The Rebirth of Wonder Read Online Free

short order,
and Innisfree put down the required deposit in the form of a
cashier's check drawn on a Boston bank. The two older men shook
hands again, and Innisfree turned to go.
    “ Wait a minute,” Art
called. “When should I meet you there?”
    Innisfree turned back. “Tomorrow morning at
eight? Would that be too early?”
    Art shrugged. “That would be fine,” he
said.
    “ Then at eight it
shall be. We'll meet in the lobby, shall we?”
    “ If you get there
first, we'll meet out back,” Art said. “I still have the keys – I
need to get in there to finish cleaning.” He held up the ring and
rattled it. “Try the back door – if I get there first I'll leave it
open. The stage door, I mean.”
    “ As you say, then,”
Innisfree agreed. “In the lobby at eight.”
    Art frowned, but didn't bother to correct him
again. Instead he just watched him go.
    When he stepped out onto the sidewalk himself
and headed back down Thoreau Street toward the theater, Innisfree
was nowhere in sight.
     
     

Chapter Three
     
    It was almost midnight by the time Art was
finally satisfied with the theater's readiness for its new tenants.
He had everything as clean as he could reasonably get it, working
single-handed. The ropes were all coiled away, in two neat rows;
the lighting instruments were ungelled and stored away on the stage
left shelves, licos on top, Fresnels below. The gels, frames,
cords, and plugs were sorted and put away as well, the on-stage
work lights stripped back down to ordinary hundred-watt bulbs,
their power routed back through the regular wall switches.
    The sets were disassembled, the pieces either
back in basement storage or, if they were too big for him to
manhandle downstairs alone, arranged along the back wall of either
wing.
    The dressing rooms were swept and emptied,
the costumes back down in the basement, in wardrobe storage; the
ashtrays were dumped and wiped, the toilet scrubbed.
    In the house the seats were all brushed,
litter removed, the floor swept. Posters had been removed from the
lobby walls, the red runner was hung over the fence out back to be
beaten, and the two burnt-out bulbs in the lobby chandelier had
been replaced.
    No one from the cast
of A Midsummer Night's Dream had shown up except Marilyn. Of course, she was
technically crew, rather than cast, Art corrected himself; none of
the cast ever came.
    Art hadn't really expected Marilyn, either,
but she had arrived late in the afternoon and apologized for not
being there sooner – family business had kept her away.
    Marilyn's help had made the job considerably
easier. Art had even considered taking advantage of her presence to
haul the rest of the sets down to the basement – the mock stage for
“Pyramus and Thisbe” was the big one, and then the two sections of
Titania's bower were awkward – not all that heavy, but awkward.
    He had put it off, however, as being of
secondary importance, and Marilyn had had to leave at eleven, so
the sets still sat in the wings when he locked up and went home to
bed.
    He was in bed by 12:30, with the alarm set
for 7:00, and he was up again at 6:50; he had always hated alarm
clocks, hated having any machine ordering him around and telling
him he wasn't doing what he should, and he had long ago developed a
defense mechanism against them – he always woke up before they went
off.
    A warm shower, then breakfast, and then down
the street to the theater, arriving at ten to eight – plenty of
time. He fished the key ring out of his pocket and let himself in
the front, with the intention of taking a quick look around, just
in case he'd missed anything, before opening the stage door for Mr.
Innisfree.
    The interior was dim; sunlight spilled in the
door around him, and dust, stirred up by his cleaning the night
before, danced in the golden air.
    “ Ah, good morrow to
you, lad!” Mr. Innisfree said.
    Astonished, Art jerked away from the door and
turned to stare.
    Innisfree was standing on the