Lights Out Tonight (7 page)

Back in the car after lunch, the headline on the bottom of the front page of the Albany
Times Union
caught Caroline’s eye.
EVIDENCE OF MARIJUANA IN PLAYHOUSE VICTIMS
. She read the story about two Warrenstown Summer Playhouse apprentices who had been killed in a car accident over the weekend. Marijuana had been found in the car, and now the autopsy showed the drug in both of their systems.

Meg must know these kids,
thought Caroline, hoping that their tragic deaths would be a cautionary tale for her stepdaughter.

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18

Meg pulled at the corset drawstrings.

“Tighter, Meg. You’ve got to pull them tighter,” Belinda said. “Don’t worry. I won’t break.”

As she stood behind the actress, Meg caught sight of her own reflection in the mirrored wall over the dressing table. Her expression was serious as she took a deep breath and pulled back on the drawstrings.

Belinda winced. “That’s better,” she said as her hands caressed her waistline. “That should be enough.”

Meg walked over to the rack on which all the actress’s costumes hung. She selected the green velvet ball gown that Belinda wore in her first and last appearances onstage. She held the gown as Belinda stepped into it. In keeping with the style of the period, there were two dozen green velvet buttons running down the back of the gown, but a hidden zipper had been sewn in to make quick costume changes possible. There was no way twenty-four small buttons could be fastened or unfastened and Belinda still make her entrances in time.

As Meg zipped her into the dress, the star nodded approvingly. “Good,” she said. “But remind me not to breathe.”

Meg smiled shyly. She still was in awe of Belinda Winthrop and couldn’t quite believe that not only was she in the star’s dressing room but that the actress was actually talking with her. Meg was trying hard to strike the right balance between being respectful and not appearing overly impressed. But even though the Warrenstown Summer Playhouse stressed that, from apprentice to star, all of the thespians and support staff belonged here as colleagues, it was undeniable that Belinda Winthrop was in a class of her own. For Meg, it was intoxicating yet intimidating to be in such close contact with a legend.

A tinkling sound emanated from Meg’s knapsack. She hesitated.

“It’s all right, Meg. Go ahead and answer it,” Belinda said as she pulled on her long green gloves.

Meg checked the number on the cell phone screen. “Forget it,” she said, tossing the phone back in the bag. “It’s not important.”

Caroline listened to the ring and then heard the click that meant the call was being forwarded to voice mail.

“Hi. It’s Meg. Please leave a message and I’ll call you back.”

“Hi, Meg. It’s Caroline. I just wanted to let you know I’m here. Call me when you can and we’ll figure out when we can get together.” She recited her cell phone number. Caroline was certain Meg already had it, but her stepdaughter wasn’t above claiming she didn’t. Caroline refused to give Meg any excuse not to return the call.

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19

The audience gathered for the afternoon run-through of
Devil in the Details
was a select one. With the exception of Belinda’s portrait painter, Remington Peters, who had sneaked in through a side entrance to view her in her costume, everyone was involved directly with the play. The public was decidedly unwelcome.

In the frenetic moments before the curtain would go up, actors with nonspeaking roles were called out to stand in the glare of the spotlights for a costume check. The property master hurled epithets from somewhere backstage when he noticed that one of the glasses from a serving tray was missing. As the stage manager gave two-minute warnings over his headset to the first-scene actors, the lighting and sound engineers made final adjustments to their computers.

Keith Fallows sat in the back of the theater, where as director he could have overall perspective. Langley Tate sat closer to the front, where she could study Belinda’s movements and mannerisms. Victoria Sterling positioned herself at the side, where she could make notes on her script without distracting anyone.

Finally, the lights dimmed and the curtain rose. One of the
three chandeliers failed to fall from the rafters, but everyone pretended not to notice. Belinda’s performance was flawless, and her presence onstage kept the other actors on their toes. Scene One introduced the play’s main characters and gave the audience a sense of time and place: in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Boston, Valerie is a woman of wealth and privilege married for fourteen years to Davis, a man whom she slowly begins to suspect is a sociopath.

At the end of the first scene, Keith yelled from the back of the theater, “Hold it, everybody. This still isn’t right.” The director rose from his seat and walked quickly down the aisle as the actors waited.

“Belinda, darling, I think you should move more downstage when you deliver the last lines of this scene.”

“Yesterday you told me to stay upstage, Keith,” Belinda said.

“I know what I said yesterday, but this is today.”

Belinda kept her face expressionless as she moved closer to the front of the stage. “Do you want me to run the lines again, Keith?” she asked.

“Of course I do.”

What a pro,
thought Langley as she watched the exchange between star and director. If she was in Belinda’s place, she would want to wring Keith’s scrawny neck. He had been constantly changing his mind about the blocking throughout the rehearsals for this production. The sets creaked, the lighting was either too
bright or too dim, the costumes were uninspired, and the actors were either too animated or sleepwalking through their lines.

Langley hadn’t worked with Keith Fallows before, but his reputation for exacting standards preceded him. That was what made him the successful director he was. But the understudy hadn’t been prepared for Keith’s sarcasm and sometimes downright anger in response to anything that displeased him. The cast and crew of
Devil in the Details
were walking on eggshells.

Except for Belinda. If Keith’s behavior bothered her, she didn’t let it show. No matter how many times the director changed his mind, Belinda never revealed any trace of frustration or annoyance. Langley worried about taking Belinda’s place onstage and dealing with Keith’s volatile temperament, but that fear wasn’t enough to extinguish her appetite for the role of Valerie.

Langley Tate was a full decade younger than Belinda Winthrop and had envisioned over and over again the zest she would inject into the part. Playing Valerie at the Warrenstown Summer Playhouse could get her the attention that might lead to great things in her career. But that would never happen as long as Belinda stayed healthy.

Meg watched the first two scenes on the monitor in the dressing room, paying strict attention because of the several quick costume changes she had to assist Belinda with. But with the intermission looming after the final scene of the first act, Meg grabbed the copy of the
Devil in the Details
script Belinda had
left on the dressing table and went upstairs to follow along from the side of the stage.

ACT I, SCENE 3

The drawing room, lit only by a large fireplace, is in almost complete darkness, the light from the flickering flames dancing on the walls and furniture. The room seems empty. A few moments pass in silence.
VALERIE ENTERS
upstage and is about to turn the switch to light the lamps, but she is interrupted by a disembodied voice coming from a high-backed chair downstage.

As Meg heard Belinda deliver the line with such wifely tenderness, she would have bet fifty dollars that Keith Fallows was
going to scream “Hold.” In earlier rehearsals, he had told Belinda twice, once kindly and the second time with his voice raised with impatience, that she was supposed to sound sarcastic when speaking about her husband’s pain. Belinda had ignored that direction and spoke the line with a lilt of genuine care and concern.

“Hold!”
Keith jumped to his feet and bellowed the word. Everyone onstage stood absolutely still. “Please, Belinda,” he said, gritting his teeth.

The director walked toward the stage. The actress moved downstage, kneeling on one knee between two footlights so that they might speak without being overheard. “What is it now?” she whispered, pretending not to know why he’d stopped the action.

“You know damn well what’s the matter,” he hissed.

“Well, we’re just going to have to agree to disagree, Keith. At this point in the play, I don’t think Valerie is at all sure that Davis is the monster he turns out to be. She’s still worried she’s reading too much into her husband’s strange behavior. She realizes that everything he’s done in the first two scenes has a possible and plausible explanation. If I start playing her as bitchily as you’d like right now, I think we spoil it for the audience. They won’t have enough sympathy for Valerie.”

“Isn’t that
my
department? Isn’t the
director
supposed to make these kinds of decisions?”

“That’s the problem, Keith. I’m afraid you think that
director
and
dictator
are the same thing. Do you really think I’ve gotten to where I am by blindly obeying every director’s whim over my own instincts?” Belinda stood up, letting him know that the conference was over.