Chapter 22 – Two Down, One to Go
Roger never considered taking offense at Townshend’s familiarity with his wife. Over the years he had seen her deal with much tougher hombres coming on to her than an aging rock n roll musical genius. One time they were sitting in the bar of a nice restaurant, enjoying a drink, when a couple of young, athletic, football player sized bozos starting talking about her, like Roger wasn’t there. Comments about her very considerable physical charms. These guys weren’t even drunk; they just lacked judgment and anything amounting to propriety. When Roger and Gwen left the restaurant, the guys followed, walking behind them, still with the comments. Roger didn’t feel the slightest need to get involved by challenging them. He felt sorry for them.
Gwen let them carry on for a few minutes, then smiled at Roger, spun a quick about face, pulled her gun from under her jacket, and jammed into the gut of one of the guys. She made sure the other guy saw it, too. Then, looking the guy in the eyes, she said, “You lack two important qualities, moron. You lack good judgment, and you lack a sense of propriety.” She took hold of his belt with her left hand, pulled, and stuck the gun down the front of his pants. “I’m going to teach you something your mother, bless her heart, failed to teach you. The lesson is simple. It’s not nice to make lewd and suggestive comments to strange women. We don’t like that. Get it?” And the gun went a little farther down the pants. “Tell me you understand, please. If I sense you do understand, you’ll go home with your package intact. If I sense, in any way at all, that you’re not getting this message, that you’re not learning this lesson that your mother didn’t teach you, then I’m gonna lighten your load for you. Understand?”
The guy nodded vigorously. “The health and welfare of your package also depends on your buddy learning the lesson. Is he? Is he learning just as well as you are, moron?” The guy looked at his buddy with pleading eyes. Pleading eyes. The buddy also nodded vigorously. Gwen pulled the gun barrel out of the guy’s pants and let go of his belt. She stepped away from them, looked them in the eyes, said, “Propriety, gentlemen. Propriety.” And turned back to Roger. “Ready, dear?”
Roger looked at Gwen, next to him in bed, held up his glass of port, and said, “You did it babe. You got the big guy. He’s coming. Two down, one to go, so to speak. We have the choreographers, and now we have the musician. Last big thing on the list to acquire is a troupe of dancers. How we gonna do that?”
Gwen sipped, letting a sense of accomplishment settle over her. She relaxed. “We’ll deal with that tomorrow. When everyone shows up at The Hall, we’ll tell them Townshend is coming next week to start the music, and we’ll talk over the dancer thing. She stared at the TV, studying Clooney ogling Zellweger. “What happens?” she asked. “Does he get her? She didn’t seem all that thrilled with his repartee. She was sticking it back at him pretty good, when Pete rang up.”
“Can we just watch, and see? If she got more roles like this one, instead of some of the dumb movies she’s made, she could be one of the truly great actresses. She could produce an oeuvre like Hepburn’s, or Streep’s.”
“Ok. You watch her, and I’ll watch George. Did you ever think it was him that made this movie so good?”
“George, who?”
The next morning everyone except Henric was on stage at The Hall, sitting in the oversized office chairs on rollers. Helstof had brought the borzoi, the entity that had started all this by crashing head first into a three hundred year old desk, thus revealing its hidden compartment. She had asked Gwen if it was ok to bring him to work, saying they had to curtail the running on the beach practice during turtle nesting season. So now the horse sized dog was lopping up and down the aisles of the theater, chasing imaginary South Carolina wolves. Canis caroliniana wolvus.
Roger held up a DVD, said, “Anyone want to see the greatest living actress, in a great role, in a great movie?”
Gale, the fashionista, said, “Who might that be?”
“Renee Zellweger. She rules in this movie. If I wasn’t ball and chained to Gwen, I’d hop in the Jag, head to Hollywood, and try to meet her. All class, all the way, top of the list.”
Everyone looked at Gwen to confirm or deny this wild claim. Top of the list?
Gwen nodded. “She has it all, in this movie. As good as Myrna Loy, Garbo, Dunaway, Kelly, all of them. He’s right. Stunning.”
“I’ll rent out the DVD. Twenty dollars per night,” he said.
Gwen waved his goofiness away by saying, “We have good news. The Whosey called last night, and he’s in. He’s coming next week, starting on the score. So, we’re off and running on the music part.” She looked at Selgey and Bart. “How’s the choreography coming?”
Bart said, “Look, without hearing the music, we’ve just been playing around. With the Ps translating, we’ve made it through all of Stravinsky’s story notes, and we’ve tried to understand the tone and style of the music from the score. We know something about how to read music, but that’s limited. So we’ve just been guessing about possible choreographic movements. We can’t seriously create those until someone is playing the entire piece. Townshend has got to produce as soon as possible.”
Selgey said, “In the meantime we can do two things: we can write out Stravinsky’s notes, like a play or a novel, so everyone understands the story, and we can start the search for dancers. Like we said before, the best dancers have commitments long in advance. We have no idea who we can get on this short notice. The premiere is eleven months away.” She looked at the woman for confirmation.
The woman said, “Can you actually write out Stravinsky’s story, or just tell it? If you know the story and can tell it, who do we get to write it down?”
Bart looked at Selgey. “We know the story, and can tell it. It would go faster if someone else could write it out on paper.”
All heads swiveled to Roger. He said, “I’m not sure I have time. I have Zellweger movies to watch. I gotta get a better handle on her greatness.”
None of the eight other people in the room even smiled at this joke. He got eight stone faces, transmitting variations on the theme of “leave off the stupid shit and get to work.” He got the message.
Gwen said, “Ok, that’s settled. Selgey, Bart, and the Ps are going to tell the story to Roger, and he is going to write it down. As soon as that’s done,” and she glared daggers at her husband, “Selgey, Bart, and you,” looking at the woman, “are going to start the search for our dancers. Ok?” They all nodded. “Why don’t you go over there,” pointing to stage left, “and get working.”
“That leaves you two,” looking at Helstof and Gale. “What are you going to do?”
Gale said, “Helstof and I are going out to lunch. We need to do some more research about ballet costumes. Historical research about great costuming in the past.” Helstof smiled at this.
“You’re going to do this research at a restaurant?”
“Well, we’re going to observe current sartorial adornments as displayed at fashionable culinary venues, so as to make sure our professional costuming is contemporary and relevant.”
Gwen could see she had to get some separation among her staff right away. Roger’s bullshit was rubbing off on the others. Invoking the dagger look she previously had directed at Roger, she now said, “It’s ten o’clock in the morning. A little early to be thinking about luncheon. How about going over there,” pointing at stage right, “and getting something down on paper that will guide your design of great costumes. I know you don’t have the complete story yet, that’s what they’re doing over there now, but they’ve told you most of the main points, so you have enough to get going.”
Gale looked a little hurt, but acquiesced, and rolled her chair over to a table stage right. Helstof rolled with her.
Gwen saw the real work was just beginning.