You Have the Right to Remain Silent (20 page)

The diplomatic thing would have been to keep silent, but Marian wasn't feeling very diplomatic at the moment. “Do you two have a history?” she asked.

“No,” Page said emphatically, and then laughed. “It's just that Elizabeth is interviewing potential fourth husbands, and I seem to have made the list of candidates.”

They went back inside. “For insurance, you mean?” Marian said as they took their seats. “Since her first two husbands died on her?”

“Something like that. Elizabeth works very hard at the ‘total woman' game. Being a high-powered business executive isn't enough. She wouldn't dream of living her life without a husband somewhere in the background to give her respectability—one that doesn't make too many demands, of course. And she's had exactly one child, enough to authenticate her womanhood. When I first met Elizabeth, she talked a great deal about motherhood but very little about her son. And oh yes—she paints or sculpts or something, to give expression to her ‘creative' side. What a cliché Elizabeth is.”

Marian didn't know whether to laugh or to feel sorry for the woman. She was glad when the lights went down and the curtains opened on Act II of
The Apostrophe Thief
.

The battles prepared for in the first act were now being fought, and the weapons the two antagonists used were the other characters in the play. Skirmish after skirmish was played out, with each one changing the lives of the participants in some way. About halfway through the act came the only scene in the play in which the two co-stars were alone together on the stage. It was a strange, edgy scene, in which it only gradually dawned on the audience that these two adversaries were attracted to each other, the way soldiers sometimes come to love their enemies. Sheila and Richard circled each other warily, dancing around this unexpected erotic element that had emerged to confuse what had been up to then a clear-cut hostility. But in the end each of them saw responding to their mutual attraction as a form of capitulation, and they both backed off.

“Whew,” Trevor Page said.

A murmur ran through the audience, and there was much shifting of weight in the seats. Marian sat there with her mouth open. That scene was one of the most sensual things she'd ever seen, and the two actors had never once so much as touched each other. Whew indeed.

The play ended with the two generals of the internecine war figuratively killing each other off. Sheila was successful in her attempt to dislodge Richard from his position of authority in the family business and within the family itself, but she wasn't able to do so without discrediting herself as well. The result of all their manipulating had been to draw the other characters together in a new unified front against them both. The last thing the audience saw was the entire family gathered together around a buffet table, laughing quietly and talking, making plans, in a scene of subdued celebration from which Sheila and Richard were excluded. Those two sat on opposite sides of the stage, apart from the others, staring at each other, wondering what had gone wrong.

The curtains closed. Dead silence.

Then a roar exploded from the audience—cheering, clapping, even some yelling from the more vociferous of the playgoers. Marian didn't know much about playwriting or the craft of acting, but she did know she'd witnessed something extraordinary that evening. So did everyone else in the audience; during the curtain calls, they greeted each member of the cast as a new Olivier. And when Kelly and Ian Cavanaugh at last appeared, holding hands and smiling, the noise was deafening.

Then Cavanaugh did a gracious thing. With a little bow and a one-handed gesture toward Kelly, he made his final exit of the night, yielding the stage to his co-star. As one person, the audience rose to its feet, excitedly cheering the new star they'd seen created that night. Marian's hands hurt from pounding them together so hard. A man appeared from the side of the stage, handed Kelly a huge bouquet of flowers, and disappeared.

Kelly Ingram stood there alone, with her triumph and her armful of flowers, openly basking in the waves of approval that flowed up to her from the audience. For the first time, Marian began to understand why her friend had been drawn to the acting profession in the first place. On impulse she turned to Trevor Page; they wrapped their arms around each other in a big hug, sharing the good feeling the evening had generated. On the stage, with a natural performer's instinct that had nothing to do with experience, Kelly knew the exact moment that the applause peaked and made a graceful, smiling exit.

Marian collapsed back into her seat. She was totally, utterly exhausted.

17

Backstage, the Broadhurst was wall-to-wall people. With Trevor Page in tow, Marian tried to work her way through the amiable, jostling crowd toward Kelly Ingram's dressing room. A TV camera was recording the cheerful chaos for posterity, or at least until the next newscast. A shouted interview was being carried out with a television actor, a former co-star of Kelly's. He thought the play was real terrif, he said.

The door to Kelly's dressing room was open, and the well-wishers and congratulators crowded in there were showing no sign of leaving. Marian gave up on trying to work her way in and looked around to find she'd lost Page. She found a place against the wall out of the crush where she could wait for the crowd to thin.

After a while it did, although plenty of lingerers remained. Page
excuse-me
d his way over to Marian, laughing at the scene he found himself in. “This is almost as good a show back here. Have you seen Kelly yet?”

“Can't get in. I thought I'd just wait—you don't mind, do you?”

“Mind? I wouldn't miss it for the world.”

Eventually Kelly shooed all her visitors out so she could take off her make-up and change. When she came out of the dressing room, she spotted Marian against the wall and started toward her; but four or five people closed around her and hurried her toward the stage door. Kelly looked back over her shoulder and called out to Marian, “Bradenton Towers, penthouse apartment A!” Then she was gone.

Marian and Page looked at each other. “Do you suppose that was a clue?” the latter asked.

“Could well be. Care to check it out?”

“By all means.”

It took them a while to get a cab, but at last they found one that took them to the Bradenton Towers building in the East Eighties. The condominium had a doorman dressed the way all doormen used to be dressed, like a general in a Franz Lehar operetta. “Name?” the general barked. Marian told him her name, wondering if she should add her rank and serial number. The doorman checked a list he had, nodded, and marched away.

“I think we're supposed to follow,” Page said.

The military doorman unlocked an elevator, commanded them inside, and punched a button marked A. He stood at parade rest as the doors began to close, inspecting them. At the last second Page snapped him a salute.

The elevator opened in a foyer of a luxurious apartment already crowded with people. When no one appeared to meet them or check their credentials or whatever, Marian and Page exchanged a look and a shrug and joined the party. Most of the people there were clustered in three little islands, the centers of which were Kelly Ingram, Ian Cavanaugh, and a small, dark woman. “That's Abigail James,” Marian told Page.

A roving waiter came by and gave them each a glass of champagne. A buffet table had been set up along one wall, but the party guests were still riding their high from the play and weren't yet interested in food. “I wonder who our host is,” Page said.

After a while the group around Abigail James was down to two people; Marian and Page joined them. When their turn came to talk, they introduced themselves and expressed their enthusiasm for the play, trying to avoid the usual clichés. The playwright answered with what was obviously a practiced public persona, polite but distant.

Then Marian asked
the
question. “Ms James, we were wondering if you would explain about the title.
The Apostrophe Thief
… what does it mean?”

A pronounced change came over Abigail James. First she looked startled, then a smile appeared on her face—a genuine one, not one manufactured for public appearances. “Do you know,” she said, “you are the
only
person to ask me that?” Marian shot a glance at Cavanaugh. “No, not even Ian,” the playwright went on. “Theater people would die rather than admit they don't understand something about a play.”

“
No
one has asked you?” Page said skeptically.

“No one. Not the producer, not the director, not any of the cast. But since you did ask, I'll tell you. It doesn't mean a blessed thing.” She laughed at their blank looks. “I just liked the sound of those words together, ‘apostrophe' and ‘thief.' High-handed thing to do, I know, but I was fairly certain no one would question it—not that I wouldn't have told the truth, if anyone had bothered to ask. Now all that remains is to see whether any of the critics will point out that the newest play on Broadway has an utterly meaningless title.”

Marian and Page were both laughing by the time she'd finished. “Abby?” Ian Cavanaugh appeared behind her, then spoke over her head to the other two. “You'll excuse me, I hope—I must steal her from you.” He didn't remember Marian.

When they were gone, Page laughed again. “No meaning at all. I feel cheated!”

“Do you?” Marian said. “I don't.” She looked over to where Kelly was surrounded by her usual contingent of admiring men and decided to butt in. “We've waited long enough,” she said, putting down her champagne glass. “Come on.”

The minute Kelly saw her she walked away from her admirers to meet her. The two women smiled speechlessly for a moment and then hugged each other close, both of them happy and excited.

After waiting so long to speak to her friend, Marian suddenly found she had no words. “Kelly, I am in
awe
of you!” she finally got out.

Kelly's smile got even bigger. “Never thought I'd hear that from
you
. Awe, huh? I hope it lasts at least ten minutes. Tell me I did good.”

“You don't need me to tell you that, but I'll tell you anyway. You were better than good. You were magnificent. Sounds melodramatic, but it's the only word that fits. You
were
magnificent.”

Kelly pursed her lips in mock-judgmental style. “I don't think it sounds melodramatic at all. I can live with magnificent. So, this good-looking man here—is he with you?” If Kelly was surprised at seeing someone other than Brian, she didn't let on.

“This is Trevor Page,” Marian said. “Trevor, meet Kelly Ingram.”

“It's an honor to meet you,” Page said. “Just as it was an honor to be in that audience tonight. This is a night I will never forget.”

“I like him,” Kelly said to Marian.

They sat down on a sofa, Kelly in the middle, and talked of the play, of scary moments (from the actors' point of view) when things almost went wrong, of Kelly's relief that her first opening night was now behind her. After a bit, Page slipped away and left the two friends alone. Marian apologized for sounding proprietary, but, she said, she was so proud of Kelly she felt she was going to burst.

Kelly said she didn't mind at all. “You know, Friday isn't the best day of the week for an opening. We'll probably be here all night, and we have two performances tomorrow. I'll have to get up at the crack of noon when I should be sleeping.”

“Does that bother you?” Marian asked. “Would you rather sleep than perform?”

Kelly made a face. “Hell, no. I wish we had
three
performances tomorrow.”

That would change, they both knew, as soon as the excitement of the debut wore off. Marian was happy for her friend for another reason. If anyone had earned the right to put on airs a little, it was Kelly Ingram. But she was the same good-humored, self-ironic woman she'd been the entire three years Marian had known her. Maybe that too would change, in time, as her prominence in the theater grew. But Marian didn't think so. For one thing, Kelly had already enjoyed a sizable amount of celebrity from her television career, and that hadn't spoiled her. Besides, Kelly was just too
Kelly
to let herself be swayed by the flatterers and the sycophants her newfound status was bound to attract.

Marian glanced up to see Page talking to Ian Cavanaugh on the other side of the room. Kelly followed her look and said, “Who is he, Marian?”

“FBI.”

Kelly laughed. “I ask you to tell me about a man you show up with on my opening night and all you can say is ‘FBI'?”

Marian grinned. “I'm just getting to know him, Kel. He seems nice—but then, so did Brian, once.”

Kelly sighed theatrically. “Thank
god
you mentioned him first! I was being so careful not to say the word ‘Brian' until you did. What happened?”

“I'm not really sure. He seems to have turned into a monster sometime when I wasn't looking. Or at least his behavior has been monstrous lately. Oh, I don't want to go over all that, Kelly. Brian is out of my life now. That's the way he wants it.”

“What about you?”

“That's the way I want it too.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. The whole thing was a mistake anyway.”

“Well, I will say you don't look as if you're about to jump out a window, so I guess I'll have to take your word for it. How'd you happen to hook up with the FBI?”

Marian told her a little about the East River Park murders, but not much; tonight was Kelly's night and Marian's concerns could wait. The hour was growing late; Kelly and her friends were waiting for the reviews, but that was a ritual special to them and Marian didn't want to intrude. She mouthed
Let's go
to Trevor Page across the room.

When he came over to say goodbye, Kelly said, “Listen, there are still some kinks to be worked out in the performance, but in another week or so we ought to have it right. Marian, would you and Bri—, um, Trevor like to see the play again?”