Ms America and the Brouhaha on Broadway (16 page)

“Apart from Cromartie and me,” Shanelle mutters, “that’s the only other black thing at this shindig.”

“Why do they call those chocolate fountains?” Trixie wants to know. “It’s not like the chocolate shoots up toward the ceiling or anything.”

“This one was flown in from Brussels,” says a woman who appears to be its minder. Like the coat-taker, she’s outfitted in a gray housekeeper’s uniform. And as if she were a hostess on
The Price is Right
, she waves her hand over the many items provided for dipping: from the traditional fresh fruit, marshmallows, and caramels to dried apricots and figs, cheesecake bites, Lady Fingers, and miniature scones. “I prefer the American fountains, though,” she confides. “The European ones can be a little temperamental.”

“Lisette adored chocolate fountains,” I hear a cigarette-voiced woman say. “At least she got one thing she wanted, even if it took until she was dead.”

I pivot to my left to pinpoint the source of that startling remark. It’s a tiny elderly woman with close-cropped white hair, round oversized eyeglasses with thick black frames, and a slash of red lipstick. When her heavily painted lips tremble, I step closer. “I’m so sorry for your loss. Are you a member of the family?”

She shakes her head. “I’ve been a friend of the family for years. Not that that’s always so easy with the Longleys.”

Trixie stands to my right, her hazel eyes wide. I know this party has her slightly undone. “We only knew Lisette for a short while. We’re with
Dream Angel
.”

“Ah.” The woman nods. “Lisette really enjoyed dance as a child, did you know that? Although she was unable to make a career of it.”

“Such a competitive field,” I murmur.

“It’s a curse to be labeled the creative one in the family if you haven’t got the goods,” the woman goes on. “Lisette’s sister and brother are in law and banking, so naturally her father wanted a child in the performing arts as well. And of course he’s fixated on Broadway.”

I don’t know what to say to that.

“That’s the way it is in families,” the woman opines. “We all have our roles to play. Like Lisette’s mother, just flown in from France.” She cocks her chin at someone in the distance. I turn to see a striking blonde in her sixties pushing an ancient man in a wheelchair. “We’re supposed to believe she’s the heartless one because she left Warren for another man. He thinks she did it for the money.”

It’s hard to imagine being married to the owner of all this and trading up. But I suppose everything’s relative. “You don’t believe that was the case?”

“Not for a moment.” The woman almost spits. “She left Warren because he’s an incorrigible bastard.”

She spins away. Trixie, Shanelle, and I gape at one another. That’s colorful phrasing to describe our host and the father of the newly deceased. “I think that’s Warren Longley over there,” Shanelle murmurs, “talking up Bradley Cooper.”

As a roving server offers us white wine, I twist around to look. If indeed that is Warren Longley, he looks a bit like Donald Trump, only with better hair. Not that Trump sets a high bar in the hair department.

“Warren Longley must be really into golf,” Trixie says. “Look at that over there by the window.”

We amble closer. On a small table perches a golf ball atop a slim foot-tall stand made of cut crystal. Mounted on the table is an engraved plaque:

Hole in One

Warren Longley

Augusta National Golf Club

Hole #12

June 15, 2014

“Certain times of day,” Shanelle says, “I bet the sunlight catches that crystal just right.”

“Good for Warren Longley,” I say. “I don’t think holes in one are easy to get.”

“Rhett got one once when we were in Asheville,” Trixie says of her husband. “Afterward he bought drinks for everybody in the hotel bar.”

I glance around and keep my voice low. “You know, I can’t help thinking about what that woman said about the Longley family. If it’s true, it might explain why Lisette’s father invested in
Dream Angel
.”

“You mean he typecast his daughter as the creative one,” Shanelle murmurs, “and then had to do his part to make her successful.”

“Maybe that’s why Lisette was so unpleasant,” Trixie whispers. “She kind of got bullied into what she was doing.”

And then she tried to get her revenge by bullying everybody else. Like father, like daughter. “Maybe that’s why
Dream Angel
wasn’t that good,” I say. “Writing didn’t come naturally to her.”

“All of this is one giant shame,” Shanelle mutters. “And you know what else? This is supposed to be a celebration of Lisette’s life, but do you see one thing here that’s about her? I mean, yes, there’s the chocolate fountain, but there isn’t a single picture of her, not a memorial book, nothing. And who here is her age, if you don’t count us theater people? Does she have any friends here at
all
? I’m starting to wonder how many of these people even
knew
her.”

I look around. “You have a point, Shanelle. How sad if Lisette is an afterthought at the celebration of her own life.”

We fall silent. I guess I’ve already learned something new about Lisette. Even with all her wealth and privilege, it seems like it was no picnic being a member of the Longley family.

“This is depressing,” Trixie says. “I mean, since it’s sort of a funeral I expected it would be. But it’s depressing in a whole different way than I imagined.”

“Let’s try the chocolate,” Shanelle suggests. “That’ll make us feel better.”

Needless to say, I’m game. We return to the fountain, where I skewer a marshmallow and hold it beneath one of the spouts from which the chocolate flows. Very carefully I transport the sweet treat to my mouth above a tiny plate meant to catch any mischievous drops. “Yum,” I declare. “This is the best chocolate-fountain chocolate I’ve ever had.”

“Maybe the chocolate is from Belgium, too.” Trixie dispatches a raisin cluster. “Why are we the only ones dipping anything?”

Shanelle opts for a Snickerdoodle. “Because unlike the rest of these people, we actually eat.”

I become aware of a razor-thin redhead eyeing me with obvious curiosity. She’s only a little younger than me, so perhaps we have finally lighted upon a friend of Lisette’s. She’s attired in a luscious white sleeveless dress with an illusion neck of sequined lace. Her brunette companion is wearing a cap-sleeve sheath with silver banding at the waist. Somehow I get the idea I admire their outfits more than they admire mine. Shanelle’s and mine, I should say. Unbowed, I introduce my companions and myself.

“Did you by any chance go to Porter’s?” the redhead asks me.

“Excuse me?” My mind cranks. “Porter’s?”

The brunette snickers. “She doesn’t even know what Porter’s is.”

“It’s just that you look familiar,” the redhead goes on. “At least in a way.” She runs her eyes over me with what I read as disdain, though maybe I’m just being paranoid. “I don’t suppose you went to Mount Holyoke?”

At least
that
I’ve heard of. “No,” I say.

My monosyllabic response leaves silence in its wake. Normally I would add a remark to roll the conversation along. Something like: “Actually, I’m working toward my bachelor’s degree at night at Cleveland State.” I’d probably leave out that I’m on hiatus because I’m so busy with my Ms. America duties. But I don’t care to share those tidbits with these two.

“Did you meet Lisette at Mount Holyoke?” I ask the redhead.

“No, we met at Porter’s.”

The brunette jumps in. “Just so you know, that’s Miss Porter’s School in Connecticut. It’s one of the oldest girl’s boarding schools in the country.”

And no doubt one of the most prestigious. “I’m so sorry you’ve lost one of your childhood friends. It’s tragic.”

The two are sufficiently well bred to assume sad expressions. But those last about ten seconds. Then the brunette runs her discerning gaze over Trixie, Shanelle, and me. “I gather you’re
Dream Angel
people.”

“We’re consulting for the production,” Trixie says.

The redhead nods. “So you’ve worked on Broadway before.”

“
Dream Angel
is
Off
-Broadway,” the brunette corrects.

“Actually,” Trixie says, “this is our first time working on a theater project.”

I cringe as the redhead looses a laugh. I know what’s coming next.

“How in the world,” she inquires right on cue, “did people who never worked in theater get hired as consultants?”

After a moment of silence, Shanelle responds. “We were hired to give Lisette some insight into the pageant world. You may know that
Dream Angel
—”

“Has to do with beauty pageants, yes,” the brunette says. Then understanding dawns in her dark eyes. “Don’t tell me you three have actually competed in those?” She makes it sound horribly vile, as if we get our jollies running a dogfighting ring.

“Not only competed,” Trixie chirps, “won!” She gestures to me. “I’m very proud to say that Happy here is the reigning Ms. America.”

Clearly aghast, the brunette turns to the redhead. “Who
does
that?”

I clench my jaw. I had hoped to avoid all discussion of beauty pageants at this event since I did not anticipate the topic would go over well, but as a proud title-holder I cannot allow this disrespect to go unchallenged. “Two and a half million women a year do that,” I hear myself say. “In the U.S. alone. They do it for scholarship money; they do it to build confidence and poise; they do it to jumpstart careers in entertainment or broadcast journalism or politics.”

“You got that right,” Shanelle says. “Look at Erika Harold, Miss America 2003. Sure, she didn’t win her race for Congress in Illinois, at least not yet, but she said there is no finer training for going in front of the cameras and keeping your cool than competing in beauty pageants.”

“No wonder these two are dressed alike,” the brunette says to the redhead. “Maybe they’re competing in a pageant this afternoon.”

They chuckle before the redhead turns away with a sniff. “Well, before today I never met anybody who actually competed in beauty pageants. As far as I’m concerned, they’re medieval. And Lisette certainly didn’t know any so-called beauty queens. We met for lunch at least once a month, but she never could explain what possessed her to write about such a despicable topic.” The two whirl away.

Trixie shakes her head. “Well, at least Lisette has a few friends here.”

“Even if they are royal bitches,” Shanelle mutters.

“That redhead did make an interesting point, though,” I say. “Of all the character types she could’ve written about, why did Lisette choose a beauty queen?”

“You have to ask, girl?” Shanelle says. “We’re fascinating.”

“I think it’s because so many people have strong opinions about us,” Trixie says. “As we just saw. Nobody’s neutral.”

“But the whole beauty-pageant thing is so far out of Lisette’s experience,” I say, before I’m forced to drop the subject by the loud clinking of a spoon against a glass. The man we guessed to be Warren Longley moves to the center of the gathering and clears his throat. The guests hush. “Thank you all so much for coming today,” he says into the silence. “It means a great deal to me, to Lisette’s mother Stephanie, to her brother Robert, and to her sister Jacqueline.

“As a family, we made the decision not to mourn the tragic end of Lisette’s too short life but rather to celebrate the time she had with us and the immense joy she brought. Forgive me if I can’t speak for long today about my dear daughter.”

He pauses to compose himself and tears rise to my eyes. Warren Longley may not be a paragon among men, but at this moment he is a father grieving his child and my heart breaks for him.

“A dear friend put together a video montage,” he manages to say, “and our family would like it to speak for us.”

He steps back and I see that now the video wall is showing the montage. To the haunting music of “Sunrise, Sunset,” one image melts into the next: Lisette as a baby, a girl, a young woman, the woman I knew. When the last photo fades, there isn’t a dry eye in the house.

Except for the peepers belonging to Oliver. He steps forward to give Warren Longley a manly back-slapping hug. I see that he’s substituted his usual black cords and red sneakers for white cords and white sneakers, along with a white button-down dress shirt. He’s carrying what appears to be a rolled-up poster.

“As Warren and I discussed several times in the last few sad days,” he begins in his squeaky voice, “
Dream Angel
is more than ever Lisette’s legacy. Of course, nothing can make up for the tragic loss of her life. But this musical can show theatergoers here in New York and maybe down the road in London, Toronto, and elsewhere, too, just what an immense talent Lisette was.”