Upstaged

by Aaron Paul Lazar

  “I’m not going to mince words, kids. This has got to stop! ” She spoke with burning conviction and her eyes bored mercilessly into the faces of each teenager. She swept her glance across the crowd.

  Jonesy and Frank entered, maneuvering a large rolling table through the side door. Camille had requested it earlier and told them to put it next to the stage. They stopped briefly, looked up nervously, and pushed the table into place. They drifted into the back of the auditorium.

  She held up Nelson’s shredded shirt. “I don’t know who’s doing this, but they don’t belong in our show. If I find out that one of you is responsible—you’ll be tossed out of the show so fast, your head will spin.”

  She closed her eyes for a minute, collected herself, and continued in a calmer voice. “We try to cultivate a community of tolerance and professionalism here. This isn’t a middle school locker room. We are here to get a job done, and someone has been taking great pains to sabotage this production.”

  Takeema turned her head completely around and gave Gene and Nathan a pointed look.

  Camille started pacing again. “I’m not just talking about today, although this is about the last straw. I’m talking about that snake, about the coward who shoved me off the stage, and about the person or persons who have been taking things from my desk. Yesterday, I found my office stapler on the hood of my car. Today, the missing Drama Club CD player was found beneath the desk in my office.”

  I looked at her in surprise and she nodded at me with a grim expression. She placed her hands on her waist, winced when she hit a sore spot, but kept going.

  “It’s got to stop, guys. These ‘pranks,’ or acts of sabotage as I see them, are not funny. They’re destructive.”

  She plopped down in the front row, facing the stage. The group remained silent, looking collectively ashamed.

  “Now, I’m not positive it’s coming from inside our group, but I haven’t seen many loiterers around the set, and it’s becoming less and less likely it’s an outsider.” She paused for a moment and then looked directly at Molly and Candy. “Another thing. This bickering and immature sniping among my seniors has got to stop. In order to have a successful production, we must behave as a unified team. I will not tolerate these juvenile behaviors any longer. I don’t care who you are, or how important your role is in the show. You can always be replaced. Remember that.”

  Molly hung her head, looking mortified. Lisa didn’t look at Molly, but a small smile played about her lips. It quickly dissolved when Camille looked at her with a warning.

  “Last of all, people,” Camille’s expression turned steely when she looked directly at Gene and Nathan. “Last of all, I cannot tolerate bigotry of any kind. This is America, folks. We celebrate uniqueness here, we support people’s rights to be who they are, exactly how the good Lord made them, without grade school teasing, I might add. If that’s too much for you to grasp, you can leave the set right now. Do I make myself clear? ”

  Gene and Nathan looked at each other and then down at their hands. I doubted whether her speech would change their intolerant ways, but at least their behavior wouldn’t be tolerated by the drama club .

  “Okay. If anyone has anything to tell me after rehearsal, I’ll be here for a few minutes to talk. Now,” she breathed in deeply and stood up, “let’s get back to work.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  R ehearsals were thankfully uneventful during the following week. Camille's stern lecture appeared to have had an effect on the ensemble and the petty bickering had lessened. No pranks were played and a phantom-like whisper of hope passed through me.

  Maybe it’s over.

  Act I progressed rapidly and was shaping up well. The actors had begun to memorize their lines and dance steps. To their credit, the kids were working hard to nail the details. On the following Friday night, the cast, crew, and all willing parents were asked to assist with the final painting, costume fitting, and prop organization. I picked up Camille and Boris at seven-fifteen and drove to the school under a darkening evening sky.

  When we reached the school, we found Cindi waiting for us in the lobby. She wore baggy purple sweat pants, a yellow plaid cotton shirt, and lime green sneakers. Her spiky red hair was still damp from the shower.

  Boris began to wag his tail and pull on his leash as soon as he saw her. Cindi smiled, crinkled up her nose, and laughed. Her green eyes shone when she leaned down to greet him. The dachshund licked the air in anticipation and danced on his hind legs until she scooped him up in her arms. He lapped her chin enthusiastically.

  Camille and I exchanged smiles.

  “He sure loves you, Cindi,” Camille said, handing the loop end of the leash to her.

  Cindi kissed Boris on the top of his head and flashed a wide grin at Camille. “I know.”

  Her response, refreshingly child-like and honest, was pure and simple. Why offer false protests? Most people would have lowered their heads and denied it, insisting how very much he loved his owner. Not Cindi. It warmed my heart to see her enjoying the little canine.

  She held him up in front of her like a baby and nuzzled the fur along his neck with her face, making cooing noises at him. “Aren't you a good little doggie? Yes, you are. Little Boris.” She pronounced the “r” in Boris like a “w”.

  “Do you think you could keep an eye on him tonight, Cindi?” Camille asked, “He'll need to be walked around eight-thirty. And of course, he'll need some fresh water.”

  “Of course!” Cindi grinned, beckoned to us, and started walking down the hall with the dog cradled in her arms. “C'mon! I wanna show you something.”

  We followed her down the hall and into the auditorium. In the front corner, Cindi had fashioned a small cardboard box, cut down to Boris' size. Inside was a thickly folded flannel sheet. Beside the box were a dish of clean water and a new box of dog biscuits.

  “Here you go, Boris.” Cindi laid him in the box.

  Boris sniffed the flannel thoroughly, turned around several times, and lay down.

  Cindi squeaked happily. “He likes it! Look, he likes it.”

  Jonesy meandered over and looked down at Boris. He grunted, crossed his arms, and almost smiled. It was the first time I'd seen Jonesy react with another entity in the school in a semblance of normalcy. Usually, he walked slowly along, head down, avoiding eye contact, pushing his broom, or cart, or mop.

  “Fits him,” he mumbled to Cindi.

  “Yup,” she said, nodding sagely.

  Camille looked at me suddenly as an idea bloomed in her eyes. “Cindi? Do you have a pet at home? The family that sold Boris to me has puppies right now.”

  Cindi looked up, shaking her head. “They don't let us.” Tears welled in her eyes.

  Jonesy spoke up again. “No pets at the Heights,” he said curtly. He added, “I live in the same place as her. Conaroga Heights Apartments. No pets allowed. ”

  Camille placed a gentle hand on Cindi's shoulders. “I'm so sorry. Well, you can hang out with Boris any time. Any time at all. After all, he's our mascot now, right?”

  The girl looked up and smiled, wiping the tears from her eyes. “Okay.”

  She knelt beside the dog and began talking to him. Jonesy wandered away and Camille and I climbed the stairs to the stage.

  Siegfried emerged from the back of the stage with a large toolbox. He'd driven separate from me so he could visit the hardware store. He bought more screws and a few sets of castors to install on the rolling platforms that would be hidden behind glitter curtains suspended from the overhead deck. With quiet authority, he issued directions to the parents and students who milled about on the stage to help with the set.

  Lisa's father, George Bigelow, began to cut two-by-fours with a skill saw. Candy Price’s father carried the finished pieces of wood from the sawing station to the other side of the stage where Siegfried screwed them together with a cordless drill.

  Maddy arrived breathless with a cowboy hat perched on her head and two vintage, metal-and-vi
nyl kitchen chairs under her arms. I ran to help her with the heavy load.

  “Look what I found at the flea market yesterday. There's a matching Formica table, too!”

  Nick Sorriani, the seventh grade boy who played Ma and Pa Baker’s young son, ran up to her.

  “Is that for me?” he asked, pointing at the hat. He wiped his hands across his jeans, smearing wet pink paint onto his back pockets.

  Camille intervened, greeted her mother, and then turned to the boy. “Great finds. Yes, Nicky, it's for you. But you can't touch it with those hands! Why don't you go back and help Candy with those poster boards, and I'll put this away in the prop room.”

  Candy Price had drawn oversized portraits of Jim Morrison, Mick Jagger, John Lennon, and Jimmy Page that would hang over the set from the catwalk. She painted the background in hot pink, while the portraits were rendered in black paint covered with glitter glue.

  “Okay.” Nick made a disappointed face, sighed, and went back to his job.

  Nelson and Takeema were in charge of applying fresh coats of black polish to dozens of pairs of boots. They worked on the auditorium floor, kneeling on newspapers.

  Takeema blasted a CD by Yacub Addy, the Ghanaian drummer/musician. The strong rhythms were provocative, and the unusual harmonies intrigued me. I stopped to study the CD cover between trips back and forth to the prop room and thought I'd feature Mr. Addy on one of my future radio programs.

  Maddy had picked up much more than a Formica kitchen set at the flea market. She'd also found an old cash register, several stools, and some wonderfully tacky pictures for the diner’s walls.

  At eight forty-five, Camille stopped in the middle of hanging glitter curtains beneath the platforms. With a worried expression on her face, she cocked her head to the side and listened. “Did anyone else hear that?”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  C amille waved her hands at Takeema so she’d turn down the CD. “It sounds like someone yelling.”

  Siegfried paused his electric screwdriver, and Mr. Bigelow shut off the circular saw.

  A loud pounding came from the back of the stage.

  I jogged to the back, followed by Camille, Siegfried, and several teens, and then pushed through the curtain and into the back hallway. The noise came from the back doors that I'd used to haul furniture in from Maddy's station wagon. They'd been propped open with a metal wedge all evening, but now stood closed. The cast and crew commonly used the back door, as it was closer to the parking lot than the lobby.

  The banging continued. I bounded up the cement steps to the double metal doors and pushed one open. Cindi stood before me, tears streaming down her face. Her purple sweat pants were covered in dirt.

  “Let me in!” She tumbled into the room with Boris in her arms and sagged onto the steps. The little dog raised his snout to her face and licked her cheeks. Camille raced past me to calm her.

  “Cindi, honey, what happened?” she asked gently, motioning the crowd of teens away.

  “Someone locked me out!” she sobbed. “And pushed me down. He tried to get Boris, but I didn't let go.”

  “Oh, you poor thing. Are you okay?” Camille asked.

  Cindi nodded, but it was clear she wasn’t okay.

  “Cindi?” I said. “I’m so sorry this happened. But did you see who it was?”

  Her weeping slowed a bit. She looked up at me, her eyes large with fright. “No. He had a mask on. It looked like—” Her eyes widened further. She pointed to a papier–mâché mask of the Devil's face discarded in the corner. “Him! That's it!” She began to cry in earnest again, hugging Boris to her chest.

  Camille picked it up and looked at me. “It's the mask from the Neil Simon play, God's Favorite . We performed it two years ago.”

  She handed it to me. I turned it around in my hands, wishing I had access to the tools of the trade that police investigators used on crime scenes. I was sure there would be DNA samples on the inside of the mask where the culprit had pressed his face. But I knew they wouldn’t do those expensive tests because someone pushed Cindi, and maybe tried to kidnap Boris.

  Camille helped Cindi up and brought her back into the auditorium. Molly offered the still shaking woman a bottle of iced tea she bought from the vending machine. Cindi accepted it gratefully. Frank and Jonesy gathered around their coworker and spoke to her with their own brand of comfort. It wasn't elegant, but it seemed to help.

  I looked around the room, trying to remember who might have been missing when Cindi took Boris for his walk. It was impossible. People had flowed all over, running back and forth between the tool room, the back hallway, and the stage when Cindi walked out the door with Boris.

  “Honey? Can you tell us what happened?” Camille sat beside her with an arm protectively around her shoulders.

  “Okay, I c-can try.”

  Cindi’s trusting expression melted my heart. Who in God’s name would try to scare or hurt someone so innocent? A nasty, evil someone. And maybe the same one who’d been trying to sabotage the show all along.

  “Just do the best you can,” I said.

  “Okay.” She took a deep breath and expelled it slowly as if summoning her courage. “Well, I took Boris to the grass near the playground to do his business. He was a good boy,” she glanced at Camille with a proud expression, “he went near the bush and I cleaned it up with the baggie you gave me.” She closed her eyes, continuing. “I put his poopies in the big yellow dumpster. When I shut the lid, I heard a loud clang.”

  The metal doors shutting.

  “I started to come back in, and a man came out of the dark.” Tears spilled from her eyes, but she soldiered on. “He was the devil, and he made scary noises.”

  Camille held up the mask and spoke in soothing tones. “Honey, this is what he wore. We know he wasn’t the real devil, right? Just a mean man.”

  Cindi hugged Boris again, who remained in her lap, and finally nodded. “I guess so. Well, after that I started to run and Boris ran beside me on his leash.” She trembled and let out a little sob.

  “Take your time, Cindi. We’re here for you.” I sat on one side of the sweet woman and put my hand on hers.

  Camille flashed me a grateful smile and encouraged Cindi to go on. “Then what happened, honey?”

  “Well, then the devil—I mean the man—pulled on my jacket and knocked me to the ground. He took Boris' leash and tried to take him from me. Boris barked, didn’t you, boy?” She nuzzled the dog again and his tail wagged like an out of control metronome. “I ran after him and threw myself over Boris so he couldn’t take him. I pulled hard on the leash, and the bad man tried to take me off Boris.”

  “What happened next, sweetie?” Camille brushed a lock of hair back from Cindi’s eyes.

  “A car came and scared him. The lights were on us, so he ran away.”

  Cindi hadn't noticed height or weight, but had been fairly certain that her attacker was male.

  Camille thanked her sincerely for saving her dog after confirming she was unhurt. Although it had been a traumatic experience for the woman, she seemed proud that she'd protected little Boris. Siegfried offered to drive her home, and she accepted.

  Camille stood up and faced the kids. “Okay. That’s it. Tonight’s over. We’ll reconvene tomorrow and if anyone has any idea who’s behind this vile action, or if you saw anything at all, see me before you go home.”

  After cleaning up the paint brushes, putting away the newspapers and drop cloths, and sweeping the stage, Camille and I walked out through the back doors and locked them.

  She carried Boris close to her chest and sighed in exasperation. “I can't take much more of this, Gus. When's it going to stop?”

  I stopped next to the Outback and wrapped my arms carefully around her. Although they had begun to heal, her bruised ribs were still painful. Boris snuggled between us.

  “I don't know, honey. It’s escalating, that’s for sure.”

  She shuddered. “Should we call the police? Would they work on
things like torn-up clothing and dog-nappers?”

  Camille sagged on the hood of the car. “Oh. I don’t think I could’ve handled working the clutch in the VW tonight with these ribs. I’m glad you’re driving me home.”

  I guided her to the passenger door of the Subaru. “Of course, honey. Do you need more Advil?”

  “I’ll get some at home. Thanks.” She got in, buckled up, and slumped in the seat. “This is so crazy. My ribs hurt. My eyes hurt. I’m starving. And I’ve got a psycho weirdo doing things behind the scenes.”

  I started up the car and drove out of the lot. “Well, we can fix the hungry part. How about the diner?”

  She smiled and nodded. “Sounds good.”

  “And I’ll call Joe in the morning. Maybe we should’ve involved him when you were pushed off the stage last week.”

  Joe Russell was a police lieutenant who’d helped us in the past year during very traumatic times. He and his young partner, Adam Knapp, rescued my family from the clutches of a murderer last year. We’d become good friends, and both officers were frequent visitors at our family dinner table.

  She leaned her head down onto Boris, resting her cheek against his fur. I drove up the hill, took a right on Route 60, and made my way toward the village .

  “How about a break, Camille? Would you like to head down to Hammondsport tomorrow? It’s Saturday.”

  Her eyes glistened and she let out a long sigh. “I really am stressed. That would be so nice. Let’s do it. I didn’t schedule a practice tomorrow night because of the homecoming game, so we’re free.”

  We dropped Boris at her house, and turned back to head for Clara’s

  Diner, where we had a late supper of Hungarian goulash and salad. On the way home, I wove through crowds of college kids with my Outback. Groups of students spilled out of the tavern and the frat houses, partying on the steps and sidewalks in hordes. They thronged in the streets like amoebic entities. Music blasted from the houses and vehicles. Some shrieked loudly and waved beer bottles in the air. Others hung on each other, laughing, joking, and dancing to the music.