Winter Affair (5 page)

But he wasn’t able to convince himself completely. He was attractive to women, he knew that. Since his release from prison he had discovered that this remained unchanged; he’d had other chances, with other ladies, and had turned them down.

He’d turned them down because he wanted Leda Bradshaw.

* * * *

Leda shut the door of her dressing room and wedged the top of a chair under the knob to block it. She was dodging Chip Caswell, as usual, and he had a tendency to barge in unannounced, probably hoping to catch her in a state of undress. She sat in front of her lighted mirror and wondered what she was going to do about her leading man.

Chip was a veteran thespian in his thirties, with an extensive career in stock and a two year stint on a syndicated series for a cable station to his credit. This, plus several guest spots on nighttime television, had long ago convinced him that he was in league with Laurence Olivier. What he was doing playing opposite Leda in the outback of eastern Pennsylvania was anybody’s guess, but Leda suspected that it had something to do with his reputation for easy living and hard drinking. He had probably become too unreliable to sell to the networks, as evidenced by his late appearances for morning rehearsals, bleary eyed and hung over to the point of incoherence. So far his looks hadn’t suffered much, so he was still employable, and he enjoyed his work immensely, strutting around in designer jeans, posing like a male model. Leda thought he should have been one. His all-American-boy appeal was a strong selling point, and he was handsome if you liked the type.

Leda didn’t like the type. His goal during this theatrical engagement was to get her into bed, and he spent most of his time attempting to charm Leda out of her socks. And other items of clothing. The charm was beginning to wear a little thin in the face of her total unresponsiveness, but Chip was a patient man. He simply couldn’t believe she meant what she said. He was certain she would cave in eventually. And given his apparent track record, his conceit was justified.

Leda looked up at a knock on the door.

“Who is it?” she called, wincing. If it was Chip, nothing short of a death announcement would make him go away.

“Your roommate,” a woman’s voice answered.

Leda got up to remove the chair. It was Anna Fleming, the actress who played Leda’s mother in the show. She shared the dressing room. Anna raised her brows as she entered and saw Leda replacing the chair against the wall.

“Expecting company?” she asked.

“You might say that.”

“Young Lochinvar?” Anna asked, grinning. She found Chip’s pursuit of Leda an endless source of amusement.

“Very funny,” Leda said darkly.

“You could always hire a bodyguard. Honestly, sweetie, I don’t understand you. Haven’t you seen all those panting young things asking Chip for his autograph after every performance? Just think what they would do with the opportunity you’re passing up.”

“They can have him,” Leda said, sitting down again and opening up a new package of sponges to apply her makeup. “They can all read his press clippings together.”

“Have you seen my powder?” Anna asked, shifting things on her side of the room. She sat on the floor and unzipped a vinyl carryall, dumping its contents on the tile.

“Are you looking for that stuff again?” Leda asked. “Can’t you keep track of it?”

“If that tightwad Gary would get me a wig, I wouldn’t have this problem,” Anna muttered, picking up an emery board and starting to file her nails. “I look ridiculous with that junk on my head anyway.”

Leda smiled in silent agreement. Anna was referring to a decision made by Gary Randall, their director, who was notorious for pinching pennies. Anna was in her thirties, playing an older woman who was the mother of a girl in her twenties. Gary’s solution to the problem of aging Anna was to liberally dust her dark hair with talcum powder, instead of purchasing the gray wig Anna wanted. Leda and Anna privately thought that this tactic made Anna look like a thirty-two-year-old woman with a head full of dusting powder; it didn’t help that Anna gave off a small scented cloud anytime somebody touched her. Cast and crew alike referred to her as “The Dust Bowl.”

Anna had left the door ajar when she entered, and a stagehand came in with a plastic bag draped over his shoulder.

“Elaine dropped these costumes off earlier,” he said to Leda. He hung the bag on a coat rack fixed to the wall. “She told me to say you should let her know if the alterations are okay.”

“Too bad for me if they aren’t,” Leda said after the boy left. “I’ll be wearing those dresses in forty minutes.”

“Full house tonight,” Anna commented, now plugging in her electric rollers. “Gary informed me on my way in. Let’s hope Peter doesn’t fall into the orchestra pit.”

Peter Jenkins played the local merchant who married the old maid schoolteacher in the play. Peter was a former matinee idol in the B pictures of the forties, down on his luck now and reduced to playing supporting roles whenever he could get the work. The reason for his downfall was obvious. Although Chip often looked the worse for wear, he was always sober for performances, while Peter was usually dead drunk.

“Do you think Gary will fire him?” Leda asked. It amazed her that Peter had lasted this long. Gary didn’t tolerate much nonsense.

“Nah,” Anna replied. “Didn’t you know? Gary’s dad and Peter were friends in the old days. Peter got the old man his first job or something. Gary will carry him for the full run.”

Leda thought that over. Gary’s late father had been a big name in Hollywood, before the blacklisting of the fifties had ended his career. Gary had his faults, but he was very loyal.

“Here it is,” Anna said triumphantly, extracting a tin of powder from a hatbox on the radiator. “I forgot I put it in there.”

Leda turned to look at what she was doing. “Anna, don’t put that cardboard box on the radiator. You know we can’t control the heat in that old thing. One of these days we’re both going to go up in smoke.”

“It’s a wonder this whole place hasn’t burned down long before this,” Anna replied irritably. “When was it built, during the Revolution? What a firetrap. And whoever heard of doing
Picnic
in December anyway? We should be putting on
A Christmas Carol
or
The Winter’s Tale
.”

Leda didn’t answer, aware of the reason for Anna’s discontent. She’d recently gone down to the wire for the role of Nora in a PBS revival of
A Doll’s House
and lost out at the last minute to a mysterious late arrival. Anna subsequently discovered that the victor was the producer’s new girlfriend.

Leda sighed. Everybody knew that sort of thing went on in this business, but it still hurt when it happened to you.

Finished with her foundation, Leda picked up the tube of blood red lipstick she used to transform herself into Madge Owens.

It was enough to make an actress retire from the stage and become a librarian.

* * * *

Several hours later Leda was back home, sipping a glass of wine and trying to recover from an unmitigated disaster.

Everything had gone wrong during that evening ‘s performance. The crew missed their cues, the actors forgot their lines, and the prop man dropped a bucket backstage when Anna was making her entrance. During Chip’s big dramatic speech, which demanded the breathless attention of the audience, a cat leaped from the balcony onto the stage. The accompanist was a substitute, called in at the eleventh hour when the regular pianist took ill, and the new person brought his own sheet music, unfamiliar to Chip and Leda. The resulting dance scene, meant to be slow and seductive, looked more like a beer barrel polka.

Leda took another swallow, closing her eyes. Things had gone on in that vein all night, mistake after mishap, until by the final curtain Leda was seriously considering suicide. The bewildered audience had been gracious about the debacle, but that didn’t make the crestfallen company feel any better. Gary had given them all a pep talk afterward, which fell on deaf ears. Leda could only remember one performance worse than this, a college production of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
, in which she had played Titania. On that occasion Puck had fallen out of the plastic tree set up on stage for his revels, and broken his leg. Leda’s recollection of the rest of that evening was mercifully blurred, but the experience was sufficient to drive her to the registrar’s office the next morning, intent on changing her major from drama to anything else. The head of the department had talked her out of it when she brought him the drop forms for his signature. Up until now, she’d been glad he did. But she was discouraged once again. There were few things worse than making a fool out of yourself in front of a houseful of people expecting to be entertained.

Leda heard footsteps on the porch she shared with Claire, and realized that the other woman was coming home. The feet paused in mid-stride and switched direction. Leda got up as Claire rapped sharply on the glass pane set in her door.

“Leda, are you in there?” Claire called.

Leda opened her door and stepped aside to let Claire pass. Claire took in the bottle on the end table and glanced at Leda with concern. Leda rarely drank.

“What happened?” she said, taking off her coat and scarf and sitting down.

“What didn’t happen?” Leda responded drearily.

“Bad show?”

“You could say that. The performance we gave tonight would have been more appropriate for the Marx Brothers or the Keystone Kops.”

“Tell me,” Claire said, removing her boots.

Leda did, concluding with,“And to top it all off, Chip stepped on my dress in the third act and ripped out the hem Elaine put in, and I was tripping all over it for the rest of the scene. I’m lucky I didn’t try to walk away while he was standing on it, or I would have been revealed to the audience in the pristine glory of my strapless slip. And the rope almost came loose from the ceiling when I sat in the swing. I keep telling the grip about it; one of these nights I’m going to get pitched right into the first row.”

Claire sighed. “And I thought finger painting with first graders was exciting.”

Leda snorted. “I’d rather be doing that than headlining with amateur night in Dixie.”

“Just think of the experience you’re getting,” Claire said comfortingly, rubbing her toes. “You’ll look back on all this fondly when you’re accepting your Oscar.”

“Claire, the way I feel right now, I have a better chance of colonizing Mars than I have of winning an Academy Award.”

Claire got up and reached for the ashtray on the piano. She sat back in her chair and curled her legs underneath her, taking her cigarettes out of her purse.

“Are you going to tell me about it?” she asked quietly.

“I just did.”

“No, I mean the real reason you’ve been in such a funk lately. You’ve turned down two invitations to go shopping, one lunch, and a free ticket to a Broadway show. Either my company has begun to pall, or you are preoccupied to the point of catatonia. You seem to spend most of your free time holed up in here, staring at the walls. What’s going on?”

Leda didn’t answer.

“It’s him, isn’t it? That Reardon guy.”

Leda’s eyes flashed to her face.

“I thought so,” Claire said, nodding. “What’s up?” She lit a cigarette, shaking out the match and dropping it into the ashtray. She inhaled deeply, watching Leda closely.

Leda shrugged. “I saw him again the other night, when I went out to the Phelps hangar to pick up my father’s stuff.”

“You mean after you ran into him at the cemetery.”

“Right,” Leda said shortly.

“And?” Claire inquired, raising her brows.

Leda made a dismissive gesture. “Claire, I should be paying you by the hour. I’m sure you have better things to do than listen to my problems.”

Claire shook her head, exhaling a stream of smoke. “Nice try, kiddo. You can’t evade me that easily. Tell Mother all about it.”

Leda recounted what had happened at the hangar. Silence reigned when she finished, as Claire smoked thoughtfully, considering what had been said.

“Well?” Leda prompted her.

Claire’s eyes widened. “All I can say is, from your reaction since it happened, that must have been some kiss.”

Leda stood abruptly, pacing. “Claire, you’re not helping me. I can’t seem to put him out of my mind. What’s going on?”

Claire dragged deeply on the stub she held, then crushed it out. “Offhand, I’d say you’re hung up on this guy.”

Leda whirled to face her. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve only seen him twice.”

Claire nodded. “And you think it can’t happen like that? I’ve seen you supposedly bloodless types before when you get the call. You fall hard, and fast, and forever. This guy’s already got you talking to yourself and walking into furniture. Don’t kid yourself, Leda, you’ve got it bad.”

“This can’t be happening,” Leda said, pushing back her hair. “I’m not ready for this.”

Claire rubbed the bridge of her nose in exasperation. “Did you really think you could put it all on a timetable, a career alone for so many years, and then when you decide, when things are in order, you’d meet a nice guy, get married, have kids, tra la la?”

“I guess I did,” Leda replied glumly, sitting again and putting her chin in her hand.