One Glove Short

Eero sits behind a small desk at the stage door. He checks names. He hands out keys. He knows every actor by the sound of their shoes.

It is six forty on opening night. The curtain goes up at seven thirty. The hall is full of noise and the smell of paint.

The door bangs open. Zosia runs in. One hand holds a clipboard. The other holds a phone. She is the stage manager. She never runs, so Eero sits up.

"Eero, did you see a glove?" she says.

"A glove?" Eero says. "What kind of glove?"

"A long white one. Soft. Right hand." Zosia puts both hands on the desk. "The duchess needs it in the first scene."

Eero looks at his desk. He sees a cup, a stapler and a sleepy plant. He sees no glove. "Sorry," he says. "Nothing here."

"Then we have a problem," Zosia says. "We have one white glove and a lot of worry."

She tells him the story fast. The lead actress plays the duchess. She came in at six. She put on the costume. She had two gloves for the first scene. At six thirty, she opened her bag. She found only the left one. The right one was gone.

"She looked in the dressing room," Zosia says. "She looked in the bathroom. She looked in her car."

"What does she say?" Eero asks.

"She says she cannot walk on the stage," Zosia says. "She says one glove is not enough. She says the duchess is nothing without both."

Eero stands up. "I will look," he says. He checks the floor. He checks the bin. He looks under the plant. He looks inside the stapler. That makes no sense, but he looks anyway.

Nothing.

Zosia's phone rings. She listens for ten seconds and says, "Yes, I know. I will fix it." Then she looks at Eero. "I have two ideas. Tell me which one is better."

"Why me?" Eero asks.

"Because you are calm," Zosia says. "And because everyone else shouts."

Eero sits down again. "Go on."

"Idea one," Zosia says. "We take a glove from the costume room. There is a long black lace glove from an old play. It fits the right hand. But it does not match the white one."

"Idea two?" Eero asks.

"Idea two. The duchess wears no gloves at all. She plays the whole show with bare hands. Everything matches, and nothing looks strange."

Eero thinks about it. Both ideas sound fine to him. One is odd. One is plain. He cannot say which is right.

"What is the play about?" he asks.

"It is a comedy," Zosia says. "The duchess is very rich, very proud and a bit silly. She forgets things. She wears her hat the wrong way. In the first scene, she waves her gloves at everyone."

"So she waves them a lot," Eero says.

"Yes. She waves them in five scenes."

Eero smiles. "Then you know your answer," he says.

Zosia looks at the floor. She looks at her clipboard. She looks at the clock on the wall. It says six forty-eight.

"Black lace," she says. "I choose the black one."

"Why?" Eero asks, because he wants to hear her say it.

"Because bare hands are safe, and safe is dull," Zosia says. "The duchess is not a safe woman. She puts on one white glove and one black one. She does not notice. The audience will notice. They will love it."

"Good," Eero says.

"But the actress will hate it," Zosia says.

"Then tell her it is her idea," Eero says.

Zosia laughs for the first time that night. She runs to the costume room. She comes back with a long black glove. Then she runs to the dressing room. Eero hears her shoes on the stairs. Then he hears a distant voice, and a door.

At seven thirty, the show starts. Eero cannot watch from the stage door. But a small speaker on the wall brings him the sound. First he hears music. Then he hears the duchess walk on.

There is a short silence. Then he hears one laugh. Then ten. Then the whole hall.

Eero grins at the speaker. Zosia is right. The audience loves the duchess and her odd gloves.

Every few minutes, the audience laughs again. In scene three, the laugh is so loud that the plant shakes. In scene five, the duchess says, "You have lovely gloves." The audience laughs until it cannot stop.

At the break, Zosia comes back to the stage door. Her hair is a mess. Her clipboard has a coffee stain.

"They love it," she says. "The actress loves it too. She says it was her idea."

"Good," Eero says. "Everyone is happy."

"Everyone except me," Zosia says. "I still want to know where the white glove is. Gloves do not walk away by themselves."

"No," Eero says. "They do not."

He thinks about the evening again. He thinks about six o'clock, when the actress arrived. She signed the book. She had her bag on one arm. She held a coffee in one hand. She held the white glove in the other.

"Hold this, please," she said, and gave him the glove. She needed both hands to sign her name.

He put it in his coat pocket and forgot it.

He stands up very slowly.

"Zosia," he says. "Is the glove long and soft?"

"Yes," she says. "Why?"

Eero puts his hand into the pocket of his coat. He feels his keys. He feels a sweet wrapper. Then he feels something long and soft and silky.

He pulls it out. It is a white glove.

They both look at it.

"Oh," Eero says.

Zosia says nothing. She looks at the glove. She looks at Eero. She looks up at the speaker on the wall. The audience still laughs.

"Do not give it to her," she says. "Not tonight."

"Not tonight," Eero says. He puts the glove on the desk, next to the sleepy plant.

"Oops," he says.