[2015] The Ghost Slept Over

by Marshall Thornton

  “How so?” he asked.

  “The character I play is…memorable. People expect me to be like him and to do the things he did. I think I’d really just like you to get to know me.”

  “Fair enough.” He smiled. It was a charming smile, as charming as our surroundings. One of his front teeth was a little crooked and tucked over the other. Obviously, he could afford to have it fixed. I liked that he hadn’t bothered. It made him seem somehow more human than the people I met in Hollywood with their veneered and perfectly straight teeth. Not that mine aren’t exactly that, but I can at least pretend I need them that way for professional reasons.

  I finished signing everything he’d put in front of me and handed it back to him. After he put it all into the briefcase he said, “But you can at least tell me about your acting career.”

  “I don’t know that it’s really all that interesting,” I replied, sounding much more insincere than I was. I tried to change the subject by picking up the menu. The cuisine was a kind of nouveau American and much more expensive than any meal I’d had in the last six months. I was in heaven.

  “Seriously. I’d like to hear about it,” Dewey said. It took me a moment to remember that he was talking about my acting career.

  “Oh, well, I um, I started acting in high school. We did All My Sons. I was the main son. I don’t remember his name. I think I was probably terrible, but I loved being on the stage. You really want to hear this?”

  Dewey nodded.

  “I tried to get into the theater department at UCLA but that didn’t work out, so I ended up going to Cal State LA, which if you say it fast enough sounds like the same thing. I made it through two years but then I—”

  The waiter walked over. He was young, around twenty-two. Good-looking. Kind of an all-around hometown jock. The kind of kid most gay men would just drool over. Dewey hardly noticed him. That made me like him quite a lot. The kid drawled on about the specials, some kind of free-range chicken and venison pot roast. I barely paid attention. Then he asked if we’d like anything from the bar. I jumped in.

  “I’d like an Absolut martini with olives.”

  “Oh, all right,” said Dewey. “I’ll have a Glenfiddich on the rocks, then.”

  The waiter smiled like we’d just promised him a big tip and walked away.

  “You were talking about your acting career,” Dewey said.

  I didn’t really want to continue but he seemed so interested. “Well, after college I was with a little troupe in the valley. That’s around when I met Mac. He wasn’t very impressed by them. Or me, I imagine, though he never said anything about it.”

  I ran through a good chunk of my resume while we waited for our drinks. When they arrived, Dewey ordered an appetizer sampler so I could try all the appetizers the restaurant had to offer. The waiter left and I put my foot down.

  “Enough about me. I’d like to hear something about you. Did you always want to be a lawyer?”

  “I’m not sure I ever wanted to be a lawyer. I’m third generation; it’s kind of the family business. I suppose if there were something else I’d wanted to do, if I had some kind of calling like you or Mac, I like to think I would have done that. But I never had that so…why not do what was expected of me?”

  “But it must be interesting work,” I said.

  “Sometimes it is. Often it’s not.”

  “Is this mainly what you do? Estate work?”

  “No. I do a little of everything. It’s too small an area to specialize.”

  The waiter came over and we ordered. I chose the lake bass special, while Dewey picked the venison pot roast. After the waiter left there was a brief pause.

  Finally, Dewey said, “The Barnyard Players are doing Heaven Sent.”

  “Heaven Sent? You mean the old comedy? The one with the ghost and the flying tea pot?”

  “Yes, that one.”

  “That’s so odd.” I mean, I had a ghost and someone was doing a play about a ghost. It was a weird coincidence.

  “Why is it odd?” he asked.

  “It just is.”

  “Oh.” He looked at me uncomfortably for a moment, then continued, “As I said the Barnyard Players are doing—”

  “Who are the Barnyard Players?”

  “They rent the theater from you.”

  “Oh that’s right. You mentioned them. They’re doing Heaven Sent.”

  “Yes, they are.”

  “We did it in college,” I said.

  Dewey had a slight blush in his cheek and was fidgeting nervously. Usually this is what guys do right before they ask what you like to do in bed. And maybe he was planning to ask that, but he started off very tangentially.

  “Anyway, Grady was to set to play the nephew, except he’s broken his ankle. So, now it’s all on the understudy.”

  “That’s so 42nd Street.”

  Which one was Grady again? I wondered. Oh, the one with the cast, obviously.

  “Except we don’t have an understudy.”

  “Well, it’s hardly Broadway…”

  “We were thinking you might like to step in.”

  “Me? Oh, I don’t think—”

  “It’s the Randolph Scott role, in case you’ve ever seen the old movie.”

  “I have.” It was Scott at his most dapper. It was tempting, it really was. But I had a ghost. Did I really want to be in a play about having a ghost? Of course, I might bring some interesting depth to— “I’m not going to be here very long though. I have plans to continue my one-man show. Well, actually, to revamp it and get it ready for…um, you know, more exposure.”

  “Of course. But it would really only require you stay for another month or five weeks…”

  “It’s really not in my plans,” I said as diplomatically as I could.

  “That’s too bad,” Dewey said. “I think you would have been very good.”

  I blushed. Then our salads arrived. So, we ate.

  Chapter Eight

  Plotting and Re-Plotting

  The longer dinner went on, the more I realized Cal could not possibly be insane. He was far too lucid. In truth, he was far too normal. Yes, he’d occasionally say something a little off, mostly when it came to Mac. He really seemed to be having trouble remembering that Mac was dead. I reminded myself that he was grieving. Because their relationship was so strained, he wasn’t allowing himself to grieve fully for Mac and it was coming out in strange ways.

  It was a relief to know there was nothing wrong with him because I liked him. I did. He tended to talk a little too much about himself. But to be fair, I had prodded him to do just that, and, more importantly, he was interesting. My experience of actors, strictly amateur, is that they’ll talk your ear off regardless of whether they have any credits or not. But Cal had credits. Cal had done things. That made listening to him a lot more compelling. And, well, he was awfully nice to look at.

  Of course, liking him made the whole thing more difficult. I was supposed to be soliciting a large donation to the Barnyard Players. The more I liked him the worse I felt about that. And, to make matters worse, he turned down the role in Heaven Sent. The silly idea the players had had about me seducing the money out of Cal kept bouncing around in my head. I wasn’t going to do any such thing. At least, not on purpose.

  After dinner, I talked Cal into walking out to the Red Barn to take a look at the theater he owned. We walked down the shoveled path, through the foot high snow. I had to resist the temptation to throw an arm around him. It was cold out, and it was still cold when we got inside the theater. They rarely turned the thermostat above sixty in the winter.

  Between productions, a theater is a very different kind of place than you’d expect. We walked into the lobby and it seemed more like a used furniture store than anything else. The set designer, Billie Cranston, had borrowed furniture from three different secondhand stores and had stacked it in the lobby for Wendell to choose from. Wendell was incredibly picky and incredibly indecisive at the same time. There were easier
ways to decide on set pieces, even I knew that, but actually putting things in front of Wendell seemed to work best. Of course, it was terribly unprofessional and I was embarrassed for our little theater group in front of someone as accomplished as Cal. He seemed to take it in stride though, as we walked into the theater itself.

  At Mac’s suggestion, the players had built what’s called a black box. The theater was a big empty room painted black. There were moveable risers and plastic chairs rather than more traditional theater seats. This meant that the audience could be anywhere and so could the stage. At the moment, the theater was set up in the round, which was the way we were planning to do Heaven Sent.

  “Mac was very involved with the construction of the theater. In fact, he paid for it all and suggested that we make it a black box.”

  Cal nodded. “It’s exactly the kind of place Mac liked.” He studied everything closely, then asked, “How are they going to do the floating teapot trick in the round?”

  “I’m not sure. I haven’t been to the production meetings. I suppose you could ask Wendell for a preview…since you won’t be here when we open.”

  As soon as I said it I regretted it. If Cal got anywhere near Wendell, the director would throw himself on Cal thinking he was doing us all a favor. I decided to change the subject. “I get the impression that you and Mac didn’t end well.”

  He laughed. “And do you also get the impression that World War Two was a small skirmish?”

  I thought carefully about how to say this next, “People can be very different at different points of their lives. He could be difficult and opinionated, certainly, stubborn very much so, but at the same time he was very generous, very kind, very forgiving of people who…weren’t quite up to par. He practically supported the Barnyard Players and they’re only a community theater group. You wouldn’t expect someone like Mac to even take an interest.”

  “No, you wouldn’t. It’s out of character. So is the idea of Mac being generous. He was never particularly generous with me…” He seemed to realize what he’d just said. “Until now, I mean.”

  “Actually, before now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, attorney client privilege and all, but…I had an interesting conversation with his entertainment lawyer this morning.”

  He smirked, then quickly apologized when I gave him a puzzled look. “Sorry. It’s just…that’s the kind of line you hear in restaurants all the in Los Angeles. I wasn’t expecting it here. That’s all.”

  “I suppose that’s true. Well, apparently, Mac kept tabs on you. He’d have his lawyers send you money via your agent whenever he thought you really needed it.”

  “What? No, that’s not true. I didn’t get any money from him.”

  “You never noticed that your Star Trip: Interloper residual checks were a bit bigger than they were supposed to be?”

  “I just thought it was a very generous show.”

  “I’m afraid not. Mac and your agent cooked that up. The real checks were eight or nine dollars. Rather than eight or nine hundred. Mac wasn’t sure you’d take the money if you knew.”

  There was a deep frown on his face. It could have made him ugly but instead it made him more appealing. Obviously, he was readjusting his vision of Mac. Finally, he said, “I guess that explains a few things.”

  “Like why he left you his estate.”

  “That would be one of them, yes.”

  I wondered what other things he might be talking about but decided not to ask. It wasn’t my business.

  “Hey! My agent took ten percent of those checks.”

  I shrugged. “Cost of doing business.”

  We stared at each other for a long, uncomfortably comfortable moment, and then I decided I’d better take another stab at getting him to take the part. “So, basically we’re standing in Lord Essex’s living room. There will be French doors upstage and the entrance to the dining room is this way, and the stairs will be over this way. Since it’s going to be in the round everything will be suggested, of course.”

  “You’re trying to tempt me, aren’t you?”

  “It’s your theater. I thought you should see it at least once before you sell it.”

  “Oh, was I talking about the theater?”

  “Oh,” I said, dumbly. “I’m sure we’ll find someone to take over for Grady. Maybe one of the kids from the high school.”

  “You don’t have a junior college nearby?”

  “Oh, that’s probably a better idea, isn’t it. Still too young, but at least legal.” I laughed at myself, though even as I was laughing I couldn’t figure out why it was funny.

  “In the old movie the Lord’s ghost is painted blue, are you going to do that?” he asked.

  “We’re looking into it, but I don’t think we’re going to find a way to do it without poisoning Kirby. We’ll probably just put him in some kind of gauzy costume.”

  “They don’t wear things like that though.”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “Ghosts.”

  I had to ask, “Do you see ghosts?”

  “No,” he said quickly. “Never. Did someone say I did?”

  “No, it’s just…you spoke like you knew what ghosts wear.”

  “Oh right. Yeah, it was just a gut feeling.”

  “So, your gut feeling about what a ghost would wear is…”

  “Just everyday clothes. Nothing flashy.”

  “How will the audience know who’s alive and who’s dead?”

  “It does get confusing.”

  He took a step closer to me, too close, and I took a step back. We were staring at each other again and I didn’t think this was going anywhere remotely safe, so I said, “I think we should probably get going.”

  “If you insist,” he said.

  On the way back to Mac’s place, I talked nervously about what it’s like to live in such a small town. The charm of knowing your neighbors, of pulling together on town projects, having room to breathe. It was a bit too much like something the town council would put out, so once I’d sufficiently embarrassed myself, I shut up.

  “Does it get lonely?” he asked.

  “Not really. I mean, I was in a relationship a while back. It lasted almost seven years.” We broke up when we realized we were probably staying together because there were so few other guys to date. Which I suppose is why I wasn’t able to give his question a convincing no.

  “It is a pleasant idea, though, slowing things down.” Cal fell silent. As though he was making a decision. Or plotting how to jump me. Or rather, I hoped he was plotting how to jump me. I did want to kiss him but it was such a bad idea that I knew I couldn’t initiate. If he initiated, well it was still a bad idea, but not my bad idea.

  Pulling into Mac’s driveway, I could feel my palms begin to sweat even though it was below freezing outside. I stopped, hesitating before I turned off the engine. Turning it off seemed like a commitment I wasn’t sure I wanted to make. But then I did it anyway.

  The light was on over Mac’s front stoop, casting a soft yellow glow over the snow. I turned a little in my seat and said, “I had a very nice time.”

  Cal clicked off his safety belt and leaned over the console to kiss me. His lips were stiff from the cold, and I wondered if I should go buy him a coat before I saw him again. But then, only a moment later, his lips were heating up. Softening. He slipped his tongue into my mouth and my dick began to stiffen. Suddenly, the light over the front stoop went off and we were in total darkness. I pulled away from Cal.

  “Is there someone in the house?” I asked.

  “No. The light is on a timer.”

  “It is?” I’d been all over the house and I didn’t remember that.

  The light came back on.

  “There has to be someone in the house,” I said.

  “No. It’s a timer. It’s set to strobe.”

  “Strobe? That doesn’t make sen—”

  Cal kissed me again.
While we kissed the light went on and off. It really was on strobe, even though I had no idea why anyone would want that feature. I pushed the light out of my mind. I wanted to let go and fall into the kiss but I knew better, or at least thought I did. I eased Cal off me.

  “Well,” I said. “This has been nice, but you’re leaving and we really shouldn’t get involved.”

  “We’re just kissing.”

  “I’m a grown-up. I know what kissing leads to.”

  “Two friendly, attractive men having sex is hardly the end of the world.”

  “Actually, that depends on who you ask…”

  “You’re avoiding.”

  “Yes. Well, I think we should keep this professional.” Just then I noticed that the light had stopped strobing. Now it was just on. “The light stopped going on and off.”

  “All right, I’ll do it.”

  “Oh.” He was going to be professional. I was disappointed that gave up without putting up a fight. But it was what I’d asked for. “Good. Then, um, there really isn’t much to do until Constance sells—”

  “No, I meant I’ll do the play.”

  “Oh, great.”

  “On one condition…”

  As an attorney these are not words I enjoy. That one condition is more often than not a deal breaker.

  “What’s the condition?” I asked.

  “That you go out with me again.”

  The light went out and we finished our conversation in the dark.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said.

  “I didn’t ask you if it was a good idea. I asked if you’d be willing to do it in order to save your show.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not a very nice person. You won’t fall in love.”

  I had the distinct feeling he might be lying about that.

  * * * *

  “I think mimosas are in order,” Wendell said, after I told the group at The Steppin’ Inn that Cal had agreed to accept the part.

  Jane jumped up and went to get them just as I was saying, “None for me.” I had to go to court later that afternoon on a custody case. Grady called me a spoilsport, and I nodded agreement. That was often a lawyer’s role in life. Spoilsport.