Chapter Two
Chapter Two
The next morning, Trixi was awakened by the phone ringing loudly-and to Trixi’s tastes, rather rudely-next to her head. Hit by a wave of that Why-is-the-phone-ringing-it’s-way-too-early feeling, she grumbled and reached to pick it up.
“‘Ello? Whadda ya want?”
“Trixi? Is this Trixi? This is Anna, down at the theater. Remember me? I have a proposition.” Trixi woke up some more. Anna usually only called if there was something important going on.
“Yes?”
“Must be something big if you need me.”
“It is, but I’m not allowed to tell you what. Let’s just say it’s not Shakespeare! Be here at 2:30, sharp!” She laughed and hung up the phone. Trixi looked at the clock: it was already noon. She muttered good-naturedly about early-risers and started hunting for a pair of jeans.
She arrived at the theater fifteen minutes early, just to be on the safe side. She had had experience with theatricals before: they had no idea how long it took to make the scenery they wanted, just that they wanted it made before they needed it in the show.
She gave her coat to a man in the dressing room and walked on to look for Anna, who was usually on stage yelling at somebody or other. Sometimes someone else was doing the yelling, but as Trixi neared the stage, she could hear that no one was yelling at anyone. She found the silence disconcerting, and she burst through the stage curtains.
There was no one there. On the stage was an electric piano and a lonely looking cymbal.
“This can’t be right,” she thought. “Where are the technical crews? Usually they would be panicking at this point.” She walked down the central stairs and into the seating area. There was a small room at the back where someone might be able to tell her what was going on.
Trixi could hear voices coming from the back room. They weren’t familiar - men’s voices, with accents that sounded like they were speaking through thick woolen scarves. She assumed that Anna had hired some foreign troupe to perform: she did that every once in a while.
“But why couldn’t she tell me that?” wondered Trixi. “She usually lets me know exactly what’s going on, regardless of how strange it is.” She opened the door. “Has anyone seen- Oh!”
One of the voices she had heard turned around. He didn’t look much like an actor. He was wearing a loud jacket and had a beard which looked like it was struggling to survive. His ears stuck out at a rather odd angle, and Trixi smiled at them in spite of herself. He looked at her with an expression which clearly stated that he doubted her authority to be there.
“It’s alright, I was just looking for Anna . . . she’s the director of most of the productions here. I was supposed to meet her to help her with some sets.”
Anna stepped out from the shadows. She was dressed, as usual, in black pants, a black shirt, and a brightly colored scarf: today a red one. It all offset her white-blond hair, and the effect was unsettling.
“Ah, you’re here. I’m glad you made it. I was starting to worry about you.”
By now, two of the other three mysterious men had turned to face her. One with short, red-brown hair and small round glasses who was strangely attractive, and another with a face that reminded Trixi of a St. Bernard: large, sad eyes and an over-sized nose that, in Trixi’s eyes, only increased the how-can-you-resist-him-he’s-so-adorable! aura which seemed to hang around him. She knew that she recognized them from somewhere, but couldn’t quite place them until the last man turned around. She knew that face, those eyes . . .
Oh my God! Paul McCartney! The Beatles!
Trixi could hardly keep herself from jumping at them. She had known they were good-looking from photos and such, but not that they were as good looking as that. She looked back at John, and now that she knew who he was, her heart flopped and landed in her feet.
Wow! I suppose I had better breathe right about now.
Anna seemed to anticipate a Beatlemaniac shrieking fit and was kind enough to interject before Trixi made a fool of herself.
“Er, Trixi, these are our guest performers. I’m sure you know who these are, but-John, George, Paul, Ringo, this is Trixi Willan, a senior in the college you passed on your way in. She helps me out sometimes with sets for our performances, so tell her what you want and she’ll do it. I’ll let you all work out the details. I’ll be backstage if you need me.”
Anna left, leaving Trixi shockingly alone with possibly the four people she wanted to meet most in the world. How curious, she thought, that now that they’re right here, I have absolutely nothing to say!
She decided to be business-like. “So, gentlemen, what exactly did you have in
mind for your set?”