Monica accosted me the instant I stepped foot inside the rec center. “You’re late,” she scolded. “Janine wanted us here fifteen minutes ago.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled, making a beeline for the auditorium with Monica nipping at my heels.
“Honestly, Kate, I don’t know where your head is sometimes. What could be more important than being on time?”
Pam and Diane stopped setting up a ticket table long enough to wave. “Knock ’em dead,” Pam called after me.
I was relieved when Monica scurried off to bust someone else for a minor infraction. As I ran up the stage steps, I spied Bill, looking good with a tool belt slung low on his narrow hips. He was busily making last-minute adjustments to a set he’d built to resemble a drawing room. He must’ve been inspired by a visit to the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, because it looked like the real deal. He’s got talent, that man.
He gave me a thumbs-up as I passed. “Break a leg.”
Connie Sue spotted me as soon as I entered the dressing room. “C’mon, sugar. Let me put some color on those cheeks. You’re lookin’ a mite peaked.” Looping her arm through mine, she guided me toward the mirror, nudged me into a chair, and went to work.
There was enough makeup spread along the counter to stock a department store: wands of lipstick and mascara, pots of blush and eye shadow, brushes, big and little, fat and skinny, foundation in a variety of shades. Then there were hair products, spray, rollers, blow-dryers, curling irons, and flat irons. Connie Sue seemed perfectly at ease amidst all the paraphernalia; her comfort level probably came from her days as a reigning beauty queen.
Polly darted about, adding accessories to various costumes, a scarf here, a brooch there. “Here,” she said, presenting me with what at first glance appeared to be a dead skunk.
“Eeuww! What is that?”
“A wig, silly. Found it at the dollar store.” Not waiting for a response, she nudged Connie Sue aside and proceeded to tug the dang thing over my scalp. “This’ll go perfect with the orthopedic shoes and support hose.”
“Perfect,” I muttered in disgust.
“Wait ’til you see what else I found for you.” She dangled a contraption before my eyes that might have been used in the Middle Ages to torture heretics.
“What am I supposed to do with it?” I asked, dreading the answer.
“It’s a corset,” Connie Sue explained. “Meemaw had one just like it that she let us kids use to play dress-up. It’ll give your character a nice erect posture.”
“You’ll look like an authentic housekeeper once I’m finished with you,” Polly chortled with glee. “Don’t know when I’ve had this much fun. Probably not since before Gloria made me stop dressing up for Halloween.”
While I squirmed into ugly surgical stockings, I cast envious glances at Gloria, who played the secretary to Gus’s character, Troy. Except for wearing makeup, which, by the way, looked quite flattering on her, she was dressed in her usual drab polyester pantsuit and a long strand of pearls. Lucky girl, no orthopedic shoes, no support hose, no wig-and no danged corset. I didn’t expect Myrna to wear fishnet stockings and a miniskirt, but surely Polly could have found a compromise.
As soon as I was properly outfitted and made-up, I left the chaos in the dressing room to find a quiet spot backstage. It took only a split second to realize a quiet place didn’t exist. I blundered right into the middle of an argument between Bert and Ernie. Oops, I meant to say Mort and Bernie. I always confuse the pair with the Sesame Street duo.
“You moron, you never listen to me,” Bernie shouted. “I’m warning you: Do it that way and you’ll blow a fuse.”
Mort got right in Bernie’s face. “I blow a fuse, all right, every time I hear your bellyaching.”
“Only an idiot would take on a job when they don’t know beans about what they’re doing.”
“Butt out.” Mort’s face was an alarming shade of red. “I know exactly what I’m doing.”
Bernie gestured wildly toward a tangle of cords lying in a heap. “Any fool can see you’ve got too many electrical cords for a single outlet to handle.”
“If you don’t like the way I’m doing things, do it yourself,” Mort sneered. “I quit.”
“Gentlemen, please.” Rita, looking every bit the stage manager with her headset, caught hold of Mort’s arm before he could stalk off. “We need both of you if there’s any hope of pulling this off tonight. I’m asking you to put aside your differences and do your job.”
I marveled at Rita’s composure. She remained unflappable in a sea of chaos; steady as the Rock of Gibraltar. It took a lot to rattle that woman.
“Bernie,” she said, draping her arm over his shoulder, “I’d like you to go into the dressing room and help Gus get ready for act one. He needs help with his tie.” Now, Rita is a plus-sized gal, standing eye level with Bernie and outweighing him by a lot. She could probably go ten rounds with him without breaking a sweat. I knew that and, from his sheepish expression, Bernie knew it, too.
After Bernie trotted off, Rita turned to Mort. “In spite of what Bernie said, Mort, you’re doing a great job with the lights. Why don’t you check with Bill and see if he has an extra power strip that might help the fuse situation.”
“Sure thing, Rita. A power strip might do the trick.”
“And, Mort,” Rita called after him, “don’t forget to wear your headset so we can communicate throughout the show if we have to.”
The headsets, I’m proud to say, had been Bill’s idea. He found just what we needed at Radio Shack. I thought it made our little amateur production look very professional. Lance Ledeaux would’ve been proud.
From the rising noise level, I could tell the auditorium was starting to fill. When I peeked between a crack in the curtains, my stomach did a flip-flop. Tara and a friend from the day care center, programs in hand, ushered a steady stream of people down the aisle. If Claudia were here, she’d get a kick out of this. The pre-Lance Claudia, that is, not the post-Lance version.
I noticed Nadine Peterson near the front, looking in dire need of a smoke. From a distance she looked quite attractive with her dark hair, bright lipstick, and eerie green eyes. Tammy Lynn Snow, accompanied by a young man bearing a close family resemblance, took their seats in the next row. The young man was most likely her brother and Eric Olsen’s friend, I thought.
Polly tugged at my sleeve. “Wait ’til you see Gus. I convinced him to wear a hairpiece. It occurred to me that anyone named Troy ought to have a full head of hair.”
“And he went along with the idea?”
She grinned wickedly. “Well, I used a little cajolery. Told him how handsome he looked. Insisted it took ten or fifteen years off his age. Gotta check on Krystal and Megan one last time before the curtain goes up. Break a leg!” she said as she scurried off.
“All right, everyone.” Janine, looking arty dressed head to toe in black, motioned us into a huddle. “This is it, the big night. Knock ’em dead.”
Rita spoke into her headset to Mort, and the house-lights dimmed. The acrobat I seemed to have swallowed executed a series of somersaults and backflips in my stomach. Feather duster in hand, I stepped onto the stage.
By the time we got to act three, I was actually beginning to relax and enjoy myself. So far so good; in spite of numerous invocations, none of us had broken a leg-or even sprained an ankle. I wished my kids were present to witness my glorious stage debut, though I doubted they’d recognize their own mother in the getup I wore. I scarcely recognized myself. I looked more like the Mama character Vicki Lawrence once played in the old Carol Burnett skits than Kate McCall, amateur sleuth. I never thought at my age I’d be bitten by the acting bug. Perhaps I should give up my fantasy of becoming a crime scene investigator and make a career out of playing middle-aged, frumpy house-keepers. After all, life ain’t no dress rehearsal.
Both Krystal as Roxanne and Gus as Troy were doing a bang-up job-a couple of pros. I felt nerves flutter anew as the shooting scene drew near. I should have been used to this. It happened every time we got to the part where Claudia shoots Lance. It didn’t require much imagination to envision Lance’s inert body lying center stage, a bloodred boutonniere on his yellow oxford cloth shirt.
Drawing a deep breath, I entered, announced the arrival of the villain, ably played by Bernie Mason, then exited stage right to watch the rest of the scene unfold. I braced myself for the part where Krystal/Roxanne tells Bernie’s character, Take that! And that, and that!
As the tension mounted, I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. Glancing across the stage, I chanced to find Gus Smith watching me, a strange expression on his face. Our eyes happened to meet and a weird thing happened. Maybe it was the brightly striped red and yellow tie he wore that triggered my memory; I’ll never know. But whatever it was, I suddenly remembered the rhyme about the snake.
Red touch black, friend of Jack. Red touching yellow, kill a fellow.
Gus Smith was the snake-a poisonous one at that. I was staring into the face of Guido, “the Killer Pimp,” one of the FBI’s most wanted. My mind flashed back to the volumes of mug shots I’d stared at for the better part of the afternoon. I now knew why one of the faces had looked so familiar. Even though the man in the photo hadn’t been smiling, his lips had been slightly parted-parted just enough to reveal a gap between the top two incisors. It was the exact same gap I was seeing now.