Boo Hiss (28 page)

“Then you don’t know much about snakes.” He finished off his punch. “Nice church service. My grandmother used to read me stories from the Bible. I don’t remember them quite like that, but nevertheless, it was a nice service.” Crunching his cup he said, “Tell your brother-in-law that he can sneak around all he wants. But he’s no match for a professional snake hunter. Now I have to go.”

“Where are you going?”

“To get another one of those unbelievable brownies.”

C
HAPTER
26

M
ARTIN CHECKED HIS WATCH
. It was almost time to go to Monday night rehearsal. His stomach was a mess of acid and indigestion. Lois, in a strange turn of events, had started to pay more attention to him. It made his heart swirl and turned his mind to mush. He’d been going over his lines all day, just so he wouldn’t drop one when she looked his way. She’d even walked him out after practice Saturday night, and said hello to him three times at the church. He’d brought her some punch in the basement as she stood at the end of the rainbow mural.

But other things required his attention as well. Like the fact that the mayor had not come in to work and was still nowhere to be found. People were calling all day, worried about the fate of Skary, Indiana. For the most part, through the years, he’d managed to keep the trials of the town fairly quiet. But people could see the change coming. Some embraced it, happy to have the luxuries of the outside world right at their fingertips. Others grew more and more fearful with every new arrival.

Martin wasn’t sure where he stood on the matter. For him, the town had always revolved around numbers, so if the numbers were good, he was happy. If the numbers were bad, he wasn’t happy. This, however, evoked more complicated emotions. Whether numbers were good or bad, Skary was always Skary. Now Skary was becoming something else. What that was, nobody knew yet.

Martin looked at the clock and decided to gather his stuff together. He was finding favor with Lois, so the last thing he wanted to do was
be late for rehearsal. She’d stressed how important it was to act in a professional manner, and take the show seriously. He closed his briefcase and snapped it shut.

“Martin, glad you’re still here.”

Martin whirled around to find Mayor Wullisworth stepping into his office. He fell onto the couch and pulled out his pipe. “I’ve been doing some thinking.”

“Sir, I have to—”

“And I came to a profound conclusion, Martin. This was nearly life altering. But I think it’s a good analogy.”

Martin swallowed. He hoped it wasn’t a long analogy. He tried to make the glance at his watch obvious, but the mayor was tamping his pipe in double-time.

“Martin, a town is like a woman.” He paused, his gaze thoughtfully cast to the ceiling. “You pamper her, give her what she needs, make her feel special. Maybe put a sign up that tells the entire world how proud you are of her.”

The
Pride in Skary
sign had fallen down years ago, but Martin kept quiet.

“You buy her things. Nice things. You invite people to come look at her beauty, even when you know good and well she isn’t the prettiest that ever lived. But still, you love her beauty, the beauty others don’t see. And you remain loyal to her. Marry her, even. Yet you always run the risk of something, Martin.”

“Getting your heart broken?”

“Becoming outclassed by her.”

Martin blinked. He wasn’t sure if they were still talking about the town or not. The mayor puffed on his pipe. “We’ve got a long night ahead of us, Martin. We’re going to have to come up with a game plan
to get this town back in order. Gather up some notepads. It’s time to do some heavy-duty brainstorming.”

With his briefcase hanging at his side, and each breath barely able to fill his lungs, Martin said, “I can’t do that, sir.”

“Come again? Didn’t hear you.”

Martin cleared his throat. “I can’t do that. Not right now. I have to be somewhere.”

Mayor Wullisworth’s eyes narrowed behind the white stream of smoke that created a haze in front of his face. “You have something more important to do than deal with a town in crisis?”

“Yes. Sir.”

The mayor leaned forward. “You’re going to that play practice.”

“Yes.”

His nostrils flared, blowing the smoke away from his pipe. “Of all things to abandon a town for …”

Martin couldn’t help but smile. “A woman is the most worth it.”

Lois found herself trembling from head to toe, and with every thought of
her
came another round of shivers. It wasn’t that she didn’t like the girl. She was perfectly fine when unattached to clever lines and unforgettable men. But Mariée was just not pulling it off. No matter how many seductive looks she threw from one side of the stage to the other, she still had not created a character worthy of the attentions of either of these men.

They’d come to intermission, and Lois was beside herself. The entire play hinged on the character of Lotus. If she wasn’t believable, nothing
else would be either. She’d considered the fact that she might indeed be somewhat hormonal. The news that the sheriff was seeing someone else had been a tremendous blow to her self-esteem, though she thought she’d handled it in a pretty mature way. She’d done what any half-insane lovesick playwright would do.

“I’ve rewritten the script,” she announced as everyone regrouped for Act 2. Why couldn’t she evoke those kinds of expressions out of them during rehearsal? That wide-eyed, stunned look was just the thing she’d needed from both Bart and Lotus in two separate scenes!”

“What do you mean you’ve rewritten the script?” asked Wolfe. Always critical of other writers.

“It’s the last scene,” she said, and everyone scrambled for their scripts and started flipping pages. “It’s a simple change. It doesn’t affect most of you. If you’ll turn to page sixty-four, I’ll give you the new line.”

Everyone was ready.

“Okay, we have Lotus coming onstage carrying her suitcase. Everybody following?” The crowd nodded. “She runs into Bart on the street. And Bart thinks she’s leaving town because she’s carrying her suitcase. Now, let’s read the lines. Start with Bart’s line.”

“
Lotus, you’re leaving? Why now? I thought we loved each other. I thought we were meant to be.
”

“
We are meant to be, Bart. Than what I’ve been trying to tell you. “
Mariée pretended to hold up her suitcase like she would onstage.
“I’m coming back to you
.”

“
You are
?”

“Okay, stop, stop right there. That’s where we’re changing the lines.”

Wolfe said, “Good thinking, Lois. Those lines were a little canned.”

“The new line will be after Bart says,
‘I thought we were meant to be.’
Everyone have a pencil ready?”

Everyone nodded.

“Lotus replies, ‘
We aren’t meant to be, Bart. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I’m going to marry Gibb
.’”

Stunned silence was broken only by pencils falling to the ground.

“What?” several asked at the same time.

“I’ll repeat it one more time. ‘
We aren’t meant to be. Ban. Than what I’ve been trying to tell you. I’m going to marry Gibb
.’”

“Are you saying that the entire play ends with Lotus marrying Gibb instead of Bart?” the sheriff asked.

“Thats what I’m saying.” She smiled.

“But Lois,” Wolfe interjected, “you have built the entire play around the idea that the audience is going to want Lotus to end up with Bart. They are meant to be. If Lotus ends up with Gibb, the audience will feel let down. You can’t just change it like this in the last hour.”

“Why not? I’m the playwright.” She folded her arms and stared down Wolfe.

“What’s the motivation?” Wolfe asked. “Why would she suddenly want to be with Gibb?”

“I don’t know,” Lois said, swinging her foot back and forth like a schoolgirl. “Maybe Gibb’s the better man for her. Maybe Gibb is more interested in her. Maybe Gibb isn’t seeing other women behind her back.”

Everyone glanced at one another, but Lois stared right at the sheriff. His perplexed look didn’t deter her.

“So,” she said, “that’s how it’s going to end. Bart will skulk offstage like a whipped puppy, and Gibb will come onstage. They’ll run toward each other. Lotus will drop her suitcase and jump into his arms. The lights will go down.”

Wolfe threw up his hands. “That makes no sense. Besides that, it’s the night before the show.”

“Love rarely makes sense, does it, Wolfe?” she said. “Now, places,
everyone. Let’s run Act 2 with the kind of zeal and zest that you showed me in Act 1.” Everyone dropped their scripts and walked backstage.

Lois uncrossed her arms and sat down in the front row. Now she had the tedious task of giving Mariée such severe stage fright that come tomorrow night, she would hardly be able to stand.

There was only one woman with enough hormonal energy to play this love maven, and it wasn’t going to be a bottled blonde.

“Katelyn,” Ainsley said as she opened the door.

“Hi Ainsley. Can I come in?”

“Sure.” Ainsley opened the door wider and let her through, “Is everything okay? Were you pleased with how the event went yesterday?”

She nodded. “You did an exceptional job. Everyone had a great time, don’t you think?”

“Yeah. And I think people are excited about the children’s area too.”

Katelyn, however, did not look excited. In fact, she looked a little sad.

“What’s the matter?”

She shrugged, and tears filled her eyes. “It’s hard to explain.”

“I’m here to listen. Whatever is on your mind.”

She looked up and tried to smile. “That’s the thing. You are so nice. People here are nice. I went to the boycott the other night, trying to explain why this town needs what I have to offer. But you know what? This town is just fine the way it is. People here are happy. Do you know that? Really, truly happy. They’re not always wanting more. They’re just living, with whatever they have. They don’t have all the modern luxuries of suburbia, but they have each other.”

She caught a tear with the back of her finger. “In my world, Ainsley, it was all about one woman being better than the next woman. It’s a quiet competition. Nobody really says that’s what is happening. But it is. We don’t have real friendships. We have packs, like we’re wild animals defending our territory.” She started crying harder, and Ainsley walked over to put her arm around her shoulder.

“It’s okay, don’t cry.”

“It’s not okay. What am I doing to this town, Ainsley? It was perfectly fine before, and now I’m turning it into the exact kind of place that I’m leaving. I can’t stand to be around that anymore. My life is chaotic. I drive my son from one activity to another, hoping that at some point he’ll be better at
something
than the twins across the street. I’m so incredibly organized with my meals, yet we never really sit down and eat together. Michael works so much that when we get this new house built, I’m probably going to be spending most of my time alone, like I usually do. And then I’ll be in a town that hates me for what I did to it.”

“Katelyn, nobody hates you. Sure, there are some people scared about what they’re seeing, but we knew it would happen eventually. Nobody thought Skary, Indiana, could remain the same way forever.”

“I sat in that service yesterday and listened to Reverend Peck. I was worried that he was going too long, that people were starting to get hungry. But I realized something. My whole life, I’ve been trying to change everything around me to make myself happy. The reverend talked about change yesterday. I realized that maybe what needs to change is me. Maybe I need to stop trying so hard to be perfect.” She looked at Ainsley. “Take you, for example. You seem extraordinarily happy despite the fact that you wear two different shoes sometimes.”