Death, Snow, and Mistletoe - By Valerie S. Malmont Page 0,2

and Oretta, despite her imposing size, was probably in her forties.

Without moving back, she announced to the audience, “The Nutcracker, an adaptation by Oretta Clopper. Music, please, Matavious.” She stared down at the man sitting next to me. He pushed a button on the portable cassette player on his lap, and the Overture to The Nutcracker reverberated through the hall.

“Too loud, Matavious.”

“Sorry, dearest.” He lowered the volume.

I studied him for a moment. Physically, he was the exact opposite of Oretta, small and thin, with thinning sandy-colored hair that was beginning to turn gray, and rimless glasses. Thanks to Ginnie's crack about him, I'd probably never be able to think of him as anything but “almost a doctor.”

Oretta shared stage center with Bernice Roadcap and the late-arriving Weezie. They alternately referred to themselves as sugar plum fairies, angels, and goddesses.

Although Oretta had announced the pageant was an adaptation of The Nutcracker, I recognized nothing from that lovely ballet except the background music. Thankfully, the middle-aged angels/goddesses/sugar plum fairies didn't dance.

The blank verse the three women spouted had far more to do with Greco-Roman mythology and New Age mysticism than it did with Christianity's most sacred season. The other four cast members had little to do but hold up scenery and chorus back the ends of some bad verses.

The three lead actresses spent most of the next half hour perched on kitchen stools, reading from their scripts in stentorian tones. I padded the seat of my hard chair with my jacket and concentrated on making my final cookie last.

I guessed the ending was blessedly near when the goddesses jumped from their stools and danced around a pedestal on top of which sat a Styrofoam cup, while Dr. Clopper's tape player boomed out “Ode to Joy.” I recalled with amusement the wonderful “Ode to a Grecian Urn” in Meredith Willson's The Music Man. All these middle-aged goddesses needed were flowing togas, which led me to wonder what exactly they would wear for the pageant.

Bernice waved her fur-covered arms in the air and wailed, “What does this mean, my lady?”

Little Weezie paused in her dance to read, “The King doth wake tonight. He is to the manor born.”

I clapped my hand over my mouth so I wouldn't laugh out loud.

Oretta, only a little out of breath, sang out, “By the tolling of the bell, someone wonderful has come to dwell.” She raised the white cup above her head with both hands and cried, “What light from yonder manger breaks? It is the star from the east and the mother is the sun. Hail to the great mother.” She paused, then glared at the woman in the chorus who had only just finished highlighting her script with her yellow pen. “Janet …”

“Sorry, Oretta. Hail to the great mother.” She looked embarrassed. I didn't blame her.

“Hail to the wyccan.”

“Hail to the wyccan.” What the heck was a wyccan?

“Hail to the Goddess.”

Goddesses I know about. I winced as Janet hailed this one with slight enthusiasm. A little artsy feminism goes a long way with me.

“And now we drink from the Goblet of Life.” Oretta brought the cup to her lips and drained it. “Hold your places, ladies. Dorrie, you may take your pictures now.”

“It's Tori,” I protested, even though nobody paid any attention to me. I got to my feet stiffly, suffering the effects of sitting on that torture chair for over an hour.

I snapped half a dozen pictures of the cast at different exposures and shutter speeds, hoping at least one of them would develop into a photo good enough for the paper. Photography is not my strong suit.

As I wrote the names of the ladies in my notebook, Oretta barked, “Good work, ladies. Take ten and we'll run through it again. Without scripts this time. Somebody refill the goblet. Make it spiced apple cider this time. That coffee was cold.”

“Now look here, Oretta …” Bernice waved her script in Oretta Clopper's face. “You'uns got it all wrong.”

“Really, Bernice! I did write it, you know.”

I left the stage and nearly bumped into Ginnie. Her face was all crinkly from laughing. We walked to the kitchen together, where she filled a cup with coffee and handed it to me.

“I'm surprised the minister hasn't run them out of here on a rail,” I said as I doctored my cup with fake cream and artificial sugar.

Ginnie's lips twitched. “Oretta has everybody snowed. She almost had a play produced Off-off-off Broadway once. Now, she's executive director of the LCLCT. That's