The Hanging Hill

25

Wilbur Kimble, who was more than eighty years old, had worked at the Hanging Hill Playhouse all his life, dating back to when it was a stop on the old vaudeville circuit.

He pushed his broom into rehearsal room A and sized up the dozen or so people milling about drinking coffee. Actors. Designers. The stage manger. Kimble recognized Tomasino Carrozza. Talented man. Could’ve been a head-liner back in the days of vaudeville, when you had to have talent or the audience would toss rotten tomatoes at you. Literally. Janitor’s job was even harder back then.

Kimble shoved his broom underneath the folding table where the producers had set up a coffee urn, hot cocoa, juice boxes, paper cups, muffins, bagels, and doughnuts.

Cocoa. Juice boxes.

That was because there were kids in this show. A couple of actors from out in Hollywood.

Kids.

Wilbur Kimble hated seeing children in the theater. Made his job that much harder.

He ran his broom along the baseboard so he could move around the room and eyeball the woman who intended to live at the theater for three weeks with her son. Apparently, from what he’d seen on the posters up in the lobby, this Judy Magruder Jennings was a big-deal children’s book author.

“Excuse me? Sir?”

Kimble turned. A bottled blonde who appeared to be smuggling soccer balls under her blouse was waving at him. Her bracelets kept clacking against each other.

“Aya?” said Kimble.

“My son spilled his apple juice.” She gestured at a boy in a blue blazer. The bratty Little Lord Fauntleroy was holding his juice box upside down and squeezing it like he was milking a cardboard cow, fascinated by not only the squirts but the gassy fart sounds they made. Boy seemed a bit peculiar. Maybe dim-witted, too.

“This apple juice is dangerous!” the boy whined out his nose. “I’m fructose intolerant!”

Some of the adults were staring at the kid, wondering what kind of holy terror they’d be spending the rest of their summer with. Well, the little monster didn’t scare Kimble. He’d seen his type before. What they lacked in talent, they made up for with hot air and temper tantrums.

The boy dropped his crumpled juice box to the floor. His mother wiggled her fingers to indicate exactly where Kimble needed to mop up.

Stage mothers. The spoiled brats and crybabies always had one.

“Has anyone seen Miss McKenna?” the stage manager called out.

“Her mother must’ve let her sleep in,” said juice boy’s stage mother. “Maybe because Meghan is a ‘movie star.’” The blonde made quote marks in the air. Sounded jealous.

“I’m waiting for my son, too,” said the playwright.

“We have a few more minutes,” said the stage manager. “Reginald is running late.”

Kimble pushed his broom out of the room

Kids.

Three of ’em.

Two in the show plus the writer’s son.

There hadn’t been any children at the Hanging Hill Playhouse since that ill-fated production of The Music Man, a show that had been forced to close early because all the children in the cast quit.

They were all too terrified to work at the theater. Seemed they kept seeing ghosts.

Kimble smiled.

Maybe he could convince these three to go home, too.