Pat looked us over. “I have an idea for your hair,” she said to me. She pulled a pencil from behind her ear and scratched a sketch on a scrap of paper. “Do you think you could do this tomorrow night? It’ll take a bit of teasing, but I think it would look prettier and more authentic.”
I nodded enthusiastically. At least part of me would be a little bit glamorous.
The dress rehearsal did not go smoothly.
First of all, there was Janey’s transformation. Nobody had seen her in the dressing room as we got ready. I scanned the cast while they gathered for the performance, looking for a blonde head.
“Places, people!”
My heart was racing as we stood in the wings, ready. Listening carefully to the cues in the music, I plunged on stage, adhering carefully to my appointed path, but almost froze in place when Janey/Johnsie floated across the stage to meet her lover. They were to pantomime an awkward romantic meeting, and they did, but what brought me up short was Janey’s appearance.
No longer was she a pale, diminutive and waif-like blonde. She was an auburn-haired beauty, with her hair piled high and long chestnut ringlets down the back, plus an impressive bosom that I was sure she had not grown overnight. She also wore strapped leather dancing shoes with heels that gave her at least three extra inches in height.
I wasn’t the only one surprised by the transformation. Several of the cast glanced at one another and darted their eyes about meaningfully. Even the consummate professional Danny stumbled a bit upon first seeing her, which only enhanced the hesitant nature of their meeting. But I could tell this transformation had thrown him off.
So this is the plan Terence and Pat came up with to keep Janey safe: Make her unrecognizable.
The cast all understood, though, that we had no time to dwell on anomalies. We kept going.
Two wobbly flats, four missed song cues, two tripped-and-fallen dancers, and one broken stage light later, we gathered in the auditorium for a post mortem. Terence tended to be optimistic.
“Well, I’ve seen worse dress rehearsals. We know where things went wrong—the building crew is going to anchor those flats better and Chris will replace the light tomorrow morning. Singing villagers, be sure to give the dancers enough room in that market scene. Irene is going to go over your rough spots with the musicians tomorrow morning, so those of you who messed up, be there.”
He gathered up his clipboard and sweater and turned toward the exit. “I know somebody is going to say it, so it might as well be me: Bad dress rehearsal, good performance, isn’t that how the saying goes? Don’t worry, everyone, it’ll be all right on the night. Now go take off your makeup—and Pat says, take good care of those costumes!”
The group, mumbling, yawning and stretching, stood and began to move to the dressing rooms. Lily and I were among the first to get there.
She wrinkled her nose. “Do you smell that? Yuk!”
I sniffed. “Oh, yes! What is it? Something spoiled?”
“Maybe something died in here,” Ben Patchke suggested with a smirk.
“Let’s just get cleaned up so we can go,” I said, “That noisome smell makes me gag.” Noisome, offensive to the senses. Yet another word I’d recently added to my vocabulary.
The room was filling up. I saw Danny walk over to his makeup tackle box. “Hey, I left this thing open. Who’s been messing with—” He pulled open the top and let out what I could only guess was an obscenity, because I’d never heard the word before.
Immediately, the odor became stronger. “It’s fish,” I murmured to Lily. “That’s what the smell is.”
Danny reached in the bottom of the tackle box and pulled out a parcel wrapped in newspaper. Slowly he unwrapped a small dead fish about eight inches long.
“Which one of you thought this was funny?” He turned in a circle and stared into our faces, his voice hoarse and his face was dripping with perspiration. “A dead fish? Is this supposed to be a joke?”
Nobody moved. A few of us exchanged puzzled and pitying glances.
All at once he turned back to the tackle box, deposited the fish inside and slammed it shut, mumbling, “That does it. I quit.”
I stepped forward. “But Danny, what—”
He shoved me aside as he headed for the door. The tackle box was under his arm. “I quit!” he repeated loudly, then disappeared at a run up the stairs.
I was shaking. I turned to Lily. “What just happened? I mean, it’s a terrible trick to play on somebody, but—”
“In the mob, it means death, or something like that,” Brenda Bernard said in a gasping whisper, “Didn’t you see The Godfather?”
“She wasn’t allowed,” Lily pointed out, further cementing my immaturity in the eyes of the group.
I nudged her with my sandaled foot. Okay, I kicked her a little.
Adele Foster’s eyes glinted. “Do you think there’s a contract out on him?” she asked Brenda.
Irene said sharply, “Cut it out. It’s just somebody’s idea of a rotten prank, and if Terence finds out who did it, his behind is out of here.”
I was worried. “But Danny quit! Does that mean the play is cancelled?”
Irene shook her head. “I’ve known Danny DiNicco a long time, and he’s not going to bail on this play over something like this. He was just upset.” She looked around the room. “Everybody steer clear of him for a while. He’ll be back, I know it.”
The next morning nothing at all was said about the prank. The only evidence that it had even happened was the fact that Danny’s tackle box stood empty in the dressing room. Obviously, it had been scrubbed out and the cosmetics discarded. Danny arrived on time and without fanfare, carrying a paper sack from the local drugstore.
We went over the problem spots in the music with Irene. While Danny was onstage confirming his blocking, I saw Lily lean nonchalantly over the drugstore bag and peek inside.
“He bought replacement makeup,” she whispered to me later. “Pancake and powder and face cream and some brown pencils. Stuff like that.”
I sighed. “Poor Danny. Do you think he’s really in danger?”
Lily shrugged. “If he is, we probably all are.” She shivered. “In that movie the other night, the gangsters carried their machine guns in violin cases. If you see anybody in a dark suit carrying something like that, duck down behind a seat and stay there. That’s what I’m going to do.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Opening night, my mother ironed my costume for me before I left the house. No hat was included with my costume, but my hair, as designed by Pat, was impressive. It was pulled up into a big puff and anchored with a little knot in the middle, all achieved with the help of a can of hair spray and my enthusiastic sister.
“Charles Dana Gibson,” my father said as I laid my plain gray dress on the back seat. “That’s what your hair reminds me of.” He opened the front car door for me.
I frowned. “Who?” I didn’t want to look like anybody named Charles.
“He was an illustrator back in the 1890’s. My grandmother had some of his drawings framed at her house. The women in them all had hairdos like that.” He pointed to my head. “It looks very nice.”
I fingered a tendril at my neck. “Barbara copied Pat’s drawing pretty well. I feel kind of pretty, but it’s so tightly teased and it’s got so much hairspray in it that I don’t know how I’ll ever get it back to normal.”
We pulled into a parking space in front of the theatre. I gathered my things and got out, feeling more nervous by the second.
“Look for us in the front row tonight,” my father said as he began backing out. “We’re coming early to grab the best seats. Good luck!”
I waved, sighing. My father didn’t know that it was considered bad luck to wish somebody good luck in the theatre. And real actors didn’t stare into the audience. It broke the Fourth Wall, the imaginary one that the audience looked through to observe the action. I’d learned that from one of Terence’s lectures, of course.
“And there’ll be no peeking through the curtain to count the house,” he’d said firmly. “That only happens in cheesy Hollywood musicals. No hanging out in public areas in costume and makeup either.”
There were two large cardboard cartons in seats in the last row of the theatre as I entered the auditorium. “Look, they’re the Last Leaf programs!” I eagerly pulled out one and handed another to Danny, who had just come through the door.
“Where’s my name?” I scanned the list of names under Chorus. “It’s not there. How could they leave my name off the program?”
“Here.” Danny pointed. “You’re up there in the cast because you have some dialogue. You’re listed as Washerwoman. Congratulations.”
My first theatrical credit! I basked in the glow until I spotted something that confused me.
“‘George Spelvin’? Who’s that? It says here he plays Max, but that’s not true. It’s you.”
Danny laughed and dropped the program back into the carton. “Didn’t you know I had a twin brother, Amelia Earhart?” He headed down the aisle toward the stage.
“What are you talking about?” I called after him. I knew he was laughing at me, but didn’t understand why.
“Knock it off, DiNicco,” Chris said over his shoulder as he ambled up the aisle. He stopped in front of me. “Amelia, the name George Spelvin is a theatre tradition. It’s used when an actor plays two parts, or just when he wants to remain anonymous. Don’t let that two-bit tenor give you a hard time.” He continued on his way with the Almighty Clipboard under his arm.
I found a brisk controlled chaos in the dressing rooms. The air was redolent with talcum powder, hastily-ironed cotton fabric, and the waxy smell of makeup. People conducted lively conversations or hummed snatches of music. In a corner, Celia Hurley was re-reading her script, gesturing and muttering to herself.
Everyone seemed to know what they were supposed to do except me. I stood behind a chair for what seemed like ages, waiting my turn at a mirror until Lily tapped me on the shoulder.
“Come on. I’ve got an idea.”
Scurrying up the aisle of the empty theatre, we sneaked across the lobby and into the public restroom, where there were mirrors aplenty. “Just put your makeup on quick,” Lily cautioned.
“Quick-ly,” I corrected.
“Oh, shut up. And hurry up. Terence will kill us if we get caught here.”
There was a flush from one of the stalls and Dierdre emerged, completely made up. She didn’t comment on our unauthorized presence there, just gave us a baleful glance while she washed her hands. Lily and I hurriedly rubbed cream on our faces and topped that layer with our shared Tan Number Two Pan-cake makeup.
“Don’t forget your neck,” Dierdre advised and left, carrying her own vanity case.
We completed our make up, gathered our things, and headed into the hallway.
Gilly Dickensen was leaning against a wall, arms crossed. “I’m gonna tell,” he said in singsong.
I froze. “Don’t, please!”
“Okay, maybe if you get me a couple chocolate bars.” He gestured to the snack machine. “I’m out of change.”
“Here, you creep!” Lily reached in her change purse and threw a dollar bill and a handful of coins on the floor of the lobby, then turned back to me. “Come on!”
I hiked up my skirt and ran after her. Behind us I heard Gilly calling, “Hey, I was only kidding!”
We arrived in the dressing room panting just as Chris Gold stuck his head in the door and called, “They’ve opened the box office. You have thirty minutes, people.”
Since Lily and I were already dressed and made up, we had time to explore backstage. It was amazing what had been accomplished in such a short time. Elm and the other student stagehands had built an ingenious two-story brownstone, stage right, according to Terence’s specifications. The building itself was open to the audience rather like a doll house, and they could see the staircase and the people in both upstairs flats.
Scene changes were accomplished by simply turning off the stage lights on the various rooms and aiming them at the foreground, which represented the street where Lily and I did our most of our performing. The sidewalk café that the artist Max frequented was represented by a tiny table-and-chair set and an awning, downstage left. The background flat depicted small trees and signs advertising a barber, milliner and butcher, and in the distance, the Washington Square Arch, all painted in sepia tones, as in old-fashioned daguerreotypes.
The most dramatic part of the set was a huge ladder that was to be brought out towards the end of the play, next to a tall flat painted to resemble a brick wall. The dying vine was fastened to the wall with Velcro, so that portions could be pulled off discreetly between scenes to indicate its demise.
In the story, Max the artist uses the ladder to paint the leaf on the wall outside the girls’ window. At the very end, he does a dramatic, carefully-choreographed descent representing his death from exposure.
Especially interesting to us once again was the small wooden table behind the wings, manned by Chris, who was rubbing his forehead and squinting.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
He shook his head. “It’s nothing; just a headache.” He pulled an aspirin bottle from his shirt pocket, shook out two and chewed them, without water.
“Ick. I don’t know how you can do that!” Lily said.
He shrugged as he replaced the bottle in his pocket. His hand shook.
“You do what you have to do. Are you girls all made up and dressed? Good.”
Since we had time, he patiently showed us the motley assortment of noisemakers, including coconut shells for the clip-clop of horse’s hooves and even a doorbell. “It’s a make-do system,” he admitted. “I can hear the dialogue, but I can’t see the action.” He patted the walkie-talkie. “Hey, do me a favor, would ya, girls? Run upstairs and tell that kid Gil not to cue the cricket sounds tonight. We can’t use ’em. The stupid machine broke.” He indicated a reel-to-reel tape player banished to the floor beneath the table.
“Sure, no crickets. Come on, Amelia.”
We were on official business, but we still tried to avoid visual contact with potential audience members as we made our way to the balcony stairs.
Gilly was hunched in the front row of the empty balcony, his back to us, with a script in his lap, looking through a pair of binoculars. When Lily tapped him on the shoulder, he jumped as though he’d been struck. When he saw us, he scowled.
“Hey, look, I’m sorry about that stuff downstairs. I’ll give you your money back later. But you gotta get out of here now,” he said in a stage whisper. There were audience members making their way to their seats just below us.
“But Chris said—” I began.
“I don’t care what Chris says, you don’t belong up here! Go away!”
“But—” Lily protested.
He sputtered desperately, still whispering, “Quit bugging me! I don’t have time to mess with you! Get out!” He turned his back on us and resumed staring through the binoculars.
I made one last effort. “Don’t you want to know—”
His back still turned, he clapped his hands over his ears.
Lily looked at me and shrugged. “Ah, well,” she said airily as we descended the stairs. “We tried.”
We returned to the dressing room where the final zippings, pinnings and powderings were being completed. A sharp knock on the doorframe caused everybody to freeze.
It was Terence, resplendent in dark suit and elegant tie. “Are ya day-sent?” he joked in a faux Irish brogue. He looked around at all of us approvingly. “That ya are! Break a leg, everybody!”
Chris leaned his head in and also knocked sharply on the doorframe. “Overture in one minute, ladies. Places!”
My heart began to pound as I grabbed my basket, tiptoed to my designated spot on the darkened stage and listened to the instrumental trio play snatches of the show’s many songs. There were only the three instruments, piano, dru
ms and flute, but they skillfully captured the poignancy of the music. The overture ended and the audience applauded the musicians.
This is it. I straightened my shoulders and took a deep breath. It’s starting!
All at once, the main curtain parted with a rattling sound, the stage lights blinked on and we began our musical stroll through Greenwich Village.
When the music paused and the dialogue between Johnsie and the Lover began, we milled about in the background as instructed, murmuring “rhubarb” to each other with enthusiasm. Lily and I engaged in a brief pantomimed exchange accompanied by gestures involving the basket I carried. I was supposed to be giving her washing tips as music played in the background.
To my surprise, the fact that there was an audience of several hundred people watching us didn’t unnerve me as much as I’d expected. It was exhilarating and every bit as magical as I had imagined.
Between my scenes I stood in the wings, watching the carefully choreographed yet unseen activities of the stage crew. Elm had been given curtain-pulling duty. I watched his muscular arms with admiration as he yanked the ropes.
Lily and I helped bring props onstage between scenes. While we bustled around behind the heavy red velvet traveler curtain, dressing the stage with the minutiae of a street vendor’s cart, the two sweethearts were out in front, taking a romantic stroll that was to culminate in the song “I’m Doing This for You” and the departure of the unfaithful Lover.
“Hey, pick that up!” Lily whispered sternly.
An artificial apple had fallen on the floor. I restored it to position, and we were finished. As we backed off the scene, we heard a disturbance in Chris Gold’s corner behind the cyclorama.
It sounded like a small animal snarling. A group of us hurried silently to the spot, where we saw Chris, trying to communicate via walkie-talkie with Gilly Dickensen in the balcony. “The crickets!” the receiver was saying in a frantic whisper. “Cue the crickets!” Swear words alternated between the chant, “Thecricketsthecricketsthcrickets . . . ”
Murder in the Past Tense (Miss Prentice Cozy Mystery Series Book 3) Page 10