Murder on Opening Night

CHAPTER ONE-2

THEY’D DECIDED MILES should drive to the diner. Unfortunately, parking was scarce at the popular lunch spot. There were no empty spaces on the street so Miles tried his luck around the back of the diner. They discovered that cars were even double-parked and parked in makeshift spots. Muttering, he drove down Main Street a ways more until he found an empty space. Myrtle was positive it would have been quicker to have walked from her house.

The diner was packed on the inside, too. When they walked through the door, they had to hover right there since the entire front of the diner was full of customers.

“We should have called for take-out,” said Miles glumly.

“But then we’d have had to carry those greasy bags back home and we’d have ended up greasy, too. It’s okay, Miles. People are in and out here. We’ll soon get a table.”

A blonde waitress wearing an excessive amount of eye makeup sauntered over. She immediately refuted Myrtle’s statement. “Hey, y’all. It’s going to be a forty minute wait, sugar. You okay to stand that long?” Her mascara-encrusted eyes were doubtful.

Miles said, “Actually, we’d rather order it for takeout and wait. That won’t be as long, will it?”

“More like fifteen minutes, love.”

Miles looked questioningly at Myrtle. She snapped, “I think I can stand for fifteen minutes without keeling over! For heaven’s sake.”

The waitress nodded and poised a pen over a battered ordering pad. “What’ll you have?”

“A pimento cheese chili dog,” said Myrtle promptly. “With fries.”

As usual, Miles looked queasy when hearing Myrtle’s order. His own was healthier. “The chicken salad platter with a side of fresh fruit.”

“Got it. We’ll get that right up for y’all,” said the waitress, dashing off on impossibly high heels.

A middle-aged man who was sitting on the bench in the waiting area spotted Myrtle and leaped to his feet, gesturing to the seat he’d just vacated. Myrtle knew this was one of the few benefits to being in one’s eighties, so she was quick to take advantage of it. Another middle-aged man stood up, looked at Miles, and gestured to his seat. Miles pretended not to see it, still being somewhat sensitive about his age—in Myrtle’s mind, anyway. The man settled back down on the bench. The front door continued opening and more customers continued pouring in so Miles moved away from the door and stood near Myrtle.

Myrtle c****d her head to one side and listened intently for a minute. Then she tugged on Miles’s khakis. “Miles! That table directly behind us is full of the actors and actresses from tonight’s show!”

Miles squinted at them. “Are they practicing now? They seem very agitated.”

“No, I think they’re just arguing amongst themselves. You know how excitable these theater types are.”

Myrtle and Miles listened in, Myrtle with her back to the table and Miles facing them. One of the actresses was speaking disparagingly about the cheap costumes and the problems with sound and lighting. An actor complained that he didn’t have enough lines or stage time to make all the practices worthwhile.

Miles said in a wondering voice, “I’m bowled over that they’re having this conversation and you and I are so obviously listening in. Do you think that’s because they’re so used to having an audience that they simply ignore it?”

“No, I think it’s because you and I are old, Miles. They don’t even see us. Welcome to being elderly. It’s like having an invisibility cloak,” said Myrtle.

Now Myrtle turned around too, to demonstrate her point. Conversation and quarreling continued as it had before. Myrtle saw a tanned young woman in a tight red mini-dress with brunette hair down to her hips say, “My problem isn’t lack of lines. I’ve got so much stage time that it’s hard to remember everything.” She made a moue as if it were a huge burden to be such a star. But her eyes glinted with a malicious glee.

A thin woman who was about forty with red hair snapped at her, “You’d better remember them all or you’re not going to go very far in this business. Don’t think you can make it on looks and youth alone for very long.”

The tanned young woman just gave her a sweet smile back. “I’ll be right back. I’ve got to touch up my face.” Although she didn’t seem to be wearing makeup at all.

The redhead threw her balled-up napkin at the table. “That’s it. I can’t stand working with Nandina anymore. She thinks she’s such a big-shot.”

“She is a big-shot. She’s the lead in the play,” pointed out a studious looking young man with black framed glasses.

“She was miscast,” gritted the redhead between her teeth. “The girl can’t act her way out of a paper bag.”

A thin girl with blonde hair styled in a pixie cut seemed to be repressing a grin. She wore a flowing top covered with psychedelic paisleys and appeared to be thoroughly enjoying herself. “Veronica, you should try playing one of your practical jokes on her. Like the one for the last play where you got Tina signed up on every junk mail list in the country. I bet she’s still trying to dig out from under the catalogs!”

The young man in glasses said swiftly, “Veronica, you’re just upset because you’re not playing young female leads anymore. You should face the facts. You’re simply too old to play those parts anymore.”

Miles grunted at this. “She looks like a baby to me.”

“Shut up, Skip,” said a cool male voice. Myrtle peered intently at the back of the speaker. He had long blond hair, a muscular build, and was wearing a white sports jacket. Since his back was facing her, she couldn’t see his face, but his whole aura was one of strength and style.

Skip raised an eyebrow in what appeared to be a practiced gesture. “You’re standing up for Veronica? Since when, Blaine?”

“I’m standing up for every cast member,” said Blaine briskly. “As for Nandina, it’s easy to forget how it was when we were starting out, ourselves.”

“Which has been longer ago for some of us than for others,” noted Skip snidely.

Veronica rolled her eyes.

Then Myrtle observed that the eyes of the vast majority of male diners were trained in one direction. She turned to see the young woman, who was apparently Nandina, sashaying toward the table. She was walking with fluid movements—using almost a runway walk—as she went. A faint smile played around her lips as she felt the eyes on her. She sat in the booth next to Blaine.

Nandina turned to a silent and watchful man on the other side of the table and gave him a simpering smile. “Roscoe, you’ve been so quiet that I didn’t even know you were here. Tell me, how is Josie doing? I haven’t spoken with her for so long! I’ll have to give her a call today. And this time, I’m really going to do it instead of just putting it off.”

Roscoe flushed a mottled red and shot Nandina a look of unadulterated fury. Miles raised his eyebrows at Myrtle. For a moment, Myrtle wondered if the man with the dark, springy hair and beard were going to spring across the table and throttle the young woman. But instead he ignored her, finishing off the last bite of his food with a shaking hand.

Miles raised his eyebrows. He leaned over and said, “That Blaine seems to be friendly with Nandina.”

Myrtle gave up on the entire premise of not listening in. The group of actors couldn’t have cared less about Myrtle and Miles, anyway. She stood up and peered down. Sure enough, Blaine had a hand on Nandina’s knee under the table. Myrtle noticed that the girl with the pixie style haircut also noticed and smirked.

Their eavesdropping was interrupted by the sugary voice of their waitress now belting out over the chatter, “Clover and Bradford! Takeout is ready!”

“Well, shoot,” said Myrtle. “That was even better than Tomorrow’s Promise.”

They quietly rode the short distance to Myrtle’s with their greasy bags on the floor in the back of Miles’s Volvo.

Myrtle finally said, “If the play tonight is half as interesting as lunch, then we should be in for a treat.”

“There’s a lot of tension and conflict going on with those people. If that translates over into the play, it might end up being a stressful experience,” said Miles, pushing his glasses up his nose. He carefully parked in Myrtle’s driveway and then grabbed the bags of food from the backseat floor.

“Did I forget to mention the best part about this community theater? It serves wine. And the audience is allowed to bring their drinks into the theater,” said Myrtle as she unlocked her front door.

“Wine might be the saving grace of the evening,” said Miles.

“Can you imagine working on a play with that constant sniping? How on earth do they learn their lines?” asked Myrtle. She walked into the kitchen and pulled out napkins and plates.

“The source of all the arguments was one person: that Nandina woman. She was obviously a real troublemaker.” Miles put the food out on the plates and turned on Myrtle’s television set.

Myrtle brought in two glasses of water. “That was clear, yes. Part of it was ego, but part of it seemed to be due to the fact that she loved the drama.”

“Does she have top billing on the playbill?”

“I believe this may be the type of production that doesn’t have a playbill, actually,” said Myrtle, settling down in her favorite armchair.

Miles brought up the taped soap opera and Myrtle snapped her fingers. “Hold on a second, Miles. There’s one more thing I forgot to do. Elaine mentioned that we get discounted tickets for the next production if we share on social media that we’re going tonight.”

“Pass,” said Miles, holding up his hands in surrender.

“Well, I’m interested, even if you’re not. Such a fuddy-duddy. I’ll share it on Twitter,” said Myrtle. She got back up and walked over to her desk. Miles started eating his chicken salad platter.

“I wonder if I say that Miles Bradford and I are attending, if it means that you can get discount tickets, too,” murmured Myrtle.

“I said that I’d pass on it,” reminded Miles. “Besides, if you share an update like that, the whole town will presume that we’re dating.” Myrtle was quiet, clicking around on her laptop. Miles sighed. “I suspect you’re not listening to me again.”

“Hmm? Sorry Miles, I was just looking at something online. I was going to mention the Bradley Community Theater in the update and I just saw they posted something rather interesting,” said Myrtle, sitting down in the desk chair.

Miles ate some of his fruit cup. “What did they post?”

“It says: Tonight’s production features the better off dead Nandina Marshall.”