The Phantom of Oz, Installment #10
More Disagreeable Changes
Hello! Welcome to Installment #10 of my weekly serialization of The Phantom of Oz. If you missed earlier chapters, you can read Installment #1 here, Installment #2 here, Installment #3 here, Installment #4 here, Installment #5 here , Installment #6 here, Installment # 7 here, Installment #8 here, or Installment #9 here.
In this section of Chapter 8, Candy talks about accommodations while traveling as an actor. Touring is one of the best ways to make a living as an actor and can be a lot of fun with the right people, but in my experience, lodging is not typically, um, glamorous. Case in point: A summer theatre I worked at housed us in two large older houses. We called them “The Pit” and “The Pendulum.” I lived in The Pit, where our refrigerator was so bad that ants lived in it— in the freezer section.
And now, on to Chapter 8, Part Two. Happy reading!
Chapter 8 (Part Two)
Undergone a Disagreeable Change
In the first part of this chapter, Ivy goes to Seamus McCaffrey’s Irish Pub to meet her much-changed friend Candy.
Candy saw me and smiled. It was an actor’s smile. “Hey, girlfriend.”
I stood up as she reached the booth. She hugged me. I could feel all the bones in her back, each vertebra.
“Sorry I’m late. Damn munchkins.”
So she was going to keep lying. This was so weird. If I were treating her like my best friend, I would ask her why she lied. But I had decided Candy was a case, someone I was investigating, so I decided to play by PI rules instead. Uncle Bob had taught me that calling out people on their secrets often clammed them up for good.
Candy slid into the seat opposite me in the booth.
I gave her another chance. “So the munchkins ran late?”
“Yeah. How’d your show go?”
I tried not to show my disappointment with her. Good thing I was an actor. “Good—hey, you want to come tomorrow night?”
“Sorry, can’t.”
No explanation. I once read that men don’t expect people to offer excuses when they say no, but women need to hear the reason behind the rejection. It might not be true for everyone, but it was for me. “Why not?”
“Got a meeting. With a producer.”
When I first started working at my uncle’s detective agency, he taught me to watch people’s eyes when questioning them. “First ask them a question you know the answer to,” he said, “and see what direction they look.” I’d asked Candy about the munchkins to give her a chance to come clean, and to employ this tactic. When she lied, she looked up and to the right. Those were her lying eyes, to quote an old Eagles’ song. But when she said she had to meet a producer, she looked to the left. So she was telling the truth. Huh. “That’s crazy. You move to LA for a film career but land ameeting with a producer here in Phoenix.”
Candy shrugged. “Crazy. But hey, maybe you can come by rehearsal tomorrow afternoon? We can catch up in between my scenes.”
“Sure.” I was supposed to be at the office, but I would make it work. I’d take whatever time with Candy I could get.
She flagged down a passing waitress. “Could I get an order of fish and chips and a white wine?”
The fish and chips seemed like a good sign. At least she was eating.
“Um,” I leaned into her, “you may not remember, but this is not exactly a wine bar.”
“But beer makes me bloated.” Candy made a face, a strange babyish pout. “Oh. Hey.” She brightened. “Miss,” she called to the waitress, “could you make that a Jameson? A double, please.” She leaned back again and smiled at a place just beyond my ear. “Phew. Long day. First I had to get my hair done. Made an appointment with Ricky when I knew I was coming into town.”
Ricky was a mutual friend, a theater hairdresser and an amazing stylist, but even he hadn’t been able to help Candy’s hair, which hung like dingy sheets on either side of her face. “I miss the curls, but I had to go straight—straight hair, I mean.” Candy giggled, a high flirtatious sound, the polar opposite of her typical throaty laugh.
“Really?” I took a sip of my beer. “I would’ve thought curly hair would set you apart from—”
But Candy’s mouth was off and running. “Then I had lunch with an old friend.” I would’ve been jealous that she ditched me for another old friend, if her eyes hadn’t trailed to her lying place again. “Then rehearsal, a quick dinner break, and the auditions.” Candy finally stopped to take a breath, mostly because the waitress had dropped off her whiskey.
“Hard to believe they’re going to allow you all in the theater tomorrow. Aren’t they worried?”
“About what? Chandelier already came down, darlin’. And it was The Lady in White, ya know. Nothin’ to do with the theater being old as God.” She winked at me and I relaxed a little. The Candy I knew was still in there after all.
“Anyone say what caused the chandelier to fall?”
“Besides the ghost?” She shrugged. “Nah. Just an accident, I guess. One of the bolts that held it to the ceiling came loose.” She sipped her whiskey. In big gulps.
“So tell me about touring life.”
“Not much to tell. We perform, we get on a bus, we pull into a hotel— though lots of the time it’s more like a motel.” She made a face. “Omigod, you should’ve seen the place we stayed in in Albuquerque. I don’t mind someone else’s hair when it’s on their head, but when it’s in my shower, no thank you, and—” Candy was fast-talking again.
“Where are you staying here?”
“Just a few streets down, at the Courtyard Marriott. One of the best places we’ve stayed so far.”
Good. First piece of information acquired. “Do you have a roommate?”
“Of course. Everyone does, except Dorothy and the Wicked Witch of the West. They have the same agent—negotiated private rooms for both of them. Mine didn’t negotiate squat.” The waitress dropped off Candy’s fish and chips. It smelled glorious.
“Who are you rooming with?”
“I was rooming with Normina, who plays Auntie Em and the Wicked Witch of the East. But she’s in the hospital for a while, bless her heart.”
I had my second piece of info, but I wasn’t happy. Mostly because Candy looked positively gleeful. After someone had a horrible accident. Maybe it was just the fish and chips that made her happy. She was eating like a starving woman.
I tried to give her a break. “Normina did seem...” I search for a kind word to describe the witch I’d met.
“She’s a bitch. But it might be because of Arrestadt…Well, speak of the devil.” She beamed at someone over my shoulder, then whispered to me, “I figured you wouldn’t mind meeting a famous Hollywood director.”
Watch next week for Installment #11, Chapter 8, Part Three, “Undergone a Disagreeable Change”
And if you haven’t read the first four books in the Agatha-nominated series:
This post is public so feel free to share it.