Murder in the Past Tense (Miss Prentice Cozy Mystery Series Book 3) (8 page)

When I had run the iron over the lengths of fabric that were needed, Lily set me to ironing more of the pattern pieces, which was pretty delicate work. If you pressed too hard, the tissue paper tore, and if the iron was too hot, it singed. Alternately, if the iron was too cool, my efforts did no good at all on the crumpled paper. It was an extended lesson in patience.

“Where did everybody go?” I grumbled as a drop of perspiration landed on the tissue and hissed under the iron. “Janey’s a good seamstress. Wasn’t she supposed to help us in here?”

“Yeah, but now that she’s a leading lady, she strolls around like she owns the place. I think she’s just a little too good to be true.” At my quizzical look she added, “I mean, look. Here she comes, taking over Dierdre’s part and acting like a diva all of a sudden. Who died and made her—whatever?”

“You’re just mad because she was flirting with Neil.” For the hundredth time that hour, I dampened my forefinger and tested the iron.

“I’ll admit I don’t like the fact that Neil does look at her an awful lot. But she doesn’t smoke.”

I knew what Lily meant. Janey didn’t spend her breaks out in the alley, where Neil and other smoking members of the cast hung out.

“You don’t have to smoke to go out there.”

“I know. But it’s just so cool when he lights my cigarette.” Lily gestured with an imaginary one and sighed. “I gaze into his eyes, just like Bette Davis in that old movie. Sometimes he lights mine and his both, then hands one to me.” She sighed again and put several pins in her mouth.

I shuddered. Sharing a cigarette? Yuk. Spit germs.

“Mm mk fimm mm donno rr nn anee.”

“What?”

One by one, Lily removed the pins from her mouth, spearing each one into a pin cushion shaped like a ripe tomato. “One thing makes me feel a little better. Janey’s not that interested in Neil any more. She’s going after Danny. She just might get him, too.”

“I don’t know.” I set the iron aside and lay the smoothed pattern piece on the table. “Do you really think so?”

“Believe me, she’s gunning for him. Dierdre better watch her back. She’s already in over her head. She’s nuts about Danny and Danny . . . well, he’s a guy. I’ve seen the signs. Did you notice the way she looks at him? And that’s enough evidence right there.” She gestured significantly at the changing screen. “No telling what all they were doing back there.”

I limped over to the stack on the table, picked up another pattern piece, and laid it on the ironing board. “Drop it, Lily. They didn’t come out at the same time.” I found the subject embarrassing.

“All right, don’t believe me. Just you wait. I love saying I told you so.”

I didn’t answer. Lily was right. She did love saying it.

“What’s that walkie-talkie for?” Lily asked Neil in a whisper later as we huddled backstage. With the other denizens of Greenwich Village, we were listening to the music and waiting for our cue to stroll onstage, going about our daily nineteenth century errands.

Before Neil could answer, said walkie-talkie emitted a scratchy whisper: “Cue cricket sounds. Three, two, one—
now
!
”

Chris Gold, sitting at a small table backstage left, punched a reel-to-reel tape player, and a shrill, rhythmic chirp began.

“Greg can’t afford a fancy audio system,” Neil whispered to us. “He’s got that kid Gil upstairs watching the action from the projection booth with a script in his lap, cueing the sound effects on stage.”

Clutching my prop basket, I grinned. So that was Gilly Dickensen’s important sound job. It seemed far less impressive than playing a townsperson or even ironing paper patterns.

The walkie-talkie whispered again: “Fade cricket sounds, three, two, one, out.”

“Here it comes. Now!” Neil gripped Lily’s hand and stepped out onstage with her.

They walked arm-in-arm to the music, occasionally breaking into a little dance step. Meanwhile, I and the other non-dancing denizens strolled upstage to the rhythm, nodding and smiling to each other.

“Rhubarb, people, rhubarb!” Terence called from the front row.

Rhubarb?
I threw a wide-eyed questioning glance at Lily, who rolled her eyes and kept moving, mouthing silent words. Oh, well, I’d have to wait and ask after rehearsal.

This isn’t Paris, nor is it much like Rome . . . oo ahhh . . .

The chorus chimed in with Janey, making the song into something full and rich. The harmonies sounded wonderful up on stage.

I had been right: being a part of this . . .
magic
was truly as much fun as I’d always imagined. Nobody was really in costume, only the girls in their rehearsal skirts, but it really seemed we had gone back in time over a hundred years, walking the long-ago streets of New York’s artistic district. Janey sang the final verse.

O, may my madcap, impish self

Be never put upon a shelf

But if I am, you can be sure

I’m a fascinating tome.

And if my art should fail to please,

I’ll always have my memories . . .

And the chorus joined in as the last notes lifted to the crescendo.

Greenwich Village,

You’re where my heart will always find

Its true artistic home!

We froze in the attitudes we had been instructed to hold at the end. The tableau was supposed to resemble a Currier and Ives print. We maintained our positions as the last notes faded and flowed into the next song.

Terence stood up and gestured for Irene to stop playing. “Very nice for a first time through. Now remember, townspeople, immediately after the curtain closes, scurry, scurry, pick up your props. Put them where they belong backstage.”

My quizzical expression and raised hand caught his attention. “Amelia? Question?”

“You kept saying rhubarb. What’s rhubarb?” I knew from the context that it wasn’t something you put in a pie with apples.

There was a collective groan, but Terence kindly ignored it.

“It’s how you fake conversation in the background of a scene. Creates a kind of low-pitched murmur. We don’t want people listening to you instead of the lines of the play, y’see?”

Somebody snickered.

“Asking questions is how we learn, people. Have respect.” He pointed. “All right, Johnsie and Faithless Lover, you’re to be downstage, holding hands, as the curtain closes behind you, right?”

Janie and Danny nodded and moved forward.

“Irene? Next scene. Let’s go!” Terence gestured and took his seat.

The piano music resumed. As previously directed, I rolled the flimsy flower-seller’s cart to its niche backstage, but returned to the wings to watch and listen to the gorgeous duet of the Ill-Fated Lovers. Their powerful voices blended beautifully. To the audience, they would look like a perfectly matched couple.

Oh, if only Danny gazed into my eyes as he does into Janey’s!
I sighed. Sometimes it was hard to be fifteen years old.
Of course,
I reminded myself,
they are only acting.

Unless Lily was right about Danny’s complicated and varied love life. I fervently hoped not.

When the song ended with a kiss, Terence glanced at his wristwatch. “Okay.”

The two lovers stepped apart and headed backstage.

“Principals, you stay,” Terence instructed. “Everybody else, go home, study the script, get some sleep, be back here at ten sharp, music and lines memorized.”

Murmuring my one line, I trudged resignedly up the aisle. “A tragedy, that’s what it is. ’Tis a real shame.”

I’d said it so many times, it ceased to make any sense, but I had other troubles. Father had been adamant. If rehearsal concluded any time after dark, I was to call him so he could walk me home. Humiliating, but perhaps I could keep it a secret if Lily could be trusted to keep her mouth shut.

Who was I kidding?

I slid into the telephone booth in the lobby, carefully closed the folding door, dropped in a coin and dialed my home number. “Papa, I’m ready,” I said when he answered, and hung up immediately.

I emerged to hear Gilly Dickensen chanting, “You’re where my heart will always find its true artistic home. Barf to the max! This show’s a bummer.” He confronted me accusingly. “How can you sing that rot with a straight face?”

“At least I don’t have to do it on a walkie-talkie,” I said pointedly, hoping the remark would sting.

Rather than appearing offended, he shrugged. “You use whatever equipment’s available. You headed home?”

He glanced over one shoulder. Some of his hair had come loose from its ponytail. He wore a pair of ragged cutoffs and a stained T-shirt with the sleeves missing. The hair on his face still struggled to make its presence known. He looked a mess.

Was he going to offer to walk with me? Barf to the max, indeed! Still, it was more grownup than having one’s father walk one home.

“Not quite yet,” I lied. “Terence wanted me to practice, um, something else.”

“Whatever. Later.” He tossed off a two-fingered V-sign. “Peace.” Jingling change in his pocket, Gilly wheeled and headed down the hall.

~~~

“I really did want to walk you home, you know,” Gil said. “I liked you.”

I took his hand. “I know that now. Wish I did then.”

~~~

I sat back down in the booth and waited.

“I don’t really know where she could be,” I heard Pat say as she emerged from the auditorium. “I’m sorry.”

“Well, thank you, anyway,” said a familiar voice. “She didn’t mention where she’d wait for me. I’ll just keep looking.”

“Good luck,” Pat replied cheerfully.

I hunched back inside the booth. “Papa,” I called softly, “I’m here.”

I heard his footsteps approaching. He smiled down at me. “You ready?”

I nodded, but refused to smile back.

He held the outside door for me, and we proceeded into the warm summer night. From where we were, you could look straight up my street and almost see my house, only two and a half blocks away, for goodness’ sake! The indignity of it was unbearable.

There were large flying bugs circling a street light. I concentrated on them and hoped the sullen silence would speak for me.

“You know,” Papa remarked pleasantly, “that Terence Jamison looks an awful lot like his dad. He seems like a pretty nice fellow, too.”

“You didn’t actually talk to him, did you?”

“Well, of course I did, Amelia. I wanted to get to know who you were spending the summer with.”

“With whom I was spending the summer, Daddy,” I corrected, inadvertently using the affectionate name that I’d abandoned at age twelve.

He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and laughed. “Thank you, my little English scholar. Come on, your mother and Barbara made ice cream tonight. We managed to save you some.”

“I don’t want any ice cream,” I said petulantly to the man who had ruined my social life.

“It’s peach.”

“Well, maybe a little.”

Lily and I walked to rehearsal together the next morning. In retrospect, I was glad that she was with me to witness what went on between Neil and Danny.

We’d met early in front of my house. There was plenty of time to get to rehearsal at ten sharp, so we went at a leisurely pace.

When we got to the theater, Lily looked at her watch. “We’re way early; looks like nobody else is here. What do you want to do?”

We elected to meander around the small downtown area, peeking in store windows and generally watching the local businesses get ready for the day. We inhaled the pleasant, alluring fragrance of coffee wafting from the Confectionary. We greeted Mrs. Turcotte, out in front of her Little Paris Dress Shop, sweeping the sidewalk. We drooled over a pair of platform shoes in Gordon’s window.

We had almost forgotten our original plans when I grabbed Lily’s wrist. “Look! Now it’s late! We’ve only got four minutes.” We started to run.

Lily pointed. “Let’s cut through the alley!”

The alley along the back of the theatre was more of a side street. It was the shortest route from the boarding house where most of the New York cast lived and also where the smokers took their breaks. Lily turned into the alley and I followed, almost knocking both of us over when she stopped abruptly and pulled me back.

“Look!” she whispered.

I peered around the edge of the building and saw Danny and Neil, obviously engaged in a bitter argument.

“Look, I had nothing to do with that,” Danny was saying. “Sometimes you just don’t get the part you try out for. It happens all the time.” Their words echoed down the alley.

“That’s not what my agent said! He said it was in the bag until one of
your
people got involved.” Neil was looking up at him, and though his back was turned, we could see how furious he was by his aggressive stance. “Is that the way it is with you people? No Irish need apply?” He pulled back his fist and rammed it into Danny’s midsection.

The taller man was momentarily taking by surprise, but recovered quickly, landing what my father called an “uppercut” punch to Neil’s jaw. The two men staggered around a little, then Neil did some kind of kick that caused Danny’s knees to buckle.

He fell heavily to the pavement. Neil’s foot went up, as though he was preparing to stomp on his prostrate opponent.

Lily and I gasped loudly.

Neil glanced in our direction, realized that someone was watching, and began to back away, saying, “This isn’t the end of it, DiNicco. I know people in the city too. Plenty of ’em. Payback time will come, just remember that.” He disappeared into the back entrance of the theater.

Clearly still stunned, Danny pulled himself up until he leaned against the building, shaking his head. He coughed, called Neil a shocking name, then squared his shoulders and followed his adversary inside. He either hadn’t noticed our presence or he was pointedly ignoring us.

The two of us stood frozen to the spot. I suddenly felt sick.

“What do we do? Are they going to start fighting again inside? Do we tell Terence?”

Lily’s voice shook a little. “L-leave it alone. It’s none of our business. Come on, we’re late already.”

~~~

Once inside, Lily and I looked around for the two men.

“Where’d they go?”

“Let’s just drop it for now. I’ll see what I can find out from Neil later.” Lily looked into the auditorium. “It looks like Irene and Terence are still having orchestra rehearsal. We’re not that late, after all. Let’s go get a candy bar or something.”

“Oh look, there he is again,” I whispered to Lily as we approached the snack machines. “Mr. Gilly Dickensen. He’s doing sound, you know.” I crooked my fingers into quotation marks.

Looking even scruffier than the last time I’d seen him, he was standing by the candy machine, waiting his turn as Janey Johnson deposited her coins. Predictably, the mechanism balked again, stubbornly refusing to release the Life Savers she’d selected.

Janey struck the glass rather feebly.

“Here, let me help you,” Gilly said. He deposited his coins in the slot and selected Life Savers again.

“What are you doing?”

He held up his hand. “Just watch.” He pulled the lever and two rolls of candy thunked into the bin.

“
Voila
.” He presented the prize to Janey.

“You do sound, don’t you?”

He nodded and smiled.

“Well, try to come in on time with the hoof beats in the second act. They’ve been late the last two times.” She turned and walked away without a word of thanks.

Gilly muttered a derogative canine metaphor.

Lily and I emerged from behind the telephone booth.

Gilly held up the extra roll of Life Savers. “Either of you want this?”

“Sure,” Lily said, and caught the tossed roll. “Thanks.”

Looking at the door Janey had just gone through, he repeated the nasty expression and stalked off.

“He used to be a nice kid.”

“When was that?” I asked. “When he was a baby?”

“I agree with what he called her,” Lily admitted, “but I’m too much of a lady to say it. I never use that word.”

Imitating Bambi’s friend Thumper, I said nothing.

“Hurry!” Terence chided as we filed down the center aisle a few minutes later. “We have much to do today.” He pointed to me and several others. “While the tech crew is working on the set, I want you tenderfeet to attend a little tutorial with Irene.”

The pianist stood. She was carrying a large metal tackle box and a lumpy canvas bag.

“Run along, now,” Terence instructed.

I turned to Lily and whispered, “What’s this about?”

“You’ll like it! C’mon, I’ll go with you!”

A few minutes later we were under the stage in one of the dressing rooms, a dozen or so of us bunched together, prepared to learn about stage makeup.

“Why are you putting that goop on your face first?” Adele Foster, one of the middle-aged chorus members asked. “I thought that was for taking makeup off.”

Irene continued to dip her fingers into a large blue-and-white container and smear a thin coat of cream across her cheeks. Her dark hair had been pulled back into a pony tail and she wore a towel around her neck, fastened at the front with a hair clip.

“It is. You see, putting this on your face now makes it easier to take the makeup off later. Pancake base can be stubborn stuff without it.”

She picked up a white, round compact about the diameter of a doughnut and unscrewed the top, revealing a flat brownish surface. “You’re all going to need to buy your own one of these. Just make sure it’s Tan Number Two, like this.”

She pulled a sponge from one of the little shelves in her big tackle box and dampened it with some water she’d put in a bowl. Leaning toward the mirror standing on the counter, she wiped the sponge on the Pan-cake and dabbed color on her face.

“And you put it on like this.”

“But it’s so dark,” Adele objected. “I usually wear a much lighter shade of foundation, called Nude Ivory.”

Over my shoulder, I heard my high school classmate Ben Patchke snort and whisper, “She said
nude
!”

Lily and I shot glances at each other.
Boys!

Irene shook her head slightly as she continued applying the makeup base. “The stage lights make the paler shades bleach right out. You’d look like a ghost onstage in that color.” She began dabbing the makeup around her chin and down her neck. “By the way, you also don’t want to use any orangey shades of lipstick. They don’t look right under the stage lights, either. Be sure to wear something like this.” She held up a tube. “Fire and Ice. It’s kind of a blue-red.”

In the intervening years since this tutorial, the rate of my makeup consumption would have put Revlon and Maybelline out of business. But at this age, I was only allowed to wear a little light pink lipstick and a touch of powder, so the process fascinated me. I watched intently as Irene proceeded to show us how to line our eyes.

“Guys, too?” Ben Patchke whined. “Do we hafta wear that stuff too?”

Irene was performing a dangerous-looking application of red to the inside corner of her eye. It was supposed to intensify the white part of your eyes. When she was finished, she answered, “Yes, but a little bit more modified. You’ll definitely need base, rouge, eyeliner and eyebrows to define your features onstage. You can go light on the lipstick and not bother with the eye shadow.”

“Gee, thanks,” Ben muttered.

Lily and I giggled.

Lily raised her hand, just as though we were in school. “I brought my own makeup kit from last year.” She held up a small tackle box, only one tier. “Can we practice?”

“Great idea,” Irene agreed.

Lily grabbed my arm. “Come on,” she said, “You can use mine until you get your own.”

“My mother says it’s not a good idea to share makeup.”

“D’you think I’ve got cooties?”

“No. Germs, maybe, but not cooties.”

“All right, then!” Lily pushed me down in a chair in front of the long dressing room mirror. I noticed it was just a series of cheap full-length mirrors mounted horizontally on the wall. “Let’s start with the cream.”

“We look like clowns,” I said as we trudged out of the dressing room an hour later. “It feels all heavy on my face. Why do we need so much?”

“We look like actors.” Lily twirled, ballet-style, just before we entered the door behind the stage. “You heard Irene. Our faces would fade in the lights without this makeup.”

“Quiet in the wings!” a voice bellowed.

Chastened, I whispered, pointing to a printed list we’d been given. “I can’t afford all this stuff.”

Lily smiled condescendingly and whispered, “I’ll share with you. You get your own eyeliners and things, but we can both use the stuff like powder and—”

“I believe I said QUIET!” the bellower interrupted. It was Terence.

I put a finger to my lips and pointed to the stage exit. We sneaked up the side aisle, looking back at the activity onstage. Neil was there, dancing, and so was Danny. They were each with their own partners, and not paying much attention to each other. Lily and I exchanged significant looks.

Terence was really putting the principal actors through a dance workout. “Turn, turn,
arabesque
,
entrechat
, now lift!” he called, keeping time by beating the end of a yardstick on the stage floor. “No, no, no, she’s not a sack of potatoes, man. Lift! That’s right!”

The theatre doors closed behind us. We spoke softly, but the lobby echoed as Lily whispered, “At least they didn’t start knocking each other around on stage.”

I was optimistic. “Maybe they made up.”

Lily shook her head doubtfully. “I hope so, but I doubt it. Maybe they’re just too tired right now to fight. Did you see how Terence was working them? They were all dripping with sweat. Boy, I’m glad I’m just in the ensemble! You want to split a Hershey bar?” She held up some coins.

“Sure,” I said glumly. “Candy. It’s what children like, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yeah, right.” She put the money in the snack machine. “Is your dad coming to get you again tonight?”

I heaved a huge sigh. “Yes. And it’s no use arguing with him about it.”

“Wait till the rehearsals go until three in the morning. I bet he’ll give you a break.”

“Are you kidding? That’s when he’s even more likely to show up. Protect me from vampires or something, I suppose.” I accepted the chocolate and took a big bite.

“Well, hello, Clarabelle! Or is it Bozo?”

I whirled to see Gilly Dickensen, lighting a cigarette.

“You’re not supposed to be doing that in here!” I hissed. A speck of chocolate flew from my mouth.

He smiled lazily, pocketed his matches and took a long drag. “Whatcha gonna do, report me?”

“I might.” I would have said more, but my mouth was full.

He shook his head and stroked his practically nonexistent beard. “No way they’d get rid of me. I’m the only one they’ve got to help with sound.”

I chewed and swallowed. “Terence could find somebody else.”

He tossed his head to get hair out of his eyes. “Not somebody who works for free. I’m a volunteer, just like you are. They’re operating this thing on a shoestring.”

“Well, you’re too young to smoke. You look ridiculous.” I licked chocolate off my fingertips. It wasn’t proper etiquette, but who cared what Gilly Dickensen thought?

He took a long drag and blew a stream of smoke in my direction. “This is coming from somebody who looks like a baby raccoon. Speaking of kids, did you finish the Lifesavers I gave you?” Before I could splutter a correction—he’d given the candy to Lily, not me—he raised his cigarette hand. “Gotta book it. Peace.” He strolled away.

Lily was licking chocolate off her fingers too. “What a nerd.”

“You could have backed me up just now.”

“It’s a waste of time. He’s turned into a terminal nerd. Nothing you can do about boys like that.”

~~~