If there was one thing Fort Stockton had never asked for, it was a theatrical dress rehearsal with a suggested donation and full concessions. But thanks to Sister Thelma, her never-ending grant spreadsheet, and Lucinda’s unstoppable lemon bar hustle, the town was getting one anyway.
Flyers had gone up on telephone poles, post office cork boards, and the cooler door at the Dairy Twin. The banner above the stock tank stage had been re-stapled twice and still hung crooked, waving like an exhausted flag of artistic surrender. Delgado added a new sign that read: PREVIEW PERFORMANCE — “A Taste of the Tank!” Hairless nearly swallowed his cigarette when he saw it.
“Sounds like a damn waterpark special.”
“It tested well with Lucinda’s lunch crowd,” Delgado said, with more confidence than truth.
Chairs were dragged into place. Extension cords snaked across dry grass. Lucinda propped up a donation jar that read IF YOU LIKED IT, TIP. IF YOU DIDN’T, PRAY FOR US.
And then it arrived.
Like a rolling monument to the Department of Bad Decisions and Ambitious Welding, the 1970 Pontiac Catalina Station Wagon Limousine clattered into view. Gold, long enough to block a fire lane, and just rusty enough to whisper I was a good idea once, it came to a lurching stop in the dirt lot, back bumper still in the road.
Every head turned.
The engine wheezed, the passenger-side mirror trembled, and a pair of wide whitewalls crunched to a halt like a sigh from the ’70s. All six doors stayed shut for a long moment—until the front-most one creaked open and New Guy emerged.
He wore a sky-blue button-up that hadn’t seen an iron in a decade and pleated slacks designed to offend both comfort and style. He had a canvas bag over one shoulder stuffed with spiral-bound notebooks, highlighters, and what appeared to be a full thermos of tomato soup. Sweat slicked his forehead, and his expression hovered somewhere between eager and constipated.
“I brought my own blocking notes,” he announced to no one in particular. “Also, I corrected the script. The witches aren’t supposed to rhyme that much.”
Hairless, seated on an overturned paint bucket, blinked once.
“Oh no.”
Sister Thelma leaned over. “Heaven help us.”
“It’s bad enough he talks through everybody’s breakfast. Has a theory that Macbeth is a misunderstood satire about local governance.”
“Seems like he’s well versed in Shakespeare,” she said.
“He’s not.”
The second middle door of the limo popped open, nearly taking Delgado’s clipboard with it.
“I also brought this!” New Guy beamed. “I thought maybe I could play… Puck.”
Hairless rubbed his eyes. “That’s the wrong play.”
“I have range.”
At that moment, Sugar Plum emerged from backstage in a black wrap dress and heels that clicked like accusations. She clocked the limo, the man, the chaos. Then her lips curled into the kind of smile that makes grown men forget alimony payments.
“Well now,” she purred, walking over. “Who’s this… transportation mogul?”
New Guy blinked hard behind his glasses. “I’m New Guy. You’re not in the script.”
Sugar Plum offered her hand. “Honey, I never am.”
Hairless watched the exchange with a look that hovered between confused and vaguely threatened. Sugar Plum laid it on thick—complimented the limo, called him “clever,” and touched his arm twice, which, given the circumstances, felt like a declaration of war.
“Tell me,” she said, glancing at the car, “what’s it like having enough seats to run away with an entire cast and crew?”
“Oh,” New Guy grinned. “That was part of the reason I brought it.”
Hairless groaned.
“Sugar,” he said across the lot, “can we not flirt with the guy who thinks lap belts are a casting decision?”
“Oh hush, Hairless,” she called back. “I’m just making sure our exit strategy has air conditioning.”
Trixie watched the scene from behind the tarp, arms crossed. She hadn’t said a word in ten minutes, which was rare enough to earn whispers. Finally, she muttered to Delgado, “That’s a lot of chrome for not a lot of threat.”
“He has a good heart,” Delgado offered, unsure if it was true.
“He has a good backseat,” she corrected. “The heart’s still under review.”
The rehearsal began, as rehearsals do in Fort Stockton—late, dusty, and with more hiccups than harmony. But somehow, it started to click.
Angus Hopper remembered his line. Lutz, perhaps inspired by mild jealousy, emoted with actual feeling. The witches’ cauldron smoked on cue. Delgado cued the lights without electrocuting himself.
Hairless stood at stage left, stunned.
New Guy, for his part, had taken a seat in the limo’s middle bench with a script open and a small cassette recorder balanced on his knee. He occasionally muttered things like “technically iambic pentameter requires…” and “if we had fog, this moment would land harder,” but didn’t interrupt.
Until the third act.
Right before Lady Macbeth’s final scene, New Guy leapt up and waved his arms.
“Wait! Wait! I just had a thought—what if, instead of a candle, she holds… a flashlight?”
The entire cast turned.
Hairless didn’t blink. “Go sit down.”
“But it’s a modern interpretation! It connects her inner darkness with literal—”
“Sit. Down.”
Sugar Plum put a hand on New Guy’s shoulder. “Let’s save that idea for The Tempest, darling.”
He sat, flustered but touched.
When the rehearsal ended, Lucinda passed out lemon bars, Sister Thelma collected notes, and Sugar Plum leaned against the Catalina with a cigarette she didn’t smoke.
Hairless walked up, arms crossed.
“Having fun?”
“Oh, loads,” she said. “Jealous?”
“Of New Guy?”
“Of the way I make you look over here when you’re tryin’ not to.”
He didn’t answer. Just pulled out a chair and sat down beside her.
“He’s not in the play, you know.”
“No,” she smiled. “But he might be in the plot.”
