“I’m sure it’s wonderful, whatever you’ve done,” I say now.
“Well, see what you think anyway.” He pulls the drop cloth away, and I actually close my eyes. I envision a French court. I expect to see my soul. To look into a dark mirror and cry tears of joy, recognition. I open my eyes.
A tiny, bleak forest. Black, bare-branched trees of Plasticine. A low, full paper moon. Three little hags in shredded black in the corner. And in the center of the miniature stage stands a toy man with a sword looking surprised. A pained little O in the center of his face.
“What the fuck is this?” I whisper.
“Oh shit. You don’t like it.”
I stare at the hags. I shake my head. “I don’t understand it. What is it?”
You know what it is.
“Oh. Well, you know it’s in the first act? With the witches—”
“There are no witches in All’s Well.”
“This isn’t All’s Well, Miranda. I mean it was, of course, but then I had to scrap it. This is… you know.”
I glare at the three tiny crones cackling. The tiny caped man with his sword. Swallowed by the black trees.
“Macbeth,” I say.
Hugo winces. “Shit, Miranda, aren’t you supposed to spin around three times and spit? Or pour salt over your shoulder or something?”
“Why?”
“To counter the bad luck, right?”
He means the Curse, of speaking the name Macbeth in the theater. I don’t believe in such superstition anymore. I did once, of course. Would always avoid saying Macbeth. It was Mackers or the Scottish Play whether I was in the theater or out of it. Then I took my fall from grace, aka the stage, as Lady M herself. And I learned it doesn’t matter, these verbal dance-arounds, these euphemisms, these word tricks. It hears you all the same.
The fires that had quieted are now ablaze again. I’m unable to stand on my right leg. I lift it off the ground. I turn to Hugo. Unseeing Hugo. Unfeeling Hugo. “I mean, why did you make this?”
“I’m sorry, Miranda, I thought you knew.”
“Knew what?”
“About the change?”
“Change? What change?”
“Well, Fauve came in here this morning and told me the play would be changing to Mackers and that you’d be in touch. She said the dean told her.”
I picture her glossy mouth at Hugo’s ear, red hair brushing against his neck. Loving her proximity to his wood-scented flesh as she leans in ever closer, her breath hot with the scandal of my dethronement.
I look back at the three tiny hags. One of them has red hair, I see. Eyes like little slits. Mouth a cruel black line, curving on one side.
“I’m sorry, Miranda. I’m really surprised that you don’t know about this,” Hugo says. “It’s bullshit, if you ask me. Not that anyone would. But I figured you’d be the first to know. I mean you’re the director, aren’t you?”
“I’m the director,” I whisper. And then I remember the empty theater. No one there except Ellie. Practicing Helen on the lip of the stage alone, under the lights.
“I have to go.”
“Miranda, wait, are you okay?”
I walk hurriedly away, trying not to limp, trying to walk with grace. But I can’t help but hobble. Probably he’s not even watching anyway.
CHAPTER 7
WHEN I ENTER the dean’s office, I encounter not one but three. Three men. All in suits the same shade of gray. All sitting behind an executive desk. The dean in the middle. Flanked by the president on one side, the vice president on the other. Varying degrees of hair loss. Varying degrees of compensatory combing. Three pairs of watery eyes regarding me with neutral expressions. Three pairs of hairy hands clasped. A golden ring gleaming on each of their left hands.
Just a friendly chat, Miranda.
But I smell aftershave. I smell brine. I smell a witch hunt.
After my encounter with Hugo, I went back to the theater. It was empty, of course. My cell phone rang then. The dean again.
Come on by my office on your way out, Miranda.
“Come in, come in,” the dean says to me now with dogged sunniness.
The president and vice president smile coldly. I call them Bow Tie and Comb-over, respectively. Bow Tie is of course wearing a bow tie. Patterned today with little winged pigs. Comb-over’s pate shines beneath the lights. Between them grins the dean. Who is the fool. Not even Shakespearean. A fool without the wit. Grace and I secretly call him Puffy Nips because of his propensity to wear a certain kind of thin turtleneck that leaves little to the imagination.