“These are fabulous!” Cu was abnormally handsome and it was easier to stare at the drawings than at him. My eyes strayed to his notebook. “You did them?”
He nodded, glancing away, less shy than remote, clearly uninterested in conversation. All my carefully considered questions fled from my head—how irritating that mere biology can be such a weakness. This guy would soon be the heartthrob of all those staff ladies who lusted after the unattainable types.
“I wrote the measurements down,” he noted. “You must follow them exactly.”
These Tuatuans spoke better English than old Max Eider. I studied the sketches again. Te-Cucularit’s figures were precise and graceful. “Sure. Okay.”
“We will need them quickly, to paint them.”
I traced the complications of his patterning with a finger. His disapproval was intimidating. I hadn’t even done anything yet. “That’ll take awhile, I guess?”
He nodded again and turned to go.
“Umm…?” I was afraid to call him by name. I might say it wrong and offend him further. “I know about the Matta and the Burinda, but could you tell me what these others are?”
He reclaimed the sketches brusquely. “This is a Duli. This is a Puleale. I give you their short names. This is a Gorrehma.”
“It would be useful if, umm, Micah will want to know what they’re for…”
“They are for ceremonial use,” he replied, as if I’d asked him to sell his grandmother.
“The ceremonial use of the gorrehma,” rumbled a voice behind us, “is for Moussa to sit his big black ass on when he plays his drums.”
Mali loomed like a great, dark stork, book in hand, dance bag slung over his shoulder. He smiled down at me, his transforming brilliant smile, rich with what I dared to interpret as sympathy, though it was rather more complicated than that. “Cu likes to go by the book. Don’t you, bro?”
Nothing in Cu’s manner challenged the older man. He nodded faintly, his face as tightly closed as the notebook beneath his arm. I saw that Mali had intervened not to clear up any misunderstanding but merely to defuse it.
“Ask our Master Cervantes if he might not be more satisfied to discover a knowledge of these objects as they are actually being put to use.”
Get him to come to rehearsal, you mean. Mali’s gentle formality reminded me of the way one speaks to a child when trying to make it feel grown up.
“I’m sure Micah will understand,” I said lamely.
“I’m sure he will.” Mali hiked up his dance bag and nodded to Cu. “Pack up, bro. Dinnertime.”
Brothers, I wondered? Though both were tall, Mali was much darker, as if he stood under a cloud, and thin to the point of awkwardness, all knobs and sticks, while Cu had that perfect dancer’s body.
Mali slipped his book into an outer pocket of his satchel.
Made bold by his civility, I asked, “What are you reading?”
He laughed, and I wondered if I would ever hear a sound from him that did not seem to have at least three meanings.
“Everything I can get my hands on!” He patted the book in its pocket. It was an old hardback stamped “HARMONY FREE LIBRARY” on the page ends. “There aren’t a lot of books on Tuatua, never mind a whole library!”
He’d gone out the door with Cu in tow before I realized he’d satisfied my curiosity without actually answering my question.
BRIGHAM:
I stared after Mali, probably looking dumb, then stowed Cu’s drawings between the pages of my pad, and joined Howie and Liz at the production table. “Do those guys ever give a direct answer to a question?”
Liz smirked. “Not if they can help it.”
“But why?”
“They don’t trust us.” Howie wagged his head sagely. “They’ve been so isolated out there on that little island of theirs, they don’t feel a real part of the Arts fraternity. Once they see we’re all after the same thing, they’ll come around.”
The stage managers bustled about straightening chairs and feeding rubbish into the recycler. On our way out, I asked, “Are those birds up in the rafters?”
Howie nodded. “And they come when Moussa calls them. Uncanny.”
As it was past Closing time, only the usual army of cleanerbots kept us company along the lanes as we trudged the long mile to the Arkadie, me wheeling my bike to keep Howie company.
“I guess Tuli’s okay, huh?”
Howie’s chortle was not as complacent as he probably intended it to be. “Ah, they’ll play that mystery out until there’s no one left who remembers it.”
The Outside sun cut through haze and dome to mix its dirty orange with the programmed pinks and ambers of the dawn/dusk artificials, lending the landscape a Turneresque quality: turbulent, smoky, and faintly sinister. The warehouses loomed, laying long bands of shadow across the pavement.
Along the edges of the residential district, we passed several construction sites.
“Higher and higher,” mourned Howie. “No more room to build out.”
“Those foreign hotel people finally tore down that beautiful old town house in BardClyffe,” I said.
“I was at that meeting. Christ, even Micah came. You should have heard him, insisting that only five years ago such zoning variances were ‘anathema.’ ” Howie chuckled. “Only Micah could pull off a word like that. The mayor nearly wept as she agreed that the Founders had not planned adequately for the needs of an expanding economy. But we did manage to knock Francotel down from twenty stories to ten. Fit to be tied, they were.”
Build, build, build, I thought in gloomy panic. Someday even Harmony will look like Chicago.
Howie got pensive again, tromping along like Big Foot.
“How’d it go today?” I asked him finally.
“Fine, just fine.”
“You sound a little tired.”
“Well, they wear me out. Whoever said theatre was a universal language had his head up his ass.” He waved with hastily summoned energy to an elderly woman standing in the rose-twined doorway of a mock-Tudor cottage. Fetching’s style tended away from the Greek hill village ideal and more toward the Cotswold hamlet. “This issue of religion is a bitch. I’m not allowed to sound skeptical, yet if I try to talk in their terms, I’m either co-opting what doesn’t belong to me, or I’m being condescending! I have to think twice about every word, theirs and mine, just to be sure we’re understanding each other. I mean, hell! We’re speaking the same language and I still need an interpreter!”
“Omea can’t help?”
“Omea is also my leading lady. Who translates for Omea? Even she’s been asking me if they could take a walk Outside now and then! I mean, come on! They’ve got to know better than that!”
A walk Outside? “Hickey says the dome makes them feel confined.”
“They live on an island! What’s the difference? Listen, I think I’ll come along while you bother Sean about the vanishing act.”
“I don’t know, Howie… the artistic director in the shop? They’ll think someone’s died.”
“Yadda yadda. At least I know the way. Better’n many I could mention.” But first he steered me through the columned portal and across silent acres of salmon-colored plush, in the direction of the upper lobby. “Gotta make nice with Cam Brigham. Rachel says he’s here checking out the display for Crossroads.”
Like most of Howie’s Board of Trustees, Campbell Brigham came from a Founder family that had prospered. His gallery in Lorien Market did most of its business in eight figures over the com lines.
“I didn’t know he bothered with stuff like that.”
“Never has before. But Bill Rand, who’s directing Crossroads, is a longtime pal of his. Whenever Cam’s pissed at me, he threatens to desert the Arkadie for Bill’s theatre over in Silvertree.”
“Willow Street? We’re doing a piece with them next fall.”
“Yeah? Good play?”
The stairs to the upper level seemed to float unsupported in the flush of sunlight thro
ugh the translucent stone walls. The polished brass rail was a warm golden curve beneath my hand, as sensual as skin. Howie took the shallow carpeted steps two at a time. I raced after him, panting.
“Not bad. ‘Cept they keep changing the title.”
“Typical. I’d hate to be their publicity department.”
“At least they don’t keep changing the play, like some theatres I could name.”
Howie tossed a defensive glance over his shoulder. “Hey, kiddo, plays are like fish. Sometimes they get away from you.”
He slowed at the top of the stairs and rounded the corner strolling. He hailed Cam Brigham as if we’d just happened to be wandering the upper lobby at six in the afternoon.
The display area was the curving inner wall that separated the lobby and the bigger theatre’s balcony level. Photos of the current production, and often rehearsal shots or research material relevant to the play, were mounted behind broad sheets of glass. They were there, Micah always said, to give the audience something to talk about besides each other while they nibbled their intermission snacks.
Now the cases were empty. Photos lay stacked against the marble wall or stretched out across the peach carpet. Several minions from Publicity scurried around, hanging and labeling.
Cam Brigham stood with hands clasped behind him, staring down his nose at an eye-catching blowup of an actress in eighteenth-century costume. Howie fell into an identical posture at his side.
“Everything to your liking, Cam?”
“Oh fine, just real fine, Howard.”
Brigham was a fat man, no bones about it. He made bearlike Howie appear svelte. His pale blond hair was thinning and made his head look small compared to the pear-shaped rest of him, and as he seemed determined to play the jovial fat man, he carried himself like one, shoulders pulled way back, belly advancing, arms slightly akimbo to balance his weight.
“Glad to hear it,” said Howie.
“Oh well, I had them move a few things around, that’s all.” Brigham smiled at me expectantly. We’d met at several Arkadie opening nights, but I wasn’t important enough for him to remember longer than the five minutes required for an introduction.
“You know Gwinn Rhys, Micah’s assistant,” Howie supplied smoothly.
“Of course. I’m always telling Micah how lucky he is to have someone around who’s both talented and lovely.”
Yuck, I thought, but I smiled for both Howie’s and Micah’s sakes, and did everything but curtsy.
“So what’d you move around?” asked Howie casually.
Brigham laid an inflated hand on Howie’s shoulder. “We were thinking we should leave more space for the color shots of the finished production, and actually, I thought you might want to put all the materials for your show downstairs nearer the entrance to Theatre Minor.”
It was thought clever, among certain of the staff, to refer to the two stages as Theatre Major and Theatre Minor, but I knew Howie did not encourage this.
Howie considered a moment, or pretended to. “Yeah, might be. Only problem is there’s not much room down there, and it’s really too poorly lit for display.”
Brigham gave this an equal split-second’s consideration, then gestured at the impressive photo in front of them. “But you know, How, the contrast won’t do either any good.”
I moved away, out of the firing line, and perused the Crossroads pictures. The show was a richly costumed period epic, the sort that photographed well even in rehearsal clothes, with actors in long skirts and elegant poses. The historical material was stunning, and the final production shots, taken with the set finished and the actors in full costume, would be huge, lush, and gorgeous. Boards of trustees loved displays like that: they made the theatre appear lively and prosperous. I could sort of see Brigham’s point, especially when I came upon the pile he’d discarded.
I recognized a lot of the stuff from our own research. Alongside the tall, bare-shouldered actresses of Crossroads, in their powdered wigs and acres of silk and jewels, the Tuatuans in their beads and T-shirts put on a poor showing indeed.
But Howie smiled, offering up intellectual conspiracy as a prize. “Cam, contrast is exactly the point.”
Brigham laughed broadly. “Your point. But maybe not Bill Rand’s point. No fair weighing down one show with the exotica of another, eh? Let our audience come to both and draw their own conclusions. Especially now we’re considering those new tourist matinees.”
“I didn’t give the okay on those, Cam.”
“Not yet.”
Howie looked ready to do battle, but Brigham headed him off. “Howie, Howie, let’s go easy here. I’ve had enough flak from the other trustees for letting you do this little play of yours in the first place.”
“Letting me…!”
“And bringing these Outsiders right into our own theatre. Now I hear Liz wants to put them up in somebody’s house!”
Howie flushed. “They’re not Outsiders!”
“Excuse me. UnEnclosed. Same thing.”
“No, Cám. These guys are legal. For chrissakes!”
Brigham patted his arm. “There’s things going on in the world, Howie. All I’m telling you is the Board’s not happy with it.”
“First I’ve heard of it! I’ve consulted the Board every step on this. Prill and Jim and Cora have been behind me all the way.”
“Well, Cora always was a little radical. As for the others…” Brigham shifted his weight from one thick leg to the other, smiling apologetically. “You know how people are.”
“What, they’ve changed their minds?”
The fat man shrugged, still smiling. “People don’t always know their minds right off, you know how it is.”
“No, I don’t!” Howie jammed his big hands on his hips and glared around at the
Brigham looked hugely satisfied. “Atta boy. Don’t pout, now. You’ll see I’m right.”
* * *
Howie fumed the whole way to the shop. “It’s him, damn it! Fucking stick-his-fingers-into-everything Cam! He never liked the idea of bringing in the Eye, and now the sonofabitch is working on everyone else! He says, why go so far away and to so much trouble? Perfectly good plays being written here at home. I said, yeah? Show ’em to me! They’re all fucking boring!” His usual bearish stride lengthened. The narrow concrete corridor echoed with his steady clomping and my clattering to keep up. “Have to get to the others right away. Go to work on damage control. Cora will help.”
I was silent. I wanted to know why he’d let Brigham push him around the way the fat man was pushing around the rest of the Board members, but it wasn’t the sort of thing you come right out and ask somebody. Howie probably deserved it, after leaving Micah high and dry at first rehearsal, but I was trying to learn from Micah’s compassionate example.
So I grunted the appropriate agreements and pondered something else: that Brigham had referred to the Eye as Outsiders. It reminded me of the graffiti.
Our failure to turn up any solid information about the Closed Door League was somehow more threatening than if they’d been haranguing right under our noses. Exactly what were these policies they were keeping so secret? If they wanted the home-bred to be running Harmony, that wasn’t so scary, but what did they think about the Outside Adoption Policy? Were they Exclusionists? Would they, given the chance, try to throw all non-natives out?
I wasn’t too happy to find myself suddenly thinking like Jane.
* * *
Sean’s irreverent boisterousness was a relief, and Howie was soothed by the respect automatically accorded by the shop personnel to the man who signed their paychecks. As we threaded a crooked path among the crowded worktables, I saw a lot of Crossroads being built and nothing at all that I could recognize as part of The Gift. I was surprised the show hadn’t been started yet, but fig
ured that Sean knew his own schedule better than I did.
“Cam’s up there taking my pictures down!” Howie complained to the plans and elevations lining Sean’s office walls.
Sean’s T-shirt read: Don’t start with me. You know how I get. He handed each of us a beer. “Cam’s a jerk. He’s a fat man. He’d put up his family album if you gave him the chance.”
They laughed, and the creases in Howie’s brow softened.
“Ah, I gave in to him, the asshole.” Howie took a manly slug of his beer. “Keeps him outa my hair. He’s only on the Board ’cause he’s rich as Croesus. Let him run around taking his petty victories, so I can get on with the real work, like directing my play!”
“A world-class jerk,” Sean agreed. But I was pretty sure Brigham’s victory had not been so petty.
I was relieved to discover the prints of The Gift laid out on Sean’s drawing board. I leafed through them absently while he and Howie did their fraternal number. Reassuring notes were jotted here and there, measurements and materials specifications, little sketches showing a crosscut detail or how to make up a certain joint. At least some work was getting done on the show.
“How’s it going, Sean?” I asked eventually.
“Good, me gerl.” He put on his father’s thick brogue. “Sure ‘n we’ve got our hands full, but we’re allus on top of it. How’s me auld boyo up there in Bardycliff?”
I sighed. “Still struggling to cut Marin.”
Sean mimed scissors as long as his arm. “It’s the only way, you know.” He smiled my way, his soft blond and gray hair falling in front of come-on eyes. Sean’s sexy clowning usually inspired teenish giggles, much as I wished to appear professional and mature. But at the moment I was thinking, Sean’s SecondGen. Ask him about the Closed Door League. But not in front of Howie. Howie had enough problems.
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