I could see how that could be considered redundant. And annoying.
“I think people in the community tired of seeing her. It felt as if they were watching the same production.” She looked at me and tried to force a smile. “So I went with Amanda Pendleton as Snow White.”
I could feel my anger and animosity slipping away. She was doing something I didn’t think possible: Eleanor Bandersand was finding a way to make me sympathize with her. I was starting to feel like Bugs Bunny in that old cartoon where he morphs into a jackass.
“Let me clarify,” Eleanor continued, her voice a little stronger now. “Amanda earned the role. She’s a very good, very capable young actress. So it’s not as if I just carelessly handed her the role. I just thought it was fortuitous that she tried out at the same time I was looking to...change the dynamic.” She paused. “I was optimistic then. I thought she might bring a few new people to our shows, spark some new enthusiasm in the community.”
I thought she might be overestimating the entire Moose River community’s interest in local theater, but I didn’t think she was wrong in what she’d hoped for.
“So I thought we might endure,” she said, taking another deep breath and then exhaling. “But then Amanda went and ran off or went wherever she went and I’m sure now people are looking at us as some kind of circus.”
Again, I thought she was attaching too much importance and significance to her tiny community theater company. Moose River was a town that supported local endeavors but it wasn’t as if theater dominated the extracurricular scene.
I cleared my throat. “Joanne says ticket sales have been good,” I offered.
She gave me a patronizing smile. “Ticket sales need to be exceptional for us to crawl out of the hole we are in, Ms. Savage.”
I frowned. “I think she thought most of the shows were close to sold out.”
How much more exceptional could ticket sales get?
“Perhaps,” she said. “But does that mean that they’ll still show up? Will they purchase concessions? Will they buy the little Star Grams for the actors? Season ticket passes for the remaining shows?” She raised her eyebrows. “All of those things add up and I’m afraid that given the circumstances surrounding Amanda’s leaving the show and the ensuing chaos, people will choose to remain at home rather than come to see our shows.”
If she was counting on the ancillary income from the shows, then the financial issues were bigger than even Joanne had alluded to. She probably should’ve quit while she was ahead and canceled the Snow White production before it even began. Because it sounded like now the best she could hope for was to make enough money to pay the bills that were already sitting and waiting.
Eleanor took another deep breath and set her hands firmly on the handle of her cart. “I need to be going. Goodbye, Daisy.”
Good thing I wasn’t expecting an apology. Or an un-banning.
But as I watched her waddle away, the waistband of her pants pulled up to the middle of her back, I was struck by one thing.
She’d wanted the production to be a success. She’d needed it to be a success. The production had been harmed by putting Madison in the lead role mid-way through rehearsals.
There was no possible way Eleanor could’ve been involved in Amanda’s disappearance.
THIRTY THREE
“Why are we going to watch cheerleading?” Will complained from the back seat of the minivan.
“Because our friends are in it and we are going to support them,” I told him.
“Yeah, but I thought you told Grace and Sophie the only way they could be cheerleaders was if you got stabbed and died and your ghost couldn’t find them to haunt them.”
I glanced in the rearview mirror. “I don’t think I said anything about getting stabbed.”
He rolled his eyes and moved his gaze to the window.
It was the evening of the regional cheerleading championships and I’d told Brenda we’d come to watch. I wasn’t particularly enamored with the idea of watching a couple hours of plastered-on smiles and young girls wearing clown-like makeup, but the girls were excited to watch Maddie and I had no doubt that they’d find it all exciting. Will was just a victim of my unwillingness to leave anyone at home that night. He’d tried to argue that Emily and Jake were getting to stay home, but I pointed out that Emily had homework and Jake had a conference call. They were staying home to work. When I’d offered up some chore options for him to complete rather than going with us – cleaning the bathroom and polishing the wooden stair banister – he’d sighed and dragged himself to the car.
“We can cheer if we want to,” Grace said behind me. “You always say we can do what we want.”
“Well, yeah,” I warily agreed.
“You just said that we had to think about whether we wanted to cheer for other people or whether we wanted people cheering for us,” Sophie said.
“That’s right,” I said, glad someone had paid attention to whatever rant I’d gone off on whenever I’d gone off on it. “Just depends on what you want.”
“I swear you talked about stabbings and ghosts,” Will muttered, shaking his head.
Ten minutes later we pulled into a very full parking lot at the Moose River Municipal Arena. Minivans like ours occupied half the spaces in the parking lot, and empty school buses were lined up in the fire lane. Families hustled across the lot, hurrying toward the entrance and many of the younger girls were dressed in miniature cheer outfits. And had their faces painted.
“It’s like Halloween out here,” Will observed.
“I love Halloween!” Sophie said.
This was true. Of all the kids, she was the one who most looked forward to Halloween. She had a notebook of costume ideas for the upcoming holiday and had mentally catalogued the best houses for trick-or-treating in the surrounding neighborhoods. I was pretty sure she had a countdown calendar, too.
Grace squealed. “I love candy! Is there gonna be candy?”
This was also true.
“No,” Will practically barked. “There won’t be candy and there won’t be any other costumes except stupid cheerleading costumes. And we’ll have to sit here and watch a bunch of girls do stupid dances and songs for teams that aren’t even here.”
I sighed. Maybe this wouldn’t be such a good idea after all.
I herded them out of the car and toward the arena. The wind was biting and I tucked my chin into my neck, urging the girls to move faster. We found Brenda at the top row of the small venue, waving and pointing to an empty spot next to her.
Derek, her youngest boy, saw us. “Bill! Bill!” he shrieked, mispronouncing Will’s name. He stood up and threw his entire bag of popcorn in the air in celebration. As popcorn rained down on everyone around them, Brenda grabbed him by the elbow and hissed something into his ear. By the time we reached the top of the seats, Derek was trying to scoot away from her, a pout on his face, his arms crossed against his chest in defiance.
I smiled at him and his pout deepened. “You sit here,” he said to Will, pointing to the empty space next to him.
Will smiled and sat down and, within seconds, was chatting with Derek about Spiderman and Minecraft. I wondered why he was so great with other kids and so awful with his own siblings.
Brenda shifted closer to Derek, juggling Mary in her lap. She was well past the age that she needed to be held, but Mary clung to her like a baby koala, especially in unfamiliar places… like the arena filled with mini cheerleaders and blaring dance music.
“That was quite the greeting,” I said, sliding into the seat next to her.
The girls sat down on the bench above us. Grace’s shoes pressed into my butt and Sophie shrugged out of her jacket, dropping it on my back.