Peachy Scream

by Anna Gerard

  Feeling unwilling sympathy for the woman—chances were she really was earning that trophy wife salary—I gritted my teeth and nodded. “As long as you keep a reasonable distance from the doors and use an ashtray, I can make an exception under the circumstances.”

  Seemingly satisfied, Len returned his attention to his script. Susie flashed me a grateful smile, while Marvin snorted again. Harry, meanwhile, merely looked impatient.

  “If that takes care of the questions, let’s get started.” Then he paused and frowned. “We’re missing one person. Where’s Radney?”

  “Radney’s right here,” came a grim voice from the hall doorway.

  Radney Heller stalked into the dining room, a sheaf of papers clutched in one hand and the other balled into a fist. His dark features were set in anger, and he moved with jerky steps as if holding himself in check. Grimacing, he thrust the bundle toward the group in an accusatory fashion. I could see now that the printed pages appeared stained with some thick amber-colored liquid.

  Marvin was the first to speak up.

  “What’s the matter, Rad-Man?” he asked in a conciliatory tone. “Something leak in your shaving kit?”

  “An avoidable accident,” Tessa smugly spoke up before Radney could reply. “I always pack my toiletries in one of those zip plastic bags before putting them in my suitcase. That way, if something spills, nothing gets ruined.”

  “Oh, I do that, too.”

  This came from Susie, who was giving Tessa an approving nod. Warming to her subject, the younger woman went on: “Of course, that’s only when traveling by ground. When Len and I fly, I have to use those silly three-ounce travel bottles. You know, the ones the government says you have to …”

  “Thanks for your packing tips, Susie,” Radney cut her short with exaggerated politeness. “You, too, Tessa. But plastic bags aren’t worth a thing if someone sneaks into your luggage and deliberately loosens the cap on your body wash for you.”

  Chapter Five

  If Radney had been going for dramatic effect, he failed epically—at least, in my book. When it came to sabotage, messing with someone’s toiletries didn’t rise much above a juvenile prank. Still, being the dutiful innkeeper, I leaped from my chair to grab a folded tea towel off the sideboard.

  He gave me a stiff nod as he took the cloth. “Thanks, ma’am, but what would really help is for the person who did this to man up and admit to it. These were my script notes.”

  “Wait, Radney,” Harry interjected with a frown, sliding his chair back just a bit. “Are you really accusing someone in our group of sabotaging your toiletries? Who had the opportunity, and …”

  “And why would someone even bother?” Len smoothly finished for him.

  Radney gave the latter a hard look, but his reply was for everyone.

  “There was time enough when we were loading the luggage in the bus before we left Atlanta,” he said. “And after we got here, and everyone was waiting on the bathrooms, the luggage was just sitting there by the front door. Anyone could have messed with it. As for why …”

  “Assuming it was deliberate, all they did was soap up a few pages,” Susie cut him short, though her tone was consoling.

  “That’s right, Rad-Man,” Len added, and I was certain I wasn’t the only one to hear the sarcastic emphasis he put on Marvin’s nickname for the man. “Besides, you’re a clever enough fellow. I’m sure you can re-create anything that was lost.”

  Radney appeared to be on the verge of replying in a fashion unbecoming a thespian. Then, from the corner of my eye, I caught Susie’s little head shake in his direction in what seemed to be a signal between them.

  No one else seemed to have noticed it, and I swiftly turned my attention away from her. Could it be that Susie had a thing for one of her husband’s coworkers—and perhaps vice versa?

  Radney, meanwhile, swallowed and then let out a breath as he wrapped up the papers in my tea towel.

  “Okay, everyone’s right, it probably was just one of those things. And like Len said, it’s fresh enough in my head that I can re-create it. Let me get rid of this mess, and I’ll be right back so we can get started on the read-through.”

  I escorted him to the kitchen, where he disposed of his papers in the trash and then began washing the soap from his hands. Meanwhile, I took the towel to the laundry room and tossed it in the basket of “to-be-washed.” By the time I returned, he was drying his hands on a couple of paper towels, which he then proceeded to use to dab the sweat off his bald head.

  “Sorry, ma’am … Nina,” he corrected himself when I smiled and shook my head at his formality. “I didn’t mean to make a scene. But you get Len pulling his Mr. Bigshot routine …”

  “Yeah, I see how he can be a bit obnoxious,” I replied in a deliberate understatement. “But at least you’ve got Harry to rein him in while you’re here for the festival.”

  “Here, maybe. But in the real world …”

  Radney bared his teeth in a gesture that was less a smile than a grimace.

  “Harry probably told you that Len and I work for the same company.”

  When I nodded, he continued, “I might be head of R&D, but Len’s in charge of approving funds for my department. I’m pretty good at playing office politics, but that’s not always enough when it comes to dealing with Len. You don’t bow and scrape enough for him, he won’t hesitate to put the kibosh on your project, even though it could cost the company big time—and set you back when it comes to promotions.”

  I nodded again. Back when I’d worked in the corporate world, I’d run into my share of minor despots like Mr. Len Marsh. “I hear you. But you don’t really think he’d stoop to messing with your toiletries, do you?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past him to be that petty. And this isn’t the first incident. About a week ago …”

  “Hey, Rad-Man,” Marvin’s voice boomed through the closed swinging door between dining room and kitchen, interrupting whatever it was Radney meant to say. “You wanna get a move on? We can’t start rehearsals without you.”

  “Yeah, yeah, on the way,” Radney called back as the used paper towels joined his ruined pages in the trash. To me he said, “I think you’re right. For the next ten days I’ll let our boy Len be Harry’s problem.”

  He headed back through the connecting door, and I followed. Radney had piqued my curiosity in mentioning that there had been a previous incident, but not so much so that I felt the need to make him explain before he rejoined the others. Besides, I had enough on my plate keeping an eye on one Harold A. Westcott III. I didn’t need to get involved in the internal skirmishes of an amateur theater group.

  As Radney took the remaining empty seat at the table, Marvin clapped his beefy hands together and briskly rubbed them in anticipation of action.

  “All right, Spielberg, let’s get this show on the road.” Then, when Harry gave Marvin a lifted brow, the latter amended his demand with a meek, “Sorry, boss, it’s your show … I’ll shut up now.”

  I suppressed a grin. Obviously, Len was not the only troupe member who needed to be held in check.

  Seemingly satisfied that the pecking order had been restored, Harry opened his binder.

  “Very well, people, you received your assignments a month ago,” he began, “and I know as a group you manage a few informal rehearsals without me. Plus, most of you have performed Hamlet a time or two in the past, so we’re not coming to this cold. Now, let’s review the casting so that there are no questions.”

  He flipped to the next page and went on, “Keep in mind that, because we’re a small group, almost everyone has more than one role, and I’ve combined a couple of redundant characters into a single part. And, as you know, for the purposes of the festival this is a truncated version of the play, meaning we only run for about an hour and a half. We’ve cut all the action that doesn’t take place at the castle, and pared down our scenes to the essentials.”

  I nodded at that last, impressed. While hardly an expert, I’d se
en Hamlet performed often enough to know that it was one of the Bard’s longest works, clocking in at anywhere from two to four hours depending on the director and the medium.

  He glanced over at Len. “All right, Marsh, you have the title role. But with all this talk about disability, you’ve got me worried that your knee won’t be up to the sword fight. Maybe we should recast?”

  “No, no, I’ll be fine,” the man broke in, and vigorously shook his white head. With a look at me, he added, “I mean, since our hostess has agreed to accommodate my condition, I’m sure I’ll be well enough by then.”

  Harry nodded. “Susie, you’re playing Ophelia. Bill and Tessa, you’ll be playing King Claudius and Queen Gertrude, respectively. Bill, you’re also the ghost of Hamlet’s father. Marvin, you will handle the roles of Polonius and Horatio. Radney, you will take on Laertes …”

  “And a fine son, you are,” Marvin broke in, grinning and clapping his stage offspring on the arm.

  “… and also Marcellus,” Harry continued with a quelling look at Marvin. “Chris, we’ve combined Rosencrantz and Guildenstern into a single character, which you will play. You will also be the gravedigger and will be onstage for any non-speaking role where we need a courtier or other lackey.

  “Whatever,” Chris muttered. “But I still don’t see why I don’t get to play Hamlet. I’m the only one young enough for the role. Len oughta be playing Hamlet’s grandpa.”

  “Age has little to do with it.”

  This came from Tessa, who was staring sternly over her reading glasses at Chris, the professorial gleam in her eye unmistakable. Sure enough, she launched into a lecture.

  “As a student of the Shakespearean era, dear boy, you must recall that Burbage was the first to play the role. He first portrayed Hamlet while in his early thirties and performed it for almost ten years. Even my esteemed husband has played Hamlet before, with no one complaining about his lack of youth.”

  “That’s true,” Bill interjected with a humble smile. “I do know the part backward and forward.”

  Tessa gave him an encouraging nod and continued, “As for the character’s actual age, a literal reading of the play puts it at anywhere between twenty and thirty, though many scholars such as myself argue that the play was written to show a compression of time, and—”

  She was interrupted again, this time by a sharp tapping, which was Harry using his pen, gavel-like, upon his binder.

  “Thank you, Tessa.”

  Turning to Chris, he went on, “Len has the acting chops, Chris, and you don’t. The role of Hamlet is a difficult part with numerous soliloquies, and it requires a confident public speaker to carry it off. Now, would anyone else like to question my casting decisions? Good. Finally, we have arranged with the Cymbeline High drama department for their students to handle the play-within-the-play, plus they will serve as stage extras where needed. And with everyone now on the same script page, let us begin.”

  I took that opportunity to make my own exit stage right. If the rest of the rehearsal was going to go that same way, then I wasn’t missing much. Besides, I had things to do now, like drag a cot into the parlor and make up a nice soft bed for good old Len.

  As I was setting up the room for him a short time later, it occurred to me that I hadn’t asked if Susie would be joining him downstairs, or if she preferred to sleep alone in the purple room. I suspected it would be the latter, but I’d double-check with her when the troupe took their break.

  When I was finished with my housemaid routine, I returned to the kitchen to check out supplies for the next morning’s breakfast—all the non-baked items I supplied myself—only to find someone waiting there for me. And it wasn’t Mattie, who usually made it to the kitchen this time of day for her pre-supper snack.

  “Hey, Number Nine,” Marvin hailed me. “You’ve got a pretty slick setup here. I wasn’t expecting something off one of them cooking shows.”

  “I wish I could take the credit,” I admitted, “but I can’t. This was all here when I moved in.”

  And Marvin had good reason to be impressed. The kitchen was a brash combination of late nineteenth-century architecture and twenty-first-century technology. The counter-to-ceiling, glass-fronted cabinets painted a crisp white were original to the home, as was the whitewashed floor with its scattering of rag rugs. And the farm-style stone sink that was big enough to bathe in was also original.

  With a final approving look around him, Marvin held out the now-empty platter that previously had held a selection of cookies. “Looks like we kind of polished them all off,” he said with a grin. “You make ’em yourself?”

  “With my own two hands,” I assured him. Which was the truth. I’d sliced those rolls of refrigerated cookie dough and put them on a baking sheet all by myself. “Is there anything else I can get for you?”

  “Just needed more ice,” he said and refilled his half-empty tea glass with ice from the refrigerator’s in-door dispenser.

  He seemed quite at home in a kitchen. This despite the reputedly large number of zeroes attached to his bank account balance. And, overall, I was liking him best of all the GASPers. I didn’t even mind what could have been an annoying habit of his, hanging nicknames on everyone.

  He had come up with my particular moniker when Harry and I were bringing up the luggage and he’d overheard me giving the official proper pronunciation of my name speech to Radney. As nicknames went, I rather liked being dubbed Number Nine. It made me sound like a jumpsuit-wearing lady spy from some sixties-era TV show.

  As the final cube clinked into his glass, Marvin turned back to me. His expression was serious now as he sighed and slowly shook his head.

  “God, give me patience, and give it to me now. All I can say is, the next couple of weeks ain’t gonna be a picnic for any of us.”

  “Len?” I guessed in a sympathetic tone, earning a grunt by way of reply. “Yeah, he’s a peach, all right … though I must say I was surprised he was understanding about the whole room situation.”

  “You let him smoke, so he’s happy. And I doubt that bum knee of his is as bad as he makes out.” Then, changing the subject, he mused, “I wonder how much he slipped our friend Spielberg there to snag the lead.”

  “You think he bribed Harry into letting him play Hamlet?”

  Though, to be sure, it was the offering the bribe part that surprised me a little, not the fact that Harry might take one.

  Marvin took a swallow of tea and then shrugged. “I wouldn’t put it past him. Being a sneaky little so-and-so is second nature to the man. Sure, he’ll greet you like you’re his long-lost brother, but while he’s shaking your hand, the other one is busy sticking a knife in your back.”

  Apparently, Radney wasn’t the only one with a beef against Len Marsh. Curious, I ventured, “Sounds like you know Len pretty well. I mean, outside the GASP group.”

  “Yeah, I know him. The two of us cofounded Peachtree Communications twenty years ago.”

  Recognizing this as the name of the company he’d just sold, I gave Marvin the patented Harry Wescott brow raise. Since I lacked the finely tuned facial muscle control that Harry had, that meant both brows went sky-high.

  “You and Len were partners? So why did he leave and go work for another electronics company?”

  “Let’s just say he done me wrong, and leave it at that.”

  I nodded, pretty sure that Marvin wasn’t referring to romance. Still, something was odd about the situation. The so-called wrong seemed to have worked out just fine for Marvin in the end, since he’d been the one to cash in when the business was sold.

  Or had he? Had the actual proceeds been far less than rumor claimed? Or had Len pulled a Harry and filed some lawsuit against Marvin after the fact? Not that it was any of my business.

  “So if you hate Len so much,” I said instead, “why stay in the GASP troupe with him? And why voluntarily maroon yourself with him out here in Cymbeline for almost two weeks?”

  Marvin looked at me like I was p
lumb crazy.

  “Number Nine, are you plumb crazy? How many times do you think a fellow like me gets a chance to act on stage in one of the Bard’s most famous plays? This is my lifelong dream, and I’m not letting that jerk get in the way of it.”

  “Aha, suffering for your art,” I replied with a wise nod. “That’s what all the greats did. Olivier, Gielgud … “

  “Belushi, Farley,” he finished for me, his tone now ironic. “Yeah, I get the picture. Time to pull up my big-boy pants and just worry about having a good time while we’re here.”

  “Something like that. I mean, the guy can’t be all bad if he’s a sucker for Shakespeare like you.”

  Marvin merely shook his head.

  “Well, I’ve played hooky long enough,” he replied instead, seeming content to let the subject of Len drop. “Break’s over, so I’d better get back to the parlor before Spielberg sends a posse out after me.”

  “Okay. But just be sure when y’all are practicing the sword-fighting scene with Len that no one puts actual poison on anyone’s sword. It would be a real showstopper if he died for real.”

  I smiled at my clever reference to the way Laertes sneakily offed Hamlet in the play. Marvin, however, didn’t seem to see the humor in my joke.

  Sourly shaking his head, he muttered, “The line might start with me, but it darned sure stretches a long way back. Our boy Len ain’t the most popular of folks.”

  So I was learning. First, Radney and now Marvin had admitted having a grudge against the guy. But they didn’t speak for the whole troupe … or did they?

  I gave the man a quizzical look, not certain if he was kidding or not about the whole killing thing. And then he added, “Let me put it to you this way, Number Nine. If Len Marsh dropped dead right this minute, there’s not a person in our little group who’d shed a single tear over him. And that includes his wife.”

  Chapter Six

  After that unsettling little bit of commentary on Marvin’s part, I was more than glad to leave the GASPers to Harry for the rest of the afternoon. Since it was too hot to take Mattie for a walk, she and I retreated to my room, where my personal office was also set up. Might as well get some B&B business done, I told myself.