Backstage Stuff

by Sharon Fiffer

  There was a music cue that signaled the beginning of the second act and Jane heard the first chords. So much for the window of time during the intermission. Now the second act would begin, the second act where Perkins the gardener would offer Marguerite/Nellie the forbidden sip of water.

  Jane looked around the perimeter of the pit-trap room. Besides the furniture piled up to the low ceiling, there were a few freestanding wardrobes. Jane slowly opened one, listening for squeaks. She slipped a denim work shirt off its hangar and over her yellow T-shirt. Heavy red stitching accented the seams and pocket flap. She tied a white canvas carpenter’s apron around her waist and slipped in a screwdriver and a wrench. They were the heftiest tools she could find that would fit in the pockets. She unfolded a large print pocket square and tied it in her hair. She looked at Suzanne for approval.

  “Rosie the Riveter?” Suzanne whispered, and gave her a thumbs-up.

  They could hear several pairs of footsteps over their heads. It was the opening scene when the dinner-party guests were all mingling in the parlor after the body had been found in the garden. Craven had announced at the end of the first act that no one must leave and the second act opened with the “mumble, mumble, rhubarb, rhubarb” of fake chatter among the guests. Jane stood on top of the stairs, her hands on the trap, waiting for the guests to disassemble and the action to begin farther downstage.

  “The rest of you can wait in the garden or in the library,” said Craven. “My men will call each of you individually.”

  The extras muttered and “rhubarbed” their way out the side and rear exits.

  Jane could hear Myra speaking softly to Marguerite, now tucked in the hospital bed downstage. Hermione, Malachi, and Craven should have been, if they all remembered their blocking, standing in a triangle in front of the bar.

  “Detective Craven, I’ll be happy to answer any questions, but I’m sure Hermione will tell you she never let me out of her sight all evening,” said Malachi.

  Silence.

  Poor Mary.

  “Although I’m sure Hermione might agree she saw you for part of the evening, there was surely a window of time during cocktails, when she was talking to me, where she couldn’t account for your whereabouts,” said Craven.

  Convoluted, but Tim was trying to throw her a bone and let the scene continue.

  Silence.

  “Indeed, there was that time when I fixed myself a dry Manhattan and needed to get more garnishes from the kitchen,” said Malachi.

  Garnishes? A Manhattan? They were drowning out there and Chuck Havens had no idea where to throw out the life preserver.

  “You’d like to think we were together all evening,” said Hermione, her voice switched onto autopilot, “but you left to fix yourself a cocktail. It was a martini, wasn’t it?”

  “Manhattan. I said Manhattan,” said Malachi, sounding much more like an angry Chuck Havens.

  “I’m sure it was supposed to be a martini,” said Mary.

  Rica Evans swept in as Myra to save the day.

  “Stop bickering, you two. Detective Craven has a murder to solve. We must remember that Mama … Marguerite … might be in a coma, but she can hear us, I know she can. For her sake, we must stop our petty squabbles.”

  At this point, Jane imagined Malachi nodding, chastened, and Hermione hugging her mother, Myra, that is, if Mary remembered her blocking better than she remembered her lines. Although the script was being shredded by the actors, the action seemed to be limping along as it should. At this point in the play, Perkins should be lurking upstage right, gazing at Marguerite tucked into the hospital bed, waiting for his opportunity to get close to his old love.

  Of course, imagining the play from below the stage floor wasn’t exactly the best method of capturing the action. Jane knew that none of her people in the audience—Oh, Don, or Claire and Margaret—would be able to give her an accurate report of how the play went. Oh would be looking for Jane, Don would be watching Nellie like a hawk, Claire would be dissing the furniture and artwork, and Margaret? What would Margaret be thinking?

  Her family all dead and her legacy somehow tied up in this ridiculous murder mystery/melodrama. Freddy, apparently the only family member who loved Margaret enough to put her ahead of himself, leaving her the crazy messages and ramblings about her fortune and Murder in the Eekaknak Valley, often delivered by a wooden dummy named Mr. Bumbles? It was enough to … wait … the cue Jane had been listening for … two lines ahead of where it was supposed to be since Mary once again was lost in space.

  “Is mother’s bed fully functional?” asked Myra. “May I raise the head of it so we can feel like we are including her in the family discussion?”

  This was where Mary was supposed to fuss around with the cord on the electric bed and ask Perkins if he had made all the arrangements with the electrician. The answer, according to the script, was going to be no since that would give them an excuse for leaving the bed flat. Tim had been too afraid of Nellie’s mugging for the crowd if they had actually raised the head of the bed.

  Silence. Jane pictured Mary gaping, holding the electric cord in one hand and looking heavenward for some dialogue.

  Jane knew what would come next. Henry, as Perkins, would bang his rake on the floor and wait for Suzanne to signal back. Jane took a deep breath as the stood on the middle stair. She shook out her arms and hands, quietly cleared her throat, and readied herself. Jane Wheel was about to make her comeback.

  22

  Enter upstage left, the electrician, a woman oddly dressed for the period, muttering about the antique wiring in the old house.

  “Following the wiring in these old houses is like walking a maze, you know? Not to mention the places where the mice have just chewed through walls and wires,” said Jane as she stepped fully onto the stage.

  Everyone—Rica Evans as Myra, Chuck as Malachi, and Henry, standing with his rake poised to strike the floor—stared openmouthed as Jane muttered something about closing the cellar door so no one would fall in. She slammed the trap shut and wiped her still paint-smudged hands on the back of her jeans.

  Jane could hear Tim in the wings, waiting to come on as Craven, hissing at her to get off the stage.

  The only actor who seemed to take Jane’s unannounced cameo appearance in stride was Mary Wainwright. Since she had planted all of those different versions of the script around the stage, picking up a different one each night to use for memorizing her lines, Mary thought she was losing her mind when her cues changed all the time. Seeing Jane onstage actually seemed to give Mary some confidence. At least everyone else now looked as confused as she had always felt.

  “Would you like a drink of water, Rollo?” asked Mary, looking directly at Jane, when no one else said anything.

  “Rollo?” said Jane.

  “That’s what it says on your shirt,” said Mary, fully in character as Hermione.

  “Oh right,” said Jane, outlining the embroidery on the pocket of her work shirt with her finger. “I must have grabbed Rollo’s shirt today. I’m … Nellie. Nellie the electrician,” said Jane. She thought she could hear group yawns coming from the audience.

  As Jane announced her name, the only one she could think of on short notice, Marguerite, snug under her covers in the hospital bed, snorted.

  “Perkins,” said Rica, snapping out of her shock and deciding to ride whatever crazy wave had just rolled onto the stage, “Give Nellie the electrician a glass of that water so she can explain what’s going on. With the electricity, I mean, of course.”

  “Of course,” said Henry, who was carrying a pitcher and a glass.

  He crossed to where Jane stood and held up the glass.

  “No, no water, thanks,” said Jane.

  “Then I’ll just let Miss Marguerite have some to wet her lips, she looks—”

  “No, I said,” said Jane, knocking the glass from his hand. It fell but thankfully didn’t break and rolled toward the back of the stage.

  “Sorry, but no o
ne should drink anything. When I was in the basement I noticed the pipes were contaminated. Until I can get a crew down there, nobody drinks anything here, understand?” Jane tried for a plumber/gangster attitude.

  “I thought you were the electrician,” said a puzzled Malachi. Chuck Havens had stopped stroking his imaginary beard and was talking in a regular voice. His normally amused tone had given way to total confusion.

  “I’m the plumber, too. You know,” said Jane, “electrical and plumbing … like heating and air-conditioning. You’ve really got to offer both these days.”

  Was the audience aware of her babbling? No matter. Jane knew the second act had only just started, but she had to find a way to wrap this up and get the curtain down fast, before Henry could—

  “I got this from the bottled water I keep in my shed,” said Henry.

  How had he slipped offstage and on in this short time?

  “No, I said. No water.” Jane reached over to knock the glass out of his hand, but this time Henry was ready and backed up a step, holding the glass over his head.

  “Why no bottled water?” asked Craven. Tim had strode onto the stage—mystified, but wanting in on the action. The play had, after all, at one time, been his directorial debut.

  “Bad for the environment. All that packaging waste and so few recycle, really, especially if there’s no curbside pickup…”

  Everyone stared at Jane. Murder in the Eekaknak Valley might be written as a half-witted murder mystery, but it was a fully realized period piece. In its earliest incarnation, it took place in the 1930s, and in Freddy’s later rewrites, he had brought one version up to 1951 in order to insert some “current” references. Tonight’s version, as conceived and directed by Tim Lowry, was staged and set as the thirties showpiece, complete with art deco barware and gorgeous vintage dresses for the ladies. Even the music cues were thirties-era Ted Weems and Fred Waring. Jane Wheel, in jeans and a gray work shirt might pass for a weird offbeat individual of that time working in the plumbing trade—at least with this undemanding audience—however, the reference to curbside recycling made everyone onstage freeze.

  A full beat that felt like a lifetime passed. Anyone who has ever been onstage when something goes terribly wrong knows the quality of the silence. Every actor could hear his or her own heartbeat. Who would have ever imagined that Mary Wainwright would throw out the life preserver?

  “Are you from the future?”

  Jane tried to look inconspicuous as she paced the stage checking both right and left wings. Ramey now had officers stationed at each entrance and exit. The cavalry had indeed arrived. Jane’s message to Oh had been interpreted as a call for backup, but Jane hadn’t known at the time and had no way of communicating exactly who the cavalry was here to thwart. And since the theater was filled with an audience and the stage was crowded with every cast member—no one wanted to miss this master class in improvisation—neither the cavalry, nor Officer Ramey, nor Detective Oh was going to set off a panic.

  Instead, they were going to send in another actor.

  Jane was prepared to answer that she was indeed from the future and they all had to evacuate, single file, stage left, because something terrible was about to happen when one more tradesmen entered through the upstage garden doors.

  Wearing one of Marvin’s plaid flannel shirts over his own dress shirt and vintage tie, Detective Oh came in holding a piece of pipe he must have picked up backstage. From third-row center, Jane and the rest of the cast and audience heard a loud “Bruce, what in heaven’s name are you doing up there?” No question about where Claire and Margaret were seated.

  “I have come to assist you in all your plumbing needs,” said Oh formally.

  “Didn’t we need an electrician?” said Rica, sounding ready to give up.

  “No, Mother, we needed both and, lucky for us, Nellie and her assistant are here, maybe from the future, to help us,” said Mary. She had never spoken Freddy’s lines with the confidence she now displayed.

  The audience had been mumbling for a while and at least a few of them began to be aware that this play was not the one described in their program.

  Onstage, Jane managed to nod her head in the direction of Henry Gand, and Oh circled around behind him.

  While all of the unannounced comings and goings of new characters kept the actors’ attention on Jane and the improvised dialogue, no one had been paying attention to the character who was supposed to be the focal point of the second act. Marguerite, in and out of consciousness, was supposed to be at the heart of the action, hence the placement of her hospital bed downstage, just left of center. Perkins was getting very close to the bed, which was plugged into a live outlet. Jane noticed he had set down the glass but still carried the pitcher of water. Did he think he could cause an electrical short with that water pitcher, with Nellie still under the covers? Or was that pitcher full of some other caustic substance that could harm her mother? Jane had tried to preserve the appearance of the play long enough and she had plenty of backup, so it was time to call for the arrest of Henry Gand.

  “Stay right where you are everyone,” said a squeaky voice from upstage, behind the actors.

  Jane turned slightly and saw Suzanne, who had opened another trap and climbed onstage, holding Mr. Bumbles in one hand and the gun Jane had taken from her but left behind in the pit-trap room, in the other. Suzanne hadn’t lost her stage fright. Her face was a solid expressionless mask more wooden than that of her dummy companion. But she must have realized if she talked through Bumbles, she would be able to speak.

  “Thank God,” said Henry Gand. “This group of tradesmen are fakes and phonies. They’ve come to rob you, Myra, and to harm my Marguerite.”

  At that point, Nellie threw off her covers and stood up, looking from actor to astonished actor. Jane noticed that her nightgown had been hemmed, albeit unevenly, and the sweatpants Nellie insisted on wearing underneath were unrolled and completely visible hanging out from under her prim old-lady nightie.

  Francis the breadman, somewhere out in the middle of the house said loudly, “Finally. There’s Nellie. I told you she was in this show.”

  Henry was making a grab for Marguerite, but Nellie was too quick at standing and he was left grasping the air.

  The actors all waited, looking at Nellie for a clue. Rica managed to find her voice and reached toward her stage mother. “You’re in a coma,” she said.

  “I’m better,” said Nellie.

  Myra and Hermione tried to get close to Nellie and embrace her, ad-libbing their joy at her unexpected recovery. Henry, by this time, had come around the bed, dumping the pitcher and tossing it, to use both hands to pull Nellie in front of him, pinning both her arms to her side.

  Mr. Bumbles opened and closed his mouth, not quite in synch with his words—the same ones as before—shouting for everyone to stay right where they were.

  “Let’s get Marguerite out of this madhouse and back to the hospital,” said Henry, looking at Suzanne and gesturing toward the back of the stage. He had spotted the police at both side exits but knew if they could get out offstage through the French doors, there was an exit that led directly outside to where Marvin had set up all of his power tools. There would be police there, too, but Suzanne had the gun and he had Nellie.

  “No, Perkins, you let go of her and stand still, too,” said Bumbles.

  Jane could tell Suzanne was trying not to look at the audience and was growing more and more uncertain of her next move.

  Mary Wainwright remained the calmest actor on the stage, and for some reason decided to return to the script. Picking up the urn on the mantel, the one that was supposed to contain the ashes of her stepfather, Mary took a deep breath, ready to curse his name and fling the container that would bring them to the final five minutes of wrap-up in the play.

  “This is all your fault, Father,” shouted Mary/Hermione.

  Jane judged the trajectory of the urn, which they had never really practiced throwing onstage before
. Tim had suggested it for dramatic effect and instructed Mary to hurl it hard toward the garden doors, so if the “ashes” flew up and out, the actors wouldn’t choke on them. If Mary threw it now, it would hit the floor hard, and the vessel would undoubtedly get dented beyond recognition. This would not, of course, matter if the urn were the worthless piece of spray-painted silverplate that everyone assumed it was when they found it in Freddy’s prop storage closet, marked as the only urn to be used in Murder in the Eekaknak Valley. Jane looked at the traces of black paint still on her hands and held them both up.

  “Stop! It’s not the ashes of your father,” said Jane. “It’s the ashes of Cornelius … Cornelius something. He was a famous American silversmith.”

  “Oh my God,” shouted Claire Oh from the audience. “That’s it!”

  Mary, surprised that Jane wasn’t properly appreciative of her dramatic efforts to save the play, and annoyed that she would interrupt her most highly charged moment onstage, screamed out that she didn’t care whose ashes they were and let the urn fly.

  Jane made a flying leap toward the airborne object, now raining potting soil and sand all over the stage. She caught it before it hit the ground, slipped, and landed at Suzanne’s feet, cradling the urn in her arms. Was this how holding a million dollars was supposed to feel?

  When Henry got dirt in his eyes, he had to use one hand to reach up to his face, which was all the break Nellie needed.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Henry, grabbing me like that?” Nellie said, pulling loose. She cocked her fist, letting go with a punch to Henry’s jaw. “I’m a married woman.”

  Don entered, stage right, just in time to see his wife knock out Henry Gand cold.

  “I would have liked to do that myself, Nellie,” he said, putting an arm around her.