“Well, I presume, since your story has a king, and the young girl who spins his flax into gold becomes his queen, you’ll want some sort of crown, or tiara. Now I have —”
“Is it okay,” Charlie asked, half-rising, “if I look around? I’ve never been backstage.”
“Go ahead,” Rulenski barely looked over, “just watch your step.”
Charlie wandered off, and Jo pulled out a few items from her box. “Now these would look nice and glittery on stage, and the gold and silver is actually brass and nickel, of course, to keep them affordable. I can add ‘jewels’ of any color, to catch even more light, and we could go with one color theme for your king - say, the deeper colors of ruby and sapphire - and maybe keep to the lighter hues for your miller’s-daughter-raised-to-queen, to symbolize her newness to royalty, her innocence and naiveté.”
“Hmm, yes, that might work.”
Jo pulled out a few chains, and demonstrated how they could be variously wrapped around the waist or hung from the neck, then reached for her sketch pad, and drew out a few more ideas. Rulenski seemed receptive, especially as she emphasized the low cost of the items, and how easily they could be retooled for future productions. If the Abbotsville Playhouse was like all other small theatrical groups, it operated on a shoestring and had to cut corners mercilessly in order to survive.
Jo reeled him in further by saying, “Since I’m anxious to establish my new shop, I’d be happy to reduce my usual fees substantially for a prominent mention in your playbill.” Rulenski scratched his bristly cheek, as if weighing the thought carefully, but Jo had caught the flash of interest in his eyes.
They went on to discuss possible set decorations that Jo could contribute, including flowers and greenery – now that Rulenski knew her services would come cheaply his needs had suddenly expanded – until the young female assistant Jo had seen earlier scurried up, “Mr. Rulenski, the accompanist wants to know if you got Kyle’s copy of the score back yet.”
“Tell him, yes. I’ve already passed it on to Doug, who’s been studying it.”
As the girl hurried off, Jo asked, “Kyle Sandborn?”
“Mmm. He was to be our male lead. Most unfortunate.”
Jo searched Rulenski’s face, but was unable to tell if he meant unfortunate for Kyle or unfortunate for Rulenski to have lost one of his actors in the midst of rehearsals.
“I understand Kyle was really into the theater, that he aimed to make a career of it.”
Rulenski sighed. “They all think it’s so easy. Just show up in New York or L.A. and the jobs will be waiting for them. They assume playing the lead in a place like Abbotsville means they are star material.”
“Kyle wasn’t?”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t bad. And he had the drive. Who knows, perhaps if he’d enrolled in some good acting classes, along with a lot of luck, maybe....”
“Did you direct him in all the plays he did here?”
“Lord, who knows.” Rulenski rubbed at his eyes with long-suffering patience. “Yes, probably. I do remember him auditioning that first time. What was it? I think we were attempting to do Tennessee Williams that year. A disaster. Anyway, I gave him a small part then, a walk-on. After that, like most of our troupe, he worked his way up to the bigger roles, but rotated into small ones if that’s what fit him best in a particular play.”
“So he cooperated well, you’d say? Got along with everyone?”
“Far as I know. At least I never witnessed any fist fights,” Rulenski said, grinning. “What happens between these people off stage is the least of my concerns. Now, about some of those designs we talked about, how soon do you think you can get them to me?”
Jo took the hint, and got back to business. Since the soloist had returned to practicing her nerve-grating song, she was just as happy to finish up and move out of hearing range, although Jo couldn’t help but feel disappointed at gleaning so little from Rulenski. That feeling, however, disappeared when she reunited with Charlie.
<><><>
“How did you learn all this, Charlie?” They were back in the car, and Charlie had filled her in as Jo pulled away from the playhouse.
Charlie shrugged. “Nobody notices kids like me. They think we’re part of the scenery or something, and they talk as if there’s nobody around.”
“So, let me get this straight.” Jo said. She slowed at the intersection and signaled for a left turn to head for Charlie’s house. She had promised Carrie she’d drop him off in time to study hard for tomorrow’s Spanish test. “A blond girl named Kerry asked Genna, the one who has trouble with names, if things were better between Genna and Pete now that Doug was Genna’s leading man.”
“Uh-huh. And Genna said yes, but that it still felt weird doing a love scene with her cousin, even though he’s her second cousin. Plus he’s a lot older than her.”
“And cousin Doug is playing the part that had been Kyle’s.”
“I guess.”
“That I know, since Rafe Rulenski said he gave Kyle’s copy of the score to Doug to study.” Jo’s voice grew excited. “It sounds like jealousy on boyfriend Pete’s part to me. Does it to you?”
“Yeah, probably.”
“Then that’s great information, and deserves a high-five!” Jo held up her hand to slap Charlie’s, who looked surprised but pleased as he returned the congratulatory slap.
“Charlie, you may have learned something very important, something I didn’t get even a hint of by spending all that time trying to pump the show’s director. If Genna’s boyfriend was jealous of Kyle doing love scenes with Genna, that’s the first hint of danger in Kyle’s life we’ve found so far. And you dug it up!”
“So you think it’s important?”
“It could be. We won’t go jumping to any conclusions, but it bears further investigation, wouldn’t you agree.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“I knew it was a good thing to bring you along.”
“It was better than studying Spanish anyway.” Charlie paused, then admitted, “Actually, it was pretty neat looking around that theater. I wouldn’t mind going back. If you want me to.”
Jo looked over at Charlie, seeing something new in his eyes.
“To find out more about Kyle, or about the theater?”
Charlie paused, then said, “Both. I’d just like hanging out there. Maybe I could get some kind of job. Then while I’m around, I might, you know, hear things, like today.”
“That might be a good idea, Charlie. Let’s run it by your folks and see what they say.” Jo turned back to her driving, thinking she could pretty well predict what Carrie would say. Dan, though, might be another thing altogether. Well, they’d have to wait and see. Jo crossed her fingers for Charlie that it would work out the way he hoped.
CHAPTER 9
Jo pulled up to Charlie’s house, the fixer-upper Carrie and Dan had bought when they first moved to Abbotsville more than fifteen years ago to set up Dan’s home improvement business. The house looked fine from the curb, but every time Jo walked through it she was reminded of the saying, "the cobbler’s children go without shoes." The essential renovations in the house had been done over time – the kitchen and bathrooms, and finally the family room. But Carrie’s living room sat as it had from day one, looking as if a crew were expected the next day to work on the floor, replace moldings, and paint walls.
Dan had great plans in mind, which included adding hardwood floors, and when he finally got around to it, the living room would look fantastic. But working on his own home had a low priority next to working on other people’s – clients who would pay him for his services, which in turn would keep the family finances in the black, and his children shod. For the time being, therefore, Carrie’s living room remained in the white – white dust sheets over furniture sitting on white drop cloths. It was fortunate her friend had a sense of humor, Jo often thought, able to joke about changing the colors of the sheets with the seasons, as some people changed their slipcovers,
or perhaps stenciling bright designs on them for decoration.
As Charlie climbed out of the car, Carrie appeared at the door, waving Jo to come in.
“I made a big pot of chili,” she called out. “Stay for dinner.”
Jo grinned. Carrie knew her weakness – hot, spicy chili, usually accompanied by Carrie’s home-made biscuits. “If you insist,” she called back, and fairly leaped from the car.
Amanda was already setting an extra place. “Hi Aunt Jo,” she said, clinking down the tableware. Amanda wore her red and black soccer uniform which reminded Jo that Amanda’s team, which Dan coached, had played that afternoon.
“How was the game?” Jo asked.
Amanda scrunched her face. “We lost. Christy, our best goalie, was out with a sore throat.”
“But Amanda scored the only point, against one of the top teams in the division,” Dan added.
“Hey, Amanda! Way to go!”
Amanda grinned and curtsied, stretching her soccer shorts out like a skirt. “Next time, if Christy’s in, we’ll beat them. Right Dad?”
“Absolutely. Ten to nothing.” Dan pulled the extra chair up to the table. “Well, how did it go at the playhouse?” he asked.
Charlie’s head was in the refrigerator as he searched for something to drink, so Jo answered. “Pretty interesting.” She glanced at Amanda, not sure how much to say about Kyle’s murder in front of her, so she simply said, “They’re putting together a musical version of Rumpelstiltskin. Rafe Rulenski, the director, seems to like my ideas for costume accessories and such.”
Carrie brought two steaming bowls of chili to the table, and said, “Sit down, everybody. Amanda, come get the biscuits for me, first.” She dished up more bowls, and said, as Jo and Dan slid their chairs into place, “I don’t imagine this will be terribly lucrative, will it? The playhouse just barely scrapes by as it is. The town council talks about subsidies for them every so often, but nothing ever comes of it.”
“What’s lucrative mean?” Amanda asked, setting down the plate of warm biscuits, the sight of which made Jo’s fingers twitch as she resisted the urge to immediately reach out for them.
“What, haven’t you reached the Ls yet in English?” Charlie asked. Less restrained than Jo, he had already stuffed half a biscuit into his mouth. This turned out to be a bad move when Amanda made a face at him, which produced a snicker followed by a choke on inhaled biscuit crumbs.
“Don’t talk with food in your mouth, Charlie, and lucrative, Amanda, means well-paid.” Carrie joined the four of them at the table.
“I’m working out an arrangement,” Jo said, “to get some free advertising out of it.”
“Well, good. That’s the least they should do,” said Dan. He had helped Jo considerably in her understanding of the financial end of running a small business.
They all dug into Carrie’s chili, and Amanda shared the highlights of her soccer game for most of the dinnertime, chattering animatedly between spoonfuls. About the time Dan was pouring cups of coffee for the three grown-ups, the phone rang.
Amanda bounced up to answer it, then said, “It’s Lindsey. May I be excused?”
Carrie nodded, and Amanda took the phone out of the room to talk to the girl who Jo knew, from having heard the name many times, was her current best friend.
Charlie scraped at the last of his rice pudding. As soon as Amanda left the room, he said, “That playhouse today was pretty neat.”
Jo knew what he was leading up to and added, “Charlie was great today, picking up information while I was tied up with the director.”
“Really?” Carrie looked to her son, pleased.
“Yeah, I was kind of wandering around back stage, and people were going every which way, nobody paying attention to anyone else. It was like I was invisible. I could have held a tape recorder under their faces and they wouldn’t have stopped yakking.”
Carrie ginned. “So what did you find out?”
Charlie shrugged. “Oh, not that much, really, but Aunt Jo —”
“Aunt Jo,” Jo interrupted, “thinks it’s that much.” She told Carrie and Dan about the conversation Charlie had overheard between Genna and the blond actress. Dan nodded politely, trying, but obviously not terribly impressed, while Carrie beamed.
“Good going, guy! That’s the first lead you’ve gotten so far, right Jo?”
“That’s right. I think it’s really worth looking into.”
“That’s what I was going to ask you, Mom, Dad….” Charlie hesitated, his voice deadpan but his eyes flashing with eagerness. “I’d really like to spend more time down there. At the playhouse. It might help Aunt Jo, and, uh, I’d kinda like to learn something about, like, uh, how they put on plays and all.”
Jo glanced from one face to another. Both appeared a bit stunned, but Jo guessed that Carrie’s surprise was more from the fact that Charlie was actually interested in something, whereas Dan seemed stuck on the ‘something’ itself.
“Plays?” he repeated, as if he’d never heard the word before.
Carrie recovered first. “I think that might be very nice, don’t you, Dan?” She glanced at her husband’s frozen face and quickly looked away. “But what about helping out at Aunt Jo’s store? Didn’t you promise you’d do that first?”
“He can probably do both, actually, that is if it’s all right with you two. Helping me at the store was going to be an ‘as needed’ kind of thing. I don’t think you planned on a lot of time at the playhouse either, did you Charlie?”
“I talked to Mr. Rulenski’s assistant, that girl with the big glasses? She thought he could use someone around on the weekends mostly. Maybe once in a while during the week.” Jo saw Charlie’s knees bouncing nervously, even as his face remained calm. He wanted an okay on this badly.
“You want to be an actor?” Dan asked, still clearly dumbfounded.
“No! I mean, I don’t know. I just want to be there, to be able to watch everything. You’ve been telling me to get out of the house, to do more stuff. This is what I want to do.” Charlie’s chin began to jut forward, and the knee bounces had accelerated.
“Yes, but....”
“Let Dad and me think it over a bit, okay, Charlie?” Carrie said, before Dan could say any more. “We’d have to be sure you still have time for your studies, for one thing.”
“I’ll study. I promise.”
“That would always have to come first. And speaking of studying —”
Charlie jumped up. “My Spanish test, I know. I’m on top of it right now.” He pushed back his chair with more energy than Jo had seen in a long time. “Bye, Aunt Jo.” He turned back to Carrie. “It’d be okay, I promise.”
With that he hurried out, and Jo heard him take the stairs up to his room two at a time. She turned to Dan, whose face showed that the more he turned the idea over in his mind, the less he cared for it, somewhat like a baby tasting mashed asparagus for the first time. He turned to Carrie, his brows lowered to a puzzled scowl.
“Acting?”
CHAPTER 10
Jo, having opened up the craft shop herself the next morning, took advantage of Carrie’s arrival a half hour later to start work on some of her Rumpelstiltskin jewelry. She spread out her supplies and tools, which she’d brought from home, on the workshop table.
When Carrie came over to watch, she asked, “So, what did you and Dan decide?” Jo had taken early leave from dinner the previous evening to let them discuss Charlie’s proposition in private. Jo reached for her chainnose pliers and squeezed them over a micro crimp to separate a grouping of three softly colored crystals on her chain.
Carrie didn’t answer directly, instead commenting, “That’s pretty. Which character will it be for?”
“The miller’s daughter. I think she’s called Annalisa in Rulenski’s version.”
“Mmm.”
Jo looked up.
Carrie sighed. “Dan eventually agreed to let Charlie give it a try, especially after I pointed out his school doesn’
t really have an active drama department. I remembered that Mrs. Pettibone, one of the English teachers at Charlie’s school, is part of the playhouse troupe, and that helped. But you would have thought he had agreed to let Charlie volunteer for experimental drug trials or something.”
“I’m sorry if I brought about a problem.”
“No, no. I really think this will be good for Charlie. Did you see how he ran upstairs to hit the books? It’s the first time in ages I’ve seen him so motivated.”
“I agree.” Jo slid three more ice-blue crystals onto her strand of beading chain. “If it lasts, this might be just what Charlie needs.”
“I guess Dan just finds the whole thing completely alien, since his main interests all his life were sports and woodworking.”
“He’d like his son to enjoy the same things, of course.”
“Mm-hmm. He sees Amanda learning how to knit from me, and enjoying experiments with cooking and baking. I know Dan likes coaching her soccer team, but he still probably wishes Charlie wanted to do more things with him. I’ve pointed out that Amanda’s interests are very likely to move on as she grows older. She seems keen on her science subjects at school, for one thing, so who knows? She might want to go to medical school later on. And you remember how I nearly fainted in biology when we had to dissect those awful frogs.”
Jo smiled. She did indeed remember Carrie’s face draining of color, and the biology teacher, Miss Erdmann, rushing over to catch her before she fell off her stool. Carrie had been highly embarrassed, and the fifteen year-old Jo highly amused.
“I just wish,” Carrie said, picking up a stray crystal from Jo’s worktable and fingering it. “I wish Dan could be more open to the idea.”
The door jingled as a customer came in, and Carrie left to take care of her. Jo continued to work at her jewelry, enjoying the craft that she had neglected of late, with the all-consuming busyness of setting up the store. The phone rang, and seeing Carrie occupied, Jo set down her pliers and picked it up.
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