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The squeaky sound of children’s voices was driving me a little crazy in this echoey space. I didn’t have high hopes that amplification would make it sound any better, but Liz was counting on me to fix things. I followed along with the video tutorial and unpacked the cords and cables I needed to power up the board and connect it to the speakers that hung at various locations in the room. Next I set to work on microphones, and I was rewarded with a loud squeak that told me I had succeeded! But the sound caused everyone else in the room to cover their ears.
“Sorry! Sorry!” I cried out as I muted the microphone. Without thinking, I checked in with Liz at the front of the auditorium, and Darcy was staring back at me. My eyes caught hers as she helped a child put on a sparkly vest, but she quickly looked away.
So she didn’t hear, I thought. If Darcy was still avoiding me, then it probably meant she didn’t hear what I said on the radio. Either that or she wasn’t ready to accept my apology. I had a sudden urge to talk to her. I needed her to know I didn’t mean to hurt her with the offer. In fact, I thought it would help her. I was trying to show her how much I valued the place since she loved it so much. But how could I find a way to make her understand that?
One of the dads had wandered over to me and the soundboard, looking a little lost. I imagined he had been dragged along by his wife and now he wasn’t sure where to help.
“Want to give me a hand?” I asked. As I began to walk the guy through the soundboard and the set-up of additional handheld microphones, my eyes floated to the front. I saw Darcy walking onstage to line the kids up. Liz was looking at all of them together and Darcy was adding a hat or a boa wherever Liz instructed.
After a moment, I saw Darcy cross to the backstage area and I saw my opportunity to catch her alone for a moment.
“I’ll be right back,” I told the dad, whose name was Ian. “You’ll be alright?”
“Sure thing,” he said. It was exactly as I expected: He was thrilled to have a task instead of wandering around the room.
Once I knew Ian was comfortable, I took off toward the stage, dodging parents who were setting up folding chairs in neat rows. I pushed my way through the door that led backstage and climbed a few steps to get to stage level. Darcy was there, pinning a tail to the back of a child’s costume. When the kid ran back onstage, she turned to look and she caught me out of the corner of her eye.
“What are you doing?” she asked. She seemed jumpy, as if she didn’t know how to react to me.
“Can we talk?” I asked. “Just for a minute.”
“Liz needs me,” she said, but she didn’t make any attempt to move. I took it as a good sign and decided to continue. I might as well get out what I could before she decided to walk away.
“So, the offer,” I said, cutting right to the chase. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”
“I don’t want to talk about this,” Darcy told me. “We have too much to do to get this show ready.”
“You don’t even have a kid here!” I laughed, and I saw Darcy crack a smile.
“Liz’s kids are like my kids,” she answered.
“Mine too,” I said. She turned to me then, looking at me properly for the first time in the conversation. “Look, if you don’t want me to buy the place then I won’t. I’ll withdraw the offer, no questions asked.”
“I’m going to help Liz,” she said. Darcy crossed onto the stage then and called out another group from the wings. She lined up the little butterflies and helped them put on their wings as Liz pointed to which kid should get which color.
I watched her for a moment, shaking my head as two of the kids started fighting over the blue pair of wings. While Darcy tried to be gentle with them, Liz interrupted the argument with a quick threat, telling them they wouldn’t get any wings if they didn’t calm down. I laughed, but Liz’s reprimand was effective, and they were able to continue. I left as the kids were given matching headbands with bouncing antennae on them.
The conversation with Darcy had been brief and inconclusive. She hadn’t said anything when I told her I would withdraw my offer on the hardware store. Was that a sign that she didn’t want me to? Or was she still too mad to talk to me about it? I shuffled back to the soundboard as I tried to interpret every brief interaction Darcy and I had.
At least she didn’t yell, I thought. That was certainly an improvement from this morning. And when I thought about it, I felt a softness from her that was a far cry from open hostility. So maybe she was willing to forgive me after all.
“You okay, man?” Ian asked as I joined him back behind the table.
“What would you do if you liked someone, so you put in an offer on her family property that’s way over the asking price, but then she gets upset you did it?”
“What?” Ian asked. He looked at me blankly, clearly overwhelmed by all the information I had just laid at his feet. The man had only just learned how to do sound. I guess it was too much to expect him to be a confidant when I had only just met him.
“Never mind,” I answered. I clicked the headphone jack into the laptop being used for sound and heard children’s music blast out through the speakers. The children cheered as they heard the familiar tracks they had worked with for the past week. I waved at them and gave them a mock bow amidst their clapping. When I rose from this bow, I looked across the room and saw Darcy staring back at me.
19
DARCY
“Why did you do this?” I asked, returning to Liz’s side. “Why invite me here when you know Callum’s here too?”
I had called Liz immediately after Callum drove away from my house. I knew she would see the offer on the store soon, since it was in both of our inboxes, and I needed her to hear the information from me. But it meant she also forced some of the other details out of me. She had prodded until I told her that Callum spent the night last night. I was upset when she was giddy about it, seemingly ignoring my outrage.
“Didn’t you hear his radio interview this morning?” Liz asked as someone practiced closing the theater’s red curtain. While it closed, all the kids waved at Liz and me who stood on the auditorium floor off of the stage.
