Chapel of Ease by Alex Bledsoe Page A

But that was crazy, right? Ray had been sick, and with Emily the whole time.
    When we were about a block from the Armitage, a voice behind us said, “Excuse me. Muh-Mister Johansson?”
    We stopped and turned. The dreadlocked girl stood demurely there, head down, her shoulders shaking. “I j-just wanted to say … how sorry I am to hear about … Ray Parrish. I know he was your friend, and—”
    â€œWho the hell are you?” I asked, my temper going from zero to sixty almost at once. “Why the fuck have you been following Ray around?”
    She burst into tears. “I’m so sorry, I am, I didn’t mean any harm, I wasn’t doing anything, I never spoke to him, just like she told me—”
    â€œLike who told you?”
    People stopped around us to watch the scene.
    â€œI’m so sorry,” she said again, almost a wail. Then she turned and ran off. In moments she was lost in the crowd.
    â€œWho was that?” Emily asked, eyes wide with surprise.
    â€œRay’s stalker,” I said.
    â€œRay had a stalker?”
    â€œYeah.” The urge to chase her down was overwhelming, but my main duty at the moment was to Emily, and to the cast of the show.
    â€œHe never told me about it,” she said numbly. “Never mentioned a word.”
    â€œHe probably didn’t want to worry you.” Then I took her hand and we resumed our walk.
    Some of the cast waited outside, smoking and looking despondent. We nodded and muttered hellos as we entered. The lobby was empty, and I heard murmuring inside the auditorium.
    Emily stopped. “Oh my God. There’s a lot of people here.”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œI don’t know why, but I didn’t think of that. I’m the girlfriend, they’ll all be watching me, to see if their stories make me cry. Won’t they?”
    That was Emily: the center of the universe even when it wasn’t her funeral. If she’d been malicious about it, I would’ve hated her, but I knew there was a fair bet she was right. We were a bunch of actors, after all.
    â€œWe can leave if you want,” I said.
    She stood up straight, put her shoulders back, and said, “No. Ray deserves this to be about him, not me. Right?”
    â€œRight,” I agreed as wholeheartedly as I dared. She took my arm and we went into the auditorium.
    Neil stood on the edge of the stage, talking to a few people in the orchestra pit. He looked up when we entered, then waved us down front. There were probably forty people there, cast and crew and friends whom we’d all gotten to know to various degrees. Everyone looked solemn and preoccupied, and a few people had the red, bleary signs of recent tears. I helped Emily settle into a seat on the front row, sat beside her, and waited for whatever would come.
    Neil said, “Ellie, would you let everyone know we’re going to get started?”
    Ellie went backstage, and a moment later her voice came over the house PA. “Please come and take your seats. We’re ready to begin.”
    The people outside filed in at an appropriately funereal pace, and Neil waited patiently for them to get settled. We were clustered at the front of the seats, except for those few who sat far in the back for their own reasons.
    â€œThis is an unexpected and sad occasion,” Neil said. “This has never happened to me before, and I’m not at all sure what to say here, so if I ramble, please excuse me. First, for those of you in the cast and crew, the show is not closing. You’ve all seen the reviews; we’ve got a hit here, and truthfully, we all knew it anyway. But we are shutting down for a week out of respect for Ray, and to get our own heads together. When we do open, I don’t want any of us thinking of anything but how great it is to be doing this play.”
    That seemed an unrealistic goal, but I knew it was just to give us something to focus on other than