Thank You for Ten: Short Fiction About a Little Theater Read online

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  It was all in the timing, she figured on Sunday morning. Even if she had the code to the lock-box correct, if it wasn't entered within a certain time, the tiny, mindless computer inside of the thing wouldn't read it. Her third attempt did the trick and as a gentle morning mist rolled in from across the quiet street that Sunday, she stepped into the chilly waiting room.

  She called it the waiting room, but it was the green room, officially. In her head she knew that, but it was where actors waited, so she kept calling it a waiting room.

  She'd been to plays before, and came to see friends in plays. She'd never been in one herself, though. Too scared. But she knew enough about a theater to sense how odd one seemed when empty and silent as this one was now.

  After locking the door behind her, Alicia looked around at the various shelves in this room overstuffed with props for plays. She stopped and tried on several hats, modeling them in the nearby wall mirror. Then she sampled the many eyeglasses available in a box marked "eyeglasses assorted". Then combinations of hats and glasses. A laugh, and a realization she had work to do. So she put the playthings away and continued on.

  The odd little hallway she would need to pass through was quite dark. She felt around for a light switch, but didn't find one. Dismissing the silly notion that someone was lying in wait for her in there, she nonetheless pulled out her cell phone and lit her way as she jogged through the corridor and out into the house.

  Here, it smelled of fresh wood. She could just make out piles of lumber lying on the stage. The early phases of set building for the next show, she figured. A single floor lamp in the middle of the stage lit the area just enough for her to see her way up the aisle and into the lobby.

  Out in the lobby, "Dionysus" greeted her. A small curtain lie open around the painting, which she had not expected. It looked like she could close it after each session of work. She thought that was a classy touch. Probably Dr. Gruber's.

  The morning sun, despite the mist made electric light unnecessary today. It would almost be like en plein air painting for her.

  "Good morning," she said, setting her supplies down on the floor. She approached the painting.

  "Just want to give you one more look over before I get started."

  She made mental note of the damage on the painting, the equipment she had available and other artistic considerations. Then she spent a few minutes assembling her small worktable and mixing her paints and cleaners.

  "I don't talk to all of my work, you know," she said as she began to apply a thin layer of paint to a distressed bootstrap on the figure. "Not that you are my work, of course. But I only talk to works that contain a face of some kind. Usually human, but I talked to an oil painting I did of a cat once." She tapped her brush into a thinning substance. "We still see each other. That one's in my mom's office now."

  Alicia worked in silence for nearly 20 minutes. At one point she turned around, half-hoping there was a coffee machine in the lobby. There was none of course, and she made a note to bring some with her next week.

  "Hopefully I'll be talking to many more paintings soon," she said. Her brush was a fraction of an inch from the canvass when she halted her progress, reconsidered her mixing success, and withdrew the brush. "There's this job. Paid internship really, with a photography company in another state. I'd help paint photos into oil paintings. Mostly of people."

  She placed the slightest blob of green into the brown mass on her pallet, and stirred. She slathered some onto a small test canvass. Satisfied with this hue, she dipped her brush into it and returned to the damaged boot of the Greek God before her.

  "I'd love a chance to intern there," she said. "Jack's not crazy about it, but I think I can convince him." She drew a long, narrow streak of the recently mixed paint across the boot. "Jack's my boyfriend, by the way. I don't imagine you date much?"

  She smiled and continued her repairs over the next hour, making occasional comments as she did so, more so than usual, even for her. This painting just invited conversation.

  At the end of her session, Alicia packed away her equipment, and washed her hands in the nearby ladies room. When she came out, she looked at the painting again.

  "Your boots are looking better than they did," she said. "I'm not happy with my work on the left one so much, though. Gonna have to do something about it next time."

  Once she closed the curtain over the painting she grabbed her kit. There wasn't a thing in the world to keep people from opening the curtain whenever they wanted to, but she appreciated the gesture anyway.

  "Wish me luck on the internship," she said, gathering her stuff. "Interview in three days."

  She walked through the doors to the house on her way out of the back of the building.