Cyrano's eyes twinkled. "Regrettably, my cousin was detained in Badenburg on pressing business. I decided not to wait on him."
Betsy took an instant liking to Cyrano. Her favorite girlhood adventures were the ones she'd undertaken while the babysitter was "detained on pressing business" elsewhere. "So what can I do for you?" she asked.
"Mondemoiseau de Bergerac is interested in your knowledge of up-time cinema," Mirari looked from Betsy to Cyrano in bemusement, as if she wasn't quite certain that introducing the two had been a good idea. "He is a budding playwright and he wants to write a play based on an up-time movie in order to gain some notoriety."
"Which one?" Betsy asked. She ran through a mental list of movies that could easily be converted into stage production. One that was adapted from a stage production, such as The Odd Couple or The Front Page, would be perfect, she thought.
"Have you ever heard of Our Miss Brooks?"
Betsy tilted her chair back and suppressed a laugh. "As a matter of fact I have, but it wasn't a movie. It was a radio sitcom when my Grandpa was my age. They made a TV show of it when my dad was a little boy. We used to watch reruns together when I was a girl, Eve Arden played Miss Brooks. Of course, that was years before she was Principal McGee in Grease."
"Greece?" de Bergerac tilted his head in confusion. "What does the Balkan Peninsula have to do with it?"
"Don't ask," said Mirari with a tone of warning in her voice that he apparently understood.
"You have seen the drama, which is the important thing!" The young playwright said in triumph. "I want to write a play based on this story. While other up-timers I've talked to remember the name, none of them admit to having seen it. Which makes it all the more intriguing to me; a story so forbidden that even now people will not speak of it!"
"Our Miss Brooks? Forbidden?" Betsy snorted in an effort to hold in her laughter. "I wouldn't call it scandalous. Just obscure."
"Mirari said that if anyone in Grantville remembered classic up-time cinema, it would be you," he continued as if he hadn't heard her.
"TV isn't exactly cinema, but it just so happens that I think I can help you anyway!" Betsy said.
Just then the bell over the door rang again. Betsy's head whipped around. She paled as a young man walked into the room, his eyes scanning the patrons intently. "Oh no, Albert!" She dove under the table and then looked up at Mirari's bemused face. "I was never here!"
****
"Tell me that it isn't really true," Denis Semsa said when Betsy walked into the room at the back of the Grantville Times offices where he and the other staff artists did most of their work. The air in the room was heavy with the scent of freshly cut wood and long thin shavings were scattered all across the floor.
"Okay. It isn't true. What are we talking about?" Betsy stared down at the woodcut he had been working on. It showed a number of men and women sitting around a large table filled with piles of books and papers.
She picked the carving up and turned it upside down to stare at it. Then she righted it and looked again. "What is this? One of the Committee of Correspondence gatherings?" She asked while obviously trying to make sense of the reverse image cut into a print block.
"No. It's a parliamentary subcommittee meeting," said Denis. "And don't try to change the subject."
Betsy didn't look up at her companion. "Then why do these guys look as if they like each other? That doesn't sound like most politicians that I know."
"Trust me, the disagreements came quickly. But Mr. Kindrad wanted to show that the two sides can work together. It's in the spirit of . . . now what did he call it?" Denis broke off to search for the word while snapping his fingers in the air. "Bipartyingship."
The corners of Betsy's mouth twitched. Denis knew then that he'd made a mistake with the word. "Bipartisanship," she said slowly, "is what I think you mean. "
Denis waved away her comment. "That doesn't matter, you're dodging my question. So tell me that you didn't do it!"
Betsy drew a deep breath and smiled at him serenely. "I really don't know what you're talking about."
"Betsy, I've seen you change the subject on someone too many times to just let you get away with it. Tell me about what happened yesterday."
Betsy picked up the woodcut and studied it again. She spent nearly a full minute ignoring him. Denis knew that she was doing it on purpose to goad him for being nosy.
"What did you hear?" she said finally.
"That you and Albert were seen out together, in fact that you were quite the pair of lovebirds. Is this becoming serious?"
She scoffed. "No! It is not becoming serious! Not in any conceivable way, shape or form. If Albert has been telling tales like that, I will teach him the meaning of the words 'unending pain!'"
"There are some people who would say that pain was a definition of marriage," Denis mused. Seeing Betsy's scowl he held up his hands in a defensive pose. "But I'm not one of those people. I also heard something about a table that you were hiding under."
Betsy's eyes grew as big as coins and her face flushed red with embarrassment. "Oh Lord! Please tell me that you heard that story from your cousin and not one of the town gossips!"
Seeing her distraught expression, Denis took pity on her. "You can rest easy. I did hear that from Mirari. Did you meet with that playwright that she wanted to introduce you to?"
"Cyrano de Bergerac, in the flesh!" Betsy grinned and bounced on her toes. In her excitement, she appeared to have instantly forgotten Albert. "And he looks nothing like Steve Martin!"
Denis knew better than to ask who Steve Martin was. Not asking the "who" question too often was one of the first things he had learned after meeting Betsy Springer. "What did he want? Mirari wouldn't tell me."
"He wants me to write down everything I know about some obscure sitcom from the fifties. He thinks it's an up-time classic that would be perfect to adapt it into a play. " Her eyes got a faraway look in them. "I think he may even give me writing credit!"
"If you're going to work on this play with him, then that should keep you out of trouble. And out of Albert's notice as well," Denis said. "Will you be hanging around the office for a while?"
She glanced around the room warily. Denis couldn't be sure if she was looking for emergency exits or to see if Albert was lurking in the shadows.
"Why not? Albert knows where I live. I don't want him hanging around there, getting too friendly with my mother." Betsy looked a little sad. "Ever since Dad died, she's been hinting that I should find a good man, settle down and start giving her grandkids. She doesn't need any encouragement from him."
****
Betsy slipped from Denis's mind as he worked on the woodcut. At least until Mirari ran into the workroom.
"Denis, have you seen Betsy?" Mirari looked shaken.
Denis's wave took in the room. "She was working on her notes for Mondemoiseau de Bergerac's play and hiding from Albert, until about a half hour ago. But she decided to get some air."
"Oh dear," Mirari said. "We need to find her, and soon! Mondemoiseau de Bergerac has challenged Albert to a duel!"
"What? Why?"
"Albert must have seen Betsy with us at dinner last night after all and assumed that I was trying to set her up on a date. So he insulted Mondemoiseau de Bergerac's nose."
Denis blanched. "Good Lord! I thought she was exaggerating but I guess Albert is as much an idiot as Betsy said he was!"
Mirari nodded at that. "And Mondemoiseau de Bergerac's cousin has yet to appear. If he were here, he could probably put a stop to all of this foolishness. But now . . ." She trailed off and shook her head. "If we don't get Betsy to intervene, I'm afraid that Mondemoiseau de Bergerac will kill Albert!"