The company was semi-professional. Actors and staff were nominally paid, but locals often volunteered in exchange for ticket privileges. Nicky Castone found a community at Borelli’s where he was welcome. There wasn’t a job in the theater beneath him. As prompter, he ran lines with actors, helped them into their costumes, assisted the prop master, and placed and moved scenery during shows.
Nicky performed any task asked of him. He polished the brass on the staircase, washed the windows in the lobby, and swept the sidewalk. Sometimes he helped out in the box office, where they typically ran out of change on show nights. Latecomers knew that since there were always plenty of empty seats, they were let in whether they paid for a ticket or not. The first rule of show business is that everyone in it would do it for free but as a professional company, the artists were paid, which meant that the second rule of show business—you must charge for performances—was essential to survival. But the second rule was often waived at Borelli’s, which is why the books showed the company was in the red.
“How’s the house tonight?” Nicky asked, stopping at the ticket window.
Rosa DeNero, a round woman with a full-moon face, looked up from the pulp novel she was reading. “Could be better. Orchestra is sold about three-quarters full. Mez is empty. Might as well break a hole in the ceiling and rent the place out to pigeons.” She held her place in her book with her thumb and looked at him. “You’d sell some tickets if you did a musical.”
“We’re a Shakespeare company.”
“There’s your trouble. Shakespeare is for snobs.”
“What are you reading?”
Rosa held up the paperback. Sin Cruise: She Was Tired of Being Good. The busty woman on the cover looked anything but.
“Shakespeare is a very lusty writer, if that’s what you’re looking for.”
“I can’t understand what anybody on the stage is saying,” Rosa said and sat back on her rolling stool.
“He wrote for the people. People like us. You ever heard of the groundlings?”
“Not interested.”
“But you work in a theater.”
“Don’t care.”
“Something must have compelled you to work in the oldest art form on earth.”
“Twenty bucks a week called my name. That’s what brought me to Borelli’s. I’m saving up for a washing machine. I’m sick of the wringer.”
“It can’t just be about the money. There’s more to you than that.” Nicky tried to flirt, but his charm didn’t land on Rosa, rather circled around her like an annoying housefly. “How about it, Rosa? Surrender to the make-believe.”
“I might think about it if you people would come up with something I’d want to see. Warm for May or something good like that. Something with sizzle.”
“Twelfth Night has sizzle.”
“Yeah. That’s what the patrons say on the way out,” Rosa cracked.
“You don’t have to be mean about it.”
“Nobody has the crust around here to tell it like it is.” Rosa went back to her book.
“Will you put a ticket aside for Teresa DePino?”
“You paying?
“Put it on my tab.”
“Half the world is on a tab.”
Nicky ignored her jab and entered the theater. The scent of walnut oil, fresh paint, and stale perfume hung in the air, dense as the heavy green velvet curtains that were hoisted high in half-moons that draped the proscenium arch. As Nicky made his way down the aisle, the work lights cast full circles of light onto the stage floor. He was on his way up the stage-left steps when he saw Tony Coppolella, the leading man of the troupe, leaning against the upstage wall, studying his lines.
“We’ve already opened. You’re still on script?”
“An actor never masters Shakespeare. ‘If you take your eyes off the page, you’ll never put it on the stage.’ Sam Borelli taught me that.” Tony puffed on a cigarette before tucking the script under his arm.
Had Tony been born anywhere but South Philly, he would have been a star. Tall and lithe, with black eyes, a strong jaw, good diction, and a limber body, he was a natural for the stage. But it was not to be: his father had died when he was a boy, and he helped raise his six younger sisters and brothers. Now, at forty, he had a family of his own and ran the shipping department at the A-Treat soda plant. For him, it was too late for a life in the theater beyond Borelli’s.
Tony joined Nicky at the prop table. “What’s with the suit? Somebody die?”
“I have a date later.”
“We’re never gonna meet your girl, are we?”
“You will tonight.”
“No kidding.”
“She’s coming to the show.”
“The first time. She really exists.” Tony squinted at him. “How long you been engaged?”
“I gave her a ring seven years ago.”
“Seven years. Very nice attenuation.” Tony took a slow drag off his cigarette and exhaled slowly, the white smoke snaking into the air. “I wasn’t so lucky. When I gave Sharon a diamond, she set a date six months from my proposal. Said she didn’t like long engagements. Once I married her, I figured out why.”
“Sharon is a wonderful girl.”
“Yeah,” Tony replied, unenthused. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-eight.”
Tony smiled slyly. “No wonder you made it through the war. You’re good at dodging bullets.”
Nicky went backstage and checked the lectern at the stage-left entrance. He opened the script and turned on his small reading light. As he did, he felt the tingle of ten long fingernails down his back.
“You’re tight,” a woman’s voice whispered. The fingernails worked their way back up and grazed the back of his neck until every hair on Nicky’s head stood up like the fur on a frightened cat.
“My fiancée is coming to the show tonight.” Nicky reached back to remove Josie Ciletti’s hands from his neck, but they were gone, having moved down to the small of his back.
“I don’t believe you,” Josie whispered.
“She’ll be sitting in the orchestra.”
Josie wrapped her arms around Nicky’s waist and dropped her head between his shoulder blades with a thud.
“Would you like to meet her?” Nicky asked.
Josie released her grip and came around the front of the lectern to face Nicky, unhappy that he’d broken the spell of their pretend game. She wore a flimsy red satin robe, tied tightly at the waist. Her breasts were hoisted so high in the bodice of the Elizabethan bustier that they wrinkled her neck. Josie was a looker from the last row of the mezzanine, but up close, at fifty-three, she was a Picasso. She had close-set slate-blue eyes, jet-black hair, and a feverish mouth. The work bulb on the lectern did her no favors, casting shadows where she most needed light.
“I’m not your girl anymore?”
“Josie, you’re married.”
“Oh, him.”
“Yes. Him. Burt Ciletti? Your husband.”
“But what if . . .”
Nicky had played this game with Josie since he began working at the theater.
“If you weren’t married . . . ,” Nicky droned.
“Go on,” she purred.
“. . . and I weren’t engaged—”
“Ugh.” Josie couldn’t resist repulsion, followed by a dramatic pause. After all, she was a trained semi-professional regional theater actress.
Nicky continued, “. . . and if you weren’t old enough to be my moth—”
“Drop that line.”
“My nurse?”
“Better.”