Ms America and the Whoopsie in Winona (32 page)

I already know. I knew the second I heard the first
Stop!
It can only be …

Lisette Longley heaves into view with her last few stomps up the center aisle. She’s in her late twenties, skinny with long blond hair, and dressed in her typical Boho-chic outfit of flowing black skirt, matching tunic with white embroidery, and lace-up ankle boots with chunky heels. Her fringed satchel dangles from her shoulder and even though she’s inside a dark theater she’s wearing the amber-colored sunglasses I’ve never seen leave her face.

Amateur psychologist that I am, it makes me think she’s hiding something. That, or she’s the height of Manhattan pretension.

She plants herself below what I now know is called the apron of the stage and sets her hands on her hips. Even deep in the wings, I can feel her fury. “You’re going to make me say it again?” she bellows at the actors. “Shut up already!”

That elicits boos from the crowd. Now, before we get any further, let me assure you that even though this is a preview, it’s meant to be like a real performance. Meaning everyone paid good money for their tickets. Meaning they’ll accept a few snafus, but they expect a normal production, which typically does not include tirades by members of the crew.

Then I realize that some people might mistake Lisette for a wacko who walked in off 45
th
Street. She’s doing a good imitation of one.

The commotion draws the director, Oliver Tripp Jr., onto the stage. With his thinning hair, skeletal build and awkward gait, and wearing his trademark black cords and red sneakers, the man screams nebbish. If you were meeting him for the first time, you’d never guess he’s a force in the theater world. Slightly hunched over, even though he’s only in his forties, he creeps downstage toward Lisette, twisting his hands and looking as timid as a toddler on the first day of preschool. He halts at the footlights. “Lisette,” he squeaks, his voice even higher than usual, “maybe you and I should go backstage to talk.”

Numerous people in the audience recognize him and start clapping. That seems to enrage Lisette even further. “No way!” she shouts up at him. “I can say what I need to say right here! So how about
I
talk and
you
listen?”

More boos break out. It’s clear the audience has already taken sides.

“I
knew
I was right!” Lisette hollers at Oliver over the increasingly raucous audience. “You
did
rewrite the dialogue!”

“So
that’s
why it was good!” somebody yells.

“Put a sock in it!” Lisette twists around to shriek. Then she pivots again to face Oliver. “Are you such an idiot you thought I wouldn’t notice?”

Oliver throws out his arms as if to bring the audience into the discussion. “All any of us want is for
Dream Angel
to be as good as possible—”

“It’s already good!”

Clearly Oliver doesn’t know how to respond to that cockamamie assertion.

“Besides,” Lisette roars, “you’ve got no business trying to tell
me
what works in this town!”

Shanelle pokes me in the arm. “That’s crazy.
Dream Angel
is that girl’s first production.”

“Well, at least we’re getting some drama tonight. Too bad it’s not part of the show.” And even though I’m amazed—and not in a good way—by Lisette’s diatribe, I also find myself pitying her.

Did this woman’s parents never teach her that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar? We beauty queens know that you get much further in life if you cooperate with those around you. Approach everyone and everything with a positive attitude! That’s what we always say. But it sure seems Lisette never learned that lesson.

“This is getting uglier by the second,” I murmur to Shanelle. “What’s Oliver going to do if Lisette keeps this up?”

We’ve all heard Oliver scream at Lisette behind closed doors, but he never does that with anybody watching. Fortunately for him, somebody in the crowd starts a chant—
Go backstage! Go backstage!
—that the entire audience gets into.

“Come on, Lisette,” Oliver implores again, this time beckoning her to stage right. “Come backstage and we’ll talk.”

This time she accedes. Oliver calls for a five-minute break. Once Lisette disappears, the audience lets out a cheer the likes of which this production will never hear again. Scads of people make a beeline for the exits while others whip out their cell phones. I can only imagine the snarky tweeting that will ensue.

Trixie sidles next to Shanelle and me, her expression grim. “I guess it was too much to hope that Lisette would stay away tonight. Anyhoo, my new boots are killing me. Let’s walk around the lobby to stretch our legs.”

We’re doing just that when two boisterous gray-haired couples pass by jabbering about their latest trip to Stratford-upon-Avon.

“Isn’t that where Shakespeare was born?” Shanelle wants to know.

I’m nodding when one of the men does the unthinkable. “I’m done with these cheesy musicals!” he bellows. “Get me some of the Bard.
King Lear
,
Macbeth
—”

“Oh my Lord!” Trixie yelps, “I can’t believe he said the M word!” She races up to the man, grabs him by the arm, and insists he follow her outside.

“I’m already on my way outside,” he says. “What’s your problem?”

“You can’t say the name of that play in a theater! Don’t you know that? It’s horrible luck!”

“Lady, all the luck in the world isn’t going to save
this
bomb. Now let go of my arm.”

“No! You have to eradicate the curse!”

I’ve never seen Trixie more insistent. By this point she’s drawn a crowd, thanks to the teeming hordes who are attempting to exit the theater before
Dream Angel
shudders to a close.

“Here’s what you have to do,” Trixie says to the man.

He glowers at her. “Nobody tells
me
what to do.”

That draws jeers from the multitude.

“Please!” Trixie cries, “it’s easy,” and she launches into quite the sequence of moves, to the obvious enjoyment of everyone watching. She spins three times; she spits; she swears; and then she knocks on the theater door asking to be let back in.

“Fuhgeddaboudit!” the man yowls, and disappears into Manhattan’s chilly night along with his three compatriots.

“Don’t feel bad, lady,” another departing theatergoer tells Trixie. “You put on the best show I saw all night.” Then he and his gal pal flee as well.

I look after them with envy. Fabulous New York City is pulsing all around me, but all I get to see is the inside of this godforsaken theater.

“What now?” Trixie’s face is ashen. “That’s the last thing we needed. That man pretty much spat on the biggest Broadway superstition ever.”

“You ask me, that spinning and spitting routine is nutty,” Shanelle opines.

“Superstitions exist for a reason,” Trixie insists. “If it’s really true that the first actor who ever played, you know, the M word, died after his performance, that play is cursed. Its name should never be mentioned in a theater.”

“What are people supposed to call it then?” Shanelle asks.

I’m starting to answer “the Scottish play” when my voice catches in my throat. I swear I stop breathing. Everything fades into the background as I stare at a well-dressed man walking across the theater lobby, a handsome man with dark hair and olive-toned skin and a certain something in his profile—

“That man kind of looks like Mario,” Trixie murmurs.

That’s the M word
I’m
not supposed to say. Or even think. I’m not having much success with that New Year’s resolution, I can tell you.

“It’s not Mario, though,” Shanelle points out.

I clear my throat. “No, of course not. He has no reason to be in New York.” Because Mario doesn’t follow me around anymore. Not that he ever really followed me
around
, but you know what I mean. All that’s stopped. There’s no more of that.

The tabloids prove that he’s doing exactly what I told him to do. He’s getting on with his life. I told him that’s what he had to do the last time I saw him, in Minnesota a month ago. And you can’t get mad at a man on that rare occasion when he actually does what you tell him to do, now can you?

No, you cannot. Not even when it feels like your heart is being ripped out of your chest and stomped on by evil women wearing extremely high stilettos. And especially when you have no business being upset because you have your own husband and he’s a pretty great guy.

Fortunately, my BFFs don’t bring up any of the tabloid news. They can tell I’m flustered enough. Trixie rubs my arm. “We’d better get back in there.”

I manage to smile and even crack a lame joke. “We shouldn’t have any trouble finding places to sit.”

Truer words were never spoken. We plant our butts in abandoned seats in the third row right off the center aisle. Moments later the orchestra launches into an abbreviated version of the overture, presumably to get everybody back in the mood for
Dream Angel
. That’s a tall order. I know what I’m in the mood for: an adult beverage.

At long last the musical wends its tortuous way to the closing scene, when our heroine finally wins the pageant title she’s always dreamed of. You’d think this would tug at my heartstrings—after all, it parallels my own life story—but the dialogue is so forced and the heroine’s final song so sappy that the only emotion I can summon is a raging desire for the curtains to fall.

Singing all the way, the heroine begins the tricky ascent up the steep, glittering staircase atop which her gold and crimson throne awaits. From my left side, Trixie lays a hand on my leg. I know why. I’m sure that like me, she’s wondering if tonight, like every other preview night, Lisette will appear on stage at the tippy top of the staircase to scream about how much she detests the music in this final scene of “her” musical.

“Oh my Lord!”—Trixie’s fingers clutch—“there she is again!”

“Stop everything!” Lisette hollers, raising her arms wide like a mad preacher and stepping out in front of the throne.

That turns out to be the last order Lisette Longley ever gives. All of a sudden she lurches forward, her eyes amazed behind her amber-colored eyeglasses, and does a header down the stage’s sky-high staircase—
boom, boom, boom, boom
—tumbling ass over applecart all the way down to the footlights, thumping every tread en route, head and body flailing like nobody’s business.

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Ms America and the Brouhaha on Broadway
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