Nathan said, “Be nice, Steph.”
Joanne said, “Okay, here’s a question: Where are you supposed to get a video camera?”
“I know a guy who has a camera I could borrow,” Nathan said. “I could do the filming. And edit it on my computer. I took a film course once and learned how.”
Joanne gave me my dish. “It doesn’t seem right that you have to make the video yourself. When it was the boss’s idea that you try out.”
“That’s how jobs are these days, Joanne,” Nathan said. “You want something, you have to go after it. Make it happen.”
“These days?” Joanne said.
“Sorry, but it’s true. Times have changed since you were young. This is great pasta, by the way. I’m loving the rapini in it. And the pine nuts.”
“I’m glad you like it. And thanks for pointing out I’m not young anymore.” She smiled to show that she wasn’t really pissed off and turned to me. “You know what you could do? Make it like a music video. Sing as you walk through the store.” To the tune of “Good Vibrations,” she sang, “Tee, Tee, Tee-ee, Tee-shirts and jee-eans.”
Nathan laughed. I didn’t. “I won’t sing. I’ll talk,” I said. “I’ll say what I say when I train new staff. I’m not going to make a big production out of it. If they like what they see, good. If they don’t, they don’t.”
Nathan took out his phone. “So when do you want to do this? I should text my guy about the camera.”
“How about Wednesday morning before opening? We’d have to get there early though, like at eight thirty.”
He started texting. “I can do early. If you buy me an extra-large coffee on the way in.”
“What about hair and makeup and wardrobe?” Joanne said. “Who’s going to do that?”
“I will.” I already knew what I’d wear— some new work-type clothes that had come into the store that day. Something grown-up.
“I wish I could help,” Joanne said. “You can’t shoot the video on a weekend day when I’m available?”
“We’ll be better off without you, Mom. You know what they say about too many cooks.” Nathan kicked me under the table, so I said, “Thanks for the offer though.”
“Okay, but Nathan, be sure to shoot Steph from flattering angles. Make her look good.”
“That’ll be easy. Steph always looks good.”
“Aren’t you the charmer tonight,” she said. “Would you like more pasta?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
I came to the next night’s choir practice straight from work. I was early and the door to the church nave was closed. A sign posted on it said:
SILENCE PLEASE. SMALL GROUP
AUDITIONS IN PROGRESS.
ENTER QUIETLY
OR COME BACK AT 7:25!
I needed a coffee anyway. I’d had a long day. I’d had to fire a sales associate after he showed up half an hour late, for the fifth time. Then I had to fill in for him at the register after he left. And that afternoon I’d caught a shoplifter, a punky girl about twenty.
I’d seen her before, lurking around in a sweatshirt, dirty jeans and Converse sneakers. This time I was ringing up a sale when I spotted her across the floor, standing behind a table display of Henley shirts. She had her back to me, but I saw her slip two shirts into a shopping bag she carried. I got someone to finish my sale, and I snuck up on her. When I asked if she’d like to try on those shirts, she dropped the bag and ran away fast. Which was lucky. I would have had to call the cops on her if she hadn’t.
I hated calling the cops. An arrest always caused a scene in the store, in front of the paying customers. And going to court to testify was such a hassle. The hearing doesn’t take place for months, and when you go to the courthouse, you wait for hours for the case to be called. Then you see the shoplifter waiting too. With a legal-aid lawyer and maybe a parent or an older sibling who looks upset. And the cops sit around joking with each other like they don’t give a shit, which they don’t. And the judge sometimes yells at the thief, to try to scare them straight or whatever. You end up feeling sad and sorry for the person you collared. Rather than feeling that justice is being done. I did anyway.
There was a coffee shop a block away from the church. With twenty-five minutes to kill before the practice started, I walked over to it, ordered a large coffee and looked around for a seat.
The shop was crowded, mostly with people I didn’t think were choir members. Except for Anna, over in the corner. She was sitting at a high counter with a coffee cup beside her, writing.
I wasn’t going to disturb her, but she saw me and waved me over. “Hi, Steph! There’s space here. Come sit.”
I set my coffee down and motioned to the notebook in front of her. “Is that the journal you used on Noontime?”
“It’s the same kind. I go through a new notebook every few months.”
“My mom’s big on journals. And writing. But when I had to keep a journal in high school for English class, I hated doing it. What I wrote was so boring.”
“You don’t feel a need to express yourself then?”
“I guess not. I don’t get why people have blogs either. Or go on Twitter. Like their lives are so interesting.”
She said, “I have to blog and tweet for my work; it’s part of my job. But my journal is just for me. It really helps me sort out what I’m doing and feeling. And it’s cheaper than going to a shrink.” She slipped the notebook into her bag. “But are you saying you saw one of my ‘And Everything Nice’ segments on Noontime?”
I didn’t want to seem like a stalker. I said, “I caught it this week, randomly. The farmers’ market one.”
“What did you think of it?”
“It was, uh, nice.”
“You liked it that much, huh?”
“I don’t think I’m in the target market. I hardly ever watch daytime tv. But the root-vegetable mash that you made with the maple syrup? It looked good. My mother said she would make it sometime soon.” Okay, she might have said that if she’d watched more of the show.
“But you wouldn’t?”
“I don’t cook much.”
“Neither do most people your age, I’m thinking.” She lowered her voice. “I’m also one of the producers of Noontime, and between you and me, we’re working on getting national distribution. So it should appeal to as wide an audience as possible. Including people like you. Tell me: Do you watch any food or lifestyle shows on tv?”
“Some. My boyfriend works at Sterling, a restaurant downtown. He’s the bar manager.”
“I’ve been to Sterling. The food is excellent.”
“So sometimes we watch the shows about restaurant kitchens. The ones with yelling and swearing are entertaining.”
“Hmm. Then there’s me, being boring and nice.”
“Don’t forget about the sugar and spice.”
Her face lit up. “You know, that’s a good idea. I should make the segments spicier.
More edgy. To appeal to a younger audience. And to men. Let me make a note of that.” She took out her notebook, wrote the word SPICIER on a blank page and closed it again. Put it away. “So, how are you enjoying the choir these days?”
“I like it. Partly because of what you said. It is interesting to watch people in action.”
“Especially when so many are creative people.”
“That’s one way to describe them,” I said, and she laughed.
On the way back to the church, she asked about my job.
“Do you see yourself staying there and climbing the corporate ladder?” she said. “Or are you putting in time while you pursue something more artistic?”
I would have snapped at Joanne if she asked me those same questions, laughed at the artistic part and told her to back off. But I liked Anna showing interest in me.
“I can see moving up,” I said. “I might transfer to head office. Get involved with making training videos.” I shouldn’t have said that, I know. Shouldn’t have talked about something that probably wouldn’t ha
ppen. I guess I wanted to come off like someone with a plan and a clue. Someone like her.
She said, “Training videos? What are they like?”
So I told her about the rd and the email from her assistant. And that Nathan and I were making a video the next morning at the store. And she looked totally interested in what I was saying. As if she were interviewing me on her show. She said, “I can see what the senior person saw in you. You have an appealing manner. You’re engaging. Have you done on-camera work before?”
“No. Never.”
“Oh.”
“Have you got any tips on how we should shoot the video?” What the hell. There was no harm in asking, right?
She did. For the next few minutes, she gave me a crash course on how to act on tv. She talked about what to wear and what not to wear. About makeup and lipstick colors. About making eye contact with the camera, and how to look expressive. She told me to memorize and rehearse my lines beforehand. And to decide in advance which words in each sentence should be stressed.
We stopped outside the church, and she quickly demonstrated the most flattering ways to stand, walk and angle my face and body toward the camera.
“Thank you so much,” I said when she’d wrapped up. “I hope I can remember everything you’ve said when we do the taping tomorrow.”
“I could email you a checklist,” she said.
“I wrote one up a while back when I visited a high school class for a Career Day. Your email address is on the choir list, right? I’ll send it to you when I get home tonight.”
“That would be great.”
She opened the church door and held it open for me. “Here we go,” she said. “Into the breach.” And I laughed like I got the joke.
CHAPTER NINE
At the break that night, Anna went off to make a phone call. I wandered over to the soprano section and said hi to Joanne and Wendy. They invited me to come out for a drink at a nearby pub with some choir people after practice. I said no thanks without saying, “God, no.” And Joanne and I arranged that I’d drive the car home.
I put on my jacket and went outside. On the church steps, I ran into Sticky Fingers on his way back in. He said, “Damn right,” to someone behind him, then laughed his dirty-sounding laugh. I turned up my collar and kept going. I wouldn’t want to meet him in the mall parking lot late at night. Or in the alley behind the church.
I walked down to the traffic light, crossed the street and bought an iced tea at a convenience store. When I came back inside the church a few minutes later, Kramer and Old Hippie were both bent over in our pew, looking for something on the floor. Anna stood in the aisle, wringing her hands. Her face was flushed. Other tenors were grouped in a semi-circle around our pew. Like at a funeral.
I walked up to Kristi, who was on the outside edge of the group. Not next to Carmen, for once. “What’s going on?” I said.
“Anna lost her notebook.” She put her hand to her mouth in mock concern. “Time to call for a search party.”
The pianist played the fanfare, and everyone began to move back into the seats. Including Kristi, who rolled her eyes at me as she went.
“Thanks for looking,” Anna said to Kramer and Old Hippie. “I’m sure it will turn up somewhere.” The worry lines between her eyebrows said otherwise.
I sat down. Richard started talking about the dynamics in the next song. I whispered to Anna, “Are you okay? Is anything else missing?”
“No. Just my journal. I don’t know where it could be. I didn’t leave it at the coffee shop, did I?”
“No, you put it in your bag. I saw you.”
“Yes, of course I did. But where is it now? What could have happened to it?”
From behind his lectern, Richard said, “When I talk about a crescendo here, I mean that the volume should slowly increase when you sing this passage. I do not mean that the volume of your talking right now should BE AUDIBLE.” Shit. He was looking right at Anna and me.
Someone laughed nervously, and Freckles turned around and gave us an evil stare to go with Richard’s. Screw them all. On the edge of my music sheet, I wrote: We’ll talk about this later. I showed it to Anna. She bit her lip and nodded.
Just before practice ended, Anna rushed up to the front of the church and made an announcement. She described the notebook, said she’d lost it and asked anyone who found it to please, please let her know. Behind me, Kristi muttered to Carmen, “All this fuss for a notebook. What a drama queen.”
After we’d all joined hands and sung the circle song, Anna and I left the church together and stood outside on the sidewalk. “Let’s mentally retrace your steps,” I said. “As best as you can remember.”
She’d made her phone call, come back to our pew and sat down. She took out the notebook and made a note of a tricky passage in a song that she wanted to review later at home. Then she put the notebook away in her bag, which was on the floor at her feet. For five minutes or so, she walked around and talked to some tenors. Freckles, whose real name was Pauline, was the section leader. When she’d said that the first sectional practice would be held on Saturday afternoon, Anna had looked in her bag for her journal to write down the date. Only the journal wasn’t there.
I said, “There’s a sectional practice this Saturday?”
“At one o’clock. Pauline said she’d email everybody the details. But what am I going to do? I want my journal back. I need it.”
“Because your notes are important to you. I understand. Your ideas for your new show must be, like, trade secrets.”
She shook her head. “That’s not the only reason.”
“You’re upset because those notebooks are expensive?”
“No. Though they are costly. No, the problem is that I’ve written some personal things in the journal, private things.”
Oh. “You don’t have to answer this, but what kind of private things?”
She hesitated. “Things I wouldn’t want anyone to read. It’s hard to explain.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t want to pry.”
“You’re not prying. You’re being a good friend. I’m going back in to look again. Maybe it got kicked under another pew. Or tucked in with the hymn books on a shelf.”
I offered to go in with her and help her search. She said no. She’d taken up enough of my time. I should go home. She’d email me if she found it.
“Thanks for listening,” she said. “I know I’m making too big a deal out of this. And after I told you I was low-profile compared to the other choir people! Forgive me.”
I said there was nothing to forgive, and goodnight, and I let her be.
And for all the tv crime shows I’d watched in my time, I’m sorry to say that thoughts of blackmail didn’t even cross my mind. They crossed hers though.
CHAPTER TEN
Anna emailed me later that night. She said:
Hi Steph:
I searched all over the church and didn’t find the notebook :(
As promised, I’ve attached the on-camera checklist.
Good luck with the filming.
Anna
I printed off her checklist, read it over and spent an hour rehearsing my script in front of the mirror. I laid out my clothes for the next morning, and at eleven o’clock, before Joanne even got home from her post-practice drinks, I went to bed. I wanted to look rested when I woke up.
To be honest, in the time between practice and going to sleep, I didn’t think much about Anna’s journal. If someone in the choir had found it, they would have told her by now. And if a random stranger found it, they’d probably throw it away. So what if her notes went into the garbage? How important could things like the word spicier written on a page be?
The next day, Joanne and I were up and getting ready for work at the same time.
“You look beautiful,” she said when I came out of my room, hair and makeup done. “Like a TV star.”
“Mo-om,” I said and rolled my eyes.
“My bad. I forgot I’m not suppos
ed to act proud of you. Ever. Do you want a lift to the mall? I have enough time to make the detour on the way to school.”
In the car, I asked how the pub night had gone.
“It was fun. About fifteen people from the choir came, men and women both. A group of them go out for drinks after every practice.”
“Did you meet any cute guys?”
She shot me an Are-you-kidding? look. “No. But the conversation was lively. The first topic of the night was your friend Anna Rai. That was weird, wasn’t it? That tearful announcement she made about the missing notebook?”
“Yeah. I talked to her about it a bit afterward. It was her private journal that was lost. She doesn’t want anyone reading it.”
She chuckled. “Wendy was making Nancy Drew jokes. She kept referring to it as The Mystery of the Missing Notebook.”
I didn’t say anything.
She said, “Nancy Drew? The teenage detective?”
“Wasn’t that a movie a few years ago?”
“I was talking about the Nancy Drew books. As you know. Anyway, a man at the table who’s a psychologist said the oddest thing about the incident was that Anna looked guilty when she stood up in front of the choir. As if she’d done something wrong.”
“Yeah? What does he know?”
“Probably nothing. I’m just telling you what I heard. They sure like to gossip, that crew.”
“God, the choir really is like high school.”
Joanne took that as a cue to start singing “High School Musical,” one tune that was not on the choir’s playlist. And that was the end of that conversation.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Nathan was sitting on a bench in front of the Gap store, pretending to be asleep, when I came down the hall. The only other people in sight were elderly mall walkers. I handed him a large coffee and the shot list I’d prepared. “Read this while you drink your coffee.”
He peered at the list with one eye open. “You made a shot list?”
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