We'll Always Have Parrots(23)

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.”