Song of the Red Sparrow

Mavis sniffed a fresh bouquet of carnations- red ones, scarlet in color in fact, that had been brought to her door. The door with the gold star pasted to it by her own hand only minutes before. She sat at an expensive dressing room vanity, applying more pancake makeup to her already heavily powdered face. Her other surroundings were dark with shadows, void of any light or color. Yet, in her days as an amateur actress, she never quite recalled a dressing area so magnificent. “ Five minutes before curtain. Miss O’Hand,” a voice called from outside the closed door with the gold star. The young Mavis smiled at herself in the looking glass. Then she stood up, took a few steps backward and watched herself again in the mirror Lavishly costumed in a broad hooped skirt with a blue sash, her hair piled high above her head with red ribbons. Mavis bowed and extended her hand to a person who was not there. “ It’s an honor to meet you, Mr. President,” she said aloud to herself. “ No. That’s not good. Mr. President, it’s a real pleasure. No, no, that’s even worse.” She shook her head and bowed again. “It’s an honor, Mr. President,” she rehearsed. “ Oh, that’s good. I like that one. It’s an honor.” “ Thank you, Mavis O’Hand,” said a voice suddenly coming from the shadows- emerging from the darkness. “ But I do believe we are already well acquainted.” And then a face, and a tall wiry body appeared to go with the voice. “ What are you doing here?” Mavis asked him, not turning to greet him or to officially acknowledge his presence. “ I thought you would have left town already.” “ I told you there’s one more job to do,” the intruder explained. He walked closer to Mavis and ran his hands up the back of her costume, her stage wardrobe. “ You look very pretty tonight. Mavis.” “ Don’t touch me,” she said to him, watching him only through the glass of her mirror. “I’m about to go on. Your very appearance here will only serve to bring me bad luck.” “ Now is that any tone to have with me,” he continued, sliding an arm around her waist. “ Or are you just brushing up on your skills as an actress?” He removed his hand from her restrained waist and stroked her hair. Mavis swung around to face him and resisted an urge to slap him square across his jaw. “ Get out,” she ordered. “ Just get out. Now.” “What?” he asked. He was playing with her and she did not like it. He had her like a rattlesnake had a field mouse just before devouring it. “ And not let you in on my little secret?” “ What secret?” Mavis asked. “ It can’t be anything you cooked up. You’re not that intelligent on your own.” The man- nearly a decade older than she but a good looking being in a rugged way- laughed. He was looking and laughing at her. “ Oh but I’m intelligent enough to know that tonight is going to be history. Tonight is going to be a night you can tell your daughter about, Mavis.” “ Leave her out of this,” Mavis snapped. She turned away from her visitor and arched her neck toward a corner in the dressing room, where a baby no more than a couple of months old was soundly sleeping in a wicker basinet, covered to the neck with a pink blanket. “ You swore you’d leave her entirely out of this.” “ Relax,” the visitor said. “ Nothing is going to happen to her. She is my flesh and blood too, after all, isn't she?” Mavis kept hoping someone- the stage manager, a fellow actor, anyone- would open the door for her and get her on the stage. “ I’ve kept my eye on you. Mavis. Wasn’t that my promise?” he asked. “ Which is why tonight for your special Presidential performance, I wanted to be here.” “ Why?” Mavis asked, with a surge of urgency. She was facing him squarely now. “What’s going on? What’s happening tonight?” She took him by the arms and jerked his limbs with all her might. “ Tell me. Tell me, Jim!” “ Miss O’Hand,” a voice outside the door called. “ Places. You are wanted in the wings.” The man who had called upon her- indeed Jim Gatlin-leaned toward the actress known as Mavis O’Hand in those days and kissed her on the powdered forehead. “ Break a leg,” he told her and left the room. That was the last she would see of him for two decades. And now, for reasons that could only serve to sicken her, he had returned.