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“Get your tiny white hands off my red dress, bee-yatch!”
“It’s NOT yours! It’s not for sale!”
“It is too mine! I just bought it!”
At first, Lacey couldn’t see what the two furious women were fighting over so fiercely. Then suddenly a spray of dark red burst over their hands and arms in the noonday sun. Each was trying to pull some sort of scarlet object away from the other, and neither was letting go. It was turning into a tug of war.
The crowd around them parted in apprehension, and Lacey got a glimpse of the prize. It was a dress, but what a dress. Rivers of blood-red ribbon, sequins, and beads flowed over the layers of crimson tulle, ruby taffeta, and scarlet silk and satin that flirted together in the long-trained skirt. As the women tussled over it, the garment unfolded into a full-length gown. The sleeves were sheer slashes of scarlet, and the heavily beaded bodice caught the light and glinted in the sunshine. Stiff with fabric, the thing could almost stand on its own, the mass of material resembling a blood-soaked figure.
This bloody spectacle didn’t stop the two women struggling for this prize, a multitiered theatrical costume in a riot of red hues, supposedly worn by the actress who played the character of Death in a legendary musical production of The Masque of the Red Death.
Fashion reporter Lacey Smithsonian decided this garment was entirely suitable for death. I hope it doesn’t become an accessory to murder, she thought.
This tug-of-war was taking place at the annual multi-theatre yard sale in Washington, D.C., where the many theatres of the Nation’s Capital disposed of their leftover costumes, props, set pieces, posters, and miscellaneous theatre memorabilia. The crowd was full of theatre people, actors, designers, techies, set builders, costume collectors, and everyday theatre fans.
Drama and farce were bound to happen, but mostly in the attire of the motley-dressed crowd. Lacey had dropped by this Saturday in midsummer in search of random inspiration for her fashion column, but she hadn’t expected this much drama.
This particular claret-colored gown of contention was caught between Lacey’s fellow Eye Street Observer reporter LaToya Crawford and her smaller-yet-pugnacious opponent, a woman Lacey didn’t know. The crimson garment threatened to wind up in bloodshed or layers of torn tulle, or both. Lacey considered the prize. She couldn’t blame the contenders. This costume begged to be touched. Now, that is the power of a spectacular dress.
Lacey wasn’t sure whether to pull out her reporter’s notebook or stand ready to help LaToya, her compatriot at the paper. Or to try to separate the two, but she couldn’t see a way to get between them and survive. And was the red dress strong enough?
LaToya seemed to be winning, inch by inch. The other woman was no match for her, who at the moment resembled nothing so much as a fierce Amazonian warrior, tall, beautiful, and black. Her pale frizzy-haired blonde adversary was shorter by a good five inches and pudgily out of shape. Yet she held on, red-faced and sweating.
“They sold it to me,” LaToya said through gritted teeth. “It’s mine.”
“It was a mistake!” The other woman huffed and puffed and pulled. “We’d never sell this dress! It wasn’t supposed to be on that sale rack. You’ll be sorry!”
Empty threats, Lacey thought. Theatre people.
“You’ll be on that rack yourself if you don’t let go of MY DRESS!” LaToya dug in her heels for one last hard yank, and the prize was hers. She emerged victorious, red gown in hand, shaking off her conquered rival. The smaller woman backed away defeated, grumbling under her breath, rubbing her chafed hands.
The stunning ruby ball gown at the center of the struggle was connected to a vague theatre world rumor. Lacey tried to remember: something about the leading lady supposedly dying. During the show? After the first performance? Wearing the red dress? Or was it a different show? She couldn’t recall the details. Anyway, that wasn’t the dress’s fault, was it?
LaToya surprised Lacey, but not by fighting over the dress. LaToya was a determined reporter, capable of relentlessly running down any news source for a hot story. However, LaToya Crawford was the last person who would go to the mat over clothes that had been worn by someone else. She had told Lacey as much, just before the red garment reached out and mesmerized her.
Love happened that way, unexpectedly yet passionately. The fact that this was a dress and not a man didn’t matter. LaToya had fallen and fallen hard. She was in love with the red dress. And now she had fought for it and won.
You just never know about love, Lacey thought.
***
THIS SATURDAY MORNING in June had started off calmly enough. The annual multi-theatre “yard sale” of leftovers from the city’s smaller playhouses was a treasure trove of oddities and eye candy, with rows of tables full of props, racks of costumes, piles of furniture and entire stage sets. There were custom-made props, such as giant kitchen spoons and forks from someone’s avant-garde production of Lysistrata, a cut-in-half dining room table from a comedy of manners, and dilapidated thrones from various historical epics. Like a jam-packed antique store, it was hard to know where to look first.
Most in the District, even the tourists, knew about the big theatres, the Kennedy Center, the National, the Warner, Arena Stage, and Ford’s, where President Lincoln was shot. However, there were many other lesser-known theatres in the Capital City, dozens of smaller playhouses and theatre troupes with a variety of approaches, from edgy political drama and new minority playwrights to improv and sketch comedy, from children’s theatre to big musicals and intimate cabaret shows. More than one theatre specialized in Shakespeare, another in George Bernard Shaw, and another in bilingual shows in Spanish and English. They offered new works and novel takes on classics, showcases for struggling actors, and even venues for emerging playwrights. Every year or two some of them cooperated on this yard sale, held in a parking lot just off Fourteenth Street Northwest, a central location for many of the theatres.
Lacey had come not to buy, but to eye, the costumes, the shoes, the one-of-a-kind hats and gowns and outfits made for imaginary characters and real-life actors. She wondered whether anything there could really be suitable for a modern woman’s closet, or just for parties and events, such as masques and balls.
Lacey had a headline or two in mind for her “Crimes of Fashion” beat: Emptying the Costume Shop. Selling a World of Dreams. There might even be a “Fashion BITE” in it: Actors Will Wear Anything! On stage, they certainly would. Or nothing at all, if the part or the director called for it. Lacey had seen enough of those sans-clothing shows on D.C. stages. She preferred shows with wonderful costumes to shows full of shapeless pasty naked bodies, no matter how dedicated to their art.
This June morning she feasted her eyes on glorious stage stuff. Bloody heads from Shakespearean productions nestled with angel wings and skulls, stage makeup, false noses and fake beards and wigs. Prop swords battled with magic wands. All because Tamsin Kerr, The Eye’s theatre critic, had tipped Lacey off to the sale of what she called “woebegone fripperies,” theatrical detritus no longer needed or filling up cramped storage spaces. This style scribe adored woebegone fripperies.
At last Tamsin herself arrived on the scene, yawning and hefting a large cup of coffee.
“Where did you get your brew?” Lacey inquired.
“Over by the swords and sorcerers. Somebody was smart enough to set up a snack bar.”
“Maybe I’ll get some coffee.”
“Only if you like it dreadful. I do.” Tamsin tilted her cup and swigged.
Tamsin might be sleepy at this early hour, not quite noon, but she was still intimidating. Actors who caught sight of her backed away and whispered to their friends about her latest reviews. The theatrical crowd parted for Tamsin, whose reputation exceeded even her height, which was nearly six feet.
“I can think of better things to do on a Saturday morning, Smithsonian,” she said.
“Most Saturdays, yes,” Lacey agreed. “But I wouldn’t miss this. Thanks for the tip.”
“There might even be the slightest chance of a story in it for me, but I doubt it. Nevertheless, Hansen will be toting a camera or two.” Tamsin squinted at a gaudy display of Elizabethan caps and moved on, yawning. She enjoyed the occasional “transformative production spun from the minds of geniuses,” she told Lacey, but there were also years of watching bad plays, puzzling direction, and egregious acting. Not to mention the playwrights. “Dear God, the playwrights.”
Tamsin defied the June heat in black jeans and a severe long-sleeved black shirt. This theatre critic would never be seen in something as frivolous as cutoffs and a tank top. Tamsin’s dark cloud of curls floated around her shoulders. Her blue eyes were discerning. Lacey admired Tamsin’s dedication to her own interior style critic, but she could be an enigma. She wasn’t a regular fixture in the newsroom. Being on the theatre beat made Tamsin a bit of an outsider, and her late deadline for reviews meant she filed her stories after most of the staff went home. Actors and directors feared her. Reporters didn’t understand her, and they assumed she had a “soft beat.” Hard news reporters tended to be snobs about their own political, finance, and international news beats. For the most part, Tamsin ignored the other reporters as well, considering them lesser beings. Lacey was an exception.
“It’s not easy being different,” Tamsin once said to Lacey. “Yet when you get down to it, it’s one of the few things that matter. The anonymous are not remembered.”
Lacey’s position at the newspaper rested somewhere between the two worlds. Fashion reporting was considered frivolous, and yet newsworthy mysteries and murders seemed to follow Lacey’s beat like a lonely puppy. Reporters dismissed her daily work, but they were jealous of her scoops.
Like Tamsin, she had her own reputation to live up to, as the paper’s fashion reporter, the “style queen.” She could never simply toss on a pair of old shorts and a T-shirt and just go.
When the weather turned hot and humid in Washington, it was difficult to dress well. Linen was a favorite in D.C., but in the steamy heat linens collapsed into a puddle of wrinkles. Lacey favored vintage clothing from the 1940s, which suited her petite and curvy figure. Summer clothes from the period were rare and fragile, and she was reluctant to wear those cherished items except for special occasions. Instead, she chose newer clothes with a strong retro vibe.
Today, she settled for a crisp apple green cotton skirt and a patterned sleeveless blouse. A brimmed straw hat shaded her pale skin and blue-green eyes and protected the fresh blond highlights in her long honey-brown hair. For unexpected purchases she carried a tote, which contained a partially frozen bottle of water. It would eventually melt, but it would stay cold.
Todd “Long Lens” Hansen, The Eye’s head staff photographer, caught up with them, ready to work, with cameras and camera bags slung over his shoulders. The laid-back, sandy-haired, long-legged lensman wore his usual jeans and blue work shirt. He made his way to Lacey’s side.
“Hey, Hansen.”
“Hey, Lacey! I’m here at Tamsin’s beck and call, but I’m here if you need me. What kind of pictures do you want?”
“Colorful, newsworthy, and anything that isn’t me.” There were too many old photos of Lacey in embarrassing situations in Hansen’s files. “I do not want to be humiliated today.”
“Ah, don’t be a poor sport. We’ve gotten some great photos together.” He grinned and lifted his camera. “Me with my zoom lens and you with your—
She blocked the lens with her hand. “I get it. Have a good time and remember I’m not the focus. There are lots of cool costumes and props to photograph. Like that tinfoil spaceship over there.”
“No killers today?”
“Killers aren’t everywhere,” Lacey said.
“They are everywhere,” Tamsin interjected. Her caffeine was kicking in. “You just don’t know who they are. Yet. They are like spies. And you, Smithsonian, have known more than most people.”
“Spies or killers? And I do not.”
“Both. And the evidence is empirical.”
Killers? Lacey had met a few, over the past year or two. As for spies, they were everywhere in the District of Columbia. The Spy Museum claimed that every sixth person in the city was working for one government or another. And since the contentious elections, with Russian interference tilting the electoral scales, people were tense. Distrustful. The media was under fire by the administration and vice versa, and it was a daily struggle to remain sane. There were days when Lacey’s fashion beat felt to her like a sanctuary.
“Like that crazy Russian friend of yours,” Tamsin continued.
“Kepelov?” Lacey uncapped her semi-frozen water bottle. “You never know. He’s ex-KGB or FSB or something, but he wears cowboy getups and wants to settle down on a ranch in Texas. He’s totally pro-U.S.A. I think.”
“So, any spies here at the props and costume sale?” Hansen raised his camera hopefully.
“Refreshing their disguises among the costume shops, no doubt,” Tamsin cracked.
“Ah, the critic speaks,” he said.
“And must be obeyed.”
“Spies in disguise would be a great story,” Lacey said. “But how would we know?”
“Your department, not mine,” Tamsin said.
“How about you, Tamsin? What are you looking for, picture-wise?” Hansen asked.
“Follow your muse,” she said grandly.
“Will do. Suggestions, anyone?”
“I saw some stuff from an Alice in Wonderland over on the other side,” Lacey said. “Huge hats from the Mad Hatter’s tea party. Colorful. Practically hallucinogenic.”
“Hallucinogenic hats. Got it.” Hansen strolled away into a sea of likely subjects.
Lacey left Tamsin in the shade of an umbrella with her coffee and headed toward the costumes, which ranged from the awful to the sublime, some from theatres with bare cupboards and consignment-store rags, some from theatres with lavish budgets underwritten by major corporate sponsors.
A rack of tuxedos from elegant shows like Private Lives was being swarmed by impoverished actors, looking to score formal wear in the event they were ever nominated for a Helen Hayes award. And a tuxedo was a smart addition to any man’s Washington wardrobe. There were so many formal events to attend, and for actors, the occasional restaurant or catering job that required the same look. Lacey personally believed that a tuxedo improved many a man.
She caught sight of Will Zephron, a young actor-slash-waiter, bearing a black shawl-collared number and a big grin. He saw her and waved his prize tuxedo in salute.
“Hey, Lacey! Look what I just bought! It’s perfect, it’s my size, and it was on stage in some Ayckbourn thing at Round House. Missing a button, but who isn’t? Hey, what’s up with you, anything bizarre happening today?” Will had once spilled a tray of champagne on a broadcast journalist at the White House Correspondents Dinner, and had feared he’d never work as a waiter—or an actor—again. No one wants a clumsy waiter.
“Nothing bizarre, except D.C. style in the summer,” she responded.
“Don’t I know it! Don’t let me get in the way of your fashion vibe. I keep my drama on the stage.”
As if. The actors she knew liked their drama all the time. “Good shopping?”
“Are you kidding? Snagged this great tuxedo, now I have to score some white tux shirts.” He pawed through a long rack of tuxedo shirts and pulled out a likely candidate. “Waiting tables, you know. Can’t have too many.”
“Mind if I quote you?”
“For publication?”
“Maybe.”
“As long as you identify me as an actor and not a waiter.”
“You got it. Are you going to try that shirt on?” She didn’t see a changing booth, but there were theatre curtains hung up for sale in the next aisle.
“Nah. It’ll fit.” Will measured the shirt against his body to show her, then charged back into the shopping fray, tuxedo tucked safely under his arm.
It’ll fit. Just like a man.
She looked for Hansen at the Alice in Wonderland costumes, but he’d moved on. She hoped he’d gotten something whimsical. Lacey was in the mood for whimsy. She watched a petite dark-haired woman trying on one of the enormous Mad Hatter hats, three feet tall in eye-popping yellow, pink, and green. She was squatting down to check it out in a short mirror. The chapeau dwarfed her, but she and her friend laughed, and she bought the hat.
Lacey showed her press pass and asked them, Why that hat? The woman said her name was Micki and she was an actress.
“The big hat? It’s just fun! And you know, Halloween.” Micki said it wasn’t nearly as heavy as it looked, being made of some kind of foam. She was concerned only with where to store it. “I live in Adams Morgan. I’m really limited on closet space.”
“But it’s like art. Pop art,” said her friend. “Don’t store it! Just display it. Hang it on the wall.” With such unassailable logic, they decided it was perfect. Micki’s friend bought one like it in red, blue, and purple.
Lacey wandered on. Shakespeare was well represented by props and costumes, likewise the witty George Bernard Shaw and the dreary Arthur Miller, and of course Tennessee Williams, with a trove of broken glass animals from The Glass Menagerie and a box of faux-dirty T-shirts from Streetcar.
The yard sale was awash in color and dazzle and local theatre history. Some offerings were threadbare, having already been lent out or rented to local colleges and high schools and returned in less-than-pristine shape. There’s always Halloween. But down the aisle, Lacey found some intricate Elizabethan costumes from an old production of Romeo and Juliet at the Landsburgh. This smart theatre, one of the District’s best, included a typed history of the show, a description of the outfits, and the visiting celebrity actors who had worn them, many seasons ago. A big-name wearer seemed to raise the price considerably. Lacey looked at the tags. Not on my salary.
She was keeping her eye out for costumes from a long-ago production of The Women, by Clare Boothe Luce, and around one corner, there they were. The stage production was set in the late 1930s and the costumes had been a triumph. The famous 1939 film version had featured a wardrobe by the legendary designer Adrian, who exulted in very broad shoulders, very high hats, and a glossy Technicolor fashion show set in the middle of the black-and-white film. The stage costumes for the D.C. production were even more outrageous, with even more wildly exaggerated shapes and oversize shoulders in a spectrum of Crayola colors. And the price tags were exaggerated too.
While Lacey admired the imagination that went into them, they were definitely costumes, not clothes she could imagine wearing on the street, outside of Hollywood or Broadway. It was the difference between life and the theatre.
“Hey, Smithsonian,” a voice called.
LaToya was heading her way. Ready for a hot summer day in black cropped pants and a crisp white shirt, she wore large silver hoops in her ears and her shiny black hair was pulled back in a sleek French twist. LaToya had her own sort of style magic. She was statuesque and wore her clothes well, one of the few reporters at the paper who was not a fashion disaster.
“You’re up early,” Lacey said.
“Disappointing date last night. Got home early.”
“And I didn’t think a yard sale was your thing.”
“Never say never. I’m open to new experiences and I’m curious to see how you do that thing you do. Broadway says it’s your fashion voodoo.”
“Broadway” was Broadway Lamont, the homicide detective she had in her sights, but not her possession, not yet. Detective Lamont was a large and muscular black hunk of a man. His main talent seemed to be intimidating suspects, but LaToya intimidated him. Lacey could see the fear in his eyes whenever LaToya was on the hunt.
“It’s not voodoo,” Lacey said.
“ExtraFashionary Perception then. I hear that’s your specialty,” LaToya teased.
Lacey smiled. “How do these rumors get started?”
“No rumor. The message is in the clothes and you are the receiver.”
“Well, my EFP isn’t helping today. The things I love, I can’t afford, and the things I can afford, I don’t love. But maybe you’ll get lucky.”
“Moi?” LaToya fluttered her perfect red nails. “I have no intention of handling any old clothes worn by sweaty strangers under hot lights. Let alone wearing them.” She shuddered, surveying a rack of black dresses. She almost touched one, then daintily wiped her fingers on the air.
“But that’s where the magic lies,” Lacey answered. “Think of all the people who may have shared a bit of their soul with these things.”
“Their soul too? Now you’re just being creepy.” LaToya rolled her eyes. But then her gaze fell on a rack of formal gowns. “OMG. What is that?” She pointed a perfect red nail at one particular red dress.
Lacey pulled it down off the rack and read the attached tag. “Ahem. This stunning ball gown was worn by Red Death in Kinetic Theatre’s production of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death.”
Neither one noticed that Tamsin had circled back to join them. She leaned over Lacey’s shoulder to peer at the dress.
“Oh that! Let me think. That show was years ago. Before I was a theatre critic. Officially, anyway. Something is gnawing at my memory.” Tamsin tapped an index finger on the side of her face as if drawing out the semi-forgotten file. “Red dress. Red mess. Aha. That is, I believe, a famous costume. Or should I say infamous. Is there a mask with it? There should be a mask.”
“Don’t think so. No.” Lacey riffled through the gown and shook her head. She imagined a jeweled red mask gracing a mirror in a dressing room somewhere. Purloined by some theatre person.
“Probably lost over the years.” Tamsin smiled. “That’s it, though.”
“That’s what?” LaToya asked. “Look at all these reds! These are so my color.” She took the long red dress from Lacey and hauled it over to a mirror at the end of the rack. LaToya held it in front of her and gazed at her reflection.
“It’s really just a rumor,” Tamsin told her. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“What are you telling us?” Lacey asked. “Or rather, not telling us?”
“Didn’t I say?”
“No!” LaToya and Lacey said together.
“D.C. theatre lore. The actress who wore this gown supposedly died during the last show. Or right after it. Closing night. In this dress. Or maybe not in the dress? I don’t know, actually. But I can tell you, this dress has a reputation.”
“How did she die?” Lacey asked.
“Oh, she fell. Stumbled, fell from the stage, or a scaffold or a riser or something. I think it was an elaborate medieval castle sort of set, rising, falling, staircases, towers, moving platforms, that sort of thing. I’m so over those things.”
“What sort of thing?”
“Effects. Theatres love big effects. Half the time they do it just because they can, not because it’s necessary or serves the play. Simply because they have the money, or a sponsor to pay for it. A pool in the middle of the stage. A fountain that sprays the front row. A revolving castle. Why not? If the play is dull, throw in a turntable, a helicopter, a rocket ship, and maybe no one will notice the hole in the second act.”
LaToya was dancing with the red dress and her reflection in the mirror. Lacey wondered what had gotten into Miss No Icky Old Clothes!
“Tamsin, what are you talking about vis-à-vis the dress?”
“Merely this, Smithsonian. The ‘Red Dress of Doom’ over there sometimes comes up in conversation when grim theatre tales are told. I didn’t write the story. It happened a couple years before I even started writing for The Eye. And that was a dark day, believe me.” She tipped her coffee back with gusto.
“Freaky, I grant you that,” LaToya said over her shoulder. “But it’s not the dress’s fault. People die. Life goes on. And will you just look at this amazing dress? This thing was made for me!”
“Actors will tell you they want to die on stage doing what they love,” Tamsin added. “They’re lying. Now I remember. Her name was Saige. Saige Russell. The actress who died.”
“Could be just a story.” Lacey knew every story gained some embellishment in the telling. “If there’s anything to it, there should be clippings in The Eye’s archives.” She mentally filed away the name Saige Russell.
“And you’ll be checking it out for me, right?” LaToya’s hands trembled ever so slightly as she clutched the red dress. But she held on tight. “And then you’re reporting back to me, right? Just out of curiosity, I mean.”
“Now that I think about it, I’ve seen that dress in action,” Tamsin said. “Not the original production, of course. On actresses, wearing it to things like the Helen Hayes. It’s become sort of a good luck thing, or a spit-in-the-eye-of-bad-luck thing.” She snorted. “Actors.”
“A good luck, bad luck thing?” Lacey asked.
“Sure. By wearing it, you stare death in the face. And you survive, of course. What are the odds? So you win. At least that’s what I gather.”
“So this Saige Russell. First she plays Death. And then she meets her own death?”
“Ah, the stuff of theatre myth,” Tamsin said. “Or at least legend.”
“Do we know for sure that the actress died?” Lacey asked.
“I have no idea,” Tamsin said. “In the theatre, it’s all about the story. The emotional effect. The dramatic weight of the thing.”
“Just like journalism,” Lacey said with a laugh. “Except for those— Oh what do they call those things? Oh yeah! Facts.”
“Hey, this is Washington, guys,” LaToya said. “Death comes in many ways. This just sounds like some weird-ass accident to me. And she wasn’t wearing it at the time, right? And it’s probably all just a rumor. On the other hand—” LaToya hung it back on the rack and stared at it. Lacey and Tamsin watched as LaToya wavered, but the red dress won. “Okay. I’m going with the good luck angle. This dress has found a new home. Mine!”
LaToya and the Red Dress of Doom went in search of the cash register. Together.
