When we’d finished our rehearsal, Chris reminded us to meet him in the green room at eleven forty-five.
“Where’s that?” I asked.
“It’s not actually green,” Chris said. “That’s an old theater term for the room where the performers hang out while waiting to go on, and they keep snacks there and—”
“Chris, I live with an actor, remember?” I said. “I know what a green room is. I meant, what does the hotel call what we call the green room?”
Chris looked blank.
“The Baskerville Room,” Harry said. “Ask around enough and someone can show you where it is.”
Chris nodded and wandered off, looking anxious and distracted. We watched as he pulled out the cell phone for about the twentieth time.
“Wish Andrea would answer her damned phone,” Harry grumbled.
“They have a quarrel?” I asked.
“A stupid quarrel,” Harry said. “Like it’s Chris’s fault the QB fired Andrea.”
“Oops,” I said.
“Yeah.” Harry shook his head. “Only a lousy bit part as an Amazon guard, but Andrea hoped it would lead to better roles. But the QB wants bigger guards.”
“Bigger? Andrea’s my height.”
“Yeah, she’s tall enough, but not burly enough,” Harry said. “She wants guards who make her look petite and demure. I guess Andrea thinks Chris should quit his job in protest or something. But he can’t—the QB owns him.”
“Owns him?”
“Owns his contract,” Harry said. “Same thing. If he quits, she can keep him from working as a blademaster anywhere else for the term of the contract. So even if he wanted to quit, he can’t. Not if he wants to eat.”
“He can’t break the contract?” I asked.
“He could try,” Harry said. “Might work, but it would probably take as long as just waiting out the contract, and do you have any idea how much a good contract lawyer charges?”
We shook our heads in sympathy for Chris and went our separate ways. I headed for the dealers’ room to pull my weight for a while before the show.
On my way through the lobby, I ran across three musicians in scarlet jesters’ costumes, singing familiar songs with the words changed to Amblyopian references. I stopped to listen to their version of the theme song from the Beverly Hillbillies, which began, “Come listen to my story ’bout a wizard named Mephisto.” Unfortunately, before I could learn what they’d found to rhyme with Mephisto, the monkeys overhead drowned them out.
“Damn those things,” I muttered.
“What have you got against monkeys?” asked a nearby tree.
“Nothing,” I said, scanning the foliage for a face. It felt rude, addressing something without a face. “I just don’t think they belong in a hotel lobby.”
“I suppose you’re the one who called the health department,” the tree said, heaving itself up to reveal a pair of dirty white running shoes among its roots.
“No, it wasn’t me,” I said.
But the tree ignored me.
“Spoilsport,” it muttered, and lurched slowly down the hall toward the conference rooms, waving its branches as it went.
Health department? I surveyed the lobby and spotted a middle-aged man whose brown business suit stood out in this costumed crowd. Unlike the civilian I’d talked to in the ballroom, he didn’t seem particularly disturbed by the costumes, but evidently the monkeys and parrots alarmed him.
“Either they go or we’ll close you down,” he said, waving his hand at the ceiling, where a group of monkeys played tag while the nearby parrots practiced hooting and chattering like the monkeys. “I’ll be back in three hours.”
With that, he turned and marched out.
His audience stared after him—a man in a hotel uniform and the short Amazon who’d escorted Michael and me earlier.
“I’ll round up a crew if you will,” the Amazon said.
“It’s your people who caused this,” the hotel staffer replied.
“And it’s your restaurant and hotel the health department will close if we can’t recapture them all in time.”
I nodded with satisfaction. A monkeyless, parrotless hotel sounded excellent to me. Maybe when the health department man returned, I’d introduce him to Salome.
I left the musicians singing “Amblyopia, Here I Come!” and headed for the dealers’ room, though I got lost several times on the way.
I wandered into a room where several earnest-looking young people under the direction of a bearded professorial type were discussing the use of Jungian archetypes in the first season Porfiria scripts—as if Nate had any idea what a Jungian archetype was. A list of upcoming panels posted outside the room featured a comparison between the Iliad and season two of the show, and a debate on whether or not Porfiria was a feminist. A room to avoid unless I needed to hide from someone.