Broken for You (15 page)

"Oh, no. Definitely not pink. More of a mauve, I think. It had a fleur-de-lis pattern—"
AHA!
"

"—with soft moss green and gold as well."

"Definitely
Room 317 then, if it was fleur-de-lis in rose and gold. Room 315 was paisley in lavender and pink."

Margaret was impressed. "How remarkable!"

"And you enjoyed your stay at the hotel, did you?" he went on. "In Room 317?"

"Oh, yes. They were three of the happiest days of my life." "You know," he said, his voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper, "you didn't miss a thing by not staying in the Honeymoon Suite. In truth, there's no better room in the entire hotel than Room 317."

"However are you able to remember such details—about the rooms and so on—after all these years?"

"Well, it wouldn't be so easy now," he replied. "Ever since 1970, all the rooms except for the suites have been decorated in much the same way. So these days, it's much more difficult to tell them apart." He glanced quickly around the courtyard, stole a look at his wristwatch, and then continued, without missing a beat. "I have to admit, I think that's a shame. I understand the reasoning, from a financial point of view, but I do think the hotel lost something when management made that decision." Mr. MacPherson turned slightly as another, much younger valet sauntered outside and slouched against one of the topiary trees
flanking the hotel's front entrance. "Please, would you excuse me for just a moment?"

"Of course."

Reaching up to touch the brim of his gold-braided hat, he gave Margaret a deferential nod and then walked briskly to where the young valet was standing.

Margaret watched as he spoke to his subordinate. Although the older man's face never lost its kind expression and his voice never rose in volume or in pitch, the young valet—who was several inches taller than Mr. MacPherson—began to look visibly chastened. His whole body sagged. His thumbs went into hiding. His chin seemed about to quiver.

Then, Mr. MacPherson reached up and placed a firm, comradely hand on the young valet's shoulders and spoke again. The young valet rallied suddenly, straightening himself to his full height.
Why, he's enormous!
Margaret thought, aghast. Then she had another thought.
Or, perhaps . . . is Mr. MacPherson really that small
?
The two men exchanged a smile, and then Mr. MacPherson strode back to where Margaret was standing.

"Sorry about that," he said, tipping his hat again.

"That's quite all right," Margaret replied.
Why, it's him!
she realized, looking down into Mr. MacPherson's eyes, which she now noticed were a startling, clear, aquamarine blue.
He can't be more than five feet two!
"You were telling me about the hotel rooms?" she prompted.

Mr. MacPherson beamed. "I know every room in the hotel, you see. The suites, too. I made a point of that. It took a long time, but over the years I've been able to memorize the different layouts, decor, and so on. I tell the young valets, 'You have to know all of the hotel—not just the outside, the part that everybody sees. You might think it doesn't have anything to do with your job, but it does.'" Mr. MacPherson paused. "Say," he said, looking suddenly chagrined. "I'm certainly talking like there's no tomorrow. Forgive me." "Oh, please," Margaret said. "Go on."

He looked at the hotel. "I adore this old place. But it's not just her. Imagine if she'd sat empty all these years. She wouldn't be the same at all, now, would she?"

Beneath its elegance and formality, the hotel did seem to possess a certain friendly animation of expression, its gleaming window-eyes openand lined with thick wands of lavender, fluttering in the breeze like flirtatious eyelashes. The Hotel Orleans had the face of a kind and knowing courtesan who's had many lovers and aged well.

Mr. MacPherson plucked a tuft of lint from his uniform. "Where are you and your husband from, Mrs
...
?"

"Hughes. I've lived in Seattle my whole life." She didn't add,
In a sad-eyed house.

"And still, you spent your honeymoon here?"

"Yes," she answered, faintly.

"Many people who stay at The Orleans say they feel as if they've taken a trip to France."

Margaret was still staring at the hotel, wondering what Wanda's impression of her father's house had been the first time she saw it—and Stephen's. What had he thought? Had she ever asked? "We're no longer together," she muttered, half to herself.
"Nous avons casse."

"I'm sorry." Mr. MacPherson looked genuinely distraught.

"What?" Margaret said. "What did I say?"

He reached out and cupped a supporting hand beneath her elbow. "Why don't you come inside for a while, madame. I'm afraid we're not quite set up for luncheon, but the restaurant is still serving continental breakfast. . . ."

"That sounds marvelous," Margaret said, allowing Mr. MacPherson to escort her past the sounds of falling water and into the hotel.

By the time she finished her croissant and fruit, it was nearly lunchtime.

She wondered how Wanda's technical rehearsal was going, and whether

the girl had eaten anything. She was so very tiny. She asked the waiter

if the restaurant offered any special dessert pastries.

"Bien sur,
madame," he replied. "I'll bring out the cart."

Margaret selected a slice of Chocolate Amaretto Espresso Torte and

had it boxed to go. She paid her bill and walked into the foyer. Mr.

MacPherson was hovering at the hotel entrance and opened the door as

soon as she approached. She had the surprising idea that he'd been

waiting to speak with her again.

"It was such a pleasure meeting you," she said. "Thank you for your

kindness."

"Enchante,
Madame Hughes." He bowed, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "I do hope you'll come back for another visit."

She felt terribly reluctant to leave. As she walked away she kept wanting to turn around, go back, listen to more of his perfect French.
Silly,
she chided herself.
He has other things to do.

She was halfway down the block when she heard his voice. "Mrs. Hughes!" he called.

He was running toward her. He looked very young. His long uniform coat was undone at the bottom; it made a gentle flapping sound as he ran; she thought of flags and circus tents and sailboats. He stopped a few feet away and said, "If you should come back—" He gave a quick backward glance, and then came a few paces closer and clasped Margaret's hands. It was not a rough gesture, but it took Margaret unawares. And although he had a very trim physique, Margaret was further surprised to find that his hands were plump, very soft, and warm, like newly risen bread dough. Then he went on in a slightly hushed voice. "The hotel likes us to address each other by our last names, but. . ." He tilted his head suddenly, making him look like a Scottish terrier hoping to entice his owner into a game of fetch. "My friends call me Gus."

"Okay, everybody, we're on break," Wanda said into her microphone. Her voice reverberated through the semidarkened theatre. "You're due back in an hour and a half, and then we'll pick up where we left off, with the end of Nora's speech, and keep going cue to cue. Good work, guys; see you at two. Houselights up please."

Wanda turned off her microphone. Clumps of people in the audience seats started moving sluggishly: the director and his assistant, the costumer and her assistant, the production manager, the lighting designer, the set designer, assorted theatre staffers. They finished scribbling on their clipboards and then started getting up, stretching, and making their way toward her en masse with glum looks.
Why does everyone get so pessimistic during techs?
she wondered.
Everything always falls apart before it comes bac\ together.
Of course, the mood during these techs was bleaker than usual. It wasn't a Noel Coward souffle they were whipping up, after all; it was Eugene O'Neill. Heavy as a beef brisket.

She took a deep breath and prepared for another requisite round of feather-smoothing and fire-extinguishing—tasks requiring an almost superhuman sensitivity to the various artistic dispositions involved. But this was why she was here.

Don't worry,
she'd have to say,
the set changes will go more smoothly, the crew just needs to rehearse, the soundboard operator will get the levels, the actors will act, they'll button the right buttons, they'll find their light. We'll pic\ things up! We'll tighten those transitions! The show won't run over three hours, I promise. I promise, I promise . . . I'm hungry.

Where was Troy? She massaged her neck. She had a couple of notes for him, not many. He was probably on the loading dock, having a smoke. At least she'd scored a winner with her assistant. He'd been a dream during rehearsals, completely professional, easy to work with, more than competent for someone so young and inexperienced, and he'd kept his sense of humor as they slogged through techs. On the personal side, he was twenty-seven, had a Montana driver's license, a Taurus birthday, and an undergrad degree in philosophy. She'd sneaked a look at his personnel file. She just wished he'd wear long-sleeved shirts more often. He had really great arms. They were distracting.

Wanda felt a hand on her shoulder and registered a dense warmth seeping into her muscles, undoing tension she didn't even know was there and making her body temp rise.

It was Troy. "Hi," he said. "How you holdin' up?"

She shifted her body, putting more space between them. "Hi. I'm okay."

He held out a flat, white, rectangular box.

"What's that?"

"Your mother brought it over. She sat in the back for a while, house left."

"What?"

"She didn't want to bother you, she just asked me to give this to you and tell you she'd be waiting outside the reception desk door tonight to give you a ride home."

"What did she look like?"

"Blue eyes, gray hair, nice smile. You know . . . motherly."

"Did she
say
she was my mother?" Wanda felt irritated, without knowing exactly why.

"No, but—"

"Of course she didn't." Wanda opened the box and peeked inside. Cake. Really scrumptious-looking cake. "How do you know she was my mother?" she went on. "She might have been anybody. She might have been some crazy person out to get me. She might be an assassin. Maybe this is laced with arsenic." She lowered her face close to the box and sniffed.

"I just assumed—"

"Well, don't. Please." Wanda plucked an espresso bean from the top of the cake and popped it into her mouth. "She wasn't my mother."

"Got it."

"I don't have a mother."

"Right. Sorry."

With the tip of her index finger, Wanda made a quick apostrophe in the top of the cake and tasted the frosting. A rich, buttery concoction of coffee and amaretto and cream slid across her tongue like edible silk. "Oh. My. God." She let her fingers dive into the icing then, scooping off a thick swath.

When she lifted her hand to her mouth, she caught Troy staring at her. "You want some of this?" she offered. "Help yourself. It's incredible. There's a fork—," she started to say, but Troy was taking hold of her hand. He gave it his undivided attention, and then—in violation of the unspoken protocols governing stage manager/assistant stage manager relations—began defrosting her fingers with slow, skillful maneuverings of his mouth and tongue.

"Thanks," he said when he was done, looking up at her and smiling cordially. "I was really hungry." He was still holding her now-naked hand. There was a lot of heat being generated at that intersection, as well as at other physiologic locations that had been in deep freeze. He leaned closer—
Jesus Christ, has he always smelled this good?
—looked past her shoulder, and whispered, "Here they come. It's going a lot better than you think, so don't let'em give you any shit. I'll be on the loading dock having a smoke if you need me." He turned around and headed backstage.

She stared after him, oblivious to the crowd of people who had gathered around her worktable, all talking at once, jockeying for attention, trying to give their notes. Troy's moving parts had an assured and well-oiled looseness which she hadn't noticed before, and which stirred in her an odd, petulant envy.

A prank, Wanda concluded, that's what it was. A brotherly, well-timed tease meant to distract her from teching a play by Eugene-effing-O'Neill, and damn if it hadn't worked, too—although how her underling knew she was inwardly stressed was something she preferred not to think about.

After he was well out of sight, Wanda caught her breath, got a grip on her chemistry, and cleared her mind. She ran the rest of the day with an iron hand and a poker face. No one, including her assistant, gave her any shit.

Eleven

Wanda Gets Wings

When Wanda came downstairs the next morning and heard Margaret talking on the phone, she assumed that the caller was someone from the theatre. But as she approached the kitchen, it became clear that the call was for Margaret. Furthermore, this was no ordinary caller: not some vinyl siding salesman with a bullshit Lifetime Warranty, certainly not that Marita woman
(Who talks with their cheating ex-husband's second wife?
Wanda still wondered.
What kind of person does that?)
but someone unexpected. Margaret sounded positively giddy.

When Wanda got to the bottom of the stairs, she sat down on the love seat in the foyer and began thumbing through a copy
of Antique Interiors International.
From this vantage point, Margaret was perfectly framed by the kitchen doorway.

"That would be lovely! It's so kind of you to call " Margaret was

absentmindedly playing with her hair. "You know," she went on, "if you don't think we'd be overdoing it, I have two complimentary tickets to a theatre performance. Do you like the theatre?"

Why, she's talking to a BOY!
Wanda realized.
Good for you, Margaret.

Margaret went on. "The Seattle Repertory Theatre . . . Yes, I believe
they're quite a good group You're sure it's no trouble picking me
up? ... Well, the play starts at seven-thirty, so . . . Six o'clock for dinner will be fine. . . . Oh, anything . . . That sounds perfect!"

Margaret's caller said something that made her laugh. Wanda would not have believed that such a normally sedate person would be capable of such a laugh. It was an utterly goofy, ungainly, out-of-control laugh that combined honking and snorting in equal measure—the sort of laugh that leaves people either staring with detached disbelief or reveling in its wacky nonconformity.

"All right, then," Margaret said, when she regained her composure. "I'm looking forward to it! Au revoir!"

After hanging up, Margaret pulled a phonebook out of one of the kitchen drawers and began flipping through it. When she landed on the page she was looking for, she leaned close and scrutinized it for several seconds. "Good heavens," she said quietly. A coupon for Ben & Jerry's ice cream was affixed to the refrigerator door with a heart-shaped magnet. Margaret pulled off the coupon and began fanning her face with it.

"Good morning," Wanda said, coming into the kitchen.

"Oh!" Margaret startled. Her face was flushed.

Realizing that Margaret needed time to compose herself, Wanda got out coffee and cinnamon and put water in the kettle.

"How many listings would you guess there to be for the name 'Hughes' in the Seattle directory?" Margaret asked.

"I would have no idea."

"Come and look!" Margaret gestured Wanda to the counter and trailed her index finger along the pages of the phonebook as she spoke. "One, two, three, four . . . almost
five whole columns!
There are
fifteen
for the initial 'M' alone! Can you imagine?!" She grimaced suddenly and pressed the fingers of her right hand to the center of her forehead.

"Margaret," Wanda said, "are you—?"

Then Margaret flopped the phonebook shut decisively and spun around.
"Bonjour, ma petite!"
She bestowed minty kisses on each of Wanda's cheeks and then reached into the pocket of her housedress. "I have something for you," she said in the voice of a parent about to reward a child with an unexpected sweet or toy. She produced a set of car keys.
"Les voila!"

"This is awfully kind," Wanda said, accepting the keys. "Do you really want to do this?"

"Mais oui!"
Margaret was completely transformed when she spoke even a few syllables of French: Her face became animated—her lips rounding and protruding in a way that made her look years younger— her voice grew extravagantly musical, and her eyes shone with a liquid, glimmering light.

She proceeded into the pantry. The air around her seemed to shimmer, and Wanda thought she could smell lavender.

"But are you sure?" Wanda called.

"Bien sur! Sans doutel Absolument!"
Margaret sang out.

"Well, thank you again. It's very generous."

Margaret reappeared in the archway separating the kitchen from the pantry wearing a white apron and rubber gloves. She carried a plastic caddy that was full of cleaning supplies in one hand, and an impressively large feather duster in the other.

"But it's nothing,
cherie
!
Rien du tout!"
She exited in the direction of the living room humming a tune; Wanda wasn't sure, but thought it might have been a song from
Gigi.

"Now, this is just for the next
few
days, right?" Wanda asked as she followed Margaret. "Just until the show opens."

"Non non non!"
Margaret called out adamantly. Wanda found her posed next to a glass-fronted etagere that was filled with Art Deco dancing girls. "You must use the car all the time!" Margaret chirped, punctuating her speech with flourishes of the feather duster.
"Tous les temps!"

Margaret opened the etagere and took out one of the figurines; she wore a scanty, pimento-red costume with unusual sleeves—with her arms extended, they had the appearance of diminutive wings—and her hair was cropped in a flapper-style hairdo.

Of course!
Wanda realized, as she watched Margaret wiping the figurine with a fine cloth.
The house
—
all of it
—
it's always immaculate, not a spec
k
of dust or dirt anywhere, and there's never anyone else around. . . . That's what she does with her days: She cleans!

"The car just sits in the garage," Margaret continued.
"C'est si ridicule,
when someone could be getting good use out of it! It's yours, whenever you want to use it," Margaret proclaimed. "For as long as you live!"
She stopped, gave Wanda a quick look, and then added, "Here, I mean: as long as you live here."

That night, by the time the director finished giving notes—first to the actors and then to the production staff—it was well after two in the morning before Wanda got the theatre battened down for the night. Troy stayed on to help; as her assistant, this was part of his job description. However, he insisted afterward on walking her to the car—a duty which was not within the parameters of their professional relationship.

Wanda protested. Ever since the frosting incident, she'd been on her guard. Prank or no prank, she did not want him getting the wrong idea. He was her assistant; she was in mourning. "I'm a big girl, Troy," she said in older sister tones. "I've lived in cities my whole life."

"Which way are you parked?" he asked, lighting up a Camel, clearly not willing to brook discussion on the subject. His smoking had lessened considerably since rehearsals began, Wanda noted. In fact—and the thought somehow both intrigued and troubled her—he might have cut down to one cigarette a day: this one.

"Up the hill," she said, and they set off.

Street parking at the base of Queen Anne Hill was hard to come by—there were several other theatres in the neighborhood, the ballet, the opera, restaurants, sports venues. And of course, that most famous of all Seattle's tourist attractions, the slim-waisted souvenir of the World's Fair that once upon a time symbolized the future: the Space Needle.

When Wanda had come to work earlier in the day—driving Margaret's car for the first time—she'd decided it was a waste of time to look for spaces that were close to the Rep, so she'd parked about two-thirds of the way up Queen Anne Avenue. She agreed to let Troy accompany her now because she figured that the effort of scaling a forty-five-degree uphill grade at two-thirty in the morning would make polite chitchat (never mind flirtation) superfluous, and prevent him from making the offer again.

His strides were long and slow. She kept up a brisk, determined clip and expected to outpace him; after all, he was a smoker. But it didn't seem to cost him anything to keep up.

"Nice night," he said in a smooth, well-supported voice. They were about halfway to the car. "I like the city when people are all tucked in."

"Yeah," Wanda gasped raggedly. "Nice."

This went on through techs, through dress rehearsals, through preview performances. Every day Wanda parked farther up the hill; every night Troy made the journey with her.

"Ever been to Montana?" he asked one night

Wanda huffed and shook her head. "Just. . . I . . . 90."

He looked at the night sky. His stride lengthened briefly, but he slowed as soon as he realized she was trailing him and puffing like an asthmatic.

"How'd you end up in Seattle?" she asked another night. Her lung capacity was improving.

He took a drag on his cigarette. "Followed someone," he said.

She nodded, relieved. "Ah!" she exhaled extravagantly.

"An actress." He paused, regarded his cigarette, then added. "We broke up last year."

The wind went out of her. "Why . . . did . . . you . . . stay?"

He looked at her. "Figured there's another reason I'm supposed to be here. Things have a way of working out the way they're supposed to. That's how I see it, anyway."

Wanda dragged her eyes away from his. She stared fiercely at the summit and asked no more personal questions after that.

Each night he'd stand by as she unlocked the door, got in, buckled her seat belt, and started the engine.

"Do you need a ride home?" she always asked. Having typed the production staff contact information herself—and taken special note of Troy's Queen Anne address and phone prefix—she knew he lived in the neighborhood, but it seemed impolite not to offer.

"No thanks. Good night." Then he'd put out his cigarette with the heel of his boot, turn around, and walk into the night.

Wanda would wait a moment or two before driving off. She couldn't help herself: She loved to watch him leave.

Twelve

-
Opening Night

What a coincidence!" Margaret was saying. "You knowing Wanda. It certainly is a small world!" She glanced at her wristwatch.
I can't imagine what's peeping her,
she thought. She bit into another forkful of angel hair pasta. It was scrumptious.

She was standing in the crowded lobby of the Seattle Repertory Theatre, where a lavishly catered party was well under way. The play had been over for some time, and although the actors had emerged from their dressing rooms half an hour ago and were all stationed near the food tables and engaged in a nonstop orgy of eating, Wanda was nowhere to be seen. In addition, Margaret had lost sight of Gus, who'd offered to get her another glass of sparking cider.

Since she didn't know anyone else, she'd struck up a conversation with one of the caterers—a chubby, moribund fellow dressed in a white chef's hat and jacket who looked exactly like the sad doppelganger of the Pillsbury Doughboy. He had been very forthcoming, much like Wanda the first time they'd met. And the similarities didn't end there: Like Wanda, he had recently broken up with his boyfriend
(You mean girlfriend?
Margaret had wanted to say, but thought better of it; she was quickly learning that a certain degree of open-mindedness was required when speaking with young people) and he was newly transplanted from New York ("I wanted to get as far away from that SOB—pardon my
French—as possible," he said. "I could've gone to Alaska, I guess, but nobody hates snow more than a Southern boy. I only lived in Manhattan as long as I did because of you-know-who"). His ex, an actor, had done a play with Wanda, so they were acquainted. Within ten minutes Margaret knew almost everything about the caterer except his name. She was about to rectify this state of affairs when the actors launched another blitzkrieg on the food tables.