Rehearsal for Murder (Maggie Ryan) (7 page)

“Oh, can that,” said Larry vehemently. “What’s the point in rehearsing it?”

“We’ll save it,” said Derek. “It’s important to the show.”

“Ramona wants the show to be perfect,” Nick said. “She’ll see reason.”

“Ah, yes,” said Larry bitingly. “Quite the expert on her state of mind, aren’t you? Especially when she’s in a coma.”

“Yeah, in my spare time I practice telepathy.” Nick and Larry glared at each other.

“Let’s go, Larry!” Derek broke in briskly. Obediently Larry and Daphne began working on the number, a philosophical reflection on the joys and pains of leading a great empire, salted with bits of Disraeli’s wit. But some of the zest had gone out of Larry’s performance, and worry about Ramona gloomed over them all.

“And what was your favorite?” asked Edith.

“Hamlet, of course,” said Larry.

“Oh, God, the biggie! Where did you play him?” Edith stretched an arm past Nick and across the scarred table of the booth to tap cigarette ashes into the dented metal ashtray in front of Jaymie. Mike’s Place, read the ashtrays before they were filled with butts. This was not Mike’s Place. The sign painted on the window said Guarneri’s Coffee Shop, but for all Nick knew that might have been recycled too, like the Mike’s Place ashtrays and the Gimbels bags that enclosed the take-out sandwiches and coffee. Anna Maria, the plump owner, was not a spendthrift.

“In the Oregon boonies,” Larry answered curtly.

But Edith, who had just confessed over a cottage cheese and pineapple salad that her own favorite role had been Fräulein Schneider in a road company o
f
Cabare
t
, seemed determined to keep the conversation away from their worries. “What’s so great about that part?” she demanded. “I mean, from an actor’s point of view. Not a professor’s.”

“Lots of solos,” said Larry bitterly, then thought better of it and gave her a quick grin to pretend that it was only a quip. In a more civilized tone he went on, “Actually the complexity is what’s fascinating. This Oregon thing was a summer festival. A good experience because I had time to work with the part and with the director. Not your usual stock situation, where you’ve got maybe a week to plumb the depths of a character and figure out how to get it across. And Hamlet is so human—frail, frightened, full of passionate love and passionate hate.”

“And passionate wit,” said Nick.

“That too. Black humor. And when you come right down to it, can any motive be more powerful than revenge? A father killed, a mother stained—that complicates a guy’s life, even without that ghostly cheering section. Anyway, I’d hate to try the role with a New York rehearsal schedule. This cartoon version of Dizzy is about the deepest you can go in the short time you get here.”

“What about you, Nick?” asked Cab.

“Oddly enough, no one ever thought to cast me as Hamlet,” Nick confessed, running a hand self-consciously across his bald head. “But one brave fellow cast me as Cyrano once in summer stock. I loved it. It was a great change from the businessmen or evil kings or clowns that I usually get. Wildly romantic.”

“Not that you got the girl,” Larry said.

“Sure I did, spiritually!”

Larry snorted but Edith the peacemaker headed off the incipient quarrel. “Jaymie! What was your favorite role?”

Jaymie had been sitting pensively, listening quietly to the others and sipping on a Sprite. She raised her eyes now and said, “Hedvig. I
n
The Wild Duc
k
.”

“Hedvig?” Edith frowned.

“That’s the little girl, isn’t it?” asked Nick. “The one who shoots herself to prove she loves her father?”

“Yes, that’s right. I was twelve when I played her. A rep company in a Chicago suburb jobbed me in.”

“What was fun about it, honey?” asked Edith, mystified.

Jaymie pushed the can away and frowned. “Not fun, exactly. Just—a revelation.”

“That’s funny. You’ve done a lot of musicals, haven’t you? I think they’re more fun. Did you like it just because it was different?”

“Yes, partly. I’d always done these little-girl things. Song-and-dance, like showing off for Daddy before he—Or you know, baton twirling, tap dancing. So Hedvig was the first time I’d really acted. Got out of myself into someone else’s skin. Before, I was always little Jaymie the trained dog, you know? Good at jumping through hoops. But in that show I learned there was much more to acting than that.”

“Yeah, that’s a heady moment,” Nick agreed. “When you find you can be anything. You’re not limited to your own boring self. Suddenly you have a ticket to infinity.”

“Yes. And after that the other stuff seemed different too,” Jaymie said. “I might be doing Queen Victoria or Annie Oakley, but I wasn’t just going through the motions anymore. I could really be Annie Oakley, even though she has these silly songs.”

Anna Maria appeared by their booth, teetering on thick-stacked clogs, a pad in the too-tight band of her black apron. Frugal with personnel as well as ashtrays, she ran the place with a part-time waitress and a part-time cook to assist her, filling in all the gaps personally. She peered at them through heavily mascaraed eyelashes and inquired, “Anything more, you guys?”

“No, we better get back upstairs,” said Edith.

Anna Maria pulled a pencil from the dense frizz of her hair and began to calculate. Larry, suddenly jovial, said, “Anna Maria, you’ve been onstage!”

She smirked, glancing at him over the edge of the pad. “Only in high school, you know that!”

He gave her the full dazzling benefit of the Palmer smile. “And what was your favorite role?”

She pursed her mouth and drew down her brows in fierce thought for a moment. “It’d have to be Hedda Gabler,” she said.

Nick managed to swallow the guffaw inspired by the thought of plump Anna Maria as the athletic, tragic Norwegian, but an unseemly snorting escaped Larry. Anna Maria stiffened indignantly. “Well, I know it’s a gloomy play and all,” she argued, “but she was trapped, you know? After that play I told myself, Anna Maria, you’re going to get a good job and hang on to it, or you’ll be at the mercy of some nerd just like Hedda Gabler was. So you needn’t laugh, chum,” she flung at Larry.

Edith said hastily, “It’s a wonderful play, Anna Maria. You’re right.”

“Well, I own this place, right?” She ripped the bill from the pad and smacked it onto the table. “And I daresay it’s more than you guys will ever get out of the theatre!”

“Ouch!” said Larry, fixing her with contrite dark eyes, all humor erased from them now. “Anna Maria, you are the most cruel woman alive. And the most honest.”

“Well—didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.” She gave a flirty little simper to acknowledge Larry’s apology and clogged her way back behind the counter to help another customer.

Reflecting on the unhappy raw truth that Anna Maria had presented to them, they settled the bill and dodged through the rain to the loft entrance next door. Upstairs, Derek was looking idly through the prop box, the stage manager was studying the prompt book morosely, and a few actors were warming up already. But they had to wait because Daphne was late. At last she banged through the door, tossing her damp raincoat into a corner and kicking off her clogs in the same general direction. “Fucking Human Services!” she fumed. “You get an appointment, tell them you have to get back to work, does it make any difference? They made me sit there twenty minutes while they drank coffee! And then they wonder why their clients can’t keep jobs!”

“You ought to just walk out on them,” suggested Cab.

“Hey, man, you’ve been on unemployment! This is worse! This is the third appointment I’ve had this week. Every other time I did walk out, but that doesn’t count in my favor, you can bet. Besides, the hearing is Friday afternoon.” She was stripping to her burnt-orange leotards. “And then they pop in with a home visit during working hours, and they pretend to be shocked to find a fifteen-year-old babysitting her little sister. Want me to get someone to babysit the babysitter. Christ!”

Nick asked, “What right do they have to meddle?”

“None! No right, man. Power is what they have. Raw power.” She was hanging her dashiki-pattern dress carefully on a hook. “See, they aren’t my kids. They’re my cousin’s kids. She OD’d two years ago, okay? And I took in her kids because we’d always been like sisters and because those kids need me. I mean, who else is going to be a mother to a fifteen-year-old black kid who’s been expelled twice?” She began to do a few warm-up stretches. “But the agency says no, I’ve been on unemployment too often, I’ve got a bad background, I’m not a fit mother.”

Her words clanged in Nick’s mind. How often had he been on unemployment? How would he score on the fit parent test? He asked, “What do they want to do with the kids?”

Daphne shrugged an eloquent burnt-orange shoulder. “Oh, there’s another cousin, a tight-ass schoolteacher, they think would set a better example. Kids hate her. Sort of a black Phyllis Schlafly, you know? I mean, the only reason Callie was expelled was that she talks back when her teachers put her down. You heard her mouthing off at Ramona, little idiot.”

“Ramona mouthed off at her,” said Nick.

“Hey, that’s the way this old world works. We had a heart-to-heart on the way home, about choosing battles. But hell, she’s a kid yet.”

Jaymie asked anxiously, “They won’t really take them away, will they?”

“Not while I live, baby! I’m ahead now because I’ve got good references and because the kids themselves vote for me. But those old bitches look at me and they see Angela Davis Junior. And they think I’ll raise the kid to be Angela Davis the Third. God!” Still propelled by anger, she bounded onto the platform. “I swear, that kid can be anything she wants as long as it’s not a social worker! Hey, let’s get busy. Where are we, Derek? ‘The Highland Fling’?”

“Right.”

They got busy.

IV

Wednesday evening

March 7, 1973

“See you tomorrow, Myra.”

“Okay, Mr. Bradford. And listen, get some rest, okay?”

“Sure. I’ll try, Myra.” Steve smiled benevolently at his secretary. Myra Goodwin was competent and grandmotherly. Her own beloved son had unfortunately become a gambler and had left New York for the headier atmosphere of Las Vegas. Steve had inherited Myra’s motherly concern.

“Yes, do try. You’re looking tired these days.” Myra ground out her cigarette in the big amber glass ashtray, then tapped an envelope that sat on the edge of her desk. “And here, don’t forget your wife’s plane tickets. I do hope Mr. Busby will be all right.”

“Thanks. I’m sure he will, Myra.”

He was lucky enough to find a seat on the commuter train, and glanced out the streaked window as they emerged from the tunnel. Gloomy and rainy; but warmer, at least, than yesterday.

He’d seen Maggie again from a distance today, soaring through the drizzle toward her mysterious destination, a scarlet umbrella shielding her and the baby from the drops. Her smile had been so bright. And she moved with such grace. Those long legs—he let himself daydream a moment. Did he dare hope?

Women came to the white hunter in his tent at night.

The train slowed and Steve sat upright in alarm. Where was he? Only Douglaston. He sagged back into the seat with a sigh.

He wasn’t there.

Not yet.

Derek hung up the phone in the stair hall and came back into the rehearsal loft. “Oh, Nick. You’re still here.”

“Maggie’s late tonight. Do you want me to wait outside so you can lock up?”

“No hurry.” Derek sank onto a folding chair. He looked desperately tired.

“Was that the hospital you just called?”

“Yes. I waited till the actors were gone so they wouldn’t come crowding around. But there isn’t any news. They say there’s no change.”

“Twenty-four hours.” That was bad. Nick looked out the big window that opened on a grimy view of the wet roof of Anna Maria’s kitchen. He shook his head grimly.

“You saw her, Nick. Was it terrible?”

Remembering, Nick nodded. “You know how lively she always seems, even just sitting still? All that energy was gone.” Once he had seen Maggie unconscious, and the shock had been similar: the limp emptiness doubly distressing because her radiant vitality was such an essential part of her presence.

“It’s hard to imagine.” Derek stroked back his faded hair, and Nick noticed that there were streaks of gray among the blond. “I just can’t believe anything could quench that spirit of hers.”

“Well, as you said, if she’s got any chance at all she’ll make it.”

“God, I wish they’d let me see her!”

“They have to do their job as they think best, I suppose.”

“Yes, but—oh, you’re right, of course.” Derek lapsed into glumness. After a moment there was a quick beat of steps on the stairs and the door opened.

“Sorry I’m late.” Maggie breezed in, shaking out a damp umbrella. “Sarah took her time finishing dinner. Hi, Derek!”

“Hi.” He rallied and stood up. “How’s the little one?”

“Fine, just slow today.” She had put down her briefcase and was unsnapping flaps preparatory to lifting Sarah out.