“Vicks, come on,” Jane said. “Don’t paint it like that. Nobody meant for you to get in trouble.”
But Victoria was crying. “You mean nobody cared about my getting in trouble. You guys just wanted what you wanted. ‘Let’s go to this awesome party! Let’s get funny T-shirts! Victoria, why are you being so lame?’ ”
“Oh my god,” Jane burst out, suddenly angry. “You’re rewriting history! That’s not what happened.”
“Jane’s right, Vicks,” Nat said quietly. “You have to admit it wasn’t like that.”
Still crying, Victoria looked from Jane to Natalya. “Why am I so not surprised that you both think you know more than I do?”
“Please.” Natalya’s voice was low and pleading. “Don’t do this.”
“I’m not doing anything,” Victoria said. Slowly, she began shutting the door between her and her friends. “It’s already done.”
THE VAST EMPTINESS they always encountered at Ga Ga Noodle was normally what made the restaurant feel as though it was their special place, but today the room just felt lonely. Out of habit, Jane and Natalya made their way over to their usual table, then sat there, not talking, as Tom came over with menus.
“Where’s your friend?” he asked.
Both girls winced slightly at his question, but he didn’t seem to notice, just stood there patiently, waiting for them to answer.
“She’s not coming,” Jane said finally.
He smiled and nodded, then slipped two menus onto the table and stepped away.
“What do we do now?” Jane asked.
In lieu of an answer, Natalya shook her head slowly.
“We did pressure her to go to the party,” Jane stated flatly. “It’s true.”
Natalya nodded. “I thought…I mean, I never thought she would get into this kind of trouble.”
“You mean, we never thought”—Jane corrected her—“period.”
There was a pause. “Thanks for not telling her about Morgan,” Natalya blurted out. “I mean, about her asking us to the party because of Victoria.”
Jane shrugged. “Sure. Whatever.”
“I feel terrible,” Natalya said. She pressed against her eyes with the heels of her hands. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, though Victoria wasn’t there to hear it.
They continued to sit in silence. Tom reappeared with two virgin piña coladas that neither of them wanted and placed one in front of Jane, one in front of Natalya. “Are you ready to order?” He put down a straw beside each drink.
The girls looked at each other, both nauseated at the thought of eating.
“I think we need another minute,” said Jane.
“Okay,” said Tom, taking a backward step away from the table. “Take your time.”
As soon as he was gone, Natalya’s phone buzzed, and she and Jane both jumped. Natalya checked the screen and shook her head in response to Jane’s unasked question. “It’s not Victoria. It’s Morgan. She wants to know what I’m wearing tonight.”
Jane snorted, and Natalya looked up. “What?”
“Nothing,” said Jane, but the expression on her face said she hadn’t meant nothing.
“What?” Natalya repeated.
Jane shrugged slightly. “Just…Does she want to know what you’re wearing or what Victoria’s wearing?”
“What’s your point?” asked Natalya, hurt.
“Well, I mean, is she even going to want you there now that Victoria’s not coming?”
Natalya put her phone back in her bag without responding to Morgan’s text. “We’re friends, Jane. Morgan and I are friends, okay?”
“You’re friends? That’s why you begged Victoria and me not to reveal that you like Morgan’s brother? Because you and she are such good friends?”
Natalya stared at the tablecloth. “That was weeks ago, Jane. Can you let it go already?” She looked up. “And anyway, I don’t like him, okay? I met him once. I don’t even know him.”
“Now who’s rewriting history?” asked Jane, leaning across the table. “You did so like him. You’re just too chicken to admit it to his oh-so-popular sister.”
Natalya’s eyes snapped fire. “Fine, Jane. I liked him. I did. But you know what? That doesn’t mean I have to give up everything else I like to get with him, okay? Some of us have something called impulse control. It’s a concept you might want to familiarize yourself with.”
“What are you saying?” Jane’s eyes were as angry as her friend’s.
Natalya crossed her arms on the table and leaned forward over them. “My point, Jane, is that some of the things you call brave, i.e. contemplating an affair with your teacher, are what some people would call stupid. Did it ever occur to you that some things are taboo because they’re gross?” Natalya jabbed out the last word with her index finger.
“What’s gross, if you want to know, is being so scared of your so-called new friend that you pretend to be someone you’re not. And what’s grosser is becoming something you’re not so you can be friends with someone. You have completely changed, Natalya.” Jane leaned back in her chair and glared at Natalya.
“I’ve completely changed? I’ve completely changed?” Natalya threw her hands up, outraged. “You’re just jealous that I’m making new friends.”
“Jealous? Jealous?” Jane’s repetition of the word and the laugh that accompanied it were slightly hysterical. “Like I’d ever be jealous of you. Like there even is a you. You’re so busy being someone else that there isn’t even anyone to be jealous of.”
Natalya’s phone buzzed again. Instead of checking to see who was calling, she stood up. “I have to go.”
Jane snorted and rolled her eyes. “Oh yeah, go meet your bitchy new friends.”
“They are not,” Natalya half shouted. “You’re—”
Suddenly she stopped herself. If Victoria were here, this fight would never, never have gotten so far. Somehow Victoria always knew just what to say when Jane and Natalya were about to go after each other—how to calm them down, keep them from going for the jugular.
Jane’s mother’s words from when she and Jane had been bickering earlier came back to her.
You need to think of Victoria.
Could that sentence have a double meaning? Did they need to think of Victoria not just because she needed their help but because they needed to remember what she would be saying to them if she were here?
Before Natalya could try to imagine how Victoria might stop them from hurting each other, Jane was standing up also, demanding, “I’m what, Natalya. What am I?”
But thinking of Victoria—of how she was the glue that held them together, how without her, Natalya and Jane were two magnets whose similar charge repelled them from each other—made Natalya frightened. Because Victoria was mad. Really mad.
And Victoria was never mad.
She stared at Jane for a long minute, then reached down and took her bag off the back of the chair.
“Nothing,” she whispered. She slipped her shoulder strap on and marched toward the door.
“Just say it, Natalya!” Jane called as Natalya walked out into the sunny afternoon that seemed to mock the fight they were having.
Natalya ignored her and kept on walking. Because even if Victoria wasn’t there, there were some things she couldn’t bring herself to say to Jane.
And one of them was on the tip of her tongue right now.
They’re not bitches, Jane.
You’re the bitch.
JANE HAD COMPLETELY saved Natalya’s butt, and this was the thanks she got? Getting called “gross”? Getting told she had no impulse control?
Natalya had so clearly chosen her new friends over Jane, that much was obvious. Well, fine. If Natalya’s new idea of a good time was hanging out with a bunch of rich snobs from the Upper East Side, she was welcome to them. Jane had things to do, things other than going to stupid parties and pretending not to like guys she liked.
She paid for their untouched drinks and headed over to school for d
ress rehearsal, trying to put everything that had happened with Natalya and Victoria out of her mind. This was an important day. A serious actress couldn’t afford to be distracted by the crazy accusations her so-called best friends were in the mood to hurl at her.
When Jane arrived, the theater was bustling with cast members moving between coatracks overflowing with the riotous rainbow of color and fabric that was their costumes. The stagehands were setting Act One, and a person in the lighting booth was brightening and dimming the lights as someone standing center stage called out numbers to him.
It was like stepping into the middle of a three-ring circus.
“Okay, Hippolyta.” Wendy looked down her list and then sent Jane over to Sharon, who moved her fingers along the rack of hangers for almost a full minute before saying, “Ah-ha!” She wedged her hand into the densely packed forest of fabric, and slowly, an inch at a time, worked out Jane’s costume. When it hung free in front of her, Jane could only stare.
“Wow,” she said finally.
Wendy nodded. “Seriously. Somebody up there wants you sexy.” She held the costume in its clear plastic cover out to Jane, and Jane draped it over her arm. Jane knew that Wendy meant the costume shop, but she also knew that Mr. Robbins was the one who had come up with the…what did he call it? The guiding principle for each costume. The guiding principle.
In this case, SEXY.
The dress was a sheath of heavy silver velvet, high in the front and low cut in the back. The sleeves were also silver, but they were made of an almost transparent silk that had a tattered effect, as if the fabric had been ripped in battle. Even though Jane knew Hippolyta wasn’t supposed to be wearing the very dress in which Theseus had kidnapped her, the nod to her warrior past was cool. Jane imagined Mr. Robbins talking to the costume teacher about how he wanted Jane to look. Picturing Mr. Robbins picturing her made Jane a little dizzy.
“Have you seen the dressing rooms yet?” asked Wendy.
Jane shook her head.
Wendy grinned. “You’re going to freak out.”
Considering the ideas floating through her mind, Jane was already kind of freaking out, but when she pushed open the door to the girls’ dressing room, she saw what Wendy meant.
A graduate Jane had never heard of, someone who apparently had never made it as an actor but had married the heir to a dot-com fortune, had donated tens of thousands of dollars to the Academy to modernize the dressing rooms and backstage areas. The floors were a rich, dark wood. On the walls hung huge mirrors framed by rows of big, bright lights; the makeup tables were highly polished marble, and the changing areas were spacious rooms with full-length mirrors and thick blue curtains that dropped down for privacy. Jane remembered the dusty linoleum floors of the dressing rooms at One Room, the communal changing areas, how she and the other girls had to practically elbow each other out of the way if they wanted a chance to see their reflections in the minuscule, stained mirrors. She wanted to send Natalya and Victoria pictures. She wanted them to see what she was seeing.
Except they wouldn’t want to see it.
Her stomach hurt, and she barely focused on her dress as she slipped into it. Was it possible her friends weren’t going to be there opening night? She’d never done a show without them and Nana in the audience. During her curtain call, Jane always looked for her mother, Nana, Natalya, and Victoria. Now Nana was gone.
Were Natalya and Victoria gone too?
Okay, she had to stop thinking about them. She was here at school, and she had a rehearsal to participate in. The cast was counting on her. Mr. Robbins was counting on her.
It was time to be serious.
She pushed aside the curtain of a changing room and thoughts of Victoria and Natalya with it. Her costume hugged her body, the fabric soft as butter, like something she’d been born to wear. As she walked into the hallway that connected the changing space with the makeup room, she ran into Dahlia, who raised her eyebrows in appreciation of how Jane looked.
“Can you believe this place?” Dahlia, in a green silky costume with beautiful gossamer wings, grabbed Jane by the arms and squeezed. “You look a-mazing, by the way.”
“You too,” Jane agreed.
“Okay, guys,” called Wendy, coming through the dressing room. “Mr. Robbins wants everyone onstage for a minute.”
Jane followed the stream of female cast members toward the stage. As she looked around her, she saw performers transformed by their costumes: Theseus walked with a powerful, confident stride, and the way he surveyed the theater, it was as if he were studying an Athens of which he really was king. Jane realized that she felt different too. The snug material of her dress made her feel strong and fearless. She hadn’t even had a chance to check herself out in the mirror, but now she held her arm out in front of her then placed her hand firmly on her hip. The light, shimmery sleeves made even this casual gesture dramatic. She felt indestructible, as though putting on this dress had somehow turned her into another person.
She was Hippolyta: Queen of the Amazons.
Mr. Robbins stood at the front of the stage, surveying the cast as they entered. When Jane had stepped out from the wings just ahead of Dahlia, she saw him see her, and it seemed he was watching her. She let Dahlia walk past her, feeling the strength of her character in her solitude. She didn’t need Natalya and Victoria. She didn’t need anyone. She rotated slowly, surveying the familiar cast members suddenly made strange by their new costumes. Her circle complete, she turned her eyes in the direction of Mr. Robbins. She wasn’t surprised when she found him still watching her, but his gaze made her feel shivery.
Mr. Robbins looked the group over, then nodded his satisfaction that they were all there. “Okay, guys, I’m looking forward to a very exciting afternoon. I’d like to thank our incredible costume crew. They’ve been working day and night like magic elves to do the impossible and get your costumes finished on time.” The cast broke into applause, and the crew looked around, a bit embarrassed.
Mr. Robbins clapped too, then continued. “Now, we have a lot of work to do this afternoon. Remember—a bad dress rehearsal means a great performance, so we’re all prepared for some bumps in the road. If there’s a problem with your costume, if it doesn’t fit or if you can’t move around in it the way you want to—that’s especially true for you, fairies—don’t panic. Alona’s here, the costume crew is here, and we will fix whatever is wrong.” Everyone applauded again, but this time it felt more as if they were clapping out of excitement than appreciation for the costume crew’s hard work.
Jane glanced around the stage. Hermia and Helena looked radiant in their near-matching dresses, the fabric flowing gently out from the tight waists, the transparent silk of the sleeves making their arms seem almost like fairy’s wings. She felt the fabric of her own dress hugging her waist and hips and felt confident that nobody was going to have a problem with the costumes.
“Okay, I think that’s all I have to say. We’ll take it from the top in fifteen minutes.” Mr. Robbins turned to leave the stage, then turned back.
“Hey!”
In an instant there was complete silence. The entire cast looked at the director, whose face was split in an ear-to-ear grin.
“Break a leg, everybody.” There were loud cheers as people began streaming off the stage, and then Jane heard her name being called.
She turned around. Mr. Robbins was standing in the same spot from which he’d addressed the group, and he was staring at her.
“You called?” Jane knew she looked better than she’d ever looked in her life. Better even than she’d looked that night at Morgan’s party. And the way Mr. Robbins was looking at her made it clear that he knew it too.
He gave her a knowing grin. “Just wanted to check in.”
Yeah, right. She spun around so he could admire her from every angle. “You like?” she asked flirtatiously.
He nodded, still smiling, but when he spoke, his voice was serious. “You’re going to be dazzling.”
She winked at him, then headed offstage to join the rest of the cast. She felt both like she was standing outside of her body, watching herself, and also like she had never been more who she was than at that moment.
Mr. Robbins’s lips had said, You’re going to be dazzling.
But what his eyes had said was, I’m dazzled.
NATALYA FELT SICK.
If only she’d told Victoria the real reason they’d been invited. Then Victoria could have said she wouldn’t go to a party she’d been invited to just because of who her dad was, and she, Natalya, and Jane could have stayed home that Friday night, eating brownies and watching Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
She remembered Sloane’s plan to write her science research paper on outer space, and suddenly that sounded like an excellent idea. Maybe Natalya could research the time-space continuum and find a way to travel back to the night of Morgan’s party and decide at the last minute not to go. Or maybe she could go further back, to Morgan’s invitation, which she could decline.
Or maybe she could go even further back, to her parents’ decision to have a baby. She could change their minds.
She could never be born.
If only she’d never been born.
She heard the front door open and shut, and then her mother called, “Hello? Anybody home? Alex? Natalya?”
From her prone position on her bed, Natalya called, “I’m in my room.”
A minute later, her mother appeared at the door. She raised an eyebrow at Natalya, lying in the dark room in her pajamas as if it were four in the morning, not four in the afternoon.
“Don’t you have a party tonight?” her mother asked.
Natalya rolled over onto her stomach. “I’m not going.”
“Oh.” Her mother didn’t say anything else, just turned as if to go back down the hallway. But before walking away, she asked, “Did you tell your father?” Her parents had agreed that Natalya’s dad would drive her to the Met and pick her up later, since he had to be on the Upper East Side that evening anyway.
Without moving any other part of her body, Natalya reached her arm down and felt around on the floor for her phone. “I’ll text him.”
The Darlings Are Forever Page 20
