Bad Company

by Sarah Dreher

  "We'll pass a signal over lunch. If there's anything to report, I'll pretend to have trouble with my wheel chair. Then you come to our room as soon as you can. It's 108."

  "Good. And if I have anything, I'll just come straight to your room."

  She heard the sound of a screen door slamming and glanced toward the barn. One of the women was running across the lawn toward the inn. From the jerkiness of her movements, it was clear she was in distress. The door slammed again and another woman ran after her.

  Roseann, with Sherry in hot pursuit.

  Stoner planted herself in Roseann's path and held out a hand to stop her, "Hey," she said. "Is anything wrong?"

  Roseann looked up at her. Her face was bright red and tear-streaked. "I can't do this any more," she blurted out. Tearing her arm from Stoner's grip, she ran into The Cottage.

  Chapter Seven

  She was about to go after her when Sherry came trotting up, out of breath and frazzled.

  Stoner stopped her. "What's going on?"

  "She read Rebecca's notes," Sherry panted.

  She brushed by them and ran into the inn.

  Stoner looked at Clara and Esther, who shrugged in bewilderment.

  "I'd better check this out," she said, and headed for the barn.

  The screen door squealed behind her. Inside, the Goddess of Chaos had assumed full control of the situation. Boneset was hammering at a piece of scenery with an intensity that verged on homicidal. Barb was trying to cajole the rest of the technical crew, who were standing silently and staring at Rebecca as if paralyzed, into going back to work. Rita's hair had turned so frizzy and wild it looked as if her head had caught fire, while Seabrook called for Rebecca to be nuked immediately. Divi Divi, imposing in a brightly colored caftan, stood to one side making notes—maybe for a new play, maybe for a rewrite for this one, but apparently taking playwright's advantage of the drama unfolding in front of her. Rebecca paced back and forth waving a sheet of computer paper and demanding to know "who did this."

  Marcy whined that all this emotional turmoil was ruining her concentration.

  "At least," Gwen said with a nod in Marcy's general direction, "there's one member of this company you can count on for consistency."

  "What happened?"

  "As far as I can tell, someone got into Rebecca's computer and printed out her director's notes."

  "These are not my director's notes," Rebecca shouted across the room. "These are stupid notes."

  "So you keep stupid director's notes," Rita said helpfully. "It's nothing to be defensive about. I keep stupid gardening notes."

  "Rita, Rita, my chiquita," Seabrook sang, "how does your garden glow?"

  "They're not my notes!"

  "Look," Marcy said with a heavy sigh, "are we going to rehearse this turkey, or not?"

  Divi Divi pulled herself up to her full nearly six feet and sauntered across the stage. "Doll," she said to Marcy, "you may have had some input into this play, but most of the writing is mine and I've grown pretty attached to it. So, unless you want to have some real unpleasant interactions with me, just keep your opinions to yourself."

  Marcy flung her arms into the air in a gesture of terminal frustration. She stalked to a chair and began filing her nails.

  "Let's go outside and talk about this," Stoner said to Rebecca.

  Rebecca's face had a dangerously unyielding look to it. The kind of look Stoner knew she sometimes got when she felt helpless and was refusing to cry. "We have a rehearsal to do," Rebecca said stubbornly She raised her voice. "Okay, we'll work around Roseann's part."

  Stoner grabbed her by the shoulder. "Outside, Rebecca. Now." She turned to the rest of the company. "Take the time to go over your lines. Gwen can fill in for Roseann..."

  "I should read Roseann's part," Marcy interrupted. "I'm her understudy."

  "Only if she quits," Divi Divi said. "I'll hold book."

  Stoner shot Divi Divi a grateful look and guided Rebecca toward the door.

  "You're not the director," Marcy shouted after her. "You can't tell us what to do."

  "The director's having a nervous breakdown," Stoner said. "I'm the assistant director."

  "We have to process this," Marcy persisted.

  "Oh, put a cork in it," Divi Divi said.

  "And," Stoner added, "I'm naming Divi Divi assistant assistant director."

  As the door swung shut behind them she heard Marcy say, "This isn't Feminist."

  To which Divi Divi replied, "Life isn't Feminist. Start on page 5."

  "If this weren't such a nightmare," Stoner said as she took Rebecca around the corner of the barn and sat her down, "it'd be hilarious."

  "I'm quitting," Rebecca said. "Through. Kaput. Out of here."

  Stoner dropped down beside her. "Sure."

  "I'm sick of this play, I'm sick of these people, I'm sick of theater, I'm sick of the whole thing."

  "Is this a pout?" Stoner said, pretending to laugh. "Amateur City."

  Rebecca turned to her and pushed out her lower lip in a real pout. "I mean it."

  "Small-time stuff," Stoner said with a dismissing gesture. "I've pouted better than this over things I don't even care about."

  "Well, I don't care about these people, or this play, or… or anything."

  "Whatever you say," Stoner said. She wondered what approach to take. If she urged Rebecca to reconsider, reminding her that these women were her sisters and she couldn't let them down, not after all they'd been through together... chances were she'd make her feel trapped and desperate to get out. On the other hand, if she gave her breathing room, she might feel she could stay. "If you want to get out, get out. After all, Demeter Ascending is supposed to be your recreation, isn't it?"

  Rebecca laughed humorlessly. "Yeah. Some recreation."

  "Wouldn't be bad," Stoner said thoughtfully, "if you were a masochist."

  They sat side-by-side for several minutes, during which Rebecca pulled up enough grass to weave a Welcome mat.

  "They think I'd say things like that," she said at last. "I'd never say things like that."

  "Things like what?"

  "Like what's on the printout." She pulled a crumpled ball of paper from her pocket and handed it over.

  Stoner smoothed it out, resisting the near-compulsion to tear off the side strips with the holes punched in them.

  It was easy to see why Roseann was upset. Under the heading "Roseann," someone—if not Rebecca—had written "this is hopeless. She can't learn her lines, she can't take direction, we'll be lucky if she can even cross the stage without making a fool of herself."

  Stoner whistled. "Where did this come from?"

  "My computer, I guess. I have a file I keep personal stuff in. It's just a place to let off steam. But I didn't write this, Stoner. I didn't even think it."

  "Is your computer password protected?"

  "Of course not," Rebecca snapped. "It's just a laptop, for God's sake. And I certainly don't expect my friends to go breaking into my files."

  Stoner thought about pointing out that Rebecca was referring to "these people," whom she supposedly didn't care about, as her friends. But the situation might still be too sensitive. So she pondered for a while instead.

  "Is it your printer?" she asked at last.

  Rebecca shook her head. "It's Div's. I use it for the real notes."

  "Then this might not have been done on your computer at all."

  The woman took the paper back. "Maybe not," she said, studying it. "It's the font I use for my personal file, though. Palatino."

  It wasn't an exotic font, but not one in every day use, either.

  "Have you checked your personal file today?"

  "No."

  "Do it when you get a chance. See if this is still in it." She doubted it, though. Whoever did this would want to hide the evidence.

  Rebecca looked at her. “What would that tell me?"

  "Probably nothing," Stoner admitted. "It would just be... neater, somehow."


  "You certainly have your own way of doing things," Rebecca said with a tentative smile.

  "So I've been told." There was something she was missing here, something that might give them important information. She got it. "Does your computer have one of those applications that keeps track of your work time? With the date and all? We have one on our office computer, to track our time for taxes."

  Rebecca shook her head.

  Darn. She thought again. "I'll bet it has a Get Info function, doesn't it? That includes the date and time each file was last used?"

  "I guess so," Rebecca said with a shrug.

  It was a long shot, but so far the only shot they had. "Have you used your word processor yet today?"

  Rebecca shook her head.

  "Okay, when you get a chance, log on and get the information from your word processing application. But don't, under any circumstances, open the application until you have that information. If you do, you'll update it."

  "All right," Rebecca said. She looked directly at her for the first time since they'd sat down. "You're a computer nut, aren't you?"

  A computer nut? A computer nut? Stoner shuddered inwardly. It was Marylou Kesselbaum who was the computer nut. And Gwen, who liked to come into the office to play arcade games with Marylou. They had so many arcade games, between the ones they'd bought and the ones they'd downloaded from Compuserve or whatever it was called, that their computer screens looked like an ad for Computer Games 'R Us. And now Marylou and Gwen were talking about hooking up with the information superhighway. Marylou even suggested they get personal computers for their new home in Shelburne Falls, with access to Internet.

  Stoner put her foot down at that. Even though she knew privacy in these United States was as much an illusion as the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, she also knew that if she could tap into the government's computers, they could tap into hers, and she had no intention of surrendering without a struggle. No Modems in the Home had become her motto.

  Marylou gave in. Not, she said, because she was persuaded by the clarity and correctness of Stoner's argument, but because it was the longest speech she had ever heard Stoner make and thought it should be rewarded.

  "We have one at work," she said. “Marylou--my partner, my business partner—and Gwen—she's my partner partner..." They had to come up with some better terms. If the Eskimos could have over two hundred or whatever words for snow, lesbians needed at least three hundred for their relationships. The lesbian linguists had better get on this. Though she imagined most lesbian linguists these days were busy fighting to keep the colleges and universities from cutting Women's Studies programs.

  "...They're really into the computers. I can't help picking up a little."

  Rebecca pulled up another blade of grass. "Stoner, how can I go back in there? They think I said those things about Roseann. How can I get them to believe I didn't?"

  That was a hard one. It was one of the Laws of Nature that guilt rumored is always believed, while guilt denied is tantamount to a confession.

  "The only way I know of," she said, "is to find out who really did it. What do you think Roseann will do with this?"

  "I don't know," Rebecca said. "I know she feels out of place with us—she hasn't had any theater experience, and she's never thought politically in her life, or so she says. It might be the thing that makes her quit. On the other hand, she's very loyal, and feels a responsibility to the rest … I just don't know."

  "Sherry's with her now," Stoner said.

  "Good. Sherry's great at handling people. You should have seen her in action during the Rita-Marcy Wars. She kept this whole thing together."

  People were constantly surprising her. From the little she had seen of Sherry, she'd have thought she was too bubbly to handle something as complicated and potentially nasty as heart troubles. Especially involving two people as volatile as Marcy and Rita.

  "Even if she does come back, though," Rebecca went on, "she's not going to trust me. It'll be tense and awkward." She rubbed her face with the heels of her hands. "I had a chance to go canoeing across Alaska this summer. I should have taken it."

  "I hear they have twenty-eight different kinds of mosquitoes there," Stoner said. "Some of them as big as sparrows."

  "Sounds like a nice, restful change," Rebecca said wistfully.

  Stoner laughed. "You're coming around."

  "I'm afraid so. I have no moral character at all."

  She looked up and saw, in the distance, Roseann and Sherry coming toward them through the sunlight. She nudged Rebecca. "Here's your chance."

  Rebecca shot her a look of apprehension and got to her feet and went to meet them on the lawn.

  The three of them stood in an awkward cluster, faceless silhouettes against the morning glare. Everyone looked at the ground. Then Rebecca raised her head, seeming to say something. Roseann turned away. Sherry gestured her back.

  Strange, Stoner thought, she hadn't noticed how short Sherry was. Seen from a distance, she was only shoulder-high to the others, but Stoner hadn't experienced her that way. Most of the women she knew were either shorter or taller than herself in about equal proportions, so she wasn't always aware. But someone as short as Sherry...

  Maybe it was her personality. She took up the psychological space of a much taller person.

  Roseann and Rebecca were shaking hands.

  She was skinny, too. Really skinny. Stoner hadn't noticed that before, either. If she'd had to describe her, she'd have mentioned her round cheeks and round eyes and round glasses and round curls...

  Maybe that wasn't Sherry over there.

  It was Sherry, all right. She could tell by her energy, the way her hands were constantly in motion, the way she kept shifting from one foot to the other, the way she had to keep touching the others...

  An impression stirred deep inside her. She let it surface...

  She didn't like Sherry Dodder very much.

  Meaning, what?

  Meaning she didn't want to get very close to her. Meaning something in her made her not want to say much around Sherry. Meaning Sherry wasn't someone she'd want to baby sit with her plants.

  Meaning she thought Sherry was behind the goings on here?

  Stoner shook her head. No, she didn't think that. Sherry was no more of a suspect in her mind than anyone else. And Sherry was no less a victim than anyone else. She just...

  ...didn't like her a whole lot.

  Sherry detached herself from the trio and trotted toward her.

  Stoner felt her protective shield snap into place. "How's it going?" she asked in a falsely friendly voice.

  "Roseann's agreed to stay on," Sherry said. She threw herself down on the ground beside her.

  Without being invited, Stoner thought darkly, and reminded herself of an overly-territorial, bad-natured dog.

  "Good," she said.

  "It was touch and go for a while there."

  "I can imagine." She ought to ask Sherry how she'd talked Roseann into it. For some reason, she didn't want to. Maybe because she sensed Sherry was dying to tell her.

  That made her feel mean.

  "How's it coming on your end?" Sherry asked, big-eyed.

  "Nothing new. At least, nothing you don't know about." It's only been about two hours since I last reported in, for God's sake. “Was there anything missing or destroyed in the barn?"

  Sherry shook her head. "Not as far as I can tell. But I suppose whoever you saw last night was planting those directors' notes in the barn, don't you?"

  That made sense. "Probably." Was it you, Sherry? Your car was warm. I remember that. ''You're sure you didn't see anything when you came in?"

  "I told you," Sherry said with just a hint of annoyance that pleased Stoner in a perverse way. "I had a date, I went straight to bed. End of story."

  "Uh-huh."

  ''You don't think I had anything to do with it, do you?" Her eyes had gone from big to narrowed, and showing sparks.

  "I didn't say that."


  Sherry frowned. Her frown deepened to a scowl. A vertical line appeared and bisected the frown furrows. The indentations on either side of her mouth drooped, then eroded into gullies. She squinted her eyes, and deep rays shot out from the corners. Her skin went white, then red, then white again. Her mouth opened and turned down until it looked like a crescent moon dancing on its horns.

  Stoner stared at her, fascinated, unable to look away. It was like watching a window shatter in slow motion.

  She ought to feel compassion for the woman, or at least pity. She was obviously in distress. Her own detachment confused and disturbed her.

  Sherry gave a huge, noisy, choking sob and grabbed hunks of her own hair in each hand. "I can't believe this," she moaned, shaking her head back and forth dramatically. "I hired you, and now you suspect me."

  "I didn't say that," Stoner repeated reasonably. "I suspect everyone equally."

  "I feel so betrayed."

  Stoner wished Divi Divi were there to tell her to put a cork in it.

  “Sherry..." she began.

  Now Sherry was weeping without a break for breath. Huge, gasping, convulsing sobs.

  Stoner touched her arm in what she hoped was a comforting way. "Look," she said, "it's not that big a deal. It's just the way I work. Please don't take it personally."

  The woman turned on her, eyes tear-filled and silver with rage. "Don't take it personally? You accuse me of trying to ruin my own show, of doing terrible things to my friends, and then you tell me not to take it personally?"

  She supposed Sherry had a point, but... She tried to remember exactly what she'd said. Had she suggested that Sherry was the perpetrator? She didn't think so. On the other hand, she might have said something so awkward it could be taken that way.

  This whole thing was getting too complicated.

  "Look," she said. "Maybe I'm not the best person to handle this investigation. Maybe you need someone more experienced."

  Sherry threw her hands up in the air. "Now you're running out on me." She kneaded her face. "This is a nightmare, an absolute nightmare."

  "I'm not running out," she insisted, thinking it sounded like a wonderful idea. "I only suggested..."