by Cindy Brown
I nodded again. Jason gently pulled me to my feet. The cops nodded to me and walked away. Linda followed them.
“Ivy?” said Jason. “You want to, uh, change before we go?”
I nodded. I’d discarded my wig at some point, but was still in costume. I looked down at myself, saw the mess covering my leotard and tights. Simon’s vomit. My own, too. I had thrown up after I fell on Simon. I almost heaved again but grit my teeth and started toward the restroom. And stopped. It was on the other side of Simon’s dressing room.
Jason saw the dread in my eyes. “Never mind. A shower at home—at your uncle’s house—that’ll feel better.”
“Can I let the rest of the actors go, too?” I heard Linda ask as Jason steered me toward the door.
“Yeah. Sure,” the older cop replied. “It’s not like it’s a suspicious death or anything. This rookie here,” he jerked a thumb at the red-eared cop, “interrupted my Friday night for nothing. If he’d looked closer,” he said loudly, looking at the other cop, “he would have seen that the guy downed a bottle of Rémy Martin. If he’d really done his job, he would have noticed the medic alert bracelet lying on the guy’s dressing room counter. The one that said ‘heart patient.’”
“But sir,” said the young cop, “It was Simon Black.”
Was.
Past tense.
CHAPTER 8
The Pitiful Eye of Day
“Ivy?” I heard the voice as if from far away. I decided to ignore it.
Then I smelled coffee.
I cracked one eye open.
“Morning, you.” Jason stood by my bed, holding a steaming cup of coffee. How did he look so good this early in the morning? And what did I look like? I wondered if I was wearing pajamas, but felt too sleepy to check.
“You gotta get up now.”
I looked around me through half-open eyes. I was in my Uncle Bob’s guest room, tucked into a twin bed. I didn’t remember getting there. I did remember being carried from the car to the house. I remembered a soft couch and hushed voices, ginger ale and a pill, and a warm washcloth on my face.
A window air conditioner was blowing full blast. It sounded like the roar of the sea. Jason smiled and held out the cup of coffee. His eyes were gentle, warm, and that incredible ocean green-blue. Ocean...warm water...mmm. I felt myself drift along with some invisible current. It felt good to be buoyed along by something bigger than me.
At first. Then I realized the current was pulling me further and further from shore, dragging me out to sea. I suddenly sensed the unseen danger beneath the surface, the fathoms of water underneath me, the black depths that waited...
“Olive?” A different voice, familiar.
The sea turned dark and turbulent. It rushed around me, pulling me from side to side.
“Olive. Come on.” I could somehow see the voice as a big bubble hovering above the surface of the water I swam in. I kicked toward the surface and grabbed at the bubble, hoping it would save me.
“Ow!”
I opened my eyes to see Uncle Bob standing over me, rubbing his nose. His bubble-shaped nose.
“Man, kiddo, you are one deep sleeper.”
I shook my head, trying to shake off the water from my dream. Dream Jason was nowhere to be seen. I didn’t care. I was glad to be awake.
“Olive, sweetheart, I wish I could let you sleep, but Pink—Detective Pinkstaff—is coming over pretty soon.” My uncle pulled me to a sitting position and gave me a gentle smile, double chins tripling under a day-old beard. A cold cup of coffee sat on the bedside table. Coffee?
“Was Jason really here?” I asked my uncle. I was wearing pajamas, or at least a faded soft blue T-shirt—Uncle Bob’s? The inside of my mouth felt like it was covered in stale cotton candy.
“Yeah, I thought you’d wake up for him,” he said, crossing to the window. “If you were Snow White, you’d still be in the glass coffin. Guess those sleeping pills really hit ya.” He twisted the blinds open. Light spilled into the room and bounced off my uncle’s orange Hawaiian shirt.
I struggled to my feet, confused, but motivated by the thought of those sea-colored eyes. Jason was here. Wow.
Why? Something knocked on the door of my subconscious.
“There’s still some hot water,” said Uncle Bob, steering me toward the bathroom. “You got fifteen minutes before Pink shows up. Jason’s on a bagel run.”
That was all the incentive I needed. I shut the door to the bathroom, and started to strip. What was that smell? Maybe Uncle Bob had burritos last night. Geez. I turned on the fan, but the smell remained. Oh well. I started toward the shower, then caught sight of myself in the mirror. The hair around my face was all matted with...Oh God. Not again.
I sat down hard on the toilet seat. My stomach started to churn. I leaned down, put my head between my knees, and tried not to think.
“Olive?” Uncle Bob tapped on the door. “Pink will be here soon. You gotta get in the shower, hon.”
I sat still on the toilet, not moving, and trying not to breathe.
“C’mon. You’ll feel better after you do something.”
He was right. I needed to do something. I didn’t do shit last night. I didn’t do mouth-to-mouth or CPR. I didn’t call 911. I just threw up, curled up, and cried like a baby. The least I could do now was talk to the police. I made myself get up and turn on the shower.
“That’s the way, kiddo,” Uncle Bob said from the other side of the door. “See you in a few.”
I was still in the shower, letting the now-cool water wash over my shoulders, when I heard Uncle Bob again. “Olive? You got five minutes, tops.”
Shit. I turned off the water and toweled off. I scrounged through Uncle Bob’s medicine cabinet, used his Old Spice deodorant, ran a comb through my hair, put some toothpaste on my finger, and scrubbed my teeth. No time to do much else.
I saw a bundle of clothes laid on the counter—a way-too-big pair of drawstring sweats and an XXL T-shirt. I pulled them on, yanking the drawstring as tight as it would go, and stepped out into the hall where Uncle Bob waited.
“I dreamt about water,” I said.
“Water.” Realization dawned on my uncle’s face, “Oh, hon. This is nothing like your brother. This thing with Simon was an accident.”
His eyes knew it was a mistake as soon as his mouth spoke it.
“I mean, Simon was an adult...” he said, digging himself deeper.
He must have seen the tears threatening me, because his eyes grew wet, too.
“It’s okay,” I said, and meant it, at least as far as Uncle Bob was concerned.
“Thanks,” he said.
He put his arm around my shoulders as we walked down the hall and into the kitchen. Sitting at the table was the detective from last night, recognizable by his broad back and rumpled shirt. I dug in my heels.
“Olive, hon,” Uncle Bob whispered. “Don’t worry about this too much. The police just want to wrap up a few details. They don’t ask much when it’s something like alcohol poisoning.”
“But why is he here?” This was my safe space, this outdated kitchen with its scratched vinyl floor. Where I had pancakes and coffee at the formica table. Where I felt like family.
“We thought it was better than having you go down to the station.”
The policeman must have heard us. He stood up and turned. His short-sleeved shirt had an ink stain on the front pocket. “Mornin’,” he said as we walked into the kitchen.
I wasn’t expecting his voice to be so gentle, or for his eyes to light up when he saw me. “Hey, you like Hap’s too?” He chuckled. “You don’t need no teeth to eat our meat.”
I followed his gaze to my chest. It was kinda hard to read upside down, but I guessed I wore a T-shirt from Hap’s Pit Barbecue.
&nb
sp; My uncle gave the guy a sideways look. The detective rewound: “Uh, really sorry you had to go through all that last night.” He pulled out a chair for me. I sat, and Uncle Bob appeared at my elbow with a fresh cup of coffee. I sipped it gratefully.
“So, is it Ivy or Olive?” The policeman pulled out a pen and a small black notebook from the stained pocket. My uncle drifted out of the room.
“My stage name is Ivy Meadows,” I answered, “but legally, it’s Olive. Olive Ziegwart.”
He wrote that, or maybe something else, in his notebook.
“And you found the body?”
I sat up on the edge of my chair. “I found Simon.”
“Tell me about it.” He leaned toward me across the table, like he was taking me seriously.
“It was after intermission, nearly the end of the show. I went to go check on Simon.”
“Why?”
I heard the door to the carport open behind me.
“He’d asked me to keep an eye on him, make sure he didn’t drink,” I said.
A noise—a snort?—made me turn around. Jason walked in carrying two white paper bags.
The cop—had Uncle Bob called him Pink?—cleared his throat. “Why you?” he asked me. “What was your relationship with Simon?”
Jason handed me a toasted bagel, already schmeared, wrapped in a square of waxed paper. I felt his eyes on me.
“We were friends, that’s all.”
“I see.”
Jason tore open the two bags to reveal more bagels and little tubs of cream cheese. The detective flipped through his notebook. “When you went to Simon’s dressing room, were there people around?”
I nodded, wondering if the cop had changed subjects because of the waves of tension coming off Jason, who carefully placed the split open bags in the center of the table.
“Who was there?” asked the detective. Jason grabbed a bagel and stood behind me.
God. I tried to remember. “Genevieve and most of the guy actors were in the greenroom.”
“I wasn’t there,” said Jason, his mouth full of bagel. “I was onstage when it happened.”
The detective turned his attention to Jason. “When what happened?”
Jason swallowed. “The death. When Ivy found him. You know.” He shrugged. “I’m onstage or backstage the entire show. I’m the lead.”
Pink did not seem impressed.
“Is she almost done?” Jason looked at his watch. “We need to go to rehearsal.”
The cop looked at him levelly. “Why don’t you go ahead and tell them she’ll be right along.”
Jason took the hint. “I’ll see you at the theater, Ivy.” He left through the carport door.
The cop took a seeded bagel from the bag, and smeared a bit of cream cheese on it. “Simon Black had quite the reputation,” he said. “But you were just friends?”
So I was right about the change of subject. And he was right about the reputation.
Simon had supposedly moved to Arizona because he didn’t like life in L.A. “Boobs and beaches,” he’d famously said in an interview. Phoenix was just an hour commute to Hollywood by plane, and had no beaches. Boobs we had plenty of, and his interview aside, that seemed to suit Simon just fine. Soon after he moved here, his photograph appeared regularly in the society section of the paper, always with a beautiful woman draped across his arm. After awhile though, the photos became less flattering: a glassy-eyed Simon drinking in a bar, brawling outside a nightclub, or breaking up very publicly with his latest conquest.
“I was just a friend,” I said firmly.
The cop nodded. “So as a friend, Simon asked you to make sure he didn’t drink.” His voice was gentle again. “Did he? Drink?”
I thought about my conversation with Simon before the show: how good he looked, how steadfast he seemed, how proud he had been of his sobriety.
“No. He did not.”
And as I said the words, I knew they were true.
CHAPTER 9
Lay It to Thy Heart, and Farewell
They were already rehearsing by the time I got to the theater. I sat down in a seat in the audience, next to Candy. “Glad you made it,” she whispered, giving my arm a squeeze.
It was the top of Scene IV and The Face of Channel 10 was onstage. “Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not those in commission yet returned?”
“Got those lines right,” Candy said.
Now, though, as Malcolm replied, you could see Bill’s wheels turning. He was obviously trying to remember his upcoming speech instead of listening to Malcolm, which could have actually helped him to remember those lines.
“There’s no art...” said Bill, “To find the mind’s...” He scratched his head and looked up into the flyspace, as if his lines were hanging on a scroll up there.
A stage whisper from Seth, who played Malcolm: “The mind’s construction in the face...”
“The mind’s construction in the face,” Bill said, repeating the words exactly the way Seth had said them.
“Needs some construction on his brain,” Candy said under her breath. “But I guess he finally got what he wanted.”
“What?”
“Being cast. You know.”
“Omigod, I forgot.” Before he realized Edward hadn’t decided whether to cast him or Simon, Bill had actually announced on the nightly news that he’d be playing Duncan. The station had forced him to make an on-air apology.
Bill stumbled through the rest of the scene. At the end of it, Edward shouted from his seat in the audience. “Stop! Again from the top of the show. Maybe this time Bill will remember he’s a king, not a newscaster.”
“Ouch,” I said as Candy and I made our way backstage.
“He’s out of carrots and a mite testy,” Candy said. “You shoulda seen him when he realized you weren’t here. He asked Genevieve to read your part. She started in with the whole ‘I’m Lady Macbeth’ thing and Edward ’bout had a hissy fit. He flat out ordered her to read it and she said,” Candy put on a snooty voice that sounded only slightly like Genevieve’s, “‘I believe my contract lists my role as Lady Macbeth.’”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. Linda read your part. Now we know why she’s a stage manager, not an actor.”
We got into the cauldron next to Tyler, and the stagehands hauled us up into the flyspace. I was relieved to be onstage where I could concentrate on being a witch. The theater was a magical place for me, and not just because of the lights and costumes and glitter. I could lose myself in whatever world we had created, which helped me get through the world that had been thrust upon me. My childhood therapist called it “denial.” I called it “survival.”
We ran the show from the top through Duncan’s last scene, then took a break. Candy went out to the loading dock for a smoke and I headed to the greenroom. Riley, aka Macduff the sword swallower, ran up to me, the scent of his drugstore cologne following a step behind. “Hey, Ivy. You feeling better?”
I nodded. I did feel better, being here.
“Great. Hey, I like Hap’s, too,” he said, pointing a finger at my T-shirt. “See you.” Riley bounded away again, happy. He was a big sweetie, good-natured and good-looking, but he wasn’t much for conversation. Not a lot upstairs, if you know what I mean. Candy variously described Riley as “dumb as a box of rocks,” “two sandwiches shy of a picnic,” and (my personal favorite) “one fry short of a Happy Meal.”
I scanned the room. Ah. Jason stood in front of the room’s three vending machines, lined up at one end of the room like guardians of bad food. One held month-old snacks. Another was a Coke machine that was always out of Diet Coke. Jason put a dollar into the third machine, which dispensed coffee and other lukewarm beverages.
I made my way to the beverage machine. “Hi.” I said t
o Jason, whose cardboard cup was now full of cocoa. I suddenly felt shy.
“Hey, you.” He smiled down at me and my shyness slipped away.
“I wanted to say thanks for last night,” I said, pressing the button for the cocoa. Weak coffee poured into my cup. “Dang it.”
“Did you want cocoa?” asked Jason,
I nodded. “I’m just distracted.” I knew, like everyone else, that you had to push the coffee with cream button to get cocoa.
Jason smiled down at me. “You like café mocha?”
I nodded.
“We’ll share.” Jason took my cup from me, poured some of my coffee into his cocoa, and blended the two until both cups were full of milky tan liquid. He presented my cup with a flourish.
“Milady.”
He leaned in close enough I could smell masculinity and romance and hope, or maybe just shaving cream. “I was happy to be there for you last night,” he said. “Though I had planned a different sort of evening.” He brushed a bit of hair off my cheek.
“Places for Act One,” said Linda over the loud speaker. I was beginning to believe she was a romance-hating psychic.
“Catch you later,” Jason said, taking off for backstage. I followed him and tumbled into place in the cauldron beside Candy and Tyler.
We ran the first half of the show again for Bill’s benefit. After the witches’ scenes were done, I snagged Candy backstage. “Can we talk?”
“As long as you don’t mind the loading dock,” she said. “I am dying for a ciggie.”
Candy grabbed a pack of cigarettes from a hiding space on top of an unused flat and opened the loading dock door. A wave of heat nearly pushed me over, but I followed her outside and watched her light up.
“So, you okay?” She exhaled a stream of smoke like a contented sigh.
“Yeah.” I sat down on the dusty stairs that led from the theater to the driveway. I was sure Uncle Bob’s sweats had seen worse. “But I was wondering, did they say anything about Simon?”