Act V Read Free

and turned with
all the grace she could muster. She aimed a beaming smile to Aaron.
“My dear, I didn’t know you cared.”
    His eyes narrowed and his mouth
straightened into a flat line. “Don’t try to brush me off, Glynn.
You know we all worry about you.”
    “ I’m fine, Aaron. I was a
klutz long before the MS. I’m just being careful so that you don’t
have to take me to have my leg put into a cast while you’re wearing
those hideous overalls. It might be embarrassing.”
    “ Glynn…”
    “ Oh please don’t give me
that puppy-dog look. I’m really doing great. The meds are excellent
and I work out every night. My doctor seems happy and you don’t see
a cane in my hand yet, do you?” She didn’t tell him that she kept
one in the hatchback of her SUV in case of emergencies or that she
suffered from bouts of “MS banding” around her chest area at least
once every couple of months. Some fool online had dubbed it the “MS
hug”. If that was a hug, a bear trap was a kiss. Glynnis kept it to
herself. Nobody wanted to hear that stuff anyway.
    Aaron shrugged. “Okay, sorry. I know
I’m not your mama.” He thought about that for a second and one side
of his full mouth crept upward. “Course, if you need a keeper,
somebody to watch out for you, maybe give you the occasional
spanking…”
    Glynnis rolled her eyes dramatically
and sat down in the center of the first row. “Hey everybody, come
sit down so we can talk for a sec.” The cast and crew plopped down
on the stage, folding long legs beneath themselves or hanging them
over the front. “You’ve put in a really good rehearsal today and
I’ve got to leave a little early so we’ll stop here, but
I…”
    “ Hot date, Glynn?” That was
Daren, her Macduff. “You gonna fill us in on the details tomorrow?”
He lifted his eyebrows.
    “ If I told you,” she winked,
“you wouldn’t respect me in the morning.”
    Daren cackled out loud, joined by a few
others.
    Glynnis went on. “I wanted to remind
you of a couple of things. One, we open in three weeks. If you
don’t already know your lines, eat, sleep, and dream them tonight.
No more scripts as of tomorrow.” A few sheepish giggles went up
from the group. Glynnis knew that some of these guys would be
memorizing lines over their Froot Loops tomorrow, but they would
know their lines. “I mean it! Secondly, we are the only
professional theatre group in this town. We actually get paid to do
what we’re doing. Yes, it’s Shakespeare in the Park and thus
depends on donations rather than tickets, but people still expect
more of us than the Little Theatre down the street. And we want the
donations to be big! Starting tomorrow, I want to believe I’m
living in sixteenth century Scotland.”
    Nods bobbed across the
stage.
    “ See you at
9a.m.”
    *****
    Addison Paddix stood up from his desk
and stretched, rising to his full 5’ 8” and adding tiptoe height to
that, reaching 5’ 10’. “It’s been a long, boring day, Bubba. I’m
headed home. Laney has chicken baking and I’ve been warned not to
let it get dried out.”
    Brice stared at his partner for a
couple of seconds. “I thought Laney didn’t cook.”
    “ Can’t and doesn’t are two
different things. You know, her mama was a great cook. She could
stew up squash, mash potatoes, and serve ‘em all with pot roast
that would make you beg for more. I don’t know what happened to
Laney.” He watched as Brice took out his notepad and jotted down
something, keeping it hidden from Addison. “You writin’ down
something important?”
    “ Just quoting you on that
bit about Laney in case I need it later.”
    “ You ought’a be doin’
stand-up comedy.”
    “ I could make a two-figure
salary easy.”
    “ Well just so you
know…cookin’ ain’t everything. A woman who can cook is nice to have
around, but I’d rather have somebody with a brain any day, and my
Laney can outsmart the both of us, not to mention that she’s just
plain