She’s startled me more than once.
“Miss Johnson,” she says in her deep, musical voice. “A word.”
My shoulders tense. I have no idea what she’s going to say to me. I get my homework done and I answer questions when she calls on me. I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong, but as strange as this world is, I never really know.
She leads me to the room’s side door, which opens into backstage. She once said she wanted to hold classes there, but the administration wouldn’t allow it.
Backstage feels magical to me. It smells of dust and sweat and makeup. Mrs. Schmidt keeps a light on the stage, which filters back here. She calls the light a “ghost light” to protect the theater, even though it’s pretty new as theaters go, and I wouldn’t expect the theater to have ghosts.
So, I’m not sure what she’s protecting the theater from, because she also laughs at herself, saying the theater is full of superstitions that go back to the ancient Greeks. When she said that the last time, she looked directly at me, as if she knew that I know a bunch of ancient Greeks.
Only they don’t seem ancient to me.
She eases the door closed, but doesn’t shut it all the way. Then she leads me deeper into the wings, near the pull cords for the heavy velvet curtains.
“You know that we’ve entered into some theater competitions, right?” she asks.
I had heard that, but didn’t know what it meant. Like so many things I don’t understand, I just ignored it.
“I think so,” I say.
“Well,” she says, her voice echoing in the empty theater, “these competitions are practice for the State Drama Competition, which we participate in every spring. I want my kids to be used to performing onstage.”
I nod. I have no idea what this means for me. I thread my fingers together.
“I entered us into a small regional competition before I knew all the rules.” She rolls her eyes. “They are one of those silly contests that make everyone perform the same bit of a play and then judge based solely on interpretation. Honestly, Miss Johnson, had I known this before, I never would have signed us up.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I say.
She smiles at me. The smile seems fond. I have no idea why she would look at me so very fondly. “You don’t know why I object to that, do you?”
“No, ma’am, I’m sorry.” That phrase is almost rote to me. I have learned that it works in a lot of conversations, especially since I usually don’t know anything about anything.
She looks at the stage, as if someone is performing on it right now.
“Well,” she says, “not only is it dull for the judges, it doesn’t let individual school departments shine. Not all of us have the talent to perform certain kinds of plays.”
“Oh,” I say, as if I understand, which I don’t.
Apparently, she can tell, because her gaze meets mine. It seems like she’s assessing me. Maybe she is. I have no idea how I can tell.
“We have a choice,” she says, “between a scene from Henry the Fifth and a scene from
Doctor Faustus,
by Marlowe. Both are challenging.”
I nod, hoping that I look like I’m following the conversation.
“But this is early in the year, and all of my drama club students who can handle Marlowe or Shakespeare are male.” Her gaze remains on mine. “Which is why I’m thinking about
Doctor Faustus
, quite frankly. It’s Act four, scenes one through four, the most famous section of the play. You know, the Helen section?”
“I’m afraid I don’t, ma’am.” I’m still not sure what this has to do with me.
Her eyebrows go up in surprise. “I would have thought with your European education you’d be familiar with both the Bard and Marlowe.”
I’m not even sure who the bard is or how he relates to plays. I thought bards were musicians in royal courts. But language has proven my Achilles’ heel in this Greater World, and I’m finally becoming smart enough to know it.
“I’m afraid not,” I say as politely as I can. “I was homeschooled.”
Mom taught me to say that. When she told me that meant I was taught at home by my family, I decided the description wasn’t that far off.
“Oh, hmm,” Mrs. Schmidt says, “you’d think they would have covered Shakespeare at least.”
“I was raised mostly in Greece,” I say. Karl told me to add that when someone has expectations of me because, he says, no one knows anything about modern Greece. (Including me.)
“Well,” Mrs. Schmidt waves her right hand dismissively. “All of that is neither here nor there. We need a full cast for the act they’ve chosen from
Henry
, and a mostly male cast for the section from
Faustus
. Normally, I would protest the gender-specificity, but my hands are tied. The scene from
Faustus
is the one with Helen of Troy. I take it you know who she was?”
I do. I know that my sister Athena hates Helen, my stepmother Hera won’t let anyone even mention her name, and they both blame Aphrodite for the Trojan War, when Daddy says they should blame Eris. (The Fates finally,
finally
, managed to get her to pay for all her crimes not too long ago. Before me, Tiff, and Crystal became the Interim Fates.)
Helen died a very long time ago, but it’s almost like she’s still alive at our house. Well, our house, back at home. On Mount Olympus.
But I can’t say any of that. So I say, “The woman that started the Trojan War?”
“Yes.” Mrs. Schmidt looks pleased. “ ‘The face that launch’d a thousand ships. And burnt the topless towers of Ilium.’ That quote actually comes from
Faustus
, did you know that?”
“No, ma’am,” I say. She’s acting like I should know the quote, and obviously, I don’t.
“Helen is an important part of the scene,” Mrs. Schmidt says. “She doesn’t have a line, and yet her appearance is the center of the play.”
I bite my lower lip. Mrs. Schmidt is going somewhere with this.
“I would like you to play her,” Mrs. Schmidt says.
“Me?” I ask. “I’ve never been in a play.”
Mrs. Schmidt puts out her hands in a stay-calm gesture. It doesn’t work. My heart is starting to pound.
“You won’t have to do much,” Mrs. Schmidt says. “You’ll walk on stage and be a subject of discussion. I’ll teach you how to react to everything said, and then, at the end of the scene, you’ll walk off with Dr. Faustus.”
On stage. In front of everyone. All those people who’ve been staring at me. Yeah, like I’m going to do that.
“You have better choices than me,” I say.
Mrs. Schmidt glances at the stage again, as if she can imagine someone else on it. Or me on it. Or something like that.
“I really don’t have better choices,” she says to the stage. Then she turns her attention back to me. “Have you looked at the girls in my drama club? Most are either too small, or won’t clean up well, no matter how much makeup I put on them. And the rest are a bit too heavy to play the most beautiful woman in the world.”
Mom would say that’s sexist, that beauty is different everywhere. But Helen was slender, in that athletic ancient way that so many statues got made of.
“They’ll be fine in the role,” I say. “Who knows what ancient Greeks look like?”
Mrs. Schmidt tilts her head at me. “We’re not going for historical accuracy here,” she says. “I need someone who would be credible as Helen of Troy.”
“Not me,” I blurt. “I look nothing like her.”
Mrs. Schmidt grins. “And you know that how? You just said no one knows what ancient Greeks look like.”
I can’t tell her how I know that, because then I have to discuss my family, specifically Daddy. He has often remarked on how much Tiffany looks like Helen. I used to think he would say that to piss off Hera, but Athena once told me it was true. Athena says Helen had skin the rich color of teak, black eyes, and matching dark hair. Athena says all of the poets got it wrong, because they wanted to describe what
they
considered to be beauty rather than what really was beauty.
“You realize that your statement isn’t true,” Mrs. Schmidt says.
My breath catches. How does
she
know what Helen looked like?
“We do know very well what the ancient Greeks looked like. They left a lot of representative art. I suspect your coloring is off—I have no idea how you survived the Mediterranean sun—but you have that willowy form that the ancients prized.”
I survived the sun with magic. I had the worst sunburns off and on all summer, and Mom says the sun isn’t fierce in Northern Wisconsin, not like it is back home.
I had had no idea my skin was magicked until I came here, and didn’t have my magic any longer.
“Um, I’m sure there’s lots of girls who do,” I say. I try to think about the girls who aren’t in the drama club. A few cheerleaders come to mind, and so do several members of the girls’ basketball team.
“But that doesn’t matter,” Mrs. Schmidt says. “What I need is a girl in the part who will command attention and whom the audience will believe is worth Faustus losing his one shot at redemption over.”
I have no idea who this Faustus is, but I know he had nothing to do with the original story. Paris is the one who fell for Helen, not Faustus, whoever he is. But I don’t correct Mrs. Schmidt. I’ve discovered the level of misinformation in this world about the history of my family is astronomical.
“Not me,” I say. “Seriously. I can think of half a dozen girls who’d be better, and they’re not even in drama.”
“That’s part of the problem,” Mrs. Schmidt says. “I want one of my people in the role, not someone that I have to rope into it.”
I know “rope” in this context doesn’t mean an actual rope. I made that mistake weeks ago.
“Maybe you should just ask,” I say.
Mrs. Schmidt’s smile fades. “I am asking.”
Me. She’s asking me. Again.
My heart is really hammering hard.
“I have no idea what I’m doing,” I say. “I’d rather not.”
Mrs. Schmidt makes a face at me. “I can’t think of anyone who would be more perfect than you. Tell me you’ll consider it.”
“I can’t,” I say. “I just got a job and—”
“We can work around that,” she says. “After all, you won’t have a speaking role.”
Then she leans forward just a little. Why is everyone standing so close to me today?
“You did take my class because you’re interested in drama, right? Not because you heard it was easy?”
My stupid cheeks heat up again. They betray me before I can even open my mouth.
“I’m enjoying the class,” I say weakly.
“Well, good,” she says. “But you really can’t understand drama unless you participate in it. When do you work?”
“After school,” I say, because that’s all I know at the moment.
“Every day?” she asks.
“No,” I say, because I’m not supposed to lie. And besides, even if I did lie, she’d probably see me around here, and then she’d want to know why I wasn’t working, and I am just not that good at making up lies on the spot. Even if I do, I blush, which I’m really getting sick of and that’s something I’ve only done frequently since I moved here.
I
hate
not having magic. I hate hate hate
hate
it.
She sighs. “Look, Brittany, I’ll be honest with you. I don’t want to hold auditions for the part.”
“Why not?” I ask.
“Think about it,” she starts, then she catches herself. “Wait, you’re not familiar with the piece. Helen is not really a character. She’s an ideal. The play is very clear about that.”
“So?” I ask. I can sense that she’s trying to convince me, and she might actually succeed at it, because when someone pressures me, I cave, most of the time.
I have to learn how to bend, how to stand up for myself and not make people really, really, really mad.
“So,” Mrs. Schmidt says, “usually auditions are about the reading, the performance. This audition would be about what the girl looks like. I would have to pick a girl based on how she appears, and tell her that she’s not ideal.”
I frown. The bell sounds, but I can’t remember if that’s first bell or second bell.
Mrs. Schmidt doesn’t even look up. She’s still watching me. I have to say something, and there’s only one thing I can think of to mention.
“You’re picking me because of how I look.” I don’t add that this is twice in twenty-four hours, and that’s weird, because I think I look like everyone else in this town.
“Well, that’s not what I’m going to be telling my students,” Mrs. Schmidt says.
I tense. Is she telling me she’s going to lie?
“I’m going to tell them I picked you because you are from Greece.”
“But I won’t have any lines,” I say.
She smiles. “I know.”
“So everyone will know that’s not true,” I say.
“But they won’t challenge me on it,” she says, “and it won’t hurt their fragile teenage egos.”
I frown at her. The other girls have fragile egos? I hadn’t noticed. It doesn’t seem that way to me.