Thank You for Ten: Short Fiction About a Little Theater

by Ty Unglebower

  *

  The children were quieter the following week. So quiet in fact she tiptoed into the green room this time, and closed the door slowly behind her.

  Most of them looked up as she entered and greeted her. She returned the greeting with a wave and whispered "hi". Another adult, who she assumed was the kid wrangler for the show, nodded over her magazine and kept reading.

  Two of the kids were on the couch looking over the script. One had earbuds in. Two more were playing some kind of game. They were laughing, but subdued. She didn't see Sarah, the only girl whose name she actually knew. Voices came in through a speaker that she hadn't noticed before. It hung just over the door to the once creepy hallway. They were the voices of the kids in the show, from the stage.

  Alicia passed through the hallway. For a moment she could hear the voices both through the speaker in the green room and live on the stage. She glanced backstage for a moment as she passed through the hallway. Another child stood against the wall of the hallway with his eyes closed. She tried not to disturb him.

  She was even more careful when she opened the door at the opposite end of the hallway, leading to the house. Had she been thinking, she would have suggested somebody be in the lobby to let her in the front way so she wouldn't disturb the show, but it was too late now. She marched as quickly but as quietly as she could up the aisle, and once more passed through the lobby doors. She'd avoided looking at the stage, so she could be surprised by the set later on.

  She couldn't help but hear the young, at times squeaky and usually too loud voices of the child actors as they plowed their way through a scene with enthusiastic abandon.

  In a moment she was up on the small stool, looking the painting in the face; she had finally reached that portion of the restoration.

  "I read up on you," she whispered to the painting. The cracked eyes and half-grin felt both more comforting and more off putting when viewed from this close. "You're a god of wine as well. You're known as the Wanderer, among many other names."

  She carefully extracted a damaged piece of original paint from the canvass with a pair of tweezers.

  "I noticed a lot of the things you're connected to involve escaping in some way. Wine, wandering, theater." She combined several colors to match the face color. It was the trickiest shade to duplicate so far. "What are you running from, anyway? Or are you just running? Or do you just want us mortals to run somewhere?"

  No matter how soft her whispering, she felt like the actors on the stage could hear her.

  "We'll come back to that," she said, smiling at the painting.

  She didn't want to add any more paint than necessary to the face area. The ground and the boulder, even the boots allowed more freedom to paint on her own. But the face must be left as much intact as possible, which is why she'd use special astringents and cleaners that she'd borrowed from one of her professors. They were expensive. Her compensation for the entire job would have just covered one container of the stuff had she bought her own.

  She worked on the face, all except the eyes, with lines from Heidi as her background noise. A few times she heard Emma directing the kids.

  After about an hour, when she'd noticed the lines had stopped and laughing had started, she turned to the house. She saw Emma backing into the room.

  "Remember if you need a snack to keep it in the green room or outside please," Emma called into the house. She turned and greeted Alicia.

  "Hope I'm not disturbing your work," Emma said.

  "Not at all," Alicia replied. I was afraid I might be disturbing yours."

  "We can't hear a thing in there. Especially if all you're doing is painting or cleaning."

  Alicia wondered what Emma would think if she knew she tended to talk to her paintings. She wasn't going to tell her, though.

  "It's going well, then?" Alicia asked her, setting down her brush and pallet.

  "It's going," Emma said with a sigh, but a laugh followed. "They're good kids. It'll get tighter as it goes on. Which reminds me…" Emma reached into her back pocket and handed Alicia a ticket. "That's for opening night. It’s already paid for."

  Alicia began to protest, "Oh, but I couldn't…"

  "It's my complimentary ticket," Emma said. "Everyone in the show gets one. So my husband has to pay for a ticket for a change. Won't kill him."

  Emma laughed again. Alicia placed the ticket in her own back pocket, with some reluctance.

  "Thank you," she said.

  "And something for the other pocket," Emma said, reaching behind her. She pulled out a crinkled, folded piece of paper. "A gift from someone you know."

  Intrigued, Alicia opened it. She smiled upon seeing a simplistic but well-drawn version of the Dionysus painting. Colored pencil. 'Sarah' was scrawled in large print at the bottom.

  "She's good," Alicia said. "Can't wait to see her set painting."

  "You can step inside and check it out now if you want to," Emma offered.

  "No, I want to be surprised for opening night, but thank you."

  "Okay," Emma said. "She'll like that. They all will."

  "Who does Sarah play in the show?"

  "Oh she's an assistant stage manager," Emma told her. "Behind the scenes. She likes telling people what to do."

  "I only met her once, but I think I can see that."

  "She's good at managing too. Helping people," Emma said. "Her parents said she barely spoke before she came here last summer."

  "Really? That's sad."

  "Quite. Something happened," Emma said, looking passed Alicia out of the lobby windows. "Something we haven't been told about, but not good. I shutter to think about it so I try not to. But the good news is being here has helped her heal from whatever it was."

  The thought of Sarah in any kind of trauma closed Alicia's throat. She put on her best pensive face, and nodded, hoping to look contemplative and professional, rather than upset.

  "But this place will do that to you," Emma said, turning back to the house. "Something about this place. Something about theater. All of them, but this one in particular for me."

  "I believe it," Alicia managed to say as her throat relented.

  "We won't have anymore Sunday rehearsals," Emma said. "So I guess we'll be seeing you when we open?"

  Alicia patted the ticket in her back pocket. "Wouldn't miss it."

  "Great. Good luck with your work. I look forward to see your opening night too."

  Emma smiled, threw her hand up, and stepped back into the house. Alicia watched the doors swing shut behind Emma. They clunked to a halt a moment later.

  She looked down at the picture Sarah had given her. She refused to think about what may have happened to her young friend before she found theater. She did, however, allow herself to think about Emma's words:

  "Something about this place. Something about theater."

  Digging in her bag Alicia found some tape and attached Sarah's picture to the outside of her equipment trunk.

  "Escapes," Alicia told the painting. "I get it now."