The scene continued to its ending, with Casey’s lines assuring the others that the fight was against her will. Eric pounced, taking two quick left jabs at her face. She ducked, then blocked his roundhouse, aimed at her head.
Getting her balance, she swung at his stomach, making light contact as he let out a whoosh of air fit for an NBA flopper. She finished him off with an uppercut, her hit upstage of Eric’s face, while he jerked his head with perfect timing, using the hit to slowly send him backward, where he landed hard on his butt.
Casey stepped over him, raising her foot as if to finish him off, when Jack jumped in with the next line, using a different voice for the character of Antonio. “Put up your sword!” He giggled, completely not in character, and Aaron joined right in.
Casey, breathing hard, relaxed her stance and stepped back, holding out a hand to Eric. After a brief study of her face, probably to make sure she wasn’t bluffing and was really about to take him down again, he allowed her to help him up. Together they turned toward the house, which sat in complete silence.
Casey paused, blinking at the lights, and closed her eyes as a rush of memories swept through her. The lights. The musty smell. The audience.
Omar’s face.
Reuben’s…
She swayed, and felt Eric’s hand wrap around her arm.
“You all right?” His voice was anxious.
She swallowed and opened her eyes. “I’m fine.” She pulled her arm away. “Thanks.”
He gestured at the stage behind them. “That was…amazing. I mean… Who are you?”
Applause came suddenly from the two actors on stage with her. After glancing at them, Casey put a hand over her eyes and squinted into the house. The woman, Becca, still stood in the aisle, her eyes wide, hands clutching her bag. The director, his face a blank mask, sat silently in the fourth row, his hand under his chin as he stared at Casey.
The young men hollered again. “Bravo! Encore!”
Casey shook herself, and handed Eric the script. “Think I got out?”
Eric’s forehead creased. “What?”
“Of the paper bag.”
He smiled. “Oh, I’d say you got way out, crumpled it up, and threw it away.”
“Good.”
She turned and walked across the stage, descending the stairs. She brushed past Becca, but stopped when the woman called her name.
“You will do the part, won’t you?”
Casey looked at Becca’s face, which was filled with something Casey would’ve called desperation, if it hadn’t seemed over-dramatic. “No. I’m just passing through. The part’s yours.”
Becca’s face crumpled. “But I don’t want it. I’ve been waiting for you.”
That again. “Look. No one here has been waiting for me. I didn’t even know I was coming.”
“But—”
“Please, Casey. Can’t you stay?” Eric was standing next to Becca now, his face pleading.
Casey shook her head and ran her fingers through her hair. What was up with these people?
The other actors joined them, their expressions of awe and humor only slightly dampened. The four of them stood in a tight semicircle, waiting, apparently, for her to say she was staying.
“It actually is my decision, you know,” the director said.
They turned as a whole toward his seat, where he reclined, his hand half covering his face. Slowly he sat up, his hands on the armrests, elbows poking up beside him. He slanted his face toward Casey. “That was very interesting.”
She waited.
“You seem to have some experience.”
She nodded slightly, not really caring one way or the other what he thought.
“But I’m not sure you’re what we really need right now.”
The other four actors gasped as one, then let go with a volley of disagreements. The director held up his hand. “Enough.” He looked at Casey. “You may go.”
“No,” Eric said. “Wait.” He looked past her, toward the director. “You really are as big an idiot as you appear.”
The director’s mouth dropped open, but snapped shut as his face clouded. “You have no right—”
“But I do. And you know it.”
The director’s eye twitched, and he clamped his teeth together. “She is nothing like Ellen. Ellen brought a much more feminine—”
“Ellen’s not here.” Eric glanced at Becca, who’d made a small whimpering sound. “Ellen was…wonderful. We all know that. But this role doesn’t have to be so…so womanly. It can actually use an…earthier feel.” He glanced at Casey, probably hoping she wouldn’t take that wrong. He put an arm around Becca’s shoulders. “Becca doesn’t want to do this. She’s said so. And here—” He swept a hand toward Casey. “She would be different, but come on, Thomas. How could you not see what she just did? She’s perfect.”
Ellen. Casey knew she’d heard that name recently. No. She’d seen it. On the notice about the garage sale for her orphaned children.
Casey cleared her throat. “Didn’t she—Ellen, I mean—last week…”
“Yes,” Eric said. “She died.”
Silence again covered the theater, and Casey looked from face to face. Eric’s sadness, Becca’s discomfort, the two young guys without a clear expression.
And the director’s stubbornly held jaw. “She’s not what we want.”
Eric glanced at the rest of the cast, then back at the director. “Says who?”
The director pushed himself from his seat, held a finger out toward Eric, then let it drop. Stiffly he gathered his belongings—briefcase, coat, umbrella—and put them over his arm. “Fine.” He looked at Casey, his chin held high. “Rehearsal tomorrow evening. Seven-o’clock. Don’t be late. And try to…” He waved a hand at her clothes. “Clean yourself up a little.”
Without another look he swept out the double doors, allowing them to slap shut behind him.
Chapter Six
“I’m sorry,” Eric said. “If I’d known you were coming, I would’ve warned you.”
“Yeah.” Casey shook her head. “I wish you could’ve.”
They sat on a bench outside the theater, the night air still promising rain.
“Thomas is a head case,” Eric said. “He really is.”
Thomas. The director. “And you’re in his play…why, exactly?”
A smile flitted across his face, and he ducked his head toward the street. “Let’s just say it’s penance, and leave it at that.”
Penance. Casey breathed in the cool night air. “Well, I hope what you did to deserve it was worth every moment. Penance like this would cover a lot.”
“It better.”
They sat quietly, and Casey eased her head back, her face toward the sky. “What happened? With Ellen? The notice at the bus stop said she died suddenly.”
“Yeah. She did.”
Casey brought her head down at the pain in his voice. “You knew her well?”
He shrugged. “We were in the play together. She would…she and her kids came to eat supper at the hall.”
Casey studied his profile. “There was no husband in the picture?”
He looked away. “It was just her and the kids.”
“Were her children there tonight? At dinner?”
“No.” He leaned forward, his hands in prayer position between his knees. “They’ve gone to stay with their grandparents. Ellen’s folks. They don’t live in Clymer.”
Casey nodded, closing her eyes. When she opened them again, she had to force herself not to jump at the sight of Death, who sat on the other side of Eric, picking fluffy buttered kernels of popcorn from a paper bag and chewing them with gusto.
“How did she die?” Casey asked.
Death shrugged, looking at Eric with interest.
Eric’s face remained averted. “They say she killed herself.”
Casey sucked in her breath.
Death made a face.
“Was she…did she have an illness?”
Eric gave a sad laugh. “Not unless you call unemployment being sick.”
“Oh. She got laid off from HomeMaker.”
“Right before Christmas. In the first wave.”
“And since then?”
He sat up again, still looking at his hands. “She was doing odd jobs, where she could find them. But there aren’t a lot here. No one else in Clymer is in the position to hire a cleaning lady or an extra hand at a store. The Burger Palace at the edge of town was about it. Not that she could support herself and her kids with that.”