A Midsummer Night's Scream

Sundays off to do all their homework.'

'Do we have to hang around? Do we collect all the paper plates and plastic spoons?'

'No, the caterers do that. We merely supervise. And we get to sit in on the rehearsals.'

'Why would we want to do that?'

'Because I've run through most of the most expensive caterers around here for Paul's annual dinner for his managers. I want to try out some new ones.'

'I meant, why would we want to watch the rehearsals? Eating is fine.'

'I thought it might be interesting,' Shelley said. 'I've never seen anything being rehearsed. Do they change things as they go along? Are there some scenes that look good on paper and just don't work—'

'I don't like amateur theater,' Jane interrupted. 'We don't have to sit through the whole rehearsal every evening, do we?'

'What's wrong with amateur theater?'

'The actors are — well — amateurs. They always

overact. They shout and gesture madly so they

can be heard and seen from the back row.' 'How do you know this?'

'I took a theater class in college,' Jane admitted. 'I thought it would be a slam-dunk class I could ace. Instead, I had to attend, and review, every single play and opera the school and local community produced. It was among the most annoying, stupid things I've ever done to myself.'

'Don't worry. We don't have to show up early. The snacks are served around eight P.M. We can arrive at seven-thirty. I'd like to watch, though. You could take your laptop and work on your next book in the greenroom, if you'd like.'

'My next book?'

'Aren't you already thinking about another book?' Shelley asked. 'You will sell this one, and the publisher will probably want another.'

Jane set her fork down and said with chagrin, 'You sometimes spook me out, Shelley. I am thinking of a next book. I've started making notes about other characters.'

There. She'd said it. Out loud. She was going to do this. Now that she'd admitted it to Shelley, she was committed to do so.

'About Priscilla again?'

'No. I've gone as far as I can with Priscilla. I need a new heroine. And I need to make it a mystery from the first, not after I've already written and have to rewrite like I did this time. So, when do these rehearsals start?'

'Not until a week from now. And the building is air-conditioned, in case you were going to ask.'

'That's good to know. That saves me from a nasty surprise.'

Jane had broken down and bought herself and her younger son Todd new computers the year before. When she was researching background

material for the book about Priscilla, she had joined several Internet listservs that had to do with the time period she was using. That had led her to realize that she might get terribly backlogged if she went out of town, to visit Mike at college or just for the fun of getting away. So she bought a laptop computer as well. She told herself that it would also create a backup if her real computer went haywire or she lost the backup disk. This, she knew deep in her heart, was a silly indulgence. The truth was she thought laptops were cute and handy. Now it would finally be genuinely useful.

She brought it downstairs early the next morning and transferred the notes she'd made about the main character, who was growing in her mind.

She started the first two pots of pasta, and set a timer so she wouldn't forget and cook them to paste or let them burn to the bottom. She started pecking away at the tiny keyboard. Her character had decided on her own name.

Letitia.

The moment it had come to mind, Jane knew it was right. She was setting the next book in the Edwardian era, fifty years or later than the one about Priscilla. Lots of new research to do.

Two

By the next week, Jane was used to the tiny keyboard and had figured out a rough idea of a plot. She didn't want to spend years on this book, as she had on the first one. Finishing the first in anticipation of attending a mystery conference a few months earlier had taught her a lot.

First, and most important, was learning that she could actually finish a whole book. Second, she needed to know more about the motives, setting, characters, and clues before she started. When she'd started on the book about Priscilla, the name of the main character was really all she knew. It was no wonder it took her so many years to turn it into a novel.

She'd had no 'map' that time. Worse, she'd

had no list. Jane was an obsessive list maker in

every other area of her life. Why hadn't she real?

ized that she needed to apply this skill to writing?

One thing she'd sensed, if not heard precisely,

at the mystery conference was that writing was a

job. A profession. At least for those who had been successfully published. Even Felicity Roane, her favorite author, had a new book out every nine or ten months. You couldn't do that by winging it every day, Jane suspected.

When she'd started the first book, she'd considered it something that might turn into a book. Or maybe only a fairly long short story. She had had no plan at all.

This time she wanted a map — of sorts. The main things she wanted to see and do if she were to take a long road trip. Conversely, she wanted to be able to wander the side roads when she spotted a billboard that promised there was something interesting to do or eat or learn about if you turned off at the next exit. That would be the best way to approach it if she wanted to succeed in the long run.

She'd already started making notes about who was the perp, who were the other likely suspects — and what their supposed motives were. There was also a list of clues, four or five good ones, she hoped she could insert without drawing attention to them. She was still working on a list of twenty or twenty-five things that might or might not happen.

Unlike her usual lists, which had to be in chronological order and all completed in one day, this could be random and fluid. Some of her ideas were really off the wall and she didn't know if

she'd pursue them. And anything that popped into her mind as she worked could be added.

She'd also decided she should sit in on some of the rehearsals, or at least ask for a copy of the script that would be used for the community theater play. It was, if Shelley was right, a lightweight mystery story set in the 1930s. It might provide some additional insights. If not, it wouldn't matter. She already had a vague sense of what she should be doing.

On the morning of the day Jane and Shelley were due to attend the beginning of the rehearsals that evening, they also took their first lesson in Beginner's Needlepoint. Both of them had admitted to having tried it when they were younger and made a botch of it. The materials cost fifty dollars, but that included a book of patterns, the canvas, needles, and thread. The lessons themselves were ten dollars each and would take place on Tuesday and Thursday mornings for four weeks.

The teacher was a woman in her late fifties, Jane guessed, and the class was held at her needlepoint shop in a room in the back. She had all sorts of her own work displayed and some borrowed from former students, in the