Olive and the Backstage Ghost

by Michelle Schusterman

  Steeling herself, Olive marched past the Marinos’ coffee shop and into her building. To her relief, the doorman was nowhere to be seen. Olive glanced at the numbers over the elevator doors just as the dial moved from seven to six. Quickly, she hurried to the stairs and began the climb to the ninth-floor penthouse.

  At the top, out of breath, Olive pulled her key from her pocket. But the door swung open just before she reached it. A tall, thin policeman nearly barreled into her, blinked in confusion for a few seconds, then hollered over his shoulder: “The girl’s right here!”

  The next hour passed in a nightmarish blur. Olive answered question after question, perched stiffly on the edge of the sofa. She’d left the arts center and wandered around the theater district. No, she hadn’t spoken to any strangers. No, she hadn’t thought to call home from a pay phone. No, she hadn’t given her actions much thought at all. She did not say a word about Maudeville—now was not the time, not with her mother’s fingers gripping her shoulder like talons.

  Mrs. Preiss had appeared genuinely shocked—maybe even relieved—upon seeing Olive in the doorway. What followed was a commendable performance: fluttering hands, trembling smiles, soothing murmurings. But while the police officers failed to detect the underlying current of ire in her mother’s voice, Olive did not. And when the pair finally took their leave, Olive braced herself for the worst.

  She sat rigid, hands clasped in her lap as her mother said goodbye to the officers at the door. Directly across the room, the wallpaper bore a dark patch, perfectly rectangular in shape. It took Olive a moment to remember. A painting had hung there: a still lake beneath a fiery sky. The bronze frame had been quite expensive. It had hung right there on the wall all of Olive’s life, and now it was gone.

  When Mr. Preiss died last summer, he’d taken the family’s source of income with him. The penthouse was paid off, but gas, electricity, and food bills piled up quickly. Not to mention paychecks for the house staff. Her mother seemed determined that her husband’s abrupt departure would not put an end to their lifestyle. And as she reminded Olive frequently, Mrs. Preiss herself was unsuited to any work outside of performing. So another means of income was necessary.

  It had begun with the gold angel bookends. One day, they proudly guarded the second-to-top row of books on Olive’s shelf—her mysteries, her darkest and most treasured stories, the ones her father had read aloud to her when she was little. The next day, they were gone, swapped for enough money to keep the heat on all winter. The mere memory was enough to fill Olive with fury.

  The love seat had been the second to go, bringing in a few weeks’ worth of groceries. The grandfather clock followed, covering the last of Olive’s tuition payments for the year. And so it had continued as the weather grew warmer, a sad sort of spring-cleaning. Eventually, Mrs. Preiss had been forced to let the house staff go anyway. Now it was just the two of them, Olive and her mother, alone together in their increasingly hollow home.

  “So.”

  Olive forced herself to look up. Her mother glared down at her, dark eyes cold and hard. There was no tenderness there now, no relief—that had all been an act for the police officers. And a very good act at that.

  Imagine the delicious wickedness Laurel Preiss might unleash as a villain. When she’d first read that review, Olive found the idea of her mother as a villain amusing. But right now, those words tugged at a carefully stitched-up hole in her chest, and Olive feared it might unravel completely.

  “Stand up.”

  Olive obeyed, legs shaking. Mrs. Preiss stood quite still.

  “It’s not just the money you’ve thrown away in spite of our…situation.” Her voice, cold and low, grew louder with every word. “It’s not just the fact that you stood on that stage and didn’t even try, didn’t even bother, after all the work we’ve put in the last few months. It’s not just that I had to call the police, that the entire building saw them come here to question me, like a criminal. That would be bad enough, but you…” Mrs. Preiss paused, drew a deep breath. Her arms hung loose at her sides, shoulders low, chin high—the seemingly relaxed stance of a singer preparing to belt it out.

  “You ran away.”

  Olive looked at her feet.

  “You ran away,” Mrs. Preiss repeated, and now there was a subtle shift in her tone. Disbelief. Olive had never dared defy her mother. “You just took off into the city without a thought of what might happen. What it would put me through. What people will say, as if we needed to give them any more reason to—” She stopped abruptly, jaw clenching and unclenching. “What were you thinking, Olive?” she spat. “We prepared for this. You were ready. You can’t just up and vanish when things get difficult; that’s not how life works.”

  “It worked for Dad.”

  A long moment passed before Olive realized, with a thrill of horror, that those words had actually come from her mouth. The look of shock on her mother’s face mirrored Olive’s own. A second later, she gasped at the sharp sting of a hand across her face.

  Laurel Preiss glared down at her daughter, eyes wild and wide. “Your room. Now.”

  Olive did not hesitate. She fled the living room, hurrying down the hall, past the door to her father’s study. She climbed onto her four-post bed and lay on top of the covers. Closing her eyes, Olive imagined a glowing-red handprint on her cheek. She fell asleep long before it faded away.

  Olive awoke with a buzzing headache and a general sense of doom. She lay in bed blinking away her dream, in which she’d soared over a grand stage, chased by a relentless spotlight. At last, she got dressed and headed to the kitchen. A curt note waited next to a bowl of cold oatmeal.

  I’ve notified the doorman that you are not to leave the building. I’ll be home before dinner. — Mother

  Sighing, Olive picked up her spoon. A hint of Mrs. Preiss’s spicy perfume lingered in the air; judging from the dirty dishes stacked next to the sink, she’d left in a hurry. Olive took a bite of oatmeal, gazing at the red lipstick smiling at her from the rim of one of the coffee cups. Then she promptly choked.

  Maudeville. It hadn’t been a dream. Hurrying to the sink, Olive filled a clean glass with water and took a long sip. Maude Devore had offered her a starring role, and Olive had promised to return to the theater today. Which would be difficult to do, thanks to her mother.

  Olive left the kitchen, thinking hard. Perhaps there was some way she could disguise herself to sneak past the doorman and escape.

  Escape.

  Suddenly, Olive knew exactly what she needed to do.

  In a dim corner of her mind, she realized she was about to defy her mother again. The second time in as many days. The thought gave her a thrill. Where this sudden rebellious streak had come from, Olive wasn’t sure. It worked for Dad. Olive could not have wielded a weapon sharper than those words. She pictured her mother’s expression and felt a wave of guilt. And maybe just the tiniest hint of satisfaction.

  And now she stood in front of her father’s study.

  Lifting her chin, Olive reached for the doorknob. Neither she nor her mother had entered the study since last summer. Mrs. Preiss had closed the door a week after her husband’s funeral, and by some unspoken mother-daughter agreement, it had remained shut. Olive had longed to enter more than once, but she knew it was best to stay out. It had taken her a long time to stitch up the hole that had ripped open in her chest when her father died, and she didn’t want to undo that work. But maybe enough time had passed.

  Olive pushed the door open.

  Clutter. Beautiful, glorious clutter—shelves crammed with books and knickknacks; papers and photos and pens covering the surface of the sturdy rosewood desk; filing cabinets so stuffed with documents, the drawers couldn’t close properly. Olive smiled at the familiar sight, though her throat ached. Compared to her father’s wonderfully messy haven, the rest of the penthouse seemed even emptier. She stepped inside and closed the door behind her.

  Directly across the room, a sheet was draped over the mir
ror. The stout desk sat in front of it, with bookshelves lining the wall to the right. And of course, the silver telescope on its stout tripod, right next to the window. The curtains were parted, offering a glimpse of the short redbrick building across the alley. This mostly unobstructed view of the sky had prompted Mr. Preiss to buy the telescope. It was a rather extravagant purchase made after money had begun rapidly drying up, and Mrs. Preiss had made her disapproval clear. But Mr. Preiss had insisted that they needed this splurge now more than ever, to lift their spirits.

  On clear nights, Olive and her father would take turns stargazing while Mrs. Preiss sat in the plush leather armchair behind the desk with a cup of tea. Mr. Preiss would point out all sorts of constellations and tell Olive stories to go with the pictures they formed—tales of snakes wrapped around chariots, or boastful queens and noble centaurs. Inevitably, he would begin inventing new constellations, and Mrs. Preiss would halfheartedly protest.

  “Stick to the real constellations,” she’d say. “The ones Olive needs to know for school.”

  “The real ones?” Mr. Preiss would laugh. “They’re all made up, aren’t they?” His wife would roll her eyes as Olive and her father shared a grin. “Infinite stars mean infinite constellations, Olive,” he’d say. “They can show any picture, tell any story that you want to see. They’re all made up, and they’re all real.”

  Olive hadn’t stargazed in more than a year.

  She walked over to the plush leather chair behind the desk and, after a moment’s hesitation, sat. Hands clasped in her lap, she surveyed the mess. Her father was one of those people who had a method of organization all their own. Several dusty books were piled in the corner, all with worn covers and laborious-sounding titles. A calendar lay beneath a few open notebooks filled with scrawling, sloppy penmanship. Some plastic pill bottles with prescription labels sat next to a coffee mug that read History Haunts Us. Everything looked in disarray, but ask Mr. Preiss for a specific book or a certain letter, and he’d have it in hand within seconds.

  A large map took up much of his workspace. Examining the streets, Olive realized it was a map of the historic district. As a historian, Mr. Preiss had a particular passion for his city’s past. Olive gazed at the map, the streets nothing but meaningless squiggles. She had come here because she needed to escape without the doorman noticing. But she was having second thoughts.

  Not about sneaking out. Just about doing it this way.

  Exhaling slowly, Olive stood, pushed the chair back to the desk, and headed to the window. It let out the softest of creaks when she yanked it open. Without allowing herself even a second to reconsider, Olive put one leg through, then the other, taking care not to kick the telescope. A moment later, she stood on the fire escape, gripping the railing and staring at the ground below.

  Nine floors down. And no one around to see.

  Olive began the descent down the ladder. On the sixth floor, Ms. Asher’s shih tzu, Tinkerbell, began yapping so loudly that Olive twitched in surprise. By the third floor, her hands were slick with sweat and she nearly slipped off. But soon she hung from the very last rung, legs swaying for a few seconds before she let go. Her feet hit the pavement with a smack.

  Standing, Olive brushed off her legs and cast a quick glance around. A couple strolled hand in hand across the street, and an elderly woman left the Marinos’ coffee shop on the corner carrying a cake box. None of them noticed the sweaty, shaky girl next to the garbage cans.

  Olive crept to the edge of the alley and peeked in the coffee shop window to make sure Mrs. Marino wasn’t watching. Then she sprinted off in the direction of the theater district as fast as her legs could take her.

  Olive ran past the library where her father used to work. She ran past the arts center, where theater camp would soon begin. She ran past the parking lot and the bus stops covered in posters and the buildings that gradually swelled in size, retracing her steps from yesterday until she couldn’t run any longer.

  Rubbing at a stitch in her side, Olive turned in a slow circle. Had she passed that billboard yesterday, the cologne advertisement with an image of a cowboy lassoing a horse? And that cabaret club up ahead—she’d turned left on the street before it, hadn’t she? Or maybe it was the next street over….

  A man in a suit skirted around her, black coffee splashing over the rim of the paper cup in his hand. He muttered a rude word, which Olive ignored. She was too busy fighting down her panic. The arcade with all the pinball machines lined up out front—she’d walked past that yesterday for sure. Then she’d crossed this intersection….No, it was a right turn, past the great, glittering Alcazar theater, then a turn onto this narrow street, and—

  Olive’s heart soared at the sight of a familiar marquee. She’d nearly reached the stairs when a voice behind her piped up.

  “You’re not going in there, are you?”

  Whirling around, Olive stared at the boy leaning against the dumpster in the alley. He was maybe a year or so older than she was, with unkempt black hair and ragged, stained clothes. He regarded her with a cool yet suspicious expression, which Olive instinctively mirrored.

  “So what if I am?”

  A rat scurried out from under the dumpster, darting around the boy’s feet. He didn’t flinch. “Have you been in there before?”

  “Yes. Yesterday.”

  He squinted at her. “What did it look like?”

  “Look like?” Olive repeated, wrinkling her nose. “It looks like a theater. It’s lovely.”

  The boy’s face fell. Olive took another step up the stairs, then another. She was itching to find Maude and prove to the tiny nagging voice in her head that yesterday had not, in fact, been a dream. The boy watched warily as she pulled the doors open, but he said nothing when she slipped inside.

  The lobby was just as Olive remembered. Beaming, she hurried past the columns and portraits toward the hall. When she tugged on the door handles, her heart sank. The auditorium was locked.

  Olive pressed her ear against the door, but all was quiet within. Frustrated and slightly panicky, Olive turned around and found herself face to face with an extremely pale ghost.

  “Oh!” she cried, leaning back against the doors. The ghost tilted his head, regarding her curiously. Blinking, Olive realized he wasn’t transparent. Not a ghost, then.

  He was, however, a mime.

  His head and neck were covered in white paint. His eyelids and lips were an inky black, complemented by a black spade on his right cheek and a red heart on his left. A single black teardrop glistened at the corner of his left eye. He wore a black beret over his shaved-bald head, along with a long-sleeved shirt with black-and-white prisoner stripes, white gloves, black pants, and shiny black shoes. Bright red suspenders added the only other touch of color to his look.

  “Hello,” Olive breathed. The mime smiled kindly at her, and she relaxed a bit. “Is…is Maude here?” He pointed down the hallway to the right, then mimed walking up steps. Olive giggled nervously. “She’s upstairs?” Nodding, he offered his elbow with an exaggeratedly chivalrous gesture. Olive hesitated, then took his arm and allowed him to lead her down the hall. It dead-ended at a door, which the mime pushed open to reveal a staircase.

  Olive kept sneaking glances at him as they climbed the stairs. It was difficult to judge his age, thanks to all the makeup. His face was smooth save for a few wrinkles around his eyes, which were the warm shade of maple syrup. The mime caught her staring and winked.

  “What’s your name?” she asked. He stopped abruptly on the landing and let go of her arm. For a moment, Olive feared she had offended him. Then he broke into a wild tap dance, legs flailing in a way that at first appeared clumsy but that Olive soon realized possessed a controlled, fluid grace. He finished with a flourish, holding his arms out with a beseeching expression.

  “You’re named after a tap dancer?” Olive asked, and the mime nodded eagerly. “Okay…I think I need another hint.”

  Standing straight and tall, the mime remov
ed his beret and pretended to put his arm through it before placing it on his bald head. He held his palms flat and parallel above the beret, moving his hands up and down to indicate length. “A top hat?” Olive guessed, and he beamed. Then he pulled on his ears so that they stuck out, and he did a few more tap moves. Olive snickered. “Sorry, but I’ve still got no idea.”

  He let out a melodramatic sigh, then smiled and shrugged. Still laughing, Olive followed him up the rest of the stairs.

  The mime led her down a dim corridor and past a door that stood slightly ajar. Olive peeked inside; the blue-tiled floor was covered in long tables and benches. Noticing her curious look, the mime pretended to fork food into his mouth, rubbing his belly and smiling.

  Olive grinned. “Kitchen?” The mime nodded happily.

  They continued in this fashion, stopping in front of each door for a short pantomime explanation of the room. Olive was surprised to find the theater had a dormitory—one rather large room crammed with cots and bunk beds. Just down the corridor was the bathroom (here, the mime’s scrunched-up expression as he squatted gave Olive an uncontrollable case of the giggles). At last, they rounded the corner and Olive saw that the hall dead-ended at a set of double doors. The mime bounded ahead, pushing them open with a grandiose air. Olive stepped inside and gasped.

  At first glance, the room appeared infinitely large and filled with countless people. But Olive quickly realized that was just a trick of the mirrored walls. Even so, it was quite spacious, with dark hardwood floors and a high ceiling. She’d barely taken a scan of the people scattered around the room—juggling, making cards vanish, breathing fire—before the mime stepped in front of her. Clearing his throat, he lifted an imaginary megaphone to his mouth and pretended to shout.

  To Olive’s astonishment, all heads swiveled in their direction as if the people had heard him. And then the cast of Maudeville descended upon her, wringing her hand and patting her on the back. Olive smiled and attempted to look confident, though her knees wobbled a bit.