The Cornerstone

by Anne C. Petty

  Claire was their only child, unexpected when Gwen turned forty-one. They’d named her after Jimmie’s mother, and she’d been their greatest source of happiness. But now, she was Gwen’s only source of care. Poor Claire. It wasn’t fair, but what could you do?

  She was glad when Claire decided to join a local theater group. It sounded like fun with nice people from what Claire told her. Claire needed an outlet, something that had nothing to do with sickbeds and car accident victims, which was what her daughter saw most often in her job with the ambulance service that took calls from the Atlanta metro area and outlying neighborhoods. Although Claire had passed all her Paramedics studies near the top of her class, Gwen knew Claire would be better off in a research job. Moody all through high school and into Tech College, she’d seemed the happiest she’d been in a long time when accepted into Emory’s chemistry program. She’d just started her first semester when Jimmie chose to leave them with no means of support. Ironic that an insurance salesman would have such a meager policy of his own. Gwen sighed, wheezed, and finally dozed.

  “Mother?” Claire stood in the bedroom doorway, outlined by light from the hall. “Are you awake?”

  “Just now, yes.”

  Claire came into the bedroom and leaned over her, offering a soft kiss on her cheek.

  “You’re my angel.” Claire’s hair was newly washed and smelled like flowers.

  “Sorry I was late coming home tonight. Feel like getting up for some supper?”

  A stab of guilt as Gwen remembered. Shame was on her lips. Finally, “The bed’s wet.” She could see the wince, even with her poor eyesight.

  “Don’t worry about it; I’ll change the bed as soon as we’ve got you cleaned up.”

  “I hate for you to have to wait on me like this.”

  Claire made a dismissive gesture. “That’s what I’m here for.”

  There it was, the bitter pill. Claire had come home to wait for her to die. She wished she could oblige by hurrying up. If she just quit eating it would go faster, but Doctor Curso’s nurse had scolded her roundly for weighing in at ninety-four pounds on her last office visit. Anyway, she didn’t have the courage. Even in the slow inevitable process of dying, the body still wanted to live.

  In a clean dressing gown and seated at the round oak table in the small dining area, where in warm weather the glass doors would be opened onto a backyard patio, Gwen sipped at the chowder Claire had heated on the stove. The portable oxygen generator whispered softly behind her chair.

  “I hate being a burden on you like this.”

  “Mama, will you stop?”

  Was there a hint of resentment? Gwen wasn’t sure. Well, it couldn’t be helped. Who wanted to spend their youth nursing a dying old woman? “Claire, are you feeling all right?” Claire was massaging the back of her head and not paying attention to her supper.

  “What?”

  “You were frowning.”

  “I was? Sorry. I’m just tense. It’s nothing serious.”

  “Are you sure? Your face looks pinched. Are you in pain?”

  “Minor headache. Really, it’s okay.” Claire gathered up the dishes and took them to the kitchen, divided from the dining area by a long granite counter. She stashed them in the sink with her back turned to her mother.

  Gwen noticed the hunch of her shoulders as she rinsed their soup bowls. Something was going unsaid, but she wouldn’t pry. Claire would tell her eventually. She always did.

  Chapter 3

  Thursday, 6:45 P. M., a week later

  “Before we get underway this evening, I wish to announce a slight cast change.”

  Bayard’s voice carried all the way from the front of the stage to the back of the theater where Claire slipped in late through the double doors. He had a booming delivery even in ordinary conversation. She wondered what he must have been like as an actor. Probably the kind who stole the show every night.

  “As most of you know, Danny has quit the play—and the company—which means that Tom will now assume the role of Doctor Faustus.” Heads turned and the actor named Tom gave a thumbs-up.

  Tom was Danny’s understudy, which should make for an interesting tectonic shift in the play’s dynamics. The two couldn’t have been more different, in Claire’s opinion. Tom, the near-skinhead who piloted a big chrome-covered Harley to rehearsals, was a couple of inches taller and at least twenty pounds beefier than Danny the whippet. In fact, Tom reminded her of a very young Henry Rollins, tats and all. Claire watched Tom interacting with the cast members taking up the front row of seats. She’d never heard him stand in for Danny since they’d begun rehearsals, or deliver any lines at all for that matter, so her interest was piqued. She rummaged in her tote bag for the script. They needed the most current marked-up version and it would suck if she’d left it at home in the rush to get here. Probably going to do a lot of prompting until Tom and Morris got used to each other onstage and the play found its new rhythm.

  “I expect everyone to give Tom as much support as he needs to fit into the part,” Bayard was saying. “Hello, Miss Porter, glad you could join us.”

  Claire’s cheeks flamed as she slid into a seat on the third row beside doe-eyed Addie, the Mummers’ go-to girl for all the sultry, slutty parts like the Evil Angel and Lechery in the Seven Deadly Sins grouping. Adelaide Murphy was one of the company’s veterans, auburn-haired, green-eyed, somewhere in her thirties with a whisky-rough kind of voice. She was from New England, knew a lot about the arts, and for some reason, clicked right away with Claire.

  All the heads turned toward them. Claire gave a quick tight-lipped smile. “Sorry, had a traffic accident to clean up.”

  Bayard nodded. “Yes, someone does have to protect people from dying. A commendable profession.” He moved on. “So. For Tom’s benefit, we’ll begin from the beginning—act one, scene one, Faustus’ study. Shall we take our marks and see who besides Morris is fully off the script now?” That was probably how Danny had scored a major part in the play. He was such a quick study as to be nearly off book by a second or third read-through. He was a great mimic, too. Could master any accent you wanted, if you didn’t need it in a deep voice. She still wondered, just a little bit, why he hadn’t been persuaded to stay.

  The cast members taking part in scene one rose and headed for the wings: Faustus, his page Wagner, the Good and Evil Angels, and Faustus’ scheming friends Valdes and Cornelius. Claire trailed them, feeling vaguely ill at ease. What was with that comment of Bayard’s about preventing people from dying? She took up her position in the wings stage right, but couldn’t stop frowning. This little venture into the acting world was supposed to give her some recreation and a creative way to decompress from her day job of making sure people got to the hospital more or less in one piece, but right now she wasn’t having a lot of fun. Which, if she were honest, was her own fault. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d been accused of being too nosey about other people’s business and not knowing when to just let something drop.

  Claire settled her butt on the barstool reserved for the prompter, positioned just out of the audience sight lines. They were running this rehearsal with full lighting and effects, but no costumes. She turned the script to scene one and got out her penlight.

  Ruben the lighting guy, who sometimes moonlighted with the ballet company when they performed in the university theater across town, brought the house and stage lights down, with a single spot trained on Bayard where he stood center stage, in command of the ship. At least that’s how she thought of him. He’d have made a great pirate captain, tiller in one hand and cutlass in the other, or maybe a bottle of whiskey, ordering his men into assault position as their lean, fast ship pulled alongside a slower, heavier civilian vessel where terrified ladies and their peacock gentlemen got an eyeful of their approaching fate. Claire blinked hard. Her eyelid movie vanished, and she tuned back into Bayard proclaiming the lines of the Chorus, a part he’d reserved for himself. It was easy to fall under his spell as Marlowe’
s “glorious blank verse,” so-called by Addie, rolled off his tongue. He was that good. Claire had no clue what blank verse was until Morris, ex-English major and self-employed journalist, explained it to her.

  “Unrhymed verse in iambic pentameter. Goes dah-DAH, dah-DAH, like that, five to a line. Christopher Marlowe was the first English playwright to fully exploit the form, and this play, Dr. Faustus, is the pinnacle of that expression. At least in my not-so-humble opinion.” He delivered the explanation like a college lecture. Claire had felt appropriately stupid and uninformed, but now when she actually listened to the lines of the play beyond just looking for accuracy of delivery, she heard what Addie meant.

  “…and now the good Doctor doth indulge in cursed necromancy. Nothing is as sweet to him as magic, which he does prefer before the dove of Heaven…and this the man that in his study sits.” With a flourish, he strode off stage right, stopping just past Claire and positioning himself in the wings to monitor the action. A portion of the stage lights came up, revealing the set of Faustus’ study, where Tom now sat in the high-backed chair instead of Danny. He faced the audience and launched into Faustus’ opening monologue.

  “…Put away your studies, Faustus, and begin to sound the depths of what you have attained…”

  Claire sat up, more attuned to what was happening onstage. Where Danny had just inhabited his little area of the set, Tom owned the space. She wondered if riding a Harley had something to do with that. He spoke the lines clearly and confidently, with an air of authority that Danny had never got hold of. It was easy to believe this person could be the fabled scholar of Wittenberg who’d grown bored with his vast knowledge and wanted more. Intrigued, Claire suddenly couldn’t wait to see how he played off Morris, who was also used to owning his portion of stage real estate.

  “…Oh, what a world of profit and delight, of power, of honor, of omnipotence is promised to the studious artisan! All things that move between the poles shall be at my command…”

  Tom was really getting into it. In fact, he was a natural. His voice had presence, and it was clear he’d memorized the opening lines to the point that there were very few mistakes. Claire lowered the script, more interested in Tom’s complete takeover of the part than in helping him remember his lines. She wondered if he’d been madly practicing all this time, hoping for a chance to show his own approach to the role if for some reason Danny couldn’t go on. She knew the understudy was always supposed to be ready to competently step in if need be, but in the nearly half a year she’d been with the company they hadn’t had to promote an understudy until now. She slanted her eyes toward Bayard. He stood very still, watching the scene intently, his expression unreadable.

  “A sound magician is a demi-god,” Tom proclaimed.

  The Good and Evil Angels made their entrance. Each had just a few lines with which to impress both Faustus and the audience.

  “Go forward, Faustus….Be thou on earth like Jove is in the sky, Lord and commander of these elements.” Addie played the Evil Angel to the hilt, her green eyes bright and her full mouth drawn into a bow that wasn’t quite a kiss at the end of her line. Claire was sure that moment hadn’t been nearly as provocative when she’d spoken those lines to Danny. This transformation of the play by a single cast change was going to be interesting to watch.

  The scene played out, as did scene two, and they moved on to scene three, where Faustus has his first meeting with the management team from Hell—Lucifer, his lieutenant Mephistopheles, and a few assorted devils. Claire twitched in anticipation.

  The scene-three scrim came down into place with backlighting to show the outline of a shadowy grove at night. Tom took his mark near the footlights, facing somewhat upstage.

  “…I’ll begin my incantations, and try if devils will obey my summons…”

  Claire held her breath. What followed in the script was a passage in Latin that Danny had memorized syllable by syllable and repeated with ease, although she doubted he understood any of the words. A translation would be provided in the program for the audience’s benefit, something to the effect of “May the gods of the underworld favor me; may the triple deity of Jehovah be gone; to the spirits of fire, air, and water, greetings…let Mephistopheles himself now arise to serve us.”

  The sound effects of thunder rumbled, and Tom took a breath.

  “Sint mihi dei acherontis propitii, valeat numen triplex Jehovae…” Claire’s jaw dropped. More thunder crackled and Morris entered upstage right. Her scalp prickled. This was really too good.

  “Now, Faustus, what would you have me do?” Morris’s voice was pitched low and seductive, yet projected well to the back of the theater. He advanced on the figure downstage and this time met an actor who was closer to his own height. Claire noticed the shift in Morris’s body language, not hovering over his quarry as he’d done with Danny, but more like drawing himself up taller, sizing up this new persona who defied easy intimidation.

  The actors went into the back and forth exchange in which Faustus demands to know whether his conjuring has forced Lucifer to send his chief lieutenant, to which Mephistopheles assures the scholar that he is merely curious and has come of his own accord.

  “Did not my conjuring speeches raise thee?” Tom insisted, invading Morris’s space. Claire was surprised to see Morris fall back a few steps before engaging in the famous repartee about Lucifer’s fall from heaven with his attendant angels and the nature of Hell and whether the torment of being cut off from the bliss of paradise was worth the voluptuous pleasures of the underworld. Their voices rose and the exchange became more heated, a passionate argument instead of a scholarly debate.

  Bayard came to life beside her and stepped out of the wings. “All right, let’s take a moment, shall we?” Both actors surfaced from their personas with a slightly dazed look. Claire slid off her stool, straining to catch their words as the three of them conferred in lowered voices. She clearly heard Morris say “dial it back a notch” before Bayard turned to the rest of the cast and announced a short break.

  “Faustus and his Mephisto are going to reblock the scene. Everyone else take a break and be back in twenty minutes sharp.”

  Claire advanced toward the trio. “Do I need to stay—“

  Bayard dismissed her with a wave. “Not this time. Go on with the others. It’s clear our new Faustus has his lines. We just need to fine-tune the delivery.”

  Claire nodded and headed down the stage right steps. As she caught up with Addie, a glance back at the stage revealed Bayard and the two actors having what seemed a good-natured laugh with some head-nodding. Tom was smiling a little sheepishly, Morris looked neutral, so it was all fine. Claire tried to relax that pinch she’d felt developing between her shoulders.

  “Well, that was interesting,” Addie said as they fell into step, heading up the aisle toward the lobby doors.

  Claire stuffed the script in her bag. “Yeah, whole different play.”

  “Tom’s hot, don’t you think?” Addie the Evil Angel licked her lips, even if she might be a bit too old for him.

  “I’ve never paid him much attention, to be honest. The Harley’s cool, though.”

  “Well, he’s a vast improvement over Danny.” Addie pushed through the doors and held them open for Claire.

  “It’s weird about Danny. Gone—just poof, like he’d never been here. Sure, I’d be upset if I got hurt onstage, but I don’t think it would make me quit the company. It’s just…” Claire shrugged. “…Odd.”

  “C’mon, the whole place is odd, which is why I love coming here.” Addie made a dramatic sweep of her arms, as if to embrace the Janus Theatre in its moldering entirety. “It has history, presence…and presences,” She laughed wickedly.

  “About that.” They’d stopped in the darkened lobby. Claire considered getting a soda from the drink machine hulking in the half-light across the room, but changed her mind and headed up the wide stairs to the mezzanine where the lights were brighter and the ballet company was in rehearsal
. “Morris told me the theatre’s haunted. I think he was just trying to spook me.”

  “Worked, didn’t it?” Addie was grinning. “That’s Morris for you. Takes his Mephisto role a little too seriously. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out he’s a dabbler.”

  Claire stopped. “Dabbler?”

  “In the occult. Oh, not like me. Not Wiccan. I mean, he probably reads Crowley or Anton Levay. For verisimilitude.” She emphasized the ‘tude.

  “Oh. You mean like method acting.” They trudged side by side up the curved staircase to the second floor where taped music flowed out to meet them. “How’s Wicca different from black magic?”

  Addie made an exasperated noise. “Like day and night, that’s how.”

  “I wouldn’t know. I was raised Episcopalian.” They shared a laugh.

  On the mezzanine level, they stood in the wide entryway of the ballet rehearsal space. The cavernous room, with its rows of narrow floor-to-ceiling windows along the north and south walls and a bank of tall mirrors at the eastern end, was filled with twirling, leaping dancers. The music of David Byrne pulsed from speakers near the door. The air had a dry, dusty taste as jumping, landing feet pounded decades of dust out of the wood flooring. A dozen or so dancers not involved in the piece being rehearsed lounged or stretched in the corners or along the walls out of the way.

  Peach City Ballet was a small company made up mostly of the better students from local studios and talented older dancers who hadn’t made the cut over at The Atlanta Ballet, the city's big-league professional company. PCB’s director was a lovely Brazilian man who’d danced in his heyday for the likes of Jose Limón and Alvin Ailey. PCB was his retirement project, a small but lovingly crafted jewel.

  “I like watching them,” Claire said. “Especially her.” She pointed out a sinewy, athletic dancer, of medium height. “Jackie and I grew up in the same neighborhood, one street over from each other.” With mousy blondish-brownish hair cropped in a short cap, slightly horsey facial features, ordinary brown eyes, Jackie was about as plain as they came, but Claire knew that once she was in motion, she was unmistakable. Most of the female dancers in the company had the willowy Swan Lake heroine look nailed, with their pale skin, long slim legs, and highly arched feet. But Claire preferred to watch Jackie, whose muscular precision and agility were more exciting.