by Libby Klein
Smitty grinned and wiggled his eyebrows. “Georgie will be here tomorrow night. She’s coming up for Valentine’s Day.” He gave a wave and danced into the Senior Center like a vaudeville act leaving the stage.
Where’d that Grim Reaper go when you need him?
Chapter Sixteen
A unt Ginny tramped into the Senior Center in a huff and I lugged behind her. I spotted Fiona and Iggy getting coffee and doughnuts in the activity room. Iggy met my eye. It was like looking into a mirror. I was having a bad day, but he’d had a lifetime of being under Fiona’s thumb. I felt a sudden wave of sympathy for him. Still not enough to go out with him, though.
Sawyer entered the room carrying a coconut almond latte from La Dolce Vita with a big heart drawn around the pet name Bella. “Gia says hi and he misses you.”
I took the coffee like a lifeline and rubbed the cup against my cheek. “Did you give him your report, Agent 99?”
Sawyer was suddenly engrossed in reading the “caution hot” notice on her coffee cup.
Aunt Ginny grabbed me by one arm and Sawyer by the other. “Come on. I need to check on my backdrops.”
She dragged us down the hall to the new theater. Most of the seniors were onstage with Bebe going over one of the big ensemble numbers. Piglet was in his usual seat, currently cleaning his wire-rimmed glasses with his pink silk tie. The two big guys were wedged in their seats down front watching Smitty install the replacement set piece for the yacht on the left side of the stage. They were offering advice that, by the look of it, Smitty was ignoring. Smitty stood back to survey the makeshift yacht and the mast pole fell over. He grunted and took his hat off and rubbed his head with it. After a minute he dug in his toolbox for a drill.
Royce’s agent, Ernie Frick, was giving Royce a prere-hearsal pep talk. They were running through vocal warm-ups. “Toy boat toy boat toy boat. A proper copper coffeepot. A proper copper coffeepot.”
Blanche breezed by us wearing dark sunglasses and a floor-length, silver fox coat. “I told you not to bother me when I’m in character. Just like Meryl, I’m a Method actor. How am I supposed to center myself as Donna with you prattling on about budgets and ticket sales?” She was berating Neil, who was on her heels, trying to appease her.
“I am so sorry, Blanche. That’s why you’re a star.”
Blanche shrugged out of her fur and threw it backward over Neil. He stopped short to wriggle himself free and let out a steadying breath.
“Why do you let her walk all over you like that?” Aunt Ginny asked.
Neil looked from me to Aunt Ginny. He gave Aunt Ginny a shy smile. “It’s complicated.”
He continued down the aisle toward the stage and Aunt Ginny muttered, “It always is.”
Aunt Ginny took off her sweater to reveal another passive-aggressive T-shirt. This one was pale blue and had Being a phony must be exhausting for you written across the front in black.
“I’m going to go say hello to Blanche before checking my traps.”
Sawyer shook her head. “We’re going to have an old lady catfight before the week is over.”
We joined Fiona and Mrs. Sheinberg, who were sewing sequin trim on the costumes. Fiona handed us needles and thread with some trim and a couple of white satin tunics. “Since you’re here, you can help with the bric-a-brac.”
Mrs. Sheinberg showed us where to attach the trim on the sleeves. “Thanks, bubbeleh. We need all-hands on deck if we’re going to get these finished by opening night.”
Sawyer and I tried to thread our needles, but it was a lot harder than we remembered from seventh-grade home ec class.
Sawyer squinted at the tiny metal stick. “Is this a regular-size needle?”
Fiona handed her something that looked like a nickel with a metal loop on the end. “Here. Use the needle threader before you hurt yourself. I was just telling Miriam here that I haven’t seen much of Royce since he’s been home from New York. He’s been having trouble learning his lines, so he’s been coming up here after hours to practice. Don’t say anything, he doesn’t want anyone to know.”
I tried jamming the white thread into the loop. “He’s been coming back after the Senior Center closes? How’s he getting in?”
“That nice boy, Neil, gave him a key,” Fiona answered.
Neil was paying the piano tuner.
Mother Gibson was setting the stage for the first scene. Blanche appeared and snapped at her. “Where is my watering can?! I’m supposed to have it when I walk out of the taverna!” Blanche strode up to Mother Gibson and put her finger in the older woman’s face. “If you don’t get your act together, I’m going to find another stage manager who can do the job!”
Mother Gibson calmly replied, “If you don’t get your finger out of my face, you’ll need to find a proctologist to remove it surgically.”
Blanche pulled her hand back and turned on her heel. Neil went over and patted Mother Gibson’s shoulder and said something to her that we didn’t hear. When he walked away, she joined us.
Mother Gibson flopped down on the theater seat. “That woman wants to be snatched bald. As if I know what she did with her props.” She took the needle away from Sawyer, who still hadn’t been able to thread it, and jammed the white floss through the eye before handing it back.
Fiona shook out the satin pants she’d finished trimming at the ankles. “Blanche is a horrible person. Always has been. The only one she’s not been snapping at is Royce, and that’s because she’s trying to get her claws into him.”
I tried to line up the trim with the cuff of the satin sleeve for the third time. “What were you and Neil discussing so intently?”
Mother Gibson took the costume out of my hand and pinned the trim into place. “He wanted to know if Blanche and Royce were an item in high school since they had such natural chemistry onstage. I told him he was out of his mind.”
We all looked onstage, where Royce had his arms folded across his chest looking blankly into the lights and Blanche was haranguing him about memorizing his lines again. Oh yeah, there’s that chemistry now.
Fiona picked up another satin tunic and started to measure out more trim for the neck. “I told Neil the same thing earlier this week. Blanche and Royce were only partners onstage. He couldn’t stand to look at her offstage. He only had eyes for Ginny.”
I smiled to myself.
“Now my Iggy . . .”
Oh God, here we go.
Iggy sat up straighter at the piano and leaned hard in our direction.
“My Iggy had a high school girlfriend and she was a real beauty. Laura, I think her name was.”
“Nicole.” Iggy whispered her name, giving away that he was eavesdropping.
“Right, Nicole. I thought for sure they would get married. He met her in fencing. My Iggy has a master’s degree in fencing, you know.”
We all stopped our sewing and looked at Iggy. He was squeezing the roll of chub that hung over his pants, making it look like his gut was talking.
“My Iggy was quite the athlete. There was nothing he couldn’t do. He went to college on an athletic scholarship. He was headed for the Olympic team, but an injury forced him out.”
Mrs. Sheinberg furrowed her brows. “Are we talking about that Iggy?” She looked toward the piano. “The one picking lint out of his belly button?”
“Iggy!” Fiona chided.
Iggy jerked upright.
Mrs. Sheinberg whispered to me and Sawyer, “You see what happens when you have a baby near menopause?”
Neil clapped his hands. “Let’s clear the stage for the scene between Tanya and Pepper. Where is Thelma?” Mrs. Davis took the stage and was joined by one of the “young” seniors, who was in his late sixties, and Iggy started playing the musical accompaniment for “Does Your Mother Know.”
Blanche led Royce backstage with a sly look on her face, and Aunt Ginny stormed out from behind the backdrop.
Sawyer looked up from concentrating on her stitches. “Uh-oh. She looks mad.”<
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That’s a glare that could fry an egg. “Maybe there is more to Royce and Blanche’s relationship than we know.”
Fiona and Mrs. Sheinberg looked at each other and shared a laugh. Fiona jabbed a bejeweled finger in my face. “That would be the day. Any man who wants to get involved with Blanche Carrigan is taking his life into his hands.”
Sawyer looked up for the first time from concentrating on her stitches. “Why is that?” Sawyer pulled her thread tight and all her stitches slipped through the fabric and out the other side. “What?!”
Mother Gibson chuckled. “You forgot to knot the end, child.”
Fiona pinned the trim in place on a new pair of pants and switched garments with Sawyer, who now had to thread a new needle. “Because Blanche killed her first husband with rat poison.”
I dropped my needle. “Are you sure?”
Mrs. Sheinberg waved Fiona off. “That’s a bunch of hearsay. The police verified that her husband got hurt on the job building the Springfield Inn.”
Mr. Ricardo and Duke joined us from the row ahead, balancing backward in the seats on their knees.
Duke took a drink from a bottle of water. “I remember that. The guy had fallen from the rafters and landed on a shaft of rebar and was pierced through the stomach. He pulled it out and drove all the way home to his wife, that crazy SOB. He bled out in the car.”
I finally found my needle and managed to prick myself picking it up. I got a spot of blood on the costume and Mrs. Sheinberg took it away from me with a sigh.
Fiona jabbed her needle through the fabric in swift strokes. “That was her second husband. Her first husband died at home after a bout of so-called tuberculosis. The death was ruled natural causes, but they don’t know what I know.”
“Which is?” Mr. Ricardo prompted.
Fiona tied her thread in a knot. “Blanche used to come in to the Villas Five and Ten where I was a counter clerk. My boss, Gunter, was the shady sort, you know the kind. He used to import various contraband like Cuban cigars, Russian caviar, and French opium cigarettes. We kept them behind the counter with the absinthe. Miss High-and-Mighty came in every week for a pack of cigarettes and a box of rat poison.”
“Did she live in Wildwood?” Sawyer finally got her needle threaded and showed it to me triumphantly. “I heard they used to have a lot of rats.”
Fiona bit her thread off with her teeth. “She lived in a dinky little apartment in the Crest; that’s not the point. I always thought it was so ridiculous that someone with that big a rat problem would have the nerve to look down on a single girl trying to make a living on a dollar an hour. Then I read a dime novel where the wife killed the husband by putting rat poison on his cornflakes. That’s when I figured out what she was up to.”
Duke rolled his eyes. “Okay, Columbo.”
Sawyer and I gave each other a look. I wonder how many murder plots are based on paperback mysteries?
Mr. Ricardo asked, “Did you report her to the police?”
“I had no proof. Gunter would have had my head if I got the Five and Ten involved with the cops. And it’s not like it would have brought the poor man back.”
“Wait a minute.” Duke leaned so far forward in his seat, it was a wonder he didn’t topple over the back. “Are you telling me the Five and Ten sold contraband?”
“Not just contraband. Sunday was Gunter’s busiest day because of all the back-door liquor sales when it was illegal for the liquor store to open.” Fiona took a hot-pink minidress and matched it up to a spool of thread and handed it to me. “Old Gunter got away with a lot of illegal imports because it was the sixties. No one was watching the little shop selling penny candy and nickel postcards.”
The musical number hit a snag and Bebe was called to the stage to walk Tanya and Pepper through their choreography again.
Duke ran his hand over his goatee. “I spent twenty years on the vice squad. We never got a single lead about the Five and Ten.”
Mr. Ricardo slapped Duke on the back. “Just imagine all the other things you probably missed.”
Mother Gibson snickered. “I’m sure you tried really hard.”
Duke’s face was running through a myriad of expressions. “I . . . I gotta take a powder.”
I had to hold in a laugh because he looked like he was about to lose his doughnuts. The poor guy’s brain must have been going tilt. He left his seat and muttered his way out of the auditorium.
Fiona started tacking the gold sequins to another pink minidress. “I don’t know why he’s going on like that. What’s the big deal? Gunter’s dead, we’re friends with Cuba, and the Five and Ten is long gone. What’s he going to do about any of it?”
A loud pop jerked all our attention to the stage. A splattering of blue paint was seeping through the Kalokairi cove backdrop. Bebe dove to her belly on the stage and covered her head with her hands. Aunt Ginny jumped to her feet. “Ah ha! I caught you, you sneaky little cop! Come on out here and face the music, Duke.”
Duke answered from the back of the theater. “What? I’m right here.”
Mrs. Davis tried to see behind the backdrop. “Who is that? Who’s back there?”
There was a scuffle in the side curtain, then a furious, paint-splattered Blanche Carrigan was prodded out, aided by Mrs. Dodson’s cane in her back. Aunt Ginny’s trap had caught its prey.
Chapter Seventeen
We were all stunned. Aunt Ginny tramped onto the stage, taking off her earrings. “Just what did you think you were doing, Moira?!”
Sawyer grabbed my arm in a panic.
“Oh no.” I was on my feet in a flash and speeding toward the stage as fast as a forty-plus-year-old chubby girl can. “Aunt Ginny, no!”
Neil was on the other side and had Blanche around the middle. “Now, ladies, let’s be civilized about this.”
Mrs. Davis, who was already onstage and in the perfect position to intervene, fished a cell phone out of her tube top. “Hold on! Hold on! How do I record?!”
Mrs. Dodson rushed to her aid. “It’s the red button under the camera. Hurry up.”
One of the big guys down in front was motioning to Aunt Ginny. “Go for the eyes!”
Fiona screeched, “She’s been sabotaging Royce’s play. I bet she sent him that death threat too!”
Blanche took a swing at Aunt Ginny. “You stupid tramp. You’ve ruined my Hermès blouse.”
Aunt Ginny bobbed and came back with an uppercut. “That’s what you get for sabotaging my backdrops, you conniving harpy!”
Royce tried to calm the ladies, but his presence just egged them on.
It finally took Bebe to settle them both down. She stood between the ladies and had a hand on top of each head. “Blanche honey, you’re covered in paint. There’s no coming back from that one. You’ll have to own it. And, Ginny, you can scratch her eyes out if you want, but you’ll mess up your manicure. Wouldn’t you rather just bask in the glory that this will be spread all around town before dinner?”
The ladies stopped struggling, but not before Aunt Ginny gave me an elbow to the gut.
“Oof.”
“Sorry, Poppy Blossom.”
I was doubled over trying to catch my breath. “I’m fine.”
Neil ran a hand through his white hair. “Okay. Let’s regroup. It’s perfectly natural for tempers to flare in a production the closer we get to opening night. Everything will work itself out.”
The mast of the yacht chose that moment to fall over again. The two guys in front started to giggle, but Neil’s eye went to Piglet in the back row. Piglet appeared to be rather disgruntled about the whole thing and was angrily taking notes on his tablet.
“Why don’t we break for lunch? I’ll take care of the backdrop. Everyone can get cleaned up.” His eyes darted to Blanche. “And we can meet back here in an hour and we’ll start with the duet between Royce and Blanche about lost love. It will be a technical rehearsal. Poppy, be ready with those lights, and, Iggy, you’re good to go on the piano tuning, yea
h?”
Iggy and I nodded, although my heart wasn’t in it.
Mrs. Dodson tapped her cane on the stage. “What are you going to do about Blanche?”
Mrs. Dodson threw her hands to her hips. “She’s obviously been the one sabotaging the props. She’s trying to ruin the play.”
Royce rubbed the back of his head. “That wooden oar really hurt.”
Blanche was rather indignant for a woman with paint dripping off her nose. “I have not touched the props. And I would never threaten Royce; we’re partners. I’ve only been messing with Virginia’s backdrops as a practical joke. A little stage prank. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Aunt Ginny shook her head. “Where’s my purse?”
I remembered the brass knuckles and gave Neil a desperate look. “Do something. Now.”
Neil clapped his hands. “Okay, let’s break.”
I took Aunt Ginny by the arm while Neil cleaned up the paint explosion backstage. Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Dodson followed close behind us giggling. Mother Gibson made a shadowboxing bob and weave to Aunt Ginny before they all broke out in giggles.
Aunt Ginny wiped the tears from her eyes. “Royce, want to join us for lunch?”
Royce grinned but shook his head. “I’m going to stay and go over my lines while everyone is at lunch.”
Aunt Ginny waved goodbye to him. “Okay, where do we want to go eat?”
Mrs. Davis offered, “How about the Lobster House?”
Mother Gibson swatted the suggestion away. “We just had that. How about Russo’s for cheesesteaks?”
I wanted to scream, Yes! But Aunt Ginny shook her head. “Too far.” Then Aunt Ginny gave me a sly look. “How about Mia Famiglia?”
You’re killing me, old woman.
Sawyer had snuck up behind me. “I haven’t had a good fettuccine Alfredo in forever.”
“We were there just a couple of months ago.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t get the fettuccine. I got the spaghetti Bolognese.”
Skinny girl problems.
Aunt Ginny grinned. “The chef might be Poppy’s mother-in-law one day.”