I sat down on the low brick wall at the entrance to the recreation center to enjoy the fresh air a little longer, rubbing my tummy automatically. I’d always wondered why pregnant women do that all the time, and I still didn’t know, but I’d given up trying to stop myself. I did know why pregnant women speak to their unborn babies, or at least I’d read theories about how it would turn them into geniuses. But I did it as instinctively as I rubbed my tummy.
“Don’t worry, baby,” I said. “Your daddy isn’t usually so volatile.” I was hoping the baby would inherit Richard’s usual temperament, and maybe those deep-brown eyes. I didn’t care if he was short like me or tall like Richard, but I did want a child who loved books as much as we did. Richard had voted for light-brown hair like mine, admittedly easier to control than his own, and it would be a lot easier to keep the little one in shoes if his toes weren’t as long as Richard’s. Maybe I’d be able to see something of my parents in the baby’s face, and I really wanted him or her to share my grandfather’s musical talent and Aunt Nora’s gift for cooking.
Then I started thinking about all the other traits the baby could get from my family: Aunt Maggie’s orneriness or Aunt Ruby Lee’s sweetness, Vasti’s piercing voice or Willis’s usual silence, Linwood’s mean streak or Earl’s gentleness. And that was just my side of the family! “Baby,” I said, “with this gene pool, there’s no telling how you’ll turn out. But your mama and daddy are going to love you no matter what.”
Eventually I went back inside, just in case Richard had exploded again. Though things seemed to be running smoothly, Vasti still looked nervous, so I said, “I think he’s going to be all right now.”
“I sure hope so,” said Vasti. “Who’d have known Richard could be so much trouble?”
“It’s your fault that he’s so aggravated. You told us we had two weeks until opening night, and then you moved it up a week.”
“I had to. The recreation center is already booked for that other night. We’re just lucky I talked that group into rehearsing somewhere else.”
“What about the theater at the high school?” I knew they had a decent one there. I’d bought candy bars and magazine subscriptions from younger cousins to help pay for it.
“It’s already booked, too,” Vasti said.
“The middle school? Or even the elementary school?”
“Holiday pageants.” She indignantly added, “How was I supposed to know that everybody in Byerly was putting on a show this year?”
“Why didn’t you set something up sooner?” Lack of planning wasn’t one of Vasti’s problems. Usually she had each minute of her day planned, and if I gave her a chance, she’d plan most of mine, too.
“I do have a new baby, you know,” she said. “I’m breast-feeding, and Bitsy isn’t even sleeping through the night yet. Just wait until your baby is born and see how much you manage to get done!”
“All right,” I said, relenting. “Richard will do his best. But why didn’t you tell us about all the practical jokes?”
“I didn’t think it was worth mentioning,” she said unconvincingly. “There are always mix-ups when you’ve got this many people around.”
“Not like this! I’ve already lost track of the mix-ups that have happened just in the two days we’ve been here.” I used my fingers to count off. “The thermostat has gone haywire so we’re either freezing or sweating, and the fire alarm has gone off twice. Then somebody tied most of the ropes backstage in knots that took us an hour to untie, and all the lightbulbs for the stage went out. Not to mention the fact that every single roll of toilet paper in the building disappeared overnight.” Since my doctor had ordered me to drink lots of water, that last one was the worst as far as I was concerned. Even I was tired of the tricks, despite the fact that I’d attended MIT, where the pursuit of practical jokes was almost a religion.
“I’ve tried to find out who it is, but nobody will own up to it,” she said. “I thought the Norton kids were doing it, but Junior questioned them herself and she swears it wasn’t them.”
Vasti had cast some of my friend Junior Norton’s nieces and nephews as the Cratchit children. Though Junior was a devoted aunt, I knew she’d be the first to admit it if they’d been causing trouble.
She continued, “I was hoping that once Richard got here and things calmed down, the pranks would stop.”
“I hope you don’t think Richard is going to track down the joker,” I warned. “He’s got his hands full already. That’s another thing—why didn’t you warn him about how badly things were going? It’s no wonder your other director quit.” I saw a guilty expression flash across her face. “Vasti, who was the original director?”
She turned away. “Why do you ask?”
“It was you!” I guessed. “You were the director, weren’t you?”
She hung her head, then nodded.
“You told us he quit because of a family emergency.”
“It was a family emergency. Do you know what it’s like trying to nurse a baby in the middle of rehearsal? I thought I had a director, but Sally Hendon got him for her show, so I figured I’d do it myself. I didn’t think directing would be so hard, but nobody was learning their lines and the show was just awful. I had to do something.”
“Maybe so, but you didn’t have to lie to me and Richard.”
“I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell you every little detail.”
“Vasti—”
“You’re not going to tell Richard, are you? I don’t want him to make another scene.”
“If he asks me, I’ll tell him the truth, but I won’t volunteer anything.”
“Thank you, Laurie Anne. It’s all for a good cause.” Then she looked at her watch and said, “Look at the time! I’ve got to go pick up Bitsy at my in-laws’ house. I only left one bottle of my milk, and it’s nearly feeding time.” She grabbed her purse and coat and stopped only long enough to say, “You’ll keep an eye on things, won’t you?”
“Sure,” I said, but she was already out the door.
I looked around the room and sighed, mostly on my husband’s behalf. Even though it was Richard’s first crack at directing a play, I thought he deserved better than a stage in a worn-out recreation hall. The building was decades old, and over the years had hosted craft fairs, scout meetings, senior citizen’s parties, and goodness knows what else. Half the chairs were broken, and I didn’t completely trust the ones that weren’t. The linoleum was worn near the doors and peeling up elsewhere. Somebody had decorated a dilapidated artificial Christmas tree with a dozen red satin balls, and hung a few straggly strands of garland around the walls, but that bit of holiday cheer only made the place look worse.
Of course, none of that would show once the house lights were out. What bothered Richard was the fact that the stage was only a few feet off the ground, which meant that sight lines for the audience were going to be horrible. My makeup mirror at home was more advanced than the lighting system, and there must have been whole generations of moths raised on the curtain. On the plus side, the acoustics were surprisingly good and the backstage space was decent, despite the layers of dust.
Junior Norton saw me and waved me over to an empty chair next to her. Junior’s a little bit shorter than my five feet, two inches, but there’s something about the way she carries her sturdy build that gets people’s attention. Andy Norton had had his heart set on a little boy to pass on his name, but when the fifth girl arrived, he gave up and named her Junior. Of course, later on he got his boy, but since “Junior” was taken, the new baby was Trey, for Andy III. Junior had taken over from Andy as police chief, with Trey as her part-time deputy while he finished college.
“I take it that Richard is sticking around,” Junior said.
“For now, anyway.”
We watched the players at work for a few minutes in companionable silence.
Then Junior said, “You know, this is about as interesting as seeing grass grow.”
“Or watching paint dry.”
It was only my second day of rehearsal, but it seemed as if I’d been sitting in those hard plastic chairs for a month. I’d thought it would be fun to see Richard direct—nobody had told me how boring rehearsals are. Watching my husband run the cast through the same scenes over and over again was enough to drive me to drink.
I was just happy that I had a companion in boredom. Junior was spending some of her rare time off riding herd on the nieces and nephews who had parts in the show.
“Do you think Richard will throw another tantrum?” she said hopefully.
“It wasn’t that bad,” I said, defending him. “The cast is way behind where they should be. I don’t blame Richard a bit for getting hot under the collar.”
“I don’t blame him either. I just wish it would happen again. If something doesn’t happen, I’m going to fall sound asleep.”
“I hear that,” I said. “Maybe we should try to hunt down the practical joker.”
“Hunt him down? I want to shake his hand. Those jokes and your husband’s tantrums are the only things getting me through the day.”
I was tempted to sneak off and go shopping or visiting or something, but I was afraid I might be needed to calm down the director again.
Back on stage, Richard stopped the action once more and ran his fingers through his already disheveled hair—a sign that agitation was building again. “David,” he said, “can you try to look a little more cheerful? You’re young Ebeneezer, Ebeneezer before he turns into a curmudgeon. It’s Christmas, and you’re having a wonderful time. You are not having root canal surgery!”
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m trying my best.” Other than his hair and bushy eyebrows still being reddish-brown, David Murdstone was the spitting image of his father, and his dual roles as Scrooge’s nephew and Young Scrooge took advantage of the resemblance. David usually had his daddy’s smile, too, but not right that minute.
“Just think happy thoughts,” Richard said. “Florence, you make your entrance now.”
Florence Easterly, in character as the young woman Ebeneezer was once in love with, floated onto the stage. Even as bored as I was, I could see David’s face light up when he saw her. Though the two of them were fifty years old if they were a day, they’d only been married a few months, and it showed.
Richard must have seen the same thing I did, because he came up with a way to use it. “Here’s an idea. Florence, I want you to be on stage when the Spirit of Christmas Past and Scrooge arrive.”
“That’s not in the book,” David objected.
“If we were going to do exactly as the script says,” Richard said patiently, “you people wouldn’t need me. Just try it.”
“Whatever you say, Richard,” Florence said.
He said, “Let’s start with Fezziwig shaking Young Ebeneezer’s hand.” They ran through the last part of the scene again, and this time it worked beautifully. Young Ebeneezer glowed with Christmas joy, and so did Richard.
Maybe he was going to pull it off after all. The players were still rough, but they’d improved so much already and they still had nearly a week before opening night. If Richard could just get Seth Murdstone to do a decent job with Scrooge, it might not be a total disaster.
Richard called out, “Spirit of Christmas Past and Scrooge, let’s get you two into the picture.”
Oliver Jarndyce, the round-faced man playing the first spirit to visit Scrooge, stepped out of the wings, but he was alone.
“Where’s Scrooge?” Richard asked.
“He said he wanted a cigarette,” Oliver said.
For a second it looked as if Junior might see her wish for another tantrum granted, but Richard swallowed whatever it was he wanted to say and instead said, “Mrs. Gamp, do you think you could find Seth and get him back on stage?”
“I sure will; Mrs. Harris probably knows just where he went,” the cheerful, birdlike stage manager said, and she scooted away. Unlike most of the cast, she managed to be right where she needed to be whenever Richard called her.
Richard ran his fingers through his hair again. “While we’re waiting for Scrooge, let’s try something a little different.”
My eyes glazed over at that, and I lost track of what was happening for the next few minutes. Then a scream rang out, and I jerked wide awake. Since when was there a scream in that scene?
The folks on stage looked as surprised as I was. I turned to ask Junior what had happened, but her reflexes had taken her nearly up onstage by then, and I took off after her as fast as five months of pregnancy would allow.
Richard saw me coming and helped hoist me up, and then we followed Junior as she chased a second scream. How she’d been able to judge the direction it was coming from in that cave of a building, I’ll never know. To me it seemed to echo everywhere.
We went stage left and down the narrow, dimly lit corridor that led past the dressing rooms and ended at the back door. We found Mrs. Gamp about halfway down the hall, her fist pressed against her mouth as if to hold in any more screams.
Lying on one side on the floor in front of her was Seth Murdstone, blood seeping from a swollen lump on his head. I could tell he was dead even before Junior knelt to touch his wrist.
“As dead as a doornail,” Richard whispered, quoting from A Christmas Carol.
All I could think of was that he’d promised a show that Byerly would never forget. It looked as if he’d succeeded even before the curtain went up.