Софи Келли: Final Catcall

“Abigail told me you’d been in an accident,” I said.

Chloe pushed the sleeve down and rested her arm back on the edge of the table. “Do you know what people assume when they see those scars? They think I did it to myself.”

What had my mother said about Hugh? I heard from an unimpeachable source that he pushed one of his leading ladies so hard she started cutting herself. If Abigail hadn’t told me about Chloe’s accident, I might have thought it had been Chloe.

As if she could read my mind, she tipped her head forward and brushed her hair away from the left side of her face. I could see more scars snaking up her neck into her hairline, scars that clearly had been stitched by a doctor. They hadn’t been made by Chloe cutting herself. I felt my face flush with embarrassment.

“I was in an accident right after the play finished its run,” she said. “That was the jinx, people said. Another actor had problems with his voice and had to have surgery. More so-called proof.” She shook her head. “Even though Ben had dropped Yesterday’s Child from our schedule months ago, when the fire happened at the other theater it was enough to get the whole idea that the play somehow has a black cloud over it resurrected. Maybe if the four of us from that original production hadn’t been part of the festival, all the talk wouldn’t have started again. I don’t know.”

I frowned at her. “What do you mean, the four of you?”

“Hugh, me, Hannah and Ben.”

I stared at her, my spoon halfway to my mouth. “Hannah and Ben were part of the original staging of Yesterday’s Child ?”

Chloe scraped a bit of chocolate from the side of the heavy stoneware bowl. “Uh-huh. Ben was the original director. So I guess technically he wasn’t really part of the show.”

“He was replaced by Hugh?”

She nodded. “Before we started rehearsing. The producers didn’t like Ben’s interpretation of the script. Rumor has it that Ben showed up before the first rehearsal and he and Hugh had a screaming match backstage, although I didn’t hear anything.” She reached for her coffee. “Of course that just added to the myth that the production was jinxed.”

“I’ve been thinking about doing a display at the library with information about the plays and the main actors,” I said. “I might need to pick your brain.”

“Anytime,” she said with a smile. She folded her fingers around the stoneware mug. “I was surprised that Ben offered the festival job to Hugh. There was a lot of bad blood between them, from what I heard.”

“I don’t think Ben is the kind of person who holds a grudge.”

“Life’s too short for that kind of thing,” Chloe said.

“So Hannah had a part in the play, too?” I asked. The pudding cake was delicious, but I was getting distracted by the conversation.

Chloe held up her thumb and index finger about a half inch apart. “Very small, but she was very good. I remember because she was working on a script herself then, something to do with some volunteer work she was doing with a program for teen alcoholics. She used to pick Hugh’s brain whenever she got the chance.” She drank the last of her coffee and set the mug on the table. “I’m sorry, Kathleen. That was a very long-winded answer to your question. The festival is going to be wonderful. There’s no jinx, no black cloud over our heads.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” I said. “And I’m looking forward to seeing you onstage.”

We finished dessert and Chloe glanced at her watch again. “I really need to get going now,” she said. She reached for her purse and I put out a hand to stop her.

“You’re my guest,” I said.

She hesitated.

“Please,” I said.

She smiled. “All right. Thank you.”

We both got to our feet. “I enjoyed this, Kathleen,” Chloe said. “I hope we can do it again while I’m here. Next time my treat.”

“I’d like that,” I said.

I picked Mom up at the Stratton at the end of the day. Her hair was pulled back in an unkempt knot, her reading glasses, lenses smudged with fingerprints, were perched at the end of her nose, and there were papers poking out of the top of her large woven tote.

She got in the truck, fastened her seat belt and slumped against the seat with a groan.

“Good day?” I asked.

She turned her head and gave me a huge smile. “Wonderful,” she said.

I heated up the remainder of the pea soup for our supper with some of Rebecca’s bread. We sat across from each other at the table, Owen and Hercules parked beside Mom. I figured they thought she was the best possibility for a little ham from the soup.

“Mom, do you know anything about Ben directing the very first staging of the play Yesterday’s Child ?” I asked.

“Does this have anything to do with the silly idea that the play is jinxed?” she said.

“Not really, no,” I said. “I just heard that Ben was supposed to direct the original production but he was replaced by Hugh Davis, and there was some animosity between them. I wondered why Ben offered Hugh a job if he couldn’t stand the man.”

Mom dipped a bit of bread in her soup and popped it in her mouth before she answered. “First of all, the theater community is a very small world. If we didn’t work with people we don’t like, we’d never work at all.” She smiled at me. “And second, Ben is not the kind of person to hold on to hard feelings. I’ve known him for years. Whoever told you that got it wrong.”

She broke off another piece of bread and dropped it in the bowl. “I like your detective.”

I held up a finger. “Number one, he’s not my detective.” I put a second finger up with the first one. “And number two, you said two or three sentences to the man. How can you decide you like him just based on that?”

She waited a moment before she spoke. “Is there a number three?”

“No.”

She smiled then. “He’s definitely your detective, Katydid. The way you two look at each other makes that much very clear. And as for how I can tell I like him, well, I’m a very good judge of character.” She scooped a chunk of ham from her dish and ate it while two furry faces followed her every move. “The two of you are lousy actors, by the way.”

“Excuse me?” I said, dribbling soup onto the back of my hand.

“You’re acting like you’re not crazy about him. He’s acting like he’s not crazy about you. But the rest of the world, the audience, can see right through you.”

I wiped my hand with my napkin and frowned at her across the table. “This is the real world, not a production, and Marcus and I aren’t acting.”

“‘Quod fere totus mundus exerceat histrionem,’” she said, waving her spoon for punctuation at the end.

“Did you just quote ‘all the world’s a stage’ to me in Latin?” I asked.

“‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.’” She smiled at me. “No, I didn’t. But you’re close. I quoted Petronius to you. ‘Because almost all the world are actors.’”

“Thank you,” I said dryly. “That was so helpful.”

“It could be if you thought about it.” Mom put her spoon down. “When I’m part of a production, what am I doing?”

I shrugged. “Acting. Directing. Trying to entertain people. Maybe make them think.”

She nodded. “I’m trying to get the audience to look at things a certain way. Just for a little while. I want them to forget that what they’re really looking at is just actors in costume on a stage.” She leaned back in her chair. “Do you remember the first time you saw Peter Pan onstage?”

I nodded.

“Remember the scene when Tinkerbell is dying and Peter yells, ‘Clap if you believe in fairies’?”