The Understudy

by Sophie Hannah

‘It doesn’t matter, though. I might as well be dead.’ Ruby gestures toward her cheek.

  ‘Don’t say that! Your life is about a lot more than how you look.’

  ‘What casting agent will consider me now?’

  ‘There might not even be a scar. If there is, we’ll see the best plastic surgeon back in LA. They can fix it with lasers. We’ll figure it out, I promise you.’ Here I go again, leading her right back into the land of the superficial. ‘You’re talented and a hard worker. You’re a loving person. That’s what matters.’

  She gives me a contemptuous sideways glance.

  ‘I’m so sorry if I’ve given you the impression that . . .’ I don’t know how to continue. Have I given the impression that her only value is if she’s likable and pretty and talented and successful? I know I never said it, but she could have seen it in me, because I used to think that’s the only value I had, too. ‘I love you, Ruby, more than anything. All I care about is that you’re next to me.’

  ‘I saw your face,’ she says.

  ‘I just knew that you would be upset, that’s all.’

  ‘Stop lying!’ she snaps. ‘I was ugly already, and now I’m going to be monstrous.’

  ‘That couldn’t be further from the truth. Even if there’s a slight scar, you’re going to learn that in life that’s what adds character. The hard times shape us. We learn from our scars.’

  ‘I don’t want to be a character actress! I want the lead. I wasn’t getting cast anyway, and now it’ll never happen. Since they all think I’m a monster, why not just look like one?’

  ‘No one thinks that.’

  ‘They asked me about Vee.’

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘Jess and Sadie and Bel. They don’t know what happened with Vee, or at least, they’re saying they don’t, but they’ll find out soon enough. They were already looking at me like a . . . like a . . .’

  She dissolves into tears again, and I squeeze her shoulders. She shrugs me off.

  ‘They hate me,’ she says, ‘and they’re right to hate me.’

  ‘No, they don’t.’

  ‘Then where are they?’ She makes a demonstration of looking around. ‘No one’s come to check on me.’

  ‘Maybe they don’t know what happened. Mr. Racki’s protecting your privacy.’ Even I know how lame that sounds, so I try again. ‘Maybe they think you were taken to the hospital.’

  ‘They don’t care if I live or die. Or if they have a preference, it’s for dead.’

  ‘No one wants you dead,’ I say, but after today, with the slate, it’s a ridiculous contention. Someone was up on the roof. Someone tried to kill my daughter.

  What should I do? No parenting book has covered this scenario, I’m sure. Do I call the police? Mr. Racki didn’t think there was any point, since no one saw anything, really. Except Imogen, and she’s already recanted. But then, Mr. Racki has a reason not to want the police involved. Then all the parents—even the ones whose kids tell them nothing—would hear about it, and so would the media. He has a lot to protect. I think of what he said to me at the revue. When he labeled Ruby as ‘complicated,’ I heard ‘dangerous.’ He might not think a girl like Ruby is worth the risk.

  I could call the police myself, but Ruby’s not exactly a sympathetic victim. And in the unlikely event that the London police contact their LA counterparts, we’d be sunk.

  So we’re on our own.

  ‘I just can’t do it anymore,’ she says. ‘The lying, the covering up.’

  ‘What’s the alternative?’ It comes out a little angry. We’re in this together, that’s our pact. There’s no giving up. No giving in. No one gets to bully us into submission. ‘What do you think they’d do if they knew the truth?’

  It’s like I can feel the energy being leeched from her body. ‘Maybe I don’t care. Maybe I just want to be free.’

  I was in the kitchen, making tea because I didn’t know what else to do with myself, because when in London, do as the Brits do, and that’s when I heard it. I knew just what it was, and yet I managed to be surprised all the same.

  The irony? I’d just finished texting Greg to tell him that Ruby would be fine. Yes, she had a cut on her face, but I’d be taking her to a plastic surgeon in London to follow up and make sure it was healing properly. He didn’t need to know how despondent Ruby had seemed, all that talk about everyone hating her, how limp her body had been against mine. No, he needed to know what I wanted to believe: that somehow, it would all be fine. I’d make it so, through sheer force of will. I had beaten cancer, and we’d beat this, too. Never say die.

  Then came the thud.

  I tore through the apartment, glad for once that it was so diminutive, because it meant I got to her fast. She was on the floor of her room and she was wailing. It was a terrible animal sound, such abject pain and frustration, and the noose was still around her neck. Thankfully, it had been the one from the prop room, so it couldn’t hold her weight and, instead, sent her crashing to the ground.

  I knew she’d meant it—that it was no cry for help, that it was a sincere wish to die—because she ran toward the kitchen and tried to grab a knife out of the butcher block. If I hadn’t chased her, hadn’t tackled her, she might have . . . I can’t even say it.

  I will never forget that moment, the agony of having to press my full weight onto my sobbing, writhing daughter as she begged me to let her up, begged me to let her end it all, to do what her suicide note had promised:

  It’s time to give the people what they want.

  That wasn’t all it said. She talked about having pushed Vee down the steps, and wanting to relieve me of my burdens. She said that she couldn’t live with the secrets anymore. You win, she wrote.

  She must have been talking to her tormentors. She was ready to give up. But I won’t let them win.

  Ruby is in the psychiatric hospital on a locked ward now. For the night, at least, I know she’s safe, and she’s resting. They had to sedate her heavily because she was so upset at having lived. Judge me if you will, but I couldn’t just sit there by her bed all night. I had to do something. I have to find out who my suicidally distraught daughter was addressing when she wrote those words: You win. Because sometime in the not-too-distant future, she’ll be coming back out of that hospital, and when she does, I have to make sure she’s truly, lastingly safe. That means I can’t just wait, I have to act.

  Something tells me to go through Ruby’s room, that there are things she hasn’t told me, things that could become clues. I yank open every drawer, look under the bed, toss aside all the clothes littering the floor of her closet, and there they are—three pieces of cardboard. Three anonymous notes.

  I don’t know the order in which they arrived, though I’d guess it’s this:

  I know what you did

  I know what you are

  I KNOW YOU

  I lay them out, trying to see if there are clues within the clues. Whoever did this cut letters from magazines and glued them onto the cardboard. It’s cartoonishly amateur yet remarkably cruel, just like a teen girl would do, and she’s succeeded, hasn’t she? Ruby wanted to die. If she’d used a real noose, she’d be dead already.

  I don’t know how these were delivered or when, if one of them was waiting for her somewhere after the slate fell and that’s what drove Ruby over the edge. Could someone have been getting into our flat, leaving these in Ruby’s room? Then she would never feel safe; she’d never feel free, to use her word. She’d feel hunted.

  But if they were delivered to the house, they might not have been meant for Ruby. Could they have been intended for me, and by hiding them, Ruby was trying to make sure I was the one set free?

  If I want the answers, I have to go find them, and I need to start with the person who has the least reason to lie. That’s the person who definitely didn’t do this. I can’t believe it myself, but it seems that’s Imogen.

  I can thank her for saving Ruby and find out if maybe Imogen does know who she saw on the roof a
nd is too afraid to tell the police, for whatever reason. I don’t care about the reason, and she should know that. I just need the truth, and I’m willing to pay for it.

  I can’t help thinking that if situations had played out differently, Ruby could be Imogen. Ruby could be the one with no mother to speak of. She could be the one with no guidance and little to lose, preyed upon by nasty older men. Perhaps I could help Imogen in some way, at the very least let her know that I can see she has a good heart underneath that peculiar exterior. Well, a heart, anyway.

  At OFA, rehearsals for the end-of-term show start right away, and they’re only canceled for the most dire emergencies. My guess is that a slate nearly crushing Ruby wouldn’t qualify. Imogen is in West Side Story, so that means she’s probably at school.

  I’m in the taxi, having once again forgotten the lesson about taking the Tube, and I have to hope fervently that I haven’t missed everyone. I haven’t been very lucky lately, but right then, I catch a break. The girls are streaming out of the building in pairs and trios and quartets, and I don’t see Jess, Bel, and Sadie, but I do see Imogen emerging, alone. She’s changed out of her school uniform into a short, skin-tight dress. Her hair is slicked back, and she’s wearing a ton of makeup, including bright red lipstick. That must be what the dodgy boyfriend is into. It makes me sad for her. She’s just a teenager who’s lost her way, that’s all.

  I beckon for her to join me off in the shadows beside the large stone steps. She looks around nervously and then says, ‘Let’s just talk here.’

  So I ascend the steps to meet her. I’ll just have to use my inside voice. ‘I wanted to thank you for what you did yesterday for Ruby. If you hadn’t yelled, Ruby might have been seriously hurt.’ She’s still hurting, of course, and in the psychiatric hospital, but I’m not going to share that with Imogen, not until I know for sure that I can trust her.

  ‘Yeah, well.’ Imogen flicks some lint off her shirt, as if that’s how much she cares about Ruby. Ruby’s just a speck to her.

  I decide to ignore the gesture and its implication. ‘Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.’

  She lets out a little scoff.

  ‘I understand this act you’re doing, and you don’t need to.’

  She starts to smile. ‘Oh, you do? You get me?’

  ‘It’s like how you were baiting me the night of the revue. It’s all part of the way you keep people far away, so they won’t know the real you. All the things that hurt you.’

  ‘Did you get that from one of your self-help books?’

  How does she know what I read? Has she been in my apartment? No, more likely it’s something that Ruby mentioned, or something the girls laugh at me about. It’s not cool to care about anything.

  I continue doggedly. ‘When you helped Ruby, you showed me what kind of person you really are.’

  Her smile disappears, as if instead of a compliment, I’d just delivered a stinging blow. ‘Why don’t you get out of my fucking way?’

  ‘I don’t know what I’ve said to upset you, but that wasn’t my intent.’ I need her. She might be the only one who can tell me who was up on that roof, who’s really behind what’s been happening to Ruby. When Ruby comes home from the hospital, I want to be able to tell her that all the craziness around her is going to stop, that it’ll finally be okay. Imogen could be the key. ‘I was hoping that we could help each other.’

  ‘And just how could we do that?’ She thrusts out her hip. I think it’s equal parts defiant and make-me-an-offer. Which is perfect.

  ‘Maybe you could use a little extra pocket money.’ I’m trying to be delicate. ‘Whereas I could use some information. If you caught a glimpse of who was on the roof, that’s worth a lot to me. I’m not suggesting you go to the police and tell them, if that’s uncomfortable for you, but if you could tell me, I’d really appreciate it.’ It’s coming out unbearably awkward. Of course it is. I’ve never even tried to slip a maitre’d cash to get a good table and now I’m trying to turn a teenage girl into a paid informant. I feel like a pimp.

  But she seems to be considering it. Then she looks me right in the face and says, slowly and deliberately, ‘You don’t know fuck-all about what I could use, Mrs. Donovan.’

  That’s what does it, the emphasis on my name, the suggestion of an insult about my station in life and my marriage, the insinuation that I’m not what I appear to be, because as she starts to walk away, I grab her arm and spin her. I’ve always been stronger than people expect, when I choose to exhibit it, and for the second I’ve got Imogen’s flesh clamped in my hand, I enjoy her flash of fear.

  ‘What’s going on here?’

  I look up, and at the top of the steps, there’s Adam Racki. I wonder how long he’s been standing there watching, deciding when to make his entrance. Once a thespian, always a thespian.

  I drop Imogen’s arm. She rubs it pointedly. Theatrically.

  He walks down the steps and says to Imogen, in a voice that’s lowered, nearly conspiratorial, ‘Are you all right?’

  As if I’ve threatened her! She’s the one who was just cursing at me.

  But I did manhandle her, that’s true. I might have even left marks.

  I feel frightened by the surge of anger that had rushed through me, that split second of being both so in control and so out of it, and the pleasure I took, and the fact that I’ve been seen. What if there are marks? What could Mr. Racki do with that?

  Ruby almost died today. Twice. I’m not myself. Adam Racki would certainly understand that. He’s always been a reasonable man.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Imogen says. ‘I just want to go home.’ She’s using her little girl voice. Surely Mr. Racki can see through that? If he was listening in on our conversation, then he knows how she was just speaking to me. Imogen might have done the right thing earlier today when it came to Ruby, but she’s still one fucked-up kid. I’m a responsible adult. He can’t actually take her side over mine.

  Then again . . . he can if he wants to rid himself of Ruby and me, if we’ve become liabilities.

  He pats Imogen on the back. ‘All right, darling. Go home, take a bubble bath. Pamper yourself, okay?’

  She walks down the steps without a backward glance. Mr. Racki turns to me. ‘Mrs. Donovan.’ His voice is cold. ‘I would have thought you’d be home taking care of your daughter. Does she really want to be alone, after the day she’s had?’

  I’ve played plenty of cards with him before, to good effect. Might as well try the suicide one. ‘Ruby’s in the hospital.’

  ‘But I thought . . .?’ He trails off, confused. He’s assuming I’m referring to the slate.

  ‘The psychiatric hospital. She tried to kill herself. She’s in a locked ward right now, sedated.’

  He looks like he’s been slapped. But he recovers quickly and his face is nearly liquid with sympathy. No, not just sympathy. Empathy. Oh, right, he had a daughter, too.

  I wait for him to tell me that he understands, or that he knows what I’m going through, or that he hopes Ruby will get the help she needs, he’s in our corner . . . I don’t know, just something headmaster-ish. Instead, he takes me in his arms with such extreme tenderness that I begin to cry. It’s the first time I’ve been able to release all the stress of the past day, the past weeks, and it’s not sexual in the slightest, but there is chemistry. There’s a cellular awareness that he’s a man and I’m a woman, and I need that. It’s been so long.

  ‘ “How can I hold you close enough?” ’ he whispers into my hair. ‘A Doll’s House.’

  For a second, I think he’s giving me a clue. I picture the ballerina’s missing arm, so like a doll, and then I realize that it must be the name of the play he was quoting.

  Somehow, that sobers me enough that the tears stop, but I don’t let go.

  After a visit to the hospital, where I plant a kiss on Ruby’s head (not that she even stirs, she’s so zonked out), I’m back in the taxi, following my sixth sense. It hasn’t led me astray yet. And there they are, the
three other mums, Elise probably into her third gin and tonic by now. She’s generous buying rounds when what she really wants is for others to keep up.

  Elise’s favorite watering hole is—what else?—a hotel bar. She loves shiny reflective surfaces, all onyx and silver, loves looking at herself, loves controlling where everyone meets. If she’d seduce her friend’s husband, it’s not beyond reason to think she’d hurt that same woman’s daughter.

  ‘Hello, Kendall,’ she says, drily, as if she’s been expecting me all along, as if I hadn’t been left off the guest list on purpose. ‘So lovely to see you.’

  ‘Kendall!’ Bronnie says, a bit flustered by my sudden appearance, standing up to give me a hug. ‘How’s Ruby?’

  She must mean how’s Ruby been doing since the slate incident. They can’t know about the suicide attempt, since I haven’t told anyone and patient information is confidential.

  Part of me wants to fully hug Bronnie back, to heap gratitude on her for risking life and limb to push Ruby out of the way since, obviously, Bronnie could have been crushed herself, had she gotten the timing just a bit off. But then I also wonder: How was her timing so spot on that she was right there, ready and willing to play the hero? Almost like there’d been some orchestration, or like she was currying Adam Racki’s favor.

  I choose not to answer her question about Ruby, instead saying stiffly, ‘Thank you for looking out for her today.’

  ‘I wish I could have done more.’ Her eyes are limpid. ‘I mean, I wish she hadn’t gotten that cut on her face.’

  ‘We all wish her a speedy recovery,’ Carolyn says, as if she’d like to dispense with the whole tiresome business as quickly as possible. ‘We were just talking about Imogen, how that girl is not right in the head.’

  I’ve had it with them scapegoating Imogen. What a convenient target she’s been, a way to play innocent and pretend it’s not one of them, or one of their girls. I take the cardboard notes from the large bag at my feet and slam them on the table.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Kendall!’ Elise sputters. ‘You’ve spilled my drink.’