Under the Spotlight

by Bree Verity

  She knew the promise was empty, and her stomach dropped. How could she say that, when she couldn’t even discuss her deepest, darkest issues with her best friends? And what kind of a person would she be if she got involved with someone who had been hurt before, only to hurt them again?

  She battered down the thoughts. Of course, she could never tell Marc everything about her past, that was impossible. But her past had no bearing on the future, right? She promised herself that there would be no secrets from this day forward.

  She leaned her head on his arm. “So, where are we at?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She waved her arm around. “This. Me and you. Sleeping together.”

  “Is that all it was for you? Just sleeping together?” Marc took her shoulders and turned her upper body to face him. “Because for me, I think this was just the start of something… huge.” He kissed her, gently but with so much passion it made Penny’s head spin.

  “That’s what I was thinking too,” she whispered, and a broad smile crossed his face.

  “Good.” He picked his coffee mug back up and took a long sip. “So, the first thing you need to know is that I have my coffee strong and white.”

  She punched him. “What? So, I’m like the little wifey who goes and gets your coffee in the morning while you sleep in?”

  “Hey,” he remonstrated. “I got your cuppa this morning. And I’ve committed to memory that you have your tea white with one. It’s only fair that you commit to memory that I have white coffee. For the times when you do get up first. Although, with the way you were snoring last night…” He grinned at her.

  “I was not! I never snore.”

  “You said that once before. Who told you that? Your ex-boyfriend?”

  Marc was teasing, but Penny’s mood instantly fell. There hadn’t been any real boyfriends, not since Renaldo.

  “What happened?” Marc said, instant concern replacing his playfulness. “What did I say that made you sad?”

  “No, nothing,” she said, once again rubbing his arm. “I just haven’t had that many boyfriends. And the ones I have had…” She left the sentence hanging, knowing that Marc would understand.

  “Oh. Well, I hope I do a better job of it than they do.”

  Penny turned a quizzical glance upon him. “Is that what you are?”

  “Is that what you want me to be?”

  It was a fair question, but one that Penny wasn’t sure she was ready to answer just yet. Marc looked at her hopefully - obviously he was ready to move forward with the relationship.

  Her stomach dropped. “I… You know, I think I’d like to have a few more dates before we make it official. If that’s okay with you.” She saw Marc’s expression fold in on itself, and inwardly she winced. But a moment later, all she could see on his face was a wicked smile. “Kind of like the date we had yesterday?”

  She laughed. “Not much by way of dating going on there. More lusting and panting and…”

  “Fucking?” Marc added. Penny pretended to be shocked.

  “Fucking? I think you mean making love.”

  “No,” he said, “I’m pretty sure I meant fucking.”

  She grinned. “Fine. Fucking it is.”

  He sidled up to her, instant fire kindling in his glance. “Do you want to do some more fucking?”

  Her body leapt to attention, sending hot sizzles along her nerves. “I’m game if you are. Only we need to be at the theater by one, so we’ll have to limit any fucking to a quickie.” She made the pronouncement with a straight face, but she couldn’t help the twinkle in her eye.

  “I think I can manage that,” replied Marc with a sexy smile, pulling her close.

  Secret smiles and furtive touches were all Penny and Marc could do behind the curtains that afternoon. Jane seemed to be in a frenzy to make sure everything was perfect, spending a good portion of the afternoon checking and cross-checking props, scenery and changes with Penny.

  After watching one of the scenes from the wings, Penny sighed as she again heard, “Pen?”

  She stepped onstage, shielding her eyes against the glare of the lights, squinting to find the shadow of Jane on the dark floor below. “Yeah?”

  “You know that old smoking stand that we used for Brief Encounter?”

  Penny nodded, her stomach sinking. Jane was going to get her to fossick through the props to find some old relic they hadn’t used in years.

  “Do you think you could find it? I want it for this scene.”

  “Sure.” It was a pain in the arse, but that’s what a stage manager did. “I’ll try and track it down on Monday before the run if that’s okay?”

  “Yep, not a problem.”

  Penny disappeared back behind the curtains, and the show continued as if she hadn’t even made her quick onstage appearance. She smiled to herself. It was like that in community theater. Organized chaos right up until opening night and then, as if by some kind of magic, everything usually sorted itself out.

  She felt a breath on her neck and turned, expecting to see Marc there. To her surprise, there was no one. And she realised it wasn’t really a breath she felt - more like the cool fingers of a breeze. She shivered.

  Then all the lights went out.

  All the theater windows were covered, so even during an afternoon rehearsal, a thick blackness carpeted the whole area. There was a scream. Jane’s authoritative voice rang out. “Don’t panic people. It’s just another blackout. Pen? Can you check the lights?”

  “Not a problem,” called out Penny, but before she could stumble to the fuse box, the lights came back on.

  “Thanks” she heard Jane call.

  Penny had to laugh but couldn’t help noticing how hollow and strange it sounded. What was going on here today?

  Marc strode up to her, a little stress showing on his face. “The fucking handkerchief is gone again.”

  “Again?” At Marc’s terse nod, Penny sighed and trudged back to the props table. She was tired. Admittedly, it was good tired. She sure wasn’t complaining. But today, every small issue felt like a huge one, and all she wanted to do was go home, curl up in bed, and have a long nap.

  But she could still feel where the cool fingers of air had touched her, and she shivered again.

  “Cold?”

  “No.” She didn’t bother to explain. Marc would think her fanciful and overtired. Which she obviously was.

  This time, the search for the handkerchief took longer. Penny and Marc, and the actors who weren’t needed onstage until the next scene, scoured the theater with Amber eventually unearthing the handkerchief in the kitchen. At the opposite end of the building from the green room and the props table.

  What on earth was going on?

  “We should have a second hanky ready and waiting in case this keeps happening,” said Penny to Marc, who nodded as she continued, “even though someone obviously thinks it's hilarious to hide the thing from us. Who would be so… childish?”

  Marc shrugged. “Someone who doesn’t get that we are all here doing this for fun and that their little joke makes it significantly less so?”

  “Hmm,” said Penny, her brows drawing together. “I really don’t want to take everyone to task again after rehearsals today, but I’m going to have to, aren’t I?”

  “Yep. And we probably also need to get people looking out to check if they see anyone doing anything stupid. Maybe they can self-regulate.”

  “I hate to ask the people here to be suspicious of each other.”

  “They already are.” Marc’s lips thinned. “Since those personal items went missing, everyone is already looking at each other sideways.”

  “That’s not how it’s supposed to be,” said Penny sadly. “This is supposed to be fun.”

  “I know,” said Marc, gathering her into his arms and kissing her hair. She sighed. It felt good to be held. She lifted her head to look at him, and he tenderly caressed her cheek.

  “Oh my god.” Chris appeared out of nowhere
and slapped Marc heartily on the back. “It’s about time you two got together. You’ve been tiptoeing around each other for long enough.” He hurried past, costume flapping wildly, to take up his waiting spot in the wings.

  Marc and Penny looked at each other and burst into laughter. “So much for a few dates,” said Penny, and Marc gave her a squeeze.

  “I don’t mind,” he whispered, before dropping his lips down on to hers.

  “Hey, no making out in the green room,” one of the actors said with a laugh as she walked by.

  “Get a room you guys,” quipped Amber as she bustled past in the other direction.

  Penny colored and pulled herself out of Marc’s arms. “She’s right,” she admitted. “We need to cool it until the show is over.”

  “Well,” replied Marc, “I’ll try to wait that long.” He raised one eyebrow, and Penny had to smile.

  But with all the odd things happening at the theater today, her smile soon faded, replaced with concern.

  Why would someone sabotage the show? Well, sabotage was maybe too strong a word - moving one handkerchief would hardly put the whole production in jeopardy. But it was still a constant annoyance - so why would anyone do that?

  And what was that weird breeze she felt?

  Chapter Ten

  The following evening, Penny arrived early at the theater to try to find the prop Jane requested. They hadn’t used it for several years and, as happened when lots of things were jammed into a small space, it had been shoved toward the back of the overcrowded furniture room.

  Penny had to squeeze past a fake wardrobe, a fancy dining room setting with six plush chairs, and a number of occasional tables before she could even see it, pushed up against a corner of the back of the room. She sighed. It couldn’t have been easy to get to now, could it?

  She moved a chair aside, and picked up a small table, moving it behind her as she got closer and closer to the required prop. The timber floor creaked beneath her feet and the fine layer of dust that she disturbed made her nose itch. It was like one of those dreams, thought Penny wryly, where you are reaching for something and it seems like it is permanently just beyond your fingertips. She climbed over a desk, and under a curtain rail.

  The furniture room, along with all the storage rooms, was part of the original house. The window in the room had been boarded up long ago to make a solid wall to store things against, but Penny could still see how attractive the room must have once been with its ornamental high ceilings and picture rail around the walls.

  She tripped over something, lurched forward and almost fell, only stopping because there was simply not enough room to hit the floor. As it was, she smashed her elbow into the fancy timberwork of an overturned dresser. For a moment, she felt woozy.

  It’s funny how not funny hitting your funny bone is.

  She looked down, discovering she had tripped on a small loose board in the floor.

  She tried to stomp it back into place, but all that happened was the other end of the board pulled out of the floor as well. It looked as if the timber had warped out of shape. She sighed. She didn’t really have time for this.

  What was better - to have a board sticking up, or to have no board? If she removed the board, she could put something over the hole temporarily until she could get Kevan, the maintenance guy, to put a new board in. That was probably the best idea.

  Penny pulled at the board, and it came up in her hand easily. Below, Penny expected to see the timbers and cobwebs of the house’s frame. What she didn’t expect to see was an old, yellowed letter.

  Intrigued, she squeezed down to her knees as well as she could in the tiny space and pulled the letter out. She wondered what it was - whether it was just a prop that had gotten lodged in there by accident, or if it belonged to the original house.

  He hands shook as she unfurled the paper. It wasn’t too old - it seemed to be cheap notebook paper, a couple of pages, and it looked to be written in ballpoint pen, not any kind of swirling calligraphy drawn with a nib. Penny felt a stab of disappointment that it wasn’t some really old treasure. Then she laughed at herself. The house was only built in the 1940’s. It wouldn’t exactly be ancient history, even if it dated back to then.

  Shuffling through the pages, she was surprised to come across a familiar name at the bottom of the letter - Edwin Turner. Where had she heard that name before? Forgetting the prop she came in for, she struggled her way back over and through the furniture to the light of the main auditorium.

  She sat down on a stray plastic chair and started to read.

  “My name is Edwin Joseph Turner. I am thirty-seven years old, and today I am going to kill myself.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “My name is Edwin Joseph Turner. I am thirty-seven years old, and today I am going to kill myself.

  You might think this is a foolish thing to do. After all, God gave me a life to live, and I’m honor bound to live it as best I can, right? But you see, I can’t do that. I can’t live a good life. I am intrinsically evil.

  I first knew I was evil when I was about six years old. We had gone to visit family in Adelaide, and my cousin had received the board game Monopoly for Christmas. At six years old, I had no idea how to play Monopoly, however the myriad of shiny pieces, houses and hotels, and cards and—best of all—lots and lots of money had my childish head in a spin. I decided that I needed the game much more than my cousin did. So, I took it, and hid it amongst my clothes in our suitcase.

  I can’t tell you how excited stealing Charlie’s board game made me. It was as if I’d taken hold of an electrical wire and let it buzz through me. It felt so good, I wet my pants. At least, that’s what I thought it was at the time. With hindsight, I wonder if it was my very first sexual experience.

  Of course, I got caught. My mother fussed around in our suitcase all the time, and it wasn’t like I’d hidden the game very well. I was made to give it back, with a profound apology to my cousin, and with all my aunts and uncles looking on, maximizing my shame. And it was shameful. I felt the worst of remorse. After all, I knew it was wrong. We were a god-fearing family, and one of the first commandments they pushed down our throats was, “Thou shalt not steal.” My mother was distraught for days afterward, and my father gave me the hiding of a lifetime. I vowed never to steal another thing in my entire life.

  Only, I kept getting flashbacks of just how good it felt to take something that wasn’t mine. It was like a low-grade fever, constantly burning at the bottom of my gut. Tempting me. Like hell existed inside me, just waiting for a moment to turn up the temperature and bring me to boiling point.

  It wasn’t even six months later when I hit that boiling point again. I was in the store, with mother, bored out of my mind as she did whatever it is women do in stores. Pretending not to look at the same dress seven times before she finally decided to go on and buy it.

  I saw a notepad. A small one, not more than four inches long. And suddenly, that desire burned as bright as hellfire, and I had to have it.

  Just an aside - there was paper and pencils aplenty for me at home. And this wasn’t any special notepad - just a little, spiral bound one. But in that moment, in that instant, there was nothing in the world I needed more than that notepad. And I was going to have it.

  My heart in my mouth, I pretended nonchalance as I sidled up to the shelf, and surreptitiously slid the note pad up my sleeve.

  I expected alarms to sound, people to shout. I expected old man Fredrick, the store owner, to come over and grab my ear and haul me to where my mother was still humming over the dress.

  But amazingly, none of that happened. No one noticed.

  I succeeded.

  And again, that excitement, that feeling of euphoria and joy filled me.

  At least, for a short time.

  The following day, I was miserable. I was horrified by my actions. I was going to hell, no two ways about it. Sadness and guilt descended on me, leaving me listless and constantly crying. My parents were beside
themselves. They couldn’t work out what was wrong with me. The doctor also had no idea - I was perfectly healthy in every way, except I couldn’t stop crying.

  I hid that notepad away in the back of a drawer and vowed never to look at it again. It’s probably still there, I don’t know. But once the evidence of my crime was out of sight, I slowly started to recover my humor. I could pretend it hadn’t happened.

  The heat came upon me at varying intervals, sometimes I could go nearly a year without stealing something, and other times it was merely weeks in between. Each time, I burned for the item I decided to steal, tried everything I could to convince myself that I didn’t want it, and that I didn’t want to steal it, but without fail, I would creep into the store (or the room, if it belonged to someone else) and palm it. By the time I reached adolescence, I knew I could increase the pleasure by going home and masturbating myself. But the grief, the self-disgust and the fear of being caught always shrouded me shortly afterwards, and I loathed myself again.

  As soon as I was legally able, I tried to drown my problem with alcohol, and then with various drugs. It was the sixties, I was at university getting excellent results in my chemical engineering degree—despite my drinking and drug-taking—and I really hoped I had found a way to curb my impulses. Then I met her.

  Candice was a firebrand - long, straight red hair, huge blue-grey eyes that looked on everything with curiosity, and lips that I wanted to kiss the moment I laid eyes on them. She had transferred into the Uni from Melbourne and was in my chemical engineering classes. We were all in awe of her. The only woman in amongst dozens and dozens of men. Yet she didn’t seem to have any problem dealing with us all—even though she was often the butt of all kinds of crude jokes.

  “Won’t you come light my Bunsen Burner, Candy?” one guy would shout across the lab, and then another would take up the refrain, ”She sure could light my fire,” “Those hands can handle my test tube any day,” “The only chemical reactions you should be making are the ones where you have my babies.”