Stages of Grey

by Clea Simon

  ‘Yeah, you’re right.’ Dulcie plopped down on the sofa and jumped back up again. ‘I don’t have time to worry about this. May I …?’

  ‘Of course.’ She didn’t even have time to voice her request before Chris turned back to their bedroom. He emerged moments later, holding a black sweatshirt. ‘It’s not a phone, but …’ He stopped. ‘Why don’t you take mine?’

  ‘No, you’re right.’ Dulcie held the sweatshirt up. It looked big enough to go on over the blouse and sweater she was already wearing, and so she slipped it on. The result felt a bit bulky, but if she could get her coat on top of it all, she’d be fine. ‘I’m just going to the show and then coming straight home. And you’re right, I’d have to make sure it was turned off for most of that time anyway.’

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t get back to it.’ He followed her into the hall as she pulled on her boots and then her coat, which did fit. ‘By the time you get home tonight, it’ll be good as new. Promise.’

  ‘Thanks, sweetie.’ Dulcie reached up to kiss him – the added bulk made a hug impractical. ‘Later.’

  He jumped to get the door, and Dulcie added another kiss. He felt guilty, she knew, about not fixing her phone. He didn’t have to. After all, she was the one who had unwittingly downloaded the virus. But she was in too much of a hurry, and had too much on her mind, to spend any more time reassuring him. She’d thank him properly tonight, she decided, as she clattered down the stairs and back out to the street.

  ‘Oof.’ The cold hit her like a slap in the face as soon as she pushed open their building’s front door, and she paused to pull her hat as low as she could. Already, she had wrapped her scarf around her mouth and nose. But there was no protecting that small strip of face that she had to leave bare. At least, if she wanted to see.

  She almost didn’t have to. Over the course of the day, the sidewalks had been cleared but with the advent of the frosty night, nobody else was on them. But if the paths were clear, they were also slick, as the day’s melt had refrozen, leaving a thin layer of ice. As much as she wanted to hurry, she couldn’t, and found herself toddling along with her arms akimbo.

  ‘I must look like a demented penguin,’ Dulcie said to the night air. The extra layer of Chris’s sweatshirt helped keep her core warm. But even with her mittens on, Dulcie’s hands quickly felt the chill. And nothing, not even a spectral feline, responded. It was simply too cold.

  It was with a sinking heart, therefore, that Dulcie peered down the last block. From what she could see, the URT looked dark. Cursing slightly under her breath, Dulcie wondered if the night’s performance had been canceled. Perhaps the call had gone to her non-functional phone. If she had come out in this weather for nothing …

  But no. As she got closer, she could see the light in the lobby, and as she step-slid the last few feet, the front door opened.

  ‘Hey, Dulcie!’ A large man appeared, holding a shovel. Doug.

  He raised the shovel. Dulcie stopped short – and started to skid.

  ‘Hang on.’ Dropping his shovel, Doug caught her in two steps. Steadying her on her feet, he walked her slowly to the door, where a bucket of sand waited. ‘You okay?’ His voice was warm, solicitous.

  ‘Yeah, thanks.’ She gripped the door frame in relief. If this was the man she had overheard this afternoon, he was a better actor than she had thought.

  ‘Well, I better get to work.’ He grabbed the pail. ‘Can’t afford to lose any more of our ushers or, god forbid, ticket holders.’

  She nodded, still a little shaken.

  ‘I saw you on the list.’ He must have noticed. ‘You’re the first one here. You can check in with Avila.’

  With that he stepped back out into the cold.

  ‘Hello?’ Dulcie called. Back beyond the lobby, she could hear voices. Tonight, however, she wanted to be careful not to walk in on anyone else’s conversation.

  ‘Come on back!’ A blonde head popped out of the hallway, and for a moment Dulcie couldn’t breathe. Amy. Disembodied. But no, it was simply an illusion. Another actress – Dulcie recognized her from one of the crowd scenes – in the black bodysuit that all the actors wore. Standing in the darkened hallway, her body wasn’t invisible. But her light, sunny curls stood out, momentarily distracting the eye. ‘The other usher is already here.’

  ‘Oh?’ Dulcie followed the bouncing mop to the theater, which was rendered prosaically drab in the house lights. Trista was there, talking to a dark-haired woman: Avila.

  ‘You made it.’ Trista nodded to her friend, raising one pierced eyebrow. Unlike Dulcie, she had opted for a black turtleneck and yoga pants and looked more like one of the actors than an usher.

  ‘Tris, Doug said …’ She stopped, unsure of how to proceed.

  ‘You saw Doug?’ Avila looked up. ‘Good. We need to de-ice the walk outside or someone will break an ankle. Here, give me your coat.’

  Trista gave Dulcie’s outfit a long look. ‘You might want to lose some layers.’

  ‘Tris.’ Dulcie didn’t want to waste any time. ‘Doug said I was the first one here. I don’t know if that means anything …’

  ‘I came in that side door.’ Trista leaned in. ‘It was unlocked.’

  ‘Oh.’ Avila had returned and was eyeing Dulcie’s outfit. ‘You’re wearing all that?’

  ‘I’ll take off the sweater underneath,’ Dulcie was quick to offer. ‘I was in a hurry, and it’s so cold out.’

  A quick, businesslike nod. ‘The dressing room is back there. You remember? Good.’ Avila turned toward Trista. ‘So anyway, Trista, when the lights go down—’

  Dulcie walked off, leaving the two alone. But any thought she had of changing in privacy disappeared as she neared the dressing-room door.

  ‘Heath!’ A black woman, clad only in black tights, was pushing the shaggy-haired actor out the door. If the smile on her face was any indication, his visit hadn’t been entirely unwelcome.

  ‘Bye, bye, baby!’ Another voice – female – called from within.

  Without thinking, Dulcie turned away. She wasn’t unduly modest, but she did have her limits. And changing in a co-ed dressing room when none of the other women there were likely to be quite as, well, softly rounded as she was went beyond them.

  She looked around quickly, not wanting any of the players to witness her reluctance. The bathroom was back off the lobby – no, the prop room. She didn’t need more than a minute to peel off her sweatshirt, shed the sweater and shirt underneath, and have the outer layer back on.

  The door to the small utility room was ajar, but the lights were off. Dulcie slipped inside quietly, but left the lights off. Anyone else could walk in. The sweatshirt came off easily: even over her other clothes, it had been a loose fit. The sweater and blouse took a little longer, partly because she had tried to pull them off in one swift move. She had forgotten to unbutton her cuffs and had to struggle a few seconds with the inside-out sleeves, the clothes covering her head. A few seconds’ tussle, though, and they came off, leaving Dulcie feeling exposed and rather silly.

  ‘Standing in my underwear in a storage closet,’ she thought to herself. ‘I wonder if the author of The Ravages ever found herself doing this.’ But the humor of the situation gave way to the fact that the room was cool – and that the bustle of the theater was growing louder. Reaching for Chris’s sweatshirt, she pulled it over her head. In her hurry, back at the apartment, she hadn’t noticed, but it smelled faintly of him. A warm, familiar aroma, and she inhaled deeply, pressing the soft cloth to her face.

  ‘Quick, we only have a minute.’ Dulcie gasped and froze as the door opened slightly, but the command – a stage whisper – hadn’t been directed toward her. Two figures slipped into the room, silhouetted momentarily in the doorway before the door closed again, blocking out the light. Dulcie cringed. If this was going to be a romantic tryst, she would have to find a way to announce her presence quickly.

  ‘What do you want?’ Another whisper, this one deeper, answered. A man, Dulcie thought.
But not an amorous one. ‘I got here as soon as I could.’

  ‘She knows.’ The words were so muffled, Dulcie couldn’t be sure of them. The sibilant hissed in the dark, like a threat.

  It worked like one. Her companion groaned, softly but quite audibly in the close confines of the room. ‘She can’t know.’ The man, agitated, was still whispering, but more loudly. ‘That’s not … that’s not possible.’

  ‘She does, though.’ And then the room fell quiet. So quiet Dulcie could hear her own breath. It was a wonder that they couldn’t as well. ‘So you didn’t tell her?’ The woman. She was fishing.

  ‘No, I didn’t tell her. I didn’t tell her anything.’ The man was growing frustrated. Angry. ‘You promised me.’

  There was desperation in his voice, and then he moved. Whether toward his companion or reaching for the door, Dulcie couldn’t tell. Alarmed, she stepped back – on to something soft. Something that moved.

  ‘Mrow!’ It was Gus. ‘Tsss!’ She must have trod on his tail, judging by the way he jumped. The man yelped, and Dulcie fell backward, Chris’s sweatshirt flying back up over her eyes.

  ‘What the …?’ It was the man’s voice, speaking out loud. The door opened and closed with a bang, bouncing back open as the first speaker – the woman – fled. Dulcie righted herself and pulled the sweatshirt down to find herself face to face with the dashing Heath Barstow.

  FORTY-FOUR

  ‘There you are!’ Trista grabbed Dulcie’s hand as she stood, blinking, in the relatively bright light of the hallway. ‘We’ve got to take our places.’

  Dulcie allowed herself to be led back to the performance space, where Trista shoved a bunch of programs at her. She was still trying to make sense of the conversation she had overheard, an encounter that had ended with Heath Barstow staring at her, a look of shock or horror on his face, before he had bolted from the room.

  ‘Sure,’ she said, taking the programs. Trista was talking to her, something about the seat numbers and protocol. Dulcie half listened as she glanced over the programs. The classical source material, she knew from her own experience, was given a brief paragraph in the folded sheet. The rest of the write-up consisted of a discography, as well as the brief – and somewhat fatuous – bios of the actors involved.

  Heath Barstow: Apollo, Hercules, Tony Manero. The head shot of the lead looked so different from the face in Dulcie’s memory. In the tiny black and white, he positively glowed, his hair streaming out around him in all its leonine glory. Who had he been talking to – and about whom?

  Avila Circule: Diana, Muse, Girl on Train. Clearly, the handsome actor didn’t discriminate in his affections. The dark-haired Goth girl was only supporting cast.

  Amy Ralkov: Aphrodite, Medusa, Stephanie Mangano. The name of the dead girl caught Dulcie off guard. She’d forgotten that the newcomer – ‘A Tech junior, majoring in applied sciences and advanced computing’ – had handled such major roles. Aphrodite even had a solo.

  ‘Hey, Dulcie,’ Avila called out with a smile as she raced by, carrying a tray. Dulcie responded automatically and watched as the actress ascended to the elevated tables over by stage left. That’s where she and Chris had sat – and where they’d been served by Amy.

  If Avila was taking over Amy’s waitressing duties, did that mean she had also assumed her roles? And, if so, was that reason to hurt her?

  ‘Dulcie!’ Trista’s tone wasn’t as friendly, and Dulcie looked up. Her friend was leading a party of four over to the floor, but another group was waiting. Behind them, the line stretched back into the lobby.

  ‘Sorry, folks.’ Dulcie put on her best smile as she walked toward the waiting foursome. As she led them in, she saw Doug carrying out folded chairs.

  ‘Who gets those?’ She grabbed Trista as they both converged on the line. Doug was setting up the chairs on the edge of the dance floor.

  ‘Overflow,’ Trista said over her shoulder, as she reached for an older couple’s tickets. ‘The ones marked with an X.’

  ‘Overflow?’ She took the next group, a party of six.

  ‘We requested a banquette.’ The woman sounded snippy.

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Dulcie led them over to stage left. Avila was setting up a wine bucket and champagne flutes. ‘Your waitress will be right over.’

  ‘Crazy, isn’t it?’ Avila followed her back down to the bar area.

  ‘They’ve added extra seats?’ Dulcie asked in response.

  Avila nodded. ‘Ever since, well … Amy?’ And she headed off to the bar.

  Dulcie mulled this over as she welcomed the next party. On one level, it was downright ghoulish. People were actually choosing to come out to see a play because one of the players had been killed. On another, she was grateful. Anything that gave the arts a boost was a blessing. And, in a way, it was a fitting tribute.

  Three students. ‘Hey, aren’t you a teaching assistant for Pope and Spenser?’

  Dulcie smiled and nodded, leading them to the overflow section.

  ‘Ushering.’ The one who had recognized her smiled. ‘That was smart.’

  ‘It’s good it’s so busy, huh?’ Dulcie asked. She had made a point of running into Avila again, even though she had to pretend to misread a ticket to do so.

  ‘Really.’ Avila had a full tray of what looked like martinis, but was still managing a smile.

  Dulcie stopped the party she was leading, so that the dark-haired girl could place her tray on a table. ‘This has got to help the bottom line, huh?’ She kept her voice low as Avila placed the drinks.

  ‘Dunno.’ The tray went back up as Avila pivoted to the next table. ‘Have to ask Roni, I guess.’

  Her smile, Dulcie noticed as she seated her party, was looking a little strained. Was that because Avila had been the other party in the closet? The dark-haired actress had been friendly enough when Dulcie first ran into her, but that had been a while ago. She and Dulcie had both been running around since then, seating people and serving drinks. Dulcie hadn’t seen Heath anywhere in the room: as the lead actor in the musical comedy, Heath was above waiting on tables. But he had to be somewhere nearby. If Avila had run into Heath on one of her rounds across the room, and he had told her that Dulcie had been privy to their conversation, that might account for the tightness around her smile. Or it could simply be the weight of that tray.

  Roni. Maybe she was key. Dulcie picked up another party and thought about the bespectacled office manager. She’d never gotten a chance to tell her about the latest email problem. And since emerging from the prop room, she had a new concern – maybe the office manager had been the woman they’d been talking about. But Trista had grabbed her before she could get back to the theater office, and Dulcie hadn’t seen the office manager around. If it had been Avila in the prop room, that was not a problem. The dark-haired girl hadn’t had a chance for anything more than the most hurried conversation since the front doors had opened. And Heath wouldn’t do anything, now that he knew Dulcie had heard him plotting. Would he?

  The lights started flashing, and Dulcie froze. Was it an alarm of some kind? No, she realized as Trista turned toward her with an exaggerated sigh. The seating was complete. The last drink orders were being delivered, and the show was about to start.

  FORTY-FIVE

  ‘Yo, Medusa!’

  Dulcie stared, aghast, as Heath, in a white three-piece suit, waved at a sequinned dancer in an oversized shock-blue wig. Either the troupe was improvising as it went along, or she had managed to block large parts of Changes from her memory.

  ‘Tony!’ The wig, complete with sequinned snakes, looked unwieldy, but the squeal that emerged from beneath it definitely came from Avila. And either she really was thrilled at the opportunity to jump from the balcony into Heath’s disco arms, or she was a better actress than the one who had immediately preceded her on to the stage – a satin-draped Annette, who had hit the floor with a thud and a conspicuous flash of light, ‘transformed’ into a singing, dancing tree. Circus training, Dulcie reme
mbered. That wig, however, proved to be a handful. Literally, as Avila’s arms went up in a gesture that seemed designed to hold it in place.

  ‘I love this part,’ Trista leaned over to whisper. The two ushers were seated by the entrance on a black bench the bartender had pulled out for them, once the theater door was closed. ‘The whole place is about to explode.’

  ‘Right.’ Dulcie tried to sound non-committal. She did remember the dance-floor number, as ‘Tony’ and ‘Medusa’ hustled under swirling lights. Some kind of sparklers went off as the cast all joined in – that had to be the explosion Trista was talking about. Already, from her vantage point at the back of the room, she could see the cast quietly taking their places. It was a neat bit of trickery: the black outfits rendering the dancers nearly invisible. From here, she could see the edges of their white satin shifts, ready to be thrown on at the downbeat.

  Avila had been one of those dancers, Dulcie remembered. The lead role had been Amy’s. The pretty student hadn’t been recognizable under that wig – blue snakes? – but the program had made the casting clear. As the interminable love duet went on, she found herself wondering again if such a step up would be worth killing for. Despite her dismissive words, Avila certainly seemed fond of the male lead.

  ‘Who you are is who you want to be . . .’ Dulcie could hear Trista singing along. ‘Be who you want to be is who you are …’

  Well, her friend hadn’t been a poetry major. And the tune was catchy. Besides, Dulcie now recalled, this number led into Gus’s appearance. After the number’s flashy conclusion, the cat’s solo tightrope walk was a brilliant bit of staging – the only kind of follow-up that would keep the audience’s attention.

  Dulcie looked up at the bar overhang. That’s where Gus would be waiting. If he was willing to perform tonight, that is. Dulcie wondered if the mishap in the prop room had thrown the sleek feline off. Maybe he needed his beauty rest before appearing. Or maybe her misstep would have woken him, gotten the sleek Russian blue up in time to make his big scene.