Inside, I did indeed find Fargo sitting on the table, nose stuck through the blinds like that of a curious old woman. The lamp was lying on the floor, and paw marks smudged the tablecloth. I shooed him off and quickly turned the tablecloth over, picked up the lamp, more or less smoothed out several small dings in the shade and put it back on the table. There! All good as new. I leashed Fargo and we went out. I wanted to be able to give Cindy as full a report as possible.
My next introduction was to Teri Malewski, who was to play Ophelia. She was a pretty blonde in her early twenties, standing beside her luggage, which consisted of a battered duffel bag and an obviously new and expensive suitcase. Her bags rather summed her up, I thought—newly into stardom, yet with personal experience perhaps far beyond her years. She was polite but distracted, obviously looking for someone.
Her search ended as a navy blue Porsche pulled up behind my car, and a tall, slender man got gracefully out. “Oh, Paul, thank God you’re here! For some reason they’ve put me way up on the third floor with Nick Peters, you know, that creepy stage manager. We’ve got the only two rooms up there, and I have to share a bathroom with him!”
She leaned her head against his chest. “Oh, Paulie, I’ll be way up there all alone with him, and he’s weird! Can’t you do something?”
“Yes, yes, darling, you’ll be quite . . . Don’t worry. Nick is sometimes just a little hard to . . . Stay cool, Paulie is here and you know
I . . .”
During all this, Paul Carlucci managed to absorb Noel’s introduction and offered me a firm warm handshake, topped off with a salesman’s smile. “Ms. Peres! Delighted . . . heard such lovely things about you from Ellen Hall. We must have you and your friend for drinks . . . getting settled today, but soon, soon . . . looking forward to it! Yessir, very soon . . .” And he was gone, still smiling and nodding, with a comet’s tail of people behind him asking questions and wailing problems. He must have infinite patience. The hullabaloo around him didn’t seem to bother him in the least.
My next introduction was to Elaine Edgewood. Both her name and face were familiar to me, but I couldn’t place her. She was fairly tall, with a long and graceful neck, and rather average looking at first glance—straight brown hair in a ponytail, but with lovely brown eyes and an expressive mouth that gave her an elusive beauty. I put her at plus or minus forty-five.
Noel gave her an affectionate hug. “Elaine is Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude—my inamorata in the play, by the way. Unfortunately, in our little play she’s usually called Queenie. Silly name.”
Elaine raised her eyebrows and grinned. “There are those who might say it’s a silly play. Not I, of course. I think we may present a Hamlet that will make more headlines than the original ever did.”
She and Noel laughed at some private joke, and I smiled politely. “Ms Edgewood, I’m sure I’ve seen you somewhere recently. You look very familiar, but I’m having trouble—”
“Please call me Elaine. I’m getting ancient enough, fast enough, as it is. Well, my most recent Broadway role was Sylvia, the older sister in Fondly Remembered. Or, a few months back on TV, I played Molly, the half-Indian woman in the Follow the Sun miniseries.”
“Oh, that’s it, I’m sure. Yes, I enjoyed your role. She was quite a character.”
“Thank you . . . oh, excuse me a moment.” She turned toward a rather short, almost pudgy man standing behind her, apparently listening to our conversation. “Nick.” She smiled. “I tried to shift your footlocker, but it’s a mite hefty. If you could just take it out, I could get my stuff out, and I think that would empty this van that’s blocking Alex’s driveway. The driver could take the van wherever they’re going to keep them, or you or Noel could just move it out of the way. At least let the woman get to her own garage and out of the rain.”
“You do love things neat and orderly, don’t you, Elaine? Anything to have everything in a tidy little box, so it looks like all’s well with the world.” He put out his hand to me. “I’m Nick Peters, the stage manager, the only plebian in this august group. I hope we’ll all make good neighbors.” His smile was sweet, contradicting his sarcastic speech, but I noticed his light blue eyes seemed watchful and did not warm up with the smile. Elaine looked pained and turned away.
“I’m sure you will make lovely neighbors.” I smiled back. “The problem may be the other way around. Just about everyone I know is all excited about having a theater group in town. By tomorrow, they may be lined up along my wall, hoping to meet you.”
“Oh, they won’t even notice me,” Nick almost simpered. “My name is in small print in the Playbill. But they’re sure to be begging autographs from our leading man, won’t they, oh, royal Prince Hamlet?”
“Not unless the weather improves.” The subject of Nick’s snipe sauntered across the lawn to us. The rain had dwindled to a fine mist, and he wore no hat, revealing blond curls flecked with raindrops. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with narrow hips clad in tight jeans. His tan flattered his deep blue eyes, and as he neared us we received the full brightness of his smile. He was quite gorgeous and well aware of it. “Hi. I’m David Willem.”
“Alex Peres,” I answered. “And trusty companion, Fargo.”
“Hello, trusty companion. I’ll bet you take very good care of your owner. Watch out, Elaine, there’ll be no sneaking over the wall at midnight with Fargo on guard,” he teased.
“Don’t be bitchy, darling. And if I go sneaking over walls I always carry a doggy biscuit.”
Well, that answered one question. I had thought Elaine might be gay. About the men, I wasn’t sure yet.
Carlucci appeared on the porch. “Sorry to interrupt, but I need you all inside for a moment. Let’s get things settled in here, and maybe go over a few ground rules. Come on, my happy band of brothers—and sisters. Dear Alex, you will forgive us . . . just dull, dull business . . . drinkies soon . . . perhaps tomorrow . . .” Did he ever finish a sentence?
Fargo seemed happy to get home. So was I. I felt some tension in the air, like an approaching electrical storm—not about me, but surrounding my new neighbors. They had all been very nice to me, except for the embedded journalist, and I felt I had handled that well. I was sure she considered me a dull and stupid local and wouldn’t bother with me anymore, which was exactly what I preferred. And once she found Harmon, she should have no trouble thinking up headlines.
As for the troupe in general, I wasn’t sure they were in the least a happy band.
Chapter 10
By now, everyone had a favorite name for that summer: mad, weird, crazy, scary, nutty. The swarms of tourists, the belching tour buses, the crowded ways, the ear-splitting music issuing from nearly every building along Commercial Street, were just part of Ptown’s daily life in midsummer.
But now we had the troupe of players come to town. We had recovered from the fright of the unseen alligator, and I had the feeling that any one of our lately arrived thespians might be more likely to chase a naked lady up a tree than any aquatic beast.
Determined not to rearrange life around a bunch of strange people who would be living next door for six weeks, Fargo and I made our usual early morning beach run, and picked up the weekend goodies on the way home. On our return we had a croissant, which we shared, and kibble, which we did not. By my second cup of coffee, Cindy joined us.
She kissed the top of my head, and then the top of Fargo’s, which pleased us both greatly, and poured herself a cup of coffee.
Joining us at the table, she cut an almond croissant and transferred half of it to her plate, where she broke off a tiny piece and chewed it slowly.
“Good.” She nodded, and broke off another mini bite. “By the way, I noticed the strangest thing. The cloth for the little dining room table was put on wrong side up. When I took it off there was dirt and maybe paw marks on it, and the lampshade has a couple of dents that weren’t there when the lamp arrived. Isn’t that strange?” She looked at me quizzically.
“Re
ally?”
“Yes, really. Alex, what on earth were . . . ?”
“Well.” I stood up briskly. “I’ve got to get going on framing those photos. Fargo, here, you go outside for awhile.”
That was the way the day went. We met, parted, and met again. Late morning we gathered outdoors, where two of us had iced tea and one of us had a bowl of cool water and a biscuit.
Cindy called Fargo to her side and told him to sit. “Now, confess, Fargo, so I don’t have to beat you. Did you jump up on the table for some reason and knock off the lamp? And did Alex rearrange everything and really think I wouldn’t notice a dirty, wrong-side cloth and bent lamp?”
He knew he was being asked if he had done something bad, but since he had long forgotten that he had, he simply grinned and wagged his tail.
“I thought so,” Cindy said, and gave him a pretend spank on the hindquarters. But she couldn’t help grinning back. “What were you doing, fella, checking up on our new neighbors along with everybody else?” Turning to me, she asked, “Do we have anything special on for today?”
“Nope. Nor tonight.”
She looked askance. “You mean we are actually home on a Saturday night? Do you suppose this is just some social oversight, or should I check the expiration date on the deodorant?”
“I think it’s the midsummer doldrums. I suppose we could stir up some action,” I added without great enthusiasm.
She shook her head quickly. “No, not unless you really, really want to. It’s been a long week. Maybe I’ll just run over to Evans’s Market and pick up a roast chicken and some pasta salad. We’ll slice some of your prize tomatoes with mozzarella, and we’ll just have a private backyard picnic for you and me and Fargo and Wells. How’s that sound?”
“Per-fect-o!”
And again we parted to mulch the garden, prepare clothes for the next work week, patrol the wall against invaders.
Around five thirty Mom and Aunt Mae just dropped by, Mom with a big Cobb salad with seared scallops and shrimp, Aunt Mae with one of her richly magnificent applesauce cakes.
Then, in rapid succession, we accumulated Peter and the Wolf, with an enormous chunk of Jarlsberg cheese, some fancy crackers and two bottles of wine. They were followed by Cassie and Lainey with another of Evans’s chickens and a bunch of corn muffins. And finally, we acquired Trish and Sonny, bearing a small ham and four six-packs of beer.
It would seem Cindy and I had a dinner party underway, which no one had bothered to tell us we were going to host. We knew, of course, the devious reasoning behind the arrival of these people. But I wondered what they thought they would accomplish besides feeding us all a veritable banquet. Had they concealed telescopes somewhere in their clothing? Were they carrying cameras that looked like cigarette lighters or phones or pencils? Were they planning to speak in pear-shaped tones, hoping to be hired as extras?
Did they really think there might be some rehearsal taking place in the backyard next door, complete with armor and dueling foils and cries of, “Take that, you dastardly villain!” Or did they figure our semi-famous neighbors would simply hop the low wall and join the festivities when they got a whiff of the food?
In point of fact, that was exactly what happened, in a small way. I noticed Elaine and Noel come out onto their back porch and sit down with the evening papers. They looked sort of lonely and I called over to them.
“Elaine, Noel! We’re having a kind of impromptu picnic here. If you’re not busy, we’d love to have you join us.”
They seemed glad of the invitation. I introduced them around and got them drinks, and everybody seemed to be quite at ease. At some point, I heard Elaine and Aunt Mae discussing herbs. Noel and Cindy and Sonny were talking about college funds for kids. I heard Trish offering Elaine a ride in her boat, and then Peter was inviting Noel to one of their soirees, although Noel seemed to be delicately declining. Mother helped rescue him with a question about mastering different dialects.
Finally, we had all eaten our fill. Dusk was falling as we sipped coffee or beer or whatever. And silence fell comfortably over us as well. After awhile, I spoke.
“Well, Elaine, Noel, tell us. Why are you here?”
“Oh, my good lady,” Elaine quickly answered. “We are but a poor troupe of players, come to entertain you with our dramatic antics. We bring you now a tale rife with greed and passion, falsity and betrayal, and, alas, of murders most foul. Our play is called Hamlet.”
“And if you listen closely”—Noel set down his beer—“you may recognize some small resemblance to an earlier play with the same title. Our play is set in the present, in a small city in northern Georgia, named Dalton. Some years before the play opens, a businessman named Fred Hamlet made his home there and opened a discount store. It did well, and he opened another, and another, and another, until he had some thirty stores around the south and was a very wealthy man. Fred called his stores KustomerKing Stores, and he soon earned the nickname King Hamlet.”
Elaine took up the tale again. “A giant chain named Big Mart, sometimes called Pig Mart, wanted to buy him out, but King Hamlet was uncertain. He had a feeling this corporate giant would not be economically good for the various small town independent merchants in his areas, and he was afraid the large corporation would not treat his KustomerKing employees well when the behemoth took over his stores. Fred was a good man.”
She bummed a cigarette from Sonny, who actually had a pack, and continued. “Some of King’s executives and certain family members who owned stock in KustomerKing disagreed. They wanted to take the money and run. Among them were his wife, Queenie, and his cousin, Duke Hamlet, who was very, very fond of Queenie. Wanting not to sell was the CFO, Joe Polonius, who for years had been skimming millions off the profits and into his personal offshore accounts, and was afraid Big Mart’s audit would find him out. Undecided was King Hamlet’s son, Prince Hamlet, although he seemed to be tilting toward his father’s side. As you can see, we have a volatile situation here and much intrigue and possible treachery.”
Sonny and I freshened drinks all around, as Elaine went on. “Suddenly, on a weekend fishing trip to the family cabin on the lake, King Hamlet drops dead of a heart attack. The only other person with him is the Duke. The coroner is uneasy about the cause of death and wants to have the body examined by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The local police chief poohpoohs the idea. After all, didn’t the Duke have a big barbecue for the police and firemen every year? Wasn’t he a member of the NRA and the Slippery Elm Baptist Church? The Duke was a good ol’ boy who wouldn’t never hurt nobody, and that was that. There was no investigation, but there was a wedding.” She reached for her coffee.
Noel stood up and began to walk around us. “Indeed, wedding bells chimed for Queenie and the Duke, so hard upon the heels of King’s burial, that many people said the leftover funeral meats were simply sliced into cold cuts for the wedding feast.”
He paused and leaned on the back of Mom’s chair. She looked up and gave him a smile. “Er . . . uh, well . . .” He lost his train of thought. I imagined Mom’s smile could do that to you if you were a man. Recovering, he continued. “Now comes Prince Hamlet home from college for the funeral and into a hornet’s nest. He discovers the coroner’s misgivings. He finds that Polonius’s son Laertes, called Larry, has maliciously ‘outed’ Hamlet’s affair with Horatio, while Polonius is busy cooking the books. Lovely family. Prince Hamlet is now disgusted with, and untrusting of, his mother, his uncle and Polonius and Larry. He is sure of only one thing: he has inherited sufficient stock to swing the decision either way.”
I put down my beer and raised my hand, as if in class. Noel smiled and nodded for me to speak. “I always thought Hamlet and Horatio were gay anyway. I mean in the original play. Remember at some point Ophelia can’t figure why Hamlet won’t give in and marry her? She says something like, ‘You had promised me to wed, but would you have tumbled me if I came into your bed?’”
Noel paused in his perambu
lation and now rested his hands on the back of my chair. “Aha, ladies and gentlemen, a Shakespearean scholar among us!” My mother and aunt gave a couple of hand-claps. I felt myself turn red and buried my nose in my coffee mug as Noel went on. “Many of us have held that thought, but somehow it never took off with most scholars. My personal opinion is that the NRA squelched it. Probably figured it would be fatal to the male bonding they all find so masculine, yet so terribly satisfying.”
Noel got a good swell of laughter out of that one, combined with several calls of, “Hear, hear!” He bowed and took up the tale again. “Now Prince Hamlet starts his fatal downhill run. First, Ophelia kills herself, leaving a note that she can’t face her family and her social world with everyone knowing the Hamlet she so loved threw her over for another man.”
Sonny handed him a beer. He nodded his thanks and took a sip. “Then one night, as Hamlet comes home, he hears his mother scream, ‘Someone is on the balcony! They’re going to kill me. Help!’ Knowing his father kept a pistol in an end table, our brave prince runs in, grabs it and fires at the figure struggling to free himself from the folds of the draperies. And who falls out, dying, but poor old felonious Polonius? His last words are, ‘But, Queenie, you knew I was coming. You told me to meet you here so we wouldn’t be disturbed.’”
“But,” Elaine added regally, “I insist that Polonius was simply dying and confused, that I had told him nothing of the sort. And of course, the ever-faithful local cops write the incident off as a sad accident. That’s fine for the public, but Hamlet now is almost certain Mummy helped Duke with the king’s death and set up Polonius.”
She sank gracefully into a chair. “A few days later at a family ‘business’ meeting, Laertes bursts in, back from a trip to their Caribbean bank and shoots Hamlet to avenge his father Polonius’s death. Mortally wounded, Prince Hamlet fires back and kills Laertes, who manages first to blurt out that the Duke gave him ten grand to out Hamlet and Horatio. Hamlet blows the Duke away, turns to me and says I have no right to live after all I’ve done, and kills me. Finally, Hamlet collapses and dies in Horatio’s arms.”
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