Vicky Banning (19 page)

The men turned brusquely to her with looks of annoyance, but the looks changed to smiles when they saw her outfit. “Oh, that’s okay, ma’am” the Scot said with a laugh. “I tell you, though, you’d probably be better off on the piano. I don’t think anyone would mind.”

“Piano?” Vicky asked. “How could they fit a piano in here?”

“It had first dibs,” he answered with a chuckle. “It lives here.” Sidling past her, he excused his way through the crowd with Vicky following. “Here you go,” he said, turning to face her. He clasped her by the waist, lifted her from the floor and spun around to place her gently atop the spinet piano that stood with its back against the stage. “How’s that?”

“My dear,” she said, scanning the room and spreading her chintz. “I feel like Helen Morgan.”

Roger ignored Steve’s silent
who?
“Do a number,” he said to Vicky as he edged his way around to the keyboard. “I can play a little.”

“I just got here,” Vicky said. “Anyway, don’t be silly. Everyone’s having a good time just talking. I don’t want to cramp anyone’s ‘socializing.’”

“Then do it just for us,” Steve said.

Vicky laughed. “All right, just for you. I never could play hard to get.” She looked down at Roger, who was now seated on the piano stool. “Try playing
MacNamara’s
Band
, but soft and slow; then give me a strong downbeat when I signal to you.”

The blaring rock number from the jukebox came to an end as Roger’s fingers twiddled up and down the keyboard searching for the right notes. Faces turned toward Vicky and the noise subsided to a muffled din. Another record started, but moaned to a halt after a moment—an unseen DJ, apparently having seen Vicky, directed two spots toward the piano.

Vicky began to sing:

Mom and Daddy joined the Peace Corps

Sister Susie did the same

Brother Michael is a priest now

And a cloister’s Sissy’s game

All my uncles are devoted

And my aunts, in grace they bask

With a saintly clan like mine is

Of myself I of-ten a-a-a-ask…”

At a nod from her, Roger played three resounding chords, and Vicky began swinging her legs outward—revealing high-laced basketball sneakers and gym socks—singing:

“
Wha-a-a-ats
a-a-a-a nice girl like me…

doin
’ in a place like this?”

The crowd roared with laughter and raves that continued for minutes, drowning her out. She looked at them with startled innocence, as if unaware that anyone else had been listening to ‘little old Ms. Vicky.’ She waited until they’d quieted down again before attempting to continue. Just as she was about to resume, a sharp raucous voice called out over the lull in the noise from the entrance: “Stop that lousy music and everyone stay right where you are. This is a
raid!
”

Lousy music!
Vicky was outraged. Someone was looking for trouble.

A police sergeant—tall, swarthy, and thick as a bull—elbowed and shoved his way through the stunned crowd to the center of the room followed by three deputies. The look on his wide, square face was one that Vicky recognized; she’d seen it before, many years before, the look of arrogance and disgust, as if he were surrounded by offensive vermin. He lacked only a swastika.

“The party’s over,
girls
,” he spat. “All of you, file out the door, and have your IDs ready.” His mouth stretched to a vicious sneer. “You’re all gonna be
celebrities!
Your families are gonna be able to read all about you in tomorrow’s paper…including your names!”

A roar of protest and fear sounded throughout the room.

“
Quiet
,” Sergeant shouted.

“What’s the charge, officer?” Vicky called, lifting her chin to see over the standees on the stage.

Sergeant looked up at her, surprised no doubt at hearing a woman’s voice. Vicky’s ire began to seethe as his face turned even surlier. She could almost feel his disdain projecting from across the room. “Affront to public morals…
lady
, ” he shot back at her. “This is a den of perverts and degenerates.” He looked around him, the area having been cleared where he stood, as if daring anyone to challenge him. No one moved; the “liberation” of the world’s large cities had begun, but had not yet filtered down into suburbia.

Vicky glared at him, wondering if she could throw the piano stool that far. “What ‘public’ are you referring to, Sergeant?” she called in a cold even voice. “I’m the public and so is everyone here. Anyone managing to even find this place would have to be a member of the Explorers’ Club. And as for morals,” she added. “I find it immoral that four public salaried employees are disrupting a private party while Halloween vandals are running rampant in town.”

“
Don’t tell me my job!”
Sergeant blared. “You’d better clear out of here before I arrest you for interfering with an officer in performance of his duty.”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Vicky said with a snide grin. Her voice changed to a delicate lilt. “May I speak to you for a moment…privately?”

“I got work to do,” came the gruff reply.

“Oh, but it’s about your work,” she said sweetly. “Just for a moment? It really is quite important, which I think you will agree.”

The crowd had been silent during the banter, feathers in repose, chains dormant. Only eyes moved as Vicky and Sergeant countered each other’s lines. When a path opened before Sergeant, he lumbered toward the podium and stood, his chest inflating with self-importance, glowering at her as she hopped down from the piano. Everyone else moved off the stage, leaving the two of them relatively alone. “What do you want, lady?” Sergeant asked, more as an order to speak than a question.

Vicky dug into a crease in her dress and drew forth her trusty pad and a pen. She stared straight ahead at his gleaming badge and began to write. “I now have your shield number,” she said, then looked up into the slits of his eyes.

“What for?”

“Because,” Vicky said firmly, “if I, or anyone else here, is subjected to more of your Gestapo treatment, I’m going to call the governor and have you
fired.
And I’ll make sure that you never work in public service in this state again…or anywhere else in the country!”

“Who the hell do you…?”

“A member of the governor’s family, that’s who.”

“Oh, really,” Sergeant said, shifting his shoulders as if he were about to pounce on her. “And who the hell might you be, his mother?”

“No,” Vicky replied with a coy flutter of her lashes. “I’m his
brother
!”

Sergeant was physically jolted, his eyes bulging as he leaned close to her, peering intently, angrily, into her face. “
Bull
!” he said. “You’re no guy, and the governor doesn’t have…”

“I
used
to be his brother,” Vicky said, “until I took a trip to
Denmark
a few years ago. A little nip and tuck and
voilá
, I became his sister…
big
sister, mind you, and he’s very protective of me.”

“I don’t believe you,” Sergeant said with a sneer, but sounded a bit hesitant. He appeared to diminish in size, uncertainty drawing his reddish brows toward his nose.

Vicky smiled up at him, stripping the mustache from her upper lip. “Well, handsome,” she said with honeyed tones, “I can prove it to you easily enough.” She reached up to finger the shiny badge on his shirt pocket. “We could step outside for a few minutes…but wouldn’t your deputies think it a little strange?”

“Hey,
watch
that!” Sergeant ordered. He flinched away, instinctively slapping at her hand and glanced nervously around him.

“Look,” Vicky said, leafing impatiently through her pad. Susanne and she had exchanged phone calls when they arranged for the
Opals
to perform at the mansion; Vicky still remembered the number. She wrote it on a page and thrust it at him. “Here, if you want to check my story, call Charlie.”

Sergeant snatched the paper from her hand. “Charlie who?”

“Charlie, the governor. My brother. Remember? This is his private number at the mansion. Ask him yourself.” Fortunately she knew that the governor was off campaigning with his family in
Philadelphia
. “And tell him that Lou sends his love.”

Creases of consternation crossed Sergeant’s brow. He stared at the paper before turning to a handsome young deputy who was standing just below him, off the stage, facing the crowd with the look of a plump chicken in a circle of wolves. Vicky couldn’t hear what Sergeant said to him, but the deputy’s reply was a shrill “
Me
?”

“You,” Sergeant stated. He pointed to the pay phone on the opposite wall. “It’s over there.”

“Excuse me,” the deputy muttered, trying to deepen his voice, but managing only to sound reedy. He move stiffly, head lowered, through the maze of costumed “predators.” When he reached the phone, he turned his back to it and faced outward into the sea of faces surrounding him, trying to dial over his shoulder.

“With elections almost here,” Vicky said to Sergeant, “you won’t have just the governor’s office on your back. You screw up the gubernatorial race and you’ll have the entire
party
after your butt. I’ve been a well-kept secret until now, and if you blow it just because you wanted to play Anita Bryant in police drag, you’ve had it in civil service.”

“Don’t threaten me, bud…lady,” he sneered. “I still…”

“
Sarge
?” came the deputy’s call from across the room. A narrow path was opened for him and he slunk along it, keeping firm eye contact with his “leader,” and avoiding everyone else’s. “It was the governor’s private phone,” he said, when he arrived at the stage. “The butler answered and sounded real
p.o.’d
that somebody had gotten the number.”

“Well, it’s up to you now, Sergeant,” Vicky said with a sly smile. “Either you leave us to our party, or you start looking for another job. And don’t forget to change your name; it’s sure to be on a blackballed list.”

Sergeant’s jaw was solidly set, his lower lip curled in anger as he turned to glare at her, fists balled at his sides. He stared menacingly at her for a long moment before muttering a guttural, “All right,” and turned to lord over the assemblage.

“I’m going to let this pass just this one time,” he announced in a harsh, threatening voice. “But you guys better straighten…better behave yourselves or we’ll be back and close this place down. You bunch a—”

“Oh, Sergeant,” Vicky called lightly and waited for him to turn. “I’m planning to buy a piece of this place, so I do hope we won’t have to go through all this rigmarole again…ever.”

Sergeant’s mouth opened in a snarl, his teeth-tips showing between taut lips, seething with fury. “Ugh!” he grunted and swung back to lurch his way through the still-silent group, muttering, “God-damned bunch a…” His final words were lost in the shuffle of feet and the increasing sound of conversation.

From where Vicky stood, she watched him surge through the door, followed by his deputies. The handsome young one was last, backing out, protecting the rear flank, so to speak. When the rest of the “posse” had gone, he turned to the crowd and gave a broad, palms-up shrug, with the unspoken message of: “What else could I do?”

Now, then,“ Vicky announced, replacing her Fu Manchu mustache, “who’s a girl have to goose to get a drink in this den of iniquity?”

“Magazines?”
Doris
asked, joining Vicky for breakfast.

“Christmas catalogues,” Vicky said, aligning the booklets from
Nieman
-Marcus, Trifles, The
Horchow
Collection and Bloomingdale’s,
and dropping them onto the vacant seat beside her. “Would you believe it? And it’s not even Thanksgiving yet. The next thing you know, they’ll be sending them out at Easter time.”

“Let me see them when you’re through, will you?”
Doris
asked. “I enjoy looking at the pictures of all those gorgeous things I can’t afford.”

Vicky nodded. “
Holiday
shopping isn’t the fun it used to be,” she said. “Gerald and I used to whisk through department stores like giddy vacuums, buying anything and everything that took our fancy. We wouldn’t decide who was to get what until we opened them at home and finished playing with the toys.” She smiled a gentle warm smile of remembrance.

“Catalogue shopping is certainly less wearing,”
Doris
said, “but I like to hold the gifts in my hands, know the textures, appreciate the colors and designs.”

“Oh, I agree,” Vicky said. “I started with the catalogues right after Gerald’s
acci
…when it became too much for me to do it alone.” She saw that
Doris
was about to question her, undoubtedly about Gerald, so she spoke quickly to leap into another subject of conversation. “When we were youngsters,” she began, “and were on the road a great deal, we’d send gifts from all over the world. Odd things, the sort you wouldn’t find in the
U.S.
or
England
, like stuffed koala bears from
Australia
, which were everyone’s favorites. And we’d have huge parties for the casts we were working with. Sometimes we even had the cast’s families travel to join us as a surprise, if they weren’t too far away. That was the most fun, seeing someone’s face light up with surprise and delight when their loved ones showed up unexpectedly.

“Oh, well,” she sighed. “That was long ago. Nowadays it’s catalogues and credit cards.” She looked up at
Doris
and laughed. “Don’t mind me, I’m just tired. Those rehearsals are starting to wear on me.”

“I’m not surprised,”
Doris
said. “It seems as if you’ve been rehearsing for ages. Is everything set for the performance?”

“Yes, thank goodness. Everything’s ready to go. I hope. ‘The Curious Savage’ will have its Sanctuary premier on Thanksgiving Day, but it may be a bomb. The cast has grown over-confident. They’ve rehearsed too long. I just hope that being in front of a real-live audience will reignite the spark in them. But, if not…then I’ll just have to think of something to upset their complacency.”

* * * *

“Five minutes to curtain, my fellow thespians,” Vicky announced to her actors with a grandiloquent sweep of her arms. They had congregated in the dining room, across the entryway from the parlor-cum-theatre. “Now none of you should be nervous,” she said. “You did splendidly in rehearsal and have your parts down pat”—
God knows,
she thought—“so do as well this evening as you’ve done all week and you will all be superb.”

“Where’s Sarah?”
Burton
asked, sounding anxious. Cast as Dr. Emmett, he was jacketed in white, with a stethoscope suspended from his neck. “We can’t start the play without her.”

“She is not
Sarah!”
Vicky snapped, for perhaps the hundredth time. “She’s Mrs.
Savage
. You must stay in character!”

“All right,”
Burton
said. “I just forgot. But where is she?”

“She’ll be down when it’s time for her entrance. Just concern yourself with your own part; don’t worry about what anyone else is doing.”

Betty Brown, a short, round woman bedecked in a curly, orange wig and a purple dress, was waving frantically at Vicky. She was to play Mrs. Savage’s daughter, a large role, but had become so blasé about her part that she projected as much characterization as a recorded weather forecaster. “What is it, Lily Belle?” Vicky asked.

“These shoes,” Betty whined. “You must have ordered the wrong size. They’re too tight.”

Vicky looked aghast. “You wear a five, don’t you?”

Betty hesitated, then admitted, “Five-and-a-half.”

“Oh, dear,” Vicky said, apologizing with an embarrassed grin. “Did I make a boo-boo? You look as if you have such dainty feet…and so charming, too. Do you think you can walk? If not, we can call off the play. I’m sure the audiences will
underst
—”

“No!” Betty blurted. “They’re fine! Perfect! Don’t hurt a bit.”

I’ll bet,
Vicky thought. She smiled with warm admiration. “Brave little soldier. I’ll tell you one of the secrets of our great acting tradition. When something bothers you, like those shoes, focus every ounce of concentration on your lines and blocking, then whatever is bothering you will disappear. I knew an actress who played
Medea
with a broken leg; the audience never knew. Try, dear. I know you will be brilliant.”

Betty’s face turned saintly as her thoughts left her feet and traveled through space to focus on her role. She drifted away a new-found woman with a mission.

“Now,” Vicky announced to the assembled cast as she peeked around the corner into the entranceway, “it seems that everyone has arrived, so let’s take our places. And remember…don’t look at the camera.”

“
Camera?
” the startled cast members emitted in stage whispers, much resembling members of a Greek chorus. “
What camera? Where? When did…?”

“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” Vicky asked, looking surprised. “Naughty me. I must be getting absent-minded. Shame on me. Well, never mind. Let’s get…”

“What…camera?!”
Burton
repeated. From the sound of his voice, it was obvious that he didn’t believe Vicky’s lapse of memory for a moment.

“It’s nothing to be concerned about,” Vicky said. “Really.” She shrugged with elaborate nonchalance. “Cameras aren’t people, you know. They’re just machines. It’ll be fun having a record of our performances…to see how well we all did.”

There was silence, uncertainty spreading from face to face.

“You won’t even see the camera,” Vicky said. “It’s way at the rear of the parlor, so just remember to face at least partway toward the audience when you have lines to say and not toward the back of the stage, as some of you have been doing.”

The silence grew deeper.

“Oh, come now,” Vicky said with a laugh. “Haven’t you always wanted to be in the movies? And wouldn’t you like to be able to send copies of the film to your families to show them how talented you are? Well?”

Elfin grins began to tickle the corners of the aged mouths before her. They were like bashful schoolchildren, eyes downcast, shuffling their feet, not wanting to admit openly that they were delighted.

That should perk up their performances
, Vicky thought, ushering them through the door. If so, maybe she would hire a filmmaker for the next performance.

* * * *

The play was set in the parlor of a “home,” not unlike the Sanctuary, so only minor adjustments had to be made for the setting. Bookshelves had been erected in the space between the two tall windows, a swoop-backed sofa moved to occupy the center of the playing area, and a flowery carpet spread to delineate the boundaries of the set.

The actors entered through the curtained doorway on “stage left,” greeted by rousing applause from the darkened “auditorium,” of which they pretended to be unaware—under Vicky’s threat of decapitation.

Act One began and continued for about five minutes, displaying the various eccentricities of the home’s “guests.” Vicky’s Mrs. Paddy remained seated quietly at stage left, determinedly splattering gobs of blue paint onto a canvas before her until, without notice or reason, and interrupting an exchange of inane pleasantries, she rose to face the audience. A paisley turban canted precariously over her left ear as she delivered her first line in a voice she hadn’t used in rehearsals: the voice of an old crone:

“I hate everything in the world,” she croaked, “but most of all I hate cold cream, hot dogs, codfish, crawfish, catsup, catnip, sheep dip, sawdust, subways, sewers, skewers, buttermilk, caterpillars, frictions, fractions, pins, puns, pens, policemen, and electricity.”

She sat again, her feet planted wide apart, and leaned an elbow on her tartan-skirted knee, staring straight ahead—then attacked her “seascape” with vigorous thrusts of a two-foot brush.

One, two, three, four, five,
she counted to herself and, as if on a pre-planned cue, the stunned silence that followed her monologue was broken by spontaneous applause and laughter from the audience. Her co-performers reacted, too—with temporary catatonia—but managed to recover as the ovation subsided.

Good going, my darlings
, Vicky cheered silently. She nipped at the end of her paintbrush to keep from smiling.
Stay on your toes, focus, and most important…don’t step on my applause.

The home’s “guests” speculated as to what the new addition to their membership, Mrs. Savage, would be like, increasing the curiosity and expectations of the audience until, finally, the line was delivered: “Will you come here, Mrs. Savage?”

A white spotlight—
grossly theatrical
, thought Vicky,
but she is the star after all
—blossomed in the doorway, as Sarah made her entrance.

A gasp sounded throughout the room, singular, as if all in the audience caught their breaths at the same time—which they had, including Vicky.

Sarah was stunning! The purple had been leached from her hair, leaving it a soft, glowing silver, iridescent in the light, swooping to caress her face in gentle swirls. Applause rushed to envelope her, louder and more enthusiastic than it had been earlier, making the pale rose blush of her face deepen in intensity. She smiled graciously, stroking the teddy bear she held to her chest with true emotion.

Vicky turned back to her canvas, allowing a smile to play at the corners of her lips, certain that no one would be watching her. Larry had shown himself to be a genius, proving his talents over Sarah’s protestations that she could do her own hair and makeup.

During Act Two, Vicky realized that the novelty of a live audience, and the little surprises that she’d arranged, had worn off. Lines were being delivered with near monotone dullness.
Burton
, especially, sounded absolutely bored; he might have been reciting a multiplication table for all the emotion his voice conveyed.

But Vicky was prepared. She arose from behind her easel just before one of his lines, crossed to him and, into the teacup he was holding, dropped a toy shrunken head with
THIMK
printed across its forehead. She turned and walked away, hearing the teacup rattle against the saucer as she returned to her place on stage.

When she turned again, to look at Betty Brown, who had been mumbling her lines, all the actors on stage instinctively covered their cups. Taking aim at Betty, Vicky blew the paper sleeve of a drinking straw across the stage.

Since the “guests” at the home were all strange in one way or another, the audience didn’t interpret Vicky’s (Mrs. Paddy’s) actions as especially peculiar—but the actors did, responding with the acuity of a senior elocution class. Which was fortunate for them, since Vicky’s next “surprise” was to mime shooting at imaginary birds with an invisible rifle.

Act Three went beautifully, and when it became obvious that Mrs. Savage need no longer stay at the home, Sarah went from guest to guest, bidding each farewell. Last, she came to Vicky, hugging her with fervent warmth.

“I hate everything in the world,” Vicky croaked in character and jumped abruptly to her feet behind the easel. She paused, turning to Sarah with her head lowered. In a softer, but still rasping voice, she repeated: “I hate everything in the world…but…” Her lips trembled and the words caught in her throat. She took a deep breath, and then raised her head to look into Sarah’s eyes. Her words burst forth: “I hate everything in the world but you, and I love you, and I wish you wouldn’t leave us.” She saw the glints of moisture form in Sarah’s eyes; then she fled the stage, her face buried in her hands.

There was silence, at times the most flattering sound an actor can receive. “Leave them laughing, or leave them crying,” Gerald had often told her. “Just make sure that after you’re gone they’ll remember you were there.”

* * * *

“Where on earth did that old-crone voice come from?”
Doris
asked Vicky after the play. They were circulating through the audience. The bows had been taken, the praises accepted with graciousness, and everyone sported plastic cups of champagne.