Spellcrossed (18 page)

“Squatting in the leaves. Living off roots and berries.”

“I’d hardly describe cold chicken and endive salad as living off roots and berries.”

“You can’t keep food fresh for a week out in the wilderness.”

“It’s two miles away! And we have plenty of packaged food to—”

“Cold, fresh milk,” I crooned. “Red, ripe strawberries.”

“Get thee behind me, Satan.”

I offered a winsome, satanic smile. Rowan threw up his hands in surrender. Then he held up a warning finger. “You have to promise to give us a few days alone.”

“Absolutely.”

“No popping up after rehearsal or dropping in for dinner.”

“What about ‘absolutely’ didn’t you understand?”

“I know you.”

“Oh, please. I barge into your apartment one time—”

“Maggie…”

“I won’t pop or drop. Promise.”

We shook hands as we used to do to solemnize one of our pacts. And I resigned myself to spending more time apart from the men I loved.

O
N THE PLUS SIDE, MY PERIOD ARRIVED the day they went into seclusion. That would spare us a reprise of the icky blood thing for another month. And give me time to pick up a box of condoms.

Like we’re really going to make love when my father’s in the next room listening to me yowl like a cat in heat.

I thrust that depressing thought aside and focused on more immediate concerns.

On Sunday evening, Frannie and I hosted a reception at the Bough so that the newly arrived cast members could meet the rest of the company before rehearsals for
The Secret Garden
began. To our relief, everybody seemed to have a good time and the reception was relatively clump-free.

I remained cautiously optimistic after Monday’s read-through. Gregory might look more like a linebacker than my idealized version of tormented Archibald Craven, but he had angst up the wazoo. And as Reinhard sternly reminded me, “There is no rule that says you must be gaunt to be grief-stricken.”

Or to play a ghost. Hal was still grumbling about casting a zaftig Mackenzie descendant as Lily. I sternly reminded him that while Michaela might not be ethereal, her lovely soprano was. But she was shy and awkward, lacking the serenity that Lily required, and I was glad to see Otis reassuring her during the break.

In the largely thankless role of Neville Craven, Roger was a tad too queeny to convince anyone that he had ever pined for his brother’s wife, but if toning him down was the biggest battle I faced during the next three weeks, I’d be a happy camper.

The supporting cast—largely locals and Mackenzies—had a pretty good grasp on their characters and a decidedly shaky one on their accents. A few managed a decent “stage British,” but it was hard to keep a straight face when the rest trotted out their “Yorkshire” accents.

“I don’t know why I bothered making those damn recordings,” Janet fumed.

“I’m sure they helped,” I said. “How did
you
master the Yorkshire accent?”

“I listened to the goddamn CD! Maybe they should try it.”

I refrained from mentioning that they had. As for the sections in Hindi, I just prayed they wouldn’t sound ridiculous, a tall order with lyrics like “mantra, tantra, yantra.”

Otis had agreed to take on the role Bill had abandoned. He played one of the Dreamers—the ghosts who drift in and out to comment on the past and try to help those in the present. Debra was back to torment a fresh crop of children as the stern housekeeper Mrs. Medlock.

“It’s my Wicked Witch summer,” she commented after the read-through.

Since her third role was the Witch in
Into the Woods
, there seemed little point in denying it. “Don’t take it personally.”

“Are you kidding? It’s a helluva lot more fun playing nasty than nice. I had a ball when I played the Stepmother in
Into the Woods
a few years ago.”

“Who wouldn’t enjoy sawing off bits of her daughters’ feet so they would fit into the golden slipper?”

“Exactly.”

“If we ever put on
Psycho: The Musical
, I’ll know who to call.”

“Now
that’s
what you should do to bring in money during the off-season. Not
Psycho
. One of those murder mystery dinners.” She jerked her thumb toward the Bates mansion. “You’ve already got the House on Haunted Hill.”

It would be perfect for Halloween. If the board would approve it. If Janet would go for yet another event in her home. And if I could pull it together, run the after-school program, and prepare for our Christmas production.

Think about it tomorrow, Scarlett.

I concentrated on blocking the Act One scenes with the principals and left the chorus in Alex’s capable hands. He got dibs on the kids as well. Although Sallie and Natasha were veterans of various school productions, Mary’s songs were difficult emotionally and vocally, often requiring the actress to hold her melody line against two or three competing voices. Colin’s material was easier, but neither of my ten-year-old actors were great singers. Having only an hour a day to block the children’s scenes made me anxious, but the extra week in
Annie
’s run meant an extra week of rehearsals, so I tried to avoid obsessing.

My “one day at a time” mantra did little to quell my anxiety about what was happening in Rowan’s apartment. The two men were as ghostly as Dreamers. Not even a footstep overhead betrayed their presence.

I was true to my promise. I didn’t pop or drop. I just lurked.

I took casual strolls around the barn during my breaks, craning my neck for a glimpse of their figures through the windows. I dropped off groceries and hovered at the door, hoping to detect some sound from inside.

“You must have patience,” Reinhard ordered.

“You’ve got to let Rowan do his thing,” Lee advised.

“You’re creeping me out,” Hal complained. “Maggie Graham, Stalker.”

Rowan’s letter put a stop to my not-so-clandestine
surveillance. He must have slipped it under the front door because Janet handed it to me when I came down for breakfast Thursday morning. I tore open the envelope with trembling fingers.

“I know you’re anxious,” he began without preamble, “but we are both fine and the work is going well. And although I can think of no one I would rather have pressing an ear to my door, you are hereby forbidden to lurk. I love you.”

Not quite as romantic as the first letter he had written me, but it left me with a warm glow that survived Neil’s disappointingly stilted performance as Dickon and Roger’s inability to keep his hands off Gregory during the library scene.

Then we blocked the opening. Exit warm glow. Enter queasiness.

The music was difficult enough, but the staging was a bitch. It had to take the audience from India to a train platform to the door of Misselthwaite Manor to Mary’s room to the gallery where Mary searches for the source of the mysterious crying while her uncle prowls around looking for the ghost of his dead wife. And like all the scenes with the Dreamers, the action had to flow seamlessly—song fragments interwoven with dialogue, Dreamers drifting in and out, past incidents mingling with those in the present.

I’d recognized early on that I would need Mei-Yin’s help to stage the Dreamers’ scenes. When she cheerfully agreed, I was surprised and excited. I was equally surprised—but far less excited—when she stormed into my office last February, brandishing a rolled-up script in one meaty fist, and demanded, “Where are the DANCE numbers?”

“There’s a lot of dancing,” I’d protested. “The opening is a—”

“A CHOLERA epidemic! With people passing around a red HANDKERCHIEF.”

“It’s a metaphor.”

“I KNOW it’s a metaphor! I’m not STUPID! And it’s NOT a DANCE.”

“Well, if you think about it, all the scenes with the Dreamers are like a ritualized—”

“I mean REAL dances.”

“There’s the waltz in the ballroom. And ‘Come Spirit, Come Charm.’”

“With actors chanting HINDI? I TOLD you we should do
Gypsy
. THAT has kids. THAT has a STRIPTEASE. THAT I can choreograph.”

“Mei-Yin. Did you…read the script?”

“Of COURSE I did! I read it last NIGHT!”

“I mean before we chose the show.”

“It was ROWAN’S job to choose the shows! And HE chose NORMAL ones where the chorus sings a big SONG, the actors WITHOUT two left feet break into a big DANCE, and the audience breaks into big APPLAUSE! THIS…” She flung the script across the room. “I don’t know WHAT this is.”

Moments after she marched out of the office, Reinhard scuttled in.

“She will be fine,” he assured me in a hoarse whisper. “Trust me. She will view the show as a challenge. It will excite her artistic sensibilities.”

“Any idea how long that’ll take?”

“A day. Maybe two. No more than a week. In the meantime…”

“I’ll stay out of her way.”

Three days later, Mei-Yin breezed into the staff meeting and announced, “Sometimes, I’m so good, it’s SCARY! I got it all figured out. Even the goddamn STORM sequences.” She stabbed her forefinger at Hal. “I’ll need a KICKASS set. And some KICKASS lighting, too!” she added, redirecting the forefinger to Lee. “So you boys better put on your THINKING caps.”

Hal contented himself with an offended sniff. Lee just nodded wearily. Reinhard beamed. “Now the work can begin!”

To Mei-Yin’s credit, her staging
was
good. Better than anything I could have dreamed up. Since I’d endured her rants when I was an actress and her regular pleas to shoot her since I’d become a director, I remained undaunted by the prospect of working cheek by jowl with her.

I woefully miscalculated the discomfort of having my cheek adjacent to Mei-Yin’s jowl. Hence, the queasiness that shuddered through my stomach as we staged the opening.

“You’re GHOSTS!” she shouted after our first walk-through. “Not CONSTRUCTION workers! WAFT more, CLOMP less!”

“WAFT!” she shrieked after the second walk-through. “Not MINCE! You’re GHOSTS, not CHORUS queens!”

She stormed out of the Smokehouse with Reinhard in hot pursuit. I hastily called a break. After peering outside to make sure Mei-Yin had left the vicinity, the actors dispersed.

Through the open windows, I heard someone ask, “Is she always like that?”

I couldn’t identify the hushed voice, but it obviously belonged to one of the new members of the company.

“She’s just getting warmed up,” Debra replied.

“You should’ve heard her when she was teaching me to waltz,” Otis said. “‘ONE-two-three. ONE-two…LEFT foot! LEFT! How many left feet you GOT?’”

“Does she get…nicer?” asked another unfamiliar voice.

“Not much,” Debra replied cheerfully. “But you’ll get used to her. Eventually.”

Someone groaned. “I hope I live that long.”

I trudged over to the piano where Alex was trying to keep a straight face.

“Easy for you,” I grumbled. “She’s not shouting in your ear.”

“You just haven’t seen her in action since you began directing.”

Actually, I had. I’d made damn sure to sit in on her first rehearsals with the orphans. She wasn’t exactly warm and fuzzy, but she
had
been encouraging. The strain of storing up so much unused bile was clearly showing now.

“Maybe it bugs you that you need her help with the staging,” Alex said. “But you know what? She’s having the time of her life. I can’t remember when she’s been this excited. And it’s because you’ve given her more of an opportunity to shape this show than she’s ever had before. Mind you, she’ll never admit that. And you’ll probably be deaf by opening night. But it’s true.”

I leaned down to kiss his forehead. “You know I’m crazy about you, right?”

“No, but if you hum a few bars…”

Reinhard appeared in the doorway, smoothing his troubled hair. He shot us a quick glance and nodded.

As the actors filtered in, Alex whispered, “I give her two more minutes. Then she’ll sail into the Smokehouse—”

“And be sweet as pie.”

Right on both counts. After the actors stumbled through the scene a third time, she regarded them with a maternal smile and purred, “Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Debra nudged Otis. He grinned. I made a mental note to pick up a very large bottle of antacids on my next shopping trip.

The Dreamers clomped, minced, and wafted. Mei-Yin ranted, raved, and purred. I gobbled Rolaids like breath mints and slipped a note under Rowan’s door that accentuated the positive and pointed out that note-slipping didn’t technically qualify as lurking. He slipped a note under Janet’s door that assured me of his love and remarked that if I ever changed careers, I should consider becoming a lawyer.

“This is turning into Abelard and Heloise,” Janet muttered.

“Don’t be silly,” I replied. Then rushed upstairs to search Wikipedia for Abelard and Heloise. I remembered their passionate correspondence. I’d forgotten the parts where he got her pregnant, her father castrated him, and they were both consigned to religious orders.

Given our enforced chastity and my mother’s penchant for threatening Rowan’s testicles, the similarities were depressing. I didn’t even have erotic letters to fall back on. Rowan’s latest note had included a brief protestation of love and a much longer list of grocery items. It’s hard to whip up sexual fantasies with ingredients like lamb chops and orzo.