Castle Deadly, Castle Deep, page 2
“Yes. I saw a terrible version of Our Town there about five years ago.”
“That was before Derek was a director. He’s really quite good.”
“Hmm.” My hair blew in my eyes, and he leaned forward to brush it away with gentle fingers. “I suppose I’ll come when I can. I don’t know if tonight will work.”
“There are lots of little nooks and corners backstage where a person could sneak off to kiss his girlfriend,” I said, sending him a significant glance.
“That is the first appealing detail you have offered about this theater.”
I giggled, and he hugged me goodbye, kissing my mouth and then my hair. “I’ll call you later,” he said. “Or text more likely.”
“Okay.”
I let go of his hand reluctantly and watched him walk away. Moments later Connie materialized beside me.
“Spying on us, were you?” I asked.
“Absolutely. Out the window in the south door. The same window you used to spy on Derek and me when he first kissed me.”
“Pretty good view, right?”
She nodded. “Are you okay? That didn’t look super positive.”
“I’ve never seen him like this. He was so irritable and short-tempered. He said he hadn’t slept well.”
“Just a bad day,” Connie assured me. “Come on, we’ll run our lines again.”
We sat at our table once more, but I was still brooding. “I feel like there’s something else, something he’s not telling me.”
“Probably better not to open that door,” Connie said. “Just try to move on.”
I wasn’t sure I agreed with this solution, but I settled down to practice lines and scenarios for our new Castle murder mystery. Perhaps twenty minutes later, Derek approached our table and began to stroke Connie’s hair.
“Hey, ladies. Paul and I have to run some errands, but we’ll start practice right after lunch, and it will probably run long. We’ll only have time for a quick dinner and then we’ll head over to the BC. Make the most of your morning,” he said.
He strode off, and Connie sighed.
“Yes, I know. He’s perfect,” I said, feeling grumpy.
Connie didn’t bother to hide her dreamy expression. “I think you need some kitten therapy,” she suggested.
“I think you’re right.”
I had adopted three sweet gray kittens back in June—three females that I had named after the Brontës because of their moody gray color. They weren’t tiny anymore, but were still small and kittenish, and they were beloved companions. They lived in my room on the third floor.
I stood up. “I think we’re both ready for rehearsal. I’m going to chill in my room for a while.”
“See you at lunch,” Connie said.
I waved and let myself in the south entrance with a key I had brought down for the purpose. I hadn’t walked more than a few steps when I saw a woman gliding out of the sunroom, along the veranda on the west side of the first floor. It was Miranda Pratt, another new cast member. I recalled that her shock of white hair had surprised me when I had seen her in the parking lot lifting a box out of her car on the day she moved in. When she turned, I had been surprised to see a young, lineless face—she was perhaps thirty. That night at dinner Derek had introduced her and we learned that her hair had been white since she was twenty years old. Something about her white hair combined with her gliding walk seemed absolutely appropriate, and I felt it enhanced her beauty. She reminded me of some serene water bird.
Today she was wearing a pair of blue jean shorts and a sweatshirt with the Art Institute of Chicago logo, complete with stone lions.
“Hi, Miranda,” I said.
She lived on the third floor with me, but I had barely talked to her since she had started. In my defense, I rarely saw her.
“Hi,” she said in her quiet voice. “Have you seen Derek? I wanted to ask him something.”
“He and Paul are running errands.”
“Oh.” Clearly this was putting a wrench in her plans, but she shrugged. “Oh, well.”
“Derek says practice will start right after lunch and will run long.”
“Thanks for the info,” she said with a brief smile. “See you later.”
She moved swiftly to the south staircase and disappeared up the narrow stairs. I kept walking. I was feeling lazy and the elevator, which let out near my room on the third floor, was at the other end of the main hall. So I decided to take the leisurely route. I didn’t see anyone on the way to the north entrance except for Hamlet, Derek’s giant Labrador, who walked toward me wagging his giant head from side to side in a behavior I had learned was a friendly greeting.
“Hey, boy,” I said. “Do you want to ride the elevator?”
Apparently, he did, because he followed me to that conveyance and climbed aboard. Hamlet knew the castle better than I did, and he was utterly at ease on the elevator.
We rode to the third floor and emerged in front of our little third-floor laundry room. I saw my door, complete with its Green Crown label, as a soothing and beckoning reality, but I paused in front of the room on my right—the small library.
I wasn’t sure why there were two libraries in the castle: the large library on the main floor, and this attractive little book-lined room located conveniently next to my own. I loved it, and I had unjustly come to think of it as my own because of its proximity to my living space. I visited the room regularly, poring over the eclectic selection within. So far, I had managed to find a number of good books.
I opened the door now, enjoying the waxy scent from the polished floor and the lavender scent that emanated from the carpet after cleaning day. Below these aromas was the slightly musty smell of old books. I breathed in both the scents and the sights of the beloved room, lined with shelves on three walls and made more lovely still by the large window on the wall facing the door, beneath which was a padded window seat. I moved to a familiar bookcase, which I knew contained many fiction titles, and scanned for mystery and suspense authors. I found a Mary Stewart novel called Madam, Will You Talk? and had a vague memory of my mother recommending this author. I pulled it down and had just begun to read the jacket copy when a shadow loomed over me and I looked up to see Dorian Pierce smiling at me in his sardonic way. He made me think of those stories in which the devil took the guise of a handsome, charming man.
“I’ve been meaning to investigate this room,” he said, wandering in and sitting at the wooden table in the center of the rug.
“Oh?” I said coolly. Dorian didn’t seem like the type who read books.
“Yeah. Can you recommend some good bedtime reading?” He made his words sound suggestive somehow, and it irritated me.
“I doubt we like the same sorts of books.”
He feigned indignation. “How would you know what I like to read? You’ve barely said five sentences to me since I moved in.”
This was true, and it made me feel mean. I relented. “Most of this wall is fiction. Over there is more nonfiction—biography, true adventures, political stuff.”
“Not my thing,” he said.
“Lots of history on the wall behind you. At some point someone tried to organize these books. Someday I’ll continue the job.”
“Very ambitious,” he said. “Commendable.”
“Anyway, I’ll leave you to your hunting.”
“No, wait—I need you to help me find the perfect thing.”
This could have simply been an appeal for friendship, but he made it sound like a come-on, and I felt uncomfortable. Still, I realized that he knew no one well, and he might simply have been looking for someone to talk to.
I went to the history wall. “There’s an interesting book about the brave women of World War Two.”
“Hmm . . . getting closer.”
“There’s another one by an explorer who crossed the Atlantic in a homemade boat.”
He clapped. “Sold! We’re all adventurers at heart, aren’t we, Nora?”
“Yes, I suppose so. Well, I want to read some of this before we have lunch. After that, we’ll be rehearsing all day.”
“Yeah. But rehearsing is what we all love, right? It’s our calling, the acting profession.”
I nodded. “Yes. And my room is also calling, so I’ll see you later.”
I waved vaguely and left the room with my book, aware that he was still grinning behind me, and his smile stayed with me, lingering unpleasantly like that of the Cheshire cat.
In my room at last, I flopped on my bed and endured the Brontës’ curious sniffing of my hair, hands, and face. “Stop it,” I said, giggling.
They eventually nestled against me, purring. I looked listlessly at the book, realizing that I wasn’t in the reading mood, after all. I set it on my side table and stared at the ceiling, indulging in daydreams about my favorite person: John Dashiell.
We had started dating in July, and for more than a month I had felt head over heels in love with him, which my rational mind had assured me was infatuation. But Dash was like no one I had ever met before: calm, measured, smart, brave, professional, yet also sexy and dangerous and mysterious. He had taken a week of vacation at the beginning of August and we’d gone to the city, where he had grown up, to see the sights. We spent a day at North Avenue Beach, swimming and playing in the water, stealing kisses when our slippery bodies floated close to each other’s. We explored bookshops and the art museum and the aquarium. At night Dash would find romantic, uncrowded restaurants where we could share life stories and touch each other’s hands across the table. Then we would walk through the city, enjoying the lights and holding hands with an easy connection that I never questioned. Unlike other men I had dated, Dash never made me worry over my appearance, or whether what I said was clever, or if I was eating too much or being interesting enough. I never had to do anything but enjoy myself, which I did. I remembered with a shiver of delight a particular night when we walked back to his car, and before we even reached it, he swung me around and pulled me into a warm, deep, and delicious kiss—something with a hint of darkness, but also with a promise of future delights. I had lost myself in that kiss, and a tiny voice in my pleasure center had asked even then if this was the man for me. The forever man.
He pulled away and I stared at him dumbly, my mouth slightly open, and he whispered, “I have never had such a good time with anyone, ever.”
Despite the fact that Dash and I had met under strange circumstances (he had been investigating a murder), our relationship had felt as perfect and natural as the kind in books.
Nothing had changed, really. I felt the same. Dash felt the same. So why were we both unhappy?
I sighed and closed my eyes, listening to the purring of the cats around me.
I would solve this problem the way I solved problems in my teens: I would take a nap.
3
Players in Place
WHEN DEREK HAD asked me to be in a play he was directing at the Wood Glen community theater, the Blue Curtain, I was reluctant. Then he told me it was Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and he wanted me to play the role of Kristine Linde. I had always loved the play, and I’d long felt that Kristine was an undersung character—a catalyst for action over the three days of the drama. I had agreed then, excited to work with Derek in another context and thrilled to be able to collaborate with him about my vision of Kristine.
Connie, of course, was cast as Nora Helmer, the oppressed and beautiful main character. Dorian was the seemingly villainous Krogstad, and all of the main cast had understudies. Mine was Miranda, the white-haired beauty from the castle; Connie’s was a woman named Priscilla; and Dorian’s was Paul.
We had gone through two weeks of rehearsals, and as I could have predicted, Derek had turned out to be an excellent director: patient, meticulous, visionary. We had worked out all of the staging and cues, and now we were working on the nuances of our lines. Several people from Wood Glen were in the cast; apparently most of them had a whole résumé of shows they’d done at the Blue Curtain. Only Dorian and I were absolutely new to the stage.
After we finished the castle rehearsal, I had time to freshen up briefly and don a sweater (it was a cold evening) and then join the others for the quick dinner Derek had promised. Then we piled into two cars. Derek, Connie, Renata, and Miranda rode in Derek’s SUV, while Dorian, Paul, Elspeth, and I piled into Paul’s Volvo. It was fun bundling up together this way, like a big family, although I wished I hadn’t ended up in a car with Dorian, who managed to smirk at me several times during our drive.
When we got to the theater, Derek told Nora and Torvald Helmer, the main characters, to take their places for Act I. Jack Yardley strode onstage with a confident air. He was tall and ostentatiously handsome and, I guessed, in his late thirties. He waited importantly while Derek switched on the houselights and made sure the whole cast was present, with the understudies sitting in the front row.
Connie had told me Jack was the most eligible and sought-after bachelor in Wood Glen, and I sensed that he relished this role. Like many actors I had met in my career, he was incurably vain, although he earned some points for knowing it about himself and occasionally making self-deprecating jokes about his narcissism. Jack obviously had a good relationship with the local tanning salon, because it was almost October but he still looked tanned and fit. Derek had cast him—brilliantly, I thought—as Torvald, Nora’s husband and a tyrant disguised as a loving spouse. To give Jack his due, he played the part quite well, finding little nuances of character that humanized Torvald. Jack viewed us all as would a benevolent king.
“Torvald reporting for duty,” he said. “Where are my lovely Noras?”
Jack must have been in heaven when he learned not only that Connie was to play his wife, but that Priscilla Atwood would be her understudy. If Jack was the most sought-after man in Wood Glen, Connie assured me, Priscilla was the most desired woman. I watched Priscilla now as she pulled her long blond hair into a ponytail and settled into her seat in the front row. She wore snug faded jeans and a rose-colored sweater. A quick glance around the room told me that every man there was looking at her, except for Derek, who was looking at his watch.
“Let’s go, everyone. Connie, come up here with Jack. Ben, our beloved delivery boy, I need you in the wings. Dorian and Nora, you, too. Let’s get in place, people.”
Ben Boyle leapt to his feet. He was about twenty or so, a local interested in theater; I knew him from his job at Balfour Bakery, a place I frequented too often, sometimes just to visit my friend Jade, a precocious teen who had not been allowed to try out for this show because her mother felt her grades were suffering.
I followed Ben into the wings, and I felt Dorian breathing down my neck. My character was to enter early in Act I and Ben’s character entered soon after. I ignored Dorian and pointed at Andrew Portnoy, who was chatting amiably with his wife, Millie.
“Come on, Dr. Rank, you need to be up here, too, along with sweet Helene.”
Andrew played the part of Torvald’s longtime friend Dr. Rank, and Millie had the very small role of Helene, the maid.
Elspeth, who was Millie’s understudy, sat knitting something in her chair and chatting with Renata, who was also knitting. They had told Millie earlier in the day that it was the time of year to begin knitting Christmas presents, and they both had a long list of recipients.
We marched onstage, we thespians, and Derek paced around, speaking in low tones to Jack and Connie, who were both onstage early in the scene. Connie was the first face that people saw when the curtains opened; Nora Helmer was a fresh-faced young wife and mother, convinced that her life was perfect and that this Christmas would be the best ever. In the play, it was Christmas Eve. Elspeth and the rest of the stage and costuming crew had already started on a beautiful set, and a still-undecorated Christmas tree, huge and real-looking, sat at the back of the stage.
“Let’s begin,” Derek said.
Jack disappeared behind a prop door that was supposed to lead to his office. Connie waited behind an entrance door. Derek gave the cue, and Connie swept into the room, looking rosy as if she really had just been out in the snow. She was followed by a delivery boy (Ben), who informed her that the tree would cost half a crown. Derek had to alter this part, since the boy was supposed to carry the tree, freshly chopped at some Norwegian tree farm, into the house. Instead, Connie (as Nora Helmer) said, “Thank you for delivering the tree. How much do I owe you?”
The delivery boy disappeared after thanking Mrs. Helmer. This was his only line in the play, so Derek had given him an additional role as prop master, and Ben had proudly taken his place at the prop table in the wings, treating each prop like a sacred relic as he handed it to the actor.
Soon Jack had joined Connie onstage, and the couple began to argue gently about money and what Torvald perceived as Nora’s extravagance. Jack was so good at capturing Torvald’s condescension that I began to feel uncomfortable. Eventually Torvald treated her to a long-winded sermon and then told her not to disturb him, essentially because he was an important new bank president. Jack puffed himself out with pride, and Connie looked at him worshipfully.
Then the maid told her that someone was there to see her, and I took my place onstage, waiting tentatively in Connie/Nora’s sitting room. She came in and said, “I’m sorry. I don’t— Kristine? Is it really you?”
I moved toward her, smiling, remembering the friend I had not seen in ten years. “Yes, it’s me.”
“Kristine, how you’ve changed!” Connie cried, all innocence and unaware of the potential rudeness of her words.
“Yes—I suppose I’ve changed a lot in—what is it—nine, ten long years?”
Elspeth had put strands of silver in my hair; I was not that much older than Nora, but I’d had a hard life, and it was meant to show in my weathered appearance.
