Alien Nation #6 - Passing Fancy (2 page)

Iris, the managing producer of the theatre, was an independently wealthy woman who’d used her contacts to raise the money needed to run this operation, and who, Dallas suspected, had finally primed the pump mostly with her own money. Like a lot of patrons in the grand tradition, she was a fervent theatregoer and a passionate believer in the art, but ultimately, for all her sophistication, still an amateur. She’d never actually
worked
at the process from
within.
She’d only observed. An honest lady, if bull-in-a-china-shop blunt, and not remotely stupid—but Dallas found he had to guide her through everything like a child.

It was wearying.

And there were abstract intellectual concepts that eluded her no matter how well explained. Dallas had told her at the beginning:
A Doll’s House
was a classic, but it had not aged well and needed total verisimilitude to succeed. Plus, it would be the flagship production of a fledgling company—this in a town so suffused with movie deals that it actually viewed theatre (and
classic
theatre at that) as uncool. The production had to get attention and press, but it had to be the
right
kind of attention and the
right
kind of press. It was a long shot if done
well.
Therefore, if the actress in the role of Nora was laughable—or, perhaps worse, simply nondescript—the entire enterprise would lose its momentum. With no chance of recovery.

He’d seen it happen before.

He’d also tried debating large issues of artistic sense with money people before, and it was a losing proposition. So he responded to Iris only in simple, declarative sentences and monosyllabic words wherever possible. But he kept his tone respectful. In the end she was still the boss, and despite his significant East Coast track record, he could still be fired.

Getting fired. He’d done that before too.

“All right,” Iris was saying, “Claudia Callaway is too ‘lightweight,’ as you put it, to communicate ‘rage,’ whatever that means.”

Whatever that means.
Her inability to “get it” combined with the barely veiled condescension echoed dully in Dallas’s mind.
Oy,
he thought.

“But I want you to tell me,” Iris continued, “who have we seen who was
better?”

“No
one, which is why I urge you again to let me call Danielle Burstein in New York. She’s holding off another offer as a personal favor to me, waiting for the word. It’s no shame to have a ringer do the central role in a first production. In fact, guest stars in rep companies are something of a tradi—”

“No! This is for the young men and women in the area! I want them to feel they have a home here.”

Dallas lifted his eyebrows, raised his hands, as if to say,
Have it your way,
and gestured at the stage. “Then we keep auditioning. If we haven’t found anyone by the end of the day, I’ll give serious consideration to Miss Callaway, Fair enough?”

Iris allowed herself a curt, almost military, nod.

Dallas called up to the stage manager. “Buddy, who’s next?”

Buddy, a young apprentice, had been waiting onstage in dutiful silence. This was his get-ready signal to call and read with the next actress. He consulted his clipboard.

“A Miss Pauline Emperild.”

“As in the Perils of Pauline? Are you
serious?
What the hell kind of stage name is
that?”

“No kind. She’s Tenctonese.”

“Oh. Right.”

The Tenctonese. Newcomers, they were called. The beings from another world. Originally bred to be slaves and supervised by sadistic Overseers—who were creatures of the exact same species, with but a wrist marking and an attitude to distinguish them from their “inferiors.” A quarter million of these beings had arrived in a ship—an actual, honest-to-God spaceship—that had crash-landed in the Mojave desert half a decade ago. Granted a boon of sudden, and sometimes disorienting, freedom, they had adopted the language and customs of modern American society with alarming rapidity, though their assimilation was by no means always total, complete, or graceful. And they were an everyday sight out here in L.A.

There was still a relatively low concentration of Newcomers on the East Coast, however, and Dallas, New York-based for the better part of his life, had forgotten momentarily about the joke names that had frequently been inflicted upon the poor creatures by an insensitive California-based bureaucracy. Skip Tracer. Serge Suit. Ann Arbor. Not that New York would have been much kinder. Though the jokes might’ve been subtler.

“A Newcomer Nora,” Dallas mused. “Bring her on.”

Pauline Emperild was ushered onstage and introductions were made by Buddy. She was poised and attractive, and when she began to read the indicated passages from the script, some of the tension in Dallas’s face drained away. Her voice was well-modulated, her delivery assured, her intelligence unquestionable. She wasn’t great, but there was potential . . .

And as she finished reading, and Dallas thanked her, and she was escorted out, the thought continued . . .

. . . there was potential if
only
it weren’t for the smooth, bald head . . . the spots in lieu of hair forming a design as unique to her as a fingerprint, which narrowed and continued down the small of her back . . . the merest suggestion of small ears, gentle swells around the kind of apertures you’d find on a lizard’s head.

“I don’t think I can get around the appearance,” Dallas said, finally, thoughtfully. “Shame.”

Meaning it. Altogether unfair for the young artist to be penalized by an accident of birth . . . but art could equal life for unfairness, since the one reflected the other anyway. So that was that. If Miss Emperild had been an ethnic type—even black—it would have been a stretch, but, perhaps, workable. At least a black woman would be the right
species.
You might conceivably seduce an audience into suspending its disbelief
just enough
to accept the notion that a woman of color had a place in the Sweden of 1879 . . . at the very least, to make the leap of faith on the basis of pure humanism.

But Miss Emperild wasn’t human.

She’d be an anomaly in the play’s setting, a glaring anachronism, a constant reminder that a
play
was in progress—fighting the goal, which was to make the audience
forget
the artifice. If the illusion was shot, there’d be little else that mattered.

He turned to Iris.

She looked as if she wanted to say something.

“If you disagree, persuade me,” he said gently.

“I
do
believe in nontraditional casting,” she ventured, somewhat lamely. “But . . .”

But. One syllable. Confirmation enough.

“Buddy,” Dallas called up, “how many left?”

“Just one,” came the answer.

“That ‘serious consideration’ you promised to give the Callaway girl seems to be in order,” Iris nudged.

“Maybe so, but let’s go through the
motions
and at least
pretend
to give this last girl a fair shake.”

“Certainly, certainly,” she replied, and Dallas felt as if he were being humored.

Buddy announced the actress’s name, but it didn’t register in the wake of the young lady’s entrance . . . for instantly, the air in the room changed. There was a
something,
a what, a
frisson,
and Dallas tried in vain to analyze it. The face was compact, almost girlish, but it suggested a dark beauty that came from within (precisely what you’d dream for in a Nora), and more, there was—he didn’t know how else to phrase it—an
agony
behind the beauty, or perhaps just a depth of soul, because this girl brought a quality with her that you couldn’t teach, couldn’t buy, couldn’t even (God help him)
direct,
though you might be lucky enough to subtly
guide
it; it was just goddamn
there.

He felt his heart pounding. Heard it.

And so far, she hadn’t said a word.

Dallas prayed now, prayed with all his might that when she
did
speak, the poise and allure would be matched by the voice, that when she opened her mouth, she wouldn’t issue forth a screech or a whine or a twang or a rumble or a whisper or a bellow or a limit he couldn’t defeat, that she wouldn’t dash his fondest wish and bweak his widdwe heart in twain.

Buddy was making introductions. Dallas missed the name again, but he heard his own and remembered to follow through with the amenities as Buddy said, “. . . our guest director, and this is Iris McGreevey, producer,” at which Iris nodded, smiled.

Dallas, finding his voice somehow, said, “Hi, how are you?”

And the vision said, “I’m honored to meet you both, thank you so much for seeing me,” and oh, yes, the voice was like honey, sweetness itself. Also richly inflected, capable of all sorts of complexity—yet, paradoxically, simple, direct. And, in the manner of truly great speaking voices, even musical. Ten words she’d uttered, that was all, but Dallas knew. Now he knew. Sometimes it happened that way.

Asking her to read now was but a formality, still, ask he did, and she clicked on every possible cylinder, the face able to convey violent emotions the words could not,
connecting
to the rage and what suppressed it; and she read with such understanding, such passion, such wisdom, that he knew
he
was the one truly honored, that God had
blessed
him with the discovery, that he must’ve been a good little boy indeed; and he turned to Iris, to make sure he wasn’t crazy, and there was something odd about the expression on Iris’s face that Dallas couldn’t place, not right away, and then it occurred to him,
Iris had stopped breathing!
Dallas turned to face the stage again as the rounded tones of this fine young artist, this eleventh-hour savior, completed her final speech, and he was dimly aware of his voice asking her to wait outside and Buddy escorting her, pausing to raise an eyebrow at Dallas as if to say, “Holy cow!” When she was gone, out of earshot, Dallas spun to face Iris again, saw that she was finally pulling breath, clocked the tears of revelation just starting to form in her eyes and he
clapped his hands on her shoulders,
something no sane person should do, not to this particular woman, and shook her, vigorously, enthusiastically, which was even more preposterous, and he exulted as if to the very heavens.

“You see?” he cried joyously. “You see?”

In the four-week rehearsal period that followed (which would lead to the kind of opening night that sneaks in on little cat’s paws and suddenly garners the kind of reviews and attention careers are built upon), Dallas Pemberton kept a very tight lid on his new discovery, wanting the brilliant young actress to be a surprise. To the press
and
the public. Wanting not to tempt fate. He had long ago learned the folly of braggadocio.

Inevitably, though, some word leaked out on the street; rehearsals were so “hot” she was a tough secret to keep. So when Dallas was cornered by anyone, he chose to demur, merely allowing that, “You’ll have to see for yourself, but . . . Yes, she
is
something else.”

Never knowing how right he was.

M
ATT
S
IKES WAS
not precisely in his element, but he was doing his damndest to be a good sport about it. Given his tolerance for matters artistic, there were easier things to be.

The theatre lobby of The Healthy Workplace was too small to contain all the bodies, so the pre-show crowd spilled out onto the sidewalk, an area of which had been cordoned off for ticket holders, a smaller area of which penned in those desperate few awaiting cancellations, looking pathetic and anxious.

Alone among the crunch of culture mavens, Matt would have preferred being anywhere else. In a ball park, in a hamburger joint, in a gym, in his living room with his train set. Maybe especially in his living room with his train set.

Alas for him, Cathy Frankel was on an Earth literature kick—devouring everything she could about the classics, no doubt to compensate for the lack of such material on the slave ship—and he felt he had little choice in the matter.

But, of course, he really did have a choice. He had
plenty
of choice, he could “just say no,” as the popular phrase went, but Cathy was . . .

Well, what
was
Cathy exactly? To him? She was hard to compartmentalize. A neighbor. And a friend. A very
good
friend. Good and stunningly attractive. All of which had led, in time, to her being his lover as well. (And
that
had taken some serious preparation, even formal study. Matt still occasionally winced at the concept. But, as he’d discovered the hard way, intimate relations with a Newcomer were not something embarked upon casually.) Yet, though Cathy lived in Matt’s building, just down the hall from his apartment, there had not yet been any serious mention of consolidation, of
moving in together.

So he wasn’t sure exactly what Cathy was. To him. He only knew that he was prepared to be monogamous for the duration; and that, in general, he was happier at the thought of spending time with her than the thought of spending time without her.

Therefore, when she’d knocked on his door and said she had “connections”—said she could get herself, Matt, and the Franciscos into this sold-out
play
everyone was talking about—he’d bitten off the impulse to ask “Who?” (’cuz they sure weren’t gabbin’ about no plays in
his
crowd, lemme tell ya), adopted his best no-strain smile and said, “Sure. Absolutely. You bet.”

Matt felt a hand on his shoulder.

“It was good of you to be here,” said his partner, Detective Two George Francisco. (George’s wife Susan was several paces away, studying the display of enlarged rave reviews bolted to the wall. Cathy was up ahead in the throng somewhere, waiting in line to pick up their tickets at the box office.)

Matt’s expression offered up a pinched smile, his voice an unconvincing grumble. “Yah. Well. Culture. You know.”

George looked at his shoes and stifled a chuckle. “Oh, Matthew,” he chided.