We’ll Always Have Parrots

Chapter 12

Straighten it out. Good idea. But how?

Play it by ear, I advised myself. So as I strode toward the Innsmouth Room, where the autograph sessions were held, I let my anger at the QB build up. Not only for what she’d done to Eric, but for everything she’d done to anyone. Everyone. All weekend. Ever since I’d met her. Her whole life.

I had a good head of steam by the time I reached the autograph room. Outside, I saw convention volunteers turning people away. Blast. I knew that my present mood would severely impair my ability to charm my way past security.

But no, actually they were recruiting people. Drafting passers-by to stand in line for autographs. And distributing 8×10 black-and-white photos to the draftees.

Okay, so breaking into line wouldn’t cause a riot.

I moved along the side of the room. Michael wasn’t there. Probably just as well. But Nate, the scriptwriter, and Walker were. Nate was hovering attentively over the QB. Walker was waiting to take his turn.

“Hey, Walker,” I said, slipping into place beside him. “Any chance you could sneak me to the head of the line? I want to get an autograph for someone who can’t make it.”

“You sure you want to?” he said, surprised. “She’s in a lousy mood.”

“That makes two of us,” I said. “Just do it.”

He hesitated, no doubt suspecting that I hadn’t suddenly become an avid fan. I nudged him into motion, and then walked beside him to her table. Amazon security ignored us, as I’d anticipated.

“Meg, how are you?” Nate said.

Walker retreated. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him heading for the other side of the room.

“Wanted to get Miss Wynncliffe-Jones to sign a program for one of my friends.”

“I’m sure she’d be happy to,” Nate said.

He held out his hand for the program, but I didn’t surrender it to him. Or to the QB when the person she was talking to moved away and she reached out mechanically to take it.

Maybe it was stupid, but I held the program out of reach until she finally looked up.

“Oh, hello….” she said.

“Meg,” I said. “You’ve seen me often enough to know my name by now. At least before the cocktail hour.”

A faint crease appeared in her forehead. Anger? Alarm? I didn’t care which. Maybe just irritation at the monkey who’d used a trailing vine to drop down nearly level with our heads, and kept looking back and forth between us, rapt by our encounter.

“What do you want?” the QB asked. Not openly hostile. Just cold.

“Sign this,” I said, slapping the program down on the table in front of her. “I don’t know why you wouldn’t sign it for my nephew just now, and I don’t care. If you have some problem with Maggie West being at the convention, take it out on the organizers, not on a child.”

She was looking at me intently now, as if seeing me for the first time. And she was taking a deep breath and drawing herself up for a tirade. I ought to know the signs—I’d seen her do the same stunt on every other episode of the show and countless times in person when hapless people crossed her. The monkey hissed, as if warning that danger approached.

“Stow it,” I said. “If you start shouting at me, I’ll shout louder, and you may not like some of the things I’ll say, but I’m sure everyone else will be fascinated.”

I wasn’t sure exactly what I would have shouted if she’d called my bluff, but it’s easy to blackmail the guilty. To my relief, she glanced over at the fans in line, and then bent her head and signed.

“You don’t want me as an enemy,” she said, handing the program back.

“No, I don’t want anything to do with you at all,” I agreed. “I’d be just as happy not to see you for the rest of the convention. Though you’ll see me, if you mistreat another child the way you did my nephew.”

I checked to make sure she’d really signed, and not just written something rude in Eric’s program. No, there it was; Tamerlaine Wynncliffe-Jones. More legible than usual.

“You’ll regret this,” she said.

“What are you going to do?” I said. “Fire Michael? Go ahead, if you want to see your stupid show go down the tubes.”

She jerked as if I’d struck her, and I smiled, and I’m not sure what would have happened next if the monkey hadn’t startled us both by beginning to shriek loudly, baring its teeth in what was obviously a gesture of aggression.

Though when you come right down to it, so was my insincere smile. Points to the monkey for honesty, I thought, as I turned on my heels and walked out.

Behind me, I could hear someone trying to shoo the monkey away, and then the QB’s voice.

“I’m tired now, Nate. I’m afraid I’ll have to cut this short.”

None of the people in line seemed upset that the QB was leaving before signing their programs. In fact, some looked relieved.

Mission accomplished, I decided to detour through the green room for a snack.

I found Michael there, sitting in a corner with Francis, his agent. Michael looked stern. Francis looked unhappy. Good. Michael needed to put some backbone into Francis. Or better yet, get a new agent. A good agent. He’d had a very good agent, back in his struggling, soap opera days, but unfortunately about the time Michael left acting for academia, she’d given up agenting to open a trendy restaurant. So when Walker recommended Michael for the part on Porfiria, Michael had started working with Walker’s agent, Francis. Who had been a disaster.

Michael smiled when he saw me, and beckoned me over to their table.

“I mean it,” he was saying, as I came within earshot. “You’re the one who got me into this. If you can’t fix it, I’ll find someone who can.”

“I’ll try,” Francis said, standing up hastily when he saw me. “I really will.”

Michael was shaking his head as I took Francis’s chair. I could see Francis leaving the room—almost running, with his hand in the tweed pocket whose edge was starting to show a faint, chalky residue of crumbled TUMS.

“So,” Michael said. “What have you been up to?”

“No good,” I said. “I’ve been ticking off Her Ladyship.”

“Good,” he said. “She needs ticking off.”

“Will you still say that if I get you fired?” I said.

“I’d love it if you got me fired,” he said. “It’s more than Francis can do.”

“Michael!” I exclaimed. “You don’t actually want to be fired, do you?”

“I’d rather get fired by the QB than by the college,” Michael said.

“Is there any danger of that?”

“The department was testy about how much time I spent away from campus this year,” Michael said. “And the QB told me last night that she wants me in a lot more episodes next season. There’s no way I can do that and keep up with my teaching, but the way the contract’s written, I can’t get out of it without a lot of expensive legal hassles. If Francis can’t negotiate a compromise—Francis, or the replacement I’m actively looking for as of today…”

Michael shook his head, and took a long sip from the cup of hot tea he was drinking.

Just like Blademaster Chris’s contract, I realized. Breaking it would take time, and money. Maybe too much time and money. I sighed, remembering all the seemingly necessary things that had eaten up so much of his acting income. Travel expenses, replacing his ancient car, preparations for the house…

“I’m pleased to see you’re not dazzled by the cult stardom thing,” I said aloud.

“Ten years ago, I would have been,” he said. “Walker still is. But today—hell, it’s been a lot of fun. But it’s a bubble; I don’t want to jeopardize a tenure-track position for a bubble. So what did you do to tick Her Ladyship off, anyway?”

I told him about Eric’s program.

“Why is she so upset by this Maggie West person?” I asked. “Who the hell is Maggie West, anyway?”

In answer, Michael pointed across the green room.

Yes, it was the same face I’d seen in the program. Attractive rather than conventionally pretty. I guessed she was in her early fifties, like the QB, but there the resemblance ended. She hadn’t had multiple facelifts, like the QB, and she wasn’t wearing much makeup. I could see crows feet around her eyes, and laugh lines around her mouth, and the unruly mane of reddish hair had more than a few gray streaks.

When I looked at the QB, I found myself depressed at the inevitable damage time and gravity does to us all. Looking at Maggie West, I had the reassuring feeling that life wasn’t over at any particular age; that maybe in some indefinable ways it got better.

She was listening to Walker—evidently he was telling her a joke. A few seconds later, she burst into laughter. It was a good sound, an exuberant, from-the-gut laugh that made people across the room look up and smile even though they hadn’t heard the joke.

Half the men in the room had gravitated to her table, and most of the rest looked as if they wanted to.

“She and the QB aren’t friends?” I said.

Michael laughed.

“If Maggie and the QB are both on-screen, who do you think the audience watches?” he said with a laugh. “I only heard about it secondhand, from Walker and the others who were there first season, but I understand things got pretty hot before the QB fired Maggie.”

Just then, I saw Nate walk into the green room. The writer’s reaction to Maggie was atypical. He started, and then headed for her table.

I was curious, so I signaled Michael, and we strolled over so we could eavesdrop.

“Please, Maggie,” Nate pleaded. “You know how she gets.”

“You mean she’s not looking forward to our reunion?” Maggie said, in a husky voice.

“She practically took off some kid’s head because he tried to get her autograph on a program you’d already signed. And if she sees you and—Oh, God, not you, too!” Nate moaned, catching sight of me.

“Someone else who has the temerity to displease the Great and All-Powerful Porfiria,” Maggie said. “Nate, my enemy’s enemy is my friend; please introduce me to my new friend.”

“Maggie West, Meg Langslow,” Nate said. “Now will you both please leave before she gets here?”

“So what’s your crime against Amblyopia?” Maggie asked.

“It was my nephew she savaged in the autograph line,” I said.

“So you’re the one who rubbed her nose in it,” Maggie said, with another hearty laugh. “Walker just told me.”

Even Nate smiled at Maggie’s laugh, but only faintly.

“Maggie, please,” he said.

“Oh, all right,” Maggie said, standing up. “I’m supposed to be going onstage at four—do you know where I can find the Atlantis Ballroom, Meg Langslow? Last time I tried to find my way around this dump, I ended up in the laundry room.”

“I’ve been to the ballroom, though that doesn’t mean I can find it again,” I said.

“We’ll give it a try together, shall we?” Maggie said.

I glanced at my watch. Only three-thirty—maybe Maggie wasn’t that eager to meet the QB, either.

“I should stay here and take my turn on the front lines,” Michael said. “Can you meet me for an early supper—about four-thirty?”

“Four-thirty it is,” I said. “Yes, Nate, we’re going now.”

Maggie and I left through one door just as the QB sailed in through the other.