A Knife to Remember

know, I don’t mind being acted right off the set for something that good. I hate to say it about Lynette, but that was an Oscar scene. She ought to just retire right this minute so she doesn’t screw it up.”
    Everybody was talking about Lynette’s performance. “I’m ashamed to say it, but I got teary on the first take,“ one wizened extra said. “Ain’t cried on a set for thirty years.“
    “Was she wonderful or what!“ another chimed in.
    “Someday we can all say we were here today,“ a breathless girl in a hobble skirt and picture hat said. “Just like the old fogeys say about being on the last scene of Gone With the Wind. I’ll never forget it.”
    Cavagnari arrived, looking exhausted. He’d shed his poncho and had sweated through his shirt. He took up the same theme as the extras, but predictably, in a more flamboyant manner.
    “We have witnessed a miracle!“ he pronounced. “An historic moment in film! Olive! Olive, tell Miss Harwell that all of us salute her!”
    Olive Longabach, filling a coffee cup, looked surprised and embarrassed at being singled out, but she still glowed in Lynette’s reflected glory. “I will,“ she mumbled, ducking her head and scurrying off.
    “Where is she?“ Cavagnari called after her. “Resting in her dressing room,“ Olive said, barely slowing down.
    “And she deserves to rest. She must be drained! Emotionally spent! Such a performance! Such talent,“ Cavagnari raved on at Olive’s retreating form.
    For some reason, his frenzied tone put Jane over the edge. She was suddenly sick of dramatics—fed up with everyone’s histrionics, smothered in theatrics. She turned away quickly and went inside. This experience had been interesting, but she was tired of it. She wanted her yard back, her ordinary life back. She wanted to smell her tuna casserole cooking and turn her cats loose and return to normal.
    She wanted Jake’s murder solved so she could have her weekend with Mel.
     

18
     
    She pulled the curtains on the living room windows so she wouldn’t even be tempted to look outside and, on a whim, got out a long-forgotten project. Last year Todd had made a Christmas tree ornament in Cub Scouts that really took her fancy. It was a toy soldier made out of a roundheaded clothespin. She had liked it so well that she’d bought clothespins, assembled all the interesting loose scraps of fabric and trim in her sewing room, and found glue, glitter, acrylic paints, pipe cleaners, and yarn to make more of the dolls. But something had interrupted the project before she got started and she’d put it all away last January. She went searching for the almost-forgotten box, brought it down to the dining room, and laid it all out.
    This was the ticket! Something creative and solitary and peaceful that had nothing to do with movies or actors. She had promised, months ago, to come up with an idea for something “different“ in the way of refrigerator magnets to sell at the next PTA carnival and these little dolls would do fine.
    She’d painted faces and made little tutus in different colors for three ballerinas when Katie got home. “Oh, Mom. That’s cute,“ Katie said. “What are you going to use for hair?“
    “I don’t know. I guess I can’t leave them bald. Maybe they could be wearing turbans of the same fabric.“
    “No, there’s something...“ she closed her eyes for a minute, then dashed off to come back a moment later with a yellow-and-brown sweater with a ripped sleeve. “See? The yarn’s all wiggly from being knitted and if you fray it a little, you have hair! Blondes and brunettes.”
    Jane made another dancer while Katie made and applied hair to the others. Then she disappeared again and returned with a wad of Play-Doh. “What’s that for?“ Jane asked.
    “Boobs.“
    “Ballerinas don’t have boobs.“
    “This one’s going to. She’ll be a failure as a ballerina because of them, but will later make a good living modeling underwear for J. C. Penney’s ads,“ Katie said.
     
    Katie got so caught up in the clothespin dolls that she voluntarily helped Jane get dinner on and later cleared so they could go back to them. By eight o’clock that evening, they had a startling array of little people. Soldiers, dancers, a grayish one that Katie maintained was a mailman and Jane said was a Confederate soldier, girls in frilly long dresses, a bride and two matched bridesmaids, and a gypsy with hair from a black sweater Jane had always hated and