Over the course of the next week, things got busier. Most of the work on the theater itself was done by now, though Brett was still messing with the lights. Being hardware store lights, they were not as easily controlled as regular theater lights, and it took some fiddling to get everything the way he wanted it.

The problem was complicated by the fact that in most cases they could manage with just general lighting of the set; by choosing simple plays, that was enough. However, he could see a problem approaching, because there was an exception coming: it was obvious that in Chocolate, Roses and Sex the lights would have to be focused on Meredith (the girl in the play never gave her name, so they didn’t have a character’s name to use.) However, they’d want to use the normal lighting for A Marriage Proposal, which would come right after dinner. It was obvious that there wouldn’t be time to mess with a stepladder in the middle of dinner to rearrange everything.

Finally, Brett decided that the simple answer was to make up a second, more limited set of lights that would just focus on center stage for that one play and any other times it might be needed. As long as he was fiddling with the lighting, it seemed like the bright thing to do was to go ahead and rig it now, before they got into serious rehearsals; it would be one thing less that would have to be done.

During the course of that week, they got serious about doing more rehearsing, though a lot of it took place in the living room of the house. Meredith got off the book with Chocolate, Roses and Sex, although they hadn’t worked on the actual presentation much. In return, they worked a little on The Odd Couple, which was still a ways in the future. However, the vast majority of the lines were spoken by the two girls, so they decided to get somewhat familiar with it, especially as the first full-cast read-through was set for the following Saturday.

At least they weren’t going to have any major hassles in rehearsals for Same Time Next Year, the first play on the schedule; Brett and Meredith had performed it many times. While it had been a while since they’d done it, they still had both the lines and the staging pretty well in their heads, and it only took a minor amount of work for them to get back up to speed. Kellye stood by the first time they did it in the theater, with just odd chairs set up to fill in for the furnishings, but it went smoothly and they didn’t expect any problems with it.

They also did one serious run-through of A Marriage Proposal with Mike one evening when they didn’t have anything better to do. It went so well that they decided to put off further serious work on the play until Same Time Next Year was playing; they had little doubt it would be ready in time.

Brett thought that under normal circumstances they didn’t need to start work on The Odd Couple quite so far ahead of time, and he didn’t plan on putting that much lead time into later plays in the season. Considering that it would be the major play of the first part of the season, and that he had a large number of performers whose talents were unknown to him – including Kellye – it would be best to get started early. Later in the season it might not matter so much.

The whole cast of The Odd Couple – The Female Version gathered in the theater on Saturday morning; Samantha had been thoughtful and had set up a large pot of coffee, and had even come up with a nice box of doughnuts to get everyone off to a good start. Brett was surprised to see the whole cast show up more or less on time, including Rachelle Leighton, who was the general stand-in person for all four of the more minor roles. “I know I don’t really have to be here,” she told him, “but I want to sit in on everything just so I can keep up with everybody else.

While they were sitting around sipping coffee and munching on doughnuts, Brett decided to ask a question he’d had on his mind since the tryouts: “Should I call you Lu?” he said to the tall, red-haired girl, “or should I call you Ty?”

“Either one,” she grinned. “I’m used to using either or hearing both of them together, although I’ll admit that Lu Ty sounds a little Chinese.”

“I have to say that is a very unique name. Is that your real name?”

“It is now. My family name is Turlukowsky, and my folks hung the name of Ludmilla on me. Nobody ever got it right, and I hated it. At least the kids in school learned to call me Lu. The first thing I did when I turned twenty-one was to apply for a legal name change. I figured that Lu Ty sounded better than Lu Tu.”

“Well, when you put it that way, I really can’t blame you. It certainly is memorable.”

“Yeah,” she sighed. “But people still mess up the spelling.”

“That’s got to get frustrating.”

“It is, but it’s a lot easier to correct someone than it was before.”

That made Brett decide to find out a little more about the cast in round-robin fashion, and he soon perceived that while a few of the players knew each other, most were strangers. Jay and a couple of the women were married, and had thought it would be fun to do something new. One of the girls was a college student, had taken some drama classes, and enjoyed them; that led to a couple minor roles in college productions.

“All right,” Brett said after they finished the round of introductions. “We might as well get down to business. The dates of the show are still well off in the future, but there are going to be other things going on so we need to get started on this now. What we’re going to do today is just sit here around the table and read through the script once so we can get familiar with it. Try to put some interpretation of your roles into your reading, although that’s not the primary focus this time through. If we get through it in good order, we’ll do it again, and try to give some more attention to how you present it. We’ll hold off on blocking it out on stage for now, but we’ll work on that next week. Any questions so far?”

He didn’t get any response to that, so went on, “How many of you have got your parts memorized?”

Only Lu Ty could hold up her hand; not even Meredith and Kellye had gotten that far, at least to the point where they were comfortable with it.

“No big deal for now,” he told them. “But next week, we’re going to try to go off-book for everyone. We may not make it, but I figure we’ll have Rachelle here to give prompts. This is important, people. Once we get the basics of the lines down, we can start to get serious on the staging, the presentation, and the nuances. Everybody with me?”

“All right, let’s get started. Oh, while I think of it, from here on in during rehearsals I’ll be using your stage names, not your real ones. Questions?” He waited a moment then said, “OK, places everyone, lights up, curtain up as if we had one, action.”

Where the original male version of The Odd Couple starts with Oscar and his friends in a poker game, the female version started with the girls playing Trivial Pursuit; it was an animated game with a lot of fooling around.

Brett sat back in his chair, the director’s copy of the play in his hand, and watched the action. The girls “playing Trivial Pursuit” weren’t bad, but weren’t totally into their roles, either, not that he really expected it at this point in the rehearsals. “Olive” – Meredith – didn’t get into the action for a few pages, and it was longer before Kellye got involved as Florence. He already knew they were pretty familiar with the play, so he concentrated on the other girls. Early on, he was impressed with Lu Ty; not bad for someone with little experience, he thought, and she was obviously trying to work off the book, although she kept it close at hand if she needed the help. She didn’t often need it.

The read-through went pretty well. Meredith and Kellye were already well into their roles, and that pushed the others to do better. It took a little over two hours to get through the reading, a good time considering how long the play was.

“All right,” Brett said after they ended. “Not too bad for a first time. Let’s tank up our coffee, hit the bathrooms if necessary, then we’ll do it again and try to put a little more acting and feeling into it.” When everyone was back and settled Brett continued, “There at the beginning, you have to remember it’s a bunch of girls hanging out, playing a game and teasing each other. You girls are girls, so you ought to know what it’s like. Now, let’s go through it one more time. In the interest of getting everyone out of here, let’s just skip over the parts where it’s just Olive and Florence. We can work on those next week when nobody else is around.”

It still took over an hour to do the abbreviated read-through, this time because Brett had them stop and back up to work on the presentation of the lines, just so everyone would get the idea.

Noon had passed by the time they finished the second read-through. “We got a good start on that one,” Brett told the crew. “Same time next week, and we’ll get started on stage movements. I want everyone to work on memorizing your lines. It would be very good if everyone has them down pat and is off the book next Saturday. That way we should be able to move through it more quickly. Don’t worry, as we get closer to the show time we have to work on it harder, and it’s going to mean evenings instead of Saturdays. Same time next week, folks.”

There was some talking and gossiping going on as people picked up their things. Some apparently were anxious to get to lunch or other things on a nice, warm Saturday and soon departed, but some hung around for a bit, just talking about the play and the other upcoming plays. Soon, all that were left were Brett, Meredith, Kellye, and Lu.

“You were really getting into the role, Lu,” he told her. “You must really like this.”

“I never got to do a role as big as this when I was in high school,” the tall girl said. “I really want to do well with it, since I enjoy acting and think I’d like to do more of it. I mean, not try to make a living at it or anything, but it’s fun to put yourself into the role of someone else.”

“I think the rest of us here feel that way,” he agreed. “There are times that we all learn something about ourselves and other people from it, too.”

“I can see how that’s part of the fun. I mean, I know I’ll never be some New York girl in a place like that, but at least for a while I can play one on the stage.”

“Yeah, that’s it. It gets you into some different shoes for a while. I hope you’re learning something from this.”

“I think I am already, and I expect to learn more as time goes on.”

“I don’t know about the rest of you,” Meredith said, “but I’m getting hungry. I think I’ll go over to the house, get something to eat, take a shower and get lipsticked up, then head into Coopersport for the afternoon, just for the sake of doing something different.”

“I could eat, too,” Kellye admitted. “I mean, maybe I shouldn’t, but I could. Why don’t we all go over to the house and I’ll throw something together. Lu, that means you, too.”

“I’d love to,” Lu replied shyly. “You’re sure it’s all right?”

“Yeah, sure, why not?” Kellye said. “The house is nothing much to live in, but we’ll be comfortable there for the summer, at least so long as the air conditioners hold out.”

“Just so you know, Lu,” Meredith added, “Kellye volunteered to be the cook around the place, which means that Brett and I probably eat better than we normally do. But that means we have to do the dishes.”

Soon the four of them were sitting around the kitchen card table in the house as Kellye whipped up some lunch, all of them mostly talking about their play and some of the others in progress. They also talked about themselves for a bit, and they managed to pull a little more background out of Lu. It proved that she was a local girl who lived in a little town only a few miles away from the winery, but who worked in an office in Oxford. She was a college graduate, but hadn’t had a lot of luck in finding work in her field, which was information systems.

“At least it beats Wal-Mart,” Kellye said. “Even though it seems to take a college degree to get a decent job these days, it doesn’t mean it’s easy to get one.”

“Boy, can I ever tell you about that,” Lu shook her head. “I have to get some fun in my life somehow, and this looks like it will qualify.”

“Speaking of fun,” Meredith spoke up, “I’d better get moving if I’m going to get into Coopersport this afternoon.”

“I guess all I can say is good luck and good hunting,” Brett smiled as Meredith got up from the little table and headed for the stairs.

“I’ll need it,” she replied. “It’s been a while but I could stand a little action.”

After she was upstairs, Lu asked in a low voice, “What was that all about? Coopersport?”

Between them, Kellye and Brett explained about Meredith being a lesbian. “It’s been a while for her,” Brett went on, still in a low voice. “And I guess I don’t blame her.”

“I’m not,” Lu explained, “but one of my college roommates was, and she was real interested when she found out I was from near Coopersport. She said she’d been there two or three times but never had much luck there.”

“We’ve learned to not let it concern us,” Kellye went on, realizing that Lu didn’t have any big issues with Meredith’s sexual inclination. “Meredith is who she is, except when she’s acting.”

“I’ll have to admit,” Brett said, “Meredith is right about one thing. It’s going to be too nice an afternoon to just sit around inside and shoot the shit. Maybe we ought to do outside, even if it’s just sitting around and shooting the shit.”

“There’s not much to do around here but that,” Lu snorted. “It’s one of the downsides of being a country girl. That’s part of why it’s nice to have this play to work with.”

“Same thing if you’re a country boy,” Brett agreed. “Kellye doesn’t realize just how nice she had it growing up in a city.”

“It sounds good,” Kellye shook her head. “But when I was growing up I had all too damn many Saturday afternoons with nothing much to do, either. Hell, let’s go for a walk or something. We can shoot the shit while we’re walking, and I could stand the exercise.”

“Sounds good to me,” Brett said. “Any idea where we could go?”

“How about if we walk up along the mill pond?” Lu suggested. “There’s a path behind the mill that goes up half a mile or so. When you get to it, there’s an open area that’s sort of a swimming hole. I haven’t been there in years.”

“It would be someplace to go,” Kellye agreed. “But it’s May, and that means the water is probably still pretty cold.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Lu nodded. “We wouldn’t have to go swimming. I didn’t bring a suit, anyway, not that it always mattered when I was a kid. There was a time or two when a few of us girls went back there and went skinny-dipping.”

“That might be an idea,” Kellye replied. “Brett, do you think Marty and Samantha would mind if we took a walk back there?”

“I doubt they’d mind so long as it’s us.”

“Oh, hell, let’s do it,” Kellye said. “Lu, I’ve got a bikini you could use. It’s a tie-on, so it’s pretty close to one size fits all. We can go up there and lie around in the sun, and maybe get wet if we get crazy enough. At least it’s something to do.”

It took a little more kicking around, but not much. By now Meredith was in the bathroom, using the shower, so Kellye took Lu upstairs to her room so she could dig out a swimsuit for her – she’d brought several. While they were gone, Brett went to his room and dug out the one he’d brought and put it on with his clothes over it. By the time he’d changed, Meredith was out of the bathroom, so he loaded a small backpack with several towels.

Kellye and Lu took their own sweet time getting back downstairs. After a bit of discussion, they decided to take a small cooler loaded with cold drinks, just to make it easier to hang around back at the swimming hole. They weren’t very organized about it, and Meredith was back downstairs before they were ready to go.

Although Brett had become used to Meredith’s sometimes spectacular clothing choices in the past, she hadn’t done much with them so far during their time at Curlew Creek; she usually just dressed in jeans and whatever top seemed appropriate, including the Charlie’s Rig Service hoodie on cooler days. But Brett hardly recognized the sophisticated Meredith coming down the stairs; she was wearing a deep red dress, rather short in the hemline and cut rather low on top; if she was wearing a bra he couldn’t figure out how she kept it on. Also, her short “pixie” hair was covered with a spectacular blonde wig. She was wearing a considerable amount of makeup, including a lipstick that matched the dress, and at his guess about half a pound of jewelry. He could also see she was wearing hose, and some considerably high heels, which also matched the dress.

“Wow,” he said. “Guess who turned lipstick lesbian on us.”

“Oh, gosh,” she said, almost aping the stereotype. “Do you really think so?”

“Meredith, if there’s any action up there to be had, you look ready for it. You look very … let’s just say that you’d get a lot of attention from guys, if there are any in Coopersport who look at girls at all.”

“There are a few,” Lu grinned. “But they’re pretty much taken. Coopersport is not exactly a happy hunting ground for girls looking for straight guys.”

“I’ve heard that,” Meredith said. “But I’m hoping there are some girls around who swing the other way.”

“Look for a bar named Bushes,” Lu suggested. “It’s about a block off Main Street, on Elm. It probably goes both ways more than anyplace else in town. I’ve never heard of anything that’s strictly girls. At least, that’s what I hear. I’ve never been in there.”

“How would you know that?”

“Hell, I live around here, I hear things. Besides, my college roomie had a tale or two to tell from there.”

“Well, that’s good to know,” Meredith replied. “I was wondering if this was going to be an exercise in futility.”

Lu let out a big laugh. “I didn’t say it was a sure thing, but you’ve probably got better odds there than anyplace else in town.”

“Well, I hope you’re right,” Meredith shook her head. “It’s been just too damn long. Don’t wait up for me, people. I’m not sure when I’ll be back.”

Brett shook his head. “Meredith,” he said seriously, “I’m not going to tell you not to do this since I understand where you’re coming from, and if I was in your shoes I’d probably be feeling the same way. But be careful, and don’t do anything you don’t want to do.”

“I don’t really want to do it,” she replied. “This isn’t the kind of scene I want to walk into solo, but I don’t have a sidekick, so I guess I’m stuck with doing it this way. I’m beginning to wonder what other choice I might have.”

“I’m with Brett,” Kellye said. “Meredith, have fun, but stay safe.”

“I’ll try. Really, I’ll try.”

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