Playing Juliet Read online

  “Pound cake. It’s great,” he mouthed back, bowing.

  I took a piece and popped it in my mouth. And my stomach took over. More was the message it was sending, loud and clear.

  I snagged another before the Page passed down the line, serving the other Duchesses. When he was done, he came back and stood by me. That was convenient.

  I helped myself to another piece.

  And another.

  I was starving, but eating didn’t make me lose my concentration.

  When the King said, “Forward,” I flung my arms apart, turned on my New York accent, and said, “Find the fair female whose fragile foot it fits,” with perfect timing. And with great aplomb spat three mostly chewed pieces of pound cake in a crumby shower all over the stage.

  The Duchesses broke first. They tried to hide it behind their fans but everyone onstage knew they were laughing. And one by one all the other characters in the court scene began to break up. Voices were strained to cracking. Sudden gasps and at least one snort sounded as people let their breath out. The King spent a lot of time coughing into his hand.

  I blushed. What would Mrs. Mac think of me? I heard her voice saying, “I know you’ll be able to think of some action to cover what you’re doing.”

  Since I’d just shown my character as a glutton, I’d continue to play her that way. I kept stuffing more of the pound cake in my mouth. The Page indignantly tried to move the tray out of my reach, so I grabbed his arm and kept eating.

  This time I made sure to chew and swallow before another piece went in. When my last cue came, I faced the audience with a piece of cake in my hand. I was blowing out my cheeks so they looked like they were stuffed full of pound cake. The audience snickered in anticipation. I flung my arms apart, said, “Find the fair female whose fragile foot it fits,” without spitting, and turned sharply to lead the Duchesses offstage.

  I’m not used to turning sharply in high heels. I teetered and reached out for the Page’s tray to balance myself.

  He snatched it away.

  I fell, but the audience loved it.

  After I landed, I gave a great big grin and flung my arms out like it was deliberate—I was really checking for broken bones. It turned out I was fine.

  But the beading on the front of my dress wasn’t. One of the loops had broken and the pearls cascaded to the floor in a shower of pings.

  Thirty years as a costumer! How could Mrs. Lester not know blue costumes were bad luck?

  I stood up, regained my balance on the heels, clutched my bodice to try to stem the flow of pearls, said, “Find the fair female whose fragile foot it fits” once more, and led the Duchesses offstage.

  On the way, I made a deep, deep curtsy to the King and managed to scoop up three of the pearls. Nafeesa realized what I was doing. She curtsied and picked up the last two. Part of acting is reacting to whatever happens onstage. All the other Duchesses added in a curtsy as they passed the King. It went as smoothly as if we’d rehearsed it.

  Lesser actresses might despair at messing up a scene that badly, but not me. I had a plan. I’d persuade my father to move to Saudi Arabia—preferably tonight—and take me with him.

  CHAPTER SIX

  And all the secrets of our camp I’ll show,

  Their force, their purposes; nay, I’ll speak that

  Which you will wonder at.

  Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well

  Mrs. Mac brought Mrs. Fredericks backstage after the play ended.

  I didn’t go into the lobby with the rest of the cast. I’d tried to mend the pearls on my dress with a piece of tape, but when I took the costume off, the pearls took off, too, all over the dressing room floor. The bad luck wasn’t going to stop just because I was no longer onstage. I had to pick them up before someone slipped or fell.

  Then that disastrous dress needed to go to the costume shop for repair. Even better would be to put it directly in the garbage can to keep some other poor actor from ever having to wear it again. But there was no way Mrs. Lester would let that happen. So I bundled it up, tucked it under my arm, and headed out the door, running right into Mrs. Mac.

  She was the last person I wanted to see after I’d made such a fiasco as the Duchess. I couldn’t meet her eyes until she bent over and whispered, “So sorry. I forgot to tell you to spit.”

  I looked up, grinning, and Mrs. Mac introduced the elegant woman in the pale suede suit who was with her.

  “Mrs. Fredericks is interested in seeing our theater,” Mrs. Mac said.

  Other people nod; Mrs. Fredericks inclined her perfect blonde head.

  “Austin is going to take Mrs. Fredericks on a tour of the backstage area,” Mrs. Mac said and looked at her watch. “Unfortunately, I need to be in the lobby right now. Could you help him show her around?”

  I was so happy Mrs. Mac trusted me after the mess I’d made onstage, I would have agreed to anything. And I wanted to make the woman who owned my theater happy any way I could.

  “Would you like to see the dressing room while we wait for Austin?” I asked.

  She inclined her head one more time. Somehow walking into the dressing room with Mrs. Fredericks made the old sock smell stronger than ever and the floor look even more cluttered.

  She looked around quickly—there is not a lot to see in an empty dressing room—walked over to the mirror, and patted her pageboy. I don’t know why, because no hair on her head would have dared leave its place.

  Then she looked at me curiously and out of the icy blonde perfection came the strongest New York accent I’ve ever heard.

  “Were you in the play?”

  I stood there, clutching the bundled Duchess costume tightly, praying she wouldn’t realize I was the one who had just mimicked an accent just like hers for comic relief.

  “I played the Cat,” I said, pointing at the cat head sitting on top of one of the racks.

  “Oh, you’re the funny one.”

  Mrs. Fredericks walked over and stroked the artificial fur on the headdress.

  “Nice costume,” she said. “Did you wear it for the curtain call? I don’t remember seeing the Cat.”

  When I explained I was playing two parts, she looked startled.

  “Isn’t it hard for someone as young as you to do that?” she asked.

  “We do it all the time if someone’s sick,” I answered.

  Mrs. Fredericks was looking very impressed, until she asked me what other part I played.

  “One of the Duchesses.”

  At that moment, another pearl slipped from the bundled-up dress I was holding in my arms and fell with a little ping to the floor.

  Mrs. Fredericks looked down at the pearl and back up at me. “Oh, yes,” she said flatly. “The one with the accent.”

  There didn’t seem to be a lot to say after that. I shifted the dress to my other arm and Mrs. Fredericks fiddled with her bracelet.

  This woman has to like us, I thought. Say something nice.

  “What a pretty suit,” I said.

  “Thank you. A friend of mine designed it.”

  Her voice sounded a little warmer, so I tried again.

  “That’s an unusual bracelet.”

  She held out her arm so I could see it better. Ten big, tear-shaped stones glittered around a sparkling yellow circle.

  “It’s a daisy,” she said. “My name, Marguerite, means ‘daisy’ in French.”

  “Pretty. So’s your purse.”

  She gave me a half-smile, which told me to knock it off. “It matches the shoes. Now, why don’t you tell me about the theater. Do you know how many people it seats?”

  “Two hundred and forty-eight.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I nodded. “If we’re ushering, we have to count out two hundred and forty-eight programs before we open the doors to seat the audience.”

  Austin’s knock on the dressing room door saved me from having to think of anything else to say. He walked us around the backstage areas, talking enthusiasticall
y about every major piece of machinery and a lot of the minor ones, his hair sticking straight up as always. Mrs. Fredericks was really nice to him. She must have asked him at least one question per machine.

  When Austin introduced her to Chuck Peterson, our technical supervisor, she paid them both the ultimate compliment: “This is as well-equipped as a professional theater.” Austin and Chuck beamed.

  We ended up in the middle of the stage, with Austin pointing at the row of thick ropes lining the wall of the right wing.

  “The theater has a full rigging system,” he said. “The ropes let us raise and lower flats when they’re needed for each scene. If you look up, you’ll see the backdrops for the sets used in Cinderella! hanging in the flies above you.”

  I leaned back and studied the wooden frames of the flats for the kitchen, the barnyard, and the ballroom hanging over my head. They might only be four inches thick—which is why they’re called flats—but they’re around twelve feet long and fifteen feet tall and the only things that kept them from sailing down on me were a few ropes and knots.

  I almost let out a whistle but I caught myself. Even if we didn’t have old sailors running our rigging system, there was no way I was whistling in a theater.

  “Quite as well-equipped as a professional theater,” Mrs. Fredericks said again.

  You could tell she was very impressed.

  By the pricking of my thumbs,

  Something wicked this way comes

  Why did that just pop into my head? I glanced up again. Just thinking about the flats crashing down must have triggered it.

  “Would you like to go out on the catwalk?” Austin asked, then pointed up to the iron cage running along the ceiling in front of the curtain. “You have to crawl most of the way but you get the best view of the theater hanging up there over the orchestra pit.”

  I looked at Mrs. Fredericks’s pale suede suit.

  Mrs. Fredericks looked at her pale suede suit.

  And one of the crew came out of the shop to show Austin the three-week-old cream cheese and jelly sandwich he had just found in his backpack. Mrs. Fredericks started to take a breath as though she wanted to speak, but it was very clear it wasn’t a good idea to breathe right then, so she didn’t say anything at all.

  “Why don’t I take you to the costume shop now?” I said.

  It would be a relief to get rid of that bad-luck gown I was still lugging around—and an even bigger relief to get away from that sandwich.

  The costume shop was crawling with Mice.

  Mrs. Lester was sitting at one of the sewing machines, a pile of costumes to mend next to her and five little girls dressed as Mice in front of her. They were all speaking in high, agitated voices that sounded an awful lot like squeaking.

  When Mrs. Fredericks and I walked in the door, a white Mouse turned around to look at us. “I lost my tooth,” she said, holding it up proudly. The front of her costume was smeared with blood.

  Mrs. Fredericks took a step back and almost got hit as the door opened again and Tina and Pam entered. They were both in jeans and sweatshirts. Pam was also wearing a rhinestone tiara, four or five long flashy necklaces, and a bunch of bracelets. Tina wore two tiaras and carried Zandy’s Fairy Godmother wand.

  The look of bewilderment on Mrs. Fredericks’s face made me explain quickly, “Any part of the costume that might get lost, like jewelry or a wand, has to go back to the costume room after each performance.”

  By the time Tina and Pam began transferring their overload to the jewelry cabinet, Mrs. Lester had taken command. White Mouse was sent into the rack room to find another costume. Two of the other Mice were set to pick up straight pins—a constant job in the costume shop—while they waited for her. And the last two were sent back to the lobby to warn the waiting parents that some of the Mice would be a little late getting changed.

  Molly was one of the Mice assigned to pin detail, but she asked to work on the mending instead. With a shake of her head, Mrs. Lester agreed, and I finally got to introduce her and Mrs. Fredericks.

  “Welcome to the costume shop,” Mrs. Lester said as they shook hands. “Do look around. If you want to see it in full operation, this is the perfect time to visit.” She looked at my bundle. “And it looks like Beth’s bringing something to add to the general confusion.”

  I couldn’t say anything about blue costumes being unlucky with Mrs. Fredericks there. It would sound as though I was making excuses for my poor performance. I just handed the gown to Mrs. Lester and explained what had happened to the trim. I hardly needed to. Two more pearls slipped off when she spread out the costume.

  “That’s quite dangerous.” Mrs. Lester picked up her scissors and snipped off the remaining loops while I searched for the two pearls that had escaped. I found them both, though I had to crawl under the sewing machine to retrieve the last one. “We’ll have to find something besides pearls to trim this with,” she added, putting the gown on the top of her mending pile.

  Mrs. Fredericks drifted around the room, opening closet doors, poking in drawers and cabinets. You would think she was getting ready to buy the place.

  Mrs. Lester’s attention was back on the White Mouse, who had just come out of the rack room wearing a brown costume and carrying the bloody one.

  “Perfect fit,” Mrs. Lester said. She took the white costume, stuck it in the dry cleaning basket, and walked over to a box marked TIGHTS, BROWN. She pulled out a pair and handed them to the Mouse.

  “Hang these in the dressing room with your new costume so you’ll have them for the next show. But come down here first to see if the white one is back from the cleaners. If it isn’t, wear the brown.”

  The Mouse who’d lost her tooth scampered off with the Mouse who’d been picking up pins, while Mrs. Lester walked over to her tiny office and wrote something down on a pad. “I’ve got to drop off the dry cleaning tonight,” she was muttering, mostly to herself. “Blood sets if it’s allowed to sit too long.”

  Mrs. Fredericks took the opportunity to walk over and look around Mrs. Lester’s office. She was glancing at the plaques and pictures hanging on the wall when she suddenly leaned over to examine one more closely.

  “Marilyn J. Lester?” She looked at Mrs. Lester, who nodded. “You have an MFA in Costume Design from New York University.” Mrs. Fredericks’s voice sounded like she was accusing Mrs. Lester of a crime, but I think some of that was her accent. “I thought you were a teacher.”

  Mrs. Lester laughed and shook her head. “Whatever gave you that idea? I’m just the wardrobe mistress.”

  “You work so well with children, I just assumed . . .” Mrs. Fredericks sounded puzzled. “You trained at NYU. Did you ever work with an adult company?”

  “I costumed a show or two off-Broadway before I moved to California. Then I was at the San Francisco Opera for a few years.”

  Mrs. Fredericks broke in, her voice excited. “I may have seen one of the shows you did. My husband and I have . . .” She stopped and corrected herself. “I have season tickets for the Public Theater and Circle in the Square, but my husband and I saw a lot of off-Broadway shows when he was alive.”

  I perked up when I heard that. Those were some really big names in theater. Mrs. Fredericks must be a serious fan. It looked like the Oakfield Children’s Theater was safe.

  I couldn’t wait to tell Zandy.

  I suddenly remembered she and her mother were waiting for me in the lobby. I bit my lip, wondering what to do. Mrs. Fredericks didn’t look ready to leave anytime soon, and Mrs. Lester seemed to be settling in for a long chat. They were talking about the operas Mrs. Lester had worked on.

  “Why did you leave the Opera?” Mrs. Fredericks asked suddenly.

  “I lived in Oakfield and hated the commute to The City. When this job opened up, and I found out I could design every show, I jumped at it.”

  “Did you find it hard to . . . to . . .” Mrs. Fredericks was using her right hand to help her search for the right word. She patted the air be
side her hip as if she was indicating the height of a three-year-old. “. . . downsize?”

  Mrs. Lester smiled. “To making smaller costumes?”

  “I meant working with children instead of a professional company.” Mrs. Fredericks seemed to have forgotten Molly and I were in the room. I had a feeling she wasn’t used to noticing kids much.

  “I like working with kids. There’s a joy and enthusiasm—”

  Mrs. Fredericks interrupted her again. “But it’s only play. They’re not training to become professionals. It’s just for fun.”

  She remembered suddenly that I was there and glanced at me, a little embarrassed. “Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s great you kids are learning about theater. But no one here is going to be an actor when she grows up.”

  I felt myself blushing.

  “They’re certainly not encouraged to become professional actors. No one would encourage a child—or an adult—to go into such a hard field.” Mrs. Lester seemed to be enjoying the discussion, too. “But now and then someone comes along who can’t help it.” Did she glance over at me? “If they want it enough, they’ll do it anyway.”

  “Don’t you find they have very little sense of responsibility at this age? Look at the stack of costumes that need repair.” Mrs. Fredericks nodded at Molly, who was still stitching away.

  Mrs. Lester followed her glance. “Your parents are waiting for you. It’s time to go.”

  “I just finished,” Molly said, laying her mending down on the cutting table.

  Mrs. Lester shooed me out with her. “Go meet your ride. I promise I’ll show Mrs. Fredericks every inch of the costume shop unless . . .” She turned to Mrs. Fredericks. “Is someone waiting for you?”

  Mrs. Fredericks shook her head. “I find I’m traveling by myself these days.”

  Zandy was under a tree in front of the theater sitting on a bench, tucked in her mother’s arm, looking happy. I apologized for keeping them waiting but her mother just smiled at me.

  “It’s such a beautiful night now that the rain has stopped,” she said. “You can smell the orange blossoms so strongly. Want to join us?” She moved over to make room.