“Sure, sure. Little party he has planned.” Howie passed the envelope along.
Mali stripped it open, glanced at the few lines of elegant scrawl, and tossed it aside. To Liz he murmured, “Send him my apologies. I already have dinner plans.”
Howie rubbed his hands. “Should have seen old Reede afterward. He was knocked out. Even looked a little pale, the limey bastard!”
Reede Chamberlaine was always a little pale, I thought. His pallor had that cultivated look. I imagined him carefully bleaching his skin so it wouldn’t clash with the icy silver of his hair.
He was not in the greenroom when the company straggled in from their showers, still dressing and celebrating. One of the sycophants kept watch by the door until Tua trotted in, tying the sash of her sky-blue kimono. “Oh, am I the last?”
The sycophant simpered and leaned out the doorway. Reede strolled in, gray-suited and smiling.
“I shan’t keep you long, my dears. You’ve worked hard and I know you’re eager for a break.” He paused faintly to offer Mali a sly glance of complicity. “To that end, we’ve arranged for a lovely dinner to be brought in, so you can relax between shows—we’ve a real, grown-up audience tonight, remember.” Two of his assistants came in behind him bearing champagne and glasses. I recognized the silver trays from Three Sisters. Reede mimed delighted surprise. “Ah! This should get you through while I bore you with a few necessary matters. I’m back to London right after, you know. Time to get the tour machinery rolling.”
The acolytes poured and passed glittering crystal alive with tiny bubbles. Reede did a room scan that rivaled Sam for subtlety and efficiency. “Before we start, perhaps it’d be best if anyone not directly associated with this project gave us a few moments to ourselves.”
It was the cast and the stage managers only. And Howie. Typical of Reede Chamberlaine not to think of inviting the designers to a company meeting. Being the only apprentice in the room, I gathered myself to leave. “Don’t you dare,” Sam murmured, easing me back against the wall beside him. Chamberlaine smiled his smooth, frosty smile. “All in the family, then? Well, first let me say I was enormously impressed this afternoon. This is a remarkable piece of work, and it proves without a doubt that your company can look forward to much expanded horizons.”
He accepted a glass of champagne and sipped at it delicately. One of the male acolytes brought an old wooden chair from against the wall. An uncomfortable choice, but its stiff back and higher seat allowed Reede to sit and still look down on the rest of us. Omea and Tuli sank into the cushiony embrace of a loveseat. Mali lounged in a deep armchair, his long legs stretched out in front of him as if he was ready to doze off any minute. The others sprawled on the carpet or leaned against the padded furniture. Ule lay flat on his back at Omea’s feet. Howie commandeered the arm of Mali’s chair, beaming at them all like a proud father.
“Here’s the question.” Reede held his glass out to the side and an assistant whisked it away. “Whether The Gift, marvelous as it is, is appropriate for our tour as I’ve laid it out. It might be advisable to wait before adding this piece to your regular repertory.”
“Wait for what?” Pen muttered.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Howie. He smiled down at the top of Mali’s head.
Chamberlaine nodded as if Howie had agreed with him. “There’s another possibility, and that’s to rethink the way we sell the piece. Now as I’ve said many times, I’m not in this one for the money, but the tour will be expensive and I’ll need full houses every night just to pay back my investors. A new play like this, intellectual in content: it’s a very hard sell.”
“Easier with the reviews you’ll be getting here,” Howie noted.
“Very true, and I could write those reviews word for word after this afternoon. Which is exactly what encourages me to suggest a further break from the Eye’s past traditions, that you let my agency sell The Gift on the basis of Mali’s virtuoso performance.”
“No,” said Mali from the depths of his chair.
“Hear me out, now.”
“No.”
Reede shrugged gracefully. “We could have discussed this a little more privately, my dear. It’s nothing very much, you know, just the usual biographical profiles, exclusive interviews, photo essays. Not so painful, given the benefit to the company in the long run.”
“You do it for me, you can do it for all of us.”
“Tut. Are we going to be stubborn about this?”
Mali glanced at Omea. “Round two.”
“No way, man,” said Pen.
Omea hushed him. “We don’t think singling one of us out will benefit the company.”
“But I know it will benefit the tour, and that will benefit the company. Omea, this is your premier first-class engagement. The only fiscally responsible choice is to sell Mali for all we’re worth. Either that or leave this piece out of the repertory.”
“Oh, Reede,” Omea pouted prettily, “must we be fiscally responsible?”
“Yes, my darling. That we must always be.” Chamberlaine sat back and crossed his legs. “Well, what do we think?”
Howie stirred. “Reede, I don’t get it. You read the script, you knew what it was, you were excited by the possibilities. The whole point was to add something controversial to contemporize their traditional repertoire.”
A fresh glass of champagne appeared at Chamberlaine’s elbow. He shook his head, then braced his arms elegantly on his knee. “Howard, you insisted on artistic control and I gave it to you. We both knew the risk. Personally I admire this work, but it would be easier to sell if you’d made a few different choices. Why, for instance, in a play about magic, have you ignored the potential for glorious special effects? Why waste our master of romantic invention Micah Cervantes on a production style that’s so somber and plain? And that funereal curtain call! The people like their spectacle, Howard!”
“The people, Reede, just gave us a standing ovation!”
“A standing ovation from a young and especially sympathetic audience.” He bent a regretful eye on Omea. “Getting yourselves embroiled in local politics was perhaps not the wisest thing to do, my dear.”
“The local politics embroiled us,” Omea replied. “We came here to do our work in peace.”
“Besides,” added Sam, “our politics are none of your business.”
“Ah, but my good magician, business is precisely what they are. Bad business. Oh yes, I know what’s been going on here. You think people are going to be eager to invite into their domes the architects of Harmony’s peasant rebellion and then sit still for a lecture on their own greed and inhumanity?”
Mali unfolded slowly from his armchair. Chamberlaine was a tall man, but when Mali drew himself up to his most regal bearing, the man in gray had to crane his neck or take a step backward. Chamberlaine did both and seemed somewhat less elegant in retreat.
“A judicious producer wouldn’t mention what has happened here,” Mali said. “A courageous producer would not care. A visionary one would put it to profitable use.”
“Oh, excellent!” Reede offered his smile to the others. “See how marvelous he is? What presence! You’re no stripling youth, Mali, but you’ve still a major career ahead of you if you play it my way.”
“You can make me, is that it, Reede?”
“It would be a pleasure.”
“And the rest?”
“Will bask, and profit, in your glory.”
Mali stared at him coldly, then turned away.
“Whoa, whoa, let’s back up here,” begged Howie. “This problem can be resolved.”
Mali stalked past him. “Then resolve it.”
Howie said, “Reede, why don’t you and I step up to my office so we can talk this out?”
“I’d say it was out of your hands, Howard, unless you’ve more control over this headstrong company than it appears you do.”
Howie looked after Mali helplessly as the Tuatuan began a long slow circuit of the room.
<
br /> “While we perform at the Arkadie, we abide by the decisions of its artistic director,” Omea said. “But the future of our company must remain in our hands.”
Mali’s tiger walk took him along our wall. Sam touched his arm. “Back off, Mal. The man is baiting you.”
Mali brushed past abruptly.
Uh-oh, I thought.
“I would never argue with autonomy,” Howie argued, “but—”
“The future of a company is in the individual success of its members,” said Reede. “You hold one back, you hold back everyone.”
“No, Reede!” barked Mali from the back of the room.
“Ah shit,” Sam muttered, “here it comes.” Ule sat up. Omea’s mouth tightened warily.
“Ignorant savages, hah?” Mali sneered. “Just don’t understand the grown-up world of business? Listen to yourself, Reede! You sound like a fucking cliché!”
Howie’s glance to Omea asked, Should you stop him or should I?
“Now, Mali, there’s no need for raised voices.”
“This is a need, Reede, because I’m likely to puke if I sit here listening to you another second! How about you listening to me for a change!”
“With pleasure.” Chamberlaine resettled himself in his chair. “I’m all ears.”
Mali did not bother to conceal his loathing. “We have put, some of us, fifteen years into evolving a working company consciousness. That rare and precious understanding is what allows us to create work like The Gift. Do you think we’d throw all that away like the foolish virgin on a promise of fortune? Do you understand anything about us at all? Do you think we are like you?”
Howie stood. “I’d like to say something here—”
“I understand one thing very clearly,” Chamberlaine drawled. “Your ingratitude. This company was the ten A.M. booking at mass admission dance festivals when I picked it out of the gutter! Four months later, I’ve got you a production in Harmony and two-week exclusives at the best theatres in the world and you can’t shake yourself free of your mystical claptrap long enough to keep your part of the bargain!”
“Our bargain, Reede, and we have kept it!”
“I don’t need your ‘company consciousness’! I live in the modern world and I need a star! I need you, out there acting!”
“You want a star performance?” Mali yelled. “I’ll give you one, right now. You alter a single term of our contract and I, Sa-Panteadeamali, the individual, will consider it null and void. You can take your tour and your fucking domer contempt and shove it! I will not perform under such conditions.”
“Well, well, well,” murmured Chamberlaine. “I’m very sorry to hear that.”
“He doesn’t mean it,” said Howie quickly.
The producer slid his hands into his pockets and regarded Mali with satisfaction. “I’ll need to hear that from him.”
Omea rose, just managing to keep resignation out of her voice. “If you cancel The Gift, I will not perform, either.”
“No, I expect not,” Chamberlaine allowed.
“Nor I,” said Moussa.
“Me neither.”
“Nor me.”
When the rest had added their agreement, Pen shook his head. “And I gave up good money for this.”
Te-Cucularit said, “This is what comes of domer dealing.”
Chamberlaine surveyed them calmly. “So it’s unanimous, then? Follow the leader?”
The Eye stared back at him stonily.
“Guys…” pleaded Howie. “He’ll do it, you know. He’ll cancel the tour right out from under us. Reede, look, we’ve got a whole month here. We’ll work on the piece in performance. It’s the best way to evolve material like this… organically.”
“What they don’t want, we can’t force,” said Chamberlaine. “It’s a shame, but…” He shrugged. I really hated the smug gleam in his eye.
“We’ve been outmaneuvered,” said Sam disgustedly.
“I don’t believe this!” Howie exclaimed.
“There, there, Howard. Don’t take it personally. They’re not refusing to play out the run here.” Reede smiled down at Omea. “Perhaps it’s all for the best, my dear. We’ll agree on a little statement for the press citing irreconcilable artistic differences and hope to work together another time. When the climate is more favorable, eh?” He raised her hand lightly to his lips, turned away, then turned back as with an afterthought. “And, Mali, when you come to your senses later and want a proper high-power agent, call me. I know just the man.”
“Fuck you, Reede.”
Chamberlaine gathered his staff, champagne glasses, trays, and all, then took Howie!s arm and steered him toward the door. “Now we’ve settled this issue, let’s leave these hungry people to their dinner and have that little chat in your office. I’d like to lay out for you the plan Rachel and I have put together for a world tour of Crossroads.”
FINAL DRESS:
“Crossroads??” Mali spat.
Howie threw back a despairing glance. “I’ll deal with this!” The last of the retinue oozed out and shut the door behind them.
“Sure you will!” Pen hurled his champagne glass at the door. “You could have left the fucking bottle!”
“Sonofabitch!” Mali’s regal posture collapsed. He looked to Sam. “You did warn me.”
“I did,” Sam agreed.
Mali sagged into the nearest armchair. “What have I done?”
“I’m not sure yet,” Omea replied. “Let me think about it.”
Sam pushed away from the wall. “If it were only local politics, he wouldn’t care. When they start connecting us to Open Sky, it gets too radical for Reede. Even if you hadn’t given him the excuse, he’d have found some way to dump us.”
“Poor Howie,” said Omea. “He goes partway down every road, then retreats in confusion when he runs into real resistance.”
Ule nodded. “All show and no go. Harmony in a nutshell.”
Liz and the assistant stage managers emerged from their back corner. I’d forgotten they were there. One of them went straightaway to clean up Pen’s shattered glass. Liz said heartily, “We still have a show tonight, so let’s get you guys fed.”
She was blocked at the door by a dolly full of vid equipment. Liz held the door open. “What’s all this stuff?”
“We need an extra monitor in here tonight,” Cris announced from behind the pile. “For Town Meeting.”
“Oh, no. The first cue that gets missed in Crossroads, Wendy’ll yell at me for allowing distractions in the greenroom.”
Cris straightened, with Mark alongside him. “Liz, don’t you think this meeting tonight might be a little more important than Crossroads?”
She thought about it but not for long. “Sorry. Of course it is. Bad enough any citizen has to work tonight.”
Mark left Cris to do the hookup and came over. “Something’s up,” he guessed.
I groaned. “Reede just canceled the tour.”
“What? After a performance like that? Is he crazy?”
“No. Only greedy,” said Tua. “We’re the crazy ones.”
Mark threw his head back. “What, he’s afraid he’ll ruin his rep if he’s associated with real Art for a change?”
Omea laughed. “Nice, Mark.”
I knew it wouldn’t do to demand how they could take it all so calmly. “What are you going to do?”
Ule chuckled. “Hey, we’ve been out of work before.”
“Rest easy, child,” Omea said. “Perhaps we understood the risk of Reede Chamberlaine better even than Howie.”
“Didn’t expect it to happen quite this fast,” admitted Moussa.
“What it really is,” Omea sighed, “is the fortune he’ll make touring Crossroads. Too much for him to resist.”
I was glad when the food arrived to distract them. The stage managers set up folding tables and set out trays of fruit and bread and cheese. Sam and I took our plates to a corner sofa.
“If you saw what Reede was doing,” I ventured
, “why didn’t you stop Mali before he blew?”
“I can’t ‘stop’ Mali. Mali does what Mali does. I can try to convince him, but I can’t stop him.”
“You could if—”
“No,” he said sternly. “That way lies tyranny. You don’t try to make somebody else’s decisions for them.”
“It was your decision, too. What he’s done affects all of you.”
“And we’ll all deal with it, individually and together.”
What Mali had said homed in on me. He’d never ask. But if he wouldn’t ask, how would I know if I had a decision to make? I’d have to do the asking myself, or lose him without ever knowing.
“What is it?” he asked, so gently that for a moment I thought he knew. “The tour? It’s nothing. The real proof of our success here is what happens tonight at Town Hall.”
I was too preoccupied to think of challenging his obvious inconsistency. For if coercing your friend into risking his life once a performance wasn’t making a decision for him, I didn’t understand Sam’s definition at all.
Songh barreled into the greenroom. “There you are! Micah says if there’s enough food, will you bring him some?”
“You don’t do food?” I teased.
He stopped at Mark’s elbow, his dark eyes bright and nervous. “I’m going home. I’m going to talk to my parents before they leave for Town Meeting.” He turned back to me. “Mark says I was maybe staying away to avoid confrontation, but now I’m going to tell them everything about how I feel and I’m going to make them listen!”
Mark smiled down at him. He gave the boy a quick, supportive hug. “Good luck.”
“Yeah,” I seconded. “Don’t be too hard on them.”
“Do it for us,” called Cris, as he tuned the new monitor to Video Town Hall.
“For Jane!” Songh hunched his shoulders tight around his neck and let them drop. “Well, see you later, if they ever let me out of the house again!” He winked and sprinted away.
“How long since he’s been home?” asked Sam.
“Oh, about a week.”
He nodded. “He’ll do all right in life, that kid, once he grows a little.”
“Grows, or grows up?”
“Well, in his case, it’d better be both.”
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