Amy Cousins - When the Lights Go Down

It was a thick curtain. She didn’t lower her voice much.

She let the plate clatter to the concrete floor and began whistling, long and low, as she slopped the contents of the can onto it.

Still out of sight behind her, Ruben took up the whistle, and from beyond him, she could hear other crew members whistling, too. Yeah, they knew the drill. Maxie paused for a breath and rattled the spoon around the empty can.

In moments, the magical, musical sound of Butch’s too-long, unclipped nails hitting the floor at top speed soared to her ears like “Ode to Joy” as the miscreant came out of hiding in search of the one thing that motivated him: food.

With the perfection of hindsight, it occurred to her that she could probably have dug an empty potato-chip bag out of the trash and rustled it loudly to much the same effect.

As Butch did his happy food dance in front of the plate she still guarded, she couldn’t help but grin. The damn dog was too clever by half, but in his own way he was more reliable than several members of her cast.

“You—” she scolded, tossing the can opener behind her and shaking her finger at the dog, who had the nerve to roll over, expose his belly and whine pitifully. Some sort of ruckus was developing behind her. “—better be ready to hit your mark in sixty. Stop being such a ham and eat up.”

Time to call off the panic. She thumbed on her mike. “Toto’s in the house.”

“So is a visiting producer,” Ruben shot back at her.

“I know. Front and center. I pulled a couple of press tickets for them, which means I owe drinks to the two critics standing in back.”

“No, not those guys—”

“Okay, well, the more producers in the house, the merrier. Now, let’s make it look like silk for ‘em.”

“But Maxie—”

“Not now, Ruben. Sound, one.” She called the first sound cue and classical music rolled out over the audience, settling them down.

Sixty seconds came and went. She waved Dorothy over, dumped Toto into her basket, called the first lighting cue, the curtain cue, and settled into her high chair with her hieroglyphically marked-up script. It was time to run the show with the ruthless precision that had gotten her the job in the first place.

Every battalion in her army was dialed up and ready to go and she was Command Central, poised to give the order to begin the battle.

She took one last look around and caught the eye of the sharply dressed man who was still there, standing well to the back now. He frowned at her and for a moment she wondered who he was. But she trusted her ASM to know which visitors were welcome backstage. Not her problem. Then Ruben, the Assistant Stage Manager in question, flashed her a thumbs up and she forgot Mr. Foxy without a moment’s hesitation. Her eyes left him and she prepared to enter the fray.

“Lights, one. Sound, two. Let’s knock ’em dead, kids.”

* * *

Nick’s shoulders locked up and the tendons in his neck tightened.

A civilized breakfast business meeting would have killed her?

He’d wanted his nine o’clock meeting to take place somewhere he could drink espresso and eat eggs benedict. Though she hadn’t thrown out the breakfast idea, she’d refused his suggestion of Chicago Cut—the swanky steakhouse did an amazing businessman’s breakfast, in Nick’s opinion—saying she’d take him somewhere after he met her at her office. Tracking down the office’s address on a street in Chicago’s warehouse district had been annoying enough, particularly since he could be sitting comfortably at Chicago Cut instead. Now he was stuck in the entrance to an alley. A ten-foot carving of a banana hung off the building in a manner most precarious above his car and two mental giants in front of him were arguing about a pile of two-by-fours in the back of a van that was blocking his way.

One of the guys could have stepped out of a Gap ad in his khakis and a plain white T-shirt. The other, who looked like he expected to audition for ZZ Top later that day, crossed his arms under his chest-length beard and glared at his buddy from beneath a black fedora. The lumber sticking out of the back of the van was several feet too long for the vehicle. The argument about how to solve this sphinx’s riddle had clearly been going on for some time.

An enormous metal door burst open just in front of his car, crashing into the brick wall, and a figure exploded out of the doorway, boots pounding down the potholed pavement of the alley.

He grabbed for the gearshift and prepared to hit reverse. The warehouse district wasn’t the worst neighborhood in Chicago, but he’d made it through his life so far without getting mugged and keeping the trend going was his preferred plan.

But those boots...

Somehow knee-high shiny white boots with fuzzy balls dangling from the laces didn’t strike much fear in his heart. Especially when they were paired with a thigh-skimming turquoise vinyl mini-dress, a chin-length swing of platinum hair and enormous sunglasses.

In fact, he’d rather pull up next to her and offer her a ride than back away. He lifted an appreciative brow and leaned forward, resting an arm on the steering wheel. He was far more interested in watching this intriguing woman than the two yahoos arguing in front of him. Which was when a high-pitched whine intruded on his senses.

His eyes locked on the saw.

At which point it became clear that his knowledge of shop and/or hand tools was severely lacking. Because even as he considered shouting a warning to the two brain-drains, he realized that he wouldn’t know what to say.

Look out! She’s got a...saw?

Buzz saw?

Circular saw?

A thing in her hand that’s smaller than your head but will undoubtedly be able to take it off at the neck?

By now, the guys had grasped the danger of the situation and shifted to either side of his car, backing up with their hands raised in the air.

Good job, boys. Two targets are better than one.

But as they inched down the length of his car, the saw-wielding Andy Warhol model stalked toward them, her tool-cum-weapon lining up precisely with his Mercedes’ trisected ornament at the front of the hood. The relationship he’d developed with his mechanic over the two years it had taken to restore this car to its youthful glory had been long and intimate and much like a marriage.

Returning the car to the garage with a large hole chopped in its hood would result in a messy divorce, particularly after he tried to explain about the blonde, the boots and the saw.

But the icy blonde had stopped, thank god, at the foot of his car. She shook the buzzing saw at the two men who were standing like captured criminals on either side of his car. Then she whirled around, stomped to the back of the van and ran the saw neatly through the stack of lumber. Wood blocks thunked to the pavement as the saw bit through each two-by-four. At the bottom of the pile, she slowed her progress, the muscles of her arms straining as she controlled the descent of the saw through the wood with delicate skill, until the last piece was neatly trimmed.

When she shut off the saw, the sudden silence was deafening. She slammed the rear doors of the van shut, crossed one pompom-ed boot in front of the other and took a bow.

Then she turned, popped the saw on her shoulder like it was an idle baseball bat, and walked back the way she’d come.

Applause erupted from the lunatics beside his car—hoots and hollers and a “Way to remember safety first, boss!” upon which the go-go girl turned and tapped her enormous, white-framed sunglasses. She grinned at them.

“Next time it’s your heads, boys.”

The voice that emerged from that compact little body was surprisingly low and throaty. It vibrated against his skin, a ticklish buzz that put him in mind of something far less appropriate than the business meeting for which he was prepared.