Chapter 5: On the Record

I took the phone out of Joanie's hand and read the statement three times.

Cleo was unfaithful first. With my stepfather.

Under it were eleven thousand comments.

"Knew it. Look at how she walked out, she had somewhere to go."

"The stepdad is the producer?? She slept her way to stage manager lol."

"He's like fifty. Gross."

"He's forty-six," I said out loud.

Joanie stared at me. "That's the part you're correcting?"

"I'm correcting all of it. I'm starting small."

Her wife took the phone gently out of my hand and put it face down on the coffee table.

"Sleep," she said. "Lie tomorrow."

"I don't lie."

"Then sleep and tell the truth tomorrow. Same rule."

I didn't sleep. The cat sat on my feet all night.

At 8:40 Tuesday morning there were nine reporters outside the stage door on 46th Street.

Two cameras, a ring light, and a man holding a boom mic in a fur cover like a dead cat on a stick.

Joanie walked beside me with her headset already on.

"Want me to go in swinging?"

"No," I said. "I want a coffee and the call sheet."

"Cleo! Cleo, is it true you were sleeping with Ward Stanton?"

"Cleo, did you plan the walkout?"

"Cleo, are you still on the show?"

I held up my coffee.

"I'm very sorry," I said. "I have a ten o'clock tech call and I'm the one who calls it."

I walked through them. They parted, because nobody expects the bride to keep walking.

The door guard held the door open and glared at the cameras.

Inside, the whole company was on the deck already.

Not at their dressing rooms. Not at the coffee urn. On the deck, under work lights, standing in clumps and pretending not to look at their phones.

Jude sat on the gangplank in his sunglasses. Lenore stood behind him with her hand on his shoulder.

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