison stuck her head over the screen. “If Jenny says anything more about the vacation scene, I’m going to have myself a conniption fit. She’s been at my throat all week.”
Maura strayed over to Lisa’s table and pressed her fingers along the jagged sharp ends of the copper necklace. “Allie, if you got something to say to Jenny, you should say it directly to her. I could go for some entertainment today.”
“She’d never listen, too busy being right about everything.” Allison turned to Lisa’s dour face. “I don’t mean to talk bad about your sister in front of you, but it has become the stuff of farce. Jenny probably needs a good stiff poke. It might do wonders for her personality.”
Lisa rubbed her throbbing temples. “Maybe you could show a little empathy. Opening night is tomorrow. Jenn’s scared to death.”
“And what of me? You don’t think I’m scared? A director is meant to inspire confidence in the actors. She never says anything bad about your performance, not even a suggestion. I did the vacation scene the same way for five weeks. Not a word. Suddenly I’m not doing it big enough, whatever that means.”
Maura picked up Lisa’s smoky-glass ball earrings and twiddled them between her fingers. “They look just like pearls.” She held them against her lobes. “Why don’t you wear dangle earrings? Earrings are so precious when they hang low.”
Lisa kept her focus on her eyeliner in the mirror. “Because pearl studs are worn by affluent women, and Margaret Hunt is very wealthy.”
Maura laid them back on the red silk and pointed at the compact box at the table’s corner.“Why do you wear the mole? No one can see it.”
Lisa looked down at the black speck in the case. “Because I know it’s there.” Her pinkie pressed against the tiny mole and applied it to her cheek. “Just like that, I’m Margaret Hunt.”
While the cast readied themselves backstage, the door to the office behind the last row of seats swung open. The handle had slammed into the plaster so many times it now nestled into a slowly growing dent on the wall. Jenny Pluviam waddled her body down the stairs and through the middle aisle, an unlit Beechnut clamped between her teeth. Her head remained tilted down as she walked with hunched shoulders. In a husky, cigarette-worn voice, she called out. “Grizz,” the stump at the end of her right arm pointed at him on the stage, “a word.”
Grizz rolled up his sleeves, exposing bony forearms. A swear came from under his breath. “What’s the rumpus, my dear?”
“God, Grizzy, where do I start?” Jenny stopped just before the stage, her hand on her hip.
He gave a weary smile. “Beginning’s the best place. That’s where most things start.”
She moved up the three short steps on the stage to the ladder behind the balcony. Her foot pushed against the second rung, causing it to creak.
Grizz nodded. “I said I would replace the ladder. It’ll be done tonight.”
“It still squeaks when they climb up.”
“I said—”
“You said you’d take care of it a week ago. Opening night is tomorrow. It would have been nice for Lisa and Eddie to rehearse with the actual ladder they’re going to use during the play.”
Grizz ground his bent teeth. “Yes, ma’am.”
“It has to be silent and safe. Mostly silent. We’re still missing three shelves worth of books from behind the sofa—”
“The books are at my apartment, I’ll bring them tonight too.”
“—and for God’s sake, fix that chair at the dining table. Maura can’t sit down for her scene. I realize you know jack shit about acting, but imagine trying to perform, worried about falling on your heater.”
Grizz pulled a Chesterfield from the breast pocket of his flannel shirt. “Yeah, that’d be rough.”
“We’re behind the eight ball.” Jenny pinched his leathery cheek. “Please, tell me everything’s going to be okay, Grizzy.”
He lit his cigarette. “We’re all ducky. Anything else?”
“Yes, Lisa’s light. We’ll talk about it when the cattle come.” Jenny screamed, her voice ringing throughout the theater. “Actors, time to play!”
All the makeup was applied, the costumes donned, and the accessories added. The five actors came down the wing and reconvened on the stage. And now, there were seven: Lisa, Jenny, Allison, Timothy, Edward, Maura, and Grizz. One of them had planned the perfect murder.
A thick silence, built from anticipation, overtook the theater. The cast stood across the middle of the stage, facing their director in the front row. Jenny said, “Congratulations. You made it to the last rehearsal. I wasn’t so sure we would survive. Today is a great day for you but a sad one for me. It’s the last day I get to boss you around. You see, once opening night rolls around, the play no longer belongs to the director or the writer, it belongs to the actors. I’m confident it’s being left in capable hands. So, one last rodeo.” She took a long drag and then crushed the Beechnut under her shoe. “First off,
I want to see everyone using their ears this morning. We will be listening to each other on stage. Sometimes we don’t do that. Sometimes we just wait for the other person to stop talking. The game is simple, action and reaction. Timothy—”
“Ahh, shit.”
“Stop waiting for a laugh. You might not get one from the audience and you can’t just stand there like a dope on a rope waiting for something that isn’t coming. I don’t understand why you’re trying to time audience reactions during rehearsal when we don’t have an audience. Not too bright, is it?”
“I’m practicing. I don’t want them to miss my next line cause they’re laughing. That love-letter scene, during the preview, the critics didn’t hear dang near half of it.”
“You can fart around all day with the pencil, crossing stuff out, scribbling on another sheet, there are any number of things you can do if the audience gets too loud. What you can’t do is plan a pause between every line. You only began doing it this week, and it’s pissing me off. Speaking of newly acquired blunders—”
Edward covered his face. “I’m sorry.” He shook his head. “The worst part is I don’t even know I’m doing it.”
“Just find your light, Eddie. It’s not hard. It’s that shiny thing right in front of you. When you talk with Allison about the neighbors, you can walk anywhere near the bookcase, you can even lean on either side. Just stay away from the darkness. And stop hiding yourself in general. You’ve started looking away from the audience. We want to see your face.”
“I got the idea that he’s kind of dead. I’m almost playing a shadow.”
She put her stump in the air. “Stop with the ideas. Great performances have nothing to do with thinking. While we’re on the subject of that scene—”
The Opening Night Murders Page 3
