by Nina Laurin
“Oh,” I say, and my mood instantly skyrockets.
“Welcome to the theater club,” Alexa announces with a flourish. “Come have a look around.”
I exit the dressing room and follow Alexa down a narrow hallway filled with echoes, then into a backstage area taken up by clunky mechanisms for raising and lowering decorations. When I look up, I see a catwalk so high it could give me vertigo.
Alexa beams and flips another switch. The gears on either side instantly whir to life, groaning like the bones of an elderly giant. The curtain rises, and I find myself looking out over a huge, empty auditorium. Rows of old-fashioned red velvet seats are waiting for the audience to settle in. Wannabe art deco designs cover the walls.
“Holy shit,” I say, and cover my mouth to hold back a giggle. Every sound rockets through the space like thunder.
“The acoustics are great,” Alexa says, unnecessarily.
“And only the theater club uses this place?” I ask in a reverent whisper.
Alexa nods.
“Incredible. Back in Brooklyn…”
But I trail off. It seems unnecessary to compare this place to the effective but thoroughly modern auditorium at my old school, which our theater club has to book months and months ahead. Finally. Something is actually better than back home. I take my phone out of my pocket, switch it on, and take a photo from where I’m standing.
“Go on.” Alexa chuckles. “Brag. They’ll all drop dead of envy.”
I turn around just in time to hear the fake shutter click. Alexa has taken my picture with her own phone.
“You look right at home,” she says.
For a moment, I feel at home. As much as I’m tormented by the idea of my life back in Brooklyn passing by without me, I understand for the first time that this is also a fresh start. This place isn’t home, but it could be. Alexa may not be Eve, but she’s…Alexa.
“Don’t post it,” I say. “Everyone will know we’re skipping.”
Alexa laughs. “Come have a look around.”
Backstage, we arrive at a locked door. Looking mysterious, Alexa produces a key out of her pocket and unlocks it.
“Wow,” I say.
In front of me are rows and rows (and rows) of dresses. No, not just dresses—costumes. A scent of perfume and mothballs floats in the air, not at all unpleasant. I pick through the dresses closest to me, which are out of order: a baroque gown, a medieval robe, a fifties Marilyn Monroe dress.
“Where does all this come from?” I ask, without tearing my gaze away from the gowns.
“We got a whole bunch of costumes from this old theater in town,” Alexa says. “And we make a lot of our own too. Kendra helps design them. And so do I. Although my specialty is sets.”
She skips down the row of dresses, and I hear hangers clinking as she searches for something. “Here. Try this on.”
I get ready to politely decline, but then Alexa appears from behind the racks and thrusts the dress forward. I forget what I was going to say. The dress is a diaphanous robe made of silky, shimmering white fabric studded with a million tiny crystals. Among the white and silver ones, clusters of red ones are scattered in a seemingly random pattern. The biggest one is on the left side of the chest.
“What play is that for?” I ask.
“The play that never happened,” Alexa says cryptically. “Try it on, will you?”
Wasting no time, I pull my sweater over my head and let Alexa help me into the dress. It slithers down my sides like water, settling around my shoulders with a whisper of fabric. To my surprise, that fabric proves unforgiving. Cut to measure, probably for the person who last wore it, it has absolutely no stretch. Yet it fits like it was made just for me.
“Incredible,” says Alexa. Without asking for permission, she saunters up to me and pulls the hair tie out of my bun, letting my hair fall around my shoulders. She runs her fingers through it, ignoring my feeble protest. “Almost there,” Alexa says, and disappears back into the rows of dresses to re-emerge with a large jewelry box. From it, she produces a rose that I first think is real, but, as I look closer, I realize it’s made of fine silk. Alexa gets on tiptoe and pins the rose to my hair. I hold my breath.
“Voilà,” says Alexa, and she steps back to admire her creation. Her phone appears in her hand, and she snaps another picture.
“Let me see,” I say. Alexa turns the screen to me, and I can’t help but be amazed at what I’m seeing. I look like a real theater ingenue from La Belle Époque. The red crystals sparkle, deadly, among the white ones. The rose in my hair looks like it’s just been plucked from a dewy garden.
“So are you going to tell me what the costume is?” I ask.
“Guess.” Alexa gives another sly grin.
“Uh…Juliet?”
“Close, but no cigar!” Alexa is aiming her phone at me again. Snap, snap, snap.
“Will you just tell me?”
“Sure. When the time comes. But first, you have to let me photograph you.”
“Um, didn’t you just do that?” I ask. The fleeting feeling of discomfort returns. This is getting a bit intense. My arms start to itch under the silky fabric—oh god, did they spray it with some kind of chemicals? Taylor would flip.
“No, I mean for real. I want you to be my muse.”
I stop cold. I never thought of being someone’s muse—in my own mind, I’m the creator rather than the inspiration. But I have to admit I don’t hate the idea. Especially right here, right now, in this gorgeous dress.
“Okay. Is this, like, a subtle way of asking me out, because, cool, but you know—”
Alexa laughs. “Wow, you’re presumptuous. No, I just think you’re photogenic, and I’m building my portfolio for Julliard.”
“Aiming high, I see.”
“Gee, thanks. My point is, do you agree? I have just the perfect setting in mind.”
“Which is?”
“Your house. Of course.”
Eight
It’s always about that stupid house. Since Alexa brought up the photo shoot a couple of days ago, I keep mulling it over. I have no idea why everyone is so obsessed with it. Sure, it’s old and historic and whatever, but so are half the buildings in this rundown town.
Thing is, I always thought it was dumb to fixate on the past. You have to look into the future, not cling to old junk as if it’s worth something just because it’s old. And now the earth seems to revolve around this dusty house. Taylor, too, used to sneer at antiques and the general obsession with all things vintage, thinking it was classist and a bunch of other -ists. This house should have been a mockery of everything Taylor Brixton, photographer of the marginalized, voice-giver to the disenfranchised, stood for. It makes it all the weirder to see Taylor fuss over moth-eaten tapestries and chipped mosaic floorboards.
Speak of the devil—Taylor seems to be in a mood today. As I traipse after her, she’s struggling to carry three grocery bags at once to the service entrance. She drops one and curses loudly—something she usually tries not to do in front of me.
“Mom, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Taylor snaps. “And you could have offered to help.”
I suppose that’s true. I crouch and start to pick up the groceries. The ice cream has melted, probably in the car while Taylor waited to pick me up after school.
“Sorry, I had a really long day,” I say. “I guess I was just in my own head.”
“Now there’s something new,” Taylor mutters.
“What?”
“Nothing. Please take the key from my pocket and unlock the door, will you?”
I do exactly that and carry the third bag of groceries into the kitchen. By the time all the groceries have been put away, I’m sweating.
“Mom?” I ask. “Do you mind if I invite a friend over on the weekend?”
Taylor l
ooks frazzled. Her mascara has smudged above one eye, making her look like that guy from A Clockwork Orange. “What friend?”
“Oh, just this girl from the theater group.”
Mom considers this. “Yeah, sure. But please stay out of the condemned wing. It’s bad enough that you risked falling through the floor—I don’t want to be responsible for someone else’s child getting hurt.”
“Fine,” I say. I already suspect I might not keep the promise, but something about Taylor’s tone suggests that it’s better to cross that bridge when we get there.
The thing is, apart from Alexa, it doesn’t look like I’m becoming Miss Popularity any time soon. I met the others from theater class exactly once and wasn’t too impressed with them. They didn’t seem all that crazy about me either. We spent the first two-hour session on pointless little improvisation exercises. For all of Kendra’s hints at an exciting play of the year, we have yet to hear anything concrete about it. The girls (and it’s mostly girls) from theater class seemed to treat Alexa with grudging respect, but also kept their distance, falling back into their own little cliques as soon as class was over. Two or three of the prettier, more talented ones eyed me with open hostility.
So, since the house clearly holds some sort of morbid interest for my only real friend, I have no choice but to give her the house, on a silver platter.
Upstairs, I pause at the door of my room, my hand hovering over the handle. My skin prickles. It’s that peculiar feeling again, like on the night I toppled the vase. As if echoing my thoughts, the cut on my finger begins to smart under its bandage.
With a glance over my shoulder to make sure Taylor hasn’t come after me, I go back the way I came from, to the staircase. On tiptoe, I go up to the fourth floor, pausing at the entrance of the long hallway of the left wing. I see immediately that the plank blocking the way has been moved aside, although the tape is still there. It looks darker than it should at this time of day. The lamps lining the wall are turned off. Where is the switch? I realize I have no idea what controls all the lamps in the house. They just seem to go on when it’s dark. Maybe the workers installed sensors.
The ornate door down the hallway beckons, and I head toward it, maneuvering past the bits of tape. Each footfall raises a small cloud of dust.
Yet, as I get closer, I notice something strange on the shiny lacquered surface of the walnut panel. I have to lean in to see what it is: a handprint, a perfect imprint of a narrow palm level with my face.
I remember pressing my ear against the door, straining to hear that rustling inside. I must have left the print then. Better to wipe it before Taylor notices and asks more questions.
I pull my sleeve over my hand and wipe the door in energetic circles. But, when I stop and look, the print is still there. The lacquer is smooth and undisturbed. Almost as if the print isn’t on top of it but…underneath?
How is that possible?
I raise my hand and let it hover over the print, then, gently, place my palm on top of it. I feel a bit like Indiana Jones opening some creepy booby-trapped tomb.
My palm is wider than the print, and my fingers shorter. My mind flashes back to the elegant, narrow, delicate hands in Isabella’s portrait.
No freaking way. How cool is this?
Something hits the door from behind with a thump that resonates in my very bones.
I spring back. More dust has risen around the door, swirling around me. My eyes water.
“Hello?” I ask feebly. “Someone there?”
Definitely not birds.
“Taylor?” I take a backward step, another, then another, afraid to turn my back on the door. “Mom? Dad?”
Thump.
My heel catches on something, and I lose my balance, bracing myself against the wall at the last second. Enough. I turn around and run down the corridor, my steps thundering so loudly they drown out even the thrumming of my blood in my ears. I stumble down the stairs, only to stop, breathless, right outside the kitchen doorway.
Although I made a racket coming down, no one seems to have heard or noticed. In the kitchen, my mom and dad are arguing in the kind of forceful, lowered voices that always mean trouble.
I perk up my ears.
“…but what I don’t want to do is reward that behavior.”
“Did you talk to her about it?” Dad’s voice.
“No. I just didn’t know how. They called me to tell me she skipped school again, and I don’t even know what to do. What am I supposed to, ground her?”
My face flushes. So that explains the weird, spaced-out Taylor from earlier.
“Well, instead, you let her throw a party on the weekend. A-plus parenting, Tay.”
“Don’t be sarcastic. I already feel like garbage. And it’s not a party, it’s just one friend.”
“Still. She clearly needs some disciplining, and—”
“Maybe making a few friends will help her get adjusted. I know I may have spoiled her a little, but…”
“Too late to think of that,” my dad answers.
“You expect too much of her. She’s a teenager.”
“And when you let her do whatever she wants, you’re acting like one too.”
“I’m just trying to be a good mom, Gordon, so cut me some slack! We pulled her away from her friends, her school, everything she knows…”
Taylor trails off. For a few moments, there’s silence.
“And whose fault is that?” my dad says, softly.
I wait and wait, but neither of them says anything else. I make my way back to my room, not caring anymore whether they noticed. In fact, a part of me wants them to know I’ve been eavesdropping—that I heard them.
I close the door of my room and lean against it, deep in thought. I can’t just storm back to the kitchen and demand they explain. It’ll produce the opposite effect. But I can’t leave it like that either.
I look up, and my gaze falls on the portrait.
At once, a chain reaction sets off in my mind, and, just like that, I know why the costume I tried on looked so familiar.
* * *
The next day is drama class, which I’m starting to look forward to. But, after a sleepless night, I’m loopy and irritable. I power through the first two classes on coffee fumes alone, having drained my thermos within the first fifteen minutes. Then, at the cafeteria at lunch, I remember that I’m out of luck. The smug cafeteria woman behind her counter (even the cafeteria staff here look like snooty Yale PhDs) informs me that coffee is not a suitable choice for children, but, if I prefer, there are healthy alternatives such as almond milk, sparkling water, or green tea. The worst part is, normally I would have just gone off-campus for my fix. Except, here, there’s nothing for at least a mile, and, without a car, I’m at the mercy of the cafeteria food police.
By the time midday rolls around, I’m fed up and just want to go home to sulk and ponder in the privacy of my room. But, when I walk into the theater classroom with seconds to spare before the bell, I find myself facing another indignity.
As usual, all the desks and chairs have been moved to the back of the classroom and piled on top of each other to free the center space for rehearsal, and all the students sit on the floor, in a semicircle around Kendra like disciples. And, at the very center of the semicircle, with the local drama stars on either side, sits none other than Nick. As soon as I walk in, he gives me the quickest half smile of acknowledgment before turning his attention back to the girl by his side—to add insult to injury, it’s Ines, the ungifted Viola. I decide to pay back in kind: without sparing him another glance, I walk over to Alexa and plop down on the floor next to her.
“Did you get the okay?” Alexa asks. She was conspicuously missing from all the other classes we share, and I didn’t want to admit I was sort of relieved. I’d secretly hoped that, by the time she came back on Monday or whenever she felt like gr
acing school with her presence again, she’d have forgotten all that business with the house.
“Yeah,” I say, not without reluctance.
“Great!” Alexa chirps. Clearly, she considers this a done deal. “I’ll come over on Saturday with all my stuff, and we can get started.”
Stuff?
“Class,” Kendra speaks up. She waits for the conversations to die down before she speaks, even though it’s well after the bell. “I have two very exciting announcements for you. First, we have a new student. Everyone, say hi to Nick. I understand he’s new to the theater, so—”
“In a manner of speaking,” Nick interjects. He’s still not looking at me—avoiding looking at me? Not that I’m looking at him to see if he’s looking at me.
“You’ll pick it right up. You’ll see, we’re a welcoming bunch, and there’s no need to be self-conscious. I believe that everyone has a little Sarah Bernhardt in them—or Laurence Olivier, if you prefer.”
This is Kendra at her cringiest, but Nick nods in agreement while his two fangirls are fawning by his side. I grimace and exchange a look with Alexa.
“Now, the second thing,” Kendra goes on. “I know it’s still early in the term, but it’s time we start thinking about our play of the year. Now, as you all know, I will have to run the final selection past the committee and the campus life organizer…”
Everyone in class boos, as if on cue.
“…but I’ll collect suggestions starting now. If anybody has any ideas, feel free to contribute.”
I glance around the semicircle. Several hands shoot up at once, but not Nick’s. Alexa is also mysteriously tight-lipped. As Kendra calls on one person or another, the suggestions are super mundane, at least as far as I’m concerned. More old white guys than a stack of dollar bills. I think this might be a good occasion to show off my theater chops by suggesting something avant-garde, exciting, off-the-wall, but, as I try to think of something, I’m surprised to draw a blank. Everything seems to have evaporated from my head. It must be the sleep deprivation and lack of coffee. Plus, something else pops stubbornly into my mind, not at all the stunningly original something I would have liked, but I can’t get rid of it. It beckons, coos in my ear, enticing and seductive. Suddenly I’m thinking in scenes and sets and dramatic moments, and the female lead is me, of course, in the best role I’ve ever taken on. And, the more I let myself dwell on that image, the more it tugs at me, becomes irresistible.