Eyes Like Stars (11 page)

“Glad to hear it,” the Theater Manager said, nodding once. “Now, as to setting some measurable parameters for your success . . .”

“Measurable what’s-it?” Bertie felt her forehead pucker like one of Mrs. Edith’s gathered seams.

“What will constitute a success on your part in this challenge.” His hand hovered over the mess on his desk until he located a fountain pen, then he began adding notations to a
sheet of paper. “You were saying something about a sold-out performance?”

“Um,” she answered, watching with a sinking feeling as he nodded, taking the monosyllable as her agreement.

“Standing room only?”

“I did say that, didn’t I?”

“In addition,” he said, not looking up, “I think a standing ovation might be in order, as proof that the audience appreciates your vision and innovation.”

“Of course, sir.” Bertie thanked the heavens and Mrs. Edith for the corset, which was the only thing holding her up at the moment. “A standing ovation, it is.”

“We have never before had cause, in the history of the Théâtre, to hire a Director, God help us.” He handed her a form that read E
MPLOYMENT
C
ONTRACT
at the top in bold, black letters. “Sign at the bottom, please.”

“And don’t you dare get ink on that corset,” said Peaseblossom.

Bertie took as deep a breath as possible and signed at the
X
.

Beatrice Shakespeare Smith

She handed both pen and contract back over the desk. “Well.”

“Quite,” said the Theater Manager. “I have no idea how
the Players are going to cope with changes in scenery and subtext, so you should get an early start tomorrow.”

Bertie gathered what was left of her composure and shook his proffered hand. “Would you be so kind as to tell the Stage Manager he can be in charge of hand-delivering announcements to our patrons, season ticket-holders, and benefactors, something that will let them know about the new performance? They should go out immediately, if we want to sell out the show.”

“I’ll give him the assignment,” the Theater Manager said with a dismissive nod. “Get some sleep. You’re going to need all your wits about you.”

Bertie walked to the door in something of a daze.

“Oh, and Beatrice?” he called after her.

Halfway into the hall, she turned back. “Yes, sir?”

“Best of luck.”

Bertie summoned a brilliant smile that lasted only until she shut the door. “Famous last words.”

“You’re a Director now,” Peaseblossom said with a tinge of awe in her tone. “How does that make you feel?”

“Sick to my stomach,” Bertie said with great irritation. “Which way did the boys go?”

“Last I saw them, they were chasing His Royal Pain-in the-Hind-End down the stairs.”

Bertie kicked off her heels and went barefoot, wincing with each step. “I need to get out of this.”

“The new play?”

“The corset.” Bertie snapped her fingers. “Then we need to post a notice on the Call Board for the Players. Eight
A.M
.”

“Eight in the morning is pretty early for this crowd,” said Peaseblossom.

“The Theater Manager seemed to think we’d need an early start.” Bertie tried to remember the last time she had gotten up before ten of her own volition and failed. “We’re going to have to set my alarm clock.”

“You have an alarm clock?” the fairy asked.

“Amend that statement to say I need to ‘borrow’ an alarm clock from the Properties Department. The Managers need to know about the rush order, anyway, and I can start by telling Mr. Hastings.”

“They aren’t going to be happy,” Peaseblossom said as Bertie took the stairs two at a time. “Do you think you can convince them four days will be enough time?”

“I’m an alchemist; I’ll make gold of it,” Bertie said.

B
ertie’s first
indication that she’d overslept was the troupe of cancan dancers that brushed past her bed and hit her in the head with their rustling crinolines. The second was their tittering giggles. But even that was easier to ignore than Nate’s hand clamped down on her shoulder.

“Lass.” The nudging became more insistent as his other hand joined the first. “There was a notice on th’ Call Board, an’ they’re all gatherin’. Ahoy. Wake up.”

“Go ’way,” Bertie mumbled in denial. “I set my alarm. It can’t be time yet. Tell the Chorus Girls to bugger off.” She turned over and burrowed deeper into the bedclothes.

“Ye have t’ get up afore th’ rest arrive.”

Bertie cracked an eye at the clock, which told her in no uncertain terms that it hadn’t gone off at seven as planned.
She went from mostly comatose to completely awake in less than half a second, bolted upright, and leapt out of bed. Nate sidestepped her mad bounce into the land of the living, but Moth and Cobweb slept on with their little bums hiked in the air and faces buried under the pillows. Peaseblossom tumbled down Bertie’s pajama top. Mustardseed landed on the floor with a thump and a sleepy “bwaaah?”

“Ye know I’d rather hazard an ocean o’ sirens than rouse ye from a slumber, right?” Nate asked.

“Yes, I know, and it’s a good thing you did. Hairbrush, hairbrush, who moved my hairbrush?”

Bertie realized they were already in the middle of a scene change. Half her furniture and her clothes, carefully selected to look authoritative and directorial, were already gone. She raked her fingers through the brilliant blue rats’ nest atop her head with a growing sense of futility and spoke down her pajama top. “We overslept. Wake up!”

Peaseblossom flitted free, instantly alert. “Get up get up get up get up!” She kicked Moth directly in the backside, which only nudged him three inches farther under the pillow.

Bertie shoved her feet into a pair of slippers, then grabbed for all four fairies and dropped them in the pocket of her plaid flannel sleeping pants mere seconds before her bed disappeared under the stage. “Who authorized this?”

“That would be me.” The Stage Manager dispensed hot
coffee and smiles to the early arrivals crowded together Stage Right.

“I don’t suppose you know what happened to my alarm.” Bertie shoved her way through them to reach his table.

“No idea whatsoever,” the Stage Manager said.

Bertie surveyed the pastries, coffee cakes, and mammoth silver samovar. “This is an impressive spread. Must have taken a while to set up.”

“A bit of time, yes.”

“You could have paused during your preparations to wake me up.”

“I could have.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Obviously.” The Stage Manager held up an insulated cup. “Coffee?”

Bertie rubbed her thumb over the scrimshaw as she peered at him.
Another one wearing a mask, though it’s as ugly as what lurks underneath
. He smirked, sending nasty, oily serpents to pluck at her composure, to push, to goad, to tug at the reins of her temper while the Players looked on.

Bertie let go of the medallion along with her plans to unleash a blistering diatribe that would only make her look ridiculous. Instead, she turned on a smile so sweet the cinnamon rolls were jealous. “Please.”

Clearly disappointed she’d left the bait dangling on his
hook, the Stage Manager filled the cup to the brim and handed it to her. “There you are.”

Nate joined them at the table as Bertie slurped enough coffee to make room in the cup for a healthy amount of cream and sugar. “Is everythin’ all right?” His hand twitched toward his cutlass.

“Unspeakably fabulous. I was just getting some breakfast.” She turned out her pocket to dump the fairies on the table. “Eat up, guys. You’ll need your strength today.”

Mustardseed landed on a jelly-filled doughnut with such precision that raspberry jam shot across the tray and dripped over the edge. “Oops! Did I do that?” Then he jumped on an éclair.

“Wait for us!” Moth and Cobweb hastened to skate in the mess.

“Make them stop,” snapped the Stage Manager. “The food is for the Company.”

“We’re part of the Company!” Peaseblossom said. “We even have lines.”

“Not a lot of them, but they’re there!” said Mustardseed, discovering the sugar cubes.

The Stage Manager fixed Bertie with a gimlet gaze. “As the Director, you’re going to need to maintain some semblance of authority.”

“Authority, yes, but I’m not the boss of them.” Bertie spoke around a mouthful of doughnut, old-fashioned cake
with glaze, because she was a girl with simple tastes and because the cancan dancers had snaked all the ones with sprinkles, the hussies.

“Yeah, she’s not the boss of us!” Moth and Cobweb stopped painting each other with jam war paint long enough to stick their tongues out at the Stage Manager.

“Yes, she most certainly is,” he said.

“For argument’s sake, let’s say that I am,” said Bertie. “I therefore direct them to make a lovely, lovely mess on your table.”

“Nyah!” the boys jeered, and did just that.

And Peaseblossom—decorous, proper Peaseblossom—dropped her trousers to waggle her naked, pale bottom at the Stage Manager. Bertie laughed involuntarily, choked on her coffee, and nearly died as it came out her nose, but it was worth the searing pain in her nostrils to see the look on the Stage Manager’s face. He spun away from the table and disappeared into the wings, presumably to retrieve his headset and his dignity.

“Wow,” Bertie said. “Add Peaseblossom’s rump to the list of things I never thought I’d see.”

“Aye,” agreed Nate. “That were truly appallin’.”

Peaseblossom did up her pants and straightened her tunic. “I don’t have to be perfect all the time, you know. Being the responsible one gets
tiring
.”

“Tell me about it.” Bertie grabbed another doughnut and
headed for the front of the stage. The realization dawned that there were too many Players milling about, sitting in the auditorium, gathering in the balconies. She turned to Nate. “What are Othello and Desdemona doing here? And Rosalind and Viola and—”

“Ye called fer everyone,” said Nate.

Bertie shook her head in vehement denial. “No, no, I just needed the
Hamlet
cast.”

“Oh, dear,” said Peaseblossom.

Bertie pivoted in time to see the fairy slap herself on the forehead. Both of them winced.

“You didn’t!” Bertie said, not holding out any hope.

“I did!” the fairy wailed. “I posted the call for everyone!”

A few of the Players peered at them with great curiosity, so Bertie tried to look resilient and indefatigable despite the pajamas and crazy bedhead. If she left to change her clothes now, the Stage Manager would spread rumors and misinformation the entire time she was gone, doing his best to make it look like a retreat.

“It’s all right,” she said, trying to believe it. “It’s not the end of the world.”

Peaseblossom peeked at Bertie through her fingers. “It’s not?”

“I might as well make the announcement to the entire Company. They don’t need to get it secondhand though the rumor mill.”

“That’s th’ spirit,” Nate said. “Now go an’. . . er . . . do whatever ’tis ye plan t’ do.”

“Thanks, Nate. Truly inspirational.” Bertie tossed him the rest of her doughnut and absconded with the wooden crate from under the refreshment table.

Situations like this require as much stature as possible
.

“Beatrice Shakespeare Smith!” Gertrude bellowed as she made her entrance, very late and hardly sorry.

“Thank you so much for joining us,” Bertie said to the queen, dragging the crate to the front of the stage.

“What are you doing at the front of this assemblage?” Gertrude demanded.

It was the sort of question that didn’t have any right answer, like “does this pannier make my royal butt look big?” Bertie sorted through her options, but not quick enough for Gertrude. The queen reached out to rap Bertie’s pate with her ruby-ringed knuckle.

“I require your assistance. My silk overskirt must be mended before the next performance, my son is off sulking. . . .” She paused and assessed Bertie’s pajamas. “Your attire is most inappropriate, even for this early hour.”

Bertie shook her head at the errant royalty. “Never mind my clothes—”

Gertrude snorted with enough force to set the velvet curtains flapping. “I’ll have none of your excuses, miss. The moon shall find me dancing, or I’ll know why.” She
turned away to take full advantage of the refreshment table.

“Please do help yourself to coffee before joining the rest of the Company.” Bertie climbed onto the crate and cupped a hand next to her mouth. “Excuse me, everyone!”

Trying to capture their attention was like throwing pennies into a restless ocean; the words sank, unnoticed, into the churning waves of morning gossip.

“You need a bullhorn,” said Moth.

“Or an air raid siren,” said Mustardseed.

“You need a commanding presence and an air of authority,” said Peaseblossom.

“Thank you, fairy godmother, I’ll get right on that.” Bertie signaled to Nate. “Will you gainsay me a whistle?”

“Not this time.” Nate reached for the small, copper bosun’s pipe that hung around his neck. “Which do ye want?”

“ ‘All Hands on Deck,’ just in case we have Players missing, followed by ‘Word to Be Passed,’ if you please.”

Nate obliged with the high-pitched signals used to gather the crew and command silence for an order to follow. The noise was meant to carry from ship to ship; as such, it would have driven a dog under the bed, if there had been a dog, and if the bed hadn’t already disappeared below the stage. The Players as yet unaware of Bertie’s presence winced and looked around. Hero upset her coffee down her front,
and Claudio tried to mop it up, doing more harm than good where her dress was concerned.

Bertie tried to ignore the suspicious looks now aimed at her. “Thank you all for coming this morning. I appreciate your punctuality and graciousness at such an early hour.”

The Players complained to their neighbors in rumbling undertones. Though she couldn’t see the Stage Manager, Bertie caught his muttered whispers of “whippersnapper” and “troublesome little baggage” in the slosh of conversation. When Nate crossed his considerably muscled arms, the crowd fell into a grudging silence.