I
sat in the front row and kept my eyes on my wristwatch as a series of girls sang, twirled, recited, leaped around in leotards, and evinced no discernible talent. On the other hand, I discovered I had a real talent for peremptory commands and heartless refusals to give any of them an extra minute in the soon-to-be limelight. Julianna managed to give me a small smile while interpreting “Feelings” from a cassette player, but most of the others were too involved in their performances to acknowledge my presence. I did not allow my hypotenuse to get bent out of shape.
Once we had heard the antepenultimate, penultimate, and ultimate renditions of “The Impossible Dream,” I stood up and started to leave. Before I reached the end of the row, a dark-haired girl appeared from the wings and came down to the edge of the stage. “Excuse me,” she said, “but how is Mrs. Bradshaw? Will she be working with us now?”
“Mrs. Bradshaw's ankle was bothering her, and she went to lie down in the office.” I did not recognize the girl, who had not twirled, sang, recited or tried to convince an animal to do unnatural things. “Did I skip you on the rehearsal schedule?” I asked. “You may have a turn now, if you wish.”
“Oh, that's okay,” she murmured, fluttering her lashes
above enormous brown eyes. She had a pretty, heart-shaped face and a complexion that would shame a peach. The corners of her mouth turned down for a fleeting second and she gave me an encore of the flutters. “I'm not really into sick people, but I feel just awful about Mrs. Bradshaw. Is there anything I can do for her?”
“I'm going to check on her as soon as we're finished here.” I went on to introduce myself and admit my role in the proceedings.
“I'm Cyndi Jay, the reigning Miss Thurberfest. It's really, really nice of you to help Mrs. Bradshaw, Mrs. Malloy. We all feel just terrible about what happened to herâand I feel the worst of all.” As she shook her head, several of the contestants drifted out from behind the curtain to gather around her and shake their heads, too.
I looked at the serious expressions and all that shiny, bouncy hair. “Why, Cyndi? Did you trip her?”
“Oh, my goodness, no! It's just that Mrs. Bradshaw was on my mark when she caught her heel on that nasty nail and fell. If she hadn't been showing me how to do the ending, I would have been the one to get hurt.” She moved to the center of the stage and pointed at a chalky scrawl. “See? The nail was right there where I'm supposed to be for the touch-kick-touch-two-three-four-kick.”
Julianna timidly touched a royal shoulder. “You don't think someone pulled up that nail on purpose, do you?”
“Of course not,” Cyndi said firmly. “This building is just old and decrepit; it should be condemned. I'm really surprised it ever passed any wiring or plumbing inspections, and it's a miracle the ceiling doesn't collapse right on top of us. Why, there are probably a million nails poking out of the wood all over the place.”
“There are not,” came a now-familiar growl from the
darkness in the back of the stage. “I checked every nail on the stage last week so none of you girls would stub any of your pretty little pinkies. As for the roof, keep up that caterwauling you call singing and it damn well might collapse. The insurance company will consider it an act of God.”
Several of the vocalists stiffened, but Cyndi merely looked pensive for a moment, then came back to the corner of the stage. “Well, I'm totally sick about Mrs. Bradshaw's ankle, but we are supposed to run through the opening number for tomorrow night. Some of the girls are a tiny bit unclear about the steps.”
“So am I,” I admitted cheerfully. “Mrs. Bradshaw seemed to think you know what you're doing, however, so why don't you direct things while I go up to the office for a minute or two?”
She wrinkled her nose at the group hovering nearby. “If it's okay with everybody, I can try. We did a similar number at the Miss Apple Festival, and I'll be happy to help everybody so we'll look really, really swell tomorrow night for our moms and dads and boyfriends. And the judges, of course.”
At the mention of the dreaded triumvirate, the girls began to scurry across the stage to wherever they were supposed to be. Cyndi asked me to tell Mrs. Bradshaw how really, really sorry she was, and how she really, really hoped Mrs. Bradshaw's ankle wasn't hurting really, really, really bad. Although I doubted Luanne wanted such a hefty dose of reality, I assured her I would convey the essence of the sentiment and went up the corridor to the lobby.
The office door was locked. I tapped, then knocked, and finally pounded with my fist, all the while entertaining ghastly images of Luanne's unconscious form
sprawled across the carpet. She had mentioned a mild concussion, I thought worriedly, and was the sort to laugh it off all the way to the morgue.
I was glancing around for a battering ram when Caron and Inez came through the front entrance. Inez Thornton was Caron's best friend ( when not at Rhonda McGuire's house) and a perfect counterfoil for my daughter's histrionic approach to life. Inez must have peaked in her prepubescent days, for she was faded at the ripe old age of fifteen. She had limp brown hair, dusty freckles, a lumpy body, and flat eyes behind thick glasses.
The two were an interesting study in contrasts. When Caron wallowed in imprudence, Inez was there to pat her shoulder and offer circumspect analysis. Caron's mildest statements ended with an exclamation mark, Inez's every declaration with an implicit question mark. Caron flung herself off the metaphorical cliff. Inez looked a dozen times before she leapedâor dared to cross the street.
“What on earth are you doing, Mother?” Caron asked sternly. “We could see you from the streetâas could Other People.”
“Luanne's in there, and the door's locked.”
Inez blinked at her best friend's deranged mother. “Maybe she's asleep or wants to be left alone, Mrs. Malloy.”
“Then she isn't going to get her wish,” I said. “Go find Mr. McWethy and ask him if he has a key. I'm afraid Luanne may be unconscious in there. Now, go!”
“But we're not allowed in the auditorium,” Inez said with more blinks. “Julianna said it was off limits to everyone until the actual pageant.”
Caron jabbed her. “Come on, Inezâthis is an emergency, and we have a perfectly good excuse to go in
there and find what's-his-name for Mother. Maybe we'll see Cyndi Jay.”
I opened my mouth to reiterate the urgency of the mission, but as I did so Luanne opened the door. I rescinded the order and told the girls to wait for me outside the theater, then turned back to Luanne, who gave me a mildly inquiring smile.
“Good grief,” I snapped, “I was about to break down the door and stumble over your lifeless body. In spite of my aversion to reckless driving, I was going to accompany you in the ambulance to hold your flaccid hand in my sweaty one. Caron and Inez were going to sing a duet at your funeral. I was going to visit the cemetery every Sunday afternoon for a year, and twice on Memorial Day.”
“Do you want me to go in and expire? It'll take only a second, and you know how much I hate to see you disappointed. It makes your face turn all blotchy.”
“It does not. Would you be so kind as to tell me what you were doing in there while I was beating on the door?”
She led me into the office, which was furnished with a metal desk and chair, a small couch, and a large, plastic plant that had defied the laws of nature and died. The wallpaper was bleached with age; whatever flowers had once bloomed were long since withered. Asymmetrical tan circles on the ceiling resembled some I knew down the street in someone's bookstore.
Luanne sat down on the couch and dropped her crutches. “I was in the washroom. The water was running and I didn't hear you.”
“What were you doing in there all the time I was creating my Stephen King opus?” I said, still irked but not the least bit blotchy.
“I beg your pardon?” Miss Manners couldn't have done it better.
“Never mind.” I sat down behind the desk and idly tugged at drawers. “The contestants have completed their vain attempts at talent and are currently rehearsing the opening number under Miss Jay's supervision. Miss Jay asked me to offer you her condolences for your infirmity, since she is devastated by the fact that you were stricken when, in reality, she should have been the one to fall off the stage.”
“Did she read something to that effect in her horoscope?”
“She pointed out that you were doing whatever you were doing on her mark. Had you not done it in that precise spot, she would have demonstrated the unsuccessful half-gainer into the abyss. One of the girls asked if the nail had been pulled up intentionally, but our Miss Thurberfest was quite cool in the face of such bourgeoise impudence.”
Luanne did not laugh at my whimsical recitation. “I was in a few beauty pageants in my day, and there were some dirty doings among the contestants. Most of them were harmless practical jokes, butâ”
“You were in a few beauty pageants?” I interrupted.
“That's part of the reason why I agreed to direct this one. Now, don't get all self-righteous and politically correct about it, Claire. I was in high school and college, and I won enough scholarship money to get through graduate school.”
“I'm only self-righteous when I'm blotchy.” I gave up on the drawers, which were all locked anyway, and leaned back in the squeaky chair. “We'll leave this startling revelation about your past for another time. You
don't think someone deliberately tried to hurt Cyndi, do you?”
While she considered it, I watched Caron and Inez skulk across the lobby toward the auditorium and the heart-stopping possibility of an illicit glimpse of the queen. I couldn't think of a valid reason to stop them. They were apt to bump into Mac somewhere in the shadows, which would teach them a lesson far beyond my merely mortal capabilities.
“The girls adore Cyndi,” Luanne said slowly, “and I can't imagine any of them wishing her harm. She's not the competition. She's gone out of her way to help them prepare for the preliminary round. I heard her lecturing a group of them on the three B's of the runwayâbust out, belly in, bottom under. She's quite a pro.”
I tried the three B's, although I couldn't judge the effect since I was sitting down. “Well, you know better than I what goes on at these things, so I'm not going to argue over a nail. She's in good hands with our resident phantom of the playhouse.”
Footsteps thudded in the corridor, then Caron burst into the office. “It's Cyndi! She's hurt! You'd better come right this second, Mother!” She sucked in a breath, gave us a wild look, and dashed out the door.
Luanne was fumbling with her crutches as I hurried down the corridor after Caron. I stopped in the arched entrance to the auditorium. The girls were huddled in the middle of the stage, unsettlingly quiet. Caron and Inez vacillated in a shadowy corner.
“What's going on?” I called as I went onto the stage.
Her lips quivering, Julianna stepped out of the huddle and met me. “It's okay, Mrs. Malloy. Cyndi was just frightened, and that man is making her sit with her head between her knees so she won't faint.”
“What happened to her?”
“Cyndi was centerstage, demonstrating the cute little kick step she thought we ought to include in the ending. Out of nowhere this weight just plummeted down at her, and missed her by about one inch. If it'd hit her on the head, she'd be dead, Mrs. Malloy. I mean, completely dead.” She gulped as her words reached her brain. “I guess it was just one of those scary accidents.”
“Maybe.” I pushed through the girls and squatted down next to Cyndi, who had her face hidden between her knees. Her shoulders were twitching; her neck and bare arms were covered with goose bumps. Mac crouched on her other side, his expression tight and unreadable. “Are you all right?” I asked the girl softly, rubbing her back.
“She's fine,” Mac said. “You'd of thought the damn weight bounced off her head for all the squawking and squealing that went on afterward. I've heard worse from the henhouse when the rooster's on the prowl.”
Cyndi looked up with a teary smile. “I'm okay, Mrs. Malloy. I realize I'm being silly, but it came so close I could feel a breeze on my cheek. It hit right by my foot. If it had been a teeny bit closer, it would haveâ” She broke off and hid her face again. Her shoulders jerked as she tried to control her sobs.
Several of the girls began to pat her head and murmured comforting, if meaningless, phrases. I stood up and gestured at Mac to join me on one side of the stage. “Tell me how that weight happened to fall,” I said through clenched teeth, pointing at a small canvas bag that was, I suspected, filled with at least ten pounds of sand.
“Beats me. It's a counterweight for one of the backdrops.” He picked it up and fingered the bit of rope still
tied to a leather ring. “Looks like something cut partway through the rope. The
new
rope, let me say before you start dithering about my irresponsibility and potential liability and whatever else you plan to dither about.”