Okay, I admit it. When I heard the tourist lady call Haver “fabulous,” I inched a little closer so I could eavesdrop.
“Malcolm Haver!” the second lady in the group said. “Wonderful. Oh, Judy, let’s go!” she added, turning to the silent third member of their trio.
“Malcolm Haver?” Judy repeated, with an air of slight bafflement.
“Oh, don’t pretend you don’t know who he is,” the first one chided her.
At first glance, the three women were almost indistinguishable. They were all three in their fifties or sixties, well-wrapped against the cold in coats, hats, gloves, and woolly mufflers, and they each carried several red, green, and gold CHRISTMAS IN CAERPHILLY shopping bags in each hand. But the first two wore the starry-eyed expression of true enthusiasts as they studied Haver’s picture. As I watched, Judy’s expression shifted from incomprehension to mild distaste.
“Isn’t he one of those people who used to be on Hollywood Squares?” she asked.
“He was Sir Tristan on Dauntless Crusader!” Fabulous explained.
“And didn’t you see him in the remake of Now and Forever?” Wonderful asked.
“What incredible memories both of you have,” Judy murmured.
I was starting to like Judy. And to feel a little sorry for her, finding herself saddled with two overzealous Haver fans. Haver’s movie career had been unspectacular and mostly over by the time I was in grade school. His role as the roguish, cynical, yet ultimately goodhearted Sir Tristan was his main claim to fame, but although it lived on as late-night filler on some of the more obscure cable channels, Dauntless Crusader’s prime-time run had ended a good thirty-five years ago.
Which made Fabulous and Wonderful—like Robyn’s mother—just the right age to be avid Haver fans, I realized.
“The show doesn’t even open till the day after tomorrow,” Judy pointed out. “And we only have our rooms in the bed-and-breakfast for tonight.”
“We could ask to stay on,” Fabulous suggested.
“We could,” Judy said. “But if you remember, I had to make our reservations six months in advance.”
Her two companions drooped with disappointment.
“It’s okay,” Wonderful said, perking up again. “We could come back down sometime during the show’s run. It’s only a three-hour drive.”
“A much more practical idea,” Judy said. And one, her face suggested, that they could carry out without her involvement. “Let’s go back to drop this latest batch of bags. We can check to see if there’s any possibility of keeping the rooms.”
They hoisted the shopping bags they’d set down while studying the poster and headed down a side street. I turned the other way and continued toward the theater.
I avoided the front entrance—although I noted in passing that two students were assiduously polishing the large brass letters that spelled out THE DR. J. MONTGOMERY BLAKE DRAMATIC ARTS BUILDING. Good; Grandfather was in town for the play, and nothing irked him more than seeing his name tarnished. Nearby were mounds of evergreen and reels of red ribbon, so I gathered that when they’d finished the polishing job they’d move on to decorating the façade. Doubtless Grandfather would like that, too, as long as they didn’t obscure any of the letters in his name.
I continued around the side to the stage entrance—and then stopped. Damn. The Fan was there. Sometimes known as the Avid Fan or even the Rabid Fan. She’d been stalking Haver ever since he’d arrived in town. The one time someone had made the mistake of letting her in the building, she’d dogged Haver’s steps until he finally lost his temper and stormed out of rehearsal for the rest of the day. Now we were under orders to keep her out.
Maybe it would be easier to go in the front way.
But no. I was Meg, the assistant director. Even Haver behaved in my presence, or at least misbehaved more furtively and on a smaller scale. I could cope with the Rabid Fan.
I strode up to the stage door. She turned and brightened when she saw me.
“Meg! How’s it going?” Her tone could easily have convinced any passerby that we were devoted friends.
“Fine.” I paused outside the door and studied her smiling, eager face for a few moments.
She was older than me—fifties? Maybe sixties—and slightly plump in face and form. I wasn’t sure whether her glasses were very old or whether they were some sort of retro fashion that didn’t appeal to me—they were blue with silver glitter, made in what I thought of as a cat’s-eye shape, with the outside of the frame sweeping up into points. Her features were regular, rather ordinary but pleasant. She was wearing a red-and-green sweater festooned with misshapen metallic gold reindeer that would be a strong contender in Caerphilly’s annual Ugly Christmas Sweater Contest, but I knew better than to suggest this, in case she’d knitted it herself. At first glance, she was largely indistinguishable from the hundreds of tourists flocking the streets with their shopping bags and steaming cups of coffee and hot chocolate.
But I’d seen the glitter in her eye whenever Haver came into view.
“Tell me something,” I said. “Why do you keep hanging around here at the stage door? You know we’re not going to let you go inside, or even talk to Haver. You know seeing you upsets him. So why do it?”
She was already shaking her head before I finished.
“Seeing me doesn’t upset him,” she said. “He was just having a bad day. I shouldn’t have bothered him when he was trying to focus on his role.”
“And he shouldn’t have yelled at you just for wishing him a good morning.”
“You don’t know how hard life is for creative people.”
“I’m married to an actor, remember,” I said. “I know a lot about how hard life is for creative people. But by and large, no matter how hard it gets, most of them manage to behave decently and civilly toward their fellow human beings. And when they don’t they have the good grace to apologize.”
“You just don’t understand a truly great actor like Malcolm,” she said.
Only not-so-great ones like my husband? Clearly she didn’t understand how to avoid insulting and ticking off the very people who had the power to grant her access to her beloved Malcolm. Not that I was going to override Haver’s oft-stated wish to be left to work undisturbed, particularly by overeager fans.
Though come to think of it, to hear him talk, you could almost believe he had to fight his way through hysterical packs of fans after every rehearsal. I’d run into a few other fans in town—people like the trio I’d seen today, who oohed and ahhed over the poster. But so far at the stage door the Rabid Fan was also the Lone Fan.
“I should go in,” I said. “And before you ask again if you can come in and sit in the back of the theater, I’m afraid the last I heard, Mr. Haver was still adamant about not having any observers at rehearsal.”
“I understand.” She looked as if I’d gut-punched her, but she was also doing her best to smile bravely and keep her chin up.
I felt so sorry for her that I couldn’t resist throwing her a bone.
“And if he changes his mind, we know where to find you.”
She beamed as if I’d offered her a front-row seat for opening night.
“Thank you!”
“Are you staying near here?” I asked. “Because in case you haven’t heard, it’s going to start snowing this afternoon. If you have any kind of distance to go, you might want to start out before the roads get treacherous.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” she said. “I’m at a very nice bed-and-breakfast not two minutes’ drive from here. And in case the roads get bad, I can walk—I wore my boots, just in case.”
“That’s good,” I said. “Just stay safe.”
I used my key to unlock the door—keeping a close eye on her, in case a sudden irresistible impulse to barge into the theater overcame her—and went in.
I relaxed a little when I heard the lock click shut behind me, and stood for a quiet moment, letting my eyes adjust to the semi-darkness backstage. Somewhere not too far away a radio played softly. A piano, a drum, and a smoky contralto singer were turning “Away in a Manger” into something that sounded more like a torch song.
I pulled out my notebook-that-tells-me-when-to-breathe, flipped it open to today’s schedule, and glanced at my phone to check the time. Not quite noon. Rehearsal was supposed to start up again at two. At the moment, the various backstage crews were hard at work.
“A little to the left,” came a voice from onstage. “A little more. That’s it.”
Our tech director, fine-tuning some of the light settings. Probably making yet another attempt to focus the spotlights so they’d illuminate Haver properly during his grand repentance scene in the final act. It would help if from one day to the next Haver could remember to repent in even approximately the same part of the stage.
“Looks fine from here,” said another voice, this time from what I would once have called the audience—though I was getting pretty good at calling it “the house.” Backstage, onstage, house, and front of house—the latter being the lobby and box office—those were the cardinal directions of the theater world.
Off on the other side of the stage I could hear some hammering, which I hoped meant that the set crew were rebuilding the bit of scenery Haver had fallen through during last night’s rehearsal.
“Okay, let’s take that from the top.” Gemma, the stage manager. Was rehearsal starting already? I stepped forward and saw that near the other side of the stage, the actors playing Mrs. Cratchit and her two oldest children were sitting in folding chairs, arranged in a semicircle that approximated the positions they’d take around the fireplace in the third-act set. Gemma was holding a script, and Bob Cratchit was hovering nearby. Mrs. Cratchit and the daughter were holding dish towels and pretending to sew. The son was miming leaning against the invisible fireplace. Then Mrs. Cratchit sighed and dropped her dish towel into her lap.
“The color hurts my eyes.”
Her daughter wiped her own eyes with her dish towel, and her son took a few steps and put a comforting hand on his mother’s shoulder.
“They’re better now again. It makes them weak by candle-light; and I wouldn’t show weak eyes to your father when he comes home, for the world. It must be near his time.”
“Past it rather. But I think he has walked a little slower than he used, these last few evenings, Mother.”
“I have known him walk with—I have known him walk with Tiny Tim upon his shoulder, very fast indeed.”
“And so have I. Often.”
“But he was very light to carry, and … and … Line!”
The Cratchit son was wearing very anachronistic hipster glasses, Mrs. Cratchit was nursing a Diet Coke, and all three were wearing jeans and sweaters, and yet for a few moments, until Mrs. Cratchit had forgotten her line, I’d been totally caught up in the scene of the family mourning the departed Tiny Tim.
“‘But he was very light to carry,’” Gemma prompted. “‘And his father loved him so, that it was no trouble,—no trouble. And there is your father at the door.’”
“Of course,” Mrs. Cratchit said. “Why do I always muff that line?”
“Maybe because it’s my entrance cue.” Bob Cratchit sounded slightly irritated. “If you do it during performance, I’ll just barge in and you can deal with that.”
“Sorry.”
“Let’s take it from ‘the color hurts my eyes,’” Gemma prompted.
I slipped away quietly, before I got caught up in the play again. No time for that—I had a million things to do. Sometime this afternoon I needed to drop by the prop shop to see if they’d figured out what was wrong with the Ghost of Christmas Past’s torch, and if they’d managed to construct a fake Christmas goose that didn’t look as if it had mange. And I should drop by the lobby to make sure the Twelve Days of Christmas hadn’t gotten out of hand. In fact, I should do that first.
“Much better,” I exclaimed when I stepped out into the lobby. The red-and-gold drums that represented the twelve drummers drumming were now suspended from the ceiling on the left side of the lobby, nicely balanced by the eleven red plaid bagpipes dangling in midair on the left. The life-sized mannequins dressed as lords a-leaping, ladies dancing, and maids a-milking along with the papier-mâché geese, swans, and golden rings had all been fastened to the walls, freeing up much-needed floor space for incoming audience members.
Perhaps I should declare a victory for common sense and learn to live with the four cages of live birds—although together with the many brightly decorated live Christmas trees scattered about the lobby in red and gold ceramic pots, the birds took up at least half the available floor space. The three glossy black Crèvecoeur hens were rather festive looking, and the two turtledoves were adorable. I waved to Rose Noire, who had come in to feed the poultry and appeared to be having a long conversation in his own language with the partridge, who was sitting rather morosely under a potted pear tree much too small to bear his weight. Then I counted the calling (or collie) birds—here represented by Gouldian finches.
“Grandfather’s been at it again,” I said. “He thinks we won’t notice if he sneaks in a couple more finches.”
“How can you tell?” Rose Noire said. “There are so many of them.”
“I have resorted to counting them,” I said. “Last night when I left the theater there were twenty-seven. Now there are thirty-three—which is twenty-nine more than we should have for accuracy. This has got to stop.”
“If he’s going to sneak in extra birds, I wish he’d bring in another partridge.” Rose Noire sighed and shook her head. “I think poor Keith is lonely.”
“How can he possibly be lonely with so many other birds around?” I said. “More likely he’s suffering from the stress of having too many neighbors.”
I heard a door open behind me and turned to see Grandfather, carrying a small cage containing two more Gouldian finches. He stopped when he saw me, and turned as if planning to sneak away.
“No,” I said. “You are not bringing another finch into this lobby. In fact, you need to take away some of the ones that are already here. The canonical number is four calling birds, and you have more than eight times that number already.”
“But I need someplace to put them,” Grandfather said. “Laurencio’s counting on me.”
“Laurencio?” Not one of Grandfather’s usual co-conspirators.
“Ruiz. My friend in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He warned me last week that they were closing in on the mastermind behind this smuggling ring, and when they catch him they might be seizing a lot more finches.”
“And you’re finding homes for finches before they’re seized,” I said. “Isn’t that rather like counting unhatched chickens? Just sit tight. Caroline’s due home from her cruise in a couple of days—with any luck Laurencio won’t show up with the next installment of finches before then. Or if he does, you can put out a call for volunteers to foster them. But the way you’re going, by the time you really need their help, people will be as sick of finches as they are of zucchinis by the end of August.”
Grandfather heaved a heavy sigh, as if disappointed in my cruel indifference to animal welfare, and strode out, carrying his cage of finches.
“Thank goodness,” Rose Noire murmured. “They’re very pretty birds, but too much of even a good thing … still, I hate to complain to your grandfather—he seems so fond of the finches.”
“He’s not fond of the finches,” I said. “He prefers fierce animals, and there’s nothing fierce about a finch. And he’s very scornful about their brightly colored plumage. It makes them much easier for predators to catch, since the only place where they’d blend in with the scenery would be a crayon factory.”
“Then why is he so obsessed with them? It’s very … unsettling.” Rose Noire had come as close as I’d ever heard her come to criticizing Grandfather. Or anyone else, for that matter.
“He wants to impress the Fish and Wildlife Service,” I said. “And help his friend Laurencio. ‘You’ve got more finches than you can possibly handle? No problem! I’ll take care of it.’”
“I suppose that’s it.” She gazed thoughtfully at the finches for a few moments. “I’ll tell you who is obsessed with the finches—Mr. Haver. He was in here again reciting poetry to them. And badgering your grandfather about letting him buy one. He doesn’t seem to understand that they’re not Dr. Blake’s to sell. Is that why you had Grandfather put the locks on all the birds’ cages?”
“That’s one reason,” I said. “There’s also the fact that for some reason Gouldian finches are currently in such high demand that bad guys can earn a lot of money smuggling them into the country. I pointed out to Grandfather that if he wasn’t going to keep them safely out at the zoo, at least he could lock the cages and make any would-be finch thieves work for their loot.”
“That makes sense.” She took a deep breath and threw back her shoulders. “Well, those cages aren’t going to clean themselves.”
I’d already made a note to myself to talk to Grandfather. I expanded it to include suggesting that if he was going to foist finches off on people, he could at least pay some of his staff to feed them and clean up after them.
I could tackle that this evening. Right now I planned to drop by the costume shop. Malcolm Haver was supposed to be trying on the latest new and improved costumes. If he was there, he was under Mother’s eye, and I could relax until she had to leave for her meeting.
Surely if he wasn’t there Mother would have sent out an alert by now. Unless he’d pleaded the need for a bathroom break and snuck out of the building again, leaving her tapping her feet impatiently but too polite to stick her head in to ask what was taking him so long.
I headed for the costume shop.
My immediate anxiety was eased even before I reached the shop door when I heard Mother’s voice, in the imperious tone that I’d learned as a child meant that I was treading on thin ice.
“Do try not to writhe quite so much while we’re fitting you, Mr. Haver. I have rather a lot of pins in my hand, and Nadja is holding a particularly sharp pair of scissors.”
Mother was on the case.