In a dismissive voice, “Don’t be silly,” as she looked into the dressing table’s mirror. She was doing a self-facial with a whole array of lotions and potions and powders. ‘Oh my!’
“I’m not being silly. In the cast meeting, Matt said, ‘We only sold a handful of tickets for the next couple of performances, so we are going dark for two nights.’”
“They can’t do this to me! No, this won’t do!” In anguish, Ms. Isabella gasped, “What about my roses? I have to have my roses!”
“Matt told me no flowers if there is no show. Things are pretty bleak, I guess,” I explained.
Ms. Isabella stood and faced me, grabbing ahold of my arms and pleaded, “Nathan, Nate, I have to have those roses. If I give you the money, will you buy me two dozen? They have to be fresh and with the thorns intact,” she squeezed my arms and looked deep into my eyes, “You can do this for me, yes?”
Wow! She’s a bit melodramatic. Show people always do seem a little on edge. “Okay, I’ll buy them as soon as I’m done with all my work.”
“No, Nathan, you have to get them before what would have been showtime. Please,” Next, she leaned into me with her breasts barely brushing my chest.
If I were an unmarried man, I might have enjoyed this obvious attempt at influencing my decision, but it came across as manipulative and cheap. However, if the true Knight of the Woeful Countenance were here, he would hesitate not to rescue a damsel in distress. “Clear it with Matt, and I will be your ‘step-and-fetch-it.’ Here’s my cell number. Let me know if he will give me leave to do your errand. I have delivered Matt’s message, so I must be about my other duties.”
“He will clear it. I promise. I don’t want you to waste any time,” she rummaged in her purse and pulled out some money and handed it to me, “You are a lifesaver, Nathan. Please keep any change, just get me the flowers as soon as humanly possible,” she turned me around and pushed me out the door.
Returning to the janitor’s closet, I gathered the tools of the trade and started my rounds. No one paid me any attention while I worked. They were all too engrossed in their thoughts. It is strangely satisfying being the invisible man. No one pays much attention to the guy sweeping the floors and emptying the trash. While doing the cleaning, I could hear the buzz of the cast all around me. They all worried about the news, and a few talked about bailing out before their career was affected. If they don’t pull it together, I fear I will be out of another job. My cell phone went off with a text from Matt. He gave me the okay to run “Her Highness’s” errand.
I put my cleaning supplies away and headed to the florist. It wasn’t too far, but I had to walk briskly to get the flowers back before what would have been curtain time. I arrived as they were closing.
Slightly out of breath, “Okay. Thanks for not shutting the door in my face.”
The clerk sighed, “How can I help you?”
“You’re the shop which delivers two dozen red roses to the Junipero Serra Theater, right?” I asked.
“Please, mister. I want to close and go home. What kind of flowers do you want?”
“Sorry for keeping you. I need two dozen red roses with the thorns still intact.”
“You’re from the crazy theater group, aren’t you? Sorry, I can’t help you today. I sold the last of the roses a few minutes ago. It wouldn’t do you no good anyway,” the clerk stated. “Once they called and canceled the order, I stripped the thorns and put them on display. They’re the ones I just sold.”
“Do you have any red roses left?”
“Nope. Those were the last ones for today. I can have some for you in the morning. The shop opens at nine.”
With hope in my voice, “Any other shops around still open?”
“Seriously dude, you want me to send you to my shop’s competition? Find them yourself. Now, leave my store.” The clerk walked to the door and stood there tapping his foot waiting for me to leave. Without further delay, I left to find another florist.
Standing in front of the store, I looked around and spied another florist about half-a-block away. Trotting down to the next shop was no use. It had closed already. I searched around some more and found a third shop, but it was also closed. It was getting late, and I had to return. I came up with a solution to the problem which might work.
When I returned to the theater, I made my way to the trash bin in the back. I spent a few minutes digging and found the last roses Ms. Isabella threw out. My luck is holding out; they’re still in pretty reasonable shape. When I returned to the janitor closet, I spent a few minutes primping up the flowers. No one will be able to tell I collected them from the trash. I took the decapitated plants to Ms. Isabella’s dressing room. During the walk of but a few steps, I pondered the flowers. Calling them decapitated isn’t quite correct. Flowers are plant’s reproductive organs, so a more correct description would be castrated plants. If I wanted to be polite, I would call them neutered plants. Wow, sometimes my thought train goes so off track.
After knocking once, I called out, “Ms. Isabella, flowers for you.” The door opened as I said the words. Ms. Isabella had a look of panic on her face.
“What took you so long, Nate? It is almost too late!”
I handed the flowers to her, and she thanked me. “Sorry it took so long, but I had to go to three different shops before I found those.”
“Yes, yes. I have to hurry, so if you don’t mind.” Ms. Isabella started to pull the door closed. I tried to hand her back her money. “No, Nathan, I told you to keep the change.”
“Ms. Isabella you don’t …” The door promptly closed in my face. I’ll return her money later. I’m not about to keep her money since the flowers weren’t exactly fresh and didn’t cost a dime.
I went back to my janitorial duties, but no sooner than I got the cart out of the closet, I heard a blood-curdling scream. It sounded like Ms. Isabella. Dropping everything, I raced to her dressing room door. Another scream and crashing sounds came from behind the door. “Ms. Isabella, are you all right?” I tried the doorknob, but it was locked. There was another scream and more crashing sounds. A crowd of onlookers gathered around. Several concerned voices started asking no one in particular, “What’s going on? Can’t you open the door? Do you think she’s hurt? Is the ghost attacking her?”
I took a step back and mimicking what I’ve seen on television or in the movies, I kicked at the door with all my might. My foot hit the door in the perfect spot to bring great agony to my foot. The vibration from my great act of foolhardiness traveled all through my body. The door hadn’t budged. “Son-of-a…” I was hobbled a bit, but I’ll walk it off. To the crowd but no one in particular, I announced, “There’s a big piece of old pipe in the janitor’s closet. I’ll get it and use it as a battering ram.”
I turned to make flight when some woman spoke up, “You’re the janitor, don’t you have a key?” I fumbled with the keys looking for the right one all the while thinking, I’m an idiot, and, You couldn’t have said it before I shattered my foot and look like a damn fool? I found the key and slid it into the lock.
The door would not open easily. Some of the room’s contents were blocking the door. With a little help from the cast members, we manage to open the door wide enough to enter the room. Peering, I saw Ms. Isabella on the floor. I put my hand on the person next to me, “Call 9 1 1!”
“Please don’t. I am fine,” Ms. Isabella said from her place on the floor. “Nathan, help me up.”
As I entered the room, the annoying headache started again. No doubt the slamming of my foot on an immovable object had brought it back. I grabbed hold of her arm and helped her up. I righted the chair in front of the dressing table and helped her to sit. Looking around, I saw the room was a total mess. Ms. Isabella’s face looked almost as ruined. She had a respectable shiner coming in and bruises on her neck and one shoulder. The cast started filling the room, and it began to feel a little close in here. “People, it won’t do Ms. Isabella any good with everyone breathing
all the air in here.” Everyone began filing out after giving Ms. Isabella well wishes. It wasn’t long until we were alone.
“Nathan, could you get me some water, please?”
“Sure thing.” I had to clear a path by beginning to pick up the remnants of her pandemonium to get to the small refrigerator. Opening the fridge, I took a bottle of cold water out and after opening it, handed it to Ms. Isabella. She took a deep swig, then put the cold container to her eye. While she regained her bearings, I continued to clean up the room. Everything was out of place. Everything except the monument to her vanity: the doll. “What happened?”
“Oh, I stumbled, and everything came tumbling down around me.”
“You may be a great actress, but you’re a terrible liar. You didn’t get the shiner from a piece of wardrobe. And those scratches are too regularly spaced to be accidental. Someone or something attacked you. Fess up, it was the ghost who haunts this place.”
“There’s a ghost haunting this theater? I firmly believe in those kinds of things,” her hand touched the scratches on her neck. “But I haven’t seen any ghost about.” I detected no lie in Ms. Isabella’s voice, but I could tell she was holding something back.
“What the Hell happened? Somehow, I don’t believe you kicked the crap out of yourself like Jim Carrey did in Liar Liar.”
“Those weren’t fresh roses you gave me, Nathan?”
I felt ashamed for my falsehood. “No, they weren’t. What are you saying?”
“We can’t talk here not with it listening,” she rolled her eyes to point above the dressing table. The only thing in that direction was the vanity doll of hers. I looked straight at the doll. Ever so slowly, it moved its eyes and looked back at me.
Instantly the doll was in my head tearing at my mind. “OUT!” The command screamed in my mind. I pushed back at the mental assault of this creepy reject from Toy Story. If it had not caught me by surprise, I believe it never would have gotten the best of me.
Well, now I will show it my worst. Taking all the will I could muster without jeopardizing the confinement of Da’von, I struck a blow at the doll. The result was a thunderclap of noise in my brain and an explosion of energy which pushed me out the door and crashed my body against the far wall of the hallway. Crumpled on the floor, I regained my senses. Apparently, the sound of my battle attracted the attention of several members of the cast.
Matt’s voice found my ears, “Nathan, are you okay? What happen?”
Thinking fast, I came up with a lie. More lies. Can I even be considered a truthful man anymore? “Yes. I am fine. That’ll teach me to read anything into helping her dress. She gave me what for. I deserved it,” those words tasted wrong as I spoke them. Since I have been a grown man, I have never taken liberties with a woman, but it is a more reasonable explanation than being in a tussle with a doll, and the cast doesn’t need to know there is a spooky artifact plaguing the production too.
While helping me up, Matt said, “You broke one of those unwritten rules of the theater. Dressers are only supposed to help dress, not help themselves to a piece of cheesecake no matter how tasty it may be.”
“Believe me, I learned my lesson.”
“Nathan, you look terrible. Why don’t you take the rest of the day off? Come back in the morning and finish off everything you’ve missed today. Take the next day off, too. We will remain dark that day, too, so we won’t need you. In three days, come back fresh and renewed, but in the future, please make sure you keep your hands to yourself.”
“Okay, Matt, I think I’ll do that. I’ll take the time off and no playing patty cake when I return.” “And no patty cake at home either if the trend holds up,” the thought depressed me. I miss my wife.
I closed up the janitor’s closet and walked back to Ms. Isabella’s dressing room. I knocked and asked, “Ms. Isabella, can I have a word with you out in the hallway?”
Ms. Isabella opened the door and stepped into the hallway. “Nate, are you okay? The doll beat you up worse than it beat me,” she reached up and touched my cheek. “I’m so sorry, Nate. I should have warned you, but I was afraid it would hurt me.”
“What is it anyway? And you need to rid yourself of it before it hurts you again.”
“All I know, Nate, is while shopping in a secondhand store, it whispered to me. I know it sounds crazy, but it did. I felt so compelled to buy it. It is the strangest thing; the longer I own it, the more it started to look like me.”
“No matter how you came by it, you have to be rid of it.”
“I can’t, Nate. It makes me a better actress and singer,” she rubbed her right hand. The motion drew my eye, and I could see her hand had many fresh cuts and even more, older half-healed cuts. “I give it my blood, and it makes me great.”
“Is that what the flowers are for?” She nodded. “Ms. Isabella, I have no clue what it is, but whatever it is, it’s evil. You should get rid of the doll.”
“I won’t! I am finally living my dream. I am a star. I have always dreamed of being a theater star. My desire is my earliest memory.”
“I understand. I too had a dream from an early age, and my own mother stomped all over it. Dreams can be like prayers, sometimes the answer is ‘No.’”
Ms. Isabella’s expression conveyed she did not agree. “I have my dream, and no one can take it from me. A few cuts are little enough price to pay,” she turned her back on me, returned to her dressing room, and slammed the door. The door being slammed cemented my excuse of being grabby in everyone’s mind, no doubt.
If Ms. Isabella wants to make a blood sacrifice to a sinister Barbie, who am I to interfere? My head hurts, but not from a headache. I think I banged it against the wall in my scrimmage with the doll. After assessing all my aches and pains, I heard home beckoning.
Chapter Nine
When I walked through the door, there were no cheers of welcome, no huggies kissies, no kissies huggies. I felt like crap, and no welcome home didn’t help. The fight took more out of me than I first thought. If I had a muscle that didn’t ache, I couldn’t tell you which one. Why would a mental battle bring on physical injuries? Pondering it will be a project for a later date. All I wanted was aspirin for my head, a salve for my aches, and food for my belly.
Dragging myself to the refrigerator, I searched for a Diet Pepsi I knew wasn’t there. I poured a tall glass of milk and downed it as fast as a man dying of thirst. I poured another glass. This one I drank slowly enough to taste it. With the pots on the stove and the wonderful aroma in the air, I deduced Char was cooking. Sherlock Holmes would be proud. Where is everyone? The car is in the driveway, so what gives? For a brief moment, I panicked. No sooner than I took a few quick steps towards the back of the house than I heard my daughter singing in the bathtub. As soon as my heart started back up, I took the next minute or two to listen to her crooning. She always sings when she is happy. My heart smiled.
In the bedroom, I found Charlene putting the finishing touches on her make-up. “About time you got home. You need to clean up and dress,” Charlene took a moment to look at me in the mirror. She dropped what she was doing and came over to me. “Nathan, my God, were you mugged?” I started to answer when Char started motioning for me to sit on the bed. “Nathan, stay there,” she left for a moment, then returned with a small washbasin, a washcloth, and the first aid kit. She started tending my wounds with a loving hand and a worried look on her face. As she looked over her handiwork, she asked, “What happened?”
“Barbie kicked my ass! That’s what happened.”
“What do you mean? A woman named Barbie beat you up? Why?” Charlene took one last look at me, and said, “That’ll do. You should put some ice on your nose. I hope it’s not broken. I don’t trust men with crooked noses.”
“I’ll be fine. By the day after tomorrow, you won’t be able to tell I lost a tussle,” I touched my nose. Ouch! I don’t want a crooked nose. Looking Char in the eyes, “You know our lives haven’t been what you would call The Andy Griff
ith Show lately,” and the whistling from the theme song started right up in my head. Sometimes, it annoys me when the music starts right up in my head, but this is a catchy little ditty. “There is more in this world than we thought. What with me talking to the dead, and Mr. Grimm jerk in my head… And it is getting worse. I don’t know if old myths and legends are waking from a long sleep, or we never let ourselves see them before. But we know of them now, and you can add possessed and/or cursed dolls too,” trying not to aggravate my bruises, I gingerly stood, and I started walking back to the living room.
“You mean, a literal doll kicked your ass,” Charlene started to laugh and hide it at the same time.
“It’s not funny, and it hurts.”
“Nathan, we can finish this talk later and decide what to do. Hurry, you need to make yourself ready for our dinner guest.”
“Who’s our dinner guest?” I took a moment to flip through my mental weekly planner. “Karma, no! I can’t take her spooky twisted ways tonight. In fact, I think she is somehow at the heart of all this crazy crap.”
“Well, no matter how you feel about her, she is our guest tonight, and it is too late to cancel. So hurry, take a quick shower, and dress. I laid out some clothes for you,” Char left for the kitchen, no doubt to put the finishing touches to dinner.
As she walked away, I affirmed, “My mother stopped choosing what I’ll wear when I was a boy, so I’ll pick my own clothes, thank you very much. And another thing. There are going to be some changes around here.”
“Yes, Husband Mine, let’s make sure it’s your underwear and socks, please,” she didn’t even break her stride as she spoke. Who knew I was Rodney Dangerfield? I get no respect.
You know, it’s not easy to take a shower when you are one giant bruise, but I managed the herculean task. I finished getting ready for our guest. Being too drained to pick out a different outfit, I went with what Charlene put out; but next time, I’ll pick out my clothes, at least that is what I told myself.
The Calling Page 9
