The record ended and Deborah, giggling and relaxed now, returned to her post in the kitchen. Nick went to Lisette’s side.
“Hi, kid. Remember me?”
“Uh-oh. The irate husband, sending me on my way to find another partner,” said Rob cheerfully. “See you later, Zetty.” He beat Jason to the foot of the stairs to meet Maggie and draw her to the middle of the floor. Then the music started again, and Nick threw himself into the dance, watching appreciatively as his rosy, sexy wife did the same.
An hour later, flushed and laughing, Lisette shouted above the music that maybe, as older folks, they ought to be getting home. Nick looked at his watch; eleven o’clock. He nodded and slipped an arm around her shoulders. Grace was watching them from one of the banquettes, and he was startled to see despair in her eyes. He waved goodbye to her cheerily, but he was relieved at the distraction when Jason and Maggie broke out of the hazy crowd and joined them at the steps.
“Nick, if you’re leaving, could you give me a ride to campus? I’ve got an English paper due, and Ellen’s left me in the lurch.”
“Sure, Maggie. You too, Jason?”
“I’ll go later with Jim. The idiot will need someone to drive,” he said. Nick followed his gaze and saw why Ellen had left. On one of the banquettes in the corner, Jim Greer was in earnest conversation with a redheaded costumer, his arm around her shoulders, and the table by his elbow piled with beer cans.
Nick nodded. “I see. We’ll be glad to drop you off, Maggie.”
“See you,” said Jason wistfully, and turned back into the smoky room.
Brian and Deborah were both working in the kitchen, which was almost spotless again. They thanked them and went for their coats in the front bedroom. Maggie’s blue parka was on the top, and she shrugged into it and went to wait in the hall while Nick and Lisette burrowed through the pile to find their jackets. When they finally went back into the darkened hall, Nick became aware of a soft murmuring voice, and of Maggie standing quietly in the shadows a bit further down the hall, looking silently into another lighted bedroom. Surprised by the intensity of her mood, Nick and Lisette stepped quietly behind her to look in too.
It was Rob, sitting on a small bed, a book on his lap and the two small Wrights at his sides, following his words intently. Oblivious to the muffled party noises and to the shadowed observers, Rob held the children with his pleasant magnetic voice, his serious answers to their questions, his gentle open gaze. Nick was startled; he had never seen his friend with his guard dropped so completely. Once Jessie stood up suddenly on the bed beside him and then dropped to her knees again and wriggled closer, her eyes never leaving the pages he was making so fascinating for her.
Nick decided he didn’t want to be seen, and touched Maggie quietly on the arm to urge her to come away. She blinked and turned quickly to follow him and Lisette out.
“You all right?” Lisette asked her at the front door.
She looked at them bleakly. “Can’t win, can you? Doing the wrong thing haunts you. But damn it, doing the right thing can haunt you too.”
Understanding only her grief, Nick patted her clumsily on the back. She fished up a smile from somewhere and said, “Look, drop me at the gym, okay? I usually feel better after a good workout.”
“Sure. Can we do anything else to help?”
“No, no. The gym is the best antidepressant I know.”
She talked about the show with them until they reached the gym, but before she got out she paused, hand on the door handle. “That plate of spaghetti you threw away,” she asked. “Lisette’s?”
She didn’t miss much. He nodded grimly. “It was probably nothing. But it had been sitting on that shelf a long time. Lots of people around.”
“You didn’t actually see anyone do anything to it?”
“No. Just my own paranoia.”
“Well, better paranoid than sorry.”
He nodded agreement, and watched her run into the gym.
Ten
The week after Brian’s party, Ellen stepped into the stall of the women’s room and jumped back again, revolted. “Jesus Christ, Maggie!”
“What’s wrong?” Maggie came to look over her shoulder. “Oh.”
In the bottom of the toilet, held down by a broken brick, Lisette’s photo smiled up sweetly, yellow in the stained water where someone had urinated and not flushed.
“God, that is disgusting!”
“True.” Maggie had rolled up her sleeves, and now fished the brick and photo from the disgusting water. She wrapped the dripping cargo in paper towels and dropped it into the trash bin. Ellen flushed the toilet, and decided she would wait until she was back at the dorm.
“Who would do such a disgusting thing?” she demanded.
“I wish I knew.”
“Well, I’m going to make an announcement before rehearsal tomorrow. This is awful. What if Lisette had seen it?”
Maggie was scrubbing her arms. She inspected Ellen for a moment, then sighed, “Winfield, old thing, there’s something I guess I’ll have to tell you.”
She did.
Ellen was staggered. “Ever since the first week of rehearsals?”
“Yes. Though this is the first time in three weeks.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? Or Brian, or someone?”
“Because it’s nasty, and there’s already too much stress on this cast. Lisette didn’t want that. Didn’t want them upset.”
“But what about her? How can she think about the show with this nauseating stuff going on?”
“It’s not hurting her acting. And she doesn’t want publicity.”
“Well, I still think we should try to figure out who it is.”
“Sure. But there are two other things that are much more important. One is Lisette’s safety, and the other is the show.”
Ellen added the joker to the list of things she had to worry about. A long list these days. Some news was good. Paul Rigo, despite a series of D’s on homework, had managed a B- on his physics midterm, a cause for general elation among the technical crews. Maggie had gone to the concert with Rob and did not seem noticeably the worse for wear. Ellen’s father had been a good sport about Jim’s defection from the lunch appointment. “Yes, I used to act in amateur theatre. It’s very seductive. Engrossing,” he said tolerantly.
“Well, it’s not serious anyway. He’s just a friend,” she said, overstating the case. She and Jim were avoiding each other now. There was a rumor that he had taken that redheaded costumer to a movie one night when he wasn’t called. But that, Ellen told herself firmly, was good news too.
She was not so sure about her discovery that Rob and Nick were meeting occasionally in a rehearsal room during the dorm dinner hour to play music—and that her roommate had been invited to join them. Since Maggie was too poor to pay regularly for a second dinner, too proud to tell her co-musicians that the arrangement forced her to miss it, and too hungry to do without, Ellen was pressed into service. Her role was to take a paper bag to the dorm cafeteria those nights and smuggle out anything portable, which Maggie then devoured, gratefully and uncritically, after the evening rehearsal. One such night Ellen said, “Jason is miserable, Maggie. People are saying you’re making a big play for Rob.”
“I’m not Jason’s keeper. I’ve never lied to him,” said Maggie, her mouth full. “And you know they’re saying that about half the unattached females working on this show. Except, of course, Ellen Winfield, who has convinced no one she’s unattached. Not even herself, n’est-ce pas?”
“Shut up,” said Ellen grouchily. “Anyway, you’re the only one who’s had more than a coffee date with him.”
She shrugged. “We both like music.”
“Don’t you get enough music with your Sunday afternoon orchestra rehearsals? And all that practice?”
“I never get enough music.”
“You never get enough food either.” Ellen looked grumpily at her roommate’s enormous if unbalanced meal of bread, boiled potatoes, a
nd apples.
“My extravagant metabolic rate.”
“Or maybe tapeworm.”
Ellen was definitely not in a good mood these days.
The rehearsals, at least, were better. Paul Rigo, working tirelessly with Cheyenne, had all the platforms functioning smoothly and unsqueakily, and the arches were almost completed now. The curtains were being painted, elaborate careful designs that looked like tapestries and took hours of Paul’s time. Jase, despite bitter complaints, turned out to be very surefooted on the lofty front wagon, at present still a skeletal structure of two-by-four lumber. At the actors’ request, the four stagehands assigned to shift it, who were called the old moles, of course, rehearsed with them every time the ramparts scenes were done. The scenes grew smoother.
The acting was progressing too. David’s growing skill was the most obvious improvement, but Brian seemed pleased too by the rampart scenes, and by Rob’s soliloquies. And by Nick’s simultaneously more suave and more uncertain King.
As April approached, more polish was applied. The night they worked the fight in Ophelia’s grave, Ellen was exhausted. It was already eleven-thirty, and she still had her government paper to finish.
“This is I,” cried Rob, bounding across the stage and leaping into the grave, “Hamlet the Dane!” Jim followed and knelt by the graveside.
“The devil take thy soul!” David lunged for Rob’s throat.
“Thou prayest not well,” said Rob, then, beginning to struggle, “I prithee take thy fingers from my throat;/For though I am not splenitive and rash,/Yet have I in me something dangerous.” He tore David’s hands away and began to bear down on him. “Which let thy wisdom fear. Hold off thy hand!”
“Pluck them asunder,” said Nick.
“Okay, stop,” said Brian. “Too early, I think.”
“Wouldn’t I be wheezing by then?” objected Rob.
“Maybe. But the King is waiting too long now. Try it on ‘fear.’”
For the fifth time, they took their places. “For though I am not splenitive and rash,/ Yet have I in me something dangerous/ Which let thy wisdom fear.” Again he tore David’s hands from his neck and began to gain the advantage. “Hold off thy hand!”
“Pluck them asunder,” said Nick.
“Good,” said Brian. “Let’s set that, okay? The cue is ‘fear.’ Once more, from ‘This is I.’”
Rob crawled out of the grave and crossed with Jim to his starting position. Ellen was bored and vividly aware of the minutes ticking away.
“This is insane,” she said crossly. She tried to get comfortable on her tall stool.
Nick, standing nearby waiting for his cue, turned and regarded her kindly. “Yes, it is.”
“Why do you bother? It’s maybe two seconds on stage. We’ve been working on it for hours.”
“Two seconds,” he said thoughtfully. “But Ellen, that’s all we need sometimes. The perfect detail, the instant that sends shivers down your spine. Sarah Bernhardt used to talk about the nights when the god descended.” He smiled at her. “It is insanity. You’re right. But that’s what we’re always chasing. Those performances when somehow for an instant or two we connect with the universal. With eternity. When it happens, if it happens, it’s worth any amount of time. It’s worth your whole life.”
Ellen was staring at him, astonished. “But you’re so reasonable!” she blurted.
He laughed. “I am reasonable,” he said. “But unfortunately, that’s my reason. An insane reason. Without it there wouldn’t be much meaning to any of this.”
Brian called, “Okay, let’s go!” Nick turned back into the scene.
“This is I,” cried Rob, bounding across the stage and leaping into the grave, “Hamlet the Dane!”
Jim followed and knelt by the graveside; and Ellen, who should have been following book, watched him thoughtfully for a long time.
Brian avoided the final duel scrupulously until Rob and David said they were ready, exactly two weeks after the first disastrous rehearsal of the fight. Things had improved enormously. Ellen could tell that David was very nervous, but despite that, he threw himself into the fight with convincing gusto, and did not miss a step. Finally, the choreography was set.
“Terrific!” Brian cried enthusiastically. “Keep it up, David, you’ll scare the guts out of the front rows.”
Rob looked pleased, and David glowed with his success. Ellen breathed a sigh of relief. Having the dean’s son muff his big scene would not be good public relations for the theatre. Thank God David had some real ability.
After rehearsal, Rob stopped Maggie at the door.
“Cup of coffee with the O’Connors and me?” he suggested.
She was regretful. “Not unless you’ll drink it at the laundromat. Ellen and I have chores tonight.”
Inexplicably, he accepted, with delight. “Of course we will! I’m sick of coffeehouses with dark wood and mood lighting. Only a true soubrette would think of a coffeehouse so fresh and different.”
It was a challenge. Uh-oh, thought Ellen, seeing the merry glint in Maggie’s eyes. They pleased each other, Ellen saw; there was a sort of instant understanding and delight in the other’s odd fancies. With a sudden twist of dismay, she realized that the relationship had moved past the playful acquaintance it still seemed on the surface. Maggie said, “D’accord. We’ll be there in half an hour. On College Avenue. It’s called, pardon the expression, Sudsy Duds.”
“Ugh.”
“And don’t forget your fiddle.”
He was a few minutes late, but it turned out that he had been home to collect some laundry of his own. Maggie and Ellen, lounging in the ugly plastic chairs that lined one side of the big humid room, looked up when he came in.
“Hi, Maggie, Ellen.”
“Hello.”
He looked around. “Had Dante known about this place, he would have created a special ring for it.” He had to raise his voice a little. It was true, thought Ellen. The rumbling, swishing machines, the ugly fluorescent glare, the heavy, steamy air—all made this one of the experiences she dreaded most each week. But Maggie answered solemnly, “That’s just because you have not yet been initiated into the true delights of the Sudsy Duds.”
“Nonsense.” He dropped his basket on a chair, watching her expectantly.
“Not at all. Sensible as a dictionary.” She glanced at her watch. “It’s not time yet. We have eight minutes.”
“Eight.” He looked at his own watch seriously. “A countdown?”
“Right. Meanwhile, they have a coffee machine.”
“Fine. And I can put my clothes in.” He picked them up.
“Use number fourteen.”
“Fourteen!” Ellen protested. “But that’s the one—”
“Exactly,” said Maggie, smiling at her, and part of the pattern shifted into place for Ellen. Their own clothes were in five and sixteen. But why was Maggie picking the noisiest machines?
“Fourteen it is,” said Rob, oddly encouraged by this exchange. He dumped his clothes into the appointed machine and pushed in the coins, but Maggie came up beside him and raised the lid, stopping the action.
“Six minutes more,” she said with a smile.
“I can hardly wait. Look! Here come Nick and Zetty.”
“Terrific! Come on, quick!” said Maggie urgently, taking the basket from Nick. “Number thirty-one. We’ll have to get it going right now.”
Nick looked at Rob, who shrugged in amused puzzlement, and followed Maggie around to thirty-one. Lisette sat down next to Ellen. There were only two other customers, sitting reading in a torpor at the other end of the row of seats.
“What’s going on?” asked Lisette.
“I’m not sure,” said Ellen, “but it’s going to be noisy.”
“Is that why Rob told us to bring the guitar?”
“Who knows? She brought the flute.”
“Violin?” asked Maggie.
“In the car,” said Rob. “And Nick brought his guitar.”
“Great. You’ve got two minutes.”
They brought in their instruments. Maggie closed the top of Rob’s machine, and the familiar throbbing high-pitched hum of number fourteen joined the rumbling of the machines already in action.
“Sorry I can’t give you an A. That’s a B-flat,” said Maggie.
Grinning, Rob and Nick tuned their instruments.
“Now, in just a minute, number sixteen will start its first spin. I would suggest ‘The Impossible Dream.’”
She held up a solemn finger, and in a few seconds the low pulsing grind of Ellen’s machine in its spin cycle joined the din, providing a dominating bass beat to the other noises. Maggie’s finger fell, and the three of them launched into an enthusiastic parody of the song. Nick even managed to bellow out two verses of it before Ellen’s machine moved on to its next phase. Despite herself, Ellen, like Lisette, was vastly entertained. She was embarrassed for a moment when a new couple came in with a load of clothes, but Maggie, with a polite face, asked them quite civilly if they would please use number twenty-four, and they shrugged, then obeyed.
By the time their clothes were dry, they had collected a small audience—customers as well as a number of bemused passersby. Some Beatles songs and many current musicals had been subjected to atrocious and delightful parody. Some had to be sung at peculiar tempos because of the inexorable mechanical rhythms in the background.
When they finished, their audience applauded ecstatically, cheering and whistling. For a moment Ellen had forgotten her own worries. It was, all in all, the best laundry she had ever done.
She turned to Lisette. “Is it always like this? Being married to an actor?”
“No, not at all,” said Lisette, a little surprised. “In New York there never seems to be time to just play.” Then she frowned at Ellen, puzzled, and said, “There’s really no time for it here either, though, is there? It must be Maggie.”
Ellen shook her head. “Not really. She’s always clowned around a little, but not like this. I guess they inspire each other.”
Audition for Murder Page 13
