Toni never set the alarm on her clock radio. From the age of twelve, she could program herself to wake at a certain hour. She lay still and let awareness come slowly. Sunlight streamed through the window in her bedroom, highlighting framed covers of playbills that hung in a cluster on the wall. For a long time, the events of the past two days remained mercifully distant.
Then, with a rush, she remembered. She’d been in a hospital and questioned by the police, had consulted an attorney. That much came back. Why not those few fatal moments when Craig was killed? Yet she realized she’d slept normally. The feared nightmare hadn’t come after all.
“Come on, Toni, smile. This isn’t a funeral.”
As if he stood before her, Toni heard Craig’s voice. He’d said that. With a desperate effort, she tried to pull into her conscious mind the events of that night, which at the moment consisted of tiny sound bites and images washed in white light. An umbrella skidding away from her touch, the lace collar on the vintage dress tickling her neck, electrical cords crisscrossing the floor like a nest of thick black snakes, the relentless heat.
She sat up, frustrated. She wondered if she’d ever find the vital missing pieces of the puzzle. Her next memory was of the doctor, then the two detectives. She remembered finding the message on her answering machine from her father. Craig’s murder had aired on the local news station in Iowa, and her father sounded almost frantic. He still lived in Iowa, although he no longer owned the farm where she was raised. Separated geographically, they celebrated some holidays together and spoke often by phone. She hoped she’d convinced him she was in no danger and not a suspect in Craig’s death.
Finally, she remembered the long meeting in Michael Benedict’s office. He had seemed to understand her situation, had given her his cellphone number. Had she been courteous to him or distant? Sometimes, when she refused help and insisted on doing things herself, she suspected others thought her a snob. It wasn’t that. She just kept control because there was no one else—no father, no mother, no disapproving aunt, no clever agent. And now, no more Craig. She fought down the twisting sensation in her midriff.
In her utilitarian kitchen, she started the electric coffee-maker and prepared a bowl of cereal and fruit. Her cat, Oscar purred like a little diesel engine and brushed against her legs. He’d been only a kitten when she found him in a near blizzard four years earlier, shivering behind a bank of garbage cans. The fact she’d even heard his weak meow convinced her they were meant for each other. She reached down and stroked the soft gray and black striped fur.
“You’re on your own again today,” she told him.
His response was first to intensify his purr, then clamp his sharp teeth gently on her hand.
“Pest. You’d think I never give you enough to eat. You have plenty of food in your bowl.”
That day, the prospect of filming at the studio, of donning the black wig and flashy clothes that were the trademark of Alexandra Bradshaw, made her want to burrow under the covers and stay there for a week. She wondered if the writers, who were not known to shy away from sensationalism, would exploit her current dilemma. Then there was Leo, applying pressure to have her character written out of the show. Now he had the perfect excuse. She was right in the middle of a murder investigation.
She carried her coffee cup into the bedroom. Somehow she’d get through the day.
She couldn’t recall a time when she didn’t want to be an actress. She’d grown up isolated on the farm and an only child as well. Forced to invent her own companionship and entertainment, she pictured a different life in her future. She’d visualize herself as the heroine in the books she read or the TV shows she watched. If she were on stage, she reasoned, she could be someone else, glamorous, mysterious, even dangerous. The school plays she acted in intensified the attraction. She’d been a princess, a wicked witch, a proud but poor beggar. The barn became her first theater, the animals her audience. In the school plays, the other actors became her only friends.
Her father, like most farmers, had little time to spend with her, but her mother was encouraging.
“After college, you can move to New York and try your luck in the theater,” she’d said. “I’m saving my egg money.”
“Why must I go to college?” Toni hated the thought of delay.
“It will help you as an actress. You’ll see.”
Then, midway between Toni’s ninth and tenth birthdays, her mother was killed in their home by an intruder. Her father’s maiden sister arrived to take over the household. Because her aunt discouraged fantasy, Toni had to hide her ambitions. Now attaining her dream would be up to her. No one else would help or care.
At Northwestern University, which she attended on a partial scholarship, she played many lead roles: Emily in Our Town, Laura in The Glass Menagerie. Her scrapbook became filled with glowing reviews. At graduation, her drama professor gave her a letter of introduction to Josh Mandel, his theatrical agent friend in New York. She called on him, gave him the letter and showed him her pictures and résumé, which didn’t contain much else than one season of summer stock plus her work at the Goodman. Apprenticing in stock was nice, he’d said, but since she had no professional experience, he couldn’t help her land a part in any current productions.
By doggedly attending every audition, she landed a role in an Off Off Broadway production of The Cat and the Canary, but the show ran for one performance, and there were no reviews. After that, she found jobs in several commercials, was cast as ingénue leads in summer stock, and landed small roles in three Hallmark television shows.
Then came Beekman Place.
However, it was Craig Landis, who’d become a friend when she served him at the restaurant where she worked, and not the agent, who told her about the opening on the soap opera.
The cat brushed against her legs. She had no time to give him attention. “Sorry, Oscar,” she told him “I have to go face the lions.”
After she brushed her teeth, she stared at herself in the mirror over the bathroom sink, affecting an exaggerated smile. She knew she didn’t smile often enough, but being her own one-woman public relations manager had made her somewhat cynical. It was hard work, and she was no longer the happy child she’d been at eight. She sighed.
She pulled on a green linen skirt and white sleeveless blouse, grabbed her keys and purse, and rode the elevator down to the lobby. She hesitated, remembering the swarms of reporters and photographers when she’d left the hospital the day before. There would be no producer to ease the way this time. As usual, she was on her own.
* * *
When Toni finally walked into the studio, she found herself the focus of attention. Most of the cast, crew, and stagehands stopped work to stare at her. She understood their curiosity, although she hated the self-conscious feeling it gave her, as if she were Medusa, with snakes poking out of her head.
The lead cameraman gave her a thumbs-up, which boosted her courage, as did two of the people who worked with props. However, a couple of the technicians who handled lights and sound stared at her with open suspicion. One or two new hires avoided eye contact with her completely, as if being at the scene of a crime made her somehow contagious.
As she crossed toward the set, Heather Dunn came up.
“Toni, what an awful thing to have happened! Are you okay? Can I do anything?” The actress, three years younger than Toni, played Lane Winston, the daughter of Charles Winston, the multi-millionaire building magnate of the series. Petite, with long blonde hair and blue eyes, Heather was a California girl in looks and background. “It sounds like something our crazy writers might have concocted for Alexandra Bradshaw.”
“I wish it were,” Toni said.
Heather matched her steps to hers. “I wanted to call you last night, but Nathan came on the set and insisted we not disturb you. I thought that was what you’d want.”
Toni nodded, grateful for Heather’s concern.
“Do you need a lawyer? My mother knows someone.”
“Thanks. Nathan recommended Michael Benedict. According to our producer, he really knows his way around a courtroom.” Although she rarely felt comfortable when meeting a person for the first time, she had with Michael Benedict.
“That’s good news.” Heather’s smile turned into a frown. “And now for the bad. Leo’s been looking for you. He kept us here until almost midnight last night. He scrapped half of what we filmed during the day and literally threw some new pages at us. He said more radical changes in the script were coming ASAP.”
A feeling of apprehension overcame Toni. Changes in the story line might mean Leo had succeeded in his one-man campaign to drop her from the show. Why did he hate her so much? When she’d auditioned for him, he’d hired her on the spot.
“You are Alexandra Bradshaw,” he’d said eagerly.
Now he was just as eager to have her fired. What happened to change his mind? Pressure from Janet Whitman? Toni knew the older actress was desperate to stay in the cast, but why would Leo allow himself to be swayed by her?
Glancing across the set, Toni saw Leo, a thick cigar in his fist, consulting with a cameraman. She headed in the opposite direction, toward her dressing room.
“Dahling.” Janet stepped out of the shadows. “It’s really quite, quite horrifying. An actress must never get involved in such bad publicity. It hurts the show. It hurts us all.” Janet’s heavily made-up hazel eyes narrowed and her face muscles tightened. If she had any distress over Craig’s death, she hid it well. What she had never bothered to hide was her dislike of Toni. Perhaps she saw herself as used-up and was jealous of Toni’s youth and burgeoning career. And now she was implying that Toni was involved in Craig’s murder and responsible for any publicity that might negatively impact Beekman Place.
“Thank you for your concern.” Toni refused to be intimidated. “Janet, didn’t you once tell Barbara Walters that no limelight was ever too bright, no publicity ever too bad?”
As if Toni hadn’t spoken, Janet continued, “Leo’s been in touch with the Nielsen people. He wants to know if we slipped in the ratings.”
Toni knew of Leo’s obsession with the ratings. They’d risen after she’d joined the cast. So why kill off her character, one apparently popular with the viewers? It didn’t make sense.
Janet reached forward, pressed Toni’s arm lightly with the tips of her nails and smiled, as if she knew some secret Toni wouldn’t like to hear. She kept her voice low, departing temporarily from her usual affected clenched-lips style of speech to say, “We don’t intend to let your problems sink this show. Just remember that.”
Toni turned away and continued on to the small dressing room that she and Heather shared. A long table with a lighted mirror took up one wall, and a metal clothes rack holding the actresses’ costumes took up the opposite wall.
Barging into the room unannounced, Leo thrust several sheets of paper at her.
“While you were away yesterday, Toni, dear,” he made it sound as if it were some whim on her part to be found with Craig’s dead body, “we firmed up the script changes. The past-life regression scene, where Alexandra is attacked by Jack the Ripper, is out for now. Instead, after you leave the Winstons’ summer estate on Long Island, you’re going to walk toward the red Lamborghini, and it will explode.”
Explode? Toni felt as if the nightmare of two days before had returned. First Janet’s none-too-subtle threat and now this. “Was that your idea, Leo?”
“The show is a collaborative effort. You’ve all had your input along the way, so don’t be temperamental.”
She felt her jaw tighten. Every profession had its fair share of cutthroats and back-stabbers, not unlike some of the characters on Beekman Place. However, Leo made some of them look respectable. She’d done everything possible to please him on a professional level, and nothing had worked.
She flipped through the pages he gave her. There it was—a death scene. “Alexandra lies in a hospital bed.” No dialogue, of course. It was a far cry from Camille.
Leo’s lips turned up slightly at the corners, as if he relished the moment. “Actually, you don’t die, at least not yet. The writers haven’t decided what to do with your character. It might be time to introduce someone new, before the audience tires of Alexandra. So, in the meantime, you’ll be, er, hovering.” He drew out the word. “You shouldn’t complain.”
The writers, one of them the show’s co-creator, retained most of the artistic control, so, at least for now, it would appear Leo was unsuccessful in his efforts to have her character completely eliminated. What a bruise to his ego.
“After all,” the director continued, “you’re front page news, and for the worst reason. If the police arrest you for Craig’s murder, you can’t continue on the show, can you?” A malicious glint reflected in the steely gaze the director fixed on her. “You shouldn’t have got yourself mixed up in anything like that.”
“We were taking photographs.” She felt as if her air had been cut off. “There was nothing ….” She stopped. Leo might be her director, but she had no intention of letting him put her in a defensive position. She owed him no explanations.
Leo interrupted. “Yeah, yeah, that’s what you say, but people are wondering.”
She recovered her equilibrium long enough to fire the parting salvo for once. “Then they’re the wrong people wondering about the wrong things.” She walked away.
Her concentration damaged, she had to summon all her instincts as an actress to get through the interior scene they filmed just prior to the explosion of the car.
When cast and crew moved to the outdoor set, Toni stepped onto the flagstone walk, a creation of pomegranate red hugging her figure like wallpaper, and approached the low-slung Lamborghini.
“Cut!” Leo called out.
The actual explosion would be filmed later, with a mock-up car and a dummy Alexandra who would be thrown like a rag doll onto a nearby lawn. For now, the glamorous clothes were exchanged for blackened bloody garments and her makeup redone.
For the last shot of the day, she lay on the grass, and the camera closed in slowly, focusing for the last ten seconds on her face, made to look as near death as possible. As she lay there, scenes from the murder floated before her closed eyes: bright lights that created an uncomfortable glare, the incessant whir of a camera shutter, a piercing, shattering sound. Someone else lay on the floor. There had been blood, real blood.
She trembled so badly they had to reshoot the scene. Then the vision retreated back into the void that was Wednesday night.