“No.” I shook my head. “I don’t believe in jinxes or curses or anything like that.”
“Normally I don’t, either, Kathleen. But you have to admit there’s been a lot of negative energy associated with this festival.”
“Hugh Davis isn’t dead because of a play,” I said.
Abigail looked thoughtfully at me. “Then why is he dead?” she said.
That was the problem. I still didn’t know.
20
Chloe arrived at the library at five minutes to one. We walked over to Eric’s and settled at one of the quieter tables against the end wall. After Claire had poured coffee and taken our orders, Chloe took off her jacket and folded her fingers around her mug.
“I like this place,” she said, looking around the room with a smile. “It reminds me of this little place in Florida called Alexander’s.”
“Florida’s home?” I asked.
She nodded. “What about you?”
“Boston,” I said. “My parents are there and so are my brother and sister. Mom’s been in LA doing Wild and Wonderful and Ethan is about to go on the road with his band, but Boston is home. We all end up back there eventually.”
“This is a beautiful little town,” she said. “Everywhere I turn I see something that looks like a postcard. Did you see the sun coming up over the water this morning?”
I nodded.
“The other day I saw three sailboats anchored in the water and the surface was so still it looked like glass. I’ve taken dozens and dozens of pictures and I only got here Saturday.”
“I did the same thing when I first got here,” I said with a smile.
Chloe tipped her head to one side. “Do you mind if I ask why you’re a librarian and not a performer?”
I laughed. “No. I don’t mind. I’m not a performer because I have absolutely no talent. I couldn’t carry a tune if it came with handles. I have two left feet and calling me wooden when I’m onstage is an insult—to wood.”
Chloe laughed. “Kathleen, there’s no way you can be that awful.”
“Sadly, there is,” I said with a grin. “I just didn’t get the performer gene. What about you? Did you always want to be an actor?”
She traced a finger around the rim of her mug. “You know, I never thought about it that way. It’s just what I’ve always done. I was onstage before I could walk.”
Claire came back then with our orders of Eric’s beef noodle soup and thick slices of sourdough bread, still warm from the oven. As we ate we talked about our favorite plays. I was surprised to find out Chloe had done several musicals.
Claire brought the coffeepot around for refills as we finished our soup. “Dessert?” she asked. “Eric made chocolate pudding cake.”
“I shouldn’t,” I said.
“I didn’t ask whether you should,” Claire said with a sly grin. “I asked if you wanted to.”
“Okay, I want to,” I said. “Please.”
“Me too, please,” Chloe said.
Claire smiled. “I’ll be right back.”
Chloe glanced at her watch.
“What time do you need to be back at the theater?” I asked.
“Not until two thirty, for a fitting.” She leaned forward to brush part of a dried leaf off her pants. I noticed she was wearing a pair of gray spike-heeled leather boots. They added a good three inches to her height.
“Chloe, is the festival really going to be ready to open next week?” I asked.
“Absolutely.” She took a sip of her coffee. ““Don’t tell me you believe all that silliness that the festival is jinxed because of Yesterday’s Child?”
“No,” I said. “It’s just that with the fire and Hugh’s death there’s a lot to come back from.”
“You know the old saying: The show must go on.”
I nodded as Claire served our dessert. “I know. I also know a lot of actors are very superstitious.”
Chloe picked up her spoon. “I’m superstitious about some things, but not about Yesterday’s Child. I was in the very first production. Hugh directed. You probably knew that.” She tried the pudding and smiled across the table at me. “Mmmmm. This is good.”
I reached for my own spoon. “So how did all the rumors start that the play is jinxed?”
“The script is very dark in places. Hugh is . . . was pretty intense as a director. One of the actors quit the first week of rehearsals. Then there was the fire at the theater.” She shrugged. “That was really all it took. After that, the idea that the show was jinxed just took on a life of its own. You know how those things go.”
I nodded. I’d been around enough theaters to know how quickly rumors spread in a closed community like a production in rehearsal.
Chloe licked a bit of chocolate from the back of her spoon. “Every production has issues, but every time there was a problem with Yesterday’s Child, someone would start talking about the jinx.”
She set her spoon down, pushed back her left sleeve and extended her arm. It was etched with a web of fine scars.
“Abigail told me you’d been in an accident,” I said.
Chloe pushed the sleeve down and rested her arm back on the edge of the table. “Do you know what people assume when they see those scars? They think I did it to myself.”
What had my mother said about Hugh? I heard from an unimpeachable source that he pushed one of his leading ladies so hard she started cutting herself. If Abigail hadn’t told me about Chloe’s accident, I might have thought it had been Chloe.
As if she could read my mind, she tipped her head forward and brushed her hair away from the left side of her face. I could see more scars snaking up her neck into her hairline, scars that clearly had been stitched by a doctor. They hadn’t been made by Chloe cutting herself. I felt my face flush with embarrassment.
“I was in an accident right after the play finished its run,” she said. “That was the jinx, people said. Another actor had problems with his voice and had to have surgery. More so-called proof.” She shook her head. “Even though Ben had dropped Yesterday’s Child from our schedule months ago, when the fire happened at the other theater it was enough to get the whole idea that the play somehow has a black cloud over it resurrected. Maybe if the four of us from that original production hadn’t been part of the festival, all the talk wouldn’t have started again. I don’t know.”
I frowned at her. “What do you mean, the four of you?”
“Hugh, me, Hannah and Ben.”
I stared at her, my spoon halfway to my mouth. “Hannah and Ben were part of the original staging of Yesterday’s Child?”
Chloe scraped a bit of chocolate from the side of the heavy stoneware bowl. “Uh-huh. Ben was the original director. So I guess technically he wasn’t really part of the show.”
“He was replaced by Hugh?”
She nodded. “Before we started rehearsing. The producers didn’t like Ben’s interpretation of the script. Rumor has it that Ben showed up before the first rehearsal and he and Hugh had a screaming match backstage, although I didn’t hear anything.” She reached for her coffee. “Of course that just added to the myth that the production was jinxed.”
“I’ve been thinking about doing a display at the library with information about the plays and the main actors,” I said. “I might need to pick your brain.”
“Anytime,” she said with a smile. She folded her fingers around the stoneware mug. “I was surprised that Ben offered the festival job to Hugh. There was a lot of bad blood between them, from what I heard.”
“I don’t think Ben is the kind of person who holds a grudge.”
“Life’s too short for that kind of thing,” Chloe said.
“So Hannah had a part in the play, too?” I asked. The pudding cake was delicious, but I was getting distracted by the conversation.