Only he’s telling me Ruby’s not a good girl, and he has no idea what kind of woman I am.
‘The show must go on, right?’ I say flatly.
I can feel him debating whether to say anything further. It’s like his conscience wins out. ‘I’ve known a lot of teenage girls at the Academy, and Ruby is quite complicated.’ He sounds sympathetic, like he’s trying to let me know that I shouldn’t blame myself too much for how she’s turned out. ‘The most complicated are those whose desires appear the simplest, when they want just one thing.’
‘To be the best.’
‘To be loved. She’ll do anything for it.’ He sounds sad now, as if he knows her fate already. He’s already seen how her story ends in other girls who’ve passed through the Academy. In that same subdued voice, he says, ‘Dashed hopes, and good intentions. “Good, better, best, bested.” Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ He just can’t resist educating me, can he? ‘Ruby’s lost, and the stage is a terrible place to try to find yourself, because you’re always playing someone else.’
There’s a knock on the door, and a girl’s voice says, ‘Headmaster, we need you!’
‘I’m so sorry,’ he tells me, and I don’t know if he’s referencing leaving me in this condition, or if he means he’s sorry about Ruby—the way she is, how it’s all going to turn out.
I basically stagger into a chair. Ruby doesn’t feel loved, is that what he’s saying? If that’s true, then I’ve failed at the most important task of motherhood. Mr. Racki didn’t say he knew for sure that she was guilty, but I got the sense he believes it. That it’s the kind of thing a complicated girl like Ruby might do.
What I don’t understand is the ambiguity. Did Imogen say she fell, or did she say she was pushed? Was she too frightened of what Ruby would do next to say that she was pushed? Or did another girl claim to be a witness but doesn’t want to go on record?
Ruby’s not some thug. She doesn’t go around threatening and intimidating people. That’s not her style at all.
But she can be impulsive. I don’t know what Imogen said to Ruby at the sleepover. Maybe she goaded her, and Ruby snapped. I’m sure she would have been sorry afterward. Tormented. That’s why she’s been acting the way she has. And then Imogen struck back with Here lies Ruby Donovan.
Yes, that makes sense.
No, it doesn’t. Ruby was trying so hard this year. It was going so well.
If Ruby had pushed Imogen, she would have told me. She knows she can trust me. I wouldn’t just turn on her, no matter what she did. We’ve already proven that to one another.
No matter what. Isn’t that what she said earlier tonight?
This is all my fault.
I need to get back to the auditorium for the revue. Sick as I feel, I have to be there for Ruby’s performance. Otherwise, she could feel even more unloved, and then who knows what she’d be capable of.
No. I know my child.
I remember how when I was ill, she would curl up against my side, thirteen years old going on four. Sometimes I even caught her sucking her thumb. There’s no way that was an act, though she is an actress.
I return to my seat in a stupor. I’m not turning around anymore. I don’t want to see the other mums who are so sure of themselves, and of their children.
The theater dims, and the house lights go up. The first student begins to sing. It’s warbling, really. She’s nowhere near Ruby’s league, and I shouldn’t note that, but it’s just automatic. She’s the competition. I want Ruby to finally get the lead so she can stop trying to be good enough; she can just know that she is. I’ve been trying for so long to help her lose out gracefully, and look where we are. So I have to hope for a win. And I have to hope that Mr. Racki is just jaded. He’s mistaking Ruby for some other girl.
There’s an empty seat next to me, and someone slips into it. I glance over, assuming it’ll be a parent, hoping for Bronnie ready to explain, but it’s Imogen. She’s got flowers woven into her hair, and looks lovely and demure. I think of the vibe she gave off while she was stretching, the seduction in it. It’s almost like she’s a different person. She whispers so she won’t disturb the show. ‘You’re Ruby’s mum, right?’
‘I am. And you’re Imogen.’
She nods joyfully, and I can’t help thinking that she doesn’t seem like someone who’s recently been thrown down some steps. Plus, she’s approaching the mother of the supposed perpetrator. Mr. Racki must have heard wrong, or the girls are playing a prank on him. What was Jess saying to Sadie backstage? They need to come clean. Maybe they need to tell Mr. Racki—and their mums—the truth.
Imogen is giving me the creeps. Her gaze is fixed on me, and her manner too childlike. I’m not buying it. I wish she’d go away so I could think clearly. ‘Don’t you have to get ready?’ I ask. She must be performing tonight.
‘I don’t like to over-rehearse. I keep it natural, if you know what I mean.’
I want to ask why she sought me out, what happened at the sleepover, what her deal is. But I can’t, not here, and there’s something about her . . . I wouldn’t believe anything that came out of her mouth anyway.
I give her a smile that’s meant to say this conversation is over, and then I turn back toward the stage so I can pretend to listen.
But my eye keeps returning to Imogen. The way she’s leaning slightly toward me, it’s like she’s begging me to ask. Here lies Ruby, and here sits Imogen. I lean over to her and whisper, ‘Are you enjoying the school so far?’
‘Oh, yes! Very much!’ she trills. A few parents give her reproving looks. She peeps at me coquettishly, like we’re being mischievous together. Then she lowers her voice. ‘Everyone’s been so welcoming.’
‘You mean the gang of four?’
She laughs. ‘Is that what they used to call themselves?’
‘Sometimes. Not often.’
‘Well, I guess it’s still a gang of four.’ She’s watching the performance but I get her meaning: She’s replaced Ruby.
‘Yes, it still is,’ I say tightly. ‘Ruby, Jess, Sadie, and Bel.’
She gives me a sidelong glance. ‘It’s not my fault, you know. I’ve got no qualms about a gang of five.’
As in, she’s not elbowing Ruby out of the way, it’s the other girls. But is it all of them, or just one? Jess would be the most likely culprit, a little payback for last year. ‘Do you know why Ruby’s been left out?’ I hate that I’m soliciting her insight into the group, but that’s what it’s come to. She’s seeking me out when no one else seems to want to talk to me.
‘I’ve no idea,’ she says airily.
‘But you’re saying it’s not coming from you?’
She gives me an innocent look. ‘The other girls are the ones who have a history with Ruby.’
It’s true, but I have no reason to trust her. The fact that she’s throwing suspicion on the others could make her all the more likely to be guilty. ‘Which girl in particular seems to have a problem with Ruby?’
She turns back to the stage, my question hanging in the air.
It’s like she’s toying with me, and on some level, I welcome it. That’s because Imogen being a sociopath is vastly preferable to Ruby being one. Of course, a sociopath-free school would be best for everyone, but you can’t always get what you want.
‘What really happened at the sleepover, Imogen?’
‘Just girl stuff.’ I have the distinct impression that she enjoys needling me. I can certainly understand the temptation to throw her down the stairs.
Not that I’m condoning it, if it happened. But it wouldn’t have to be Ruby. Imogen seems like the kind of person who enjoys getting under people’s skin, and she could have taken aim at any of the girls that night.
Imogen didn’t sit next to me by accident. There’s something she wants me to know, and it could be that one of the other girls pushed her and it’s being pinned on Ruby. Imogen could be Ruby’s guardian angel. Stranger things have happened.
I sneak a glance back a
t Carolyn and Elise. Am I imagining it, or do they not seem to like my talking to Imogen?
‘How did you end up at the bottom of the stairs?’ I ask. Who knows, Imogen could appreciate directness.
She looks apprehensive for the first time since sitting down, her eyes darting. Who’s she looking for? Who’s she afraid of? Or who does she want me to think she’s afraid of?
It’s so hard to know what’s real, when these girls are all actresses.
They’re also just teenagers. Impetuous and occasionally cruel, but they’re not criminal masterminds.
‘I fell,’ Imogen says, like she’s desperate for me to believe her.
‘You’d been drinking alcohol, right?’ I say. See, this is about Elise’s bad parenting, not mine. Elise is the one who seduces other people’s husbands, not me. Elise is the one who can’t be trusted, and her daughter is the one who has to come clean, not mine.
Imogen doesn’t answer my question. Instead, she says brightly, ‘So how’s Ruby doing?’
‘She’s backstage—you could always go and ask her.’ Then I feel a chill. I didn’t see Ruby when I went looking for Mr. Racki. I can’t check on her now, not without drawing suspicion.
‘I don’t think Ruby likes me much,’ Imogen says.
‘What gives you that impression?’ I’m fast losing the stomach for sleuthing. I don’t want to keep talking to this girl; I want to find my girl.
‘I excel at theater because I’m good at reading people. I’m also a great mimic. I’m always learning from the people around me.’ Imogen stares at me, unblinking, and my already-chilled blood goes icy. She’s saying that turnabout is fair play. Ruby attacked her first, and now Imogen is attacking back.
‘Why are you here, Imogen?’ What’s her game? Why did she come to OFA?
‘No one else was sitting next to you. I thought you might want some company.’
By now, the second girl is finishing her song. I haven’t heard a note. I’m too focused on Imogen, and whether she’s a danger to my daughter or it’s the other way around. My radar says something is very wrong, but then, my radar is pretty self-serving at the moment. I want her to be the villain, not Ruby. Anyone but Ruby.
‘Where’s Ruby’s dad? Why isn’t he here?’
‘He’s back in the States.’
‘In Los Angeles, right? Isn’t that the performing arts epicenter?’
I bristle. ‘Not for musical theater.’
‘Why not try for schools in New York to be close to Broadway?’
I can feel her studying me closely. They say sociopaths are good at mimicking normal behavior. That could be what she was telling me a few minutes ago. She’s trying to learn to act like a person through observation.
It wasn’t even a week ago that Elise was asking questions about schools in the States, and less than that when she was buddying up to my husband. Now Imogen is talking about Greg and about schools. Coincidence?
‘Why didn’t Ruby want to stay in the States, Kendall?’ Imogen says.
‘That’s none of your business,’ I snap, ‘and don’t call me Kendall.’
‘That’s your name, isn’t it?’
‘I’m Mrs. Donovan to you.’ I’ve always let Ruby’s friends call me Kendall, but Imogen is definitely not Ruby’s friend, or mine.
Everything about my body language says she should stop talking. But Imogen is relentless. ‘Being so far from your husband must be really hard on your marriage. You know, I don’t think I’d move to a whole different continent unless there was something I really needed to get away from.’ Imogen shifts her pose, so it’s therapist-style. I can imagine that she’s seen some therapists in her time, and now she’s imitating them, perfectly. I saw one myself for a while after the cancer diagnosis, and Ruby tried a few. She didn’t like talking to them; she said she preferred to talk to me.
I have a truly nauseating thought: Just because Imogen’s a sociopath doesn’t mean Ruby’s in the clear. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. It could be both. They sniffed out their own kind, and they don’t like the smell. It’s a battle for dominance and at the moment, Imogen is on top.
I sound like a lunatic. Ruby didn’t push Imogen. I know my daughter.
‘I bet Ruby wishes her dad was here,’ Imogen says.
‘And where’s your family?’ It’s a jab. Intellectually, I get that she’s a seventeen-year-old girl, but it just doesn’t feel that way. And I don’t feel like myself. I feel like Carolyn. For once, someone can think whatever they like about me. I don’t have the patience for image management anymore.
She shifts back toward the stage. ‘I don’t have a mother and my dad’s ill.’ She says it in a monotone that is eerily similar to the way Ruby spoke through the door earlier today. ‘He’s dying.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, but I can’t access any true sympathy, not now.
‘Are you, now?’ That stare again. ‘Say it like you mean it, Kendall.’
The impudence. I can’t get over it, coming from a young girl. But then, she said herself she doesn’t have any parenting. A dead mother, an ill father. She’s practically feral.
I’m willing her to go away, but she doesn’t. She must be feeding on the tension, like it’s sustenance. I tell myself that Ruby is fine, she’ll transform as soon as she’s under the lights. She lives to perform.
The next girl sings, and then another after that. This is intolerable. I want to crawl out of my skin. I wonder if I can ask Mr. Racki to shuffle the order and have Ruby perform sooner. Let him know I’m not feeling well after our talk earlier. He’s susceptible to that sort of thing. Then I’ll have an excuse for being backstage, and I’ll confirm that Ruby is okay.
Mr. Racki doesn’t think Ruby is okay at all. He thinks she pushed Imogen. I want it to be impossible but unfortunately, it’s not.
In my head, I’m replaying my talks with Ruby, and my conversation with Mr. Racki, and now, with Imogen. Not to mention what Greg didn’t say earlier, and what Elise did. It’s all too much. I don’t know what—or who—to believe.
Sadie takes the stage and she’s well-rehearsed, technically proficient, and perfectly competent but, as always, there’s no magic in it. I know that she’ll be relegated to the chorus as per usual. I look back at the row of mums, wanting to gloat. But Elise and her husband (I’ve never even met him and can’t recall his name) are watching, and I’m surprised to see that her head is on his shoulder, how connected to one another and proud they look. I feel like crying. Then I feel like screaming, asking him if he knows who his wife really is, what she did during her jaunt to Los Angeles. Do they know that their little angel up on that stage needs to come clean?
I’m gripped with hatred. Elise was with Greg in some shape or form, and she must know that marriages break up over infidelity all the time; she’s trying to destroy Ruby and me, trying to tear my family apart, and why? Unlike Carolyn, who’s at least ostensibly protecting Jess, Elise has made it clear that this is all beneath her, she won’t be swept up in teenage nonsense, so it has to be for another reason. It must be because I see through her, right down to her inadequate soul, and for that, she wants me to pay, and she’ll use my daughter to do it.
I’m seething as Annabel steps into the spotlight. From the first note, Bel owns the stage, she owns the room. I turn to see if Elise is registering the contrast between Bel and Sadie, and notice that Imogen is studying her nails, visibly bored. It’s like she’s not even concerned about the talent level of the other girls; she’s just that self-assured, or she really doesn’t care about getting cast at all. If my mother was dead and my father was dying, I might not care either.
Maybe Imogen is going crazy, but it’s temporary. It could be grief. She might be furious that she’s losing her other parent and she’s taking it out on Ruby. Or she’s not doing anything to Ruby, and she’s just a socially awkward girl, and I’ve misread this entire interaction.
Bel is finishing her song. Carl and their brood are on their feet, applauding. No one el
se has given their children a standing ovation, it’s actually frowned upon, because we’re trying to treat everyone equally, but no one can hold it against the Richardsons. They’re just spontaneously overcome with their love. It’s impulse-driven, but in the best way. They’re driven by love, while Ruby is driven by . . . it’s not hate, I don’t think. She doesn’t hate Jess, who’s one of her best friends. But Imogen’s a different story altogether.
Does Carl know that Bronnie was recently in a huddle with the headmaster?
It’s Jess’s turn to walk to the center of the stage. As usual, she’s spellbinding before she’s even opened her mouth. But then the music starts.
It’s ‘Castle on a Cloud,’ the song from the music box. I look back at Carolyn in disbelief. Her husband is listening, completely unaware that anything’s amiss. He might not even have known that was Jess’s audition song, or that it was the one from the music box. OFA is really Carolyn’s domain. But then, what isn’t Carolyn’s domain?
Carolyn doesn’t turn in my direction, in anyone’s direction, really. She keeps her eyes on the stage. Elise seems equally unfazed, and I wonder if she knew it was coming, if she and Carolyn planned it together, giddy with their own cleverness.
Jess is a strong girl who doesn’t like backing down, but this had to be engineered by Carolyn. It’s to show that Jess will not be cowed, that she’ll reclaim her audition song, but it also says that the music box hasn’t been forgotten.
It’s a message to Ruby. No, a message to me. I’m the one sitting by myself, after all.
Here lies Ruby. Here lies Kendall, pretending to be a good mom.
The first verse is ending, and my stomach tightens. I don’t want to hear those lines—I know a place where no one’s lost / I know a place where no one cries—because I’m already picturing that broken ballerina spinning and spinning, one arm missing, one leg mangled. I notice that Carolyn isn’t smiling anymore. She might have just realized that she isn’t fully in control, and that her daughter is taunting her persecutor. When Jess gets to those lines, none of us know what’s going to happen, if the music box was not merely a threat but a prophecy.
The Understudy Page 12