Speak Now

by Margaret Dumas

“Didn’t you like her?” I asked. This was important. If there was something off-putting about Regan it might come across to the audience.

  Martha made a face and shrugged. “She’s just so perfect. It isn’t interesting. I stopped making costumes for Barbie when I was eleven.” Martha herself would never be called perfect in the age of supermodels, but she was definitely interesting. She had an exotic look that she played up with lots of black eyeliner and a wardrobe she designed and constructed herself, consisting mainly of column-like knit garments overlaid with drapey, drippy scarf-like swaths. It gave her an Indian/Asian/something else look that would have worked better, admittedly, on someone taller than her five-foot-two self, but she made the best of every inch she had.

  “Well, I have no problem with her perfect, uninteresting, gorgeous face,” Simon said. “No problem whatsoever. In fact—”

  “Simon,” I interrupted. “Promise.”

  He widened his eyes in innocence. “Promise what, darling?”

  “Promise you won’t get involved with her,” I said firmly. “Not during production. The last thing we need is broken hearts on opening night.”

  Simon pointed to himself in a gesture that said “Moi?”

  “And…” I continued threateningly.

  He sighed, and lazily raised his right hand. “I promise, in front of all these witnesses, not to get involved with our leading lady.”

  I gave him a stern look.

  “Or our leading man,” he finished.

  “It doesn’t matter anyway,” Chip commented. “About Regan, at least. She’s otherwise engaged.”

  “Yes,” I said. “She is. A friend of our new patron.” I put an extra helping of venom on the word.

  “Ah.” Simon made a strangling sound. “Darling, have I thanked you properly yet for agreeing to direct? You simply can’t know how fabulous you are, and—”

  “I can’t believe that bastard Brian,” Chip interrupted. “We should find out who hired him in New York and let them know what he did to us. We’re suing, right?”

  “Completely unprofessional,” Paris agreed. “I thought so all along. The man didn’t know the first thing about stage lighting. And it wouldn’t surprise me,” he lowered his voice, “if he’d never worked in a union shop before.”

  I suddenly remembered that the point of my attending the auditions had been to learn more about the mysterious Brian. I could wait until later to berate Simon for his involvement with Rix.

  “What made you think that, Paris?” I asked. “Did he seem inexperienced?” I turned to Simon. “What had he done before he signed on with us?”

  Simon shrugged. “He seemed solid. He’d been doing a lot of decent-sounding work in Seattle and LA.”

  Chip made a sound that was halfway between a “ha” and a “hrumph.”

  “What?” I asked him.

  He shook his head. “I don’t believe half of what was on his resumé.”

  Simon looked surprised. We all must have, except for Martha, who still looked miserable.

  “Why not?” Simon demanded.

  Chip leaned forward intently and began counting on his fingers. “One, he claimed to have directed Midsummer Night’s Dream but when I said something about a certain person making a perfect Bottom, he had no idea what I was talking about. Two, he was supposed to have worked at the Pasadena Playhouse two years ago, but he didn’t know the name of this guy I went to Cal with—who happened to be the set designer that season. Three, when I asked him where he’d lived down South, all he said was ‘near the beach.’ Nobody who lives in LA would be that vague. They’d say ‘Venice’ or ‘Malibu’ or something. Not just ‘near the beach.’” He gave a disgusted shake of his head.

  “So you think he was a complete fake?” I asked. “Everything?” That would fit if he was working for Macbeth, but then why would he have left? Was keeping up the pretense too much for him as the actual production got closer?

  “I can’t believe that,” Simon protested.

  “Neither can I,” Martha spoke up. “I don’t know why you all hated him. He knew you did. That’s probably why he left. He couldn’t stand your petty—” she choked back her words and stood. “I have a headache. I’m going home.” She practically ran from the room.

  “Well,” Simon said dryly. “I think we can guess who’s broken young Martha’s heart.”

  “I should go after her,” I said, reaching for my purse.

  “Let her go,” Paris said. “She’s a big girl. She’ll be fine.”

  Chip looked stunned. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I had no idea. I never would have said all those things about him…”

  “Never mind,” Paris said. “Let’s have another round. This one’s on me.” He headed for the bar.

  I looked at my watch. “I need to call Jack if I’m going to be much later.”

  “Darling, if you have to go…” Simon said hopefully.

  “You’re not getting off that easily,” I assured him. “Give me your cell phone.” Reluctantly, he handed it over.

  Jack wasn’t there, but I left a message on the hotel voicemail. I was a little relieved he wasn’t in, because that meant I didn’t have to explain why I was out drinking with friends instead of being with him for the second night in a row. Then I started wondering where he was. Probably with Mike, I assured myself, still hunting through the records of a certain maximum security military prison. And if I hadn’t left the cell phone he’d given me in Brenda’s VW on the night of Cece’s rescue, he’d have been able to call and tell me so.

  “What’s the matter?” Paris asked, returning with four fresh pints and giving me a shrewd glance.

  “Not a thing,” I told him. Probably not a thing. “So, about Brian—”

  “Enough about Brian,” Paris interrupted. “The boy is gone and good riddance to him.” He raised his glass, and Chip and Simon did likewise.

  “Oh, all right,” I agreed, joining them in the toast. I could always do some digging into his past on my own.

  “Now, Charley,” Chip said, leaning forward expectantly. “I’m worried about the second act. Do you think the whole comedic thing with the mother subverts the dramatic tension?”

  Oh, hell. I was directing a play.

  ***

  We talked shop for a while, and I was surprised to see how far Chip had come professionally while I’d been away. He was still dauntingly intense, in a squirrelly sort of way, but his instincts were good and his ideas, particularly for specific pieces of business, were impressive. I wondered how long he’d be satisfied with his current role of stage manager at the Rep. It occurred to me that Chip might be training his assistant to take over when he moved on. Clearly, he was ready for bigger and better things. Equally clearly, I had to spend a lot more time with the script.

  “Shall we have another?” Chip asked, and I realized we’d all drained our glasses while talking. “It’s my turn, I think.”

  “Ah.” Simon was looking at the doorway to the main bar with a mixture of nervousness and relief. “Reinforcements have arrived.”

  I turned to see Eileen approaching us. Reinforcements indeed. Simon had probably called her when he realized I wasn’t going to go home without hearing how Rix Begley had come to be a patron of my theater company.

  “Eileen, darling!” Simon enthused. “So glad you could make it. You know everybody, of course? Have a seat. Chip was just off to get another round.”

  “Please.” Eileen sat heavily in the chair next to me. For a size four, that’s not as easy as it sounds. “No alcohol.” She grabbed my hand with both of hers. “Promise you’ll never let me drink again.”

  “Maybe not four martinis on an empty stomach,” I agreed, wondering how she’d made it through her work day in her hungover state.

  “I think it’s time for me to go,” Paris said, rising. “It’s my turn to cook tonight, so I’d better stop for a pizza somewhere. You want to come over?” He gave Chip a look that translated roughly into “let’s run for our lives.”


  “Oh.” Chip looked from Paris to the rest of us. “Oh. All right. See you tomorrow.”

  As soon as we were alone, Simon began to babble. “Eileen, darling, what’s all this about four martinis? What were you up to last night? Something to do with the new man in your life, I suspect. Darling, you know what I always say—”

  “Simon,” I interrupted. “Shut up and tell me how you got involved with Rix Begley.”

  Eileen jumped, her eyes seeming to focus for the first time. “Is that what this is about?” She turned to Simon. “You told her?” she demanded.

  “He didn’t have to,” I stopped her. “He was there.”

  “There?” Eileen looked at me blankly. “Who? Rix? Where? At the theater?” She turned on Simon again. “How did you let that happen?”

  Poor Simon. He had expected Eileen to be on his side, and now he was faced with two angry women and he was all alone. He smiled weakly. “He wasn’t supposed to be there.”

  “Damn right he wasn’t.” Eileen reached into her purse for her phone. “I’m calling his lawyer. He was supposed to be one hundred percent hands-off. That was the only way I’d ever have agreed to it,” she explained to me. “You would never have to know where the money came from, because he’d be invisible, and it was only for one season, and—” She must have seen the betrayal on my face, because she put the phone down and grabbed my hands with hers. “Oh, Charley, I’m so sorry. We didn’t even know if you’d be back in town for this season, and his offer, and the timing, and his promise to stay away, were just too good to be true.”

  “Clearly.”

  “We really are sorry, darling,” Simon said. “If we’d known from the beginning who he was, we’d never have entertained the idea—”

  “He used a lawyer,” Eileen interrupted. “Until Rix showed up to sign the final paperwork, we didn’t know who we were dealing with, and by then…”

  They both looked miserable. “Oh, hell,” I said. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not like I’m some fragile flower who has to be protected from every guy who’s ever turned out to be a jerk.”

  “Darling,” Simon said, “you’re too forgiving. I simply must kiss you.” Which he did, twice on both cheeks.

  “Okay,” I said, “but now I want the details. I’ve been thinking it over, and I can’t figure it out. The basic question for Rix is always ‘what’s in it for me?’ Why would he, of all people, want to help the Rep?”

  Neither of them answered.

  “Eileen, you say his lawyer came to you? You didn’t go out looking for backers?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “That was what made it all so easy. Right about the time Simon finally convinced me to go for outside funding, in marches Rix’ lawyer with an offer to bankroll one third of our seasonal expenses.”

  “When was this?” If she said it was in the time between my meeting Jack and coming home, I thought I’d scream.

  Eileen looked even more miserable. “That’s the awful thing. Charley, if we’d known you were going to be back for the season…”

  “Eileen, when did he give you the money?”

  “We finalized the deal about a week before you came home. Charley, if I’d known you were coming—that you’d have to deal with him—”

  Surprising myself, I didn’t scream. But I admit I tuned out their apologies for a few moments as a hundred other questions presented themselves. I started with an obvious one. “How did Rix know you were looking for funding?”

  “Aren’t theaters always looking for money?” Simon asked. “I assumed it was a given.”

  “No,” Eileen said, speaking slowly. “That’s true for most theaters, in fact for most of the arts, but anyone who knows anything about the Rep knows that Charley always financed it one hundred percent.” She looked at me. “What are you getting at, Charley?”

  “I’m not sure.” I knew I was looking for signs of Macbeth everywhere, but I honestly didn’t see how he could fit in to the reappearance of Rix Begley in my life, despite the suspicious timing. How could the vicious killer and the smarmy playboy be connected? And why?

  Those were not questions I was comfortable asking Eileen and Simon. Particularly since I had no intention of telling them about Macbeth.

  “Okay, here’s what I want to know,” I said. “One, how did Rix know that we’d need money and know the exact time to offer it? And two, why would he have wanted to offer it? Since when does he want anything to do with the Rep? Or me?” I remembered the look on his face when he’d first seen me that morning and realized that he had been as unpleasantly surprised as I had. I held up a third finger. “But most important is three. Where the hell did he get the money?”

  They didn’t have any answers, and no matter how long we stayed and speculated, we weren’t going to be able to figure it out. I wanted to talk it over with Jack. Maybe he’d see a pattern or a signal that we’d missed. But I wondered if it was really appropriate to discuss the professional complications caused by an ex-lover’s finances with my new husband. Perhaps Miss Manners has a chapter for just such questions.

  “Well, you can count on one thing,” Eileen said. “Rix won’t come back to the theater. Not for rehearsals, not even for opening night. I’ll get a court order if I have to.” She was making furious notes in her little electronic organizer.

  “He was only there today for Regan,” Simon said.

  We both stared at him.

  “It’s the only part of this I’ve been able to figure out. Why he came to the theater.” He looked at me. “Rix obviously didn’t know you were back in town. He wanted to bring Regan in personally and see that her audition went well.”

  “Simon, you didn’t make him any promises, did you?”

  He looked genuinely shocked. “Charley, of course not. I may be a complete balls-up as an artistic director, but I still have some integrity.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetie,” I said. “I’m just a little—”

  “Excuse me,” Eileen interrupted. “But who’s Regan?”

  Simon answered. “Oh. She’s…that is to say…she…”

  “She’s Rix’ girlfriend. She’s an actress,” I finished for him.

  “Uh huh,” Eileen said. “And Mr. Investor brought her to the auditions today to get her a part in the show.” She grimaced. “At least some things never change.”

  “Casting the money man’s girl is a time-honored theatrical tradition,” Simon agreed.

  “Well, at least you won’t have to worry about her.” Eileen snapped her organizer shut. Then she saw our faces. “You didn’t.”

  Simon shrugged nonchalantly. “She was very good.”

  Eileen turned to me. “Tell me you didn’t cast her.”

  I followed Simon’s example and shrugged. “She was brilliant.”

  Eileen slumped back in her chair. “Shit.”

  I decided I’d let Simon do the explaining. Suddenly I was very thirsty. “Another round?” I asked, and without waiting for an answer I grabbed my purse and headed for the bar. The back room had filled up since we’d arrived, and I had to squeeze past two pudgy stockbroker types who were arguing loudly over whether Bono’s portrait should be added to the pantheon of Irish heroes decorating the bar.

  When I popped out on the other side of the twosome, I was propelled into a tall man who suddenly turned his back on me. I nearly knocked him over.

  “Sorry,” I said, recovering myself and gesturing vaguely behind me. “It’s a madhouse in here—” and that’s when I saw it. The red motorcycle helmet in the man’s hand.

  He was already several steps away from me. I didn’t stop to think. I ran after him and grabbed his arm. “Hey—”

  He shook me off and kept moving. If the bar hadn’t been so crowded, he’d have gotten away. But just as he got within reaching distance of them, the double doors burst open with the force of an entire sweaty, filthy, victorious rugby team.

  A cheer went up from the crowded bar as the team poured in, calling to friends, swearing a
t one another, slapping and hugging and punching and generally basking in their sporting glory. The motorcyclist didn’t stand a chance. He was thrown back into the room and spun around until he stood directly in front of me.

  “Mike!”

  Chapter 17

  Once he realized he’d been caught, Mike tried a pathetic bluff. “Charley!” He assumed a look of surprised delight. “What are you doing here?”

  The wave of rugby players crested around us, then left us in a sudden calm by the door.

  “Don’t bullshit me, Mike.”

  He looked around at the mayhem of the bar, but a clever answer failed to appear. When he looked at me again it was with an apologetic grimace. “I was only trying to make sure nothing happened to you.”

  After my initial shock, it all made sense. “Jack?”

  He nodded miserably. “Charley, don’t—”

  “Don’t you—” I snapped, intending to finish with dare tell me what to do! But I suddenly hadn’t seen the point in arguing with him. “Go home, Mike.”

  I ducked past him out of the bar and hopped into the first cab I could find. It wasn’t that far to the hotel from the bar, but with one-way streets and Union Square gridlock, I had plenty of time to work myself into a first-class fury.

  In the cab, I called him names that would have made a drill sergeant blush. After I’d finally escaped from a lifetime of Harry’s private detectives, Jack had done the one thing that was guaranteed to make me crazy. I didn’t care that he’d done it out of concern for me. I didn’t care that he’d used his best friend and not some impersonal agency. He’d sent someone to spy on me.

  Of course, what did I expect? He’d admitted that he’d sent Gordon to check me out when we’d first gotten serious. Why wouldn’t he think it was perfectly reasonable to have Mike shadow me all over town? Well it was different! Doing a background check on a new lover is one thing, but spying on your wife is not acceptable—not to this wife.

  And to think I’d been afraid I was getting paranoid! I hadn’t told Jack about the feeling that someone was following me because I didn’t want him to worry! The bastard!

  I went on in that vein, muttering profanities and occasionally punching the front seat or slapping the door, causing looks of concern from the driver. “You okay, miss?” he asked.