Lightning Strikes

by Virginia Andrews

  “That’s Philip Roder,” Mr. MacWaine said in a loud whisper. “He’s already performed in a production of The Student Prince in Amsterdam. He’s a home-grown boy from London. By the way, Mrs. Hudson arranged for me to have everything you need purchased ahead of time for you. When we return to my office, I’ll give you your tights, dancing shoes, books and accessories.”

  “Oh. Thank you.”

  “You have quite a benefactor in Mrs. Hudson,” he said raising his eyebrows.

  “I know.”

  On the way down the stairs, we passed the elocution class. I saw Leslie and Catherine and two other girls, one very tall with strawberry blond hair and the other slim, about my height, with flaxen blond hair, repeating sentences as the teacher, a dark-haired man of about fifty, recited them. There were two younger-looking boys as well.

  “How now brown cow,” Mr. MacWaine kidded. “Words are our tools here,” he explained.

  When we returned to his office, he gave me my things and my class schedule. After the drama-speech class, I was to report to Professor Wilheim who would audition my voice and then after lunch I was to see a Mrs. Vander-mark who would evaluate my dancing skills.

  “That way we’ll know exactly where to start with you,” he explained. He welcomed me once again, checked his watch and told me it was time for me to go to my first class. “Good luck,” he offered.

  After seeing some of the students, I really wondered what I was doing here. I felt like someone who would soon be tested and discovered to be a fraud. Tomorrow they would give me my walking papers and I’d be on a plane heading back to the States. I almost wished it would happen. That’s how nervous I was. In schools for performing arts like this, I imagined people were always studying you, evaluating you, judging and measuring you. It was impossible in such small classes to disappear into the woodwork like so many students did in the public school I had attended. I knew students back in D.C. whose teachers didn’t know their names after having them for months. What a difference between something like this and going to school in the ghetto, I thought.

  Leslie and Catherine were already in the classroom when I arrived. The other two girls I had seen in the elocution class were seated behind them. They turned to look as I entered.

  “Ah, chérie,” Leslie cried, “we’ve been waiting for you. Meet Fiona and Sarah,” she said. The strawberry blonde, named Fiona, smiled at me, but the girl with the flaxen blond hair looked unfriendly, suspicious.

  “Hi, I’m Fiona Thomas.” I took her thin, long hand into mine.

  “Rain Arnold.” I looked at the other girl.

  “Hello,” she said, barely moving her lips. “I guess you can figure it out that I’m Sarah, Sarah Broadhurst.”

  The French girls were still in their dancing tights, but both Fiona and Sarah wore long skirts and loose, frilly collared blouses.

  “Hi,” I said to Sarah. Her lips dipped in the corners.

  “Are you the girl who was discovered on a school stage in America?” she asked.

  “I guess so,” I said. “Where were you discovered?”

  “Under a rock,” a male voice cried from behind me and I turned to look into the soft blue eyes of Randall Glenn. He roared at his own joke. Leslie and Catherine laughed as well, but Fiona looked shocked. “Hi,” he said extending his hand. “I’m Randall Glenn. I figured you were the new student when I saw you looking through the window. Are you in the dormitory, too?”

  “No, I’m living with a friend’s sister,” I said.

  “Where?” Fiona asked.

  “Holland Park,” I said. She looked at Sarah who smirked.

  “We’re not far from you. I live on Notting Hill Gate and Sarah lives in South Kensington.”

  “Was that the only play you were in?” Sarah asked me. She looked worried that I might have more theatrical experience.

  “Yes, the one and only.”

  “Discovered at your debut? That is impressive,” Randall quipped. “Don’t you think so, Sarah?”

  “I’m not the one to ask,” she said. “Ask Mr. MacWaine.”

  “Sarah’s worried she might have competition for the part of Ophelia in our cut from Hamlet this month. The school has a showcase night every two months,” Randall explained.

  “I’m hardly worried,” she remarked but she looked at me with narrowed eyes for a moment before turning around.

  I sat and Randall chose a seat across from me just as Mrs. Winecoup entered the room.

  “Good morning, everyone,” she said and smiled at me. “Has everyone met our newest pupil, Rain Arnold?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Winecoup,” Randall said. “We were all properly introduced.”

  His silly grin brought a smile to my face. He winked at me and then he turned to our teacher.

  “Lovely. Welcome, Rain. You have the textbook, I see. We’ve just begun an analysis of Hamlet in preparation for a night of theater, dance and song we’ll be having in a fortnight. Did you ever have the chance to read it?” she asked.

  “yes,” I said, “but not very closely.”

  Sarah finally smiled.

  “Good,” Mrs. Winecoup said to my surprise, “maybe we’ll get some fresh interpretations.”

  Sarah’s smile evaporated. Randall looked like the little boy who had just stolen cookies from the cookie jar, and the French girls were lit up with glee. Fiona gazed at me as if I had already made some significant statement, and I felt as if my tongue had just been glued to the top of my mouth.

  They don’t take long to put you in the spotlight here, I thought.

  But after all, that’s why I was sent.

  I think.

  After class, I had to report to Professor Wilheim for my vocal evaluation. I told Randall and he volunteered to accompany me.

  “I can’t go in with you,” he said, “but I have nothing until stagecraft class and I can hang around for moral support, if you like. Then, we could have lunch. I haven’t been here long myself, but I’ll fill you in the best I can,” he continued when I just listened without commenting. He looked around nervously now. “I haven’t had a chance to make a lot of friends. If you don’t want me to, I’ll just. . .”

  “No,” I said smiling. “That’s fine. Thank you.”

  He beamed. Did he know how handsome he was? I wondered. I’d had my fill of boys who did and were just plain arrogant about it. He seemed quite nervous however and talked without taking much of a breath all the way to the vocal studio. I learned that his father was a stockbroker. Randall said he was the oldest of three. He had a younger brother and a sister who was the baby of the family.

  I was so jittery when I sang for Professor Wilheim, I could hear my voice cracking when I just sang the scales. He wanted to know if I could read music. Of course, I couldn’t, and that put a look of disgust on his face for a moment before he sighed like someone gathering strength to walk another ten blocks. Then he asked what song I knew. None of the ones I mentioned pleased him. Finally, he asked me simply to sing “Amazing Grace” while he accompanied on the piano.

  “Very good, very good,” Professor Wilheim said when I finished. “You’ll attend my intermediate class every Tuesday and Thursday at nine. Any conflicts?” he demanded. I glanced at my schedule and shook my head.

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  When I told Randall I was in the intermediate class, he reacted as though I had already been cast in a major show.

  “He thinks you can carry a tune; otherwise, he would condemn you to the do-re-mi-forever class,” he said. “Maybe we’ll end up singing a duet one of these days.”

  “Please,” I said, “spare me the false compliments.”

  He grimaced as if I had slapped him.

  “Don’t forget I heard you sing. I’m nowhere near as good as you.”

  His expression changed to an appreciative smile, and then he grew serious as we entered the cafeteria.

  “I hope I can live up to everyone’s expectations,” he muttered.

 
; That was a feeling I could understand. It had to be more painful to be chosen and to fail than not to be chosen at all. Look at all the disappointed relatives and friends who would learn about your failure, and then what did you do with yourself? Would that happen to me? Whom would I disappoint though? I thought. Grandmother Hudson, maybe, but certainly not my real mother and certainly not Roy. He wanted me to just give up on any thoughts of a career and marry him.

  There’s always yourself, Rain, I thought. You’ll disappoint yourself.

  Sarah and Fiona were already at the table eating sandwiches and drinking tea. Philip Roder, the ballet dancer I had seen practicing, was reading a biography of Isadora Duncan and eating a yogurt. He looked up when Sarah asked how I fared with Professor Wilheim.

  “He put her in his intermediary class,” Randall volunteered before I could respond. He seemed so determined to keep a smile off her face.

  “Really?” she asked, her voice dripping with disappointment.

  “That’s very good,” Philip Roder said. “He’s practically forbidden me from entering his studio. Hi. I’m Philip Roder.” He extended his hand.

  “Rain Arnold,” I said, shaking quickly. “I saw you dancing earlier. You’re very good.”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “Oh, and you know about ballet?” Sarah asked me.

  “About as much as anyone from where I come from, I guess, but I don’t think you have to know all that much to tell that he’s good,” I said sharply.

  “All right,” Philip said, beaming a wide smile. “Someone with spunk.”

  Sarah looked furious for a moment and bit into her sandwich.

  “What would you like to eat?” Randall asked me. I went to the refrigerator with him and picked out some cheese. He made us some tea as I prepared the sandwiches. Before we sat down, Fiona and Sarah left.

  “What’s her problem?” I asked, nodding in their direction.

  “Don’t mind her. She’s always got a chip on her shoulder,” Philip Roder told me. “She’s like that to everyone, especially new students.”

  I nodded and then shrugged.

  “Where I come from, Philip, she wouldn’t be more than an annoying fly. One swat and she’s gone.”

  He laughed loudly.

  “All right, yes,” he said. He looked at Randall. “You better be prepared if you’re going to make any sort of play for this girl, Randall boy,” Philip said as he rose. “Gotta go. See you later, Rain Arnold.”

  I looked at Randall. His face was the color of fresh strawberries.

  “Listen to him. You’re a little friendly with someone here,” he said, “and the next thing you know, they’ve got you engaged. I hope you’re not offended.”

  He really looked nervous; his hand trembled as he raised his teacup to his lips.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “The last thing on my mind at the moment is romance.”

  “Me too,” he said quickly as if that was what I would want him to say.

  I couldn’t keep my eyebrows from hoisting.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, sure, I mean. . .I don’t mean I wouldn’t want to ask you out or anything, but. . .I have to be serious about my work and. . .”

  “I don’t know how we could get along anyway,” I said gazing down at my tea.

  “What? Why?”

  “You went ahead and assumed I was a tif. I’m a mif.”

  “Huh?”

  “You put my tea in first,” I said.

  He stared for a moment and then he laughed.

  “Oh. Yeah. Sure. I’m sorry. I should have asked.”

  “I’m just kidding. I don’t know the difference. I just arrived. I haven’t even seen the city yet.”

  “Really? Oh. Well, maybe we could meet someday this week and tour a little. I’ve been here a few times, but I never really paid much attention to anything. I was always with my parents on those tour group things. Would you like that?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Good.”

  He looked so relieved.

  But just at that moment, Leslie and Catherine burst into the cafeteria and immediately went, “Oh, oh, oh.”

  Randall turned crimson again as Catherine sat beside him and rubbed her shoulder against his.

  “I try for him all this week and you win him with one smile already, chérie?” she asked me.

  “All right, Catherine, control yourself,” Randall pleaded.

  Leslie stepped up behind him and put her hand on his other shoulder.

  “Maybe we share him, eh, Rain?”

  “Will you two stop it!” Randall cried. He glanced at me and then shot up. “I have to get to stagecraft and do some preparation. See you all later,” he said, looking at me once more before hurrying out.

  The two French girls giggled.

  I had to laugh with them. And then I looked after Randall.

  A handsome but shy boy, I thought.

  Maybe I will like it here, I thought. One thing I had felt already from the other students was the absence of any tension among us simply because of the differences in our skin color. Maybe it was because here we were all so unalike, some speaking an entirely different language and all having different backgrounds and cultures.

  Perhaps in the theater you could be anyone you wanted to be and if you were good at what you did, people in the audience forgot everything else about you. Everyone shared the illusion.

  Grandmother Hudson might have been a lot wiser than I had thought, I concluded. She might have known all this. She might have known I’d rather live in my imaginative world than the world of reality I had been given by Destiny.

  She might have known this was the way I could frustrate Fate and find happiness.

  Finally.

  I would know soon enough.

  4

  The Forbidden Cottage

  After a few more days of traveling through London, I became more confident and actually began to enjoy riding on the tube. I even had the courage to leave the set route I took every day so that I could go shopping to buy myself a simple alarm clock. No matter how shrill the alarm, I thought, it would be a lot more soothing on my ears and heart than Mr. Boggs’s fist pounding my door. As soon as possible, I bought the travel card Great-uncle Richard had advised me to buy. That was about the only question he asked me. He was very busy with important cases and missed dinner twice during my first week, but even when he was there, he asked me very little. He and Great-aunt Leonora either had guests to entertain or he was in deep thought about his work.

  On Tuesday, I got up enough nerve to tell my Great-aunt Leonora about the bathroom not having any hot water. I had managed to take a shower at the school after dance class, but I couldn’t stand not being able to bathe and wash my hair at home in the evening.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, dear. Why didn’t you tell me immediately? I never realized that bathroom was so inadequate,” she said. “I’m so rarely in that part of the house.”

  She called Boggs and told him to get it repaired. He insisted there was enough hot water, but it couldn’t be wasted by running it wantonly. It was the first time I had a real chance to stand up to him in front of Great-aunt Leonora.

  “I don’t think running enough hot water to take a bath is running it wantonly,” I said.

  “Of course it isn’t,” Great-aunt Leonora agreed.

  “It’s always been warm enough for me whenever I need it,” he claimed.

  “Maybe you don’t wash as frequently as I do,” I muttered.

  “Women do have more needs in that regard,” Great-aunt Leonora said.

  He didn’t turn red so much as his hairline rose with his ears, and then his mouth whitened in the corners, deepening the lines in his face until they looked like bloodless slashes.

  “It’s a forty-gallon ’ot water heater,” he insisted. “It should do fine.”

  “I haven’t felt a drop of that forty gallons yet,” I threw back at him.

  “Oh, dear, dear,” G
reat-aunt Leonora chanted. “Dear, dear, dear. Richard won’t like this. Not at all.”

  “I’ll see about it, Mrs. Endfield,” Boggs finally relented. He marched away, the back of his neck so stiff, I thought his head might snap off if he turned too quickly in one direction or another.

  “Thank you,” I told my great-aunt. “I don’t mean to be any trouble to anyone.”

  “Oh, I’m sure it’s not very much trouble,” she said.

  “Not that I know much about the plumbing and such. I leave those things to Boggs and to Mr. Endfield. Don’t trouble yourself about it,” she concluded.

  I returned to the kitchen. Both Mrs. Chester and Mary Margaret had overheard me complaining. I could see that the very thought of challenging Boggs was terrifying to them. They both avoided looking at me and worked without speaking. It was as if they thought Boggs might believe they were part of a conspiracy to overthrow him.

  “Why is everyone so afraid of that man?” I cried in frustration. “He isn’t the owner of the house, is he?”

  “I’d like those potatoes peeled, if ya don’t mind,” Mrs. Chester said, ignoring my question and turning her back on me. Mary Margaret raised her eyes and then lowered them quickly.

  “In case nobody told you, slavery is against the law, even here,” I muttered, but I didn’t pursue it. How they wanted to live and work was their own business, I supposed, but I wouldn’t just fade into the woodwork whenever Boggs widened his eyes or raised his eyebrows.

  On Friday night while Mary Margaret and I were serving Great-aunt Leonora her dinner, the phone rang and Leo appeared in the doorway to announce that my great-aunt had a call.

  “It’s Mrs. Hudson from America, madam,” he said. I looked up excitedly.

  “Well, well, well, my sister finally calls. You’d think she would know the dinner hour here,” she said, wagging her head and wiping her lips with her napkin as she rose.

  There was a telephone in the drawing room.

  “You might as well take this back into the kitchen and keep it all warm, girls,” she said nodding at her food.

  I was disappointed because I had hoped to speak with my grandmother. Moments later, however, Leo appeared to tell me Mrs. Endfield wanted me to come to the phone. I hurried down the corridor.