Stage Door: A Cue to a Kill (A Theatrical Cozy Mystery Short Read)



  Stage Door:

  A Cue to a Kill

  Copyright 2015 Lilian Watts

  Contents

  Stage Door: A Cue to a Kill

  A Note from the Author

  Also by Lilian Watts

  Copyright

  Stage Door: A Cue to a Kill

  “More glassware?” said Ben, incredulously, holding the door to the props room open and taking one of my shopping bags.

  I dumped the bags on the props table with relief and eased the circulation back into my fingers. The four two-liter bottles I’d been toting were not light.

  “More dry ginger ale?” he moaned. “I swear I never want to touch that stuff again after tonight.”

  I grimaced at him and took back the bag he’d taken from me. In it was a box of a dozen cheap whiskey glasses I’d had to purchase from the local ReddyMart. They were five dollar specials so I didn’t expect them to last, but we only had one more night.

  I wrestled them out of their packaging and ran some water in the sink to give them a wash before they were used.

  It was the last night of the Goose Meadow Bay Player’s production of Bone Chiller, a mystery whodunit play with a twist. According to the script, the twist was supposed to be a clever plot device that enabled the audience to take part in figuring out who the killer was. In reality, the twist was that this rather dated piece of theater was the first show I’d ever been involved in that I couldn’t wait to be over. Bone Chiller was bone tired. “Bone-headed,” Ben described it, callously. In fact, most of the cast referred to the show simply as ‘Boner.’ They grimaced as they said it, in rather the same way they might if they’d just mentioned they had to take the trash out.

  Oddly, audiences seemed to be loving it. They laughed in all the right places and had been overheard in the foyer between acts discussing the plot with enthusiasm. It was our Halloween production and we had been intending to present an Agatha Christie, but we’d been unable to get the rights at the last minute. Lori, Goose Meadow Bay’s director extraordinaire, had discovered Bone Chiller (the gods of the theater only knew where) and convinced us it would be just as good.

  Boner had a cast of thirteen, with no standout lead characters. Lori sold that as a plus –a feature that gave everyone an equal chance to star. The plot revolved around the reading of a will in one of New York’s old stately homes where thirteen unlikely people had been summoned to the occasion. There was the obligatory doddering old butler, the maid, the cook, the rich widow, opinionated aunts, rebellious teenage daughters, the family lawyer, the family clairvoyant and one or two private detectives in various disguises. The will itself was in the form of a rebus (this was the twist bit) – one of those word puzzles where pictures were inserted to replace some words. A huge wall chart of the will took up one corner of the stage; another graced the foyer for the audience to ponder during the two intervals.

  To add to the excitement, and I use that term very loosely, the play was set on the night of Friday the 13th and two characters met their grisly ends onstage during the show – one of them stabbed in the back. These points seemed to be of great interest to Tom Stilton, our theater’s resident ghost. As old Tom Stilton had been murdered by stabbing almost two hundred years before very close to the spot where the theater now stood, it was likely the old man’s spirit took exception to someone else winning applause and acclaim for what was plainly his ghostly shtick.

  And he was taking it out on the show.

  Bone Chiller had had more than its fair share of calamities during the run. One of the young girls had broken the heel on her stilettos – how she managed that in what was one of the most sedate, sit-and-talk shows ever written I’ve no idea; the wall chart with the rebus-will on it had mysteriously rolled itself up, or down, when no one had been standing near it; one of the moving lights had gone into disco mode for no discernable reason, not once, but over four nights until we’d dragged my friend Jess (a lighting technician with fifteen years of experience on Broadway) down to the theater and made her take it down and replace it; and a grand total of twenty seven whiskey glasses had been broken, onstage, one per act every night that the show had run. The ghost of Tom Stilton clearly hated the production.

  To make matters worse, there were very few moments when the cast came offstage, except at the end of each act. Unless they were one of the two victims, nearly all of them were on all the time. And with only two people backstage – me doing props, and my friend Benedict David covering stage manager and the handful of lighting and audio cues from the stage manager’s booth – we were so utterly bored we spent most of the evening playing cards and ignoring the show altogether. The cast had no way of contacting us and we had no way of rescuing them. They were on their own.

  Ben began taking the lids off the dry ginger ale bottles and pouring their contents into the big open bowls we had scattered across the props table. The sickly sweet smell of Canada Dry wafted into the room. Gloomily he picked up a spoon and began stirring.

  “This sucks.”

  “One more night, Ben,” I said, trying to cheer him up. “Last night party tonight. At Lori’s house. Lori’s parties are always good.”

  There were still two hours until curtain up but Ben and I were at the theater early. Technical and crew work always begins well before the actors arrive and continues well after the curtain comes down and, even though it was just a play and a single set at that, there was still plenty to do. We needed to dress the set, reset everything for act one and turn eight fizzy liters of dry ginger ale into a warm, flat whiskey-looking drink.

  The rich New York stately home in which the play was set was fully equipped with a well stocked wet bar. The actors spent most of the night fixing themselves drinks – the script demanded it in many places, but they had also developed a few private comic routines amongst themselves. Nick, a shortish guy playing a character called Buzzy, unleashed his inner Tom Cruise early in the run and began mixing cocktails – with whatever he could find.

  I’d lined the glass shelves of the set with as many different kinds of liquor bottles I could find and had filled them with non-alcoholic alternatives – 7 Up for vodka, Gatorade for blue curacao, chocolate milk for Baileys, cola for Kahlua, cranberry juice for Grenadine and some lime cordial for Midori. Initially, they’d all been water with food coloring but there’d been great complaints from the cast and I’d tried to find palatable alternatives. As the run progressed and Nick’s cocktails became more and more adventurous I expect the cast were regretting the flavors now. The wicked glint in his eye as he handed over his concoctions to his fellow cast members was getting more and more mischievous. With three hundred pairs of eyes watching them from the audience, they had to drink whatever he handed them. He was reveling in his power.

  Come to think of it, maybe that’s why so many glasses had been dropped and broken in this show.

  There was no hot water to the props room and I was washing whiskey glasses in water that felt just a few degrees above freezing. There was no heating to this end of the theater either and the two hundred year old building was drafty and cold. Usually, with a musical, the bright lights and the excitement of thirty singers and dancers backstage warmed up the old building in no time, but Bone Chiller was a little different. With the weather heading into November the little electric bar heater Ben had brought in wasn’t really up to the job. I dried the dozen new glasses and draped the tea towel over the heater knowing I’d need it to be dry by the end of the first act when I’d have more glassware to wash.

  I stacked the glasses on a silver platter
and carried them out to the empty stage to place them on the set. Ben followed with the refilled liquor bottles and began stocking the ‘bar’. The dry ginger ale, intended for the whiskey decanter, would take a bit longer to be flat.

  “Morning all!” That was Lori, our director, yelling from the back of the auditorium. It never mattered to her what time it was in the theater – if you’d just arrived, it was morning. Right now it was nearly six thirty and the cast were beginning to arrive. “Last night, everyone,” Lori enthused as Hamish and Nick trudged down the auditorium to get to the pass-door that led backstage to the dressing rooms. “Let’s make it a good one!”

  Nick turned to give her a wave. “It’s gonna be a great one, Lori. Don’t you worry.”

  Hamish laughed and up on stage Ben and I raised our eyebrows at each other. What were they so chirpy about?

  A few moments later we found out.

  “Psst,” hissed Hamish. He and Nick were standing at the upstage entrance to the set. They’d been downstairs to the dressing rooms and up the back stairs to the stage in record time. Hamish was holding a large black backpack. He shook the bag gently. Something inside it clinked. He was a tall man, well built and muscled, but his cheeky grin made him look like a mischievous kid. He tilted his head and indicated we should come back to the props room. Quietly. Secretly.

  Ben was off like a shot, grinning like a maniac, any signs of his previous gloominess completely gone.

  Inside the props room Nick pulled the door shut. Hamish pushed our bowls of dry ginger ale aside and placed his bag on the table. “You can get rid of that stuff,” he growled then lifted a bottle of Absolut vodka, a Wild Turkey, and a Jack Daniels from his bag. “It’s gonna be a great show,” he said, triumphantly.

  Ben clapped his hands. “Now we’re talking. This is much more like it.”

  There was still stuff coming out of the bag. “We got some proper Baileys for the old ducks and some Galliano for the girls.”

  “What’s this?” I asked, as another bottle crammed in beside my bowls of ginger ale.

  “Peach schnapps,” chuckled Hamish.

  “Why not?” said Ben.

  “I even found some Creme de Menthe.” Nick was short. In his mid thirties and currently fixing computers for a living, Nick had come to terms with the fact that it wasn’t going to be his looks that pulled the girls. He more than made up for this with fun-loving personality and a definite wild-streak that might see him dancing onstage one minute or sailing to Tahiti the next. Right now he looked rather proud of himself. He pushed Hamish aside and pulled out a flat, oval shaped bottle with a woven, rattan base and a deep green liquid inside.

  “What is Creme de Menthe?” asked Ben, holding the bottle to the light dubiously.

  “It’s a seventies thing. Ask your parents. I’m going for authenticity,” Nick protested, still smiling.

  “My parents were tee-totallers,” Ben chuckled. “And I think you’re going for total annihilation. You can’t drink all this onstage. You’ll never make it through the first act!”

  “Well, we’re going to try,” Hamish grinned.

  I had to agree with Ben. Someone had to be the grown up here. “I don’t think this is a good idea, guys,” I said, rolling my eyes as the three men in front of me groaned like sulky four year olds. “I hate to be the party-pooper, but... Lori will kill you if get intoxicated and pass out during her show. You know what she’ll do to you.”

  “Come on, Kath,” Hamish pleaded. “How about just the Wild Turkey?”

  “No, the Jack Daniels,” Nick said quickly.

  “You can leave the vodka back here,” said Ben. “I’ll look after it.”

  “No. Alcohol.” I said, making a decision and trying to be strict about it. “Save it for the party afterwards. We can all get hammered together there.” There was enough spirits on the table in front of me to pickle an elephant.

  Hamish pouted. Nick looked annoyed. I was surprised when Ben came to my defense.

  “She’s right, guys. It’s hilarious, it would be brilliant onstage, but we really can’t do it. It’s not right.” He put a hand on Nick’s shoulder and guided him out of the room, turning his back to me as he went. Whatever expression he had on his face was enough to make Nick agree to my ruling far more quickly than I’d expected.

  “And speaking of getting hammered,” said Hamish, with sudden brightness and nonchalance, “did you see who left last night’s party together?”

  I frowned at him, wondering why both guys had suddenly lost interest in the bottles of spirits still sitting on my props table. “Who?” I said, not concentrating.

  “Oh no, not the love-birds?” squealed Ben. “They didn’t? They’ve got to be sixty five if they’re a day. Oh bless.”

  I picked up the second tray of glassware and handed Ben a bottle of orange juice. We headed back out to the stage, Hamish and Nick trailing behind us.

  “Young love,” said Hamish, grinning. “Good on them.”

  “I knew I shouldn’t have left early,” gushed Ben. “Tell me everything.”

  Hamish and Ben plonked themselves down on one of the sofas on the stage. I plucked the juice bottle from Ben’s hand with a pointed look, but he ignored me. Behind the bar, I listened to Hamish explain the details of the current show romance.

  Almost every theater production at the Goose Meadow Bay Players involved a show romance. They were especially common during the musicals where the bright young things got to display their many talents and emotions ran high. The players made their early moves during rehearsals, but by the time the show got to performance and the days in the theater were numbered, things would begin to heat up. The dressing rooms would be full of whisperings and gossip, the after show parties would be intense.

  With Bone Chiller being such a thoroughly dull production I’d thought we’d be excused the usual torrid affairs that often accompanied a theatrical production. But I couldn’t help smiling at this particular show romance.

  Marlene, who was playing the role of Eloise, had divorced her husband of thirty years some time ago. She was an energetic, smiling woman who relished her new-found freedom and seemed determined to live life faster than everyone around her. She was always busy: sports, volunteering, taking vacations in exotic places around the world, organizing events for her church and her charities and studying online for a degree in English literature. “All the things I’ve wanted to do,” she said. “I’ve raised my family and I love them all, but now it’s time for me. Now it’s time for me to be free for whatever comes my way.”

  Whatever came her way turned out to be Leon, a widower from New York who’d moved up here to his family’s mid coast Maine vacation home after his wife had died. Leon had made no excuse about joining the Goose Meadow Bay Players hoping to meet someone. I felt he was lucky to meet Marlene and the two of them looked good together. I’d enjoyed watching Marlene and Leon get to know each other over the course of rehearsals. The proof that love wasn’t just for youth gave me hope. There’d been a few hints lately that my own long-term single status might take a bit of a turn for the better sometime soon.

  Unfortunately, Marlene’s ex-husband was also in the cast. His name was Bill and he was playing Mauvins, the tall, thin streak of misery that was the doddering family butler. Bill was very well cast. He’d watched the budding romance between his ex-wife and Leon with a dark eye all through rehearsals, and now the pair were clearly hitting it off at the after show parties he’d been downright gloomy. Bill’s character ‘died’ on stage in the first act and Bill had a habit of lurking miserably around backstage for the next two acts. I had to admit, I didn’t really like the man and I felt Marlene was much better off without him.

  Nick suddenly wolf-whistled and waved down the auditorium. “Here they are,” he called.

  Marlene and Leon had arrived together and were walking down the side aisle of the theater hand in hand. They were both carrying costume bags and wearing decidedly sheepish looks on their faces but th
ey also looked happy. Lori followed them down the aisle, gushing as she did.

  “Did you hear?” she called to us. “Leon has asked her to move in with him and she said yes. Oh, I’m just so happy for you both.”

  Nick whistled again and Hamish clapped. Ben rose to his feet and took a running leap over the orchestra pit to land on the floor in front of the first row of seats.

  “Benedict!” Lori screeched.

  I took the slightly safer option of walking gingerly along the wall of the orchestra pit and dropping the few feet to the ground. Ben barreled up the aisle and grabbed Marlene in a bear hug.

  “Congratulations, darls. About time too,” he said, shaking Leon’s hand and waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

  “They’re just moving in, they’re not getting married, Ben,” said Lori with exasperation.

  “Same thing, love,” said Ben. “Who cares? This is great news. It’s made this whole show worthwhile.”

  I kissed Marlene on the cheek and grinned as Ben ducked quickly out of the way of Lori’s flailing arm. “Made the whole show worthwhile? What’s that supposed to mean?” she growled. “What are you saying about my show, Benedict? What is your point?” She grabbed him by the ear and he yelped pathetically, acting up to the moment. “That’s enough from you, Benedict. You’ve got work to do. And you’re helping Marlene move her stuff tomorrow. Yes, you are,” she added archly as Ben began to protest in earnest.

  I took Marlene’s bag from her and we started moving towards the dressing rooms. “I’ll be there too,” I said, warmly. “We can probably get Hamish to lend us his truck...” I looked up at the stage but Hamish and Nick were gone.

  “Oh, that’s lovely of you,” said Marlene, “but we don’t intend to get moving too early tomorrow...”

  Ben made ‘woo-wooo’ noises behind us.

  “Because of the last night party,” Marlene protested. “Not because of whatever you’re thinking, Ben. We won’t get to bed til late so...”

  “Oooh, don’t tell me, love birds,” Ben screeched. “I don’t want to know what you two get up to.”

  “Yes, you do, Benedict, you grotty little boy,” said Lori, dryly. Ben grinned wickedly. “But you’ve got a show to call, haven’t you? It looks like seven o’clock to me.”

  Ben glanced at his watch and gave Marlene another peck on the cheek as he passed. “Have a good show, darls,” he said.

  We were down in the empty space under the stage now. It was a long, narrow room than ran the width of the building. We called it the green room. There wasn’t anything green about it - it was just tradition. There were mirrors along one wall, a few old sofas and some extremely vintage wooden chairs scattered here and there. Leading off either end of the green room were stairs leading up to the stage above. One set of stairs were wider and more frequently used than the other, but the wide stairs had been blocked by a large piece of stage furniture for the upcoming musical that just couldn’t go anywhere else. For the time being, the cast of Bone Chiller had to use the small stairs, a narrow set of wooden steps, worn and crooked with age that twisted around a number flights leading all the way up to the roof of the building.

  Also leading off the green room was a heavy, sound- and fire-proofed door that led to the dressing rooms. Completely against regulations, and as it always was, the door had been chocked open. A warm, friendly buzz of conversation flowed out of the dressing rooms showing that most of the cast had now arrived.

  Ben’s voice came from the speakers mounted in the roof of the green room and each of the dressing rooms. “Ladies and gentlemen of the cast and crew of Bone Chiller, this is your one hour call. One hour, ladies and gentlemen, thank you.” There was a pause then he continued. “And guess what, loves? Marlene and Leon are moving in together. Three cheers for the loverrrrs.” He drawled out the last word then whistled.

  “I’m going to kill him,” muttered Lori.

  There were cheers from the dressing rooms and Marlene blushed deeply. The other five women in the cast erupted from the ladies’ dressing room and wrapped her in hugs. Leon stepped into the men’s dressing room, his fists raised above his head like a conquering hero and the men in the cast roared their approval.

  I grinned. This is what I loved about the theater.

  I turned to head up the small stairs and finish dressing the set and stopped dead when I saw Bill, already in his dour Mauvins-the-butler costume, checking his makeup in the mirrors lining the green room. He had his back to me, but our eyes met in the mirror and his glare was furious. For a moment I was taken aback by the intensity of his stare. He blinked slowly and turned his attention back to his eyeliner. This couldn’t be easy him, I guessed.

  Upstairs I punched Ben in the arm for abusing his power as stage manager and went back to stirring the dry ginger ale flat. It was coming along nicely. We went through the rest of our pre-checks. There was an operable knife-hand mechanism that had to spring from a secret panel on the stage and stab the Mauvins character in the back. Another character, Lucretia the cook, had to be found hanging just inside a cupboard door and I made sure the ropes and safeties were set there. I laid out the handful of other properties on the paper-covered table just near the main entrance to the stage, each item sitting neatly inside a black-marker outline of its shape, labeled with the actor’s name and the scene in which they needed it. I stirred the Canada Dry again.

  “I’m just going to grab a candy bar from front of house,” I called down the wing to Ben who was sitting in the stage manager’s booth running through the few lighting states and sound effect cues he had. “You want anything?”

  “No thanks, darls. I’m sweet enough as it is.” I rolled my eyes at him. “Are you going through the auditorium?” he called. I nodded. It was easier to jump off the front of the stage and scoot through the auditorium than take the long trek up two flights of stairs and along the passageway that ran the length of the building, then down again once you got to front of house. “It’s seven thirty,” he said. “Be quick and I won’t call it til you get back.”

  “Thanks, Ben.” We always opened the house to the audience half an hour before the curtain went up. At that point we lowered the curtain and then spent the next thirty minutes listening to the curious buzzing noise that came from three hundred bodies moving into the auditorium.

  I swiped a Mars Bar from the bar in the foyer, made myself a cup of instant coffee and checked the numbers so Ben could tell the cast. A full house. It was always a thrill to have a full house, especially on the closing night. It was good to go out on a high.

  By the time I got back, Ben had finished stocking the ‘bar’ on the set and had dropped the empty soft drink bottles into the trash. He’d also washed up the bowls the ginger ale had been de-carbonating in and stacked them neatly on the side of the sink in the props room. I thanked him, pleased I hadn’t had to put my hands back under that freezing tap again. The coffee cup in my hand was warming my fingers nicely.

  After the excitement of Marlene and Leon it was turning out to be just another night backstage at Boner. Ben pulled his pack of cards from his pocket and tilted his head towards our table. “Want to get a hand in before the five minute call? You’re so going to lose tonight. I’m feeling good.”

  I stuck my tongue out at him, snatched the deck from his fingers and dealt. Ben shared out the Skittles. A minute later I had to re-deal as Nick and Hamish, costumes and make-up done, joined the game before the curtain went up.

  We were so focused on the game we all jumped when Tamara, the woman playing the cook, popped her head around the door of the props room and reminded Ben of the time. Ben dashed out of the room and Tamara took his seat. She stared at the table for a moment.

  “What’s the game?”

  Hamish frowned at her over his cards. “Bacon. Jacks are high,” he grunted.

  Tamara picked up Ben’s hand. “Ooo.” She wrinkled her nose. “That’s not good.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your five minute cal
l. Would beginners please start making their way to the stage. This is your five minute call. Thank you.” Ben’s voice crackled softly out of the antique tannoy system in the ceiling of the props room. Ten seconds later he was back.

  “Would you jump in my grave as quick, darls?” he said to Tamara, flapping his hands at her to shoo her out of his chair. “I’m about to win my third trick.”

  “No, you’re not,” Tamara said mildly. “You got nothing.”

  Hamish chuckled and Ben looked outraged. Leon stuck his head around the door and grinned at us.

  “Any of you people want to do a show tonight?”

  I could hear the rest of the cast beginning to arrive backstage. The door to the small stairs had been chocked open and the sound of high heels rang on the wooden steps. A few more bodies squeezed into our little room.

  “You guys still playing for Skittles? You know how lame that is?”

  “This is the only heater backstage. It’s freezing up here.”

  “Last night, people. Once more into the breach.”

  Hamish spread his cards on the table. “And the rest are mine,” he said, triumphantly.

  Ben howled in disbelief and Nick and I threw our cards down. Our little audience laughed and wandered out to loiter in the dim blue light of the backstage area.

  “Good timing,” I said. “We must be about to- “

  I broke off as an ear-splitting scream echoed up the small stairwell. It was followed by a bumping and thumping that sounded awfully like someone falling down the stairs. I dashed out to the top of the stairs and hurried down the first flight. As I turned the tight corner at the landing I could see Marlene and Jenny in a tangle of arms and legs at the bottom of the next flight.

  “Ow, oooo, my ankle,” Marlene cried.

  Two other cast members appeared at the bottom of the stairs and helped the two women to their feet. Marlene immediately sat back down on the step. She was crying. Jenny looked shocked but she didn’t seem to be in pain.

  “Ice pack in the fridge in the green room,” I said to one of the guys at the bottom of the stairs. He dashed off. I yelled up the stairs at Ben who had followed me into the stairwell with Hamish and Nick close behind. “Get on the cans and tell front of house we’re going to be delayed.”

  Leon pushed past me and sat down next to Marlene.

  “Are you alright, honey? You’re lucky you didn’t break your neck. What happened? Are you hurt?”

  She sobbed into his shoulder and I turned to Hamish. “Can you and Leon help her onto a sofa in the green room? We’ve got to make sure she’s not hurt.”

  “She just fell on me,” Jenny said, bemused, as we watched the men help Marlene out of the confined space of the stairwell.

  “Are you alright?” I asked her, but she shrugged off my concern.

  “I’m fine. I practically caught her. I’d just started up the stairs when-“

  “I was pushed!” cried Marlene. She was sitting in the middle of the sofa with Leon on one side. She was still clutching her ankle and drawing in big sucking breaths. “Someone pushed me!” Her voice was a few octaves higher than usual.

  Jenny sat down on the other side of her and put an arm around her shoulders. “Who pushed you, Marlene, loves? There wasn’t anyone there.”

  Marlene shrugged Jenny’s arm off. Someone pressed some tissues into her hand and she dabbed at the corners of her eyes, sniffing. She winced as Conway knelt at her feet, eased off her shoe and pressed an ice pack against her ankle. Nick handed him a dish cloth and he wrapped up her ankle.

  “It’s not broken,” he murmured.

  “I was almost at the top of the stairs when I realized I’d forgotten my earrings. So I went back down to get them.” She sobbed again, looking up at the entire cast who’d gathered around her. “And as I passed that little landing up there,” she waved a hand, “someone pushed me!”

  “Who?” said Ben. We watched her.

  Marlene’s face crumpled up again and she moaned out her answer. “I don’t know. I didn’t see anyone.”

  I looked around at the faces of the cast. They were a confused blend of concern and disbelief. No one wanted to think Marlene was making it up, but it did sound pretty improbable.

  Leon squeezed her shoulders. “Come on, honey. How could someone have pushed you if there wasn’t anyone there?” he asked, gently.

  “I felt his hands,” she protested with a sniff. “Whoever it was, I felt his hands on my back.” A shudder ran through her body.

  I looked at her doubtfully. She was a good actress, but I couldn’t figure out why she thought she needed to act. Why not just admit she’d slipped down the stairs?

  “Maybe it was the ghost of Tom Stilton,” said Ben, eagerly rubbing his hands together.

  Tamara punched him in the arm.

  “Can you walk, Marlene?” I asked. “I’m not trying to rush you, but we’ve got three hundred people out there and it’s eight o’clock. Can you do it?”

  We could hear the low rumble of the audience through the passdoor to the auditorium.

  Marlene straightened her shoulders. She dabbed at her eyes again and drew in a deep breath. Conway held out his hands and helped her to her feet. She tottered on one foot for a moment then grimaced as she put her weight on her sore ankle. I watched her face go pale. No matter what her story was about being pushed, she’d definitely hurt herself. My mind flashed through all the options for postponing the performance.

  “I can do it,” she said. “I’ve been onstage since I was four years old. It’s our last night. I’m not going to let anything like this stop me. The show must go on.” She wobbled a bit. “Has anyone got any painkillers?”

  Three of the women dived into the dressing room to rummage through their handbags. Conway examined the first aid kit. “There are some elastic bandages here. We can wrap up your ankle, give it some support.”

  “Your dress is long. No one will see it,” said Tamara.

  I watched the group proudly as the cast rallied around Marlene and made sure she was OK. I looked at Ben. “I guess you can let front of house know we’re good to go,” I said.

  “Just give me a second to fix my face,” Marlene called. “Lucky my character is the hysterical type. I look a treat.”

  I grinned. She was going to be fine.