Chapter 31

Sailors and a rough bar crowd gaped, bemused. Tommy and the troupe danced with broad humor across a stage of yet another venue.

Sary, in a blonde wig and tattered velvet, fanned herself in the wings, awaiting her cue. Days somehow sped into weeks—different bars, once a small theater, a girl’s school, a whirl of rehearsal—for Tommy took his troupe seriously—with color, laughing faces, and pugnacious drunks, and chores mundane as mending costumes.

In an odd way, Sary infused the traveling show with fresh blood, she being the new audience to conquer. The skits were more spontaneous, and the troupe reveled in audiences more robust than usual. Managers paid less grudgingly and meals improved.

She flinched as Lear, now awaiting his cue, brushed her shoulder. She checked the seeping wound—an underlying infection, healed but like a good patch over a worn quilt, made foolhardy any plan other than this easy confluence of days.

Fever was her constant companion now, with flushing cheeks and lips, lending her eyes a certain irresistible madness.

Her gaiety was hysteria, but the mob wasn’t in on it, so Sary earned her keep, hiding her bad arm by holding things in the crook of it, and if the troupe noticed, they kindly left it alone. Sary scratched her side where a knob had formed, with aching as fresh as if the fracture were green, but at least her ribs healed. The redhead said kindly one night, “Fleas, is it? I have somethin for that, darlin’.”

Sary thought she might find she enjoyed all this and be sucked down the rabbit hole of casual warmth, zeal, and camaraderie. She wished she could…

A little more time. Jasmine and laces and long skinny boats. Castles and…and maybe little Jude… She whispered her mantra. Her mind shied from the noisome saloon and Handi and diseases, and Julian and his putrid cough. Does Jude yet live?

“Sary!” Tommy hissed.

She started. Tommy, on stage, edged awkwardly toward the wings, glaring at her. The audience was restless, and so Sary barged on as shrewish Katherina one more night, snarling, “If I be waspish, best beware my sting!”

Sary was not bad as an actress, yet she seemed to take personal delight in stinging Tommy beyond the waspish Taming of the Shrew dialogue.

Now Katharina/Sary, in bedraggled velvet cut daringly low, swatted Tommy extra hard, venting frustration beyond stage direction with each blow. Swat!

Petruchio/Tommy hissed, “A tad harsh! Sweet Katherina!” and pinched her in turn. “Have a care!” He chased her, pincering his fingers. “My remedy is then to pluck it out.” Tommy leered at the titillated audience.

Sary looked daggers and, as Katherina, sashaying before the mob, smirked back. “Ay, if the fool could find it where it lies.”

The crowd sniggered, goading her on. They were in an actual theater for once, and the gallery roared approval.

Petruchio: “Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting? In his tail.” Tommy performed a crude bump and grind. He whispered, “Give ’em what they want. A bit more bosom, sweet Katherina. An ankle perhaps. Eh?”

Katharina swirled. “In his tongue!”

Petruchio pranced across stage, broadly posturing. “Whose tongue?”

Katharina’s foot darted from under her gown. Tommy stumbled into a stool, skittering it into the audience. They tossed it back. Tommy raised the stool, threatening.

Sary, her hips swaying, tittered behind her hand.

“Yours, if you talk of tails, and so farewell.” Sary trod on his foot and swivel-hipped away.

Tommy kicked at her backside, missing. “What, with my tongue in your tail?” And he roughly swung her back. “Nay, come again, Good Kate; I am a gentleman.”

Ribald snickers from the mob as Tommy thoroughly kissed Sary, then dropped her. Sary staggered, swinging her arm wide.

Suddenly Tommy sank to his knees under the swing, mugging to the audience. “Marry, so I mean, sweet Katherina, in thy bed…” Tommy leered blatantly, tried for another kiss, and jumped back holding his lip and his groin, to the mob’s raunchy delight. He strutted the stage with effort, as if it were all act and his privates didn’t hurt.

Sary looked contrite. Sort of.