Friday September 14, 1928 7:45 p.m.

Despite the large space where air could freely pass like so many people on the street, The Phoenix Theater was hot, too hot. Olivia fanned herself with the night’s program, uncertain whether or not she was sweating more from the heat or the fact that this was her first headlining show. Maybe if she really wowed the house tonight, more people would come to the next show. If she was successful enough, maybe Peter would install proper theater seats on the floor and not just in the balcony. Olivia loved spending her time up there, fingering the hand-carved wooden armrests and velvet cushions. It was so lovely up there, like a real theater where a proper artist could perform, not just some place where people took in dinner and a show. No, if everything went according to her plan, the main show wouldn’t be the roast beef and vegetables. People would hunger for her instead. Then maybe she could tour the larger cities from coast to coast. Of course, she would remember all the little people who helped her along the way. Peter had been so kind to her even though she could never return his feelings. No, her true love was the stage. No man could ever share the spotlight in her heart. But of course, if she ever did make it big, she’d make sure to thank Peter with a free show or two in her old haunt. Always remember the little people. They’re the ones who made you a star in the first place.

“Looking forward to tonight, Miss Olivia?” Her reverie was interrupted by a timid voice which would have gone completely unnoticed if he had not been standing uncomfortably close to her.

“Of course I am, Jack.” She flashed a radiant, but small smile to him. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“I don’t know,” he looked away and then looked at her and smiled. “I don’t think I could take all those people watching me like that.”

“Well, I guess that’s why I’m the actress, and you’re just the floor sweeper.” She laughed nervously, soon realizing the faux pas she had just committed when she saw the smile on his face drop as he looked away again. “I’m sorry I didn’t mean it like that.”

Jack twisted the broom handle in his hands. “I know. I’m not much here or anywhere else, but I know you’ll be going places, Miss Olivia.”

She placed a hand on his shoulder. “Thank you. You’ve always been so kind to me Jack, and
please, just call me Olivia.”

“You mean it Miss –I mean Olivia?” Even though she wasn’t quite famous yet, Olivia always felt like a star when Jack spoke to her.

“Sure thing.” She smiled at him and turned away, fanning herself even faster.

She took a few steps down to the railing where she could take a better look at the stage. She never quite understood why Jack was so kind to her. Even Peter had his doubts about this ingénue, but it took Jack’s constant prodding to give her a chance, not to mention it would be more pragmatic to get one of the chorus girls to do the lead instead of trying to find a last-second replacement for Ruth-Anne. She had stormed off in a huff after the bandleader called her a “washed-up old has-been who wears a pound of makeup to cover up that she’s probably old enough to be the mothers of her love interests.” If anything, Olivia understood that what had happened to her had been a stroke of luck after a history of close-misses. She had almost made it to the big city, but her bus broke down and she was out of money anyway.

Olivia never quite understood why Jack stuck around the theater so much as a floor sweeper. Even though he didn’t look it, he was quite intelligent despite the way he never really spoke to anybody other than her or Peter. Peter once told her that Jack would have gone to college if the war hadn’t happened. After that, he was lucky just to get a floor-sweeping job. Sometimes it pained Olivia to watch him slightly drag his left leg as he swept up and down the aisles in the balcony and around the tables downstairs.

Someday I’ll get him to see a proper doctor who can fix him up right. Maybe I’ll even pay for him to go back to school once I become famous enough. She found herself often having these idle thoughts without understanding why. Olivia just figured that she owed him for at the very least, being kind to her, the new girl in town.

It was so hot in the theater. She was sure to ruin her new dress before the hot house lights even caressed its sparkle. Olivia’s eyes nearly popped out of her head when Peter gave it to her in that silver-wrapped box. Sometimes she wondered if he kept giving her gifts out of the hope she might take an interest in him, but she quickly dismissed it as him merely wanting to help her get started. After all, a true star must have a stellar wardrobe. It was a ritzy-glitzy number too, what with all of the shiny beads sewn into it and the low neckline and high slit to the thigh. When Olivia first put it on that night in her very own dressing room, she was shaking so much from nervousness that she was afraid that the rattling of the beads would overpower her singing.

Yet for some reason now, she wasn’t nervous at all.

“Good luck, Olivia.” There he was, standing right behind her again. She was certain that he had much more sweeping and other preparations to do before the theater opened for the night.

Overwhelmed, Olivia looked up at him. “Thank you.”

Then the strangest thing happened. He wouldn’t leave. Jack just kept standing there, towering over her despite his bum leg and nervous demeanor. He leaned in slowly, the distance between his face and hers shrinking with every stretched moment. Why was he doing this? More importantly, why wasn’t Olivia walking away?

“Olivia?” A voice thundered from the balcony door.

She shifted slightly to the side so she could see who it was. “Peter?”

Before she knew or could understand what was happening, Peter withdrew a small pistol from his waistcoat and shot Jack twice in the back as he was trying to hobble away in the aisles. He fell, hunched over in the seats, the dark crimson of his blood almost blending in with the luxurious velvet cushions.

“How could you?” Peter pointed the gun about an inch away from her face, almost the same distance Jack’s face had been from hers only moments before.

It took Olivia a moment to find her voice again. She hadn’t felt this terrified since her first audition here. This time, it literally was her life on the line, and not just her livelihood.

“What?” Bewildered, she managed to pass the barely audible word between her lips.

“Don’t play dumb with me.” Tears streamed down Peter’s face as it contorted, somewhat reminding Olivia of a child having a tantrum. “I saw you two together.”

“You don’t understand –”

“No, I'm afraid you are the one who doesn’t understand.” The gun shook in his hands. “I helped you, Olivia. I gave you a chance when everyone told me not to take such a risk. I gave you everything I could. I loved you…”

Olivia really did not know what to say. Peter was obviously beyond reason and everything was happening so fast that she couldn’t improvise her way out of the situation. She trembled now, strangely chilled in the blood despite the heat earlier.

Peter stepped forward, making her back into the balcony railing. “I would have done anything for you. I loved you, and you told me that you could never love any man more than the stage…and then I find you messing around with that – that cripple!”

He was now pressed against her, the brass railing now pressing into her back as she bent over backwards.

“Am I not a kind man?” He hissed in her ear.

“Yes – yes you are!” She sobbed, shaking much more violently than before.

“Good, then I shall give you a choice.” Even though she couldn’t see his face, she knew that he was smiling. “Either I shoot you and kill you instantly, or I use this rope that someone has so clumsily left up here and hang you.”

It was like “The Perils of Pauline” or some other serial she had once seen where the virtuous heroine had been held captive by the lecherous villain with an insidious proposition. Yet it was all the more macabre that it was happening to her and not some actress on a stage or movie screen.

Olivia tried to weigh her options. Although the gun would kill her faster and with less pain than if she had to suffocate, there was still a chance that someone may be able to discover her in time to save her life.

“Time’s up!” Olivia felt the rough rope encircle her neck almost as fast as the bullet went into her side.

How sick and twisted this was, that someone who had been so kind to her could turn out to be so evil in the end. Peter had both shot and hanged her. After he had pushed her over the railing with the rope around her neck, she felt a moment of weightlessness combined with a terrible pausing expectation that the rope would eventually end. Now she was dripping blood down her leg and onto the audience floor. Yet somehow, it felt like the blood was rushing to her face, which felt hot as she struggled. Olivia pulled at the rope around her neck, burning her hands, but only to result in it feeling even tighter. From her neck down, her entire body felt so heavy. Her legs kicked almost involuntarily, but this only caused her to pull down on the tightening rope even harder.

Her mouth opened, but her lungs failed to suck in any of the theater air. This definitely ruled out screaming for help as an option. It wasn’t fair. All she had ever wanted was to be a star. Now the only spectacle she would be in was the obituary pages of the local newspaper. And Jack, poor guy happened to do the wrong thing at the worst of times.

Fully drained, Olivia quit struggling. As everything went dark, she could have sworn that she saw the house lights going off and the stage lights going on. She was going to miss the show, her big break. The last thing she heard was a gunshot. Instead of intending to finish her off, somehow Olivia knew that the last bullet she heard was meant for Peter.