He was used to this sort of thing and took the intrusion on his sleep graciously.
“I want to see Cheryl, she said. “I need to talk to her.”
####
The next day Leah had a huge shiner. Tonya gasped when she joined them for breakfast. She took
Leah’s hand. “You okay, girl?”
“It hurts a little, but I’ll be fine.”
“What time do you go on stage?” Sossity asked.
“The play is at two.”
“Will you be able to act looking like you do?”
Leah smiled weakly. “Remember I’m a mime in this play. My face will be painted white and my eyes
will be painted black with tear-lines running down from them.”
“If you don’t feel up to it you need to take a pass,” Sossity commented.
“I don’t feel great, but I’m going to play the part.” She smiled. “The show must go on. And I’m not
going to let Lázaro wreck my life. Sossity, you said you would lend me your lawyer. I can’t afford one
myself, but I realize I’ve let him get away with this for too long. Could you help me out with the legal costs?”
“I’ll put my lawyer at your disposal and you won’t have to pay me anything. Dustin is in league with
the Devil when it comes to law; he’ll help you out. And don’t worry about the medical bills—I’ve got it
covered."
They ate and talked about their favorite plays. Tonya, to Sossity’s surprise, knew a lot about theater
and most of the conversation was between her and Leah.
“How do you know that much about plays and musicals?” she asked her after Leah had left for makeup call.
“I acted all through high school and college.”
“You never told me that.”
“You never asked.”
Sossity spent the next two hours on the phone taking care of details for her upcoming concert tour.
At noon she and Tonya dined with two other staff members from her organization and drove over to see
Leah’s play.
The performance was in a converted warehouse. The stage was bare. Leah came out shortly after the
beginning of the play. She and her partner were dressed like traditional French mimes: painted faces
and slouch hats, though he wore black trousers, she a leotard and black tights. The Man From Hell was
cold, cut-and-dried, business-like about his death; the Woman From Hell was in training and thus more
compassionate and ambivalent about the Man Who Turned Into A Stick. At the end she did not want
to throw him in the gutter; when forced to, she did so but displayed compassion for him. Being thrown
in the gutter represented his death.
The play was short. Sossity thought it providential that the director of the film had decided to cast
the characters as mimes. The paint covered Leah’s black eye and bruises. She would be performing again
soon, though. She supposed the bruise would go down a little and could be covered with make-up in the