登陆注册
10442100000002

第2章 Kat Scott

BACKSTAGE, THE CURTAINS SMELL LIKE DUST. IT'S easy to forget myself here, drowned in the dark.

Whispers scurry along the wing from the girls who play my daughters. Whispers that beg for my attention.

Focus, Kat.

I tuck my hair behind my ears, digesting the lines that pass onstage, beat by beat. It's Emily's monologue out there—her plea for relevance.

Focus …

The backstage whispers scrape at me again, harder this time. Anger prickles hot in my palms. The others should be listening for their cues. They should be taking this seriously.

"—and I'm tired of waiting," Emily says. My cue.

I stride onstage and lose myself completely.

Here in the blinding lights, I shed layers of myself like a knight casting off her armor plate by plate. I move with purpose, with want, with drive. Kat Scott is nobody. Nowhere. If she even exists, I'm not concerned with her.

"You're tired of waiting?" I demand.

The girl across from me takes half a step back. She's not Emily, not anymore. Now that I'm standing across from her, she's Natalya Bazhenova: a mathematics professor who made a promise to my character years ago. She promised to sweep me away from my Russian town to an elite school and nurture my mathematical talent. Between acts 1 and 2, I reached thirty-seven years old waiting for her to rescue me from this life, but she never did. She forgot me. And now she dares to come back.

"You're tired of waiting," I say. "You, Natalya, who left me in this town?" I step closer, snarling my way through the questionable translation, hunting Natalya down with my eyes. "Look at me. Look at what I am now."

"I am looking at you," she says.

"Look harder."

"I see a loving mother, a caring sister. I see—"

"You see nothing," I whisper. "I am nothing anymore except wasted potential. Nothing!"

My voice echoes back from the far reaches of the auditorium, and silence ricochets afterward like a boomerang. Dead, beautiful silence.

I speak more slowly now, tasting the bitterness in every word. "You were supposed to be my teacher. You said I was brilliant—a prodigy, you said. You were supposed to take me away, teach me everything, but instead you ran the first chance you had. And now you come back and say you're tired of waiting?" My voice hardens to a condemnation: "You hypocrite."

"I'm sorry, Faina," she says.

Before it happens, I know our director is going to stop us. "Hold," calls Mr. García from the front row. I drop character, slouching down to take a seat in the kitchen chair. Everything that was held tight in my body goes loose, every muscle, every bit of focus.

It's a relief to get out of that headspace. God, the Russians were miserable. This play, The Hidden Things, was written by a man called Grigory Veselovsky around the turn of the century, and by the end, exactly zero of the characters are happy. Our pal Grigory must've been a sadist.

Mr. García hops up onto the edge of the stage. Our drama teacher, Mrs. Stilwater, has to plan some regional conference, so García's directing the fall play. He's technically an English person, not a theater person, but he knows what he's doing.

I've heard he's not getting paid for this, though, which is insane. Not that I'm complaining. There wouldn't have been a fall play otherwise, and most days this feels like the only reason to get out of bed.

García jogs over to my scene partner. "Emily, push it more, I think. You can heighten the physicality of being afraid. And cheat a little to the right; we're losing that section of the audience."

And now the volume problem …

"Also, I hate to say it, but we're still losing your lines."

"I'm so sorry," Emily says, obviously on the verge of tears.

I purse my lips. Damn right, she's sorry. He's given her this note a hundred times already. The show goes up in under three weeks, right before Thanksgiving break, and I'm starting to think she might never get it.

"It's okay," García says. "Hey. Emily? Don't be upset. We'll do some projection exercises later, all right?" He gives her a thumbs-up. "It's a matter of trusting your voice—a confidence thing. You have this."

God, García is patient. I would've yelled at half the people in this cast by now, but in five weeks of rehearsing, he hasn't so much as raised his voice.

Emily nods once, her mousy hair falling into her eyes.

"Oh, and that's another thing," he says, scribbling a note on his omnipresent clipboard. "You've got to tie your hair back or something. It keeps hiding your right eye."

I sigh, slouching down in my chair. He's told her that note before, too. I don't get why people can't follow simple directions. Sometimes it feels as if García and I are the only ones giving this show everything.

It's not that I think I'm more talented than the rest of the cast—the other kids are all good, in their own way. But … I don't know. They don't seem to need the stage, the space to fill, the echo of the voice, and the punch of the words.

"Kat?"

I look up. "What?"

García approaches me. "You're doing great, but there's something missing in the way you're tackling this scene, I think." He puts his clipboard on the table. "What's your character's objective in this scene? What does she want from Emily's character?"

I figured all this out when I did the script work back in September. I answer without hesitating. "She wants Natalya to apologize."

García runs a hand through his hair, making it stick straight up. He looks like a hungover college student, with his stubble and thick-rimmed glasses and messy hair. He's a new teacher this year, but he's chill and doesn't give too much homework, so he's doing pretty well by most people's standards. "Yeah," he says, "I can see the apology motive. But what else do you think it could be?"

I frown. "I'm pretty sure that's it. Natalya ruined my character's life, so it—"

A fit of giggling bursts out backstage. The frustration that's been burning low in my chest ignites. I twist around in my chair. "Could you shut up?" I snap. The giggles die.

García's eyes glimmer with amusement. "You can let me do that, you know. Believe it or not, I, too, am capable of saying, 'Quiet backstage.' "

"Sorry," I mutter.

"Don't be. Just don't make it a habit." García checks his watch. "Ah, nuts. Okay." He hurries back to the lip of the stage, hops off, and retakes his seat in the front row. "All right, one more thing before it's five o'clock. Let's jump ahead to the last scene."

Emily, who still isn't off-book for this scene, runs to grab her script. We don't have all the props yet, so I mime a chalkboard at center stage.

"Okay," García says as Emily scurries back into place. "Last little bit of scene 6. Let's take it from 'What do you think?' Whenever you're ready, Emily."

A short silence. Then Natalya Bazhenova says to me, "What do you think?"

I look at the blank space in the air, where my fingers hover over an imaginary chalkboard. I scrutinize an imaginary equation. "It's beautiful," I say. "It's beautiful work."

"So you see why I had to go? Why I had to resume my research?"

"No, I don't. But it is still beautiful work." Letting the imaginary chalk drop, I turn around. The lights won't be set for two weeks, so all the brights are on too high. I squint into them.

Natalya approaches me. "Do you want me to show you the rest?" she asks, making me thirsty with imaginary want. "I could try to find a way," she says. "I could go back and ask the other professors if you could join us at the university. I could—"

"Mama?" says a voice. I turn stage left. My character's daughter enters. "I did it," she says. "I made dinner. And—and we are all waiting for you at home."

I study the sight: the lines of my daughter's face painted a harsh white by the stage light. "Thank you, sweetheart," I say mechanically. I turn back to Natalya. "No," I say. "I can't go with you."

"But—"

"I won't go," I say, defeat filling the words. After a long second, I follow my daughter off left. Natalya stares after us.

"And lights down," García calls. "Great. Everyone, onstage."

We sit on the edge of the stage, the rest of the cast talking and joking. The guy who plays my husband flirts with Emily, who doesn't seem to realize it. I sit off to the side, as far as possible from the girls I yelled at. I shouldn't have snapped—I know it's García's job, telling them to be quiet—but it maddens me, people not having the basic decency to shut up during rehearsals.

García runs over his notes from the scenes we worked today. "Kat," he says finally, "what do you think the play's ending means?"

The rest of the cast looks at me. I feel the eleven pairs of eyes like spotlights. I shrug, avoiding their gazes. "I lose," I say. "My character loses. She's been at home waiting fifteen years for her teacher to come back, and by the time it happens, she has this kid to raise, so, like … you know. She can't chase her passion. She loses."

"That's what I thought you'd say," García says, dashing off a note on the clipboard. "I want you to rethink that. And I want you to rethink the apology thing from earlier. Okay?"

I nod, almost relieved to have notes for once. Usually García spends so long fixing people's blocking, he doesn't get to characterization.

His questions baffle me, though. How could I want anything but an apology from Emily's character, after a decade and a half? And of course I lose at the end. My character's dream goes out the window, and she's saddled with a life she never wanted.

García tucks his clipboard into his satchel. "Kat, thanks for being off-book already. The rest of you, remember to off-book those last few scenes by Thursday. Nice work, everyone."

I hop off the stage, hurrying out the side door ahead of the others. I jog down the grass of the hill, squinting into the sunset. I'm still not used to the sun setting so early thanks to daylight savings, which doesn't seem to save much daylight at all. Though maybe that's because we're locked in school buildings until sunset.

Crossing the parking lot toward the street, I pass Juniper Kipling's empty Mercedes, a shimmering foreigner in the crowd of scuffed Jeeps and mud-splattered pickup trucks. Weird—I thought Juniper was driving my sister home today.

As I reach the sidewalk, I stick my hands deep in my pockets, steeling myself for the journey. It's not a long way home—two miles, maybe—but it's getting cold these days. Soon I'll have to start asking people for rides after rehearsal. I dread the awkward car conversations already.

No matter what, when I talk to people, I come off as an asshole. They should leave me alone, for their sake as much as mine. Whenever someone breaks my privacy, my head fills with panic, panic, panic. I lose my thoughts in white noise and fuzz. A short, sizzling fuse. And what comes out of my mouth is always angry bullshit.

Life is better when it's scripted.

同类推荐
  • Anxious Hearts
  • Fire Down Below
  • Paper Men

    Paper Men

    With an introduction by Andrew Martin Fame, success, fortune, a drink problem slipping over the edge into alcoholism, a dead marriage, the incurable itches of middle-aged lust. For Wilfred Barclay, novelist, the final unbearable irritation is Professor Rick L. Tucker, implacable in his determination to become The Barclay Man. Locked in a lethal relationship they stumble across Europe, shedding wives, self-respect and illusions. The climax of their odyssey, when it comes, is as inevitable as it is unexpected. "e;Rich as a compost heap...It moves you and at times it can shake you"e;. (Melvyn Bragg). "e;A complex literary comedy from an extraordinarily powerful writer, which holds us right through to the end"e;. (Malcolm Bradbury).
  • Murphy

    Murphy

    Edited by J. C. C. Mays Murphy, Samuel Beckett's first novel, was published in 1938. Its work-shy eponymous hero, adrift in London, realises that desire can never be satisfied and withdraws from life, in search of stupor. Murphy's lovestruck fiance Celia tries with tragic pathos to draw him back, but her attempts are doomed to failure. Murphy's friends and familiars are simulacra of Murphy, fragmented and incomplete. But Beckett's achievement lies in the brilliantly original language used to communicate this vision of isolation and misunderstanding. The combination of particularity and absurdity gives Murphy's world its painful definition, but the sheer comic energy of Beckett's prose releases characters and readers alike into exuberance.
  • Once Forsaken (A Riley Paige Mystery—Book 7)

    Once Forsaken (A Riley Paige Mystery—Book 7)

    "A masterpiece of thriller and mystery! The author did a magnificent job developing characters with a psychological side that is so well described that we feel inside their minds, follow their fears and cheer for their success. The plot is very intelligent and will keep you entertained throughout the book. Full of twists, this book will keep you awake until the turn of the last page."--Books and Movie Reviews, Roberto Mattos (re Once Gone)ONCE FORSAKEN is book #7 in the bestselling Riley Paige mystery series, which begins with the #1 bestseller ONCE GONE (Book #1)—a free download with over 700 five star reviews!
热门推荐
  • 续修台湾府志

    续修台湾府志

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 性善恶论

    性善恶论

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 天衍宗主录

    天衍宗主录

    上古时期神族创世奴役百族。太古时期百族奋起反抗驱逐神族于域外。中古时期人族欲立六天道然而百族反对欲灭人族有人族先贤喊出一句唯我人族其血玄黄奋起反抗。进古人族成功立下六天道压制百族驱逐百族于域外唯有妖魔二族没被驱逐但也被封印。当今神族复燃百族回归妖魔破封,秦凡穿越而来带着掌门祖师系统来到这大世界从此广收妖孽踏上巅峰护卫人族。
  • 王子复仇记(语文新课标课外读物)

    王子复仇记(语文新课标课外读物)

    现代中、小学生不能只局限于校园和课本,应该广开视野,广长见识,广泛了解博大的世界和社会,不断增加丰富的现代社会知识和世界信息,才有所精神准备,才能迅速地长大,将来才能够自由地翱翔于世界蓝天。否则,我们将永远是妈妈怀抱中的乖宝宝,将永远是温室里面的豆芽菜,那么,我们将怎样走向社会、走向世界呢?
  • The Lion and the Unicorn

    The Lion and the Unicorn

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 玄武天下(1)

    玄武天下(1)

    千世的轮回消磨不了他(刀)内在的杀气。万年的魔咒尘封不住他(剑)体内的战意。他们的出世使平静的乐士烽烟四起!他们的重逢将武界引入神魔之境!四帝的传说,神祇的传奇,导致大冥乐土万世伟业分崩离析。一位自认能战胜传说的惊世强者在战火中崛起,他以不屈的战意与传说之剑融为一体,并以玄道意境与火帝之女展开千世的恋情。神祇的荣辱,乐土的存亡,武道的兴衰与他的命运息息相连。
  • 大明日落(中国故事)

    大明日落(中国故事)

    万历甚至大明王朝本身就是一个矛盾体,既复杂又单一,既辉煌又黑暗,他在位长达四十八年,首辅大臣张居正为他掀起的一场史上著名的改革却被逐步废掉,于是说好的“中兴”变成了明亡的回光返照;他领导下胜利的“万历三大征”战果耀亮青史,过程爽爆却让大明内部亏得几乎吐血;商业开放GDP飘红却因土地兼并严重导致阶级矛盾。
  • 家庭生活法律一本通

    家庭生活法律一本通

    本书介绍了青少年在家庭生活中涉及到的法律问题。家庭是青少年最重要的生活环境,也是对青少年成长影响最大的地方。或许是由于太熟悉,家庭生活中的各种事物和问题往往不太受大家的关注,其实其中各种各样的关系往往涉及到好多法律问题,由于青少年对法律的陌生,导致在面对侵权时不能很好地用法律手段进行维护。下面就让我们看下青少年在家庭中涉及到的法律问题。
  • 智慧修身术(现代人智慧全书)

    智慧修身术(现代人智慧全书)

    本书内容包括提高自身素质、打造完美个性、微笑的永恒魅力、好个性助你成功、富有内涵的秘诀等共8部分内容。
  • 汤周山

    汤周山

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。