Sleep Walking Now and Then Read Free Page B

1890’s street clothes, were suddenly there blocking the audience members’ view. She and her partner looked into the pit. The partner screamed. “Someone get a doctor! Call the police!” Ms. Jackson shook her head sadly and pulled the elevator door closed.
    â€œI saw him, his body was all bloody and smashed,” a theatergoer cried.
    Keri—standing inside the door that led to the servants’ stairs—listened, amused by this. Someone was always getting caught up in the drama. She imagined Cass/Nance lying on the padding, looking up at the faded fleur-de-lis design on the elevator car’s roof and, like her, taking the cry as a kind of applause. When reviews called the show “Just a Halloween entertainment,” Cass told her, “That gets us through the next month. After that we’ll find something else.” She hoped he was right.
    Her costume made stairs difficult and the maid reached out to help her. Sonya spoke, voice low and intense: “Just after Nance fell they thought it was a tragic accident. Then rumors started that I was seen near the elevator machinery in the cellar. I disappeared before I could be questioned about the events and was never seen again.”
    At moments when Sonya identified with the part of Evangeline’s maid like this Keri wondered why Rosalin, who took care of so many things, had arranged for this person to be alone with her in two performances a night, six nights a week. She hoped Sonya was aware how vital to the production her Evangeline was. Surveillance cams were everywhere but she wondered if they didn’t just offer a greater chance for immortality.
    So she gazed at Sonya with admiration and delight (and none could look with as much admiration and delight as she). “I’m amazed at the amount of research you’ve done. You have the makings of an actor,” she said.
    Then, as Evangeline, she motioned Sonya to go first, and said in a breathless child voice, “After Nance’s death rumors got in the papers. One of my dolls was supposedly found in the elevator with his corpse. It’s when the term ‘Angouleme Murder’ began being used. Servants testified that Nance had always taken an unnatural interest in his daughter.” Here Evangeline covered her eyes for a moment. But Keri managed to catch Sonya’s expression of both horror and sympathy.
    Their destination was the sixth floor. On the landing, they paused, heard a 1920s Gershwin tune played by a jazz pianist. Privately, Keri was certain Evangeline had killed her old man, who in every way deserved it. Life with him and after him had made her a manipulative crazy person. It was what Keri loved about the part.
    But she looked at Sonya and said with great sincerity, “I try to remember what that poor child-woman went through and put that into my performance.”
    Sonya held a light and a mirror like this was a sacred ritual. Evangeline’s haunted face—just a trifle worn—appeared. Keri Mayne did a couple of makeup adjustments, held the doll to her chest, and braced herself.
    Sonya opened the door and followed as Evangeline half floated into a hallway with distant, slightly flickering lights. Keri paused, listened for a moment, then wafted toward the music.
    Playgoers, drinks in hand, stared out a window into a hologram of a lamp lit street scene. A big square-built convertible rolled by with its top down and men and women in fur coats waving glasses over their heads, while a cop made a point of not looking. Flappers in cloche hats and tight skirts scurried to avoid getting run down. They gained the sidewalk and disappeared into the Angouleme’s main door downstairs.
    On the sixth floor it was 1929.
    It took a few moments for the well-upholstered crowd to notice the sleep walker and the woman in a maid’s uniform who guided her.
    Keri heard their whispered conversations:
    â€œâ€¦maybe down here trying to avoid her