By the time Lulu and I made our way across the village green the bright summer sun had burned through the morning clouds and it was swelteringly hot out. Mimi, looking fabulous in tight jeans and an even tighter tank top, was out on the lawn dealing with two men from Sherbourne Roofing, whose truck was parked next to the stage entrance. The younger of the two had climbed an extension ladder that was propped against the side of the playhouse and was moving around very, very gingerly on the section of roof directly over the stage.
“No can do, Nick!” he called out.
“Why is he saying that?” Mimi asked Nick as I approached them. “What does he mean?”
“The beams are rotted out over the middle of the structure,” Nick explained patiently. “If we try to walk across the roof we’ll fall right through.”
“How about a crane? Can you bring in a crane?”
“I’m not sure I can rent one on such short notice.” Nick was trying really hard not to stare at Mimi’s breasts snugged inside her tank top, which were still a sight to behold even though it had been sixteen years since she—they—had graced the cover of Sports Illustrated. “Even if I could we’ve still got the weight issue, as in the structure can’t hold any. Best we can do is fling a couple of blue tarps over the stage and anchor ’em in place with a few bricks and boards.”
“Wouldn’t plywood be more effective?” she asked.
“Plywood’s too heavy. Might crash right on through and kill one of your stars. You wouldn’t want that to happen, would you?”
Mimi’s nostrils flared. He was patronizing her. “There have been times when I would have,” she answered tartly. “But this isn’t one of them.”
Nick tilted his Sherbourne Roofing cap back on his head, gazing up at his man on the roof. “Latest forecast I heard for this evening is an eighty percent chance of severe thunderstorms with wind gusts up to sixty miles per hour. That kind of wind will blow our tarps right off. For that matter, it could blow the whole roof off. Those old cedar shingles up there are so rotted out that the nails are barely holding them in place. Picture driving a nail into a piece of sopping wet toast. That’s what my man’s looking at.” He glanced over at the big tent. “And I wouldn’t place any bets on that thing staying put either.”
“Is there a point to this?” Mimi demanded irritably.
“If it was me I’d postpone your event until tomorrow.”
“Not possible. Two of my stars will be leaving town as soon as the curtain falls. Besides, hundreds of very prominent individuals have cleared their busy schedules to drive out here from New York City. It’s got to be tonight.”
“I wish I could help you, but I can’t replace those rotted beams and reroof her in six hours. It’s a two-, three-day job for a half-dozen men. Besides which, we’re still talking about a building that’s sliding off of its foundation sills. This playhouse should have been torn down five years ago.”
“It’s not going to be torn down!” Mimi said heatedly. “That’s what tonight is all about. We’re trying to save it.”
“I understand,” he responded, though clearly he didn’t. Roofers are noted for their achy knees, not their sentimentality. “All we can do is tarp the stage area and say a prayer.”
“What about the roof over the audience?” I asked him.
“We can tarp the whole danged building if that’s what you want. But I’m telling you right now, if those tarps blow off, your very prominent individuals will get good and wet.”
“So they’ll get good and wet,” Mimi said. “That’ll make it a night to remember. Wouldn’t you say so, Hoagy?”
“Yes, I would.”
“Okay, whatever you want.” Clearly, Nick didn’t approve of the whole enterprise. “Should we get started?”
“Please,” she said to him.
He trudged off toward the extension ladder to talk to his man on the roof.
“This may be it, Hoagy,” Mimi said, watching him walk away.
“May be what?”
“The day I completely lose my mind.”
“Not to worry, I’ll help you find it. I have a ton of experience in that particular department.”
Her pager beeped. She glanced at it and excused herself, striding briskly off toward the set warehouse, her fists pumping with determination.
Me, I went in the stage door and down the spiral staircase to the dressing rooms. It still smelled moldy and sour down there even though several box fans and sump pumps were going. And Lulu still had that same guarded look on her face that she gets whenever she’s in the presence of r-a-t-s.
I found Merilee in the ladies’ dressing room with Dini and Sabrina. All three were busy putting the finishing touches on their circa-1930 period costumes. Merilee wore a slinky pale yellow chiffon dress and saucy little hat. She was seated at the mirror darkening her eyebrows. Dini wore a knockoff of a little black Elsa Schiaparelli flapper-style dress and was fiddling with a gleaming black wig. Sabrina, whose wig was gray, was buttoning her dowdy maid’s uniform.
Merilee eyed me in the mirror. “What do you think, darling?”
“I think it’s you. All you need is a flask of hooch tucked in your garter. How are you feeling?” I asked Dini, who looked shaky and deathly pale.
“I’ll be fine,” she replied, her voice sounding quavery.
“Did you hear back from that doctor?”
“Not yet, but I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“I bet you have Lyme disease,” Sabrina offered helpfully. “They have ticks all over the damned place around here. I can’t wait to get back to the city.”
“I’ll conserve my energy during rehearsal and take a nap before the curtain,” said Dini, who looked so sick it was hard to imagine she’d make it. But I’d seen Merilee crawl out of bed with a fever of 104 and light up a Broadway stage numerous times. It’s what performers are born to do. The show must go on. Dini Hawes appeared frail and delicate but, trust me, she was constructed out of the same chromium steel as Michael Jordan.
I heard a commotion in the corridor behind me. Lulu was frisking with the twins, playfully whooping as they chased after her calling out, “Luluuuu . . . !”
“Mimi was just outside talking to a roofer about what to do if it pours tonight,” I informed Merilee.
“What did he suggest?”
“He’s going to tarp it, but he can’t place too much weight on the tarps or the entire roof will collapse. He seems quite convinced of that. So if it gets really windy the tarps will blow off and everyone’s going to get soaked.”
“Darling, I wonder if you would do me a somewhat unusual favor.”
“Do I have to wear a dress?”
“No.”
“Then fire away.”
“I want you to hit every Walmart you can find and buy up all of the umbrellas they have in stock.”
“Say no more. I’m on it.”
“We’ll also need plastic buckets. Dozens of them. If the roof leaks it’s going to drip in the aisles, the lobby, everywhere.”
“Consider it done.”
“If you can find us two hundred umbrellas I’ll marry you.”
“Does this constitute a proposal? You’d better be careful. I have two witnesses.”
One of those witnesses, Dini, nearly crumpled to her knees when she stood up from her dressing table. She had to grab onto it to steady herself.
“Are you sure you can do this?” Merilee asked her, greatly concerned.
“I’m fine,” Dini assured her.
“You’re not fine,” fumed Glenda, who’d arrived in the doorway just in time to witness her daughter nearly collapse. “I’m calling Doctor Orr to find out if he has the results of your blood work back yet.”
“Mom, I’m his patient, not you, remember?” Dini pointed out wearily.
“I can still find out if he has them,” she said stubbornly.
“Whatever.” Dini sighed, her small hands trembling slightly.
On my way out I checked on Greg and Marty in their dressing room. Both actors had slicked back their hair with brilliantine. Greg was decked out in a vintage double-breasted white suit, Marty in a checked sports jacket and pleated cream-colored slacks. Something about their costumes reeked of summer stock to me. Possibly it was the overpowering smell of mothballs.
Greg sat before his dressing table mirror fiddling with a fake mustache. “What do you think?” he asked me.
“I think it looks like a pair of dead cockroaches.”
“I was going to say dung beetles,” Marty put in.
Greg studied himself in the mirror, turning his head this way and that. Off went the mustache.
“Dini seems to be feeling worse,” I said to him.
“I know, poor thing. They’ll knock it out with antibiotics, whatever it is. I just hope the twins don’t catch it.”
“What about you?”
“Me? I never get sick. I have the constitution of a horse.”
“And the comic timing to match,” Marty said.
“You’ll pay for that,” Greg shot back, grinning at him.
Sabrina joined me in the doorway in her frumpy maid’s costume. “You guys look awesome,” she observed, gulping. “I just hope I can hold up my end. I must confess that I’m starting to panic. There’ll be a houseful of really great actors out there tonight.”
“There are really great actors here already,” I reminded her. “You’ve been working alongside of them for two weeks and doing fine. Trust me, you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
Her dark, slanted eyes gleamed at me. “I didn’t know you were sweet. On top of being brilliant, I mean.”
“Sabrina, you really need to work at getting over your shyness with men,” Marty advised her.
She ignored him. “I’m free for the next half hour. Would you like to get a coffee?”
“I’d love to, but I have that vital errand to run, remember?”
THERE WERE THREE, count ’em, three Walmarts skirting the shoreline within a thirty-minute drive of the Sherbourne Playhouse.
The first one I arrived at, in Clinton, was the standard cheerless, windowless, dimly lit gulag of a warehouse. Whenever I walk inside of a Walmart I’m convinced that we didn’t win the cold war. There were surveillance cameras everywhere. Racks of cheap, utilitarian merchandise that had been manufactured in a giant sweatshop in some impoverished land halfway across the globe. The employees were so slack-jawed and dead-eyed that I swore they’d been lobotomized. And then there was the smell of those sweaty hot dogs that had been going round and round on the rotating electric grill in the snack bar for the past seven or eight hours. I wondered what continent those hot dogs originated from. I wondered what was in them. Actually, no, I didn’t.
Lulu was highly allergic to the place. I think it was the dye that they used in those stacks of stiff, nondesigner jeans. All I know is she started sneezing the second we passed through the automated doors.
After I’d asked three clerks and hoofed it a half mile I found a box of twenty-four black travel umbrellas hidden among the camping and fishing gear. They were the sort that slide open and shut. I slid one open. It wasn’t sturdy enough to handle a mild gust on Sixth Avenue, but we weren’t expecting any gusts inside of the Sherbourne Playhouse. Or at least I certainly hoped we weren’t. I asked a clerk if they had any more in the back. He obliged me with humanoid politeness and returned ten minutes later with another box, which gave me forty-eight. Not a bad start. Next I trekked to the housewares department and filled a grocery cart with twenty plastic buckets in assorted sizes and colors.
From there it was a half mile back to the cash registers to wait in line, which gave me a chance to catch up on the latest supermarket tabloid news. There was plenty of dirt about Burt and Loni’s impending divorce if you wanted to read about that, which I didn’t. Also the shocking revelations about new first lady Hillary Clinton’s top-secret love affair with a man whom a highly reputable scientist believed was an extraterrestrial. I didn’t pull that off of the rack either. Not when I could read about those captivating young lovebirds Lorena and John Wayne Bobbitt. It seems that Lorena had caught her husband cheating on her. On the night of June 23, while John was asleep in their bed, Lorena had proceeded to cut John’s penis off with a kitchen knife, jump in her car and drive away with it. Somewhere near their Manassas, Virginia, home she’d thrown it out her open car window into an empty field, then suffered, um, misgivings and phoned the police. A thorough search of the field was undertaken and John and his severed penis were surgically reunited at the hospital a few hours later. He soon announced it was good as new—all systems go—and was now cheerfully squiring porn stars and nude models around L.A. by the dozen while Lorena languished in a Virginia jail cell awaiting trial, unaware that she had single-handedly contributed a major new verb—to bobbitt—to the rich tapestry of our language.
Back out into the icky, sticky summer air we went, the blacktop of the five-acre parking lot radiating the searing afternoon heat as I pushed the grocery cart back to the Woody. I unlocked the tailgate and stowed my purchases, closed the tailgate, turned and discovered that R. J. Romero was standing less than a foot behind me, grinning at me. His sweaty, gleaming face had a faintly jaundiced tinge to it in the bright sunlight. His rotting teeth looked grayish. He wore a striped T-shirt that looked as if he’d scored it off of Beaver Cleaver, blue jean cutoffs and sneakers without socks.
Lulu immediately growled at him.
“Your dog still doesn’t like me,” he observed, continuing to grin at me.
“That’s because she has good taste.”
He threw back his head and laughed.
I wondered if Pete Tedone was parked somewhere nearby keeping an eye on me and, if so, whether he would decide to step in. “So is this just two good-looking guys bumping into each other by chance or are you tailing me?”
R.J. didn’t respond, just kept on showing me his gray teeth. His breath smelled like one of those aged, overworked storm drains in Times Square.
“Okay, I’ll try a different approach. Is there something I can do for you?”
“Just wanted to make sure you’re going to keep our date tonight.”
“I said I’d be there. I’ll be there. Now how about you get the hell out of my way?”
“Don’t push me, smart guy. Bad things happen to people who push me. Or have you already forgotten about that chicken of yours?”
“It was a rooster, you moron.”
“I don’t like to be called a moron.”
“Really? I should think you’d be used to it by now.”
R.J. glared at me menacingly, his head cocked slightly to one side. “Same thing could happen to your little dog here, you know.”
“No, it couldn’t.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I’d kill you first.”
“You and who else?”
“Wow, I haven’t heard that one since the fourth grade. You need to upgrade your threats a bit, if you don’t mind some professional advice. You might also want to think about getting your teeth cleaned. I have an excellent dentist in New York if you ever want his name. Oh, and one other thing—don’t ever come near that farm again.”
“Why, what’ll happen?”
“See above re: I’ll kill you. And now this conversation is over. Unless there’s something else you wanted to say.”
“Nope.” R.J. dug his rumpled pack of Kools from the back pocket of his cutoffs and lit one with a butane lighter, dragging on it deeply. “Just be sure you’re there. Same spot. Eleven o’clock.” And with that he went sauntering off across the parking lot like a cocky, overaged member of the Jets from West Side Story. Once an actor, always an actor.
I watched him to see if he got into a car, the one that Mr. MacGowan had told me needed a new muffler. But he just kept on going until he went inside of Walmart. Possibly he had a hankering for a hot dog.
I unlocked the door to the Woody, got in and rolled down the windows. Lulu put her head in my lap, whimpering.
“Don’t you worry, girl. I won’t let him hurt you. He’s just a punk. I’ve got your back. Scout’s honor.”
AS I STARTED back toward Sherbourne with my mammoth haul of umbrellas and plastic buckets I could see huge, billowing dark clouds forming over Long Island Sound. Thunder rumbled off in the distance. The wind would gust suddenly and then, just as suddenly, the oppressively humid air would become totally still again. Yet there was an unsettling, ominous quality to the stillness.
When I arrived back at the playhouse four roofers were up on extension ladders doing the best they could to fling blue tarps over the old theater and secure them in place with boards. The tent crew was reinforcing the stakes that held the big wedding tent in place. Cases of champagne were being unloaded from a liquor distributor’s van. A couple of local Connecticut TV news crews were grabbing some B-reel footage for the five o’clock news.
I found a lobby door that was unlocked. The lobby walls were lined with posters of popular recent productions, which, due to the miniature dressing quarters, trended toward such popular acting duets as A. R. Gurney’s Love Letters and D. L. Coburn’s The Gin Game. Five elderly ladies—the playhouse’s volunteer ushers—were whispering excitedly about who would see to which aisles tonight. As I began to dump the umbrellas and buckets outside of Mimi’s office I heard those fabulous voices inside the theater and realized that I’d made it back in time to catch the last few minutes of the dress rehearsal. I slipped inside with Lulu, grabbed a seat in the back row and watched Coward’s triumphant finale. Victor’s indignant fury. Elyot’s insulting hilarity. Sibyl shrieking like a madwoman. Amanda as maddeningly cool as can be. Poor Victor and Sibyl, it seems, have finally come to realize that they’ve just gotten themselves married to two divinely crazy people who are suited to be married only to each other.
I hadn’t known what to expect after their intensive all-night rehearsal, but what I was watching sure as hell wasn’t talent night at Camp Minnetonka. It was an ensemble of four world-class actors performing Noël fucking Coward together. Okay, so maybe the master’s uniquely giddy dryness didn’t come naturally to Greg. But he pulled it off like the pro that he was. And his accent had grown to become unobtrusively Nivenesque. Merilee had directed them to play it fast and straight. No mugging. I thought they were terrific, even though they had to compete with the shouts of the roofers and the thunks of their extension ladders. But performers are trained to ignore such distractions. And when the curtain came down I applauded them from the back row just as Mimi, Glenda and the twins did from down in front.
As the curtain rose back up I strolled down the aisle to the stage, where the four of them and Sabrina were quietly talking over their performance. The crew was removing the furniture so as to prepare the terrace set for act one.
“I kept jumping the gun,” Dini was confessing to Merilee. “I came in too soon on your lines.”
“You were great,” Merilee assured her. “When we have a full house you’ll feel the moment. But you look so flushed. Are you running a fever?”
“I’m fine,” Dini insisted.
“You are not fine,” Glenda said sternly from the front row. “Sit down over here so I can take your temperature.”
Dini rolled her eyes. “Mother . . .”
“Don’t argue with me,” Glenda commanded her.
Dini joined her reluctantly, still in full costume and makeup. Glenda pulled a digital thermometer from her purse and stuck it under her famous daughter’s tongue.
“You were awesome, Mom!” Cheyenne exclaimed brightly.
“Totally awesome!” Durango chimed in.
“What was I, chopped liver?” Marty asked them teasingly.
“You were sorta okay,” Durango teased him back.
The thermometer beeped three times.
Glenda removed it from her daughter’s mouth, squinting. “My dear, you’re running a temperature of a hundred and two point eight. You need to get into bed right away if you want to have the slightest chance of going on tonight. Quite honestly, I’m not sure you’re up to it.”
“I will not miss this show just because of some stupid fever,” Dini stated with a trouper’s unwavering confidence.
“We’ll discuss that later. Right now, I want you home in bed. And call Doctor Orr to find out about your blood tests.”
“Mother, he said he’d call as soon as he had them.”
“Fine, then I’ll call him.”
“We’ve already had this conversation!” Dini lashed out angrily. “I’m the patient, not you. So back off, will you? You’re suffocating me!”
Glenda’s lower lip began to tremble. “Well, you don’t have to bite my head off.”
Dini immediately let out a sigh of regret. “I’m sorry.” She patted her mother’s hand. “Forgive me.”
“Your beach house is a half-hour drive away,” Mimi pointed out. “That’s a lost hour to and fro. Why don’t I book you a room at the Sherbourne Inn? It’s nice and quiet, and you can use that extra hour to get some sleep.”
“That’s where you’ll find me,” Marty said, heading for the dressing rooms to get out of his costume.
“Good idea, Mimi,” Greg said. “I can take the girls home.”
Mimi went backstage to call the inn.
“Will we have time for a swim, Daddy?” Cheyenne asked.
“Maybe a quick one. But then you have to get dressed. The sleeveless blue dresses?” he asked Dini.
Dini nodded. “And they each have a little knit sweater that goes with it. And bring their hooded rain slickers.”
“Shall I come with you and dress them?” Glenda asked him.
“Not necessary,” Greg assured her. “Daddy can handle it. Why don’t you just relax in the rose garden over there while Dini’s napping? And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get out of this monkey suit.”
Merilee studied me nervously as Greg headed offstage. “What did you think? Be brutally honest.”
“I think it’s fabulous.”
“You really think it’s good?”
“I believe the word I used was fabulous.”
“Darling, I know you’re trying to be supportive but I really need honest feedback right now.”
“Merilee, have you ever known me to heap praise on anything when I didn’t mean it?”
She frowned. “Well, no . . .”
“You did great. Attending tonight’s performance will be a genuine privilege. I must report that there are some truly scary black clouds forming over Long Island Sound. On the plus side, my shopping excursion was a major success. I’ve bought up every cheapo umbrella between here and Timbuktu.”
Mimi returned and said, “Success, Dini. I’ve wangled you a small third-floor room for the afternoon.”
“Thank you.” Dini was slumped wearily in her front row seat. She touched her index finger to her lips and tapped each of her girls on the forehead with it. “I’ll see you sweeties soon,” she said as Greg reappeared wearing a Mets T-shirt and plaid shorts, his face scrubbed clean of makeup. “Do what Daddy tells you, okay?”
“Yes, Mommy.”
“Okay, Mommy.”
“Feel better, sweetheart,” Greg said to Dini gently. When he bent down to kiss her on the cheek she seemed to shudder. Maybe it was her fever. Then again, maybe not. “Let’s go, munchkins.”
He and the girls left. Merilee took Dini firmly by the arm and led her downstairs to the dressing rooms. After they’d cleaned off their makeup and changed into shorts they came back upstairs. Dini wore a flaming orange CHULA VISTA LANES bowling shirt with the name GLORIA stitched across her left breast. Merilee had on a frayed pink Izod shirt of mine that she’d rescued from the rag drawer back when we were still married.
Glenda took charge of walking her daughter across the green to the inn. I fetched the garment bag with my evening wear in it from the Woody and then Merilee and I trailed along after them in the sweltering heat, Lulu ambling proudly along ahead of us. She loves to walk with us when we’re together, and so seldom gets the chance anymore. Those black scary clouds over Long Island Sound looked even blacker and scarier. They also seemed to be drifting northward over the Sound toward the Connecticut shoreline, even though the sky directly overhead remained a hazy, milky blue.
The dark coolness of the Sherbourne Inn’s lobby was welcome. Sabrina sat by herself at a table in the dark wood bar with a glass of iced tea working on the New York Times crossword puzzle and wearing a pair of horn-rimmed glasses that said nerdy grad student more than glam actress. Glenda was placing a call from the phone at the front desk. Calling Doctor Orr to report on Dini’s fever, I imagined. And no doubt trying to find out if he had the results of her blood test, too.
“Want something cold to drink?” I asked Merilee.
“What I want is to stretch out in my room for a while with you and Lulu.”
“I believe we can accommodate you.”
We went up the mansion’s grand, curving staircase to her room on the second floor. It was a nice room, if your idea of nice is a four-poster bed, claret-colored velvet drapes and the pervasive scent of potpourri. I unzipped my garment bag and hung my tux from the shower railing.
Merilee kicked off her sandals and flopped down on the bed with a grateful groan. Lulu circled around the bed, whimpering helplessly. It was too high for her to climb up onto on her own. I gave her a hoist and she immediately stretched out next to her mommy with her head on her tummy. I took off my suit jacket and shoes and joined them there with Lulu between us making happy argle-bargle noises. It was the most contented I’d seen her in a long time.
“This is nice,” Merilee murmured contentedly.
“Nice.”
“But you’d better tell me about what’s happening with R.J.”
“Do yourself a huge favor. Don’t waste any of your energy thinking about that loser. Just focus on tonight’s performance. I’m taking care of it.”
“How are you taking care of it?”
“By giving him what he wants. Bruce Landau figures the bum will end up back in jail or dead before long anyway. Best to just pay him off.”
“So when are you . . . ?”
“Tonight at eleven, after the party.”
“Have you got the money?”
“I’m all set.”
“Why must it be you who makes the delivery?”
“Because that’s how he wants it, and for now he’s running the show.”
“You know the .38 that Mr. MacGowan got me last winter when those rabid raccoons were around? It’s in the glove box of the Jag, fully loaded.”
“What’s it doing in there?”
“I thought you might want it.”
“I don’t.”
“Still, maybe you should take it.”
“No.”
She studied me with her piercing green eyes. “Hoagy, there’s something you’re not telling me. What is it?”
“Not a thing.”
“You’re lying.”
“Am not.”
“Are. Your left eyebrow is twitching. That’s what makes you such a terrible poker player.”
“I happen to be an excellent poker player. And let’s not talk about this anymore, okay? R.J.’s a subject for four A.M. in the kitchen over bacon and eggs after you’re all done accepting hugs and congratulations from the likes of Kate Hepburn and three hundred other nobodies.”
“Has it occurred to you that those nobodies may get soaked to the skin in their seats?”
“It’ll be an evening they’ll never forget. They’ll say to themselves, ‘Do you remember that stormy night back in the summer of ’93 when we schlepped out to Sherbourne to see Merilee Nash, Greg Farber, Dini Hawes and Marty Miller put on Private Lives and the rain came down so hard inside of the old playhouse that the four of them had to cling to umbrellas that none other than Stewart Hoag bought at Walmart?’ Trust me, Merilee, this is the stuff of theatrical legend.”
“Now you’re just trying to cheer me up,” she grumbled. “And it’s working.”
We lay there in silence, Lulu snoring contentedly now. Directly overhead, I began to hear the steady rhythmic squeak of bedsprings emanating from the third-floor room above Merilee’s. Marty and his sturdy teenaged waitress having at it, I imagined.
“Hoagy, about these past few weeks . . .”
“What about them?”
“You working away so passionately on your novel. Me doing my thing here at the playhouse. The two of us talking about our days over dinner, enjoying each other’s company. I keep wondering why we’re not together.”
“Because you kicked me out and divorced me, as you know perfectly well.”
“I don’t know anything perfectly well. Not when it comes to us.” She leveled her gaze at me. “I wasn’t very understanding, was I?”
“On the contrary, you were very understanding. You spent two whole years letting me snort coke, humiliate you and make a total jackass out of myself before you dumped me.”
“I’ve been meaning to tell you something . . .”
“What is it?”
“You’re not that jackass anymore. You haven’t been for quite a while. And, my lord, you’ve really changed since you started writing this book. You’ve got a spring in your step. Your eyes are bright. I want to understand something about you. Will it always be like this?”
“Like what?”
“All highs and lows. No middle ground.”
“I truly don’t know. If I did, then I wouldn’t be much of a writer. I have to walk the high wire without a net. That’s where the good stuff comes from. It’s not particularly healthy, or sane, but it’s the only way I know how to feel truly alive. You’re an incredibly gifted actress. You take the same sorts of risks yourself. That’s what tonight is, isn’t it? Tell me, would you be happy settled in for a nice, safe multiseason run on Melrose Place?”
“God, no.”
I took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “But you’re right. I do feel better about myself now that I’m writing again.”
“Is it good?”
“Yes.”
“You haven’t sounded this confident in a long time.”
“I haven’t felt this confident.”
“When will you let me read it?”
“Soon. A year, maybe.”
She let out a laugh. “Only in your business does a year qualify as soon.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to take a nap?”
“Positive. This is what I need. Tell me, have you been missing the city?”
“Not particularly. Why?”
“I thought perhaps you were seeing someone there.”
“There’s no one, Merilee.”
“I think you could have Sabrina if you want her.”
“Not interested. How about you? Is there—?”
She kissed me. It’s always been that way with her. She’ll just suddenly kiss me midsentence. It wasn’t a slurpy, let’s get naked kind of a kiss. Just a tender, lingering one. Still, we hadn’t kissed that way in years. It was . . . not unpleasant.
“What brought that on?” I asked when she pulled away, her eyes sparkling at me.
“I was just wondering if you’re my Elyot and I’m your Amanda. If we really, truly belong together or if I’m just caught up in the plot of Private Lives. That does happen. I do know that about myself.”
“As do I, and I for one am still glad you turned down the Glenn Close role in Fatal Attraction.” I gazed into her eyes, getting totally lost in them. “I’ll make a deal with you. If you’re still wondering about it, say, two weeks from today, I’ll take you out to the Monkey Farm Cafe. We’ll drink Pabst Blue Ribbon and dance to the jukebox until we drop, then ride home to the farm with the top down and I’ll tear your clothes off. How does that sound?”
“That all depends. Are you going to do anything after you tear them off or will you just fall asleep on the bed with your mouth open while I’m standing there in my birthday suit?”
“Not to worry, I’ll drink strong coffee all day. An entire pot.”
Thunder rumbled off in the distance. The afternoon sky was darkening.
Merilee glanced at the windows, her brow creasing. “Dini’s genuinely sick. Do you suppose she has pneumonia or something?”
“If she had pneumonia the doctor would have already put her on antibiotics.”
“I’m afraid she’s going to collapse in the middle of our performance.”
“What will you do if that happens?”
“Sabrina has understudied her part. She’ll take over.”
“Who’ll play Louise the maid?”
“One of the prop girls learned Louise’s lines. A college kid.”
“Nona Peachy?”
“Why, yes. How do you know her?”
“She introduced herself. Wants to be an actress, as you may have gathered. Her father, Doug, was an actor before he traded in his dream for a white picket fence. Did some off-Broadway. Ever work with him?”
She frowned. “Doug Peachy? I don’t think so. Why?”
“Just curious.” I gazed over at her. “You haven’t left anything to chance, have you?”
“First lesson you learn in the theater, darling. Be prepared for anything.”
There was a flash of lightning outside of the window now, followed several seconds later by a rumble of thunder.
“Hoagy, do you think I can actually pull this off?” Merilee asked me with a slight crack in her voice.
“Are you getting the jitters?”
“My teeth are practically chattering.”
“Of course you’re going to pull it off. You’re Merilee Nash. The best of the best. Trust me, this is going to be a great night. And it’s all because of you.”
“Can I kiss you again?”
“You can kiss me until the cows come home.”
“What time do the cows come home?”
“Haven’t the faintest idea. I’ll ask Mr. MacGowan.”
She kissed me tenderly before she said, “I may take a little nap after all. Will you stay?”
“I’ll stay.”
She dropped right off, breathing softly and slowly. Actors are famous for being able to do that. It’s how they maintain their energy level during those long, grueling days and nights when they’re on location shoots. Me, I lay there thinking about my meeting tonight at eleven at the ruins of the brass mill with the drugged-out sleaze who had the power to totally ruin her life.
Me, I didn’t sleep.