Софи Келли: Final Catcall

There were bits of paper stuck to the front of my shirt. I brushed them away with my free hand. “It’s a short-term contract,” I said. “And the executive producer sent her a chocolate cheesecake every day for a week until she said yes.” I laughed at the memory. “Mom was ready to sign by the second day, but she held out for an entire week for all the cheesecake.”

Ben laughed, the sound bouncing off the library walls. “That sounds like Thea.” He seemed to realize then that he hadn’t introduced the man and woman who had come in with him. “I’m sorry, Kathleen,” he said. “This is Hugh Davis. He’s my other director, and Hannah Walker, who’s one of our actors.” He smiled at me. “Kathleen is Thea and John Paulson’s daughter.”

Hugh Davis held out his hand. He was a couple of inches shorter than Ben. His brown hair was on the longish side, streaked with white at the temples. And there was some gray in his close-cropped goatee. “I saw your mother years ago in A Midsummer Night’s Dream ,” he said. “She’s very talented.”

“Thank you.” I shook his hand. I could hear just a hint of a British accent in his voice, which made me wonder if he’d worked or studied in Great Britain. I didn’t recognize his face or his name, but I knew my mother would. She knew everyone in the theater world.

I did recognize Hannah Walker, though. I’d seen her in a couple of commercials, and I was fairly certain she’d had a role on an episode of Law & Order .

“Hi, Kathleen. It’s nice to meet you,” she said with a smile.

“You too,” I said. Hannah was somewhere in her twenties, with dark, wavy hair to her shoulders and deep blue eyes. There was something instantly likable about her. Maybe it was the genuine warmth in her smile and the interest in her gaze.

Ben had one hand in his jacket pocket, jiggling his keys or something. I remembered then that he wasn’t a very patient person.

“You didn’t come here just to see me, Ben,” I said. “What can I do for you?”

“Abigail said there’s a gazebo here that we could use for one of the outdoor performances.”

I nodded. “It’s at the back, overlooking the water.”

Hugh Davis made a sour face. “The acoustics are going to be deplorable,” he said to Ben.

I shook my head. “Not necessarily. The river actually curves at this point.” I gestured toward the back of the library. “We’re sheltered from both the wind and the street noise.”

“Good,” Ben said, as though the issue had been settled.

Hugh still looked unhappy. “How much space is there? Where are people going to sit? I’m not convinced that this is the best way to showcase our productions.”

I was starting to be irritated by the man already, and he’d been in the building for only a few minutes. He didn’t seem to know much about the theater world’s history of taking performances to the street. The Romans had celebrated festival performances of street theater. During the Middle Ages professional theater companies were traveling and performing all over England.

I opened my mouth to say something, changed my mind and closed it again, glancing at Hannah as I did so. Her body language suggested she didn’t like Hugh very much. She’d folded her arms across her chest and she was leaning just slightly away from him.

I took a deep breath, exhaled and pasted on my best polite-librarian smile. “The gazebo is probably bigger than you’re expecting.” I pointed again toward the tall bank of windows that rimmed the computer area. “There’s lots of lawn out there and we have folding chairs you’re welcome to use. Why don’t I take you around and let you see for yourself?”

Ben rolled his left arm over to look at his watch. “I have about five minutes,” he said. He turned to Hugh. “Let’s take a look.”

Hugh shrugged. “Fine.”

I stepped sideways so I could see Susan at the desk. “We’re just going out to take a look at the gazebo.”

She nodded.

As I turned back around I caught sight of Marcus coming through the front doors. His face lit up with a smile as he looked in our direction and I felt my heart start to pound like a rock band drum solo. Without really thinking about it, I took a couple of steps toward him—and then stopped.

Because Hannah had already beaten me to him. She threw herself into Marcus’s arms and he wrapped her in a bear hug, leaning down to kiss the top of her head.

They knew each other. Obviously very well.

She broke out of the hug, still grinning from ear to ear at him. Her arm went around his waist and with his arm across her shoulders they walked over to us.

Marcus’s eyes darted to my face. I wasn’t sure what I was seeing in his expression—embarrassment or uncertainty, or maybe a bit of both.

Hannah leaned against him with the familiarity of someone who’d known him a long time. And looking at them I got it, just as she started to speak.

“Everyone, this is my big brother, Marcus.” She introduced Ben and Hugh and then turned to me. “Kathleen, you probably already know each other.”

“Yes, we do,” I said, rubbing the top of my left shoulder, which had suddenly started to ache again.

Hannah didn’t know anything about me. Which in an odd way made sense, since I didn’t know anything about her. I’d known that Marcus had a sister, but I didn’t know her name or that she was an actress. He was a very private person, but the fact that I didn’t even know his sister’s name was more than a little odd.

My mouth was suddenly dry and I had to swallow before I spoke. “Marcus, I need to take Ben and Hugh outside to look at the gazebo. You could take Hannah over to the chairs by the windows and catch up.”

“Sure,” he said. His hair was a shade darker than his sister’s, but they had the same blue eyes.

Before he could say anything else, I touched Ben’s arm. “Let’s go,” I said. I could feel Marcus’s eyes on me as we moved toward the door, warming my back as though I were standing in a beam of sunlight. Or maybe it was my imagination. I didn’t turn around to find out.

Ben seemed happy with the gazebo and the wide expanse of lawn around it. The trees and the rock wall acted as a natural sound barrier and to me it seemed like a perfect place to stage a short play. Even Hugh couldn’t find real fault with the space, although he did try.

When we walked back around the building I saw Hannah waiting beside a silver SUV in the parking lot.

“Abigail will be in touch about the schedule and what we need for chairs and space and”—Ben flung his hands into the air—“everything.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ll work it all out.”

“Give my best to your mother and father.” He pulled a set of keys out of his jacket pocket. “If Thea weren’t in Los Angeles, I’d get a cheesecake and try to lure her here.”

“It would probably work,” I said with a laugh.

They walked in the direction of the parking lot and I headed for the main doors. Marcus was waiting at the bottom of the stairs.

“Kathleen, do you have a couple of minutes?” he asked.

“Of course,” I said. I pointed toward the stone path that curved around the building. “Do you want to walk?”

He nodded. “Your arm hurts,” he said as we started along the walkway.

I’d been rubbing my shoulder again and didn’t even realize it. “I’m all right,” I said.

He continued to look at me but didn’t say anything.

“Okay, so it aches, but just a little. I swear.”

“Don’t overdo it, please,” he said.

“I’m not . . . I won’t.”

We followed the path back to the gazebo and over to the rock wall. Farther along the shoreline I could see the large warehouses, built from stone cut at Wild Rose Bluff, that had stored lumber for shipping downriver back in Mayville Heights’s heyday as a lumber town.