Surviving the Applewhites

by Stephanie S. Tolan

  “What? What do you play?”

  Bernstein cleared his throat again and said, “The accordion.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  Bernstein looked up, his mouth tightening. “I am not kidding! I learned during my family’s summers in the Poconos when I was a kid. I wore a satin shirt and played in an accordion band!”

  “You have your accordion with you?”

  He shook his head. “Of course not. Nobody knows. I haven’t told a soul about this since I left junior high school. But I could have my mother ship it.”

  “Accordion. The Sound of Music on the accordion. Well, why not?” Randolph said. “It’s better than kazoos.”

  E.D. turned and headed back toward the schoolroom. As intense and dramatic as all this was, it had nothing to do with her. Her father needed everybody else, not her.

  “E.D.!” her father called. “Where are you going?”

  “To get my Shakespeare,” she said. “You don’t need me.”

  “Don’t need you? Didn’t you hear me say my stage manager quit? Of course I need you—more than anyone. There’s nobody else in this family even remotely organized enough to handle the job! There’s no time for Shakespeare now! There’s work to be done.”

  E.D. gave her head a little shake as if to clear her ears. Her father dug into his briefcase and came up with a fat spiral notebook, a yellow legal pad covered with handwritten notes, and a calendar. He held them out to her. “Let’s go someplace where we won’t be disturbed. I need you all caught up and ready to go before tonight’s rehearsal. I’ll talk to the rest of you at dinner.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Jake was trying to get ready for rehearsal with Destiny, yodeling the lonely goatherd song in his wake, when it dawned on him that his life had slipped finally and utterly out of his control.

  He’d become impossibly entangled with the Applewhites. First Winston had adopted him and then, by what seemed the same invisible and mysterious process, Destiny had, too. The kid had begun explaining to anyone who would listen that Jake was the “bestest brother in the whole wide world.” Jake had told him and told him that just because he had come to live at Wit’s End it didn’t mean he was Destiny’s brother, but Destiny was impervious to minor details of fact.

  When the family took over all the technical jobs on The Sound of Music, everybody was too busy working on the show to have time to look after a four-year-old. Jake only had to go to rehearsal. He had more time than anybody. And since Destiny had already adopted him anyway, he had somehow become a kind of full-time baby-sitter. Nobody had actually asked him to look after Destiny, and he hadn’t exactly volunteered. It had just happened.

  Jake could understand why Hal wasn’t enough of a brother for Destiny. The set designs had appeared outside his door as he finished them. Then he’d built a model, which had also been left in the hall during the night, followed by the renderings—the drawings that Zedediah and Archie were using to build the parts of the set they could build in the wood shop. So far none of this had required Hal to come out of his room. Jake had still never met him face-to-face.

  Wit’s End had become a beehive of theatrical activity. The number of costumes required was vastly greater than Lucille and Sybil could handle alone, so Cordelia, who had quickly finished the choreography and only had to go to a few rehearsals, was immediately drafted into the costume crew. Lucille had a sewing machine, but two more had been rented and bolts and bolts of cloth brought from town. When even the three of them, working steadily and grumbling loudly, could not churn out nuns’ habits fast enough, they shanghaied Govindaswami, who was pretty good with a needle, to help.

  Jake had no idea what a guru normally did, except for meditating, which didn’t seem to be a full-time occupation. But if Govindaswami was any sort of example, gurus had a variety of talents. After Randolph’s emergency had been declared, when it became clear that nobody had time to fix meals, Govindaswami had abandoned his fast and taken over the kitchen. His sewing was adequate, but his cooking turned out to be spectacular. Dramatic, intense—hot—but spectacular.

  Grocery runs were no longer a haphazard occurrence. Having quickly discovered that Traybridge had no grocery that stocked the ingredients he needed, Govindaswami would borrow Archie’s pickup and disappear for hours at a time, coming back with huge bags of rice, bags and boxes of meats and vegetables, and various strange herbs and spices, from which he concocted meals the like of which Jake had never encountered. Once, after Wolfie had gotten loose again and torn open a huge burlap bag full of rice that Govindaswami had set on the ground by the truck while he took the rest of his purchases inside, Jake had seen the man looking speculatively at the goat. But Jake figured that had been only his imagination. Even if Indians ate goat, which Jake didn’t think they did, Govindaswami would never go after Lucille’s beloved Wolfie.

  It was an education in itself to watch Govindaswami in the kitchen. “Passion,” he would say to Jake and Destiny as he moved around the room, chopping and stirring and tasting. “Passion is necessary to all of life. All of life. Meditating, working, cooking, eating. Especially eating!”

  It took the Applewhites no time at all to adapt to the change in their dietary habits. Cordelia even gave up her green gunk. No matter how busy they were, everybody stopped whatever they were doing at lunch, and again at dinnertime, to gather in the dining room for the feasts Govindaswami prepared. There were curries, chutneys, and wonderful soft flat-breads. As much food as appeared on the table invariably disappeared before the end of the meal. Some of the dishes were so spicy they were almost too painful to eat, but Govindaswami explained that yogurt and sugar both cooled the tongue. He served plenty of yogurt sauces and gallons of Destiny’s favorite, grape Kool-Aid.

  It was such a dinner they had just finished. Jake’s mouth still tingled from the lamb curry. Now he was doing his best to make sure he had everything he would need at rehearsal. It wasn’t easy. The other actors only had to take their script, maybe a bottle of water, and something to do while they were waiting to go onstage. Jake had to take Winston’s leash, in case the dog needed to go out during rehearsal, his water dish, and a bag of liver treats to distract him from howling along with the accordion. There was something about certain notes on the accordion that sent the dog into long, drawn-out howls that only liver treats could stop. Winston’s essential items were already packed in one of the large canvas bags Lucille had provided.

  Destiny’s needs were considerably more complicated. It wasn’t easy to keep the kid busy and occupied and out of mischief for the three or four, sometimes even five hours of rehearsal. Even for a four-year-old, Destiny’s boredom threshhold seemed extraordinarily low. Every night Jake filled the bags with as many distractions as he could think of. He took picture books—never the same ones twice in a row. He took a thick pad of paper and watercolor markers. And he always threw in a few toys, though Destiny did not seem particularly interested in toys.

  During the last rehearsal, Destiny had found a screwdriver somewhere and spent the whole time Jake was onstage unscrewing seat bottoms in the auditorium. No one had noticed what he was doing until Mrs. Montrose, who had come to observe the rehearsal, sat down in one of the unscrewed seats. It detached and crashed to the floor, taking her with it. She had blamed Randolph. Randolph had blamed Jake.

  So now Jake scoured the schoolroom to come up with new ideas. He added a few handfuls of Legos, some brightly colored sticks of modeling clay, and a box full of miniature cars. “Anything else you want to take?” he asked Destiny.

  Destiny stopped singing to ponder this question. “The caterpillars,” he said.

  “Can’t take the caterpillars,” Jake told him.

  “What if they gets to be butterflies while we’re gone?”

  “They won’t all do it at the same time,” Jake assured him. “I’ll take off the top, and if one does, it’ll be here fluttering around the schoolroom when we get back.”

  Destiny went back to his song. Co
rdelia hurried in, carrying a pair of dark brown pants and a shirt. She tossed them at Jake. “Your messenger uniform. At least I think it’ll do. I don’t know what messengers wore in Austria in the thirties. But take it with you and wear it for your scene tonight. See what the Emperor of the World thinks. If he likes it, I can scratch another costume off the list. Except for the hat. We don’t have a hat yet.”

  Destiny stopped singing. “I want a uniform! Make me one too, Delia! With a hat.”

  “It’s a costume. You’re not in the show. You don’t get a costume.” Cordelia’s voice was tight.

  “But I want one! Like Jake’s. With a hat. I wanna—”

  “Listen, you little beast, there are forty-six people in this show and most of them have at least four costumes! You do not get a costume!”

  “I only have two,” Jake said. “This one and the SS uniform. Randolph said those are rented.”

  “Yeah. But we have to do alterations to make them fit. I am not a costumer. I am a dancer! A choreographer! Never again, I tell you. Never, ever, ever again!” Cordelia turned to go. “Thank heavens for the Mother Abbess,” she muttered as she left. “One habit for the whole show. And I’ve finished it.”

  Jake folded the uniform and put it into the bag with Destiny’s toys. “Okay, guy. Let’s go.”

  Destiny stood with his arms crossed, not moving. “I wanna costume. I wanna be in the show.”

  “You can’t. People in the show have to sing. And act.”

  “I can sing. What do you gots to do to act?”

  “Pretend to be someone you aren’t,” Jake said.

  “I can pretend. I pretend I’m a pirate all the time. I—”

  “It’s too late. All the parts are already taken. You get to be audience.”

  “Does audience get a costume?”

  “No. Come on. It’s time to go.”

  The trip to rehearsals required two vehicles. The Miata, with Randolph and E.D., left fifteen minutes ahead because they needed to get to the theater in time to set up. Then came Sybil’s Volvo station wagon, driven by Cordelia, with Jeremy Bernstein and his accordion, Jake and Destiny and Winston. Usually Destiny sang and talked the whole way to Traybridge. Tonight he sat in the corner of the backseat and sulked. At the time the restful silence seemed like a good thing.

  It was only later that Jake realized that a sulky Destiny was never a good thing. Wearing the messenger uniform that Randolph said made him look like a UPS delivery man, Jake had just finished whirling Jeannie around and was getting himself ready for the kiss that ended their dance when he smelled something burning. Over Jeannie’s shoulder he saw a billowing plume of white smoke.

  “Fire!” he yelled.

  In the ensuing panic the youngest of the child actors fell off the stage. Her screams combined with Winston’s frenzied barking to nearly drown out the contradictory orders being shouted from all directions.

  “Call 911!”

  “Get out! Get out! Everybody get outside!”

  “Find the fire extinguisher!”

  “Call 911!”

  It was E.D. who found the extinguisher and put out the fire before any serious damage was done.

  It had started in a wastebasket backstage, where Destiny had taken apart the pad of paper, crumpled every sheet into a ball, and set fire to the papers with Jake’s lighter. He had found the lighter in the pocket of Jake’s pants after Jake had changed into his messenger uniform and gone onstage for his scene.

  “I was acting!” Destiny explained when he was found with the incriminating lighter still in his hand. “I was pretending to be Jake, burning down his school. Only I didn’t have any gasoline.”

  Randolph, of course, after decreeing that Destiny was never to have matches, lighters, or even paper in his possession again ever in his entire life, blamed Jake.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  E.D. had very little time to revel in being a hero. “The show must go on,” her father said once it was clear that it could. “Fire’s out. No real damage done. Call the next scene.”

  “The next scene has all the children,” E.D. said. “Gretl fell off the stage. Her mother took her to the emergency room.”

  “We’ll do it without her tonight, then. She can catch up next rehearsal.”

  “There won’t be a next rehearsal for her,” said the nurse who was playing the role of the housekeeper. “That was a broken arm.”

  “We’re going to have to find a new Gretl,” E.D. told her father.

  “That’s impossible! No one else who auditioned for that part could possibly play it. That’s why I cast her in the first place.”

  “We’ll just have to find someone,” E.D. said.

  The phone rang early the next morning when E.D. was in the schoolroom, revising the history section of her curriculum. Instead of the Civil War, her fall history project from now on would be World War II, specifically the Nazi occupation of Austria. That way she could count the show as schoolwork. The phone rang again. When nobody had answered it by the third ring, E.D. picked it up. It was Mrs. Montrose, president of the board of the Traybridge Little Theatre. “I want to speak to your father!” the woman said. “I understand there was an arson attempt at the theater last night.”

  “Not arson,” E.D. hastily assured her. “It was purely an accident.”

  “I have my sources,” the woman said, “and they say the fire was deliberately set. Furthermore, a child was injured—”

  “It was only a broken arm,” E.D. said.

  “I wish to speak to Randolph Applewhite immediately.”

  “I’m sorry, but he’s not here,” E.D. said. Strictly speaking, this was not a lie. Her father was not in the schoolroom. It was only eight o’clock in the morning. He was upstairs, in bed, sound asleep. “May I take a message?”

  “You tell him that I’m canceling the show. From the moment he took over this project, I have had serious doubts about the appropriateness of his choices. But this—this disaster is the final straw. The Traybridge Little Theatre is a historic landmark and we came perilously close to losing it. As for injuries, our liability insurance does not—”

  E.D. thought fast. “That will be a shock to the television crew that’s coming for the opening. I’m sure you know that The Sound of Music is expected to be the centerpiece of the story they’re putting on network TV.”

  “I don’t care about that; I care about the future of—” E.D. hurried on. “I was planning to call you this morning, actually. It was the little girl playing Gretl who broke her arm, and if the show were able to go on, we would need to replace her. I noticed that your daughter auditioned for that role as well as the role of Brigitta originally. I was hoping you could bring her by to let her audition again. Of course, there would be no point if the show’s being canceled….”

  There was a long silence, broken only by what sounded like fingernails being tapped on a hard surface.

  “Would this be an open audition?”

  “Oh no. Only your daughter. My father just wants a chance to hear her again. He told me that none of the others could possibly play the role. In fact, he actually refused to hear any of them again.”

  “Well…well…” The tapping went on again for a moment. “When would he need to see her?”

  “Perhaps the two of you could come this evening,” E.D. said. “After your daughter auditions, you could stay for dinner. We’re having fried chicken. The associate producer will be here for dinner as well.” These things were both perfectly true. Govindaswami had promised them fried chicken, and Jeremy had taken to introducing himself as associate producer. “You could talk to him about the television project.”

  This time the pause was considerably shorter. “Dinner. I think we might be able to manage dinner. What time?”

  E.D. grinned. “Rehearsal is due to begin at seven. How about coming here at about four-thirty? You and your daughter can meet the producer, your daughter can sing, and then we’ll all have dinner.”

  “All right,
then. Four-thirty. But tell your father that there will have to be much stricter control maintained during rehearsals in the future.”

  “Of course. He was just saying that very thing last night—after the accident.” That, too, was true. “You’re not to let Destiny out of your sight for an instant!” he had told Jake. When Jake had reminded him that Destiny had done the deed while Jake was onstage, he had threatened to put Destiny on a leash and tie the leash to a theater seat.

  When E.D. put down the phone, she sighed. It had worked. But Mrs. Montrose was only the first part of the problem. The second part was Randolph Applewhite.

  “Absolutely not!” he said over breakfast when she told him her plan. “I can’t possibly use that child as Gretl. Gretl’s the youngest. She has to be little and cute. The Montrose kid has a wretched voice, she’s not little, and she’s definitely not cute. It’s completely impossible.”

  “I thought appearances didn’t count,” Sybil said, looking up from the hem she was stitching.

  “Not when there’s talent. That child has no talent.”

  “At least listen to her,” E.D. argued. “They’re due to come at four-thirty and they’re staying for dinner. If you don’t do this, Mrs. Montrose will cancel the show.”

  “Let her! Better to cancel than to have a Gretl with a voice like a buzz saw.”

  “No, no, no!” Jeremy Bernstein said. “If the show is canceled, the television piece will be canceled, too. I’ll never get another chance to produce for network television. The multiracial Sound of Music is the hook the TV execs bought! They won’t do the story without the hook.”

  “Don’t let the TV people cancel us!” Cordelia said. “I want to get my bit in about The Death of Ophelia.”

  “And my gallery showing,” Archie said. “And Lucille’s new volume of poetry.”

  Sybil held up the black costume she was hemming. “Do you mean to tell me that you would let the seven million nuns’ habits we’ve made go to waste? Do you mean to tell me that I’ve given up my writing time and let my masterpiece go totally cold for nothing?”