G iven what happened, we need to assume that the Century Foundation may not be reading grants anytime soon, my development director wrote in an email. My first reaction was disappointed frustration, but then I caught myself. A woman had been murdered and we were worrying about the grant. Send in the application anyway, but here are the other applications you’ve been working on. They look good; I’ve made a few tweaks. I’ve got the board working on making connections at the foundations. Will you have time to look them over today?
I’ll make the time, I emailed back.
She’d attached three applications, ready to be printed out and proofed before they were submitted. I was glad there was a plan B. And C. And D. One way or the other, we needed to get this funding on track if the production center was going to be at least somewhat built by the summer season.
I carried my laptop back to Holly’s office, hoping to borrow a printer. I found Holly at her desk, surrounded by piles of paper. She was staring at the wall in front of her, her shoulders slouched forward.
“Hi, Holly. Sorry to interrupt. I wondered if I could borrow a printer?”
“Um. Sure, I guess so,” she said, straightening up a bit. “Do you want to send me the document and I can do it for you?”
“No thanks. I can just connect to this printer. Is that okay?” I pointed to a LaserJet in the corner. The model was very close to the one I had back in my office, so I was hoping it wouldn’t require any new software. Fortunately, it worked. Unfortunately, each application was several pages long, and the printer was a little slow.
After a minute or so of Holly and I ignoring each other, I thought that I should try and break the ice. She must have had the same thought.
“No, you first,” I said, after we’d done the double talk tango.
“I just wanted to thank you for talking to Dimitri. Harry says that he’ll probably get a little easier to deal with. I mean, well … ”
“Less of a pain is the ass is all I can help you with. Easier won’t happen. That said, Dimitri’s a good guy and a great director. And, I dare say, he’s a little nervous. You guys are a big deal.”
“Yeah, I guess we are. My first paying job in the theater was with Les Pathes. Do you know them?” I nodded. Les Pathes was a company that did interdisciplinary work and toured it. They operated on a small budget and spent long periods between productions raising money and rehearsing. “I loved the company, but it was hard work, and I didn’t love worrying about my bills all the time. I thought it would be so much easier working here, with real budgets and a staff. But it’s just as stressful except on a bigger scale. You know?”
“The Cliffside is my first theater gig, but I can imagine. Are you glad you made the switch?” I could see that she was struggling with the answer, so I let her off the hook. “At least you’re getting lots of great experience. And Babs must be a good mentor.”
I’d always heard good things about Babs Allyn and Bay Rep, but I was beginning to wonder how true they were. Morale seemed low, and this Romeo and Juliet situation would have kept me at the theater, not away from it.
“She was. Is. She’s got a lot going on right now,” Holly said, fidgeting with a binder clip she’d picked up.
I wanted to ask her more, but Holly was shutting down. I admired her professionalism, but I didn’t want to pander to her and say so aloud.
“Holly, there is one thing that Dimitri mentioned. Not that this is my business in the least, and I know it’s caused a ruckus. Has Cassandra spoken with you today?”
“No, not today. We talked last night, but she didn’t like my answer. I still haven’t been able to reach Babs, and Cassandra insists she’ll only speak with Babs.”
Of course she would only speak with Babs. Cassandra was a talented costume designer with an ego that eclipsed almost anyone else I’d ever met. In my life.
“I haven’t spoken to her either,” I said, “but Dimitri mentioned that they were talking about new designs, probably mostly pulled from her stock.”
“I’ve been trying to figure out if I can throw them any more money. I have an idea, but I should check with Babs first. Don’t you think?”
“Of course. Though if you can figure it out without it affecting the overall budget too much, maybe she’d be grateful that she didn’t need to deal with it. Just a thought. Is there any room, anywhere, to move money around?”
“Well, I understand that Stewart is staying with you? Will he have housing for the whole run?”
“He and Harry both. Might that save some money?”
“Some.” She showed me a number. “I heard that they’re also looking at getting some fabric for the set—”
“So they can paint it, from what I understand.”
“I’m making some calls, trying to see what I can do to get it okayed for set use, and get a better price. I’m really trying. I think I can get it for about half the amount we’re saving on housing. So I’m wondering if the other half could go for costumes.”
“That’s good thinking,” I said.
“Thanks. To me this seems like a wash. Am I missing something?”
I asked Holly a few more questions, and she had answers for each. It would have been easier for me to just look at the budget, but I didn’t want to overstep. Besides, Holly being able to answer questions seemed to buoy her confidence. “Sounds to me like you’ve really thought this through,” I said.
“I know the company doesn’t think that’s true, but I am trying,” she said.
“Keep looking at the budget, see what you can do to move things around. My assumption is always that as long as the bottom line stays the same, you can play with expenses a bit,” I said.
“That’s what I thought, but I’m not sure if Babs will think the same way.”
“Tell you what. When she gets back, why don’t we meet with her together and talk it through.”
“Thank you for the offer. I may take you up on it,” Holly said. She smiled for the first time that day.
“You know, Holly, if I’ve learned one thing doing this job it’s that few people are going to tell you you’re doing a good job. Most folks think you exist to say no. So let me say this—you’re doing a good job.”
The last of the applications had printed out, so I unhooked my computer. “Do you have a couple of binder clips I could borrow? While I’m collating, why don’t you draft an email to Babs and run it by me?”
“That would be great. Thank you, Sully.”
“Thank you Sully indeed. Glad to see that someone is helping Holly run this ship. Where the hell is Babs?” Hal Maxwell leaned through the doorway, looking done in.
“Uncle Hal, how are you?” Holly ran up and gave him a quick hug around his neck. Then, as if she’d suddenly remembered I was there, she let go and took a step back. “I’ve been calling and texting. I even went by your house early this morning, but no one was there.”
Hal looked pained. He turned his hand over and ran his knuckles along Holly’s cheek. “Oh, my sweet girl, I’m sorry I worried you. I wouldn’t do that for anything. You know that, right? I must have been home. Maybe I didn’t hear the bell? But then Jerry called me in the middle of the night, asked me to come down—”
“Jerry? Is everything all right?” Holly asked.
“You haven’t heard?” Hal turned to me. I hadn’t made the connection, but of course Holly must have known Mimi Cunningham. I was doing too good a job at compartmentalizing my life these days.
“I’m sorry, Holly,” Hal said. “I was hoping you already knew. I hate to have to be the one to tell you this, but Mimi Cunningham was found dead.”
“Dead? What, did she have a heart attack or something?” Holly asked.
Hal was silent, so I filled in. “Holly, I don’t know any of the details. From what I’ve read, they think it was foul play.”
“I’m not surprised,” Holly said. Aside from her initial reaction, she was very calm.
“You don’t mean that, Holly,” Hal said.
“Yes, I do mean that. You and I both know she knew what happened to my dad and never told us. Who knows what other secrets she was hurting people by keeping?”
“Holly—” Hal looked at me anxiously.
“Didn’t you tell me she was the last person to see him alive? Did I tell you she threatened to call the cops last time I went to see her to ask about him? I’m not sorry she’s dead. She was a terrible person. I don’t even feel bad for saying that.”
“You’re in shock, sweetheart,” Hal said. “We don’t want to give Sully the wrong idea.” He turned toward me. “Sully, Holly’s been under a lot of stress this past year. I’m sure you can imagine.”
“Of course—”
“The Cunninghams were, at best, secretive,” Hal said. “They didn’t do a lot to help us try and find out what happened to Martin. But I really believe with all my heart that they had nothing to do with his disappearance.”
“Well, you believe more than I do,” Holly said. “I think they know what happened. I wish that you or Babs remembered something. Anyway, maybe Jerry will have a change of heart now. I always thought he was the nicer of the two. I’ll call him.”
“Holly, maybe you should give him a few days to get his bearings. This must be a hard time,” Hal said.
“I’ll give him a few days, Uncle Hal,” she said. “I’ve got some sense of the social niceties. I’ll even go to the funeral if you think I should. That’s what a nice gal I am.”
Hal looked like he was going to say something more, but I interrupted. I felt as if I’d stepped into the middle of a family squabble, and I wanted to leave, but not before I asked Hal a couple questions.
“Hal, have you heard from Babs today? Holly hasn’t heard from her and neither have I. Not that I need to, but she said we’d find some time to chat.”
I looked at Hal and tried to read his face. He fumbled in his coat pocket and pulled out his phone.
“She sent me this text. We had some words yesterday. Last night, after the unfortunate incident at the University Club, she made it clear she needed some time to think. Here’s the text—she says she’s going to go up to our place in Vermont for a few days. That she’s going to reach out to you as well. Holly—”
Holly went over to her desk and picked up her phone. “Argh, I turned the volume off earlier. Yes, here it is, she texted me around five o’clock in the morning—”
“That’s when she texted me,” Hal said.
“Yup, told me the same thing. ‘Heading up to Vermont.’” Holly took a deep breath and put her phone in her pocket. “I thought you closed your house down for the winter?” she asked Hal.
“No, we keep it open for ski weekends. Bring clients up, let them stay for the weekend. We did shut down the phone, though. Cell phone is spotty up there—”
“I remember,” Holly said. “Last summer I had to go way down to the end of the dock, loop my arm around the piling, and lean out over the water. That was the only way I could get any cell reception. I can’t believe she’d leave without talking to me first.”
“She’s not herself these days,” Hal said. “We’ve been arguing a bit, trying to figure out what the next steps look like for both of us. I also think—Holly honey, I’m sorry to say this, but the anniversary of your dad’s death is coming up soon, and that’s affecting Babs more than she wants to let on. I know we’ve all been thinking about him a lot lately. She always thought he’d come back, that he just went away to get himself together—”
“To dry out, you mean,” Holly said quietly. “I thought that must be it, especially after he sent that postcard. But it’s been almost a year.”
“Your dad had his demons, but he was a good man. Anyway, maybe she’s feeling some kind of delayed grief. I’m sorry she left you in the lurch.” Hal turned toward me. “Sully, I hate to even ask—”
“You don’t have to ask anything,” I said. I reached over and grabbed Holly’s hand, squeezed it gently, and let it go. “Holly’s got this. I’m happy to talk it through with her. I don’t know the ins and outs of Bay Rep, but I do know how to manage a budget. We won’t screw anything up too badly, will we Holly?”
“I hope not,” she said quietly. “Hal, if you hear from Babs, please have her call me. I just want to hear her voice.”
Hal’s phone buzzed. He looked down at the message and frowned. “It’s the—listen, I’m sorry, I need to take this. I’ll check in with you later, okay, Holly? Sully, thanks for pitching in. I’m glad you’re here.” He gave Holly a brief half hug as he answered the phone and scurried out of the room.
“I’m glad you’re here too, Sully,” Holly said. “You must think I’m terrible, what I said about Mimi. Of course I’m not glad she’s dead. It’s just that—it’s been an awful year. Now that Babs isn’t here …”
“Listen, do you have Babs’s address up in Vermont?” I asked.
“I do somewhere. Why?”
“I know some folks up there. They’re around Woodstock, right? I remember Babs mentioning it once. I’ll ask somebody to go by the house and have her call in. I don’t want to intrude. I mean, that’s a long way to go to be alone. But it’s hard to believe she’d leave you in the lurch like this—”
Holly sighed. “Uncle Hal’s right. The anniversary of my dad’s disappearance is affecting us both. Maybe he really is gone.”
“What do you mean?” I asked gently.
“A couple of weeks after he disappeared, I got that postcard from him. He told me to hang tight, he’d be in touch.”
“Do you have the postcard?”
“No, Babs asked to borrow it a few weeks ago. She told me she was going to try and find out what really happened, and that she needed to show it to someone. Maybe that’s what she’s doing.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe it’s affecting her and she needed to take a break. I’d still like to talk to her and get her blessing to help you.”
“I’ll text you the address of the Vermont house when I find it. I’m sure I’ve got it somewhere,” Holly said. She took a deep breath and her eyes got watery. “I need to get some fresh air, clear my brain a little bit. Would you do me a huge favor?”
“Sure. What you need?” I asked.
“Would you go talk to Cassandra? Float the number we talked about by her?”
“Sure, of course. I’ll be happy to talk to Cassandra,” I lied.
How did I get myself in these situations? Even off-duty, I had to go talk to one of the most difficult people I knew.
“Well, Sully Sullivan, as I live and breathe. Thought you were trying to ignore me. I was starting to take it personally.”
“Now Cassandra, why would I be trying to avoid talking to you?” I said. Cassandra stood in the middle of the theater, draping pieces of fabric on the backs of the seats in front of her.
“Let me count the ways, right, Sully?” Cassandra set the bag of fabric on the seat next to her. She stepped out into the aisle and opened her arms wide. I stepped in and gave her a big hug. She let go, stepped back, and looked me over from head to toe, shaking her head. I knew I disappointed her. I always did. I made no effort to dress to impress, barely wore makeup, and owned enough accessories to fit in a gallon-sized baggie. Scarves included. Cassandra had never met an accessory she didn’t like and always used scarves to add a splash of color, either as a headwrap or around her neck. Sometimes both. Her bangles jangled and her earrings were always a work of art. She made them herself, and also made necklaces and other pieces of jewelry. She sold them on Etsy, one of the many ways she kept revenue coming in, helping her to live her artist life. She made more money working on movies, but her heart was in theater. I knew she felt about Bay Rep as Dimitri did, that it was an amazing opportunity she didn’t want to take lightly.
“I was only planning on being here for a couple of days,” I said, zipping up my fleece so she couldn’t see the grease stain in the middle of my shirt. “I’ll admit it, it’s all yoga pants and sweatshirts from here on out.”
“You’re killing me slowly. You know that, Sully?” Cassandra said. “I’ll try to pull some scarfs together for you, other things to brighten you up. You look like a college student, and a badly dressed one at that. It just won’t do. You should represent the Cliffside a bit better than that, my friend.”
“You’re right, of course,” I said, pulling my fleece down. “I’m in off-season mode. You must love working with Babs Allyn. She dresses to the nines.”
“She does dress beautifully, but honestly? I prefer working with you. At least you answer my questions and let me know where I stand, even if it doesn’t make me happy. Babs has been ignoring the entire situation, if you want my honest opinion. She’s given up. Who in their right mind would let a production of Romeo and Juliet happen with all-white costumes when the set was going to be all white? I’m asking you now. Who?” Cassandra shook her head, her braids gently clicking together in disbelief. “I tried to ask questions, but I was told to shut up and do my job. So I did. I was hoping someone would come to their senses at some point.”
“That set is a challenge, isn’t it?”
“In the original design, the set had a bit more color, but then Pierre changed it. The costumes have always been what they are, but I was hired to coordinate their creation, not design.”
“How’s the process been?” I asked.
“The paycheck here is better than the Cliffside, but it’s been a rough couple of months, for a lot of reasons. I’d love to work with the company when they’re less stressed, but I’m not sure that’s going to happen anytime soon.”
“The idea behind the design is sort of interesting,” I said. “But if Pierre wanted monochromatic, why didn’t it include black, white, maybe some grays? But all white, with letters for the families?”
“You see, you’ve got the instincts,” Cassandra said. “Even if you start Romeo and Juliet with one family in black, one family in white, and then put Romeo and Juliet in grays at the end, that’s something. Obvious storytelling—too obvious—but at least it makes sense. But this plan? He said everyone should be a blank slate, no storytelling with the costumes. Can you imagine? That just doesn’t work for me. But like I said, I was more of a hired hand, so I made it work.”
Cassandra fingered her notebook, where I imagined she’d been doing drawings since Dimitri had called her and told her he was coming aboard. “Are those your ideas?” I asked.
“Some of them, yes. I was trying to build on the white jeans and T-shirts, since they’re all in the shop ready to go.”
“They must’ve saved some money on the budget that way—”
Cassandra sighed. “You’d think, wouldn’t you? But these weren’t just any white jeans. Pierre insisted on specific jeans, imported. From Europe. I don’t even want to tell you how much each pair cost. It would make your heart ache, honestly it would.”
“Can you dye them?” I looked through Cassandra’s drawings, which, as always, went from her ultimate dreams down to the realities of the production. She always showed me that range, helping me see what would be possible if we found a bit more money. Cassandra had designed our production of Romeo and Juliet, and I recognized some of her dream costumes as ones she’d shown me back then. Back when she still thought she had a chance of talking Dimitri out of the dystopic version of Romeo and Juliet he eventually put onstage. Ultimately, she’d risen to his concepts, delivering futuristic costumes that gave us all a thrill under the summer lights.
Someday Cassandra would be able to design her dream production of a Romeo and Juliet. But not this time. I flipped to the end of her drawings and saw what she had come up with for this production. I recognized some of the pieces from previous designs for other shows, many of which she’d done for us. Reusing pieces made a lot of sense, given everything about this production. I noticed that both Romeo and Juliet wore white jeans, but with different tops, of course. I suspected that these were the pieces Cassandra was mostly focused on; the pieces she would make for this production. The pieces that would be the Cassandra signature. They both looked ornate and complicated. And expensive. I suspect they were all three, but that Cassandra would do what she could to mitigate the cost.
“Okay, Cassandra, bottom line. Tell me what you need. I’m helping Holly navigate these waters since Babs is out of town for a few days. We could go back and forth, play the games. But neither one of us have time for that. I suspect you want to get moving on this design. Not sure how you can pull this off in such short order, but you are a bit of a miracle worker.”
“Don’t blow smoke, Sully,” Cassandra said. “It doesn’t suit you. You know I’ll do what I can. My name’s on the line too. I’m not going to leave Dimitri hanging. I do need some money, though.”
“Do you have a piece of paper I can use?”
“Sure.” Cassandra tore a piece off the back of her sketchbook and handed it to me. At the top I wrote budget increase for costumes and below that I wrote a figure.
“Will that help?” The figure I wrote was a little bit less than the figure Holly was considering. Cassandra always enjoyed a negotiation. I looked up at the set—still a bright, shiny white. I imagined actors in costumes, lights, maybe with some props. There was a lot that could affect the set. I couldn’t make a decision for the company, but if push came to shove, I’d counsel Holly to pour more money into costumes if possible.
Cassandra wrote down another figure, a little over what Holly had had in mind. I wrote down Holly’s figure.
“I think I might be able to talk them into this. Afraid that might be it.”
“Then that will have to do. Trust me, Sully. The audience will be grateful that we’re telling a story with the costumes. Folks pay attention to what you wear. That’s why it matters. They pay more attention to that sometimes then anything else. Which is why”—she looked at my yoga pants with disdain—“you need to let me get you some pizazz.”
“All right, you win. I’ll try to jazz it up while I’m here in the big city.” I got up and walked down the center aisle, out into the lobby. I texted Holly: Cassandra’s all set. I sent the budget number.
Great, thanks, she replied.
I’m going out for a bit, I texted. I need to buy a scarf.
I also needed some fresh air. To clear the cobwebs. Theater folks live by the adage, “The show must go on.” No matter what, the job takes precedence. Come to think of it, cops work by the same adage. No matter what, the work gets the attention. And what was I doing? I’d put Mimi’s death into a box and ignored it.
I put my coat back on and set out to the shops on the next block. A little window-shopping, a realignment of my humanity. I sighed and thought about Mimi Cunningham. A woman was dead, and I’d only been thinking about how that affected my grant application. I needed to do better, to be better, than that.