Page 59 of Ardently Yours

“I have responsibilities in Blackwater, and I can’t have the press digging into my past and following me around.”

They made Ariana’s life living hell. She drowned her anxiety in drugs and alcohol. If Charlotte says they’re too much for her, it’s the one thing I have no argument against.

“I need to think, and I can’t.” She pushes away from me. “I have to process my feelings. About Steve lying to me. And you. And all the locked doors in this place. When I came outside by myself, your security looked like they were one step away from putting me in a room with a metal chair and a single lightbulb overhead.”

I scrub a hand down my face. “Why would they do that? You’d never give them a reason to.”

Her laugh is thick with tears. “I need to go.”

“Will you come back for the masquerade?” I ask.

“I don’t know.”

Fast Car

Charlotte

October 24th, 1998

Rochelle perches on thelarge work island in the costume shop, one leg tucked beneath her petite, curvy body and passes me a bolt of muslin. Early rehearsals forA Christmas Carolhave started on stage and voices carry into the room.

Bronnie runs straight for the white basement door and grabs the antique glass knob.

“Absolutely not, young lady. Are you allowed to go down there?” I ask.

She turns, wide-eyed, as though it only now occurred to her. “No, Mommy.”

“Tell me why.”

“It’s not safe. But Ilikedirt.”

Ever since she heard one of the stage crew complaining about the dirt-floor basement, it’s become a temptation. She wants to play in it. Heaven, help us all.

I shudder when I remember the last time Bronnie was down there. “We don’t play in the yucky, dangerous basement. There are big backdrops and things that could fall on you.”

Our stage manager, Jen, brown hair in a ponytail, blue eyes bright behind her glasses, and cheeks flushed from exertion, hefts a side table over her shoulder. She’s on her way through the costume shop to backstage, but she pauses to give Bronnie a little attention. “Don’t go down there, kiddo. It’s where the spirit of the theater lives.”

Rochelle and I both go wide-eyed, then shoot her matching scowls, but Bronnie stares up at her in delight. “What’s a spiwit?”

Jen winks. “A ghost. Wooooo! Every theater’s got one. Ours likes to do stupid shit like steal perfectly good backdrops so we have to paint them twice.”

“Holy shit,” Rochelle breathes, her face ashen.

“Would you two stop swearing in front of my four-year-old?” I demand.

“Then you stop taking the Lord’s name in vain.” Maureen winks at me from the doorway to the scene shop. Curly auburn hair tucked under a green handkerchief, she walks past me with the second side table in her arms. “That shit’ll send you to hell.”

“That’s definitely the part that’s damning me to the pit of fire,” I mutter.

“Shitshitshit. Woooooo!” Bronnie says.

“Let’s use nicer words. And Miss Jen is teasing about ghosts, Bronnie. They’re not real.” I force a laugh and make sure it’s at exactly the right pitch.

Maureen mutters, “Well,someonemade the Victorian shop scene disappear. Who else would want it?”

No one had used that crappy backdrop in years. It was big enough that we could lay it out, roll Polford’s dead body in it and use it to drag him down the stairs without having to see or touch him any more than necessary. He’s buried in it now.

It tookfour yearsfor someone to even notice it was missing, but the sheer amount of interference I’ve had to run guarding his body is insane.

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