The Lost Ballet
Page 24
Chapter 24 – Gale and Helstof Do Costumes
As soon as Gwen left The Hall to run an errand, Gale looked at Helstof, and they headed out for an early lunch. They were much braver than the male team members, none of whom would even consider contravening direction from Gwen. When they arrived at the restaurant at 11:15am, they looked wistfully at the wine menu. Then they looked at their watches. Then at each other. Smiling, Helstof ordered a bottle of Vouvray, from the Loire Valley. Her motto is, you only live once.
Taking her first sip, guilt descended, and she said, “How are we going to pull off this costume thing. We’re not professionals, and this production is going to be the bigtime. Maybe we should hire someone, the way we hired the woman to do all the admin stuff.”
Gale said, “You want to eat and drink first, or work and drink first?”
“I think we better eat first, otherwise I might get sloshed immediately.”
“And what’s wrong with that?”
“Might make it hard to solve the issue of how to do the costuming.”
Gale waved that away because she was, well, Gale.
They ordered, ate, and drank. Lovely wine, balanced between fruit and minerals. Gale said, “You ever been to the Loire Valley?” Helstof shook her head, no. “That’s where some of those fairyland castles are, the ones with the white spires, and colored pennants flying.” Gale motioned to the waiter to take away the dishes (don’t touch the wine glasses, brother), and opened her purse. She took out an iPad, and turned it on. She said, “Look, the costume thing is not going to be that hard to do. The music is going to be hard for The Whosey, and the choreography is going to be a huge challenge for Selgey and Bart, and the admin stuff is going to break the back of the woman. We have the easy task.” She waited for the waiter to set the coffees on the table. “We’re doing a modernist production, which means modern costumes. If we were doing a classical thing, these costumes would be much more complicated and expensive. Look at this.”
She turned on the computer, called up the website of the New York City Ballet, and went to the Costume Shop page. She scrolled through several dozen photos of recent productions that included old standbys, like Afternoon of a Faun, and new productions created in the last five years. When she go to the end of the photos, she scrolled through them a second time. Helstof looked at her, and said, “Wow. How simple.”
Gale said, “Very simple. We can do that. After the Ps and Roger get the story written out, we’ll take the four acts, come up with a costuming theme for each one, and get down to drawing some sketches and laying out some fabrics. We’ll have to hire some help to cut and sew. I don’t know if we should try to keep this secret or not. Maybe just tell the help that they are working on a world premiere production. We’ll ask Gwen and the woman. Remember, the secret is out now. That happened when Roger put the ad in the London newspaper. Gwen and the woman are going to start getting questions from people any day now. Maybe today, who knows? Anyway, we have to wait for the story before we can do much. Maybe we should go out and look for the help, get that lined up.”
Helstof said, “Yes, let’s do that this afternoon. Then we can tell Gwen we’re working.”
With that decision, they both looked at their watches. 1pm, on the dot. Gale said, “It’s six o’clock in Paris,” picked up the wine list again, she motioned the waiter over to the table.