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  I sat down.

  "Dinky's directing the play we're seeing tonight," Alex continued enthusiastically. "Romeo and Juliet set in the Deep South in the sixties."

  "In the South?" I asked. "As in southern United States?"

  Dinky grinned and nodded. "Why not?"

  "How can you do that?" I objected. "Doesn't it take place somewhere in Italy?"

  "Where it was set when Shakespeare wrote it is immaterial," Dinky Holloway informed me. "It's a love story about two star-crossed young lovers caught in the middle of a blood feud. We don't change dialogue. Setting comes primarily through costumes and stage business. Have you ever seen Romeo produced before?"

  I shook my head. "Not that I remember."

  An effusively sweet young man sashayed up to our table and batted his eyes at me. He did wear an earring. "Care to start with a cocktail this evening?"

  Most of the time, that's a fairly innocuous question, but not tonight, not when I was dealing with my own particular pair of star-crossed young lovers.

  The waiter hovered expectantly. Dinky and Alex both ordered white wine. I gritted my teeth and ordered black coffee.

  "Where's the telephone?" I asked.

  I wanted to call Ralph and ask his advice. Since he has no children of his own, he is free to dispense the wisdom of Solomon when it comes to other people's kids.

  The waiter smiled. "The pay phone at the top of the stairs is out of order, sir, but there's another in the bar."

  The bar was the very last place I needed to go right then. A glance at the menu told me I wasn't the least bit hungry. "Order me a Caesar salad, would you please?" I said to Alex. "Excuse me, but I've got to use the phone."

  She looked at me and frowned, then nodded. "Sure thing."

  The bar was dark and smoky, full of laughter and the comforting clink of glassware. Walking into it felt safe and familiar, like coming home after a long, difficult absence. When I paused by a barstool, the bartender caught my eye. "What can I get you?"

  It would be all too easy to perch on a stool and order a hit or so of my old pal, MacNaughton. Within minutes the welcome haze of warm oblivion would settle over me. Even one, I thought, would lessen the weight of my disappointment about Kelly.

  "Mac and water," I said.

  The bartender frowned. "What's that?"

  "MacNaughton's and water," I answered loudly, turning up the volume as though the guy was partially deaf or maybe someone who didn't exactly speak English.

  "That's Canadian, isn't it? We don't carry that brand, sir. Sorry. How about CC?"

  It may have been nothing but a fluke of the international liquor-distribution system, but heavy drinkers are a superstitious lot. And J.P. Beaumont is no exception. I took their not carrying my brand as a sign from the Oracle.

  "Forget it," I muttered irritably. "Where's the damn phone?"

  The bartender shrugged and pointed. "Down the hall," he said.

  We've come a long way from "Number please" days. The sound of a human voice-even a telephone operator's-would have been welcome right then, but no such luck. By the time I finished punching in Ames' number as well as the fourteen digits of my telephone calling card, my hand shook so badly I could barely hit the right buttons. On a Saturday night, naturally, Ralph was out. I didn't bother leaving a message on his voice mail.

  I slammed down the receiver and grabbed for the slender Jackson County phone book. I thumbed through the pages, scanning down the column until I located a listing for the local office of Alcoholics Anonymous. A telephone volunteer directed me to the only meeting available that evening, an N.A. (Narcotics Anonymous) meeting that would start at seven in the basement of a downtown church. Any port in a storm. I took down the address.

  Still strung too tight, I went back to the dining room and managed to limp my way through dinner with Alexis and her friend. Alex and Dinky, caught up in girl talk and in reminiscing about old times and acquaintances, never noticed anything wrong. At the end of the meal, I made arrangements to meet Alex outside the theater just before our eight-thirty curtain. Engrossed in their conversation, the two chatting women happily waved me on my way.

  Twelve-step meetings frequently attract unusual people. The N.A. meeting in Ashland was more unusual than most. A lot of Oregon still lingers in the sixties. Parts of it never emerged from the fifties. The rural population contains a number of Cold War, bomb-shelter-type survivalists and more than a few renegade flower children. There are also increasing numbers of chronically under-and unemployed loggers and mill workers whose jobs have disappeared right along with spotted-owl habitats.

  Enterprising folks from those diverse groups had countered bad times by turning to agriculture, producing Oregon's illicit but cash-rich crop of marijuana, which federal and state drug-enforcement agencies obligingly attempted to obliterate. Busted again, in more ways than one, and drowning in their troubles, these hard-luck Joes would appear in criminal courts where right-thinking judges ordered them into treatment.

  Some of them turned up at the N.A. meeting in Ashland. They arrived in their heavy boots, flannel shirts, and bright red suspenders. Not necessarily remorseful but reasonably good-humored about it all, they joined in with the usual collection of housewives, waitresses, and professional men to form the nucleus of that particular Saturday night group. That nucleus also included several artsy-fartsy types, some of them no doubt connected to the Festival. The latter were generally better educated than the one-time loggers/hippies/survivalists turned ex-pot-growers; they weren't necessarily better dressed.

  The rest of the people in attendance were like me-out-of-towners, tourists in Ashland for the plays. Even on vacation-maybe especially on vacation-a lot of us need extra help in holding our own peculiar demons at bay.

  One good thing about N.A. or A.A. is that you can go to a meeting and take away only what you need at the time. No quizzes are administered, no grades issued.

  That night what I needed to hear was the Serenity Prayer. Repeating it in unison, I heard myself say what I had come there to hear: "accept the things I cannot change." When those words penetrated my thought processes, I lost track of the world around me. I thought about what I could change and what I couldn't.

  The baby, for example, was something I couldn't change, so I could just as well shape up and accept it. Now that I was calmer, I recalled how Jeremy had looked at Kelly just before he reached out to shake my hand. Glancing down at her, his eyes had glowed with concerned questioning and tenderness, too. He loved her, dammit. I probably shouldn't try to change that, either.

  Halfway through the meeting, I noticed that the fellow across the table kept zeroing in on me. Late fifties and heavyset, he tried to be subtle about it, staring at me only when he thought I wouldn't notice. Once I became aware of him, he seemed vaguely familiar. At the beginning of the meeting, people had introduced themselves on a first-name basis, but I hadn't paid much attention. Since I had never before set foot in Ashland or southern Oregon, it seemed unlikely that I knew him. No doubt the portly gentleman resembled a double back home in Seattle.

  When it came my turn to talk, I said something about how unfair it seemed that even after you quit using or boozing or whatever, your damn kids could still drive you crazy. That comment seemed to strike a raw nerve with almost everyone in the room. Drinking or not, being a parent is hell, almost as rewarding as trying to nail a scrambled egg to a tree.

  The guy across the table picked right up on my comment, giving the problem his own personal spin. "It's not just kids, either," he said. "Take me, for instance. Ten years ago, I dumped my first wife. It didn't seem like that big a deal. She was a Lulu with a mean streak five miles wide, and we didn't have anything in common anyway. Besides I was trying to sober up, get my life in order. I figured I could do better. And I did. I figured-‘What the hell? Better luck next time, right?' I mean, what do drunks know about picking decent wives? Found me another wife, a real beauty, too, but now…" He shook his head dolefully, as if searching
for the courage to continue.

  "I always thought booze was what made the first marriage go bad. Now I'm afraid I'm going to lose this one, too, that my wife will walk out on me. And I haven't had a drink in damn near ten years. I ask you, what kind of deal is that?"

  Good question.

  The meeting finished up promptly at eight because the people running it were well aware that most of the out-of-towners would be rushing off to an eight-thirty curtain in one of the town's live theaters, and theater is Ashland's bread and butter.

  As I hiked back up the main drag toward the Festival, I came to an out-of-order stoplight where a shorts-clad uniformed police officer was directing traffic. I found myself caught in a crowd of theatergoers waiting to cross the street.

  "Mr. Beaumont," a voice called from behind me.

  Surprised to hear my name, I turned around. Red-faced and puffing with exertion, the man from the meeting came trotting after me, smiling and holding out his hand. Despite the early-evening heat, he was carrying a red down-filled jacket.

  "Aren't you J.P. Beaumont from Seattle?" he rasped. "Guy Lewis, remember me?" Running to catch up had left him winded, so much so that I worried he'd die of a heart attack on the spot. "I'm the one who bought your Bentley at the auction, remember?"

  Primed, I did remember. Guy Lewis looked familiar because he was, although four hundred miles from home my brain hadn't quite managed the critical connections.

  Months earlier, under the helpful auspices of Ralph Ames, I had first met Alexis Downey, the director of development for the Seattle Rep. The two of them prevailed on me to convince the Belltown Terrace Syndicate to donate (read "unload") the building's cranky and mostly nonrunning Bentley to the theater's first-ever charity auction.

  At the black-tie affair, Guy Lewis turned out to be the poor stupid jerk who had paid top dollar to cart away the Bentley, which I regarded as an incredibly expensive piece of junk. For all I knew, he had to have the damn thing towed. I remembered watching him and his much younger and very blond wife be congratulated by the enthusiastic auctioneer. At the time, I had suffered a sharp pang of conscience to which Alex had applied the soothing balm of reassurance. She swore the money had gone to a good cause, and that Guy Lewis, sole heir to his father's portable-chemical-toilet empire, wouldn't even miss it.

  Encountering Guy Lewis on the street in Ashland, I wondered if that was true. Would he shake my hand or punch me out? Remembering the Bentley, I would have bet on the latter.

  "I didn't know you were in the program," he said.

  "I don't exactly go around advertising it."

  He nodded. "Me, either. It helps to have a place to unload things." He sighed and shook his head as if warding off an errant thought. "Down here to see some plays, are you?"

  I wasn't prepared to say the real reason behind my visit to Ashland, certainly not to him. "Yes," I answered.

  "Henry?" he asked.

  I had been in Ashland less than a day and had not yet adjusted to the way locals and visitors alike tend to shorten play titles to one-word monikers.

  "Excuse me?"

  Guy Lewis laughed. "Daphne and I are seeing one of the Henrys in the Elizabethan tonight. I forget which one. The Festival always seems to be doing at least one of those. They all tend to run together after a while. By the way, have you seen Alexis lately?"

  My ears reddened. "Actually, Alex and I are here together."

  Guy Lewis grinned and slapped me on the back. "Good for you," he said heartily. "Alex is quite a woman. Are you seeing Henry, too?"

  I shook my head. "We're scheduled for Romeo and Juliet."

  Guy Lewis nodded. "Oh yes," he said. "We saw that two days ago. It's excellent. Wait until you see the girl who plays Juliet," he added after a pause. "She's something else. By the way, there's a little backstage get-together at the Bowmer right after the play tonight. Just a few people mingling with the actors. I'm sure Alexis would enjoy it. Why don't you join us?"

  "I'll check with Alex," I said.

  By then we had crossed the street and walked far enough that we were approaching the brick courtyard located between the two theaters. The space between the outdoor Elizabethan and the indoor Bowmer was jammed with a happy, show-going crowd that was congregated around some central but as-yet-unseen point of interest. As we came closer, I heard the sound of music and laughter.

  "That'll be the Green Show," Guy Lewis informed me. "Have you ever seen it before?"

  I shook my head. "Looks like now's the time," I said.

  I didn't tell him that I had any kind of personal interest in seeing this hitherto-unexperienced spectacle. Together we worked our way over to the edge of the packed throng until we could see the action.

  On a small raised platform, a group of dancers costumed in Elizabethan attire was performing what was probably a distant precursor of today's square dancing. Behind them stood another costumed group of individuals, all of them playing strange-looking, mostly unfamiliar instruments. And in the middle of that group of musicians, tall and ramrod straight, stood Jeremy Todd Cartwright, honking away on a long, thin horn that might have been an old-time, fourth-grade Tonette after it overdosed on steroids. From the way his cheeks puffed, Jeremy was blowing his lungs out, but the resulting sound reminded me more than anything of a quacking duck. A tunefully quacking duck.

  That's a krummhorn? I thought. He's going to support Kelly and a baby playing that thing? Give me a break!

  The number ended. To a round of enthusiastic applause, the Green Show troupe gathered its instruments and started toward the entrance to the Elizabethan Theatre with most of the crowd moving along behind them. "Well," Guy Lewis was saying, "there's the wife. I'd best get cracking. Hope to see both you and Alex at the party after the show."

  "By the way," I said, before he moved out of earshot. "How's that Bentley of yours running?"

  "Great," he said. "Daphne found this terrific mechanic. He has it purring like a kitten."

  With a casual wave, he blended into the crowd. A moment later, Alexis Downey appeared at my elbow. "Wasn't that Guy Lewis?" she demanded.

  "As a matter of fact, it was."

  "What's he doing down here?"

  "Seeing some plays, I guess. By the way, Guy said there's a backstage get-together at the Bowmer after the plays tonight. We're invited to come along. If you're up to it, that is."

  "Damn!" I was surprised by the sudden angry vehemence in Alexis Downey's voice.

  "Alex, what's the matter?"

  "Dinky told me about that party," Alexis returned darkly. "It's a very intimate little affair designed to pull in some very major donors. I don't know who the hell they think they are, poaching on my fund-raising territory. All I can say is, it's a damn good thing we're here."

  She flounced away from me toward the entrance to the Bowmer.

  "What do you mean?" I asked, trailing along after her.

  "I have a verbal pledge from Guy Lewis that the Seattle Rep is a major beneficiary of his estate. If that bitch down here tries to change his mind, she has another thing coming!"

  My mother died years before I met Alex Downey, but right then the two of them sounded like soul mates. As a child, I spent years waiting for that "another thing," expecting it to beam down from the sky like a righteous bolt of avenging lightning. Alex may have been upset, but it pleased me to hear that echo of my mother.

  Also like Mom, Alex is slow to anger. Once riled, though, look out. As we took our seats, I counseled myself to hold my tongue.

  Actually, keeping a low profile is good advice when it comes to dealing with any irate woman. It merits special mention in a chapter dealing with "Hell hath no fury…" and all that jazz.

  I don't know that exact quote. I'm not literary enough to recall who said it, but avoiding scorned women is also sage advice.

  Later on I would wonder if anybody ever bothered to pass along that judicious bit of folk wisdom to poor old Guy Lewis.

  CHAPTER 4

  Married people do
it all the time. They go to plays or parties or some other event so angry they barely speak to one another. I know I did it with Karen, but this was my first experience of that kind with a date. Even though she wasn't necessarily mad at me, Alexis Downey was so upset that she wasn't talking to anybody, me included.

  As we waited for the play to start, I disregarded my own wise counsel and made a few feeble attempts at conversation. Alex rebuffed each one so totally that I gave up and kept quiet. When the play started, I watched. Alex continued to stew. I'm surprised the people seated behind us could see the stage with all the smoke that must have been roiling out her ears.

  I guess I expected the words in a 1960s version of Romeo to be changed and updated, but as far as I could tell, the dialogue remained much as Shakespeare wrote it. The difference lay in the costuming and in what Dinky Holloway had referred to as "stage business"-the people and actions that come and go onstage around the principal actors, like background music in a movie.

  Maybe everyone else found it perfectly delightful. Not me. I'm old-fashioned. If I'm going to endure Shakespeare, I want all the robes, capes, and costumes that make it look like Shakespeare. The priest who paraded around looking like a sanctimonious, Bible-toting Baptist minister didn't set well with me. The Capulet party that Romeo and his motorcycle-riding buddies crashed turned out to be an old-fashioned ice-cream social. Those thuggish young men with packs of Camels rolled in their T-shirt sleeves and their slicked-back ducktails might have stepped right out of my Ballard High School yearbook.

  Despite Guy Lewis' rave review, I didn't find Juliet all that terrific, but then I'm not partial to redheads. Right about then it stood to reason that a daughter who was headstrong and stubborn and who didn't listen to her daddy wouldn't rate high on my list of current favorites.

  Of all the characters in the play, I sympathized most with old man Capulet, who, despite his white suit, straw hat, and good-old-boy mannerisms, was still, by God, a father trying to convince his strong-willed daughter to listen to reason. The Bard didn't name his creation The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet because she shapes up and pays attention.