The War Against Miss Winter (29 page)

I walked out of the dressing room and crept into the wings. I peered through a hole in the grand drape and spied the audience as they found their seats. Eloise McCain was seated in the third row, center, her veiled black hat obscuring her face. Henry Nussbaum sat house right, talking to a stylish older woman who might’ve been his wife. Lawrence Bentley in a well-tailored suit and a lingering scowl sat on the aisle. Hail, hail the gang was all here.

“Dabrowski’s Mazurka,” Poland’s national anthem, blared through the house speakers, only to be cut off and replaced by “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The audience cheered as the familiar piece started, only to gasp when it was replaced by Germany’s “Deutschlandlied.” If that shocked them, they were in for a long, uncomfortable night.

I backed away from the curtain and put my hands over my ears to temporarily block out the crowd. Behind me was the prop table, heavily laden with the various implements we’d be using throughout the night. I released my ears and rapped my hand against the wood. Everything would be fine, knock on wood. Nobody would die, knock on wood. I
wouldn’t humiliate myself, knock on wood.

I started to walk away, but the leg of the table snagged my skirt. The wood had been so damaged that it looked like a banana with its peel half off. Clearly this piece of furniture had been salvaged from someone’s home, where evil reigned with its almond-shaped eyes. The calm left me and Churchill weighed heavily on my mind. Stupid cat with his random acts of destruction. We’d be lucky if any of the furniture remained when we got home. And since when had he developed a taste for wood? The only time I’d ever seen him touch it was the day I’d found Jim and that was clearly to alert me…

Wood?! When Fake Fielding visited me at Jim’s office, Churchill had scratched his leg. He hadn’t bled; he hadn’t even reacted until he saw the cat dangling from his limb. And that portrait, that damn portrait in Fielding’s library, depicted a man with two good getaway sticks. Fielding would never have painted a self-portrait—it didn’t fit in with his idea of the artist being invisible to his art. Plus, Fielding was the one who’d lost a leg in the war, not Detmire, so why would Detmire sport a bum leg? Could they both have sustained the exact same injury, or was the man who claimed to be Alan Detmire as bogus as the painting that was supposed to be a self-portrait?

The music in the theater began to fade and with it went the houselights. Someone took my arm and led me back to the wings, then gave me a gentle push onto the stage.

I
N TOTAL DARKNESS
I
SOUGHT
my marker on the stage floor and took my position for the opening montage. As the lights came up, I forgot about Raymond Fielding and gave in to the peculiar energy of a rapt audience. My anxiety and nervousness mixed until everything but the moment before me was blocked out. I was terrifying, proud, and strong. If for a fleeting moment I pondered the stability of the klieg lights above me or the reactions of the darkened crowd before me, the sense of responsibility I had toward my character quickly quieted those distractions. By the time we whirled toward the end of the first act, I’d forgotten there was anyone there other than the seven women who shared my stage.

At intermission, we traveled en masse back to the dressing room and on Hilda’s command were not allowed to talk to anyone lest we lose the sense of tension we’d ended the act with. For fifteen minutes we clammed up while the building buzzed with audience members traveling to restrooms, having a smoke, and buying hooch from a temporary bar in the lobby. All the while we knew they were talking about the play. With the show halfway over, was anyone still worried that the information they feared would emerge in the second act?

A bell sounded that the audience was to return to their seats. Hilda barked the amount of time remaining until places, and we each gave our attention to the row of lighted mirrors where our faces appeared large and unfamiliar. Makeup fixed, hair pinned, costumes donned, we returned to the backstage area, took a collective deep breath, and plunged into act two.

The show passed more quickly than before, and though we each dreaded the deep emotion that might or might not come when it was supposed to, I was jubilant when tears began to fall and the sob I feared
I’d have to fake was so real and overpowering that I gasped my final lines and wondered for an instant if I’d ever be able to recover from the grief. As I lay in the center of the stage, the curtain dropped, the distance between its hem and the stage floor illuminated by the rising houselights. The grand drape reopened and I rose and joined hands with the rest of the cast so that we might bow in unison. The capacity audience filled the room with their applause, then leaped to their feet to further express their gratitude. Our human chain moved forward and bowed once again, then we snaked into the wings and one by one released one another until eight women stood alone.

“Congratulations!”

“I could use a drink.”

“Who’d a thought they’d be applauding this lousy play?”

We were giddy, jubilant, and a little punch-drunk. I passed out hugs like they were pennies for refugees and gratefully became part of the group, recounting those moments we knew went well and those which hadn’t, though the audience wasn’t likely to know. Family and friends drifted backstage, some with flowers, others with Brownie cameras slung around their necks. We exchanged introductions and received mixed accolades that made it apparent that most of the audience, while enjoying themselves, still hadn’t a clue what they’d just seen.

“Rosie!” Jayne breezed into the room and wrapped her arms about my waist. Before I could acknowledge her, she swung me around, then dropped me indelicately back to the earth.

“What did you think?” I asked.

She leaned in close and I could smell her intermission martini. “You were divine—absolutely. You broke my heart during that last scene.” She offered red eyes and a makeup-smeared handkerchief as evidence of my talent. “I don’t know what they’ll make of the show, but if you don’t get a paragraph of praise, I’ll eat my hat.”

“Rosie.” Tony B., red-faced and clad in a chalk-striped suit, emerged from behind Jayne. “You were marvelous. Absolutely. I had no idea you could act.” Though the words were intended for me, he couldn’t take his eyes off my pal. He may have been a louse—and one of Mangano’s louses
at that—but he loved her, that was plain to see.

I let him capture my hand in his oversized paws. “Thanks, Tony, it’s good to see you again.” Behind Tony hovered Al, looking like a lost child hoping to spy his parents in the crowd.

“Look who’s here,” I said. “Does this mean you’re speaking to us now?”

Al talked to the floor. “Jayne needed a favor.”

You had to appreciate his honesty. “What did you think of the play?”

His head turned in my direction, but still he didn’t meet my eyes. He was too busy trying not to look like he was watching Jayne’s every move. “Interesting. Ain’t never seen a play before.”

“And did this one make you want to see another one?”

He shrugged and fidgeted like a man in desperate need of a cigarette.

“So,” I said to the three of them. “Anything unusual happen during the show?”

They exchanged looks and silently appointed Jayne as spokeswoman. “Not a thing,” she whispered.

“Did anyone leave early?” I asked.

“It was awfully crowded, Rosie, but I think I might’ve seen Ruby sneak in halfway through the first act.”

So Ruby was safe and sound. Good news, I guessed, though now I was completely mystified as to what she’d been up to. “Any idea where she went?”

“Nope,” said Jayne, “but a fin says she shows up again before the evening’s over.”

An hour after the show the crowd dispersed with instructions to head to John Kelly’s, where a light reception was being served. While I was talking to Jayne, the rest of the cast shed their costumes and changed into their party dresses. By the time I was ready to do the same, the place was almost empty.

“Should I wait?” asked Jayne.

“I wouldn’t. Go on ahead and stake out a drink for me. I’ll be over in
ten.” I started to leave, then stopped myself. “Jayne.”

She hummed a response.

“I know this is going to sound crazy, but I don’t think Raymond Fielding is dead.”

“You’re right, that does sound crazy.”

“Even so, keep an eye out for him, would you? If he was clever enough to fake his death and masquerade as Detmire, he could be pretending to be anyone tonight.”

“At this point,” said Jayne. “Nothing would surprise me.”

The dressing room was dark when I made it upstairs. I felt for the overhead light’s pull chain and flooded the room. A huge floral arrangement sat at my dressing table. I plucked a daisy from the display, closed my eyes, and took a deep whiff.

“Do you like them?”

I opened my eyes and found Peter’s reflection watching me from the mirror. I returned the flower—worse for wear—to the vase. “They’re beautiful, but it wasn’t necessary.”

“After your performance tonight it most certainly was. You were wonderful.”

I turned away from the vanity and met him in real life. His suit seemed cleaner, his manner confident. “You know how potent fear is—it has the power to transform.”

“Give yourself more credit than that. You impressed a lot of people tonight.”

“Ruby won’t be too happy to hear that.” I sat on my dressing table stool and pulled the pins from my hair. “I understand she was here.”

The lines of Peter’s face turned vertical. “Who did you hear that from?”

“My girlfriend saw her during the show.”

“Well, if she was here, she didn’t make it known to me.” His hands flattened against his thighs and rubbed his trousers.

I brushed my hair until it lay loose and soft about my shoulders. “I guess the good news is she’s all right. I can’t for the life of me understand why she wouldn’t have done the show, especially since you two left on good terms last night.”

He glanced out the door and returned his gaze to me. “Do you know much about Ruby’s background?”

“Not really. Why?”

He sat on the stool beside me. “I mentioned before that we’d worked together on another Fielding play?” I nodded. “She was very young and had this incredible raw talent. Fielding was in the habit then of talking to all the actors in his plays, usually by telephone or letter, although in one or two rare instances he met them in person. He and Ruby apparently became quite close—so much so that he became a benefactor for her during her first few months in New York. Then, right before the play was to open, Ruby was offered a bigger, better part in a much more commercial piece, one she had pursued without telling anyone. She dropped out of Fielding’s show with almost no notice and appeared in a big show with a big part that was a big flop. Meanwhile, Fielding’s show also floundered. It was a good piece, but the actress who stepped in lacked the naturalism Raymond wanted. Critics savaged the production because of her, which Fielding considered inexcusable. The actors, after all, shouldn’t have even been noticed. Needless to say, he was very displeased with Ruby and the way she so easily swept aside his play for a piece he considered theatrical garbage. He implied on more than one occasion that he would find a way to repay her self-interest. She took on a stage name to avoid his retaliation, though naturally he was able to track her down.”

“Wow. So the missing play…Ruby believed it was about her?” My mind flashed back to Jim’s office. He’d mentioned a woman in his case notes, the broad with nice gams and a bad attitude. He couldn’t have described Ruby better if he’d included her 8 x 10.

“Yes, she’s convinced Fielding’s play will be her ruin. She even confided in me that she’d received letters to that effect. For months now
someone has been writing her missives that hint at scenes that depict Ruby not as a young, desperate performer but as a calculating woman who would stoop to anything—the lowest of casting couches—to guarantee her personal success.”

So that was why she took the job with Eloise. It had nothing to do with Bentley. She was trying to find the play for herself. “But what has that got to do with tonight?”

His face changed and something in it told me he’d fixed the whole thing.

“You forced Ruby out of the show,” I said.

He took a deep breath. “She left because I asked her to.”

“Why?”

He sighed and left his seat. “She betrayed Fielding. Since he was my mentor, I owed it to him never to work with her again, even if I wasn’t willing to drag her name through the mud as he may have wished. As I’ve said, the board pressured me to put her in the role, and from day one I found her weak and unconvincing. If this show was to succeed despite its script, I needed talent more than a name, especially a name Raymond himself would’ve reviled. I knew you’d do a better job, that you’d help maintain the spirit of what it was Raymond wanted. I also knew the board would never agree to it unless they believed Ruby had abandoned us. I’m sorry for lying to you this afternoon, but I didn’t want to make you complicit.”

He was pandering to my vanity, but that didn’t mean I didn’t like it. “How did you get Ruby to leave?”

He tilted his head and smiled at me the way parents do when their children say precious things. “As I said, Ruby was convinced the missing play presented her in an ugly light. Last night I told her you knew who had it, but you had refused to tell anyone the script’s whereabouts unless you could take over her role.”

“You did what?”

“I’m sorry I dragged you into this, Rosie. It was selfish of me especially since…well there’s no telling what her intentions were coming back tonight.”

Was I supposed to be scared of Ruby? The idea was preposterous, and yet I couldn’t disagree with what Peter was telling me. Was her career so important that she would be willing to kill for it?

“Don’t worry about this right now.” He put his hand under my chin and tipped my face upward. “You need to celebrate your achievement tonight. You were magnetic onstage. Heartbreaking. Vivid. And that was in a lousy play. You’re going to get a tremendous amount of work from this.”

I knew better than to believe the castle in the sky stories so many directors and producers wove for actors, but I gave myself over to Peter’s fantasy. “Did you really think so?”

“Absolutely.”

I pushed Ruby out of my mind and relived my final moments onstage. “It’s funny—tonight’s the first night I really felt like an actress. The whole time I was up there, all that mattered to me was playing the part, not because it was a job but because it was my duty.” I winced. “That probably doesn’t make any sense.”

“I think I understand what you mean.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “We make a good team, you and I. As I said before, I would love to work with you again.”

“Under more legitimate circumstances?”

His second hand joined his first. “You have proven yourself tenfold. I won’t have to deceive anyone to use you in the future.” He combed his fingers through my hair and plucked out the remaining pins. “We must be cautious about our next project. The audience may be willing to forgive this play because we took care to rise above the material, but next time they may not be so willing. Instead of being a great actress who was accidentally trapped in poor material, they’ll start to see you as someone who habitually chooses to be part of something awful. They’ll blame you for choosing badly, for even promoting bad theater, and, eventually, they’ll stop coming to see you.”

“Slow down, Peter. I just had my first victory. Don’t go ruining my entire career yet.”

He smiled. “I’m protecting my investment, Rosie. That’s all. I want to
make sure you choose the right path.”

I stopped his hand with my own. “Is that what I am, your investment?”

His eyes met mine in the mirror. “Is that what you want to be?”

I couldn’t answer.

“Who is he, Rosie?”

“Who’s who?”

“The reason you hesitate.”

“I’m not…” What wasn’t I? Hesitating? Over Jack? Ready to move on? “There’s nobody.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” He kissed the top of my head and the warmth traveled the length of my spine. “We could go far together. I’d like to think that my directing had something to do with your success tonight. Of course, if you go on to do brilliantly without me, my case will be much weaker.”

I tipped my head backward until I could see the real him. “I’ll tell every reporter that I learned the ropes from you. I’d never forget the little people. How could I when they’re there every time I look down?”

His smile disappeared.

“I’m joking, Peter. I’d give my eyeteeth to work with you again.” I turned back toward him. “So what should our next project be?”