The Poison Apples (26 page)

I glanced at R. hopefully. But I think Dad's comment only made her angrier.

“What I was trying to do,” she informed Dad coldly, “was cook a nice Thanksgiving meal for your daughter.” Then she turned to me. “And you don't seem very thankful, young lady. You know, if you weren't here, your father and I would have made reservations at that great French restaurant across the park weeks ago. But now it's too late. Now we're stuck with”—she gestured around the diner in disgust—“
Rick's
.”

Don't freak out,
I told myself.

“I would have been fine with a French restaurant,” I said quietly.

She slammed her glass of water down on the table. “Great,” R. said. “That's really sweet, Alice. You know, it would be nice if once in a while you tried to be a tiny bit less spoiled. But apparently that's impossible for you.”

I gaped at her. A million retorts sprang to my lips. But I stopped myself:
Wait. Don't ruin Revenge Plot Number One. By tomorrow night, R. will have her comeuppance. Stay cool.

A few hours later, I was lying on the air mattress Dad had set up for me on the floor of R.'s study and staring at the ceiling, my head swimming with anger.

Any guilt or hesitation I'd had the day before about executing Revenge Plot Number One was completely gone.

Screw Thanksgiving.

Screw my dad.

Screw Jamal and his Goody Two-Shoes view of the universe.

R. Klausenhook was going down.

I was going to take what was dearest to her and ruin it, irrevocably and forever.

*   *   *

I was supposed to meet Dad
in front of the theater at 7:30, and the curtains opened on
The Cherry Orchard
at 8:00. The New York theater community had been anticipating this night for months.

I couldn't have cared less.

And yet it was only 4:00
PM
and I was skulking around outside the stage door, shivering in my thin winter coat.

Why?

Because I was going to infiltrate the production.

And then destroy R's career.

I'd been thinking for days about the best way to get inside the theater, and that morning it had struck me: of course. How obvious. How did everyone else in the production get in and out of the theater?

The stage door.

The cast and crew had keys, of course. But all I had to do was wait around, look unassuming, and then when someone entered or exited, just follow behind as if that was the most normal thing in the universe to do.

So I waited. And waited. I knew the actors—R. included—wouldn't be arriving until 6:00, so I had plenty of time. Still, it was cold outside. And the street I was standing on was pretty loud, with cars honking and garbage trucks coughing up coffee grinds and turkey carcasses.

Finally, at 4:30, a woman with a baseball cap and glasses hurried up to the stage door and unlocked it. This was my chance. I jumped forward just as she opened the door and tried to follow her inside.

The woman stopped, turned around, and squinted at me.

“Who are you?” she asked.

I wasn't expecting that.

“Um … I'm…” The truth—that I was R. Klausenhook's stepdaughter—would have probably gotten me in. But I didn't want to leave a recognizable trail. “I'm … the assistant stage manager.”

She glared at me. “That's impossible.”

“Why?” I asked, trying to sound confident.

“Because
I'm
the assistant stage manager.” Then she stepped all the way inside the building and, pointedly, slammed the door in my face.

Shoot.

I walked back over to my spot on the brick wall next to the theater and went back to waiting. This time, though, I was more nervous. What if I couldn't get inside? Or what if the woman caught me once I
was
in the theater and reported me? What if I was arrested? What if the police—

The door was opening.

But this time from the inside.

I darted forward and held it just as a sweaty, overweight man in overalls exited, pushing a cart full of two-by-fours.

He looked at me, surprised. “Thank you, miss.”

I smiled. “No problem.” Then the next sentence just popped out of my mouth. “Everyone in a production should help everyone else out, right?”

He looked confused. “You're in the production?”

I looked at him, temporarily flummoxed. Then something amazing happened. Without even deciding to, I became R. I lifted my chin. I flared my nostrils. I batted my lashes. I looked simultaneously contemptuous and sympathetic.

“Darling,” I said to the man, “I'm the
star
.”

He blinked. “Oh. Sorry.”

I waved my hands in the air, picturing myself with long, purple fingernails. “No matter,” I said airily.

Then I stepped inside the darkened theater.

The door slammed behind me.

I took a deep breath, taking in the smell of must and sawdust. Then I lowered my head and walked down the first hallway I saw.

I had to get to the dressing rooms without anyone noticing me.

Luckily, it seemed like almost no one was there. I could hear a few people moving around scenery onstage, but otherwise the theater was silent. I tiptoed down the hallway, checking the sign on every door:
PROP ROOM. BOILER ROOM. COSTUME CLOSET
.

That last one made me catch my breath. Reena would love me forever if I brought her back some kind of 1920s boa. And a pair of cool Victorian boots for Molly …

I made myself keep walking.

BATHROOM. TECHNICAL SUPPLIES. DRESSING ROOM
.

I came to a halt.

DRESSING ROOM
. Did all the actors share a single dressing room? It hadn't occurred to me. If that was true, my plan was in trouble. I took a few steps down the hallway just in case, and peeked at the sign on the next door:

DRESSING ROOM-KLAUSENHOOK
.

Perfect. Of course R. would demand her own dressing room. How could I have expected anything less of her?

I pressed my ear to the door, and holding my breath, listened for any sounds inside.

Nothing.

I reached into my jacket and felt for the little pouch I'd been storing inside my pocket. That morning I'd gone to my old favorite toy store in Brooklyn Heights and walked straight back to the jokes-and-gags section. There it was, in its pink package with a cartoon on it of a man scratching himself wildly, his eyes bugging out in pain.

FRANKIE'S EXTRA-POWERFUL SUPER LONG-LASTING ITCHING POWDER.

I'd never bought it as a kid, just stared at it with curious longing. But now Frankie's itching powder was going to serve a real purpose in my life.

It was going to ruin R.'s career.

I was going to sneak into her dressing room and pour it in her shoes. In her dress. In her pantyhose. In the Russian shawl she'd been wearing around the house so as not to “break character.”

There was no way that R. was going to be able to turn in the kind of awe-inspiring, life-changing, breathtaking performance that all the theater critics in all the New York newspapers had been anticipating. Not if her skin was on fire. That was the definition of breaking character. And—as she'd made a point of telling me and Dad five times over breakfast—everyone who was anyone was going to be at opening night. The reviews would come out the next morning.

I opened the door and stepped into the dressing room.

And there she was.

Sitting in front of the dressing room mirror on a stool. Hunched over, wrapped in her shawl.

Crying.

My jaw dropped. I stood there, trying to decide whether or not I should just run out of the room without offering an explanation.

R. slowly lifted her head up and stared at me, mascara streaks running down her face. “Alice?” she croaked.

I nodded.

“You came,” she wept. “You came to see me. That's so nice.”

She put her head in her hands and cried even harder.

I took a tiny step toward her. “What's—” I started to say.

“Your father called and told you?” she asked through her sobs.

“I…”

“I just … I can't imagine going on tonight. I can't do it. I can't go on.” Her shoulders started shaking.

What was happening? I was living in some kind of alternate universe. One in which
R.
wanted to sabotage her own career.

“Why can't you go on?” I asked.

She looked at me indignantly, even more makeup started to drip off her eyelashes and eyelids. “Would you have been able to go onstage and play Ranevskaya right after your mother died?”

My mouth opened and then closed.

R.'s mother had died?

I'd seen R. at lunch and everything had seemed just fine.

“Um,” I said. And then after a pause: “No. No, I wouldn't have.”

R. flung herself onto the dressing room cabinet and moaned. Weirdly enough, she was actually reminding me of a real person for the first time in the entire year I'd known her.

“I'm so sorry,” I said softly. “I know how awful it feels.”

“They called twenty minutes ago,” she sobbed. “A heart attack. She was perfectly … the last time I talked to her she seemed fine.”

“Where does—where did she live?” I asked.

“Cleveland, Ohio.”

I was shocked. “That's where you're from?”

She nodded. I'd had no idea. I had always just assumed that R. was born and raised in Manhattan. Or at least Paris. Or London. Maybe—although it was a stretch—Madrid.

Definitely not Cleveland.

I pulled up a stool and sat down next to her. After a second, I reached out and touched her shoulder. She didn't pull away, so I started stroking it, making a small circle with the tips of my fingers. Just like my mom used to do when I was a kid.

She began breathing in big, heaving gulps.

Watching her, it was all coming back to me. The call from the hospital in the middle of the night. Dad and I had stayed there until midnight and then took a cab back to the house to get a few hours of sleep before we went back to visit Mom in the morning. And then the phone rang at 4:00
AM
, and from my bed I had heard Dad let out a strange yell … a totally new and unfamiliar sound.…

Tears were starting to spring into my eyes. I tried to blink them back.

“Listen,” I told R. firmly. “You have to go on tonight.”

She shook her head. “I can't.”

“Do you have an understudy?”

“No.” She sniffed. “This show is all about my performance.”

Of course.

“Just get through it,” I said helplessly.

“I can't. I'm not in character. I feel…” She burst into a fresh round of choking sobs. “I feel like I'm five years old.”

I kept rubbing her shoulder, unsure of what to say or do next. “I'm sorry, R. I understand what it's like, and it's horrible.”

She nodded. “I know you do,” she murmured.

I was shocked. There was no sarcasm in her tone, no irony. We'd just communicated for the first time.

“Oh, God,” she bawled. “I'm going to ruin my career. I can't do it. I can't go on.”

I sighed. “Listen. Two days after my mom died I had an English final. And I was sure I couldn't do it. I couldn't even get out of bed or speak to anyone. But I knew that if I missed the final, I'd have to make it up a week later. And I probably wasn't going to be feeling any better a week later. I was maybe gonna be feeling worse, because in a week my mom would still be dead, and the realization would just be sinking in even more. Then I realized that if I didn't take the test at all, I wouldn't be able to finish eighth grade.”

She blinked at me through her tear-encrusted eyelashes. “What did you do?”

“I woke up the morning of the test and I thought: I can't do this. There is no way I can get out of bed and take a shower and put on my clothes and go to school. It is physically impossible.”

R. stared at me, her mouth open, a small droplet of snot hanging from the tip of her nose. “And?”

“And then I got out of bed and put on my clothes and went to school and took the test.” I started to giggle, remembering. “I refused to take a shower, though. I don't know why. Somehow taking a shower still seemed impossible.”

R. cracked a tiny smile. “That makes sense.”

We were silent for a while.

“I can't believe you did that,” she said finally. “I can't believe you took an English test right after your mother died.”

“I got a C-minus,” I admitted.

She shook her head. “It doesn't matter. It's still a miracle.”

I thought about it. “Well, you know what? I was just performing. That morning I was just pretending to be someone whose mother hadn't just died.”

R. nodded. “You took your fate into your own hands.”

I stared at her. Reclaiming your life. Taking your fate into your own hands. That was the goal of the Poison Apples.

But had I
already
reclaimed my own life without even realizing it?

R. stood up shakily and pulled the shawl around her shoulders. She faced the dressing mirror and slowly began wiping the makeup stains off her face. “I'll go to Cleveland on Monday,” she said softly. “That's when we have the day off.”

I stood up, too. “Good for you, R.”

She turned and faced me. Her green eyes pierced into mine. “Thank you, Alice.”

“You don't have to thank me.”

She bit her lip. “Listen. I'm sorry if I…”

I held my breath. I'd never even heard the words
I'm sorry
come out of R.'s mouth before. What was she going to apologize for? Sending me off to boarding school? Selling the brownstone? Making me a flower girl instead of a bridesmaid? Screaming at me at least once an hour? Trying in every way possible to ruin my life?