Ms America and the Brouhaha on Broadway (11 page)

“What Lisette’s father paid for is beside the point.” Uncle Jerry pauses, then: “You and she got into a tussle about you suggesting she bring in those beauty queens, too. What are their names? Happy, Twiggy, I don’t know. Anyway, what was that all about?”

I clutch my handbag, miffed that Uncle Jerry is so dismissive of me and mine but dying to hear Kimberly’s response.

“Everybody on this show knew Lisette needed advice about beauty pageants,” Kimberly says. “She was writing about it, but it was obvious she didn’t know the first thing.”

“But why was it up to you to bring that up? That’s something for the director to suggest, not the junior photographer. I will tell you, that one time when Lisette said you put your nose where it shouldn’t be, I have to say I agreed with her.”

“I can’t believe you’re saying that!” Kimberly yelps.

“You were out of line there, Kimmy, but did I say a word about it at the time? No. But only
now
do I understand what Lisette meant when she said you did it to get back at her.”

Silence. My mind cranks. How would bringing us beauty queens in as consultants be “getting back” at Lisette? And why would Kimberly be seeking revenge on Lisette in the first place?

“That is the craziest thing I ever heard.” Kimberly’s voice is wobbling a bit. I wonder if she’s about to burst into tears like she apparently did in front of everybody a few weeks ago. “I can’t believe you think I would do that.”

“What I think,” Uncle Jerry says, sounding as ticked off as ever, “is that you and Lisette were at each other’s throats—”

At each other’s throats? Really? It was that bad?

“—because of Damian. I will tell you something and I want you to remember it. If I bring you in on a show, you have an obligation to tell me about any conflicts of interest.
Beforehand
. Every time I bring you in to work with me,
my
reputation is on the line, Kimmy. Whether you like it or not.”

Silence. I have a feeling Kimberly is hanging her head and looking pathetic. Of course, in her situation I might be doing exactly the same thing.

“I am just shocked by all this,” Uncle Jerry huffs. “Especially given how Nonni and I raised you.”

He stomps out. Kimberly is alone.

Well, sort of.

I hear her walk around a bit then stop. I wish she’d leave, or enter a stall so that I could leave, but no such luck.

I keep waiting, feeling more awkward by the second. I should have boldly walked out of this stall the second Uncle Jerry left. By now it’s clear I’m just trying to avoid the humiliation of having to reveal my eavesdropping self.

My word, I think a moment later, what is Kimberly
doing
? Maybe she’s hunched over a sink in front of the mirror, staring into her own eyes, trying to regain control of her emotions …

Then I realize that if she
is
staring into the mirror, she might well be seeing the reflection of my chunky boots with the foldover cuff and faux shearling lining.

Uh oh. I think she just did.

Because all of a sudden she walks to my stall and stops. I cringe gazing down onto the toes of her chocolate-colored UGGs. “Whoever you are,” she says, “are you coming out or not?”

There’s nothing else to do but march out of that stall and face my fate.

Kimberly’s blue eyes bulge when she sees me. Other than that, she looks like her usual self, her blond hair restrained by a headband and messy bun, her petite body encased in a blue plaid shirt belted over leggings. “You!” she cries.

“I’m sorry, Kimberly. I should have made my presence known—”

“Yes, you should have!” She shakes her head as if she can’t believe what she’s seeing. “You were listening in on a private conversation.”

“Well, that’s true, but to be fair this isn’t exactly your private dressing room. And your Uncle Jerry
really
shouldn’t have been in here.”

“Still.” She harrumphs. “You of all people. And after I brought you and your friends onto this show.”

Which I am more curious about than ever. “After hearing what your uncle said, I have to wonder why you did that.”

Kimberly looks stunned that I’m asking. And she’s silent for so long that I toss out a theory. “Did you do it so you could make some sort of point with Jason?”

She’s unable to come up with a response to that query, which makes me think I hit the nail on the head. Finally: “I did it as a favor to you,” she asserts. “And also because, as I told my uncle, Lisette needed help with all the beauty-queen stuff.”

I doubt that’s the whole story. “It just sounds like it was a very unusual suggestion coming from you.”

“Look, I don’t care to get into it. This day is already bad enough.” Then she stomps out of the ladies room without another word.

Darn. I didn’t get a chance to ask who Damian is.

I find Trixie and Shanelle in a rear row of the theater nursing coffees from the backstage coffeepot. They’re posed like the other cast and crew: with a wooden plank across their seats so their laptops can perch on top for easy note-taking. The house lights are on and there is action onstage: crew members moving props, a couple of techs on ladders tweaking lights, actors huddling with Oliver.

“They rolled away the stage staircase,” Shanelle tells me. “I bet they’re going to renovate it something fierce.”

“They better,” Trixie says, “if they keep it at all. By the way, they’re just about to rehearse the fifth scene in the first act. I think Enzo rewrote it in a big way. How did it go with him?”

“Fine. But that’s not what I want to talk about,” and I launch into a spiel about my restroom interlude with Kimberly and her Uncle Jerry. “So,” I conclude, “apparently there was a giant brouhaha between Kimberly and Lisette about some mystery man named Damian, whom Lisette was seeing. And that created a conflict of interest that Kimberly’s Uncle Jerry wishes he’d known about before.”

“And we care about this for what reason?” Shanelle wants to know.

Her question flummoxes me. “Well, aren’t you curious about everything that has to do with Lisette?”

“Girl, I love you and all, but to be honest I am not that interested in Lisette. And I don’t think Trixie is, either.”

Trixie shakes her head with obvious regret. “I’m sorry, Happy, but Shanelle’s right. Although I do feel terrible about what happened to Lisette. Anyhoo, we’ll find out more about her tomorrow. Her father is hosting a celebration of her life. Oliver says we all have to go.”

There’s no way I’d miss it, even if it weren’t a command performance. But right now I can’t resist pressing my point. “Don’t you find it at least
somewhat
intriguing that Uncle Jerry says Kimberly and Lisette were, and I quote, ‘at each other’s throats’?”

“I think you’d be hard-pressed to find an individual whose throat Lisette was not at,” Shanelle says.

Trixie rubs my arm. She’s looking at me as if I were sort of pathetic, which perhaps I am. “You’re not still thinking Lisette was murdered, are you, Happy?”

“You best not be thinking Kimberly murdered her,” Shanelle mutters.

The thought had crossed my mind, preposterous though it might seem.

Shanelle pipes up again before I come up with an answer. “You’re justified in being darn curious about Kimberly, though. That requires no further explanation.”

“That is part of it.” I’m relieved there’s at least one thing on which we can agree. “I wonder if she had a broken childhood. Her uncle said something about how he and her grandmother raised her.” It’s sad if Kimberly had a rough upbringing, though it’ll take more than that to give me the warm fuzzies about her.

Onstage the actors begin their rehearsal. Oliver positions himself in the front row to observe. I relax in my seat, half watching and half allowing my mind to wander. So did Kimberly think she’d earn Jason’s admiration by getting his wife and her friends a Broadway consulting gig? If so, her strategy worked. Jason told me he was impressed that Kimberly was so thoughtful and that she had that kind of yank.

Of course, I must also wonder why Kimberly would want to impress Jason. What can he do for her? I suppose he can help her professionally if the calendars are a big success. Unfortunately, I’m concerned her interest is mostly personal.

By that I mean romantic.

Since I will not allow myself to dwell on that distressing possibility, I focus on the rehearsal. Before long I find myself lost in it. The rewritten scene is wildly improved and for the first time includes some of the feedback we beauty queens provided. If Enzo and Oliver work this kind of magic on the rest of the libretto, it’s just possible that the poster for
Dream Angel
won’t land on Joe Allen’s redbrick wall after all.

The rehearsal breaks and Trixie consults her watch, a casual Timex with a fabric band featuring white dots on a navy background. “It’s already six,” she says. “Lord, I need more coffee to get through the next two hours.”

“You may not want it,” I tell her, “if you hear the story Enzo told me today. He swears it’s true.”

We head backstage and I begin the tale. “This was during a Broadway run of
Les Misérables
.”

“One of the longest-running musicals of all time,” Shanelle says. “I always call it
Les Miz
.”

“I do, too. Anyway, as you know, it has lots of child actors and their contracts include appearance clauses.”

“All performers must have that,” Trixie says.

“They do. Enzo told me there are all kinds of rules, about tanning and tattoos and weight and you name it. He said he’s worked on productions where the female performers are weighed every week.”

“And not the men?” Shanelle cries. “That would get on my last nerve.”

We arrive backstage and sneak into a corner. I keep my voice low. “The production went on for so long that one of the girls had a growth spurt and outgrew her part, according to the specs in her contract. So she got fired.”

Trixie’s face falls. “Oh, how sad for that poor child.”

“It’s a lesson in real life,” Shanelle says, “not just a lesson in show business. Anyway, what happened?”

I can’t help chuckling. Nervy girl: I’ll give her that. “She peed in the backstage coffeepot.”

“What?” Trixie squeals.

“Yup. People were drinking the coffee and saying, wow, this tastes tinny.”

“Oh, my Lord, can you imagine!” Trixie shudders. “Everybody must’ve wanted to skin her alive after that.”

“Apparently the girl’s mother didn’t want to believe her daughter did it, which got all the mothers accusing each other’s children. It got so bad that two moms got into a fistfight at the stage door. The cops had to be called.” I pause before I deliver the punch line. “So after that, what do you think they called the production?
Les Wizz
.”

After that cautionary tale, we approach the backstage coffeepot with trepidation. But with at least two more hours before we can call it quits for the day, caffeine is called for.

Tonya Shepherds, the platinum blond onetime beauty queen who plays the lead in
Dream Angel
—and darn well, too—sidles close to me as I’m loading my java with low-fat cream. She looks cute in raw edge skinny jeans and a flowy green utility shirt partially tucked in. “I love the rewritten scenes,” she whispers. “Was it you who fed Enzo that line about rhinestones and roses?”

“That was Trixie. How much rewriting is Enzo doing?”

“A
lot
. I don’t know how I’m going to nail it all by Sunday.”

“Are you saying—”

“We’re back into previews on Sunday,” Tonya tells me.

Wow. Only 48 hours from now.

“Between you and me”—Tonya lowers her voice even further—“Oliver wants to take advantage of all the publicity we’re getting because of Lisette.”

That would be cynical of Oliver, but I wouldn’t put it past him. “He’s not worried that Lisette’s family would think restarting
Dream Angel
so soon is disrespectful to her?”

“Go online and read the update in the
Times
. There’s a quote from her father that
Dream Angel
is his daughter’s legacy and the best way to honor her is to resume production. You know the story of
Rent
, right?”

Since I don’t, she tells me.

“The creator, who wrote not only every single word but also composed the music, died the night of the final dress rehearsal. I think it was a heart problem that two different ERs didn’t diagnose. Anyway, Jonathan Larson was his name. He was only thirty-five.”

“How tragic,” I murmur.

“They skipped only one preview before they started up again. And of course
Rent
became a huge megahit. I gotta go,” she finishes, and whirls away.