JP Beaumont 11 - Failure To Appear (v5.0) (6 page)
“I always thought booze was what made the first marriage go bad. Now I’m afraid I’m going to lose this one, too, that my wife will walk out on me. And I haven’t had a drink in damn near ten years. I ask you, what kind of deal is that?”
Good question.
The meeting finished up promptly at eight because the people running it were well aware that most of the out-of-towners would be rushing off to an eight-thirty curtain in one of the town’s live theaters, and theater is Ashland’s bread and butter.
As I hiked back up the main drag toward the Festival, I came to an out-of-order stoplight where a shorts-clad uniformed police officer was directing traffic. I found myself caught in a crowd of theatergoers waiting to cross the street.
“Mr. Beaumont,” a voice called from behind me.
Surprised to hear my name, I turned around. Red-faced and puffing with exertion, the man from the meeting came trotting after me, smiling and holding out his hand. Despite the early-evening heat, he was carrying a red down-filled jacket.
“Aren’t you J.P. Beaumont from Seattle?” he rasped. “Guy Lewis, remember me?” Running to catch up had left him winded, so much so that I worried he’d die of a heart attack on the spot. “I’m the one who bought your Bentley at the auction, remember?”
Primed, I did remember. Guy Lewis looked familiar because he was, although four hundred miles from home my brain hadn’t quite managed the critical connections.
Months earlier, under the helpful auspices of Ralph Ames, I had first met Alexis Downey, the director of development for the Seattle Rep. The two of them prevailed on me to convince the Belltown Terrace Syndicate to donate (read “unload”) the building’s cranky and mostly nonrunning Bentley to the theater’s first-ever charity auction.
At the black-tie affair, Guy Lewis turned out to be the poor stupid jerk who had paid top dollar to cart away the Bentley, which I regarded as an incredibly expensive piece of junk. For all I knew, he had to have the damn thing towed. I remembered watching him and his much younger and very blond wife be congratulated by the enthusiastic auctioneer. At the time, I had suffered a sharp pang of conscience to which Alex had applied the soothing balm of reassurance. She swore the money had gone to a good cause, and that Guy Lewis, sole heir to his father’s portable-chemical-toilet empire, wouldn’t even miss it.
Encountering Guy Lewis on the street in Ashland, I wondered if that was true. Would he shake my hand or punch me out? Remembering the Bentley, I would have bet on the latter.
“I didn’t know you were in the program,” he said.
“I don’t exactly go around advertising it.”
He nodded. “Me, either. It helps to have a place to unload things.” He sighed and shook his head as if warding off an errant thought. “Down here to see some plays, are you?”
I wasn’t prepared to say the real reason behind my visit to Ashland, certainly not to him. “Yes,” I answered.
“
Henry
?” he asked.
I had been in Ashland less than a day and had not yet adjusted to the way locals and visitors alike tend to shorten play titles to one-word monikers.
“Excuse me?”
Guy Lewis laughed. “Daphne and I are seeing one of the
Henrys
in the Elizabethan tonight. I forget which one. The Festival always seems to be doing at least one of those. They all tend to run together after a while. By the way, have you seen Alexis lately?”
My ears reddened. “Actually, Alex and I are here together.”
Guy Lewis grinned and slapped me on the back. “Good for you,” he said heartily. “Alex is quite a woman. Are you seeing
Henry
, too?”
I shook my head. “We’re scheduled for
Romeo and Juliet
.”
Guy Lewis nodded. “Oh yes,” he said. “We saw that two days ago. It’s excellent. Wait until you see the girl who plays Juliet,” he added after a pause. “She’s something else. By the way, there’s a little backstage get-together at the Bowmer right after the play tonight. Just a few people mingling with the actors. I’m sure Alexis would enjoy it. Why don’t you join us?”
“I’ll check with Alex,” I said.
By then we had crossed the street and walked far enough that we were approaching the brick courtyard located between the two theaters. The space between the outdoor Elizabethan and the indoor Bowmer was jammed with a happy, show-going crowd that was congregated around some central but as-yet-unseen point of interest. As we came closer, I heard the sound of music and laughter.
“That’ll be the Green Show,” Guy Lewis informed me. “Have you ever seen it before?”
I shook my head. “Looks like now’s the time,” I said.
I didn’t tell him that I had any kind of personal interest in seeing this hitherto-unexperienced spectacle. Together we worked our way over to the edge of the packed throng until we could see the action.
On a small raised platform, a group of dancers costumed in Elizabethan attire was performing what was probably a distant precursor of today’s square dancing. Behind them stood another costumed group of individuals, all of them playing strange-looking, mostly unfamiliar instruments. And in the middle of that group of musicians, tall and ramrod straight, stood Jeremy Todd Cartwright, honking away on a long, thin horn that might have been an old-time, fourth-grade Tonette after it overdosed on steroids. From the way his cheeks puffed, Jeremy was blowing his lungs out, but the resulting sound reminded me more than anything of a quacking duck. A tunefully quacking duck.
That’s a
krummhorn
? I thought. He’s going to support Kelly and a baby playing that thing? Give me a break!
The number ended. To a round of enthusiastic applause, the Green Show troupe gathered its instruments and started toward the entrance to the Elizabethan Theatre with most of the crowd moving along behind them. “Well,” Guy Lewis was saying, “there’s the wife. I’d best get cracking. Hope to see both you and Alex at the party after the show.”
“By the way,” I said, before he moved out of earshot. “How’s that Bentley of yours running?”
“Great,” he said. “Daphne found this terrific mechanic. He has it purring like a kitten.”
With a casual wave, he blended into the crowd. A moment later, Alexis Downey appeared at my elbow. “Wasn’t that Guy Lewis?” she demanded.
“As a matter of fact, it was.”
“What’s he doing down here?”
“Seeing some plays, I guess. By the way, Guy said there’s a backstage get-together at the Bowmer after the plays tonight. We’re invited to come along. If you’re up to it, that is.”
“Damn!” I was surprised by the sudden angry vehemence in Alexis Downey’s voice.
“Alex, what’s the matter?”
“Dinky told me about that party,” Alexis returned darkly. “It’s a very intimate little affair designed to pull in some very major donors. I don’t know who the hell they think they are, poaching on my fund-raising territory. All I can say is, it’s a damn good thing we’re here.”
She flounced away from me toward the entrance to the Bowmer.
“What do you mean?” I asked, trailing along after her.
“I have a verbal pledge from Guy Lewis that the Seattle Rep is a major beneficiary of his estate. If that bitch down here tries to change his mind, she has another thing coming!”
My mother died years before I met Alex Downey, but right then the two of them sounded like soul mates. As a child, I spent years waiting for that “another thing,” expecting it to beam down from the sky like a righteous bolt of avenging lightning. Alex may have been upset, but it pleased me to hear that echo of my mother.
Also like Mom, Alex is slow to anger. Once riled, though, look out. As we took our seats, I counseled myself to hold my tongue.
Actually, keeping a low profile is good advice when it comes to dealing with any irate woman. It merits special mention in a chapter dealing with “Hell hath no fury…” and all that jazz.
I don’t know that exact quote. I’m not literary enough to recall who said it, but avoiding scorned women is also sage advice.
Later on I would wonder if anybody ever bothered to pass along that judicious bit of folk wisdom to poor old Guy Lewis.
M
arried people do it all the time. They go to plays or parties or some other event so angry they barely speak to one another. I know I did it with Karen, but this was my first experience of that kind with a date. Even though she wasn’t necessarily mad at me, Alexis Downey was so upset that she wasn’t talking to anybody, me included.
As we waited for the play to start, I disregarded my own wise counsel and made a few feeble attempts at conversation. Alex rebuffed each one so totally that I gave up and kept quiet. When the play started, I watched. Alex continued to stew. I’m surprised the people seated behind us could see the stage with all the smoke that must have been roiling out her ears.
I guess I expected the words in a 1960s version of
Romeo
to be changed and updated, but as far as I could tell, the dialogue remained much as Shakespeare wrote it. The difference lay in the costuming and in what Dinky Holloway had referred to as “stage business”—the people and actions that come and go onstage around the principal actors, like background music in a movie.
Maybe everyone else found it perfectly delightful. Not me. I’m old-fashioned. If I’m going to endure Shakespeare, I want all the robes, capes, and costumes that make it
look
like Shakespeare. The priest who paraded around looking like a sanctimonious, Bible-toting Baptist minister didn’t set well with me. The Capulet party that Romeo and his motorcycle-riding buddies crashed turned out to be an old-fashioned ice-cream social. Those thuggish young men with packs of Camels rolled in their T-shirt sleeves and their slicked-back ducktails might have stepped right out of my Ballard High School yearbook.
Despite Guy Lewis’ rave review, I didn’t find Juliet all that terrific, but then I’m not partial to redheads. Right about then it stood to reason that a daughter who was headstrong and stubborn and who didn’t listen to her daddy wouldn’t rate high on my list of current favorites.
Of all the characters in the play, I sympathized most with old man Capulet, who, despite his white suit, straw hat, and good-old-boy mannerisms, was still, by God, a father trying to convince his strong-willed daughter to listen to reason. The Bard didn’t name his creation
The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet
because she shapes up and pays attention.
I don’t believe it was an innocent fluke of casting that caused Dinky Holloway’s Juliet, played by Tanya Dunseth, to be a red-haired beauty with translucently pale skin, while Romeo, played by a handsome young actor named James Renthrow, was exceedingly dark. I’d call James Renthrow an African-American, except the playbill says he’s from Jamaica. In deference to fully accurate cultural diversity, I don’t believe the term, “African-American” correctly applies to Jamaicans.
I will say that Dinky Holloway was doing her bit for the arts community in showcasing William Shakespeare’s immortal story in a “context designed to challenge the sensibilities of the audience.” That’s also a quote from the playbill. It seemed to me that Romeo and Juliet had enough problems to begin with without adding race relations into the already explosive mix, but then maybe that’s just the father in me talking.
During intermission, in an effort to pick up my end of the evening’s flagging conversation, I unwisely asked Alex how Dinky would, in these politically correct times, stage something like
Othello
, for instance? The question provoked an immediate firefight between Alex and me, much to the amusement of people seated around us. Our neighbors may have enjoyed the fireworks, but I was more than happy when action resumed onstage. I spent the next act worried that we’d still be at each other’s throats once the play was over.
I shouldn’t have. Alex isn’t one to pack grudges. Our intermission flare-up served to relieve the tension. By the final curtain, all was forgiven.
We left the theater in a throng of people.
Juliet
finished earlier than
Henry
. Outside, the noisy clang of staged swordplay told us the Elizabethan’s production was still in full swing.
“What now?” I asked, shivering in the surprising cold. “Head home, or crash the party?”
“Are you kidding?” Alexis demanded. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I want to know exactly what that woman is up to. The party won’t start until after
Henry
. If you want to, we can go over to the Members’ Lounge and warm up. Dinky gave us a pass.”
Dinky again, but given the chill outdoor temperature, the option of waiting inside made sense. We dodged across the street through a flock of waiting tour buses and hotel shuttles. Alex led the way to the side, basement entrance of what looked like an old house. Inside, a vestibule opened into a furnished sitting room where a somewhat weary hostess presided over a small bar. She offered us our choice of beer, wine, coffee, or soft drinks. I took a soda. Alex chose wine.
“What time does
Henry
get out?” Alex asked.
She, too, had slipped into Ashland’s contagious one-word-title syndrome. From reading the playbill, I knew the full title was actually
King Henry VI, Part Two
, but then, who’s counting?
Glancing at her watch, the hostess shrugged. “Ten minutes or so,” she said.
Alex and I retreated to a bench seat that occupied one whole wall beneath a row of old-fashioned double-hung windows. Setting aside her wine, she fixed her lipstick and dabbed powder on her nose. She reminded me of a soldier gearing up for battle.
“How did it go with Kelly?” Alex asked, snapping shut the lid of her compact.
That was one topic I didn’t want to touch. “Can’t we discuss something else?”
Alex retrieved her wine and eyed me shrewdly over the rim of it. “That well, huh?”
“Worse. I’d much rather make predictions about the party.”
“In other words, focus on my problems instead of yours?”