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.I started looking around the office.It was so like Jonathan, all flashy chrome pole lamps and chrome-framed designer furniture.expensive, handsome, sterile.In it, The Fury was the single spot of life and emotion.I leaned across the desk to touch a sonic vane.The motion stirred the air and set the sculpture keening.The sound plucked at my nerves.It was like a wail of grief, sharp and unrelenting.It carried after me out of the substage and followed me all the way back to the practice hall.* * * *The last three days before the opening were hectic.The costumes were ready, and Tommy and I started wearing ours while we practiced in Jonathan’s office.Miles disappeared.I never saw him except in glimpses coming and going.The once I saw him long enough to ask him about his costumes, he only laughed in a long, sibilant hiss, and winked.“It’s more of a body makeup.You’ll like it.It’s spectacular.”Tommy and I learned to know the office so well we could cross it in the dark.I came to recognize the feel of every piece of furniture, the location of every holographic book in the projection-wall bookcases.Tommy seemed to have recovered from his upset the day I went to Aventine.He was a gentle Jonathan on the set and almost his old self offstage, only a little subdued by his character’s persona.We were all developing first-night nerves.In a sense, every night of the run would be an opening night, but we were products enough of conventional drama to find something special in the very first night.Also, in spite of the practice scenarios, we could still not predict exactly how the characters would react.The course and end of the play were no certainty.The agony of anticipation was almost unbearable.“Think about Zach Weigand,” Brian said the afternoon of the opening.“He’s going to be in the audience tonight chewing his knuckles, wondering if we’ll dispose as he has proposed.He’s much more nervous than any of you.” He herded us toward the door.“Go rest, or meditate, whatever you need to do to be at your best.Be back by seven at the latest.The lights go down at eight.”I took a cab back to the hotel.I always think I’m going to take a nap before an opening, or lose myself in a light novel.I had the book ready.But I ended up doing what I always do.I paced, nerves singing like high-tension wires.I fought to keep from biting my manicure into ruin.Inevitably, I picked up the phone and called Karol Gardener.His voice came laughing back at me over the wire.“Very good, pet.You held out fifteen minutes longer than usual.I have a drink in my hand.I raise it in a toast to you.”I kept pacing, taking the phone with me, phone in one hand, receiver in the other.“You’d think I’d learn to have more faith in myself, wouldn’t you, but here I am lost once more in the dreadful broody ‘what-ifs.’ Tell me I’m not going to lay an egg.”“My darling Noir, there is no way in this glorious galaxy you can lay an egg.You’ll be superb as Allegra Nightengale.Remember, Brian wanted you and no one else for the part.Do you doubt Brian Eleazar’s judgment?”I stopped.I felt cold.‘Wanted me and no one else? Where did you hear that?”“Prying into the affairs of other agents, pet.Vonda King and Maya Chaplain had their agents wooing him for weeks, but after he had asked around, Brian came after you.He wouldn’t hear of anyone else.”Why did that disturb me so? “Asked around where?”‘Well, he talked to Charlotte DeMetro, for one.”Charlotte DeMetro? Why would a director talk to a gossip columnist when he was looking for someone to take a character? Because, a small voice in me whispered, gossip columnists know things like who has what phobias and what kind of family histories.Charlotte knew more skeletons than any other five columnists put together.Why should gossip be important in finding an actress, though?I did not have time to think about it [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]