Embrace the Grim Reaper Read online

  When Casey had finished cleaning the dining room, Loretta (Hallelujah! Praise God!) had insisted on feeding her before letting her leave. Casey didn’t argue. There was just enough leftover soup for the three of them, and even a little fruit. Johnny cheerfully slurped his way through his bowl after bestowing Casey with a set of silverware. She had thanked him solemnly, and he sat next to her so closely she couldn’t move her left arm.

  “Birthday cake for the nice lady,” Johnny said when she was done, handing her a corner piece with a wilted icing flower.

  “Thank you. Who’s birthday was it? One of the children?”

  “Oh, no, baby,” Loretta said. “It was Eric’s, the dear boy.”

  “And how old is he?”

  Johnny pursed his lips, and Loretta stared at Casey’s cake. “Somewhere in his twenties. Or is he thirty now? He didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, but he’s such a precious child of God we didn’t want to miss it. Thank you Jesus!”

  Casey ate her cake, but didn’t ask any more questions.

  Now she stood outside after retrieving her bag from the locker room, and for the second time in one day she had a full belly. The air in the darkening evening had chilled, and Casey pulled a jacket from her pack, zipping it up to her chin. She looked back into the building, but the lights were off, and everything was quiet.

  Time to find somewhere for the night.

  She heaved her bag onto her back and started down the sidewalk. She should’ve asked the others where to stay, and wondered why she didn’t. Forgot. Or didn’t want to sound needy. Whichever it was, she was paying for it now as she cast an eye toward the starless sky. She hoped it wasn’t about to rain again.

  A few blocks down the street she found an enclosed—and apparently unused—bus stop, and she stepped in to look at the map on the wall. An X designated where she stood, but no names, other than streets, gave her any information of which colored square might be a hotel. Giving up on that, she perused the information sheets taped to the wall. Advertisements for baby-sitting, with phone number tabs to pull off, an announcement of a church fish fry for the previous Friday, and a schedule of the local high school’s fall sports. There was also a call for garage sale items to benefit the family of a woman named Ellen Schneider, who “left us before her time.”

  Casey sucked in her breath as she read the fine print below the announcement. Ellen, a resident of the town, had died suddenly the week before, leaving her two school-age children parentless, with no father in the picture. No details about her death. No explanations. Casey gritted her teeth. Death must’ve been especially bored. A young single mother? Sudden death? Casey’s breath came fast and hard, and she pulled her eyes from the poster, concentrating on her heartbeat. a-One. a-Two. a-Three.

  She forced herself to look beyond the garage sale notice, and continued past a homemade sign depicting a lost cat named Snowball, to yet one more faded announcement, this time for play auditions, held almost two weeks earlier. Twelfth Night. A rather strange choice for a dying town. But then, maybe they needed all the humor they could get.

  The paper fluttered in the breeze, two of the four corners ripped from the tape, and Casey held it down to read it. Open try-outs, it said. Anyone interested was to come by the Albion Theater one of the two nights. Rehearsals would begin the next week. Which would be last week, Casey thought. She found the theater on the map, its address plainly stated on the announcement. She looked at the sky. Wasn’t raining yet. And maybe they were rehearsing. It would give her something to do other than camp out in a hotel room, watching cable and being angry with Death.

  It wasn’t hard to find the Albion. In fact, she’d already passed it when she first got to town, only she’d thought it was a movie theater. It probably had been, in its earlier days. Posters covered the front windows, with photos of past productions displayed prominently. The Foreigner, Little Women, Cheaper by the Dozen. Casey swallowed. Looked away. Found the front door, and went in.

  The lobby was dark, with only emergency lights illuminating the open space. Benches lined the walls, and a display stand held an unfinished board showing a few of the play’s cast. A stack of loose photos lay on the floor, waiting for positioning on the sign. Community production, Casey thought, the visible headshots just missing the mark of professionals.

  Voices seeped through the double doors from what Casey imagined was the theater space. She stood with her ear against the crack, listening for a moment before easing one side open and slipping in.

  The musty smell hit her, almost a physical assault, and she closed her eyes, memories cascading through her mind as she stood in the aisle, her hands grasping one of the seats. The voices of the actors drifted over her, underscored by the quiet hum of the house lights, and slowly she regained her equilibrium. Opening her eyes, she slipped into the back row and lowered herself into one of the lumpy seats. Dust motes floated in the light from the instruments hanging on the catwalk, and the distant actors now stood quiet, looking down at the director, a silhouette in the front row.

  Casey let the sounds, the smells, and the lights wash over her as she traveled back. Back to life before Omar. Before now. Her muscles tightened in response to her thoughts, remembering the feel of the stage, the thrill of a full house.

  The sharp voice of the director snapped her out of her memories, and she broke out in an instant sweat. The director clearly wasn’t happy with what he’d seen. His words, plainly heard from where she sat, were clipped and harsh, and the actors stood hunchbacked as they listened.

  “I am at a loss,” the director said. “I know we are without one of our leading ladies. I know Becca here is filling in, but…” He held his hands up, as in supplication. “Is this really the best you can do?”

  Casey sat up in her seat, squinting toward the front of the theater. Was someone sitting with the director? Was there a stage manager, taking down blocking, answering the calls for ‘Line’?” Trying to keep the director from actually killing his cast members? No one that she could see. She sank back in her chair to take a closer look at the actors.

  And allowed a small smile.

  I have something at seven, Eric had said.

  He stood on stage beside the female lead, rubbing a hand through his hair as the director spoke. He looked much younger under the house lights than he had at the soup kitchen, where the pain of his constituents was etched into his face. Now his sandy hair shadowed his eyes, and his face was revealed as a smooth white blur. Casey rested her elbows on the arms of the chair, her hands dangling over her stomach as she watched Eric resume his place by a reclining lawn chair, obviously a rehearsal prop.

  “Okay,” the man in the front row said. “Page twenty-three. Viola’s scene with Feste, Toby, and Andrew. See if we can’t generate something interesting. Come on, people. Go.”

  Casey winced as the woman began speaking. Not exactly Equity quality. But then, the director had said she was filling in, and Shakespeare wasn’t the easiest for anybody, let alone someone in a tiny Midwestern town who’d probably never seen a union production of anything, let alone Twelfth Night. The other two actors in the scene offered their lines, a duet of not enough inflection and way too much, but they were young, maybe not even out of high school, and actually better than the woman. Soon it was Eric’s turn, and Casey held her breath, wishing she’d left before hearing him, as she’d liked him and wanted to be able to think of him without remembering badly done Shakespeare. But it was too late, and she gritted her teeth, waiting.

  As he spoke she sat up straighter. Eric was not only leagues above the others, but equal to the actors she’d worked with in Seattle, Cleveland, and Chicago. She looked around, feeling as if she were on one of those dreadful reality shows, someone waiting in the wings to surprise her with a sudden flash of a camera.

  But it was no joke.

  Listening with growing surprise and wonder at Eric’s quality of acting, she shook her head. Who would’ve thought, here in…what was the town called? Clyme
r? And really, what on earth was someone with his talent doing in a community production?

  Shocked, Casey remained in her seat, not even minding the slaughtering of the language going on around Eric. It was worth it, just hearing him open his mouth. She wondered what the director was thinking. Was he irritated because the others couldn’t possibly act to Eric’s standard? Was he another talented man, like Eric, who was for some incomprehensible reason here in this tiny town doing community theater? Or was he one of those all-too-common folks who think they know a lot more about theater than they actually do?

  The scene played out, and the actors looked toward the director. Casey watched Eric, but his expression revealed nothing. Not anxiety, not hope. Not even much interest. Casey checked out the others, only to see the lack of emotion repeated. The only actor really listening as the director ranted was the younger man playing Sir Toby, his eyes rapt on the director’s face.

  “Enough for tonight,” the director said with a jerk of his hand. “Go home. Go over your blocking. Learn your lines, for God’s sake. Do something.” He stood, shoved his notebook into a bag, and before Casey had a chance to react he was striding down the aisle toward her seat. There was nowhere to hide, and the director stopped by her chair, lifting his hands toward the ceiling.

  “It’s about time,” he said. “I thought you’d never get here.”

  Chapter Five

  Casey blinked. “Excuse me?”

  The director frowned. “I spoke with you ages ago. You’d think you could show up before we all grew old.”

  Casey placed her feet flat on the floor and eased herself up out of her seat to stand in front of the director, aware of her personal space and how close he was to violating it. “I’m not here for you.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “Oh, really? Then who, exactly, are you here for? Those people?” He jerked a thumb backward toward the stage. “When I get a commitment from an actress, no matter how good she thinks she is, I expect her to be here for me. I don’t tolerate prima donnas.”

  Movement behind the man distracted Casey, and Eric peered around the man’s shoulder, his face flooding with red.

  “Thomas,” he said. “She’s not the one.”

  The director stared at her for a few more seconds before acknowledging Eric. “Well, then, who is she?”

  The rest of the cast was there now, too, and they all watched her, expressions much more animated than five minutes before on the stage. Eric grinned. “Her name’s Casey Smith. She helped out at dinner tonight.”

  Thomas looked her up and down. “I should’ve known. I bet you couldn’t act your way out of a paper bag, could you, sweetheart?”

  A roar filled Casey’s head. She glanced at Eric’s face, now white, and gave a grim smile. She forced herself to look back at the director. “You don’t think so?” She held out her hand.

  He sneered at her outstretched palm. “What?”

  “A script, please.”

  “But—”

  “Or a paper bag.”

  The director’s eyes narrowed at the snickers from the cast. “Eric?”

  “Yes.” Eric’s face was rigid with suppressed laughter.

  “Get the lady a script. And read something with her.”

  “Sure thing.” He turned to the woman he’d been acting with and smiled. “Care to share your script, Becca?”

  Becca’s face tightened, and she glanced at Casey. “Eric…”

  “Come on, Becca. What can it hurt?”

  Becca took a deep breath, looked at the ceiling, and reached into her purse. “Here.”

  “Thanks. Come on, Casey.”

  Casey eased around the director and accompanied Eric down the aisle to the stage.

  “You know this play?” Eric asked.

  “Intimately.”

  He glanced at her with surprise. “Any choice, then, on what scene we do?”

  Her lips formed a tight line. “How about the conflict scene with Sir Andrew and Viola?”

  “I guess that would be—”

  “How are you with fighting?”

  He gave a soft chuckle. “You mean in real life or on the stage? I’ve got experience with both. Although off-stage it’s been much less violent.” He grinned. “But as you can see, we haven’t graduated to using practice swords yet. He—” He jerked a thumb toward the director “—says he’s waiting till he’s convinced we’re ready for the weapons. I think he just doesn’t know any fight choreographers.”

  Casey laughed. “We don’t need swords. If I say two left jabs and a half roundhouse before a contact stomach punch, uppercut, and a sit fall, would that mean anything to you?”

  They’d reached the stage, and Eric held back to let her climb the stairs ahead of him. “I’d know what you mean, but without practice I’m afraid I could hurt you.”

  She waited for him at the top of the stairs. “Oh, I’m not afraid of you hurting me. You ready?”

  He hesitated, then stepped forward. “I guess. Although you’ve got me a little scared now.”

  “No worries. Let’s show this blowhard a thing or two.”

  Eric shook his head. “All right. Hey, Jack. Aaron. Come on up and do this scene with us. Jack, you be Toby. I’ll read Sir Andrew—”

  Aaron, the older of the two kids, jumped onto the stage. “But that’s my part.”

  “Just for now, you play Fabian. Please?”

  Aaron shrugged, and grinned. “Fine with me.”

  “All right. Casey and Aaron, enter from over there. Jack and I will do our lines from here.”

  Casey followed Aaron to the wings on stage left. Her blood tingled in her veins, and she opened and closed her hands, bouncing on her feet as she listened. Jack began his lines in Sir Toby’s drunken fashion. “Why, man, he’s a very devil; I have not seen such a firago.”

  Casey closed her eyes and breathed in as he finished his line, as Eric joined in with his rich voice. She let her chest expand and contract, and relaxed completely as she waited for the entrance line. When it came close, she opened her eyes to find Aaron waiting for her to cue their movement.

  “This shall end without the perdition of souls,” Jack/Toby stated.

  Casey and Aaron stepped onto the stage. Casey watched and waited as the others read through the lines leading up to hers. She, as Viola, took in the scene and her opponent, Sir Andrew.

  Toby gestured to her. “There’s no remedy, sir; he will fight you for ‘s oath’s sake…”

  Casey waited for the end of the line and began hers. “Pray God defend me! A little thing would make me tell them how much I lack of a man.”

  The scene continued to its ending, with Casey’s lines assuring the others that the fight was against her will. Eric pounced, taking two quick left jabs at her face. She ducked, then blocked his roundhouse, aimed at her head.

  Getting her balance, she swung at his stomach, making light contact as he let out a whoosh of air fit for an NBA flopper. She finished him off with an uppercut, her hit upstage of Eric’s face, while he jerked his head with perfect timing, using the hit to slowly send him backward, where he landed hard on his butt.

  Casey stepped over him, raising her foot as if to finish him off, when Jack jumped in with the next line, using a different voice for the character of Antonio. “Put up your sword!” He giggled, completely not in character, and Aaron joined right in.

  Casey, breathing hard, relaxed her stance and stepped back, holding out a hand to Eric. After a brief study of her face, probably to make sure she wasn’t bluffing and was really about to take him down again, he allowed her to help him up. Together they turned toward the house, which sat in complete silence.

  Casey paused, blinking at the lights, and closed her eyes as a rush of memories swept through her. The lights. The musty smell. The audience.

  Omar’s face.

  Reuben’s…

  She swayed, and felt Eric’s hand wrap around her arm.

  “You all right?” His voice was anxious.

 
She swallowed and opened her eyes. “I’m fine.” She pulled her arm away. “Thanks.”

  He gestured at the stage behind them. “That was…amazing. I mean… Who are you?”

  Applause came suddenly from the two actors on stage with her. After glancing at them, Casey put a hand over her eyes and squinted into the house. The woman, Becca, still stood in the aisle, her eyes wide, hands clutching her bag. The director, his face a blank mask, sat silently in the fourth row, his hand under his chin as he stared at Casey.

  The young men hollered again. “Bravo! Encore!”

  Casey shook herself, and handed Eric the script. “Think I got out?”

  Eric’s forehead creased. “What?”

  “Of the paper bag.”

  He smiled. “Oh, I’d say you got way out, crumpled it up, and threw it away.”

  “Good.”

  She turned and walked across the stage, descending the stairs. She brushed past Becca, but stopped when the woman called her name.

  “You will do the part, won’t you?”

  Casey looked at Becca’s face, which was filled with something Casey would’ve called desperation, if it hadn’t seemed over-dramatic. “No. I’m just passing through. The part’s yours.”

  Becca’s face crumpled. “But I don’t want it. I’ve been waiting for you.”

  That again. “Look. No one here has been waiting for me. I didn’t even know I was coming.”

  “But—”

  “Please, Casey. Can’t you stay?” Eric was standing next to Becca now, his face pleading.

  Casey shook her head and ran her fingers through her hair. What was up with these people?

  The other actors joined them, their expressions of awe and humor only slightly dampened. The four of them stood in a tight semicircle, waiting, apparently, for her to say she was staying.

  “It actually is my decision, you know,” the director said.

  They turned as a whole toward his seat, where he reclined, his hand half covering his face. Slowly he sat up, his hands on the armrests, elbows poking up beside him. He slanted his face toward Casey. “That was very interesting.”

  She waited.