Spellcrossed (4 page)

I asked the girls playing the secondary orphans to choose names for their characters; nothing says “You’re part of the huddled masses” more than playing some nameless part in the chorus. An endless discussion ensued with all the girls weighing in. By the time the last girl settled on the nickname “Marbles,” Reinhard’s gray crew cut was standing on end in full porcupine mode and I had only ten minutes left for my Red Light-Green Light version of Stage Directions 101. Although that evoked more eye rolling from Chelsea, the rest got into it, and I was pleased to see the older girls helping the little ones sort out upstage from down.

The wranglers and I escorted the girls over to the Smokehouse. Chelsea shot a dismissive glance around the rehearsal studio, but the others seemed impressed by the recently framed posters of past shows that lined the wall above the dance barre.

Alex led them through the same exercises I had performed during my season at the Crossroads. The girls hissed like snakes to practice breath control and giggled their way through the bubble blowing that was supposed to relax their lips. They giggled even more at the tongue twisters like “unique New York” and “fluffy, floppy puppy.” They yodeled and chanted and followed Alex up and down the scale. By the end of the hour, even Chelsea seemed to be having fun, a tribute to Alex’s charm as much as his magic.

In subsequent rehearsals, I introduced other games,
including the ever-popular Mirror Exercise, where each girl had to mimic her partner’s movements, and the Emotion Party, where they had to “catch” the feelings of each arriving guest. That one left me totally strung out. I asked for sad and got Greek tragedy. I asked for scared and got
A Nightmare on Elm Street
. But at least they grasped the idea of committing to the emotional moment.

When we plunged into the real work, the girls proved themselves more prepared than most of the professionals I’d worked with during my years in summer stock. Even the little ones knew their songs and their lines. They threw themselves into learning their choreography with such fervor that Mei-Yin exclaimed, “Give me kids ANY day. When THEY fall over their feet, it’s CUTE!”

Staging their scenes proved more challenging. Blocking adults is dull. Blocking restless children is about as rewarding as herding cats. It required the concentration of a traffic cop and the energy of a cheerleader on crack.

By the end of the second week, I wished I had three more wranglers and a lot more time. Two weeks of “orphans only” rehearsals worked out to less than thirty hours to teach them their staging, music, and dance numbers before the adults arrived.

I was also beginning to worry about my two Annies. Chelsea had all the nuance of a police siren. When called upon to dry Molly’s tears in the opening scene, she seemed impatient rather than comforting, and her rendition of “Maybe” shattered eardrums instead of capturing hearts. It was Amanda who discovered the bittersweet longing of the song during the rare moments I could actually hear her.

Chelsea’s “damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead” approach served her better in “Hard Knock Life.” Her team of orphans turned in a spirited performance while Amanda’s were as tentative as she was.

The Cheshire Cat and the Dormouse; if I could roll them together, I’d have an Annie who would break your heart and make you cheer, all in the same scene.

I tried to bolster Amanda’s confidence and tone down Chelsea’s. Amanda nodded and looked miserable. Chelsea nodded and looked bored.

It was Alex who filled me in on what lay behind Chelsea’s tough facade. Divorced parents. Mom in banking. Father living overseas somewhere and hadn’t seen his kid in more than a year. No wonder she reminded me a lot of…well…me.

“Can you help her?” I asked Alex. “Everything I try meets with a shrug or a grimace.”

“Same here,” he replied. “We’ll just have to keep trying.”

Rowan would have known what to do. But it seemed my rehearsals could only provide a distraction instead of the healing I hoped she would find at the Crossroads.

S
OME PEOPLE CLAIM SUMMER BEGINS Memorial Day weekend. Traditionalists hold out for the solstice. For the citizens of Dale, summer officially began with the annual migration of actors to the Golden Bough.

Last year’s migration had consisted of seven Mackenzies and one semi-pro actor trickling into town for
The Fantasticks
. This year, the line of cars crawling around the village green and clogging Main Street evoked approving nods and relieved smiles from the citizenry.

“Now it feels like summer,” Frannie remarked during check-in. The professionals seemed surprised to find me behind the front desk. The Mackenzies were too busy trying to figure out what
they
were doing here to wonder why their director was doubling as a hotel clerk.

When I heard the quavering strains of “When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano” wafting through the windows, I raced through the lobby and flung open the front door. Now it felt like summer to me. Bernie Cohen—friend, volunteer, and board member—had returned.

My smile faded as Reinhard unloaded Bernie’s walker from his SUV. Naturally, Bernie noticed. Seventy-plus he might be, blind he wasn’t.

“These old hips stiffen up over the winter, but a couple
weeks back at the Crossroads and I’ll be doing a Highland reel. Just seeing the old barn again was a tonic.”

A “tonic” he had first experienced during our season of summer stock and had accepted ever since without questioning how it worked.

“Boy, it’s good to be back. Leah was driving me crazy. If she had her way, I’d spend my life playing canasta at the senior center. The whole time I’m packing she says, ‘Don’t overdo, Dad.’ I say, ‘How can I overdo? I’ll be living with Reinhard and Mei-Yin. He’s a doctor. She’s a terror.’ How’re your teeth?”

“Once a dentist, always a dentist.” But I bared my teeth for his inspection.

Bernie tsked. “Floss more. It’s the secret to good health. Look at Long.”

“Must I?”

“Okay, he’s a putz. But such teeth. How’s ticket sales?”

“We can discuss this at the barbecue,” Reinhard said.

“What’s the deal with that?” Bernie asked. “Some new Crossroads tradition?”

“My secret weapon. With half the cast living off-site, I wanted everyone to get to know each other before rehearsals started.”

“Smart. Did you get Long to pay for it?”

“You bet.”

“Very smart.”

“Bernie claims to have a secret weapon, too,” Reinhard said. “One that will sell ads like pancakes.”

“Hotcakes,” Bernie corrected. “I got a bet with Reinhard that I can sell a thousand bucks of ads for
Annie
. You want in?”

“Absolutely.”

“Loser treats the winner to dinner at the Bough.”

“Deal. But it’ll be like taking candy from a baby. Even you can’t sell that many ads.”

“Just you wait, girlie.”

The barbecue broke up around ten o’clock, but it was well after midnight when Janet and I crept into the Golden Bough to carry out a far older tradition.

During my season, Helen had performed her blessing every night until her heart attack confined her to the Bates mansion. When I moved into the Bough, I carried on the tradition in her memory. Once I was no longer managing the hotel, I made do with a furtive blessing when each new wave of cast members arrived. This season, I’d decided to enlist Janet’s help to back up the blessing with some genuine Fae power.

As we tiptoed up the stairs, I caressed the worn leather cover of Helen’s book of spells. Although I knew the words of the blessing by heart, just holding the book brought me a small measure of the comfort and reassurance that Helen had always provided.

I knew the words on the cover page as well: “The Herbal of Mairead Mackenzie. 1817.” The woman whom Rowan had called a witch. The woman who had cursed him and bound him to this world. The woman whose collection of remedies, charms, and talismans had been passed down through generations of Mackenzie women before coming to me in Helen’s will.

Janet rested her palm against the first door. I held the book to my breast and silently repeated the words of the blessing:

Janet and I repeated the ritual at each door, bound by our love for Helen and our blood tie to Mairead Mackenzie. Maybe that was why the blessing seemed so potent, why I felt like I was participating in an ancient rite
rather than one that Helen had invented, a rite that signaled the beginning of our summer stock season.

By the time we had bestowed our final blessing, peace flowed through me as surely as it flowed through the sleeping inhabitants of the Bough. Janet seemed to feel it, too, a rare smile curving her mouth. Then she rolled her eyes and whispered, “Let’s get the hell home and go to bed.” And the spell was broken.

Helen’s peace and Janet’s sarcasm. Somehow, they summed up all the contradictions of the new Crossroads Theatre: a board of directors unknowingly leading a Fae-powered staff; a cast composed of professionals, community theatre actors, and bewildered Mackenzies; and a director who fervently hoped she could keep her head above water while balancing all those disparate elements.

W
HEN REHEARSALS BEGAN, I found myself dogpaddling furiously to keep afloat. As excited as I was to work with professional actors, I was painfully conscious of my lack of directing experience. Last season, the small casts had made staging easy, but this production of
Annie
was the musical theatre equivalent of
The Ten Commandments
. And I sure as hell was no Cecil B. DeMille.

I’d resorted to a graph paper floor plan of the stage and moved tiny paper cutouts of actors around it like an interior designer planning the layout of a room. Naturally, Hal discovered my shameful secret. Reinhard put a stop to his teasing with the stern admonishment, “Every director works differently. If this technique helps Maggie, why should she not use paper dolls?”

Which wasn’t exactly the boost I needed.

In the mornings, I blocked scenes with the principals, leaving the chorus to the tender mercies of Reinhard and Mei-Yin. Then I gobbled lunch in the production office, fielded questions from the staff, and tried to ensure that the fund-raiser was on track. More scene work in the afternoon, then over to the Golden Bough to check in with Frannie. A quick dinner at the house, then back to the theatre to work the big musical numbers in the evening. By the time I trudged up the hill to the
Bates mansion, I was too wired to sleep and spent an hour sending out e-mails and prepping for the next day’s rehearsal. While the hectic pace left me jazzed, I worried that I’d be as lively as Arthur by opening night.

The staff was putting in the same killer hours. Every afternoon, Alex raced over from the high school for music rehearsals. Mei-Yin juggled choreography and the Mandarin Chalet. Reinhard somehow managed to maintain his medical practice during his few hours off. On the days his antique store was closed, Javier helped Catherine with set construction. And although we had rented some of the principals’ costumes, Hal had to construct the rest and enlist volunteers to alter the Depression-era drag he had scoured from area thrift stores.

Bernie flung himself into selling ads for the program, visiting shop owners in the morning and waylaying parents every afternoon as they dropped off their daughters. He alternated between the fast-talking salesmanship of Harold Hill in
The Music Man
and the sad-eyed pleading of Puss from the
Shrek
series. Throw in “little old man in a walker” and even the most tight-fisted parents caved, convinced their daughters would suffer lifelong damage if they failed to buy an ad.

“What a con artist,” I told him, watching yet another mother walk to her car, paperwork in hand.

“It’s called salesmanship,” he retorted, morphing from sad-eyed Puss to keen-eyed retiree. “Know how much I’ve sold so far, Miss Smarty Pants? Five hundred and fifty bucks!”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I glanced around and hastily lowered my voice. “In four days? How the hell did you do it?”

I scanned the papers he thrust at me. A full-page ad—lavishly adorned with stars—screamed, “Some families are dripping with diamonds. Some families are dripping with pearls. Lucky us! Lucky us! Look at what we’re dripping with! A fabulous little girl!” Another proclaimed “To a little orphan with a big heart and the talent
to match! We love you!!” And yet another: “Our FILL IN YOUR CHILD’S ROLE shines like the top of the Chrysler Building!” “Break a leg!” and “We’re so proud!” messages adorned other—significantly smaller—ads.

“It’s brilliant, Bernie.”

Tacky, but definitely brilliant.

“It was Sarah’s idea. That granddaughter of mine is gonna be a millionaire someday.”

“If this keeps up…” I glanced around, frantically seeking wood to knock on, and settled for his sheaf of papers; they’d been trees once, after all.