When I said, "Come in," Bradley opened the door and stood in the doorway. He asked softly if he could come in, even though we'd just established he could. When I answered "Yes," he slowly walked in, practically on tiptoe. He lowered himself into the visitor's chair when I gestured for him to sit. He was a big guy, several inches over six feet and at least two hundred pounds. I was afraid for a moment that he might break the novelty chair I'd inherited when we'd remodeled The Crooked Man's House.
"Ma'am? May I speak to you?"
"You can call me Ashling. You're Bradley, aren't you? You're playing Sleeping Beauty's prince?"
"Yes, ma'—Ashling. Right." He looked at his lap.
"What can I help you with?"
"Well, it's just…" He glanced at me and quickly back down.
"Yes?" What in the world was the matter with him?
He looked up again but didn't meet my gaze. "I hate to complain, but Katrina, my co-star? She's, well, she's…she's…been making passes at me." His face turned a vivid shade of red.
I withheld an inappropriate giggle. How many young men of his age—heck, of any age—would have gladly changed places with him? And what an old-fashioned term. He couldn't have been older than nineteen.
"She wants to practice the kissing scene. Sure, I understand practicing once or twice. But I don't think we have to keep practicing. In the version I read, the prince doesn't kiss the princess. I wouldn't have agreed to the play if I'd known about the kiss. I don't believe in kissing before marriage." These last sentences came out in a rush, in contrast to his earlier tentativeness.
"Oh." I strove to keep my voice neutral. Wow, talk about conservative. Maybe he was in the wrong profession. Didn't actors have kissing scenes all the time?
Bradley continued, "But the director…Julie? She convinced me that a quick kiss on the lips wouldn't be against my beliefs. But now Katrina wants to practice. A lot. She says it's the climactic part of the play and we have to get it just right."
"And Katrina knows you don't want to practice the kiss? She knows it's against your beliefs?"
"Yes, ma'—Ashling. I've told her several times. And I've told Julie, but she wasn't much help."
Oh boy. Katrina was sexually harassing her co-star? Not good. This was much more serious than I'd originally thought. "I'll talk to her. Don't worry, Bradley."
"Thank you, ma'am." He didn't even attempt to call me by my name. He left the office even more timidly than he'd arrived, reminding me of Piglet from Winnie the Pooh, despite his impressive girth.
* * *
Katrina never showed for our meeting and hadn't arrived yet when I looked for her the next day, so I left another note. When she finally managed to appear, she barged into the office without knocking. I was in the middle of doing the payroll, but I set it aside, suspecting this would be my only chance to talk to the star.
Dinah, curled up in the visitor's chair, snored softly.
Katrina put her hands on her hips and frowned at the calico. "I don't like cats." With a swift movement, she swept Dinah from the chair.
Dinah objected with a loud "uurp" and ran out the door, which Katrina hadn't bothered to close. Charming. Okay, she didn't like cats, so she wasn't dishing on her kitten's name in Young Actors Magazine.
My heart was beating abnormally fast. I needed to calm down. I couldn't let this little twit get to me. Sure, she was young and beautiful and had more money than the owner of the goose with the golden eggs, but I was older and wiser and also the boss.
Still, a little diplomacy was in order. I needed her for the performances for the next few months.
"Please sit down, Katrina." I waved my hand at the visitor's chair.
Katrina shook her head. "Nunh-unh. I don't want to get cat fur on my skirt." I hadn't noticed when she first walked in, but the skirt in question was black suede and extremely short, a look I'd never be able to pull off even if I stopped eating completely. Which, given my fondness for donuts and pizza, was never gonna happen.
I sighed. I didn't like that Katrina was standing and I was sitting, but it would be weird if I suddenly stood. "Fine. How are you enjoying your stay here?" Then I mentally berated myself. What was I, a concierge? "I mean, how are you enjoying working at StoryWorld?"
Katrina shrugged. "It's okay, I guess."
"We certainly appreciate that you're going to be in the plays, but I need to talk to you about some complaints."
"I know, right? I've been meaning to bring up some things with you."
"No, I mean I've had complaints about you."
She gazed at the fingernails on her right hand, which were decorated with strawberries at the tips. I hoped she planned to remove her polish for the performances. Just a wild guess, but Sleeping Beauty probably didn't have strawberry fingernails.
Katrina didn't respond to my statement, and I waited for a moment, wondering how best to proceed. How exactly should I bring up the sexual harassment charge, for example? Mom had given me hints over the years for dealing with difficult situations, but that had never come up.
"Is that all?" Katrina asked before I could come up with anything, and I meekly nodded. She was out the door before I could say good-bye, let alone ask her to sign the photos which still sat on my desk.
Once Katrina had left, still not bothering to close the door, Dinah tentatively stuck her head in.
"She's gone." I dug some miniature candy bars out of my desk drawer, opened one, and took a big bite. "Everything's handled." Dinah jumped into my lap, and good cat that she was, she didn't question my assertion.
* * *
I told Donna at lunch later, "She's impossible. There's something about her that makes me even more hopeless at confrontation than I already am!"
"Told you. At least the performances will start soon. Then you can start counting the days until she's out of here."
"Yeah. But that's not until the end of August! This is going to be a very long summer. Whose idea was this, anyway? I can't wait until she's gone." I cradled my head in my hands. Three months of tangling with Katrina? How would I take it?
"It'll happen." Donna took a bite of her Chicken Little Sandwich, her newest creation. She'd mixed chopped apples and grapes into the chicken and mayo, and, despite the presence of the fruit (I preferred my sweet food to be along the lines of cake and cookies), I was a fan. I took a bite of my own sandwich and licked mayonnaise off my lips.
"Ready for your next date with Scott?" Donna asked when she finished chewing.
I wasn't thrilled with the change in subject, even though the previous subject wasn't especially pleasant. "I guess so. It's the night of the first performance of Sleeping Beauty." Now that would be an interesting day. I coughed a couple of times to clear my throat, which felt like I'd just swallowed one of the live hedgehog croquet balls from Alice in Wonderland.
Donna patted my hand. "You sound like you're about to walk the plank with Captain Hook at your back instead of going on a date with a cute guy."
I smiled at her children's lit simile. I was definitely rubbing off on her. "It'll be okay, right?"
"I think it'll be great!"
She sounded so enthusiastic I wondered if I could send her on the date instead. But Scott would probably notice.
* * *
A few days before the premiere of Sleeping Beauty, I was horrified to come upon an unfolding disaster outside the gingerbread-house customer service center. Katrina, wearing her Sleeping Beauty princess costume, loomed menacingly over a child who couldn't have been older than four. A hard knot formed in the center of my stomach.
"Get your grubby hands away from me!" Katrina screamed, and everyone in the near area turned to stare at her. I sprinted over to place myself squarely between her and the little girl.
"It's okay, honey," a woman said softly to the girl, who was now bawling. The woman, I assumed the mother, bent down to put her arms around the child. The girl buried her face in the crook of her mother's arm.
"What's the problem here?" I a
sked Katrina.
"That little rug rat put her dirty hands all over my dress!" She gestured to her tea-length yellow satin skirt, which looked completely spotless to me.
"Lizzy thought she was a princess," the mother explained, looking up at us.
"You are dressed as Sleeping Beauty," I said to Katrina.
"Yeah, so? We're having a dress rehearsal. I'm playing Sleeping Beauty, remember?"
I said to the mother and Lizzy, "Tell Donna at the Jack Sprat that two ice-cream cones are on the house. Just say Ashling gave the okay."
They left, and Katrina shot me a venomous look.
"You're at a children's park," I said quietly, aware we were being watched. "The children are going to think you're a princess. Just stay around the Pinocchio area when you're wearing the costume, okay?"
She raised one eyebrow at me. "You can't tell me what to do."
"I am the owner and manager of the park."
"And I am Katrina Irvine."
Okay, so she scored for one-upmanship. "Katrina, please, these are my customers and my livelihood. I…"
Katrina was looking at me with such contempt I'd forgotten what I was going to say.
"Is that all?" she asked.
I was getting tired of that line. And of her. Too bad I could never summon a comeback.
Without waiting for an answer, which I wouldn't have had anyway, she turned on a yellow, high-heeled sandal and walked away.
I looked back to the peanut gallery. "I'm sorry for that…unpleasantness. Rides are free for the rest of the afternoon. Stay here, and my staff member will bring out some tickets."
I ducked into the customer service center to tell Katie.
"And what about this?" Katie thrust a piece of pink paper at me.
I scanned the paper and nearly choked on air. "Whaaa?"
The paper said in large letters "No Children Allowed!!"
"What is this, Katie?"
"Katrina gave me a whole stack and told me to tape them to the seats in the first five rows at the theater."
"What? Why? I don't get it."
"She doesn't want kids in the front rows, she said. Just adults. She thinks the kids are gonna make too much noise when she's on stage."
"Give them all to me. Now."
She handed me a stack of papers, and I left. On my way back to my office, I dumped them all in the nearest recycling can. Didn't Katrina get that she was performing at a children's park? And didn't she realize that the smallest kids needed to sit in the front rows to see?
This was so not good. If Katrina got as mad as she did when a child touched her costume, what would she do if one actually did interrupt a play? How would I stop something really awful from happening? And how in the world was I going to get through this summer?
CHAPTER THREE
Somehow, the next couple of days passed without incident, but the afternoon before the Sleeping Beauty premiere, Katie and Cameron paid me a visit at the office. As they came in the door, I saw drizzle dampening the courtyard behind them. An unusual development but a welcome change from our typical summer weather.
"Boss, can we talk to you?" Cameron asked.
"Sure, what's up?" I put aside the schedule I was working on.
"Katrina was really mean to Katie just now."
Oh, cripes. Now what? I glanced at Katie, who had the same expression Dinah did when I was late getting to the office to feed her.
"What happened, Katie?"
Cameron spoke for her. "Katrina asked about the papers she'd given Katie. The ones you took away?"
Uh-oh. "Right."
"She got so mad at me!" Katie suddenly cried out. "She yelled at me when I told her I didn't put them on the seats. She's so mean!"
"Katie, I'm really sorry. I should have told her there was no way those could be taped to the seats. Children have to be able to sit in the front rows. It's not fair you took the heat."
I waited for one of them to respond, but they just stood in front of my desk not saying anything.
"I'm sorry," I said again.
"You really need to get rid of her, boss," Cameron said. "She's out of control."
"I know." I nodded. "She's awful. I agree. But unfortunately, we're locked in. We need her for these plays."
Cameron and Katie exchanged looks.
"Then we're gonna have to quit," Cameron said, and Katie nodded three times.
They both took off their StoryWorld baseball caps and placed them in front of me. A sour smell from Cameron's cap wafted up to me. Cameron shook his head like a wet dog, and little beads of moisture landed on my desk.
Could this get any worse? Although they could be incredibly clueless, Cameron and Katie were two of my most competent employees. I couldn't afford to lose them.
"Let's just get through the premiere tomorrow, okay?" I implored. "Then we can talk about this again after that. Please, will you come to work tomorrow?"
Again, the two exchanged looks.
"Okay, boss," Cameron said. "But we'll talk about it after?"
I nodded. "Promise."
* * *
And then it was performance day.
I woke with my heart pounding and sweat dampening my forehead. My sheets were tangled together at the foot of the bed, and my comforter lay twisted halfway across the room. Nightmares about the play had plagued me all night, and I couldn't shake myself out of the worries, even though it was now daybreak. Maybe Katrina would decide to sabotage the entire endeavor because someone hadn't kowtowed to her the way she required. Or perhaps half the cast would be sick with the flu. The director, Julie, hadn't felt well the day before, and she could have infected everyone else. Would my staff be able to fill in? They'd have to read from the scripts, which would be better than nothing but obviously far from optimal.
On the heels of my anxiety about the play, I remembered it was also the day of my next date with Scott. I buried my head in my pillows, wishing I could sleep for a hundred years like Sleeping Beauty. How come she got all the perks?
* * *
Fortunately, when I checked on the cast around eleven that morning, I found them healthy and in good spirits. Most of the actors were running lines. Bradley and an actor from the seniors' troupe tossed a football back and forth, laughing every time one dropped it.
In her director's chair going over her script, Katrina radiated the message "Leave me alone." Which was fine by me. However, I noticed with frustration that her nails were still painted, this time with watermelons at the tips.
I took Julie, the director of The Springdale Players, aside. Julie would direct all three plays this summer, but at the moment, she didn't look as though she could handle a newborn kitten. Her distinctive mop of curly dark hair seemed even bigger and frizzier than usual, and the lenses of her stylish black-framed glasses showed obvious smudges. Her wrinkled periwinkle linen blouse was only half tucked in to her black slacks (and not in the cute way that now seemed to be the style among my female employees).
"Do you think we could get that nail polish off? It's not very authentic," I said.
"You try telling her. I already tried and failed. The 'big star' rarely does what little old me wants. She's more trouble than she's worth!" Julie pressed her hand to her stomach and let out a small groan.
"Are you feeling okay?"
"Not great."
Julie walked away, and I watched after her, disheartened. If Katrina's director had no sway over her, how could I? Besides, a confrontation right now—or what amounted to one for me—would send me straight to the Jack Sprat for a huge pastry. So I retreated.
To my surprise, Scott was sitting in the visitor's chair in my office when I got back. He had Dinah in his lap and was scratching the back of her neck and her head. Now that was the way to treat a cat. She was leaning into his strokes, purring loudly. Today, Scott wore a polo shirt and jeans, and the casual look was just as good as the suit look. Not that I was keeping track.
"Hey," I greeted him.
"Hey, back a
t you. Thought I'd come by and see the first performance. Then we can catch dinner and the movie when you're done working this afternoon." He gently deposited Dinah on the floor, got up, and kissed me lightly on the lips. The kiss inspired a feeling of equal parts pleasure and terror.
"That sounds good," I said to him, baring my teeth in an insincere smile.
"And I have a present for you."
"Really?" My mood picked up. I liked presents.
Scott reached into his messenger bag and pulled out a roundish object wrapped messily in pink tissue paper.
"You even wrapped it," I teased.
He responded with a hearty laugh. "Barely."
Inside the tissue paper was the prettiest snow globe I'd ever seen. The globe, resting on top of a castle, depicted a scene I immediately recognized. A handsome prince leaned over a canopied bed to kiss a sleeping princess.
"Sleeping Beauty!" I turned the globe upside down and then righted it. Snow drifted down upon the scene.
Scott nodded. "Thought it was appropriate."
"It's beautiful. That was so thoughtful. Thank you." I reached over to him to give him a hug, but he misunderstood my intentions and kissed me instead. That was now number three, two just today. How many before it didn't make me slightly ill?
"I'm glad you like it. I have something for Dinah too. Does she like turkey?"
"Are you kidding? She likes and eats everything. She'll love it. Thank you."
Scott took a plastic-wrapped slice of turkey out of his messenger bag and handed it to me. "I'll let you get back to work. I've gotta go make a few phone calls anyway. See you later at the performance." He smiled one of his gorgeous smiles at me. Smiles, kisses, presents… I was in serious trouble.
After tearing up the turkey slice for Dinah, not fast enough as far as she was concerned, I sat down to work, but worries about the play and my date battled for attention in my head. Giving up, I surfed to Etsy on my computer to shop for fairy-tale jewelry. I ended up spending way too much on Cinderella carriage earrings.
The Princess and the Poison Page 3