They call her Dana (52 page)

"It isn't over yet," I said dryly, thinking of Carmelita.

Onstage the wicked Hugh writhed on the floor and finally managed to stand up just as Lorena came into the basement, a triumphant smile on her rouged lips and the Manners-Croft rubies around her throat. She informed him that Sir Roderick had given her the rubies in return for telling him the whereabouts of his daughter and said she planned to live a life of luxurious

sin on the Continent. Hugh staggered and spluttered, calhng her a treacherous hussy. Lorena laughed and then widened her eyes in horror as Hugh pulled a dagger out and stumbled toward her. She screamed and died quite dramatically and Hugh stood over her and reeled back and forth and then fell to the floor beside her as the curtain came creaking down.

Laura and Hugh hied themselves offstage, and the cot and tray of food were quickly removed and the backdrop yanked up and the antechamber backdrop pulled down. Michael and I stepped aside as a crewman hurried past us with one of the huge columns under his arm. The scene was changed in less than three minutes, and Michael hurried ofl" to change into his elegant smoking jacket and Carmelita joined me in the wings, wearing a gray silk morning gown trimmed with blue velvet ribbons.

"You treacherous slut!" she whispered. "I saw what you did. You did it deliberately! No pie-faced little upstart is going to steal a play from me, I can assure you. I'm going to destroy you."

"Indeed?"

"Just you watch!"

The curtain came up and Ollie and Bartholomew strolled onstage and the butler told Lord Roderick's mother that die villain and his paramour were dead and the rubies reclaimed and Cora safely returned, shaken but unharmed. Lord Roderick's mother sniffed her smelling salts and said Thank God and added that she assumed the wedding would still take place that afternoon, she must tell everyone to proceed with their plans. Carmelita and I moved onstage, her arm around me, she very grand, me dejected and downcast but smiling bravely. My grandmother seized my hands and told me I must forget this terrible nightmare and get on with my life. I nodded. She kissed my cheek, and she and the butler left. Angela removed her arm from around my waist and moved around to face me.

"She's right, you know," she said. "You must forget all this horror.'' ^

"I—I'll never be able to forget it. Life—life outside the convent is wicked and ..."

I continued my noble speech and Carmelita listened attentively and gradually moved upstage so that I would be forced to turn my back to the audience if I continued addressing her di-

rectly. I didn't turn. I paused, leaving her standing upstage and at a loss. Silence. I touched the spray of white flowers fastened in my hair and gazed pensively into space, thinking about the convent and the joys of solitude. Carmelita looked like an absolute fool.

"You—you had something else to say?" she inquired.

"When you are prepared to listen, dear Angela."

She moved back down and stood in front of me, and I went on with my speech. She fussed with the ribbons on her gown. She brushed her skirt. She spotted a bit of lint on her sleeve and plucked it away. She managed to distract the audience quite successfully. They were watching her instead of listening to me. A smug little smile played on her lips as I spoke the final words of my speech. Very well, you bitch, I thought. Two can play this game. I maintained a pure and noble stance, but I was steaming inside.

"You may be right, child," Carmelita declared, launching into her speech. "The world is cruel—I myself have suffered, I have suffered more than anyone could possibly know, and ..."

I wandered over to one of the columns and leaned against it. I arched my back slightly and my bosom rose and my bodice slipped precariously low. I made a surprised "O" with my mouth and adjusted the bodice and kept fooling with it, trying to straighten it and contain my breasts, and there wasn't a person in the theater who heard a word Carmelita was saying. She finished her speech, cheeks burning a bright pink with anger, and Lx)rd Roderick came onstage in his splendid gray velvet smoking jacket. I told him of my decision to go back to the convent. He took my hands. He looked into my eyes. He folded me to him.

"You little minx," he whispered. "Where did you learn such tricks? Carmelita is going to explode the minute the curtain's down."

"Let her," I whispered back.

"I have had my revenge," he declaimed. "I have defeated my archenemy and I have saved the Manners-Croft rubies, but, alas, I have lost the dearest thing in my life—my beloved daughter."

"You haven't lost me. Father. You have gained an advocate in Heaven. And you have Angela."

"Ah, yes—my darling Angela."

He extended his hand. Angela came to him and clasped it.

"I will be married to Angela," he declared, "and my daughter will be married to Christ."

"It is a very happy ending," I said.

Michael curied one arm around Camielita's waist and the other around mine, and we both looked up at him with beatific expressions as the curtain came slowly down. Carmelita tore free, her cheeks a vivid pink, her blue eyes flashing venomously. Michael restrained her.

"Curtain calls," he reminded her.

Billy and Laura and Ollie and Bartholomew joined us onstage, and we stood together in a line and the curtain came up. The applause was rousing. Each of us stepped forward to receive individual acknowledgment—first Bartholomew and then Ollie, then Laura, then Billy—and when I stepped forward the applause was absolutely deafening. I bowed, careful with my decol-letage. The applause grew even louder. The theater seemed to shake with it. There were several cheers and a number of whistles. I moved back into line. Carmelita's face was white. Michael took his bow, and then the leading lady swept grandly to the foodights and made a regal curtsey. The applause was moderate. She nodded, waiting for more. People began to leave their seats. Carmelita rejoined the line, and the curtain came down.

"You bitch!" she shrieked.

"Now hold on—" Ollie began.

"Let me at her!"

She whirled toward me. Billy and Michael tried to restrain her, but Carmelita shook them ofl", blue eyes ablaze. I stood my ground, as calm as could be in the face of her fury. She was a bully, I sensed, and I knew all about bullies. I had learned about them in the swamps. If you ever let them intimidate you, if you ever let them get the upper hand, they would never leave you alone. You had to deal with them from a position of strength.

"No one upstages Carmelita Herring! Do you hear me? No one! You wretched little whore! You come from nowhere and try to usurp me, try to steal my play and steal my applause— you're not getting away with it! You couldn't act your way out of a gunnysack, and those teats you're so fond of displaying aren't going to make you a star, either! I don't know what Jason had in mind hiring you in the first place, but as of now you're finished in this company!"

She hauled off and slapped me across the face as hard as she

could. Ollie and Laura cried out. Michael shouted. I stood very, very still, my cheek burning. Carmelita smirked, very pleased with herself. Jason and Jackson hurried toward us. I tightened my right hand into a fist and drove it into her stomach with all the power I could muster, knocking the breath out of her. She grunted and her eyes flew wide open and she doubled over. As she did so, I clipped her on the jaw and sent her sprawling. She landed on her backside, skirts atumble, coifflire spilling down, her eyes glazed now. I placed my hands on my hips and looked down at her with cool disdain.

"Don't fuck with me, sister," I said, and Bartholomew almost fainted from shock. ' 'You might push other people around, but you're out of your league with me. You're an aging, empty-headed trollop who gives new meaning to the word affectation, and if you know what's good for you you'll stay out of my way. Next time you pull something like you pulled tonight I'll not only upstage you, I'll tear your hair out by the roots as well."

"Bravo!" Billy shouted.

Laura, Ollie and Michael applauded. Bartholomew was still recovering from shock. Jackson looked at me with an expression of admiration on his battered, bulldog face. Jason had no expression at all. He reached down for Carmelita's hand and pulled her to her feet. She was dazed, her blond pompadour spilling into her eyes. She sobbed hysterically. Jason led her offstage and toward her dressing room. Everyone was looking at me.

"Are you all right, Dana?" Laura asked.

"I'm fine," I said. "I suppose he'll fire me now."

"Oh no he won't," Jackson told me.

"You bet he won't," Billy exclaimed. "If he even thinks of it, the rest of us will mutiny."

"We certainly shall," Ollie declared. "That dreadful creature has had it coming for a long time. You were grand, duckie. I doubt seriously she'll fuck with you again."

Bartholomew gulped and mmed pink. Billy pounded him on the back. Michael grinned. Laura slipped her arm around my waist and led me toward our dressing room. The stage crew, every last one of them, applauded me lustily as we passed through the wings. By felling the detested and demanding leading lady, I had won their approval, their loyalty as well. I felt little triumph. I felt, instead, shame that all my fine polish had

melted away and I had become the little wildcat of the swamps again.

Jason had taken the hotel dining room for the evening and planned a lavish party for the company—lavish for Jason, Laura noted wryly. Everyone looked forward to it, and I had been looking forward to it, too, but now, after all that had happened, I was less than enthusiastic. As we changed, I told Laura that I would just go on up to my room and skip the party. Stage makeup removed, hair brushed to a gleaming blue-black gloss, Laura slipped into a white taffeta gown with blue and purple stripes, spreading the full skirt out over her petticoats. I fastened it in back for her while she adjusted the full puffed sleeves.

"You can't skip the party, love. You're the heroine of the evening."

"I—I'm really not up to it," I said.

"Nonsense. Carmelita won't be there—I doubt she'll show her face again until curtain time tomorrow night, and she'll probably be sporting a tremendous bruise."

"It's not that. It's—I'm ashamed," I confessed. "I don't ordinarily use that—that kind on language, and I rarely use my fists. Everyone—they must think I'm—"

"They think you're marvelous," Laura assured me. She smiled and took my hand, squeezing it. "This is the theater, love. High color and high drama are the norm. Everyone's liked you from the very beginning, but tonight you proved you're one of us. It's going to be.a festive party.''

"I don't feel very festive."

"Nonsense. You'll come and you'll drink some champagne— cheap champagne, if I know Jason—and you'll feel much better. You look glorious in turquoise, love. Another Corinne creation?"

I nodded, adjusting the low-cut bodice.

"You're going to dazzle everyone. Ready?"

"I suppose. Laura, I would really much rather just skip the party and go on up to my room.''

"Not a chance, love. Come along. We'll be late."

The hotel, large and ramshackle, was on the edge of town, a large verandah surrounding it. Lights glowed in several windows, despite the late hour, while from the dining room sounds of great merriment drifted out into the night. The party was apparently already in full swing, I thought as Laura and I climbed

up the creaking wooden steps to the verandah. I was still feeling a little apprehensive as we passed through the shabby but comfortable lobby, and then we went into the dining room and I was immediately surrounded. OUie gave me a welcoming hug. Billy thrust a champagne glass into my hand. Bartholomew waved from the table where he was sitting with Theodore. Theodore had his own chair, and he contentedly lapped champagne from his own glass.

"You're right, duckie," Ollie informed Laura. "It is cheap champagne, but deliciously bubbly just the same."

She was wearing deep opal velvet, dangling jet earrings and a jet necklace, her blazing curls caught atop her head with a black velvet bow. How outrageous she looked, how theatrical, and how very endearing she was. She told me I had surpassed her fondest hopes. I had been positively wonderful, had such amazing presence. I had dominated the stage, she assured me. A natural-bom actress, no question about it. She gave me another hug, clearly already a bit the worse for champagne.

The room was quite crowded. All the stage crew were here, several of them with local girls, and Billy's trio of belles fluttered around him, feeling wonderfully wicked to be in such fast company, no doubt. Dulcie was at the buffet table, helping herself to oysters and boiled shrimp and green salad. Our leading man was beside her, looking rugged in his battered tan kidskin jacket and a red bandanna. They wgre both laughing, and Dulcie gave him a playful nudge. He turned and saw me and, brushing a sun-streaked golden-brown lock from his brow, sauntered over to wrap his big arms around me and squeeze.

"Hello, beloved daughter," he drawled. "How're you feel-in'?"

"I think you just broke a rib," I told him.

He grinned and hugged me again, even tighter this time, then looped an arm around my shoulders, his clear gray eyes full of brotherly affection. Michael Prichard was indeed like a brother already, and I felt wonderfully secure with him. His breezy charm and casual manner and lazy drawl had made him an immediate success with everyone in the company, and his potent virility and rough but wholesome good looks had caused a stir in the hearts of two of the women. Carmelita had made immediate advances but had been politely rebuffed. Laura still pre-

tended to find him an uncivilized lummox, but I suspected she was weakening. Michael was determined to win her over.

"We'd better get you some food before Dulcie eats it all," he said. "You like oysters?"

"I love them."

"By the way, that was quite an impressive one-two you delivered back there onstage. I could have used you back when I was fighting Comanches. Where'd you learn to punch like that?"

"I grew up in a tough neighborhood," I replied blithely. "Did you really fight Comanches?"