Cassie had insisted on being let off two blocks from the school so that as few people as possible would see her being dropped off from a “dump of a truck” by her mother. She’d already been mortified by the sheriff pulling Jenna over. Jenna had been burned by the ticket, but hadn’t wanted any more arguments with her daughter, so she’d complied, figuring if Cassie was half frozen by the time she made it to her geometry class, it was just too bad. Cassie hadn’t seemed to mind the cold temperature and had strolled off, cell phone plastered to her ear, wind whipping her hair over her face and eyes. Tonight, Jenna had thought, tonight we’ll have a heart-to-heart, mother and daughter. It sounded simple and yet her stomach was tight in anticipation.
She’d dropped Allie off at Harrington Junior High without incident and then driven straight to the theater, where, in a room that had once held the baptismal tank, Rinda Dalinsky was trying to keep warm in a turtlenecked sweater, down vest, and ski pants. Already sipping coffee from an oversized cup, she was making copies on an old Xerox machine
. She was about Jenna’s height, had an athletic build, and had been blessed with auburn hair, olive skin, and gold eyes that always seemed to catch the light.
“Is Oliver here? If so, watch out. I brought the dog,” Jenna, with Critter padding happily after her, announced as she strode through what had once been the apse of the old church. Narrow stained-glass windows filtered in the daylight and a few Christian relics adorned the tall, clapboard walls.
“I’ll tell him,” Rinda yelled back, and Jenna laughed. Oliver was an ancient yellow tabby whom Rinda had found hiding under the porch of the church when she’d purchased it for stage productions. She hadn’t had the heart to take the cat to the local animal shelter, and so she’d promptly adopted him and named him Oliver for her favorite Charles Dickens character. In the process, Oliver had become the theater troupe’s unofficial mascot. Critter gave a quick bark and began wagging his tail wildly at the sight of Rinda.
At that moment the cat in question shot through the series of adjoining rooms behind what was now the stage. Hissing indignantly, he climbed up a pillar to hide on a crossbeam. Critter, still begging for Rinda’s attention, hadn’t noticed the cat at all.
Rinda chuckled at the dog’s nonchalance. “I guess Oliver has a rather inflated image of himself.”
“He’s a male, isn’t he?” Jenna said, and thought of the officer who’d pulled her over this morning. Rinda’s friend. Sheriff Shane Carter, a man’s man, with dark eyes, thick moustache, square jaw, and what appeared to be a very bad attitude.
“Oliver was a male. I had him neutered.”
Again Jenna thought about Carter. Tough. Sexy. And a royal pain in the backside. “Let’s not go there,” Jenna warned before she said something she’d regret. Rinda seemed to think the local sheriff walked on water. “Critter’s in the same nonsexual boat. What’re you working on?” Jenna picked up one of the copies that the Xerox machine was spewing out. “Flyers?”
“Mmm. The first batch. We’ll do something more detailed closer to the date, but we needed something to put around town now and add to the Web site. Scott did the art.” Rinda’s son, Scott, was a college dropout who worked part time for his mother designing sets, painting scenery, and sometimes working the lights with Rinda’s brother, Wes Allen, during a production. A movie buff, Scott could quote dialogue from nearly every major motion picture since 1970. Rinda motioned toward the copy in Jenna’s hand. “So, what do you think?”
“I like it.” The flyer was reminiscent of a 1950s movie poster in faded red and green. “The nostalgia angle works.”
“I think so, too,” Rinda said, but there was a hint of hesitation in her voice as there always was when she talked about her only son, and her smile tightened a bit.
Jenna set the copy on the rapidly increasing stack, then reached for a thermos of coffee and poured herself a cup. The old church-cum-theater was in desperate need of insulation and a new heating system. As it was, the ancient furnace was blasting away, but the warm air seemed to seep right through the stained-glass windows and thin wooden siding of a building that was, despite all of Rinda’s efforts, slowly deteriorating.
“So how’s the production coming together?” Jenna asked. She had agreed to help coach some of the actors, but wasn’t scheduled to start running lines with them until early next week.
“Working with kids is always…a challenge.”
“Are adults a whole lot better?”
Rinda held up a thumb and index finger, showing very little space between them. “Marginally.”
Jenna grinned as she found a packet of nondairy creamer and slapped it against the counter. “I predict it’ll be a smash. Standing Room Only.”
“It would be if you’d play Mary Bailey,” Rinda wheedled, not for the first time.
“You’ve got Madge Quintanna.” Jenna opened the little packet and poured in the white powder. Immediately clouds swirled upward in her cup. “Besides, I’ve already got a job. I’m Coach Hughes, remember?”
Rinda wasn’t about to give up. “Madge is…how can I put this delicately? I guess I can’t. Madge is awful. Stiff as a board and to say she’s ‘struggling’ with her lines would be the understatement of the year.”
“She’ll improve.” Jenna took an experimental sip of her coffee. “I told her to watch the movie before I start working with her next week. Donna Reed was incredible. Madge’ll catch on.”
“She isn’t a natural. You are.”
Jenna was unmoved by Rinda’s pleas. “Didn’t I tell you I’d gladly be a part of this as long as I didn’t have to act for at least five years?”
“But you’re a household name.”
“Was,” Jenna corrected as she set down the flyer. “That’s the operative word. Was. And I’m not even sure about that. I’m sure in most Hollywood circles the term ‘has been’ is attached to me.”
“You were an A-list Hollywood actress!”
Jenna laughed for the first time this morning. “That’s stretching it.”
“We could get some good press out of this.”