Screen Queens

by Lori Goldstein

  “Okay,” she said, “but it’s gotta stay under your hat.”

  “I’m not wearing a hat.”

  Maddie lifted her hand above her brother’s red hair. Though empty of her stylus, her fingers automatically curled into position, and with a flourish she drew an invisible top hat above his head. “There.”

  He looked up and pretended to knock it off his head. “It’s brown,” he said matter-of-factly. “Green’s my favorite color.”

  “How silly of me.” With a fervent air scribble, Maddie abided by the wishes of her little brother. “There. Now, about those pterodactyls . . . my theory, and again, you didn’t hear this from me, but I think they’re the smartest dinosaurs in all of cereal land.”

  Danny’s eyes widened, and a pang of sadness stole her breath. Five weeks. She wouldn’t see him for five whole weeks.

  She cleared her throat, lowered her voice, and pointed to the cereal box. “These guys . . . they’re not going to become extinct. Not ever again. So each and every one waits and waits and waits and then flaps its wings a million miles an hour and zooms out of the box right before the factory glues it shut, and now they’re all living together on a tiny island off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard.”

  Danny cocked his head. “That’d be nice.” A wistfulness gleamed in his eyes, but not long enough. Growing up too fast was Danny’s thing. Maddie’s was hitting pause, whenever and however she could.

  He slowly sat back on his heels and dunked his spoon in his bowl. “But it’s just a story.” His fingers swirled in the milk, and out came a tiny pterodactyl. He popped it in his mouth and chewed. “Gonna miss your stories.”

  Maddie’s phone dinged with a text from ValleyStart. She flipped it over on the counter. But not before Danny saw it too.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I’m proud of you, Mads.”

  A hard lump formed in Maddie’s throat, and she tried for the millionth time to convince herself that this was the right thing.

  Which was hard to do with the way her phone continued to ding obnoxiously. She pushed it farther away. “I’m the one who’s proud of you.” She gestured to his sleepaway camp duffel on the floor of the living room, open and waiting for his favorite socks, which were still in the dryer. Maddie had had to pry them off his feet that morning. Probably the last time they’d be clean all summer, considering how he could barely stand to go a day without them. “That’s one neat and orderly bag, kid.”

  “Learned it from you,” Danny said, smiling his crooked grin. Then he burst out laughing at his own joke.

  Maddie smiled. Even if she wanted to, she didn’t have time to be neat, not when there was school and clients and a little brother to take care of.

  As Danny read the dinosaur facts on the cereal box, Maddie reluctantly turned to the string of texts waiting on her lock screen. Ones not just from ValleyStart, but at least ten from a number she didn’t know. The first message identified the sender as Lucy Katz, proclaiming herself to be one of Maddie’s teammates and roommates. The girl had sent her Pulse handle and how excited she was to be at Thudding, whatever that meant, and as near as Maddie could tell, her life story since birth at five pounds, three ounces to . . .

  Whatever.

  “Packing a bag’s easy,” Danny said. “I can teach you . . . so long as a trip to J.P. Licks and a chocolate cone’s in it for me.”

  Maddie shoved her phone in her pocket and put on her widest big sister smile. “Does this mean you’ve been snooping in my duffel?”

  Danny shook his head. “Was going to help you get organized, but Mads, even that’s too big a job for me.”

  “The creative brain doesn’t have time to fold.”

  “Hope your new roommates don’t mind.”

  Maddie felt her smile slipping and held on tight.

  “It’s okay,” Danny said. “I already know how much you’re gonna miss me. I mean, who wouldn’t?”

  They were both good at covering. A couple of nights, that was the longest they’d ever been apart. So, yeah, Maddie was going to miss Danny like she’d miss a limb—especially since she’d be spending her days at a technology incubator inventing another app people didn’t really need.

  “And you’re gonna miss this.” She hopped off her stool and plastered a kiss on his cheek. “When I get back, we’re going to kick those pterodactyls off that island and claim it for ourselves!”

  “Ew, Mads, that was all wet!”

  Footsteps pounded the stairs, and Maddie looked up to see her mom drop a leather satchel on the bench by the front door. Strands of her long auburn hair hid her eyes as Kelley Finnerty Li reached inside one of the galvanized steel baskets home to everyone’s shoes, neatly tucked away by the cleaning lady. After pointing the toes of her stilettos toward the door, she stood and faced the kitchen, her wireless headset glued to her ear. Maddie was pretty sure her mom slept in the thing.

  She gave a half-hearted nod to her children while simultaneously complaining about “him” and “joint assets.” Swap out “him” for “her,” and the conversation would be a replica of the one their dad had had less than half an hour ago. He’d breezed through the kitchen, side-hugging Danny, and on his way out, grabbed a muffin Maddie had made for Danny’s ride to camp later that afternoon.

  Maddie still wished she were driving her brother to New Hampshire. But she had a six a.m. flight to San Francisco the next morning, had to finish packing, and needed to finalize a project for her most valuable client. The client that would have been her second most valuable client had she landed the company whose proposal she’d worked on for weeks. Besides, the camp owners had assured Maddie that the bus ride with other campers was a great bonding experience.

  Bonding was something Maddie had zero interest in doing with this Lucy chick. Her butt was still buzzing from the girl. This is going to be a long five weeks. Maddie made a mental note to pack her noise-canceling headphones.

  ValleyStart offered Maddie one thing and one thing only: a rock-solid entry on her résumé. With the prestige of the program behind her, she’d never lose another client, which meant she’d keep growing her graphic design business, which meant, most important, she could forgo college and stay right here in Cambridge with Danny.

  That hadn’t been her original plan. But the allure of design school in Maryland had vanished four months ago when her grandparents, who lived in New York, were needed in Beijing more than they were in Cambridge. They’d been planning to move in to help with Danny after Maddie became a college freshman. But her grandmother’s sister was sick, and Danny, after all, had two healthy parents.

  Physically, that is. Because nothing else about her parents and their relationship could be called “healthy.” At least not in the six years since their personal life merged with their professional one. Together, they’d founded an entertainment representation agency whose success consumed them—and who they used to be. Maddie had been taking care of Danny ever since.

  Lately, things had gotten much worse. Not that they told Maddie; her only clue was that they now seemed to be communicating exclusively through lawyers.

  Like her mom was doing right now, her freckled cheeks growing as red as her hair. Maddie wrapped her hand around her four-leaf clover and turned away. Her third-generation Irish mother and first-generation Chinese father meant the Finnerty-Li household was not devoid of superstition. Maddie didn’t believe in most of them, but finding the four-leaf clover the same day her brother was born made this one an exception. Maddie’s mom was the one who told her what each leaf represented. She’d let her nine-year-old daughter sit on the side of her hospital bed and set little Daniel in her arms. Even then he had a puff of red hair, taking after their mother and the complete opposite of Maddie, whose black shoulder-length hair and dark eyes were all her dad’s.

  Hazel eyes and round face strained from her long labor, Maddie’s mom had smiled as bright as an
August day when Maddie pulled Daniel close to her and showed her mother the clover.

  “Faith, hope, love, and luck,” her mother had said. “That’s what each leaf represents.”

  “One for each of us,” Maddie’s dad, Jon, added as he stood on the other side of the bed. “For our family.”

  Maddie had believed it then.

  “Profit share” and “my business” and “not in my lifetime” and more words Maddie didn’t want Danny to hear came out of her mother’s mouth. An eight-year-old should be protected from all this. He still believed in family. Or, at least, Maddie hoped he did.

  Her mother snatched one of Danny’s muffins and almost tripped over her son’s luggage, momentarily surprised by the buzz of the dryer. She looked at Maddie, tipped her head to the laundry room, and continued up the stairs.

  How am I even related to her?

  Another vibration in Maddie’s pocket, and she whipped out her phone to tell this Lucy person to give it a rest and saw that it wasn’t this Lucy person but a notice to check in for her flight. California was so far away—from all of this. A wave of relief rippled through Maddie. And then she turned and saw the pout on her brother’s face, this one very, very real, and all Maddie felt was guilt.

  She pushed through it all, looked at her brother, and smiled.

  THREE

  GOING PUBLIC • When a private company sells shares to public investors for the first time

  APPLAUSE HUNG IN THE air from the previous scene, and the soft notes of the solo began. Delia Meyer crossed her fingers. They immediately slid apart from sweat. Darkness shrouded the stage, and then, Delia sucked in a breath and flipped the switch.

  A beam of light formed a circle on the wood floor, which showed its age in scuffs and nicks, all invisible to the audience because of the angle of the seats, because of the shadows crisscrossing the theater, but mostly because of Delia’s mom, Claire Meyer. She took her mark center stage, and Delia peered around the curtain, her own feet filling the same space they had since she was a child, able to stand on her own.

  Tight as a spring, Delia’s body slowly relaxed as her mother settled into the first refrain. The voice that had lulled Delia to sleep her entire life transfixed every member of the audience, and Delia was reminded of how not everything could be boiled down to genetics.

  She snuck a glance at the influx of messages from ValleyStart and her teammates. They crawled onto her phone, a hand-me-down from her dad, which she later realized meant he no longer had one of his own. “Your mother’s the one they all want to talk to anyway,” he’d said when she’d tried to give it back.

  The one girl, Lucy, was a Pulse 4. A 4. Wow. And she lived in Palo Alto. She’d bring so much to the team, growing up right in the heart of the tech world. The other girl, Maddie, hadn’t given her Pulse—a clear sign that she beat at the top end of the scale, at least according to Delia’s best friend, Cassie. In fact, Maddie hadn’t given much of anything aside from a simple text that read: Arriving from Boston midday. –Maddie Li. Boston, a real city girl.

  Delia had taken the two-hour trip east from Littlewood, Illinois, to Chicago a few times to see shows with her parents and had gone to the science museum once on a field trip, but the labyrinth of streets and density of people were as unfamiliar as they were unimaginable. Delia liked trees. And the long shadows they cast.

  Keeping an ear on her mom’s lyrics for the next lighting change, Delia opened the messages app and typed.

  Hi girls!

  Great response if they were twelve. Erase.

  I’m looking forward to meeting you both.

  And now they’re forty-five. Erase.

  Delia considered saying something about Pulse, but what? She’d only signed up for the app a couple of months ago when she found out she was accepted to ValleyStart. She hadn’t even told her parents she’d applied to the incubator until she’d gotten in. The odds were insane. As was the cost.

  That was part of the reason for these early performances at the small theater her parents owned; the season usually kicked off at the end of June, but this year, shows had started before Memorial Day. Some of the newer actors still weren’t up to speed.

  Delia gave up on returning her teammates’ texts and opened Delia’s Den, the app she’d created when she was ten after burning through the free learn-to-code programs online and the ones available from the library. It began as a way to test what she’d learned and had continued as a sort of meditation. Tweaking and expanding the code and what she could create with it was as comforting as snuggling up with Smudge—more so sometimes. That dog was wiry.

  “Dee!” Cassie said in Delia’s ear, causing her to jump and nearly knock over the lighting board.

  “Shh!” Delia held her finger to her lips. “Mom’s almost done.”

  “I’ve seen this a dozen times, you don’t think I know that? But Dee Dee, that’s the problem. Her daughter’s having a real intimate moment with a trash can.”

  “Her . . . what?”

  “Let’s just say the sun ain’t shining for Little Orphan Annie.”

  Delia sighed. The play wasn’t Annie. Cassie just liked to speak in riddles sometimes. All the time.

  “Stage fright or Uncle Barry’s Fried Bonanza, but either way she’s not going to be hurling anything this audience wants to see.”

  “Understudy?” Delia said, knowing the odds were slim. Graduation was only last week, and school hadn’t ended yet for most of the regular summer theater kids.

  “Not cast yet. But your dad said you know the part.”

  Of course she did. Delia had a photographic memory and ran lines with her mom for every production—at home from the comfort of their floral couch, in front of their greyhound.

  Delia caught sight of her father, preparing to stealthily change out the scenery behind her mom. He built every set piece himself by hand, had been doing it since her parents took over the production company when Delia was a toddler. He nodded to her, and Delia flicked another switch, moving her mom’s light to the far corner of the stage.

  It was almost time for her stage daughter’s entrance. Delia couldn’t let her parents down. The theater had been struggling over the past couple of years, ever since the giant fair that attracted tourists had downsized. The deposit at the local college Delia had insisted was her first choice was less than everywhere else Delia had applied but still more than they could really afford. Tonight the theater was only half full, and word of a snafu so early in the run would have a snowball effect.

  That was why she’d applied to ValleyStart. Because with hard work and maybe a Pulse internship, maybe, just maybe, it might lead to a job that would make college unnecessary and mean her parents wouldn’t have to worry that every seat in the theater wasn’t filled. That she wouldn’t have to worry. The theater was as much her home as the actual house she grew up in. She loved it, same as her parents did.

  Delia tried to give her dad a thumbs-up, but her hand trembled too much, and she lowered her arm to her side. She inhaled a deep breath and focused on her mom, trying to call up the first line that followed the end of the song. She couldn’t. Her mind was as empty as her bank account. Spots flickered in front of Delia’s eyes, and she couldn’t take in enough oxygen. The theater was suddenly a thousand degrees, and sweat broke out on her neck and forehead. Still, she pleaded with her dingy white sneaker to lift off the ground.

  “I got this, babe,” Cassie said, putting a hand on Delia’s forearm.

  The dizziness clouding Delia’s head began to recede, but her heart still knocked against her chest like Smudge’s tail on the hardwood floor when she came home. “But do you know it?”

  “What I don’t know, I’ll wing.”

  Claire Meyer’s perfect pitch strung out the last notes of her song, and Cassie kicked off her clunky work boots and walked onstage barefoot.

  Delia watched th
e furrow on her mother’s brow ease and the gentle tip of her head as she quickly assessed the situation. Then Delia went back to work, adjusting the lights to mask her dad’s set change, all the while hearing Cassie and her mom banter like mother and daughter—both of them improvising as they found their groove.

  If she sprouted them out of her back, Delia still wouldn’t be able to “wing” anything.

  “How am I even related to her?” Delia whispered.

  “Through your mind, your heart, and your pretty little mug.” Jeffrey Meyer pushed aside Delia’s corkscrew bangs—a shade darker and, in Delia’s mind, muddier than her mom’s golden blonde strands—and kissed his daughter on the forehead. “Excellent work on the lights as always.”

  “Yeah, I’m a whiz backstage.” She flicked her finger up and down in the air, miming her movements on the manual lighting board. They had saved up to buy a digital this year, but then ValleyStart happened and the money went to it. “How will you ever train someone to replace me?”

  “We won’t be able to. You are irreplaceable.”

  Delia knew a normal teenager should roll her eyes at corny dad behavior. Delia was happy to never play that role.

  “Sorry I couldn’t . . .” She pointed to Cassie onstage with her mom. “I wanted to. I just . . .”

  “No apologies.”

  “But what if Cassie wasn’t here? And Mom was relying on me?”

  “But Cassie was here. And if she wasn’t, your mom would have rolled with it. Can’t be a performer for twenty years and not know a thing or two about adapting when things don’t go as planned.”

  Claire and Cassie were entering into the final song of the act. Two women Delia had looked up to her entire life. Along with her dad beside her and Smudge at home, they made up Delia’s world.

  Delia had an image of stepping onto that plane tomorrow and not being able to step off. Mountain View was as far from Littlewood as you could get without leaping into the ocean and letting the tide take you where it would and felt just as out of her control.