The Temporary Detective

by Joanne Sydney Lessner

  “Think of an image that brings you great joy,” Terence insisted. “It doesn’t have to be an event from your own life. It could be a scene from a movie or some music that sets your heart a-twitter.”

  “But I told you—”

  “No excuses! Think, April. Think!”

  April stood in front of the class and thought. A flicker of emotion crossed her face, and one side of her mouth pulled up in an involuntary smile.

  “That’s it! Go with that! Whatever it was you were just thinking!” shouted Terence.

  “It’s not joyful, it’s funny,” April protested.

  “Just GO WITH IT!”

  April began to leap around the room, letting out ahs and whoops that, to Isobel, sounded completely phony and forced.

  “Physicalize it more!”

  April swung her arms wide and twirled around.

  “Use your whole body!”

  She flung herself every which way, until Terence shouted, “Now, start your monologue!”

  Accusations and invective streamed forth from April in a high-pitched, singsong voice that was completely at odds with what she was saying.

  After a minute, Terence cut her off. “Perfect! Brilliant!”

  “Ridiculous,” Isobel muttered.

  Terence rose from his chair and took the panting, shaking girl by the arm. “Now, how did that feel?”

  April hesitated. “Good?”

  “Excellent work. A big breakthrough, I think.”

  “I don’t get it,” Isobel whispered. “That monologue has nothing to do with joy. There’s nothing joyful about it.”

  “What do you expect?” Delphi stifled a giggle. “It’s from Look Back in Anger.”

  “That’s not the point,” Nikki hissed. “I told you, it’s all about subtext. It’s about being able to call up any emotion at will and use it to color the words.”

  “But that’s not acting, that’s, that’s…” Isobel paused.

  “Masturbation?” Delphi let out a snort of laughter.

  “Excuse me,” Terence broke in. “Is there a question?”

  “Yes,” said Isobel. “Why didn’t April use material that fit the emotion better?”

  “Because that isn’t the point of the exercise. Wednesday evening’s class is for monologue and scene study. The point here is to experience the integration of genuine emotion with any available text.”

  “But when would you ever need to do such a thing?” Isobel asked.

  Terence walked over to her chair and looked down at her, his baggy reptilian eyes glinting.

  “If my methods are not clear, I’d be happy to discuss them with you after the session. I’d prefer not to waste the time of my students who are paying good money to be here.”

  Isobel looked around the room. A blue-jeaned Adonis in the back row caught her eye and smiled. Emboldened, she addressed the room. “Isn’t the whole point of acting to make believe? And to let the audience experience the emotion?”

  “That is what I refer to as the ‘nobody cares how you feel’ school of acting, and I do not subscribe to it. Genuine emotion inspires genuine emotion,” Terence said grandly.

  “But this isn’t genuine emotion,” Isobel said, exasperated. “It’s completely manufactured, and it has no connection to the play!”

  “If you’re on a movie set and you have to make an entrance sobbing because your mother has just been shot, you’re going to have to film that scene ten times from three different angles, so you’d better have a solid technique in place to get yourself there emotionally,” Terence said, through gritted teeth.

  “What about simply imagining yourself in the character’s situation?” Isobel argued.

  “It’s not as immediate.”

  “Maybe if you have no imagination, but if that’s the case, you shouldn’t be an actor to begin with.”

  “Young lady, are you here to audit the class or teach it?” Terence snarled.

  “Sorry.” Isobel retreated back into her chair.

  “Now,” Terence continued, struggling to compose himself, “if we’re not too rattled by that little…digression…let’s continue to bring up joyful images in our chairs. When you feel you have yours, come on up.”

  Nikki glared at Isobel, then placed her hands over her face to shut her out while she conjured a joyful image. Isobel stole a glance at the hot guy in the back row. He was sitting thoughtfully in his seat, and when Isobel caught his eye, he winked at her.

  “That’s it, concentrate. Concentrate.” Terence stalked among the students like a panther on the prowl. “Remember, joy is difficult. Joy is elusive. I know you’re all relieved when I schedule joy, but it rarely produces your best work. We’re not as accessible to joy as we are to anger or frustration.” He glowered at Isobel as he passed her seat. “We don’t have to dig very deep for those emotions, do we?”

  There was a movement behind Isobel, and the hot guy leaped from his seat and practically pirouetted to the front of the class.

  “That’s it! Yes, Justin, yes!”

  Justin soared around the room like an airplane, spinning his arms wildly, escalating into peals of wild laughter.

  “Your monologue! START YOUR MONOLOGUE!”

  “Now is the winter of our discontent! Made glorious summer by this sun of York! And all the clouds that lour’d upon our house in the deep bosom of the ocean buried!” Justin wailed ecstatically.

  “Fabulous! Class, did you see how free he was? How joyful?” Terence preened triumphantly and began to applaud. The rest of the class dutifully followed suit.

  “Now, Justin, you must have had a very strong image. Will you help the rest of the class understand why it has to be that strong in order to attain that level of emotional release? Tell us your image, Justin. What were you thinking about?”

  Justin caught Isobel’s eye and winked again. Then he threw his arms wide and turned to Terence.

  “Nothing,” said Justin. “Not a goddamn thing!”

  “Half the class is faking it,” Justin said. He leaned against the railing of the brownstone next to Terence Hoff’s studio and took a long drag on his cigarette, blowing the smoke away from Isobel and Delphi. “But if you admit it’s all bullshit, that means you’ve been suckered into spending a ton of money on nothing.”

  “What about you?” Delphi asked.

  “I was going to quit anyway.” He stubbed out his cigarette on the bottom of his boot and flicked it into the street. Littering offended Isobel greatly, but she bit her tongue and focused instead on the way his jeans hugged his butt and thighs.

  “How did you find this class, anyway?” she asked.

  “Terence is an old friend of my mom’s. I promised I’d give it a try. But he’s a complete crock.”

  “Obviously some people in the class get something out of it,” Delphi said.

  Isobel wondered if Nikki was one of them. She still wasn’t sure. Apparently, anger and frustration had interfered with Nikki’s access to joy, keeping her in her seat for the entire class. So in the end, Isobel hadn’t been able to assess her acting. But from her silent, furious looks, Isobel was willing to bet that Nikki was a true believer. It wasn’t hard to imagine her blind with rage, threatening to go after Doreen.

  “You certainly fooled Terence,” Isobel said.

  “Nah. He just wants to fuck me.” Justin smoothed a brown curl off his forehead.

  That makes two of us, thought Isobel. Beside her, Delphi gave a quiet sigh. Make that three.

  “Is Nikki any good?” Isobel asked.

  “Is that the tall babe who was sitting next to you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She seems to really get into it. When we did sadness last week, she was a mess. Anger…she was good at that one too. I get the feeling that if you really let yourself go there, it’s kind of hard to shake it off afterwards.”

  Isobel nodded. That settled that.

  “Do his students get a lot of work?” Delphi asked.

  Justin shook his head. �
��Terence won’t let you audition for anything until you’ve completed his course,” he said scornfully.

  “That’s crazy,” Isobel said. “It’s all well and good to take class, but you only really learn by doing it.”

  Justin turned to her. “Listen, half of New York City is made up of people who call themselves actors, but haven’t done a play since college. Acting teachers play into that. It’s a Svengali thing.”

  “Don’t you think it’s important to study?”

  “Oh, sure. But you gotta be careful. Terence isn’t the only phony out there. And he’s by no means the worst of them.”

  “Sounds like you speak from experience,” said Delphi.

  “Nah, my friends’ experiences. I’m not that interested in acting, anyway.”

  “What do you do, then?”

  “I’m an underwear model.” He reached into his leather satchel, pulled out a catalogue and handed it to Isobel, who coughed self-consciously.

  “Um, that’s not much underwear,” she said.

  He smiled. “Keep it. As a souvenir of our time together.” He snapped open a baseball cap and swiped it onto his head. “I gotta run. See you around.”

  Delphi watched him go, a lascivious smile on her face. “Well, I wouldn’t call this morning a total loss.” She pointed to the catalogue in Isobel’s hand. “He didn’t happen to scribble his phone number down, did he?”

  Isobel shook her head sadly.

  “No,” Delphi said with a sigh. “They never do.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Day three was passing too slowly for James’s taste. Contrary to Bill’s assurances, his second attempt at sobriety was proving more difficult than the first. He blamed Jayla entirely. She was back, not with a vengeance, but with a purpose, which was much worse. James was no longer a boyfriend—he had become a cause.

  As he waded through the day’s placements, James thought back to his two most recent AA meetings. Sunday night, he had shared his lapse with his home group and been overwhelmed by the outpouring of unconditional support he had received, which was making it both harder and easier to stick to his goal. He felt more than ever like the group had a stake in his sobriety, and he didn’t want to prove himself unworthy of their confidence. He made a mental note to ask Bill if he’d ever felt this way and how he handled it.

  Then there was the Friday lunch meeting and the shock of meeting Conchita. It wasn’t that common a name, she was wearing a silver and emerald cross like the one Isobel had described, and InterBank Switzerland was right around the corner from Park Avenue Presbyterian.

  Twice he had picked up the phone to share this latest tidbit with Isobel, but he couldn’t bring himself to complete the call either time. His only memory from the night of his binge was Jayla on the phone telling Isobel that he never wanted to speak to her again. Somehow, that conversation had penetrated his stupor and branded itself on his brain. He didn’t want to have to explain Jayla or answer any questions about why he wasn’t answering his own phone. And he knew Isobel well enough by now to know she would ask.

  James took a long swig of Coke from the open can on his desk. He felt paralyzed, unable to do anything else until he had a drink or called Isobel, and he didn’t want to do either. He picked up his nameplate from his desk and ran his sleeve over it, his customary tension reliever. In a sudden swift motion, he set down the nameplate, picked up the phone and, before he realized what he was doing, dialed InterBank Switzerland.

  “Hello, this is Felice Edwards.”

  “Hi, Felice, James Cooke here.”

  “Oh. I’m, um, glad you called.”

  She didn’t sound it. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, sure. I’m just…”

  “I can call back another time,” James said quickly.

  “No, it’s just… Oh, hell! I’m completely embarrassed about the way I acted at lunch the other day. I’m afraid I made a complete fool of myself. I don’t know what you must think of me, getting ripped like that in the middle of the day.”

  Alcohol makes fools of us all, he thought.

  “No need to apologize. You were charming company. You can prove yourself over another lunch sometime.”

  Felice paused. “Or we could have dinner, where behavior like that is more acceptable.”

  James wasn’t sure whether to laugh, say yes, hang up the phone, or invite her to his next AA meeting. He settled on a combination of the first two.

  “Well, yeah, we could do that sometime. I was really just calling to make sure you were all right.”

  “When?”

  “Now.”

  “No, I mean, when do you want to have dinner?”

  “Oh, I…” James paused. Man, she was slick. He wasn’t even sure if he meant it. On the other hand, maybe Jayla would finally get the message if he actually did take Felice out. “Friday night?” he asked.

  “Sounds great.”

  He could hear the smile in her voice, but he was eager to regain control of the conversation.

  “I was wondering…how much do you know about the personal lives of the people you employ?”

  “No more than I can reasonably ask as an HR director.”

  “You must pick up gossip, though. Like when you told me that Nikki Francis is dating a guy in Equities and thinks nobody knows.”

  “Well, there’s always talk.”

  Suddenly, James realized he’d run aground. He couldn’t ask her pointblank if she knew about Conchita—that would be violating the anonymity promise of AA. He also realized that while he was pretty sure Nikki Francis was Annika Franklin, he could be on shaky legal ground if he contributed to her being fired without proof.

  “Is there…anything else you can tell me?”

  “I’ve told you everything I know.”

  “Well, if you think of anything else—”

  “I can tell you on Friday.”

  “Sure. Okay, see you then.”

  James hung up, strangely relieved. Even though he hadn’t gotten any more information from Felice, the conversation seemed to have moved him past his paralysis. The pull to call Isobel had waned, and so had the desire for a drink. He took another sip of Coke and realized with sudden clarity that, on some level, he knew the prospect of forgetting Isobel had been what prompted him to call Felice in the first place.

  Unfortunately, Conchita remained a mystery.

  Isobel wasn’t surprised when Nikki didn’t return to the office after Terence Hoff’s class, but she didn’t come in the next morning, either. While Isobel was relieved to further prolong the inevitable blow-up over her behavior, she was finding Nikki’s extended absence worrisome. Although Nikki claimed to come and go as she pleased, her presence was surprisingly dependable, with the exception of Monday mornings.

  At eleven o’clock, Paula buzzed through to ask Isobel to bring in Nikki’s vendor invoices to sign for payment. Isobel grabbed the forms, which were stacked neatly to the side of Nikki’s computer, and waited in the chilly silence while Paula fixed her stiffly legible signature to each one. Finally, Isobel cleared her throat and asked, “Um, do you know if Nikki’s coming in today?”

  “No idea. Why? These look all in order.”

  “I don’t know, I was just—”

  But Isobel stopped. Her eye had fallen on the name of the vendor whose invoice for $1,280 Paula was now approving. Computer Accessories. That was the name of the false vendor Annika Franklin used to siphon off money from Credit Exchange Bank. Despite her foul temper during her lunch at the diner with James, Isobel had managed to absorb the details he’d relayed regarding Annika Franklin’s prior schemes.

  Isobel could no longer deny they were the same person. Somehow Annika/Nikki Franklin/Francis had managed to spend her summer at the Oldyard Theatre and Credit Exchange Bank simultaneously. Paula was holding the proof Isobel needed that Nikki was still up to no good—and that Doreen had tangible evidence to prove it.

  “Computer Accessories,” she said aloud. “Why is that name familiar?”


  Paula paused and ran her pen down the side of the form. There were line items for various computer hardware extras, backup drives, storage media, and a big sum for miscellaneous. She frowned. “That’s odd. We generally purchase this sort of thing from Staples or PC Connection.”

  Either Paula did not see the value in reading what she signed, or this was the first time a Computer Accessories invoice had crossed her desk.

  “Maybe their prices are better?” Isobel suggested.

  “If you’re dying to know, you can ask—” Paula gave a surprised laugh. “I almost said ask Doreen, but of course, you can’t. Ask Candy O’Hara in Procurement. She’ll know.”

  “Would Doreen have known anything about them?”

  Paula nodded. “Doreen knew all the vendors, where we held which accounts, and what we generally purchased from whom. For better or worse, she made it her business to know more than her job. That’s the key to advancement, you know,” Paula added, more to herself than to Isobel.

  Isobel couldn’t help but ask, “But Doreen didn’t advance, did she?”

  “She didn’t want to,” Paula said, with obvious disgust.

  Isobel scooped up the forms and returned to her desk. She’d take them to the mailroom later. First things first.

  She glanced down the corridor to make sure that Nikki was nowhere in sight, then she quickly switched on Nikki’s computer. While it was starting up, she pulled open Nikki’s file drawer and began thumbing through the hanging folders, looking for other invoices for Computer Accessories. There were neatly organized, clearly marked folders for myriad vendors, including overstuffed ones for Staples and PC Connection, but nothing for Computer Accessories. She looked up Candy O’Hara’s extension on the sheet on the wall and dialed.

  “Hey, Nikki,” chimed a voice as sweet as her name.

  “Oh, sorry. It’s Isobel. I must have used her extension by mistake.”

  “Hey, Isobel. What’s up?”

  “Paula wanted to know why we use Computer Accessories for our hardware extras instead of Staples or PC Connection.”