Page 7 of Script Swap (The Last Picks #11)

“I’m fine,” I said for the fourth time. I was seated on a crate near one of the storage rooms, and I was still trembling as my body dealt with the realization that I’d almost died. “I don’t need anything.”

“But you could have been killed!” Fox’s voice was higher than usual.

“Sorry about that.” The voice came from the catwalk. When I looked up, a shadow moved against the backdrop of lights. I had to blink frantically to try to bring the shape into focus—and to try to keep my contacts from popping out. With a vague laugh, the man added, “Slipped.”

“Slipped?” I repeated.

“For God’s sake, Milton,” Terrence shouted. He was still holding on to Tinny. “Be careful!”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Foxworthy.”

“Think of the liability!”

“Yes, sir.”

Terrence eyeballed me and said to Fox, “He’s not going to sue, is he?”

I opened my mouth because I definitely had a witty riposte to that, but Fox said hurriedly, “No, he’s not going to sue.”

Terrence shook his head like he’d already forgotten me, but Tinny was still watching me.

I wasn’t sure, but I thought she was trying not to smile.

Then Terrence turned her toward the front of the house, and as he steered her away, he muttered—more to himself than to anyone else—“A shadow on the glass.”

I watched them go. Next to me, Fox had the tightly coiled rage of someone who might like to throw a wrench or two themselves.

“A shadow on the glass,” they muttered. “Give me a break. The only shadow on the glass is the one she’s casting.”

“Uh, right,” I said.

“What do we do now?” Fox said. “How do we prove it was her?”

“Huh?”

“That leech attached to my father. How do we prove she did it?”

“Did what?”

“Swapped the script. Good God, Dash, have you even been paying attention?”

I shot my eyebrows.

With a slow exhalation, Fox put their hands on their hips.

“I’m sorry.” They took a pace one way. Then back.

Today they were wearing some sort of leather jerkin that made me think of an elf with pretty hair, and they tugged at one armhole now.

“I am sorry, Dash.” In a tighter voice, they added, “I hate this.”

“Is there a reason you think Tinny is involved?” I asked. “Did she do something? Say something?” I hesitated and then said, “She wasn’t in her seat when the lights went out.”

Fox made a sound of disgust and shook their head. “My father insists she was in the restroom.”

“So… you do think she’s involved somehow?”

“Of course she is. She has to be.”

“Uh—” I tried to think of a politic way to say it, but the best I could come up with was “Why?”

“Because my father is a fool,” Fox said. “And this is all part of her plan.”

I almost asked, What plan? But the adrenaline was draining out of me, and my brain was coming back online, and—most importantly—it was clear that Fox had already made up their mind about what was happening here.

I, on the other hand, had no idea what was happening.

Which honestly shouldn’t sound so bad. I mean, I’d literally just gotten here. And I’d almost died. And it’s not like I even knew what everyone was so worked up about. I mean, the money—

Yeah, what about the money?

“Fox,” I said.

They were still glaring in the direction Tinny and Terrence had gone.

“Fox!”

They glanced over.

“What’s going on here?”

“She’s trying to steal—”

“No, what’s going on? Someone altering Kyson’s script, the lights going out, the stolen money—it’s too much. Or not enough. Or something.”

Fox stared at me. And then finally they said, “He’s struggling.

Financially, I mean.” I opened my mouth to explain that this was exactly why I was so confused—why did anyone care so much about the script?

—but before I could, Fox went on, “The theater has always struggled, and it’s worse now than it used to be.

People don’t want to take their families to see a play on a rainy day.

They take them to play laser tag or drive go-karts.

He’s turning the storage room upstairs into an event space, and renting that out will help—there aren’t enough venues for large groups in Hastings Rock—but it’s…

difficult right now.” After a deep breath, Fox added, “I’m sorry he spoke to you the way he did. ”

Raised voices came from farther back in the building. Women’s voices.

Fox turned their eyes skyward and sighed.

“Who’s—” I began.

One of the backstage doors flew open, and Jonni strode backstage.

Instead of her Pippi/Penny costume from the show, she had on black yoga pants and a pink sports bra.

The pink didn’t exactly go with her rust-colored curls, and the spandexy material of the sports bra bit into the flesh of her shoulders and sides.

Her cheeks were red, and she was waving her arms in the air.

“Fine, forget it, never mind!” she was shouting. “I’m done! I don’t have to put up with this! Find yourself someone else for this—for this hick town!”

Behind her came a small woman with a bob of dark hair and the padding of middle age.

Well, and the extra padding of her work shirt and fishing vest (and, for the record, cargo pants).

She was carrying a clipboard, and she moved like a tiny icebreaker—the general impression was that if you didn’t get out of her way, you were the one who’d be the worse for it.

“I’m sorry, Jonni,” this new woman was saying. “What’s wrong with your room? Maybe I can fix it.”

Never give an actor an opening.

It was the perfect line, and apparently one that Jonni had been waiting for, because she whirled around and stabbed a finger at the smaller woman.

“You can’t fix it . Can you fix a mortal insult?

Can you fix public humiliation? Bad enough that I have to put up with the demands of that odious little girl, but now this! ”

“You can have my room.” The words came from Nora Day, who now stood in the doorway watching the action unfold.

She wasn’t wearing her costume either (thank God; seeing her dressed as Vivienne might have given me a nice, efficient little nervous breakdown), but she also wasn’t dressed in the Biker Dolly Parton getup from her publicity photos.

Instead, she was in sweats, no makeup, and she looked like somebody you might pass on a jog or in the Keel Haul.

Admittedly, someone still quite striking, but an ordinary person, and carrying a whiff of perfume. Jasmine?

Jonni drew in a furious breath. But something about Nora’s poise seemed to have thrown her off balance, and she struggled visibly before saying in a more reasoned tone, “That’s kind of you, Nora, but that’s not the point.”

“Jonni, I thought you wanted that dressing room—”

“What I want is to be treated with a modicum of dignity. What I want is to be treated with an ounce of respect! I don’t have to live like this.

I don’t have to live this tiny, sheltered little existence, afraid of everything that moves, making myself smaller so that the rest of the world can feel bigger.

I deserve to be happy! And I deserve the right to make myself happy! ”

If that speech sounds like a non sequitur to you, it’s because she was cribbing those lines from The Mousewife .

“I’m sure if we talk to Kyson,” Nora began.

Jonni screamed.

Not a little scream.

Not a scream for the faint of heart. (Or for that matter, anyone with a heart condition.)

It went on and on, running up into the high, empty space above the stage, clanging around up there with the catwalks and the light trusses. It was earsplitting. It demonstrated tremendous lung capacity. And it was a great reminder that theaters are built with acoustics in mind.

Jonni cut off, gave us all a satisfied look, and stormed offstage.

Fox was checking their ears for blood. I, on the other hand, had that slightly concussed feeling I got after long conversations with Millie.

The smaller woman gave Nora a helpless shrug.

“I’ll talk to her,” Nora said.

A man poked his head through the doorway to glance around, and then he slipped backstage like he thought nobody would see him.

White, sixties. He was dressed in a uniform similar to the woman’s, and he had graying hair that he wore long, probably to compensate for the fact that he was going bald in front.

A square jaw, a hint of a double chin. Nora glanced over at him, and he smiled and crossed his arms and leaned against the wall.

That was all I needed to see to peg him as one of those guys who aren’t as good looking as they think they are.

“Come on, Milton,” the smaller woman said. “We’ve got to take a look at Jonni’s dressing room.”

“Again?” Then, a little too quickly, he said, “Terrence wants me to—”

“Nice try,” the woman said as she started toward the doors. “Let’s do this.”

And then it was just us and Nora.

“Ms. Day?” I said. “Do you have a minute?”

“What are you doing?” Fox whispered.

Ignoring them, I made my way across the stage toward Nora. She was giving me a considering once-over. And then her eyes narrowed.

“I’m—” I began.

“Dashiell Dawson Dane,” she said, and the note in her voice was genuine pleasure. She took my hand. “God, I thought you looked familiar. Do you know how many times I’ve watched the video of your writing panel?”

If you can imagine the sound of tires screeching—and, subsequently, my mind going absolutely, completely blank—you can imagine why the next word out of my mouth was more of a noise. “Uhhh.”

“Well, they didn’t do too badly with Kyson, did they?” she said, and she leaned to one side and then to the other, viewing me from different angles. “But it’s not the same effect. I have so many questions for you.”

Apparently I did too because I said, “What video?”

Nora burst out laughing. “Oh my God, I must sound insane. Hello, Fox.”

“Hi, Miss Nora.”

I had never heard Fox talk to anyone like that—their usual wry tone had been replaced by what I would have called, from someone else, an almost childlike respect.