The Hamlet Trap (3 page)

FOUR

All the rest of Saturday
Ginnie worked in the shop, a large Quonset hut where the sets were constructed and stored. It always smelled of paint and newly sawed wood. She was making decisions with William, labeling items to be stored, making notes in her notebook to go in her file. Keep the bay window intact; break down the soda fountain from
Bus Stop
; return the jukebox to the collector who had donated it for the season… . The Quonset-hut shop was a jumble of scenery, removed from the stage, brought out from backstage as each show finished now, each piece demanding a separate decision. Keep this flat, it can be painted a couple more times. That sofa has had it. Tear it down, keep the frame. It was hard work, and dirty work. The wonderful fireplace from
Dracula
—it worked on a revolve. When the secret panel opened, the whole thing turned to reveal the loathsome crypt of the monster… . Tear it down.

She made notes. William made notes; Gary Boynton, the shop foreman, made notes, all different, not interchangeable. On Monday the actual work would begin; hoists would lift pieces to the overhead storage areas, the crew would attack other pieces with hammers, crowbars… .

The crew began to bring in scenery from
Pal Joey
and Ginnie moved out of the way. Her hands were grimy, her face was dirty, her hair gritty.

“Hi,” Gray Wilmot called at the door. “William around?”

William appeared from the rear of the shop. “Afternoon, Mr. Wilmot.”

“Please,” he said. “Gray. Just wanted to tell you that was a terrific set for
Pal Joey
. Really effective.”

“Thanks, but you should be telling Ginnie, not me.”

“I thought Ro said you did them.”

“Nope. He said I build. Ginnie designs. I just do what I'm told.”

Gary Boynton's voice bellowed nearby. “Dammit, Mikey, don't drop it!”

“Better move a bit,” William said, and stepped out of the way; Gray followed. Now he could see Ginnie.

“I didn't realize that was your work,” he said with a touch of stiffness. “They're both really good. I'm looking forward to working with you. See you later.”

He left, and William turned to look at Ginnie when she chuckled. “You baiting him, girl?”

“Now, William, don't be a nag. I've about had it for the day. How about you?” He nodded and she patted his arm. “Give Shannon a kiss for me. See you tomorrow.” Shannon was his semi-invalid wife whose heart condition grew steadily worse.

The rain had almost stopped; now it was a patter of isolated showers from stranded clouds that looked lonely in the clearing sky. The air smelled of rain and earth mold and forests and wood smoke. By next month Ashland would smell like a giant wood stove. There was a bite in the air signaling a frost soon, if not this night, then the next, or within a week, probably. Autumn had arrived.

She walked home without haste, stopped to chat a minute with Jarrel Walsh, who owned one of the best restaurants in town, then stopped again to speak with Darcy Corman, who worked in the bookstore that she passed every day. A clump of people stood near the Elizabethan Theater parking lot, actors and Marguerite Demarie, the costumer. Their season was ending, just as the Harley's was, and tomorrow night the party would wend from backstage to backstage as all the theater people in town celebrated another good season. For the diehards, there was Ro's apartment to wrap it all up with a catered breakfast at dawn. She waved; they waved back.

This was what Peter didn't understand, she thought, climbing her hill, hardly feeling the strain in her legs. He thought when she said they were like a family that it was simply show-biz jargon and it wasn't. Any of them could get together at any time and be deep in conversation within seconds and care about the conversation. Right now everyone would be interested in the new director, what he was like, what his routine would be, how he treated actors, stagehands—everything about him, because it could affect any one of them. The actors moved from one theater to the other, stagehands worked both, as did the construction crews. What happened at Harley's echoed through the Shakespeare bunch, the Angus Bowman bunch, all of them. Every rumor made the entire circuit with startling speed.

Peter had tried to convince her that it was just like that at the university, at corporations, everywhere. She didn't believe it. In theater, she had said, every single day you're laying it on the line again, risking everything again. You can't get a reputation and coast on it, not for long. No tenure, no security, no tomorrow; only this show, this run, this performance.

Peter was thirty, and she knew that Gray Wilmot was thirty-one, but he seemed ancient compared to Peter. Theater people all seemed old compared to other people, old and forever young and gullible at the same time. “You can't expect much from a relationship with another theater person,” Brenda, the sound technician, had said once over lunch. “You'll be working Toledo while he's in Las Vegas. But you can't expect
anything
from someone from the real world. As soon as they've seen the show once, it's ‘What else is new, honey?'”

The only reference her uncle had made to Peter had been oblique. “It's good to know someone from outside now and then, just to remind us what that's like.”

She walked up to her door and turned the key in the lock and realized that she was brooding about Peter because this was his last term at school; he would be leaving, and he liked things finished, settled. He didn't like quitting with things undone. Okay, she told herself, so she would have to make a decision, but not right now, not tonight, or tomorrow. All she wanted right now was a shower and food. God, she thought, she was starving.

Everything backstage had been cleared away to make room for tables and chairs, for a twenty-foot buffet. A five-piece band played, and when they took a break, someone put on tapes. Upstage was cleared for dancing. On the buffet there were turkey and ham, shrimp Creole, avocados stuffed with crab, chicken breasts in a hot Mexican sauce, potato salad, carrot salad, hearts of palm, mushrooms vinaigrette… There were liquor and champagne and red and white wines, and silver urns of coffee.

Ginnie danced until she was soaked through and through. Laura danced with Ro, then William, then with whomever came along and asked. She was a good dancer. Gray did not dance. Peter arrived at ten and Ginnie danced even more with him. One of the actresses, Amanda White, propositioned one of the actors and they left together. Kirby got drunk and wept and declared that he had changed his mind, he did not want to go to Hollywood; he would cancel his contract. Peter and Laura danced a waltz and everyone made room for them and watched and applauded when they were done. Then Ro made a speech and introduced Eric, who handed out awards. There was an award for the most original ad-lib, for the longest pause for a forgotten line, for the cleverest save the night that Eric forgot his promptbook, for the most athletic entrance or exit… .

The Shakespearean crowd arrived; some of the Harley people left, and after that it was impossible to tell them apart. Then it was two in the morning and Ro made a signal to the band. The leader stepped forward with an acoustic guitar; Bobby dimmed the lights and turned a spot on Ginnie. She had protested vehemently against this, but Ro had insisted and finally had agreed to make it a duet with her. Another spot found him. Ginnie's singing voice was too soft for a performer, but there was no sound now except her voice and the plaintive guitar. She sang.

“The party's over/it's time to call it a day…” Ro walked to her and they finished the song together; the spots went out, leaving inky blackness for a heartbeat, then the lights came on full and everyone applauded madly and many began to weep. The party was over. The season was over.

Laura was standing near Peter, both suddenly subdued. This was Gray's world, she was thinking, this was what he had been looking for, hungry for, and she would never be part of it. And Peter was thinking that Ro would never let Ginnie go again. Ginnie came up to them, flushed and sweaty.

“Corny, huh? Ro's idea. I told him it was corny.”

“It was perfect,” Peter said. “The perfect way to end a party. Do you have your car?”

“No. I thought you'd be driving and no point in a parade. Now?”

He nodded and Laura looked away, embarrassed by the sudden sexual tension that seemed to radiate from him. She watched them leave; it took a long time for them to get free of all the people who wanted a last hug, a last word with Ginnie. Gray came to her then.

“Ro said a small group will go to his apartment for a while. You up for that?”

“Do you want to?”

“Yeah. I think so.”

She nodded, but what she ached to do was go to their house with him, go to bed with him, make love for hours with him. She felt a rush of jealousy when she thought of Ginnie and Peter, and it was followed swiftly by a feeling of pity for him.

The caterers were starting to clean up and she heard the refrain in her mind: The party's over.

FIVE

At the party, Ro had
handed Ginnie a copy of the play—retyped by Juanita, as she had predicted. She had reread it that morning after Peter left, and it was even worse than she had remembered. When she got to Ro's office at ten, the others were already there, and she could tell that it was going to be a stormy meeting. Eric was scowling deeper than usual. He had a permanent frown that was meaningless, but when it deepened this much, so that the lines looked incised with ink, people walked warily. William looked sad, hung over, and he was not a drinker. He looked tired, though, probably stayed as long as the continuation of the party at Ro's house had gone on. Juanita, Ro's secretary, had a carefully held neutral expression, and that in itself was alarming. She was slim, in her late forties, with black hair and very dark eyes; she was so intelligent that people often took whatever problem they had to her, fully expecting her to have answers, no matter if it was physics homework for the college students who worked as stage hands, or a lighting problem, or something to do with costumes—whatever. She was wasted here, Ginnie sometimes thought, but Juanita was not about to go anywhere else. Ginnie suspected that she and Ro had been lovers, and were no longer, although Juanita still loved him. Ro looked exactly the same as always. Late nights, parties, long hours, nothing marked his face. Age was catching up to him so gradually that people who had not seen him in years always felt a jolt of surprise that he was unchanged.

Gray was wearing a sweater and jeans and he seemed completely at ease. It was the first time Ginnie thought he did look at ease.

They all had coffee and arranged themselves in the comfortable furniture around the redwood coffee table. Ginnie did not put her feet up on it.

“There are about three things I want us to get to this morning,” Ro started. “General procedural stuff. A schedule. And the contest winner. Want to start with that?”

“A couple of questions,” Gray said. “The rules don't say how the winner is to be notified. Do you do that, or am I supposed to? The copy I have doesn't even have a name, you know, just a number. I want to get together with the writer about some revisions.”

“We go by number so no one can cry bias,” Ro said. “I've got the list. But, Gray, I think we have a problem with the one you chose. What do you think, Eric?”

“It's rotten,” he said brusquely. “Amateurish, badly written, juvenile in every way.”

Gray flushed and looked from Eric to William.

“I agree,” William said.

Gray looked at Ginnie; she shrugged and nodded.

“It's unanimous,” Ro said then. “Juanita and I also agree that it's a bad play. Did you read all of them?”

“I read them,” Gray said in a hard voice. “I didn't realize that the contest was to be judged by a committee that included builders and secretaries. Why did you have me read them if that's how the winner was going to be chosen?”

Ro regarded him for a long moment; no one else moved. “You're to judge,” he finally said. There was no trace of cordiality in his voice. “The contest states that the winner will be notified by phone, a check sent by the first of November. It also states that we have the right to produce it. Not that we're bound to do it.”

“It can be interpreted either way. The winner could sue.”

“Listen, Gray, and listen carefully. This isn't something I'm likely to say to anyone more than once. This theater is mine. I made it what it is, and by God, I'll preserve what I have here. Contest rules be damned. I don't know what you see in that play. I've been wrong before. I could be wrong this time. We'll see. But, Gray, there isn't a play or a playwright I wouldn't yank if I thought it would harm this theater, these people.” He paused, then added, “There isn't a contract I wouldn't break if I had to to keep safe the things I consider important. Do you understand me?”

Gray was very pale, his eyes fierce and unwavering. “And I will do anything I have to to preserve what's important to me, and that's my own integrity. We have a contract, Mr. Cavanaugh, but I would quit, walk out in a second, if I thought I couldn't preserve my independence as a director.”

Slowly Ro nodded. “That's fair enough. Why don't you tell us what you see in that play.”

Gray opened an envelope and pulled out the folded and written-on manuscript. He turned to a page near the end and read: “ ‘As you rise, on what live and writhing matter does your foot fall?'” He read well, in a descending tone, and when he finished the line, he waited for a long beat, then folded the play again. “That one line redeems the play,” he said. “It turns it into tragedy of the first rank. Until that line Evan has been a besotted, lovesick fool worthy of no consideration, much less sympathy. But all at once, through one brief question, he is revealed as a tragic figure. Because he knows. It becomes tragedy when the victim knows his fate is destruction and he can't turn away from it. When the rabbit falls to the fox, or the steer to the hammer, the dove to the eagle, we experience a lot of different emotions, but not the sense of tragedy. For that there has to be human awareness.”

There was a long silence. Ro reached for the coffeepot and poured himself more coffee before he spoke. “That's one line of an hour-long play. I personally think you're reading more into that play than the writer put there, but we agreed that you're the judge. One thing, Gray: I want to see your promptbooks.”

Ginnie thought Gray was going to walk out then, but with a visible effort he remained in his chair and nodded. “That's your right,” he said evenly.

“Let's get on with the rest of the agenda,” Ro said, and they talked about the fall schedule, when and how the other plays would be chosen, the meetings they would have to discuss the rest of the repertoire. “So twice a week we get together and by December we have our lineup,” Ro finally said. “Anyone—anything else?”

Now Gray stood up. He looked at Juanita, then at William. “I'm very sorry,” he said in a strained voice. “It came as a real surprise to find opposition like that. I reacted very badly and I apologize.”

William nodded, ready to get on with the business of theater, but Juanita's eyes were cool, her manner extremely proper and polite. “Of course,” she murmured. “Excuse me.”

Ro stood up. “Ginnie, want to mooch some lunch?”

“Sorry. I'm going mushrooming. Why don't you come with us? Be good for you to get out in the open air.”

“In the woods?” He looked aghast. “Anyway, the woods are full of pot farms and booby traps.”

“Those shitheads,” Ginnie said with a sniff. “We'll avoid all suspicious clearings, and tonight it's chanterelle omelet! Goddamn, I wish they'd leave the fucking time alone! Just remembered daylight saving time is dead. Gotta run.”

In half a minute she had done what none of them had been able to do through the past two hours, Ro realized, watching her with great love as she ran from the office. William was grinning, shaking his head; Eric's scowl was hardly noticeable; Gray looked bewildered and much younger; even Juanita had loosened up with a suspicion of a smile at the corners of her mouth. Incongruence, he thought, rising. Ginnie was a model of incongruence, trying to act grown-up by using bad language, dressing like a teenager in ratty jeans and sneakers, moving like a hyper boy, streaking this way and that. He turned to Juanita. “Do you want to have some lunch with me?”

“Mushrooms!” Ginnie said with satisfaction, surveying a mesh bag that was bulging with the red-gold harvest. She and Peter were resting, their backs against a venerable pine tree, their legs outstretched. The woods were deep here, with little undergrowth; the ground was spongy, the silence profound.

“So tell me the story of the play,” Peter said lazily.

She had recounted the tense meeting. She took a deep breath and started. “This guy, Evan, is a climber, mountain climber, can't resist the highest peaks, all that stuff. Right? So one day he finds a woman wandering in the woods and he takes her home with him. Bingo, trouble. His wife doesn't like the strange woman. No one likes her except Evan, and he falls for her. She comes out of nowhere, no past, nothing. Suddenly she's there in his life. Things go to hell with the marriage. He's some kind of middle-management mugwump in a corporation. His boss comes and meets the strange woman. Evan gets dumped, of course. Final act shows the wife lying face down on a bed in their home. Her hand relaxes and a pill bottle falls to the floor. Evan is climbing the highest peak yet and stands on the top, then jumps. And the strange woman is seated at a cafe table with the boss, laughing, drinking champagne. Curtain down.”

“Whew,” Peter said. “It doesn't sound so bad.”

“Who is that mysterious woman? Why does the wife take the pills? Why does Evan take a jump? Sunshine just says this is how it is, folks.” She sighed.

“It's surprising to me that Ro backed down,” Peter said after a moment.

“You don't understand him. He's convinced that Gray is really good. He'd hire the devil himself if he was good and fire him if he wasn't. Gray's on the spot with this one. Uncle Ro admires anyone willing to fight, but he'll give him the bum's rush if he thinks he'll hurt the theater.”

Peter touched her arm, then pointed off to the side. She squinted and finally saw the creature he was showing her, a chipmunk.

“Golden ground squirrel,” he whispered.

The animal was studying them as intently as they were examining it. It craned its neck, reared up high on its haunches, and then with a flicker was gone. Golden, buff, sable, white… She automatically sketched it, painted it in her mind, fixing it permanently in her memory.

“We'd better head out,” Peter said reluctantly then. They both got up, brushed themselves, and started the long hike back to his car.

Peter had been amazed at her ignorance about the woods, the mountains, the geology of the area, and he had started to teach her. He had instructed her in what she had to carry in her daypack: a space blanket—such thin Mylar that it had virtually no weight, but might save her life if she got lost and the temperature plummeted. A poncho, nearly as light, a wool sweater or sweatshirt, matches and a candle, toilet paper… She had protested that she didn't want to camp out, just walk in the woods, but he had been firm. Most people who get lost planned no more than a stroll in the woods, he had said. She was used to the daypack now and hardly gave it a thought. It was usually packed and ready to snatch up without adding anything except a piece of cheese or fresh fruit. She kept raisins, nuts, chocolate in it.

She watched Peter's strong back and legs as he led the way. Superficially he and Gray were very alike, she realized. The difference came from within them. Peter carried peacefulness and Gray's burden was tension; and that made them so different that few people would even notice the similarities in build. Oh, she corrected herself, casual observers might mistake one for the other, but no one who had been with either of them for more than a minute.

But how much liking made up for a lack of love? she wondered.

There seemed no end to the amount of liking she felt for Peter, and there was even love mixed with it, but it wasn't the right sort of love, she was afraid. When she thought these things, she always had to admit that she wasn't even sure of that. Since she was not certain what it was that others called love, she was not certain how it differed from what she felt for him. Or if it did. She knew that thinking about falling in love, marriage, a real commitment to anyone made her anxious, fearful, and she understood that least of all.

At the car Peter rummaged in a bag and brought out two sandwiches, handed her one.

“Why didn't you tell me you had food?” she demanded. “I ate everything I had and I'm still starving!”

“You're always starving.” They ate before he started the drive back. They had a narrow log road to follow out of the woods and wanted to be done with it before dark, but Peter seemed unhurried, relaxed. Now he said, “You have your busiest time coming up, don't you?”

She nodded, her mouth full.

“Will you save some time for me? I want to be with you as much as you can stand these next weeks. I feel as if my time is running out. If I can't get my message over soon…”

Solemnly she nodded, but she knew there would not be many free hours after the next week or so. As soon as the plays were chosen for the new season, she would have her work—preliminary sketches for the sets, finished drawings, models, detailed drawings for William to work with, overseeing the lighting, meetings, meetings…

Peter studied her face, then he kissed her lightly and turned on the ignition. “You can finish eating while I drive. I'll cook the mushrooms when we get back. Do you realize that you hiked about eight miles today? I expect that any second now you'll start feeling it.”