The Hamlet Trap Read Online Free Page B

and the Lady of the Lake?”
    He looked pained. “They were both pretty tired. They’ve taken the house and plan to move in today and he’s going to take the trailer to Medford and turn it in and be back here in time for the matinee. Ginnie—” He paused and turned back to the coffee machine, looked at it instead of her. “Why’d you call her that?”
    Ginnie had regretted the words as soon as she uttered them. She had not thought of Laura in any particular way since leaving her and Gray at the motel, had not thought about any title or nickname for her. The words had formed themselves in the shadows of the cave of her mind. “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “I won’t do it again.”
    He nodded. “She’s just tired from packing and the long drive, shy with so many strangers all at once. She’ll be all right. And so will he.”
    Ginnie sipped the coffee and knew why those particular words had come tumbling out. Laura had a doomed expression, a sad, aware, and doomed look.
    â€œWell, here’s the play,” Ro said, handing her a folder. “Take it over there and read through it. Juanita’s coming in at ten to pick it up.”
    His office was twenty feet long, only about ten feet wide. At one end was a mammoth desk, always messy with piles of papers, stacks of manuscripts, letters, a fifteen-inch-tall bronze clown, some pretty paperweights, things no one had touched in years, Ginnie felt certain. His secretary, Juanita Margolis, was forbidden to move anything there, but Ro could shuffle through things and come out with whatever it was he sought practically instantly. Everything else in the office was meticulously neat, as were his apartment, his person, his car, the rest of the theater. Only his desk was a rat’s nest.
    In the middle of the office, exactly in the way of traffic, there was a round table where Ro often ate lunch. He had not cooked a meal for himself in twenty-five years, except for toast once in a while. There were bookshelves, a neat liquor cabinet that opened to make a bar. At the far end there were comfortable overstuffed chairs covered in green leather and a matching couch. A redwood coffee table with a burl top, six feet by three, several inches thick, made the couch impossible to get to without great determination. There were windows on the outside wall, but Ginnie never had seen them open, or with the red velvet drapes drawn apart. It was always now in Ro’s office, never day or night, or any time in particular, just now. It was not quite soundproof, but almost. She could faintly hear the noise of the crew onstage, getting set up for the matinee: Pal Joey .
    She sat in one of the leather-covered chairs, put her feet on the coffee table, switched on a lamp, and opened the folder. The play had been written on a computer, printed in terrible purple dot matrix. She groaned. “I bet it won’t reproduce at all,” she called.
    He sighed. “We’ll see.”
    She knew what would happen. Juanita would end up retyping the whole damn thing and getting her own copy Xeroxed. Poor Juanita. She wondered what she would give up for Ro. Her arm. Her cats. Her mother. Whatever he demanded. She started to read.
    When she finished she looked up to find him regarding her, frowning. “It’s a piece of… Uncle Ro, it’s awful.”
    He let out a long breath. “I was hoping it was just me, out of touch or something.”
    â€œThere must have been something better than this. Do you have the other submissions handy?”
    â€œHe read them all. He was pretty emphatic about this being his choice.”
    She dropped the manuscript on the coffee table and stood up. If Gray stuck to it, he would have this one. It was in his contract that he was to judge the contest. “What a stupid thing to agree to ahead of time anyway,” she said. “You should rewrite the contest rules. If