Made glorious, p.23
Made Glorious, page 23
“This is what you have to do if you want to make it big-time,” Pam says. “If I can speak honestly, Rory, I’m pleasantly surprised. I didn’t think I’d see such promise. But look at you.”
I surprised Pam. Having no one else to gloat to, I twist this admittance over and over in my head. “So — you think I’ve got what it takes? To make it?”
No future in theater, Miss Keating told me. Ten girls for every boy. No lead roles until you’ve paid your dues. The drama world is a thorny path, and here Pam will tell me that I was right to break off one of those thorns and use it as a sword —
But I still want to hear her say it. I need to hear Pam say it.
“You could do well for yourself,” Pam says. “You’re very talented. I’ll be interested to see how far you can go.”
As I walk home, kept company only by a shivering wind, I wait for Pam’s words to resonate within me, to warm me with their validation. I wait for the crown of praise to circle my head — and yet I feel hollow. Unsteady.
You’re very talented. The rare compliment from Pam Hanson — but I ache, knowing she commended me not on my abilities as an actress, a singer, a performer, but on my gifts for trickery. For deception.
For politics.
I’ve played the game well. Too well.
I can make the wind blow whatever way I want it to — is this what I wanted? Truly?
Is this the recognition I craved? Then why doesn’t it feel like applause?
TODAY’S THE DAY!
“Hear ye, hear ye, the opening night of Good Knight! Sweet Lady is tonight!” comes the announcement over the intercom. Ethan and Preston read in exaggeratedly deep voices that suggest they’ve got scrolls in hand, while Lizzie plays a little interlude on her accordion. “Get your tickets at the box office, by day and by knight! We’ll be selling them at lunch!”
“Rory, you’re involved in the production, aren’t you?” asks my biology teacher, Mrs. Murdock, after the announcement.
Students arch around in their seats to look at me.
“Yes,” I admit.
“And what part do you play?” Mrs. Murdock is likely not familiar with the character list in Good Knight!: she is simply doing the polite thing that adults are socially required to do with children and teenagers, inquiring after their interests and hobbies.
Before I answer her, I remember to take a moment and breathe. Drink this in. This is the first time in all my acting life when I can give an answer other than “ensemble.”
“I’m, um, one of the leads.” I say it with the perfect blend of modesty and honesty. No use in denying it — the show would falter and crumble and cease to go on without me. I am Good Knight! Sweet Lady.
Mrs. Murdock says something complimentary, something pat and expected, recites the dates and times of the show run again for good measure, then turns back to the whiteboard, continuing her lecture on cell division. I feel the flurry of interest around my desk as people inspect me — Her, the lead? Really? Rory King?
Yes, I think as I grip my pen and concentrate on copying down every one of Mrs. Murdock’s notes. Believe it. The very same. Yes. Her.
Today’s the day!
I run down to the office to pick up a stack of worksheets for another teacher; the secretaries, who know me by my scholarly reputation only, perk up when I walk into the office.
“Break a leg tonight!” one of them coos.
“I’m bringing my nephew on Monday,” another one tells me. “My sister said he’d hate to watch a musical, but I told him there was sword fighting, and he practically begged me to buy tickets.”
I smile, imagining a sea of enchanted children, their faces beaming up at me as I glide through the choreographed fights with the ease and grace of a ballerina. “He’ll love it,” I assure her. Who couldn’t love it? It’s the greatest show Bosworth’s ever put on. It’s the highlight of Pam’s career. It’s only taken me three years to climb to the top of this pyramid, and now that I’m here, I expect everyone, including Pam, to realize that they’ve been sleeping on a winner all this time.
Today’s the day!
At lunchtime, I hang around the box office with Shandie and a few other Princely Players. Ethan and Chris demonstrate some of their jousting in the foyer, drawing a crowd. I laugh freely, openly, as loud as I want. It feels good to be in the audience of such a delightful show. It feels good to know that in a few hours, I’ll be the one getting claps and shouts and cheers. I’ll be the one in the spotlight.
Today’s the day!
Instead of heading to Miss Keating’s classroom, I go to the library for my release time. I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a small, slight dread in the back of my brain at the thought of speaking to her today, after everything that happened last night. But Pam’s email — my email — has provided enough of a shield that I am no longer afraid.
Today’s the day!
And then school is finished, and while the hordes of my fellow students head out to the parking lot to drive off to their jobs or their country clubs or one another’s fancy houses to sneak alcohol from their parents’ bar carts or whatever is on their rich-kid agendas today, I stay behind.
Call isn’t until five. It’s only three o’clock. But it feels silly to walk home to sit for a few minutes, turn around, and walk back. Besides, the sky is darkening with the threat of rain, and I think if I try to leave the vicinity of the school, I might just explode with my ecstatic energy. Best to save it all here, to keep myself contained.
I head down to Euripides and into the bathroom closest to the Elizabethan. There, I stand in front of the sink, my thoughts so boisterous, they echo on the tile.
Did I not tell you I would be triumphant? Did I not tell you we were in for a rollicking ride, you and I? I do hope I’ve delivered, and that you can see —
The bathroom door swings open.
Annie Neville walks in, her limp pronounced.
“Hey,” I say with genuine shock. “I didn’t know you were at school today.”
“I wasn’t,” she says. “I came by to get a packet signed by my counselor.” She doesn’t go into a stall; she doesn’t use the sink to wash her hands. She stands beside me, looking at me; I look at the water streaming in my sink, the foaming of the bubbles.
“Are you okay?” I finally ask, as her silence is bouncing off every mirrored surface. I feel uneasy, an animal paused and waiting for the wind to shift so it can sniff out any forthcoming danger.
Annie blinks and nods, and the thin-lipped smile she gives me is more artificial than spray cheese. “Good luck tonight,” she tells me.
Oh, dear Annie. My heart pangs as I switch off the water. “Thank you,” I tell her. “God, I wish —”
“Too bad about Ian and Troy,” she barrels onward. Her voice is sharp. “I heard they rolled into a ditch last weekend and nearly died.”
Something prickles in me. “Yes, a real tragedy,” I say. My wet hands drip at my side. Annie’s blocking the paper towel dispenser.
“Another car wreck.” Annie shakes her head, her eyes never leaving my face. “So soon after mine. Scary.”
“Scary,” I agree. “Could you move?”
Annie does not move. “I talked to Troy’s mom, actually. The circumstances of the accident? Really familiar.”
Ears pricked, senses alert. “There’re only so many ways you can wreck a car and survive,” I tell her, matching her menace tone for tone.
“Is that so.” Annie studies me. I cannot break her gaze now, I know, or else she will win — holding her gaze is like clinging to a hot pan handle. Your brain screams at you to release, to let go, so you must rely on some other awareness, something deeper within you. Your stubbornness. Your conviction.
And then the dam has broken. “I know what you did,” she bursts. “You did it to me and then you did it to them.”
“I did what?” I say.
“You crashed my car and then you crashed theirs.”
“What are you talking about? I wasn’t driving their car —”
“No. But you did it anyway. Somehow you did it.” Annie, as she’s spoken, has raised herself to her full height, this Amazon goddess, and spread herself wide, blocking my exit. She’s cornered me, and I, a cornered animal, am ready to lash back out.
“A cat ran in front of your car,” I remind her. “I swerved to miss it.”
“A cat that only you saw.” She’s on fire now, ready to combust. I must tiptoe carefully — or else throw myself into the flames and surrender. “Ian and Troy said they swerved to miss a person — a girl, they said. Someone from school, but they couldn’t place her.”
“They’re concussed,” I remind her. “Do you think they’re the most reliable witnesses?”
But it’s too late. She can see it all, all my calculations. She sees them add up now, and she can see the whole pathway, as far back as the very first stone I laid:
A mother who works in the ER, who told me countless stories of car accidents. Stories about people who survived them, stories about how cars rolled and flipped and wrapped themselves around poles, and yet if the angle was just so — or if the person inside the car only leaned just so —
I should feel terrified, I suppose, but instead I take all this in, and it feeds me, feeds every cell. I will not rise to her height, not ever, but I have found my own sense of power. Tall and strong wins the battles, but short and shrewd wins the war.
For a long moment I say nothing, and she says nothing, and it doesn’t matter that she’s accused me, and it doesn’t matter that I’ve denied it. Some things don’t add up, and they never will. This one does.
“Why?” Annie breaks, and the pain in her voice, the way her expression crumples . . . It claws into me, it shreds me, far more painful than I’d braced myself for.
Stay the course. Remember your lines.
You worked on them for long enough — say them out loud. Deliver. Project.
“Annie . . . I knew you wanted one more shot at this. The play. The theatre world.” I soften myself, tug my eyebrows down so I look like my younger self. The self that Annie knew and loved and that always said exactly what she needed to hear. “I knew you’d hold yourself back, deny yourself this, convince yourself it wasn’t your path. You’ve got your whole life to play basketball — I knew you’d regret this. You’re good, Annie. You’re so fucking good — and you’re too much of a team player. I knew I had to get you onto that stage. You’re brilliant when you let yourself be front and center.”
An absolutely killer monologue. An audience would be on their feet in seconds.
Annie smiles as if she’s just had glasses put on her face and is seeing the bright, clear world for the first time. “And you’re brilliant at making everyone believe you’re not selfish. My god. You’re so full of shit — and you’re trying to spoon-feed me more of that bullshit right now? I see what you did! You orchestrated all of it! You put my pills in Travis’s locker. You sent Clarissa away, too, didn’t you? God, Rory, this is psychotic!”
Is it any different from what you do on the court, Annie? It’s strategy. No different from what we all do. You think Pam only casts based on talent? Of course not. I’ve worked my ass off for Pam for years. I improved. My auditions got better and better, and yet the rest of you are the ones who get patted on the head, because you all glitter in the sunlight. What’s a little hobgoblin like me supposed to do? I’m relegated to the nurses and the fairy godmothers and the hags of the theater world, all because I can’t flash a big smile and make everyone fall in love with me. So maybe it’s my turn. Maybe you’re just upset that your talent and your beauty weren’t enough this time. Maybe you’re just upset that you’ve finally been bested, and it was by someone so wretchedly ugly. A real dog.
But I do not say any of this aloud.
When I do finally speak, it’s a single word. “Here.” I pull a folded paper from my pocket; it’s dingy around the corners, dyed blue from my cheap jeans, from sitting in my pants for weeks now.
Annie takes the paper. Opens it. Reads it.
I didn’t want to do this, you understand. The last thing I wanted was to have to resort to this — but Annie’s pushed me to it. Here, in this tiled corner, with the raspberry scent of the air freshener and the echoes of our argument ringing through my head and the reflective surfaces everywhere, she’s pushed me to it.
“Blackmail,” Annie says numbly. “You’re blackmailing me.”
“I don’t really like that word,” I tell her. “This is just an exchange of information.”
“You’re — you’re —” Annie’s voice is shaking now, and for a second she looks so much like her old self in her photos on the walls of her house that I’m shocked. Tiny, scrunched face, crying because her knee is skinned, because her brother stole her toy, because Mommy didn’t give her a treat like she wanted. “You absolute monster.”
I am holding her biggest, darkest secret. Something she certainly would have thought was safe with her best friend — but there are no best friends here. How could she ever think we could be best friends? There was never any sense of equality between she and I — with her looking the way she does, with her money, her charm, her perfect family, and her bright future? And me, who has to throw myself into the future like a pebble on a trebuchet and hope to land somewhere decent? There was never equal footing between us. Never once. So it was always going to come to this. It was always going to be either her or me. I can’t understand why she didn’t see that. Maybe she’s not as brilliant as I thought she was.
“You have a contingency plan for everyone, don’t you? Even Ethan?”
I feel the steel of defensiveness curl through my limbs. “Ethan doesn’t need one.” Stay away from Ethan, I lace into my meaning. Ethan is perfect. Ethan is right where I want him.
“Ethan might surprise you,” Annie says.
I laugh. She doesn’t know; she doesn’t understand — I’ve already written him off as an impossibility. Ethan has never been the prize. With Ethan, I already have nothing to lose.
“You shouldn’t have secrets like this, Annie, darling. You never know who’s going to go looking for them.”
We exchange steady looks, as if daring each other to be the first to move, to throw a punch, to say it — whatever else we were holding back, to say it.
Go on, I dare her. Say it. All those things you’ve probably been thinking for years — that this was a pity friendship, that this is the only way I could ever possibly get a role like this, that this is the only way I could ever get close to Ethan. To trick everyone, to rig everything in my favor.
Say it. Say I’m ugly and fat and poor and hopeless. Say all of it — I guarantee I’ve already learned it all to be true. I guarantee you cannot hurt me more than I already hurt.
Annie leaves first, and though there’s no spoken agreement, no pact we write and sign in blood, I see in her eyes that we’ve got a fair bargain. I won’t spill the beans about her secret dealings, and Annie will leave me be. She’ll forget about me, stay out of my way.
The show must go on.
I track her down the hall; she limps around the corner, defeated.
I spin on my heels, feeling taller than I ever have in my own skin, and head into the Elizabethan.
Tonight’s the night!
IT’S QUIET IN HERE, EXCEPT FOR THE FLOW OF AIR through the vents, which makes it feel like the whole auditorium is breathing. A great cavernous animal, something alive, like an organ, the inside of a heart.
Everything is set for tonight — there are seats roped off at the front of the auditorium for the parents of the cast, and every aisle is neatly cleaned, the floor mopped, the curtains freshly steamed. The glass ceiling above shines like a glorious moon under which we’ll perform and weave our delicate magic.
It’s a chilly night, with a soft rain plinking overhead. It’ll bring people into the theater. People want to go somewhere cozy and warm — the cold spring weather brings out our inner cavemen, making us want to huddle around a fire and hear stories. Well, onstage, behold, our fire. Our story glows like a flame, and tonight, it will be one for the ages, one to be remembered.
Taking my time, my stomach finally settled, I walk down the steps of the stage and into the audience. I weave through the aisles, all the way to the back, then forward again.
Tonight, every one of these seats will be filled. I walk past them all, as if to issue a slight blessing, my own little spell: Let them be entertained. Let them leave here tonight forever changed. Let them be enchanted by me. Let it all be worth it.
Annie’s words still pulse through me, and my insides pang with a moment of sorrow. Such a shame, I think, to have lost someone I was so close to — but investments are not guarantees. Sometimes investments come up dry. Cut your losses. Ignore the sunken costs. To do otherwise will only make you mad with despair.
To move forward in life, everything must be ready to be snipped away at a moment’s notice. Ready to be tanked, or traded in for something more valuable, something that will push you to where you’re trying to go.
I take a seat in the very middle of the auditorium — the fifteenth row back, the twelfth seat in. Here is where Pam sat for last night’s dress rehearsal. Here is where I can see the entirety of the stage, all its glory. The curtains are open, like shutters thrown back to let the daylight in. The set for the opening scene is in position — cheery flowers adorning the balcony of the castle courtyard, a lamppost shining as if it’s housing a burning star, that faded-blue background I painted with Ethan adding a touch of expanse to our production.
Pam’s vision, realized: Good Knight! Sweet Lady as a modern classic, an exploration of female ambition, a romanticized take on what it means to chase after your dreams and catch them at all costs —
A figure limps onto the stage.
I shield my eyes with my hand, straining to identify it. It’s not Annie, that much I can tell. But then who — ?
