Murder on a Hot Tin Roof by Amanda Matetsky Page B

so freaking unfair! I can’t stand reading these bubbling accolades. They would have made Gray so happy—but they make me want to kill somebody.”

    So much for equable.

    I refolded the newspapers with the articles about Gray on top, then set them down on the seat beside me, hoping other passengers would pick them up and read about Gray’s success. If more people read the reviews, I reasoned (i.e., intentionally deluded myself), it would be like keeping Gray and his budding career alive just a little while longer.

    “We should have changed our focockta clothes, you know!” Abby griped, still worrying about the wardrobe. “It isn’t proper for us to go uptown like this. We should have put on dresses. Or at least skirts.”

    “Since when do you care about being proper ? I never even heard you use that word before. And besides, this is the hottest Fourth of July weekend in history. The way I see it, all clothing rules have been suspended until Tuesday.”

    “Have it your own way,” she said, with a disparaging sniff. “But when everybody stares at us like we’re creatures from another planet, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

    When we emerged from the subway at Times Square and began walking up Broadway toward the theater, I saw that Abby was right. All of the women were wearing summer dresses, seamed stockings, and heels. Some even had on hats and white gloves. I’d have bet my last dollar they had on girdles, too. (From the stiff and snooty way they were glaring at Abby and me, you could tell they weren’t too comfortable.)

    “See?” Abby said, smirking. “You should have listened to me. If we ever get inside the theater and get to talk to anybody in the show, they’re gonna wonder why the hell we’re dressed like this. Nobody wears capris and halter tops on Broadway! They’ll probably think we’re streetwalkers from 42nd Street, or lowly extras from the Bus Stop cast.”

    Bingo.

    “Hey, that’s a great idea!” I yelped. “I’ve been wondering what kind of cover we could use—what we could say to make our sudden appearance backstage, plus our nosy fixation on Gray, seem logical and reasonable. And this is it, Ab! It’s like somebody wrote the script just for us. It’s so perfect I’m beginning to believe it myself.”

    “Have you flipped your wig, babe?” Abby gaped at me as if I’d just turned into a unicorn. “You think we should pretend to be streetwalkers? Ha! That’s a total crack-up! I could probably carry it off, but you—you look more like a peach-picker than a prostitute.”

    “No, you’ve got the wrong idea!” I took her by the arm and pulled her off to the right of the crowded sidewalk, under the overhang of a souvenir shop entryway where we could talk. The Morosco Theatre was just two blocks up and I wanted to get our stories straight before we got there.

    “We’re going to be Bus Stop extras!” I crowed, flushed with excitement. “It’s the best of all possible disguises. Thank God you thought of it! Bus Stop is playing at the Music Box Theatre, you know, and that’s right across the street from the Morosco. Did you ever hear anything so ideal in your life? We can say we’re in intermission or between scenes or something, and that we just hopped across the street to see our good friend Gray and congratulate him on his fabulous performance last night.”

    Abby frowned, then arched one of her eyebrows to a peak. “I don’t know, Paige. Sounds pretty sticky to me. How do we know the people in the Cat cast don’t know all the people in the Bus cast? And what if they’ve seen each other’s shows? Then the Cat people would know that the outfits we’re wearing aren’t real Bus costumes.”

    “So what? The styles are pretty similar, so if anybody wonders about the costumes, we can say we just got new ones. And if anybody questions our place in the cast, we can say we just got hired to replace a couple of extras who just got fired.”

    “But if we’re