Falling Stars (29 page)

When Ms. Fairchild finally left, I felt positive she had read everything in my face. I told Cinnamon so.

"Even if she did, she won't dare accuse you or anyone else. Howard's right about that. Just go on about your business and pretend none of this happened," she advised.

Despite their experience, it was advice neither she nor my new sisters could follow easily
themselves. All that day and the next we anticipated something, some sign in Madame Senetsky's lectures, some evidence in Ms. Fairchild's orders. At dinner we felt our hearts leap with every long pause in the conversation. All eyes turned toward Madame Senetsky. If she suspected anything, she was surely the world's best actress.

Nevertheless, every footstep outside our doors, every knock or mention of our names brought a cold wave of fear. It was coming. I felt it in my bones the way Grandad used to feel a coining storm. The end here was coming.

But it didn't. Nothing happened out of the ordinary until Thursday at lunch, when we were all summoned to the parlor for a rather severe bawlingout by Madame Senetsky.

Naturally we anticipated the executioner's ax. We sat quietly, waiting. The grandfather clock bonged and she entered briskly, taking the chair she usually took, her hand on her cane. She looked like the queen of dramatics she was purported to be. Our eyes went from her to each other to the floor. The silence was deafening. Finally, she spoke, her words falling like heavy hail, each syllable crisp, sharp, and meant to sting like darts.

"I have spoken with all of your instructors and, to a man, they have the same complaint: you're all badly distracted. You've all let up on your efforts. You all are revealing yourselves as less dedicated and determined, and this with a second Performance Night just around the corner. I won't stand for it.

"I have a suspicion," she said, eying me. "that some of you are thinking about other, far less important things-- childish romances, whatever-- and that is taking a dramatic toll on your achievement here. I can't remember the last time I had to give a group of Senetsky candidates a pep talk to motivate them. I pride myself on choosing candidates who are so self-motivated, they are frustrated by their own rate of development. They are usually after me to rush their careers along, as if I could wave a magic wand over them and, poof, make them all into movie stars, stage stars, musical stars, as if I created the
constellations in the entertainment sky.

She paused and slowly panned us all, her gaze no less stinging than her words.
"Sadly, that is not the case with you girls. I haven't had this said so much about our two young men," she added, with a brief nod at Steven and Howard,
Howard smiled. Steven looked unimpressed, even a bit impatient and anxious to get back to his games.
"Therefore," she announced, rising like a neverending giant in our midst, her words exploding like cannon fire, "I am prohibiting you girls from leaving this property or having any guests for the next three weekends, which will bring us to the second Performance Night. Is that perfectly clear?"
"But..." I started to say. Chandler had worked out another trip in two weeks. We had wonderful plans to tour the city and spend private time together. I felt I needed him more than ever. How could I tell him it was impossible?
She raised her eyebrows and stiffened her neck, pounding the cane once.
"Yes?"
I looked down without speaking. Mentioning his name would surely be the kiss of death.
"Nothing," I muttered.
"Good. Then it's settled. I expect to hear about a vast improvement beginning tomorrow. I suggest you all give what I have said a great deal of consideration. Go upstairs to your rooms and contemplate yourselves in your mirrors and ask yourselves once and for all, what do I want to do with my life? Who do I want to be?"
She turned and walked out.
I
looked at the others, my eyes tearing, a. They knew why I was so upset.
"What am I going to tell Chandler?" I moaned,
"Same thing I'm going to tell Barry," Rose said. "The bridge over the moat has been pulled up."
Steven laughed.
"Girls," he said, holding out his arms. "you always have me any time you want me."
The looks on our faces when we all glared back at him raised his eyebrows.
"Well, you heard our leader. I'm off to do a little extra." he said quickly and practically leaped off his chair and ran out the door.
"Talk about your disturbed people," Howard muttered. Then he turned on us, his face stern. "What's wrong with you? How many times do you have to be told that when you are performing, when you are on a stage, even in practice, you leave your real lives in the wings? If you're not able to do that, you won't make it. When they say the show must go on, they mean it," he declared. "This dressing down was certainly not necessary, especially for me. Unfortunately, I'm grouped in with the rest of you, and to tell you the truth. I'm totally embarrassed. Despite what she said, all of it will affect my career. too."
"What we certainly don't need at this moment is a lecture from Howard Rockwell." Cinnamon snapped back.
"No?" He stared for a moment and then sat back. "Maybe you're right. You won't benefit by it. I can see that." He rose and walked to the door before turning to add. "Tonight, girls."
"What?" I cried.
"We're going up tonight."
"And exactly how are we supposed to do that. Howard?" Cinnamon demanded. "We've told you about the window being locked.'
He smiled that now-familiar beam of arrogance that tightened all our stomachs.
"I remembered something you told me. Honey found that door in the costume room. remember? I went up on my own late last night and tried it. Well, Mess what. my little Geniuses? The key is right there in the door. We can get in that way."
He stopped grinning.
"We're going in, say about nine. Ms. Fairchild retires to do whatever it is she does with her narrow, limited little life, and Madame Senetsky. I've learned. has been invited to a cocktail party at the Guggenheim Museum. The coast, as they say in melodrama, is clear."
"Are you crazy?" Cinnamon asked him. "After what just happened, you want to risk her rage. too?"
"Precisely because of that." he replied coolly. "Wouldn't it have been nice to say something like, 'We've had a hard time sleeping with all that singing coming from above.' "
"But we don't hear that," I said. "At least, I don't." He smiled.
"Little Miss Honesty," he quipped. "Somehow. I doubt that would occur to her and be any sort of argument. Right. Cinnamon?"
She glared at him without speaking. "Right?" he insisted.
"I don't know," she muttered.
"Well. I do. Nine o'clock. Everyone quietly, without attracting Steven's attention if possible, meets at the foot of the stairway.
See you later. girls.
^-
He flashed a smile and was gone, "He's crazy," Rose muttered.
"As a fox," Cinnamon said. "We'll have to be there. If he went up without us, it could be worse. He might frighten Gerta. too,"
None of us could stop thinking about it the remainder of the day. One look at any of our faces could tell that, vet somehow we managed to do better in our classes and hold back our raging nerves and tension at dinner. At one point I thought Steven had caught on to something. Everything he suggested that he and Howard do. Howard rejected.
"What are you going to do. Howard?" he slammed back at him. "sit in your room and contemplate your navel all night?"
"I'm doing some reading, some very intense concentration, if you have to know. I'm not as fortunate as you are. Steven. My talent has to be nurtured. developed."
"Give me a break." He looked at us.
"Anyone here up for a game of Killer Spunk on my computer? I just got it day before yesterday. The graphics are incredible.
You're a killer. Cinnamon. What do you say? Up for the challenge?"
"When I was a child. I thought as a child. I understood as a child. Steven. Now that I am a woman. I have put away childish things."
Howard roared.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Steven cried, his face twisted in a grimace of frustration.
"It's from the Bible, a paraphrase," Howard explained. "It means it's time to grow up. Steven. Very good. Cinnamon."
She nodded. but with a look that said, "I don't need your compliments."
"You're all a bunch of deadheads," Steven declared, disgusted, and stood and left the dining room.
"Hey, you didn't stay to do your share of cleanup," Howard called after him.
"Let him go. Howard. It's better," Cinnamon advised, her eyes taking on that narrow glint that said. "Don't disagree or else."
Howard nodded.
"Right," he said. "Okay, let's get to it." "You're making a mistake," Rose told him.
"We're making a mistake," he corrected, with his smile as punctuation.
Quietly, we went about our duties and then all walked upstairs. It was practically a funeral
procession. We met in my room before we met with Howard at nine.
"We'll get in and out of there as quickly as we can." Cinnamon began. "Don't do too much talking and certainly don't start her on her music," she told Ice. "Maybe he'll get bored with it and that will be that,"
"I feel like we're betraying her in some way," Rose muttered, "exposing her to him. I mean.
^"
Ice nodded.
"It might be worse for her if we don't," Cinnamon suggested.
As the clock's hands drew closer and closer toward nine. I felt my stomach burning inside as if the ends of my nerve wires were sparking. The others looked just as tense. Nothing anyone said or did could take away the anxiety. Almost as soon as the bic
^,
hand kissed the twelve, there was a gentle rap on my door. We looked at each other, and then Cinnamon opened the door.
Howard was there, in a black turtleneck and black pants. "What do you think this is, a spy mission?" she teased.
"In a way, I suppose it is. Always dress for the part you're about to play in life," he said.
"Give us a break, will you. Howard? Let up on the theatrics for just a few hours. Girls."
We followed her out and slipped down the corridor as quietly as possible past Steven's closed door, to the stairway leading up to the costume room. No one spoke. Howard led the way. At night the small corridor looked even more gloomy and desolate, the small light barely casting a shadow on the wall. Howard opened the costume room door as quietly as he could. It squeaked nevertheless, and although it was not a very loud sound, to us it seemed like a fire alarm.
When the door was completely open, we waited a moment to see if anyone-- Ms. Fairchild, especially-- had heard anything. There were no sounds coming from below. The house held its breath as tightly as we held ours. Howard smiled, nodded, and continued into the room.
We filed past the costumes and reached the door. Howard lifted the dresses away from it and turned the key in the lock to open the first door. He looked at Cinnamon, who shook her head as one final appeal to him to retreat. Smirking. Howard opened the second door, which took us into the living room of Gerta's apartment. Howard closed the door behind us and we all stood for a moment. Gerta wasn't in the living room.
"That's her bedroom?" he asked, nodding at the door.
"Yes," Cinnamon said. "She might be asleep."
He moved slowly, quietly to the door, looked in, and then turned to us and shook his head.
"What?" Cinnamon asked in a loud whisper.
"She's not there," he said, and we all moved up beside him and looked at the empty bed.
We all wondered the same thing. Was she gone? Had they decided to take her away?
"Try the door to the hall," Cinnamon told Ice. "Maybe it was left unlocked and she went down to her mother's residence.'"
Ice tried the door and found it locked.
"The window." Cinnamon thought aloud and went to it herself, but found that locked as well. She turned and shrugged. "She's gone."
Howard looked from her to the rest of us, skepticism writing lines along his forehead and pulling his lips in at the corners of his mouth.
"This was all a lot of bull, wasn't it?" he charged. "You thought you'd have some fun with me, is that it?"
"Don't be completely stupid. Howard," Cinnamon told him.
"You've got something else going on and you tried to pull this on me. I want you to know I never really fell for it," he said, folding his arms across his chest. "That's why I insisted on coming up here. If you really thought I had swallowed this fantastic story about a disturbed daughter practically kept a prisoner just so Madame Senetsky wouldn't be embarrassed, well, you've all got another think..."
Gerta was so quiet, stepping out from behind the closet door, we almost didn't see her. She wore a wig of long black hair that trailed over her shoulders. She was dressed in an ankle-length nightgown. She didn't seem to see us, but instead looked past us. Then she smiled.
" 'My mother had a maid called Barbary: She was in love, and he she loved proved mad, and did forsake her. She had a song of "Willow," an old thing 'twas, but it express'd her fortune, and she died singing it.' "
"What is she saying?" Ice asked with a grimace.
Howard shook his head in awe.
"Those are Desdemona's lines in Othello before she is murdered by him. Cinnamon, what is this? Have you been working with her, teaching it to her?"
"Of course not," Cinnamon replied.
"But..." He looked at us. "It's part of what Cinnamon and I are preparing for our next
Performance Night,"
I turned quickly to Cinnamon. Had Gerta somehow been listening in on their rehearsals? For a moment her eves twinkled with the same suspicion. Then she shook it out of her thoughts.
"Just coincidence," she muttered for my benefit. Gerta stepped forward.
"
'The song tonight will not go from my mind; I have much to do but to go hang my head all at one side and sing it like poor Barbary,'
"
she continued.
She paused and lowered her head.
"That's very good," Howard told her. He looked skeptically at Cinnamon. "Too good to be any sort of coincidence."
"I told you, Howard. I've had nothing to do with it. She just knows lines from plays."
Gerta lifted her head, her face back to the face we had seen before, that childlike smile of trust on her lips.
"Hello," Howard said to her.
She ignored him and turned to us.
"Are you all here for the show?" she asked excitedly. "What show is that. Gerta?" I asked.
"My mother's new show. We're supposed to be very quiet, you know. Not a peep. Sit and pay attention and smile at people who smile at you, but not a peep," she warned. "This way, please," she said and walked into the living room.
Howard turned to us astounded. "Is she for real?"
"Well, have you had enough, Howard?" Cinnamon asked him. "You see for yourself we were not lying to you. Are you satisfied? Do you want to apologize?"
"Yes, yes," he said, waving his hand at her. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. You're all as honest as the day is long." He looked after Gerta. "She's like an idiot savant, rattling off those lines. You said you have heard her recite others?"
"So what?" Ice asked him.
"So what? That's not exactly a television commercial jingle, you know, and she performed it rather well. I thought, Maybe even better than you do." he told Cinnamon.
"That doesn't bother me. Howard. This is just all very sad to us. Can we go now?"
"Let me just see what else she knows," he said, and followed her into the living room.
"He's a piece of work, our Howard Rockwell," Cinnamon muttered. We
all
trailed after him.
Gerta was on the sofa. She picked up some needlework she had been doing and continued as if none of us were there. Howard watched her, fascinated, for a moment.
"Gerta?"
She didn't look up at him.
"
'I do believe 't'was he.' " he said.
Gerta looked up at him.
" 'How now, my lord? I have been talking with a suitor here, a man that languishes in your
displeasure.' "
"Holy cow." Howard said, turning back to us. "She knows the whole thing. Desdemona's part." He stared at her a moment, "I wonder... 'How now?' " he cried in a loud, angry voice,
" 'What do you here alone?' "
Gerta's face changed, her body stiffened.
" 'Do not you chide; I have a thing for you.' "
Howard's eyes looked like they would pop out of his head. "That's Emila's line. She knows the whole play by heart!"
"Howard," I said. "Maybe that's enough, okay?"
"No, wait a minute. Let's try... Macbeth." He turned back to Gerta and in a loud whisper said. 'If we should fail?' "
She gazed at him, her face now turning angry.
"
'We fail? But screw your courage to the sticking place, and well not fail.' "
She leaned forward to whisper.
"
'When Duncan is asleep, whereto the rather shall his day's hard journey soundly invite him, his two chamberlains will I with wine and wassail so convince, that memory, the warder of the brain, shall be a fume and the receipt of reason a limbeck only. When in swinish sleep their drenched natures lies as in a death, what cannot you and I perform upon the unguarded Duncan? What not put upon his spungy officers who shall bear the guilt of our great quell?...' "