Page 16 of Script Swap (The Last Picks #11)

If anything, The Foxworthy was even busier the next night.

Hastings Rock has a lot of good qualities, but the residents do love a murder, and they’d turned out in droves to see what was going to happen at tonight’s performance.

Jemitha Green was there to take pictures for the local newspaper—it was mostly a tourist gimmick, but Jemitha did some real reporting too and sold the stories to larger news outlets.

Cyd Wofford, our resident Marxist, was there.

He was handing out pamphlets on the evil of the theater and the use of mass entertainment to quell the masses.

(I know because he cornered me and read half of it out loud before Bobby could rescue me.) Mr. Cheek was there too.

He’d come in drag as a young Vivienne Carver, and he was carrying a sign that said VILLAINS ARE THE HEROES OF THEIR OWN STORY.

Which I have to admit I took kind of personally.

I also didn’t like it when he tried to goose Bobby’s bum, but I loved it when Bobby got this look on his face and turned around.

If you want to see an aging drag queen try to run in heels.

“Maybe we should move,” Bobby said as he took my arm and steered me toward the theater—er, theatre’s—entrance. “I think he’s getting bolder.”

“He’s definitely getting bolder,” I said.

Tonight, I’d worn extremely skinny jeans (black), this super cute shirt with horizontal stripes (and no matter what Keme said, it did not make me look like a gay sailor), and a scarf that might have been a little too jaunty.

My fear was that Mr. Cheek would use the scarf to murder me, but I was starting to suspect I should have been more worried about the jeans and, uh, chafing.

“He’s getting so bold he’s going to push me in front of a bus and pretend to be me. ”

“The wig would eventually give him away,” Bobby said.

With Bobby, sometimes it was hard to tell if he was joking.

We made our way into the theater and found Fox waiting in the lobby.

Somehow, it was even more of a madhouse than outside, with people mingling and chatting and clamoring for Coke and popcorn.

(And those little Butterfinger Bites that are in- sanely good, and calories don’t count if you chop them up small like that.) Fox gave us a tight grimace that failed to turn into a smile, beckoned for us to follow, and started down the hall.

“Would you ever want to?” Bobby asked.

“What?”

“Move.”

“Oh. Um, I don’t know. I mean, Hemlock House is here.”

“Indira would take care of it. And Fox. And Keme and Millie are going to need a place to live. They’d take good care of it.”

“Right, but I don’t know. Our lives are here.”

“Our lives are wherever we are.”

“But you’ve got a job. And I’ve kind of got a job. I mean, I’ve got two-fifths of a job, if you want to be technical about a full-time teaching load.”

“I could do something different.”

I actually stopped walking.

Bobby took another step, glanced back, and said, as though explaining, “Something that makes more money.”

Because I honestly had zero idea how to respond to that, I said, “Our friends are here.”

“I’m not saying it wouldn’t be a big change.”

The conversation had caught me flatfooted—metaphorically and literally—and now my brain finally caught up and pointed out the question that I should have asked: “Do you want to move?”

“I don’t know.” And then: “Maybe.”

Down the hall, Fox was waving for us.

“Oh,” I finally managed to say. “Okay.”

That conversation definitely would have continued, except Fox called, “Hurry up!”

So, I started walking again. When we reached Fox, they swung open the door to backstage and ushered us through.

The first thing I saw was a young man with dark hair wearing an Xbox hoodie that I was ninety-nine percent sure I owned and my exact same Mexico 66s. (Also, his joggers looked super comfortable, like maybe even loungier than mine.)

Facing him, her brow furrowed with concentration, Pippi Parker was saying, “The big blue bug bit the big black bear and the big black bear bled blue blood. You love New York, you need New York, you know you love unique New York,” and the boy was repeating after her.

That was when I finally recognized him. It was Dylan, Pippi’s oldest son. Normally, he was a dishwater blond. Like all of Pippi’s children, he was painfully polite and well-mannered, not to mention obnoxiously friendly. (Can you tell I’m good with kids?)

“Dashiell!” Pippi screamed with excitement.

Poor Dylan jolted back, probably because he’d lost an eardrum.

“Isn’t he your spitting image? Come over here! Come here! Come right here and stand next to him! You look like twins!”

“We do not look like twins” was apparently my strongest retort. And then I said, “My God, what did you do to his hair?”

“Isn’t it wonderful? It’s the exact same color as yours.”

“It looks like you used Magic Marker on it!”

“Although I have to say,” Pippi said in a cloyingly confidential aside—playing to the back, so to speak—“I think my Dylan is a touch more handsome.”

“Gee,” Dylan said. “Thanks, Mom!”

I couldn’t help my voice from rising in a quavery “Bobby!”

“Okay,” Bobby said, squeezing my arm.

Pippi, of course, was unfazed. “Scoot that little tush of yours over here. You’ve got perfect timing. You can help me coach Dylan—he was Kyson’s understudy. What an opportunity, right?”

I mean: My. God.

At that point, Pippi nudged Dylan, who cleared his throat and dutifully recited, “We’re so sorry to lose our friend and colleague Kyson Swetz. It’s my honor and privilege to play the part of Daniel Dank in tonight’s performance.”

“Isn’t he a star?” Pippi asked. “Dylan, do the bit where Dash screams in terror and begs Vivienne not to kill him?”

“What is happening?” I asked. “Where am I? Is this a nightmare?”

A thud followed by a crash made Fox say, “I’ll be right back,” and they hurried away, leaving Bobby and me to Pippi’s newfound outlet for her insanity: as a theater mom.

Dylan beamed at me. “Mr. Dane, did you know the character of Daniel Dank is based on you?”

“How could I not know that?” I asked.

“In my Drama One class, Mrs. Owler said that a true actor inhabits their character by tapping into their primal fears. Would you say that your primal fear is the fear of being loved? Or the fear of being abandoned?”

This high-pitched noise started in my head.

Dylan looked slightly embarrassed as he added, “Those were the only two we learned.”

I didn’t have words. Except, apparently, I did because I said, “Both! Obviously!”

“Excuse us, Pippi,” Bobby said. “We need to talk to Terrence.”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” Pippi said as she took out what appeared to be shoe polish and started touching up Dylan’s hair. “The sheriff already knows Terrence killed Kyson. Dash and I have done it again!”

“Done what again?” I asked; the shrill note in my voice was about two steps away from hysteria.

“Solved the murder, dear. Dylan, can you do that with your voice? ‘Done what again?’ ‘Done what’ —are you hearing it? Like a fishwife who got her bra caught on a hook.”

“What in the world—”

“Do what again?” Dylan parroted.

I kid you not: Pippi was glowing. She chose that moment to pick up a can and shake it a few times. “Now, Dash, how much hairspray do you use?”

And, can hissing, she began spraying Dylan.

“None,” I said. “Zero. I don’t even use hairspray.”

Raising her voice to be heard over the can, Pippi called, “Just tell me when to stop.”

“Here we go,” Bobby said, and he escorted me away from Pippi and Dylan. We moved across the stage in the direction Fox had gone.

“Did you see—” I began.

“I know,” Bobby said.

“But did you hear—”

“Yep.”

“And she—”

“I know, babe.” And then, somehow Bobby made it all so much worse when he said stoutly, “I think your new haircut is cute.”

Cue the most theatrical scream ever in the history of screaming at boyfriends.

On the other side of the stage, Fox was arguing with Tinny. The young woman was dressed today in more neutrals. A beige sports bra. Silver yoga pants. Little black sneakers that were surprisingly cute. At my approach, Tinny blanched and shot toward the exit door. Fox hustled after her.

“That wasn’t suspicious,” I said.

“She’s no good.” Jonni’s voice had a quality that I imagine she thought of as sultry, womanly, and provocative.

My description would have been: someone scraping the side of a matchbox, but with more phlegm.

Already in costume, Jonni was fixing her pantyhose and, in the process, flashing a lot of leg.

She looked up, pretended to catch us watching her, and gave a pouty little smile like she’d done something naughty and gotten caught.

It was a lot.

“Have you seen Terrence?” I asked.

“He’s around here somewhere, I’m sure,” Jonni said. “Not that it matters; he lets that little tart make all the decisions. She’s a nitpicker. A million little criticisms about everything. And we all have to do what she says, even though she doesn’t have the guts to say it to my face.”

“Tinny?” Bobby asked.

“She’s been sneaking around for weeks,” Jonni said. “She thinks nobody notices her because she’s such a little mouse. Well, she’s got something to learn about this business. In this business, you know what happens to little mice? They get eaten.”

“What do you mean, she’s been sneaking around?” I asked.

“It’s not like you can miss her—all those necklaces and crystals and gewgaws, she makes so much noise when she moves it sounds like somebody put a jewelry box in a paint mixer. I thought she was boffing Kyson, but here she is, still sneaking around, so…” Jonni trailed off with a shrug.

“Thank you,” I said, “for the perfect segue. Were you boffing Kyson?”

Jonni’s eyes got huge, and for a moment, dread filled me: she was going to go for outrage or shock or disbelief.

Instead, she started to laugh. “My God. Who told you that?”

“No one told me,” I said. “I found your photo.”

Jonni’s face was blank with incomprehension.