Rejected Writers Take the Stage Read online

  Doris handed me a basket that contained a bunch of copper pots from what I assumed was a pioneer show.

  “Like these,” she continued.

  I looked at the steep steps that stretched to the top landing above the theater and thought I would definitely be keeping the journey to a minimum. And I rolled up my sleeves and got started.

  Chapter Twelve

  HITCHCOCK MOVIES & REINCARNATED RELATIVES

  Flora put on her dust mask, picked up her bucket and rubber gloves, and followed Annie down the long corridor. The last place she wanted to be was in an old theater, cleaning its toilets. She wanted to write Dan a letter or go into town and buy him a card. He had called her just before she’d left that morning, and he had been very cryptic on the phone, saying the surprise he had for her would be arriving in the next day or two and that he couldn’t wait to see her reaction to it. He had something to tell her too, but she would have to wait until the surprise arrived.

  As Annie reached the bathroom door, she stopped short. “Oh, I’ve forgotten my mop,” she said. “I’ve left it in the foyer. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  Annie exited the bathroom and left Flora alone.

  Flora took a deep breath and reached for the light switch. She flicked the switch up and down several times, but nothing happened. She was about to leave to inform Doris when she heard something from across the room. She stopped to listen, but it stopped too. She turned to leave, then heard it again. She couldn’t quite place what it was.

  Even though she wasn’t feeling very brave, her curiosity was piqued. Her eyes were starting to get used to the dark as well, aided by a little light from a cracked window that ran above the stalls. Feeling her way across the room, she headed toward the stall where the sound was coming from.

  Flora stood in front of the door. It was an odd sound, gentle and rhythmic. She could hear it clearly now, like a curtain flapping in the breeze. She gently pushed the door open.

  Annie managed to find her bucket and mop and was just heading back to the bathrooms when there was a piercing scream.

  Suddenly the bathroom door flew open, and a blur of petticoats, layered clothing, and flowing hair sprinted out as Flora came running out at top speed, nearly knocking Annie clean off her feet. She seemed to be oblivious to the fact that Annie was even there.

  Doris managed to stop her by planting her feet in front of Flora and tackling her, football-style. Flora bounced right off Doris’s voluminous chest and was knocked to the floor. If Doris hadn’t stopped her, she looked as if she might have run all the way to Canada.

  “Flora, get a hold of yourself!” Doris blasted her, taking her firmly by the shoulders.

  Flora’s screams turned to sobs as she buried her face in Doris’s shoulder. Finally, she caught her breath enough to say, “There’s something very alive in the bathroom.”

  Lavinia, Lottie, Gracie, Ethel, and Ruby all appeared in the foyer in response to the commotion. Gracie placed an arm around Flora, and Lottie quickly went to fetch her a glass of water. Doris took charge. She marched down the hallway, grabbing a broom as she went. Lavinia, Ruby, and Annie all followed behind.

  Tentatively, Doris pushed on the door to the ladies’ room. The room was dark and still. She crept in, and they all followed, quietly moving toward the stalls. All at once, there was noise that sounded like someone flicking through the pages of a book. They all froze. It appeared to be coming from the left stall.

  They reached the stall door. The group filed off to one side, and Doris pushed it open sharply.

  It was like a fox had gotten into the chicken coop. There was a frantic flapping of wings, and it rained down feathers as dozens of pigeons started to circle the bathroom ceiling. Some flew straight out the cracked window. Everyone automatically covered their heads as the birds continued to circle.

  “Good grief,” shrieked Lavinia. “It’s like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie.”

  Annie shouted over the din, “Looks like they’ve been getting in through that window. We should get it boarded up.”

  “We should trap them or poison them,” hollered Doris back over the mayhem.

  “Over my dead body!” shouted back Ruby. “One of these marvelous creatures may be one of your ancestors.”

  The birds stopped flapping, quieted, and started to settle.

  “See,” said Ruby. “They heard me.”

  From the corner of the room, Lavinia shrieked, “Ooow!”

  They all turned to see that a wayward pigeon had well and truly marked her.

  She swore loudly, adding, “Yep, you’re right, Ruby. I’m guessing this one is my Great-Uncle Lionel. He did that to me a lot.”

  “Let’s see if we can encourage them to fly out the window,” responded Annie hopefully, one arm still wrapped firmly around her head.

  Doris nodded and made her way gingerly toward the window, not wanting to ruffle nervous feathers. She managed to reach up and flip the catch. It arched open and creaked loudly from the ancient hinges, sending the birds into a blind panic again. Lavinia screamed as one dive-bombed toward her.

  “What did I do in my past life that you all hate me so much?” she screamed up at them.

  She took off running out of the bathroom door, causing a small flock of them to fly after her into the foyer. All that could be heard was frantic flapping and Lavinia swearing like a sailor as she ran, waving her arms above her head.

  Flora started screaming again, and, above it all, they heard the unmistakably exasperated sound of Lottie Labette admonishing her twin. “Lavinia!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  CHARLES DICKENS’S GHOST & FLYING HANDKERCHIEFS

  After her frightening pigeon ordeal, Flora was more than glad to join me working backstage.

  “I find it kind of magical,” Flora giggled as she placed things in piles. “Not unlike an adult’s dress-up session. Queen crowns here, fairy wings over there, Egyptian costumes added to the box marked ‘Joseph.’”

  To finish, Flora mopped the stage beautifully, and we just had to move the boxes upstairs to the prop room. We both made our first precarious trip up the stairs and weaved our way through the flies.

  The prop room was located at the end of a little planked galley, through hanging ropes and chains and a door painted emerald green with the word “Doctor” on it. This door had apparently been used in a show or two.

  Inside, it was like an Aladdin’s cave: from lamps to rugs and Japanese boxes to telephones from every era to pots, pans, daggers, doorbells, and wigs. It smelled of stage powder and paint.

  By our third trip, we had a huge pile in the middle of the floor. I looked at my watch: 4:45. Good. That gave us fifteen minutes to find places for all the props.

  The room was musty. To let in some fresh air, I opened a small, high window at the end of the attic just as Flora opened the door with her last armful of props. A strong wind from the window whipped through the attic, moving rigging in the rafters and rattling the chains in the flies. It sounded like something out of a Charles Dickens novel.

  Flora dropped the props, and a second, stronger blast rushed through the passages of the attic, almost knocking us off our feet. Without realizing it, we had created some sort of wind tunnel.

  Pans and kettles hanging on ceiling hooks clashed together in a symphony of grinding metal, and a pink ostrich-feathered fan ruffled and floated to the floor. From behind us, I heard the door slam shut.

  Flora picked up the feathers and pretended to fan herself romantically. We both laughed and started to tuck items away on shelves.

  As I placed the last turban on a high shelf, I looked at my watch.

  “Perfect. Two minutes to five,” I commented out loud.

  “I’m finished too,” replied Flora.

  Flora and I moved toward the door. She reached for the handle. As she turned it sharply to the right, something clicked but nothing happened.

  Flora looked over her shoulder, saying, “It’s really stiff.”

/>   We swapped places, and I turned it back and forth, then shook it gently. Nothing. So then I turned it hard to the left and jiggled it. All at once, something came loose.

  “I’ve got it,” I said.

  Then, we heard something clatter to the floor on the other side of the door. The handle suddenly became limp in my hand. The doorknob moved back and forward freely, but the door didn’t budge.

  Flora looked anxiously over my shoulder and bit her lip.

  “I think that might have been the handle on the other side of the door,” I surmised.

  “Is that bad?” asked Flora.

  I tried to remain calm. “It may mean we can’t get the door open.”

  “Oh no.”

  I turned the door handle once more. It just slid around in a circle. Trying a new approach, I slammed my shoulder against the door and pushed as hard as I could. Nothing budged.

  After several more attempts, we made our way back, deeper into the attic, and I climbed up to the window to look out.

  “We need to see if we can get someone’s attention to let them know we’re here,” I stated.

  The one window was high on the wall and very small, so it was impossible to make a lot of noise. As I stood on a bench, I saw the twins and Ruby chatting in the parking lot as they piled mops and brushes into the back of their cars. I rapped on the window.

  “Here, try this,” Flora said. She had tied a large white handkerchief onto a gray play sword. I took it from her and pushed it through the window.

  I started to wave it furiously. We were very high up, and I knew it would be difficult to see unless someone looked straight at us. Flora started to bang on the window at the same time I continued to fly the flag.

  Suddenly, the handkerchief blew right off the sword and fluttered down to the parking lot. It landed in front of one of the cars, but no one noticed. They appeared to be saying their good-byes to each other, then they got into their cars and drove off.

  My shoulders went limp.

  We were heading back to the door to bang on it and hopefully get someone’s attention when all at once we were plunged into darkness.

  If James had just shut off the lights, that meant he, Doris, and Ethel were on their way out of the theater, and they would be heading to the parking lot.

  I felt my way along the wall, back toward the window. Flora followed. In the new darkness, the attic felt very different. I reached the window. I climbed up and knocked as loud as I could, and then I watched, in despair, as James and Doris had a short conversation and drove away.

  Flora sat down heavily on a bench.

  I searched my pockets for my cell phone. I could call Doris and tell her we were both trapped. Then I remembered. I’d put it down on a Greek pillar backstage after I had last spoken to Martin.

  “We won’t stay trapped for long,” I said, trying to bolster Flora’s spirits. “Someone will notice that we’re gone.”

  “Tomorrow is my day off, and no one’s going to miss me. And if we don’t get out of here, Mr. Darcy is going to be all alone.”

  “That’s not going to happen, Flora. My family will notice . . .”

  I stopped midsentence as I recalled the last conversation I’d had with my husband in which he told me he was taking Stacy shopping in Seattle and then maybe to see a show. Stacy liked to stay overnight; she loved the city. The thought of it made me sit down hard next to Flora. I don’t know if it was psychological, but I suddenly felt cold, and I shivered.

  “Let’s see if we can find a flashlight or something while we still have a little light from the window.”

  We both started to feel our way around the room. I heard Flora trip and catch herself as she landed on a box.

  “Ooh!” she screamed. “There’s some sort of animal in here!” Flora scrambled toward the window seat and pulled her legs up to her chest.

  I moved toward her and felt down, tentatively, toward the box she’d talked about and located what was inside. I pulled the object out and looked at it against the silhouette of the window. It was a gorilla suit.

  Tapping Flora on the leg, I handed it to her and realized she was freezing.

  “It’s only a gorilla suit,” I stated. “You should put it on. It’ll keep you warm. We may only have about thirty minutes of light from this window, so we should keep looking.”

  Flora nodded and climbed into the costume. It was odd how cold it had suddenly become.

  I continued to search, first through a pile of Japanese masks, then a bag of flat feather boas. Suddenly, I felt something metallic. It felt like a huge copper gravy boat with a lid. I lifted it to the window so I could get a better look at it. As I did, the silhouette was unmistakable: an Aladdin’s lamp. I shook it gently. There was definitely some sort of liquid inside. Dare I hope that it might be something I can light? I sniffed at the spout. There was the unmistakable smell of lamp oil.

  “I found something,” I called to Flora. “It’s a lamp. If we can find matches, we’ll be able to light it.”

  My spirits were buoyant, but Flora just seemed more disheartened.

  “Where are we going to find matches?” she asked.

  “Keep looking,” I encouraged.

  Feeling around, I started to get bolder. A hammer, a box of screws, a paint pot, and an unwashed paintbrush. It was like some sort of parlor game: blind man’s bluff with objects. The next thing I felt, I was sure, was a tape measure.

  As I continued to feel along the breadth of the shelf, I shouted out loud the names of each object as I did. Then I came across a round object and a sharp, jagged stone. I held it up toward the window as I tried to figure out what it was. Flora gasped as she saw the silhouette of what I was holding up.

  “Can I see that?” she asked, excitedly.

  I handed it to her. She rolled it around in her hand and felt all the corners.

  “I know what this is,” she said with excitement. “My grandfather had one of these. It’s a stone and an old-fashioned tinderbox.”

  “Do you know how to work it?” I asked, getting excited.

  “It’s been a very long time since he showed me, but sometimes he let me use it carefully. I was always mesmerized by the little white sparks that would fly up from the stone whenever he would strike it.”

  “Great!” I said, hugging Flora. “Let’s get this lamp lit.”

  With the tinderbox in hand, we made our way back to the window seat. As we crept along, I thought about how odd it was that only twenty minutes before, we’d walked boldly up and down this room with piles of clothes and how I had been worrying about how I was going to deal with Stacy and direct a show, and now I was just overjoyed to find an old tinderbox and a prop Aladdin’s lamp.

  I reached the window bench and the lamp.

  “We need to try and find something we can light—a piece of paper or cloth. You know, I remember seeing a box of old programs and playbills over on the other side of the room.”

  I carefully walked across the room, getting myself jumbled up in something on the way and scaring myself to death.

  “Are you okay?” Flora called out when she heard me yell.

  “Just found myself inadvertently directing a puppet show.”

  I managed to locate the box. The pile of paper programs and playbills smelled a little musty and a little damp, but they were dry enough, I hoped, to be able to light.

  As I reached in, I screamed and withdrew my hand quickly.

  “What is it?” asked Flora. “Another puppet?”

  “No,” I said, lifting my hand in the air. “A spider.”

  “Ooh!” yelled Flora with distaste.

  I put my hand carefully back into the box and pulled out a few programs.

  “Now,” said Flora, “if this is right, this should work.”

  Flora picked up a piece of flint that was attached to the side on a little chain and struck the box. It made a grinding sound, but nothing happened.

  “You have to hit it at an angle,” she said.

&nb
sp; She struck it again, this time at a steeper angle. Little white sparks jumped up from the box. We both whooped in delight. That moment of illumination lifted our spirits.

  I quickly found a copper pot and was surprised at how accustomed I was becoming to feeling my way around in the darkness.

  Putting it next to the tinderbox, I started to tear the programs into tiny, thin threads and then placed them in the bowl. Flora started to fill the pot with bright, white sparks of magical light. It was beautiful. I blew on them gently, with a renewed sense of determination.

  Flora struck furiously again and again. A sliver of paper caught light, and I gently blew on it. It started to glow. Suddenly, the bowl erupted into flames.

  Both Flora and I cheered.

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” I stated as I lit the wick on the Aladdin’s lamp.

  As it illuminated the room, I could see all the corners clearly now. It was almost cozy.

  “We need to find more light and supplies just in case we’re here for a while.”

  I didn’t want to say the words “all night,” because I didn’t want to frighten Flora, but that was going through my mind. I headed out to the end of the attic where all the bigger boxes were stored. One was labeled “Anne of Green Gables.”

  “Help me get this down, would you, Flora?”

  Flora, swaddled in the gorilla suit, waddled over and helped me pull the heavy box from the top shelf. We pushed it toward the window seat. Flora held the lamp aloft while I began to unpack the box. Inside, there were more copper pots and jugs, old-fashioned hair adornments, and a silver-plated comb and mirror set. At the bottom was a large patchwork quilt that was just beautiful.

  Flora oohed and aahed at this; it was handmade.

  “This will come in handy.”

  Flora nodded reluctantly. We pulled out the quilt and set it aside. Right in the bottom, I located something that made me whoop with joy: three brass candlesticks with white candles in them. We both clapped our hands and pulled them out.

  I placed them on the table in front of the window seat, and we decided to burn them one at a time. With this new light, we could both move freely around the room and find everything that we needed. Somehow, nothing seemed quite as intimidating as before.