The Jumbee (13 page)

“Possibly,” Alan said, amused. “I don’t remember.”

“Hmm.” Esti forced a smile, backtracking to an earlier question. “Where did you say you grew up?”

“I didn’t say.”

She gave her chair a not-quite-playful kick. “Alan, where did you grow up?”

“Around. A Danish uncle took me in for several years when I was little.”

“And when you got big?”

“As soon as I was old enough, he sent me to boarding school.”

“In Denmark?”

“London.”

“Ah,” she said in satisfaction. “Is that where you learned Shakespeare?”

“Yes.”

“You must have loved it there.”

“I despised the place,” he said flatly.

“Why?” She kept her voice neutral.

“That would be far too complicated to explain.” Esti heard a familiar tightness in his voice. “Let’s stick with single-word answers.”

“You’re too complicated to be explained away in single words,” she said.

“To be sure.” He was silent for a long moment. “I’ve answered enough for today.”

Her heart began pounding again as she realized her tiny window of opportunity had slammed shut. “Alan, I haven’t even begun to ask!”

“I can’t do it, Esti,” he forced out. “I thought I could, but I was wrong. Perhaps I should answer a question you haven’t precisely asked. The answer is no, I can’t give you what you’re looking for.”

“You don’t know what I’m looking for.” She barely kept herself from slamming her hand on the table. “Alan, I can’t see you. I can’t touch you. You’re a voice telling me things you think I want to hear. I mean,
no one
washes up on an island in real life. So here’s a question that only needs one word. Are you a jumbee?”

He didn’t answer.

“Here’s one I’ll answer for you. Do you have power over me?” She took a deep breath. “Yes, you do.”

Silence.

“Will I
ever
see you?”

Nothing.

“Why are you doing this?” Her heart pounded so loud in the silence now, she could almost feel it rattling the door. Clutching the edge of the table, she resorted to a quote from
Hamlet
. “Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned? Be thy intents wicked or charitable?”

“Oh, Esti.” She heard a soft, reluctant chuckle. “You are the one with power. I can’t run away from you, no matter how hard I try.” He sighed. “My intents are charitable, but I am not a spirit of health.”

“You’re a goblin damned?”

“I like you, Esti. I like you far too much.” His voice grew so soft she could barely hear him. “And you terrify me.” The whisper brushed her ears, floating like a wisp of cloud in the flickering darkness of their practice room.

Esti knew she hadn’t heard him right. “What did you say?”

“Act One, Scene Two.” This time he spoke clearly, even if he sounded a bit strangled. “Rosalind, be merry.”

Act One. Scene Ten.

“What do you mean, Danielle won’t be here tonight?” Esti stared in disbelief at Carmen’s reflection in the mirror. The dressing room had become a madhouse as the cast raced to get their costumes and makeup perfect. Esti couldn’t have possibly heard her right over the chaos.

Carmen was laughing so hard, she couldn’t talk. Wiping tears from her eyes, she leaned against the wall and slid to the floor, pulling Nurse’s brown robe around her drawn-up legs.

Esti replaced the lid on the jar of makeup and carefully turned to look at her friend. “You’re kidding.”

“She has dysentery.”

“What’s that?”

“A tropical disease of the intestines. I looked it up.” Carmen couldn’t keep a straight face, and she started laughing again. “She has
the runs
, Esti. Is that the most perfect thing you’ve ever heard? For four years Danielle managed to convince Niles she didn’t need an understudy. Now Manchicay’s Christmas performance starts in an hour, and Juliet is stuck on a toilet for the next three days. If this doesn’t prove she’s full of crap, I don’t know what would.” Carmen almost howled. “I just overheard Niles talking to Rodney Solomon. Boy, is Niles furious.”

Esti couldn’t quite bring herself to laugh. “What’s he going to do?”

“Niles need someone who have Juliet memorize.” Lucia emerged from behind the heavy curtain surrounding the girls’ private changing area. As she casually picked up Lady Capulet’s satin gown, holding it against her for size, a chill ran down Esti’s spine. Lucia had been practicing for the part of Lady Capulet all semester.

“You knew this was going to happen.”

“Nah, mon.” Lucia shrugged. “I had tell you a long time ago, you got a moko jumbee take care of you. ’Tis always good to be prepare.”

Esti shook her head. Alan couldn’t possibly have made Danielle sick.

“Esti!”

She shrank back as Mr. Niles strode through the door.

“You played Juliet before,” he said. “Is there any chance you still know the part?”

The dressing room fell silent. Esti swallowed and nodded.

“And I have Lady Capulet memorize,” Lucia said softly.

Niles glanced at Lucia, then turned back to Esti. The confusion and fear in his eyes hit her like a slap in the face. “I’ll see you on stage in forty-five minutes.”

As Niles raced back out, Greg leaned against the far mirror, his expression suspicious.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Esti said, trying to suppress her rising panic.

“It’s not her fault, you idiot!” Carmen shoved herself back up to her feet and glared at Greg. “You spent all day with Danielle. I bet
you
knew she was getting sick, didn’t you? You didn’t warn Niles, so don’t you dare blame this on Esti.”

Greg had opened his mouth, but now he closed it and turned away, muttering to Chaz.

Oh, God.
Esti wasn’t sure if she said the words aloud. When nobody turned to look at her, she decided she’d managed to keep her panic inside. Even more astonishing, nobody seemed to hear the wild thudding of her heart.
I can’t do it.

“You need a costume,” Carmen whooped. “We’ve got forty-five minutes to turn you into a hot Capulet
chiquita.
”

“Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona, where we lay our scene.”

Esti realized she’d bitten her fingernails down to the quick as she listened to the opening lines of the prologue. Carmen applied her makeup for her, since her fingers shook too much to do it for herself. Lucia had tracked down Ma Harris to get the janitor keys, and in the costume closet behind the stage, they found an old green velvet gown, musty and three sizes too big.

“A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life,” the chorus continued on stage.

Esti had been certain she was ready to face the critics again, but she knew now that she wasn’t. Juliet would crumble during the scene with Lord Capulet, and no one would ever pick up the pieces again. She would limp through the rest of the play like she had last time, desperately hoping they wouldn’t notice she was a fake. They would notice, of course. She was certain they’d all been waiting for this moment, when they could tear apart the imitation Legard like hungry piranhas.

“The clothes don’t matter
so
much,” Carmen insisted. “This will be good enough for tonight. All we need are a couple of safety pins, and you’re set.”

It took the whole box of safety pins, but Carmen finally managed to drape the green velvet around Esti, pulling the gown tight above her waist in a way that almost looked authentic. Esti barely noticed the reek of mothballs; she just hoped the pins would hold.

She had been fooling herself. What had made her think that Manchicay School would be different? Had she really thought she would be far enough from her dad’s perfect presence, just because he was dead and Ashland was thousands of miles away? They would seize the Legard name with both hands, wringing her performance dry.

“Act One is about to start,” Carmen said. “I have to get out there, so you need to finish the rest of this by yourself. All you’ve got to do is pull back all that hair and pin your cap on. Don’t worry, Jane Doe, you’ll be great.”

“Thank you,” Esti managed as Carmen rushed out the door. Only Lance still remained on the far side of the dressing room, pretending to ignore her as he put the finishing touches on his Lord Capulet costume.

“Oh, God,” she whispered. She wasn’t worried about her lines; she’d had the dialogue memorized since she was ten. Of all the characters she’d ever practiced with Alan, however, he had avoided playing Romeo to her Juliet. She had never practiced blocking Juliet’s actions with anyone here, and she dreaded the love scenes with Greg. Worst of all, Lance was about to rip her heart into tiny shreds, although he didn’t even know it.

“I’m in control,” she murmured. “If I believe that, I can make everyone else believe it too.”

“Of course you’re in control.”

“Alan!” She fought to keep her voice down so that Lance might think she was rehearsing her lines.

“You’ll bring down the house tonight, you know you will.” His voice wrapped around her with surprising warmth. “You’re going to show them a Juliet the island will talk about for years.”

Although Esti felt a surge of strength at his confidence, she hesitated. “You didn’t have anything to do with this, did you?”

“Your Juliet will be impeccable.” Alan laughed. “And how could I have known Danielle would choose today to get sick? For the first time since I’ve known her, her timing is perfect.”

“Perfect?” Esti shook her head, searching for some humor. “Do you see what I’m wearing?”

She saw Lance look over as her joke fell flat. With an uncertain smile of encouragement, he walked out the door.

“Stay calm.” Alan sounded amused. “You could walk out there in your blue jeans, and nobody would notice after the first thirty seconds. Juliet will be clothed in the words Shakespeare has written for her. You’ll hold that audience with your voice and with your passion, Esti. Everyone in the theater will be in tears tonight, you take my word for it.”

His eloquent reassurance sounded eerily like her dad, and she rubbed the goose bumps on her arms. “But Greg . . .”

“You’re an
actress.
Fortunately, Greg is worthy of a much better counterpart than Danielle. By the end of the evening, Romeo will be completely yours.”

“And the scene with Lord Capulet?” she whispered. “I can’t do it, Alan.”

“Use that emotion,” he whispered. “You are in control, and you are going to bring the stage alive.”

Esti dropped her head into her hands.

“In a few moments you will
be
Juliet. The cast will fly on your energy.”

Staring into the mirror, Esti made herself nod. Carmen had done a nice job with her makeup, and Esti had been feeling a lot like a star-crossed lover lately. Maybe she could pull this off after all.

“That’s better, gentle Esti. Now, close your eyes. Promise you’ll keep them closed for a moment.”

“Okay.” She took another deep breath and let her eyelids drop.

“Wear this for me,” he murmured Rosalind’s words, “one out of suits with fortune. As you feel it against your skin, remember what we’ve been doing all semester. Don’t be afraid to dig deeply into your own emotions. When the lights come up, everyone in this building will be stunned to realize they are not in Verona.”

As Esti became aware of a warm scent—an island flower in sunlight—she felt a feathery tickle against her shoulders that instantly drove all other thoughts from her mind. Alan had touched her. He wasn’t just in her mind, some cruel voodoo trick of a haunted island. He was real, and he was
here
.

“Esti, your hair!” Carmen’s voice filled the dressing room.

Esti’s eyes flew open as Carmen pulled her hair back into a barrette and jammed a cap on her head. A frangipani blossom lay on the table before her, and in the mirror she saw a delicate chain necklace, like the one Rosalind had given Orlando to prove her devotion. Esti’s fingers flew to her throat, grasping for proof that she wasn’t imagining the flower captured in a tiny golden pendant.