The Jewel and the Key (3 page)

 

A blues troll,” Mrs. T. observed. “I wish I'd brought my camera.”

“
Wait
a second.” Almaz turned to Addie, narrowing her eyes. “What are you messing around with makeup for? I thought you were going to act.” She was tall and beautiful, and really strong, and when Almaz asked questions in this way, Addie had no trouble imagining her in her position as the intimidating left forward on her soccer team, charging the goal. She often thought goalies must quake when they saw Almaz coming. Addie, however, was going to try to deflect her.

“Well, isn't it a good makeup job?”

“Sure.” Dad looked up from the paper, which he'd started reading again. “But how'd the audition go?”

“I'll go cook the pasta,” Addie said, heading quickly for the door.

“Hey, Ads—” Almaz followed, putting her hand on Addie's arm.

But Addie shook it off and hurried out into the hall. In the kitchen she found the Dutch oven full of hot water fizzing on the stove, about to boil over. She turned down the burner and dumped in two packages of spaghetti. The steam made her face hot. She didn't want to talk about the audition.

But really, there was no way to avoid it. She sighed and grabbed a stack of plates out of the cupboard, shoved the kitchen door open with her foot, and went back to the living room. Might as well get this over with.

“I'm probably doing makeup again,” she announced as she plunked the plates onto the table.

Whaley put his guitar down. Zack looked up from his drawing.

“Oh, honey.” Dad put an arm around her, but she wriggled away.

“Get the forks and knives,” she ordered Zack. When he got up and did this without arguing, she knew she must really be pitiful.

Almaz put her hands on her hips. “That's ridiculous. I read through that part with you. It isn't like you weren't good. And don't tell me any of those drama queens were any better!”

Addie shook her head, but couldn't bring out any words in response. Instead she went to fetch the brass candlesticks off the mantel.

Whaley followed her, awkwardly patting her back. “They're morons, those theater people. Don't know a good thing when it smacks them on the head.”

Addie glanced up at him and managed a smile. “I
wasn't
bad. But no matter what I do, they just never pick me.” For some reason, she could take sympathy from Whaley when she couldn't from anyone else.

“Who's the student director?”

“Tom Stark.”

“Case closed. Everyone knows he can't tell his butt from a hole in the wall.”

“Thanks, Whaley—that's disgusting.” Addie started pulling mismatched glasses from the cabinet behind the table.

“Didn't Mr. Crowley say anything?” Dad asked.

“He wasn't there most of the time. His wife is having a baby or something. And it wouldn't matter anyway. He didn't cast me last year—I only got that walk-on....”

“So it was all Tom,” Whaley said darkly, rubbing the knuckles on one hand. “Want me to pound his face in?”

“No!”
Geez, you'd think he could keep away from the subject of fighting just for a second.

“My great-aunt was a director,” Mrs. Turner interjected, settling herself at the table. She leaned back comfortably in her favorite chair. “Did I ever tell you that?”

Addie shook her head, grateful for the change of subject.

“She was. She lived in this house all her life, you know.”

“This house?” Addie looked at her in surprise.

“Oh, that's right.” Dad glanced up from the bottle of red wine he was uncorking. “I remember you said a relative of yours lived here before you sold us the place, Margie.”

“That was Aunt Meg. I inherited it from her.” Mrs. T. took the bottle from him and splashed red wine into her glass. “Directed until she was in her eighties, God love her! A real terror, too.”

Dad looked at Addie thoughtfully. “What can I tell you, sweetheart? I've watched them pick other kids for the big parts as long as you've been at that school. We all know you're good.” He shrugged. “Maybe they're just jealous.”

Addie shook her head. Sorry for herself she might be, but she wasn't going to be that self-indulgent. “Or maybe I'm no good. You can't rule out that possibility.”

“Nonsense!” Mrs. T. cried. “We've all seen you act. You're with people who don't appreciate you.”

“True.” Almaz stuck a candle in each candleholder and lit them. “Tom Stark's not a terror. He's a drippy dishcloth. And Mr. Crowley isn't much better. I don't care if his wife is having a dozen babies.” The little flames danced as she blew out the match.

They were almost cheering her up. Then Dad said, “Poor Addie. I was sure you'd get the part.”

“So was I.” Addie was mortified to hear a catch in her voice.

“If it's any comfort, Whaley's makeup is brilliant,” Mrs. Turner said. “Where'd you get the idea?”

“From a book downstairs. I'll get it and show you, if someone else will drain the spaghetti.” Suddenly, she was dying to be alone. Too much sympathy was as deadening as none at all. “Can I have the keys, Dad?”

“Just remember to lock up.” He dug into his pocket and held them out.

She grabbed the key chain, darted out of the room, and headed down the steps to the back hallway.

“Whew,” she said softly as she stepped inside the shop. She put the keys in her pocket, shut the door, and leaned against it. For a moment she just inhaled the comforting smells of coffee, yellowing pages, and furniture polish. A faint butterscotch light filtered through the big bay windows in the front, touching the book-lined walls. Shadows filled the store. Addie closed her eyes, savoring the moment of solitude.

But the humiliation still felt like a raw, ragged wound, and she couldn't get beyond it. Not yet. Because she hadn't told them everything. How Keira would skewer all the people who auditioned on her Facebook page. Sun was on her friends list (who knew why) and told Addie the sort of things she wrote there. God knew what Keira and her clique said about her behind her back. It was like getting bad reviews when you weren't even performing. Getting bad reviews just for existing.

She opened her eyes and went in search of the book, shoving the rolling ladder out of her way as she went.

The shiny oak floorboards creaked beneath her feet. How many afternoons had she spent here, dreaming, memorizing lines? Since she was eleven or twelve she'd been reading her way through the skinny Penguin editions of plays, eventually tackling the big, bound collections: Shakespeare, Shaw, Ibsen, Williams, Wilson. She loved them all. The words jumped off the pages. She could hear how the dialogue should sound, imagine how a scene should look onstage. She devoured actors' biographies and pillaged the DVDs and audio recordings. But her favorite book of all was definitely
A History of the Theater.

She had shoved it into its place on the shelf spine-first to prevent anyone from buying it, and, as always, as she pulled it out she felt a twinge of guilt. It was a collector's edition, and Dad could have sold it for a lot of money. She
would
turn it back around someday. Just not yet.

But as she tipped it out of its place, a squeal of car tires outside startled her. She spun around to see headlights flaring crazily in the window, and the volume slipped from her hand, pages fluttering.

“Oh, no!” She dove and made a lucky catch. The book slammed shut as she caught it, but a stiff piece of paper about the size of her palm flitted out. Addie snatched at it, but it wafted over the row of books and stuck behind the shelf.

Ooh, Dad would kill her if she'd torn out a page! Carefully, she reached over the tops of the books to get at the paper. But it just slipped farther down and stuck in a jagged crack in the wall.

Darn it! Now the whole bookcase would have to be moved.

She put the book down on a stool. Then she leaned her shoulder against the end of the shelf and rocked it gently back and forth. It groaned and scraped as she angled it away from the wall. When there was enough space, she slipped behind it and sneezed violently, trapped in a column of dust. Then she saw that the paper wasn't stuck in a jagged bit of plaster after all.

It was caught in a door.

Addie felt a tremor of excitement. She'd pulled books off this shelf a thousand times but had never imagined there'd be a hidden door behind it. It was as if it had just materialized. She had the most ridiculous feeling that if she came back later, she'd find nothing here at all.

Bending closer, she saw that the paper was an old black-and-white photograph, faded to a syrupy orange. Only the bottom of it was visible: the hems of long skirts, pleated trousers, feet in fancy shoes and boots. Intrigued, she took hold of the corner and gently tried to pull it out.

It tore.

She winced, let go, and tried instead to open the door to release it. But no matter how hard she twisted the knob, the door only gasped slightly, like a fat man trying to catch his breath.

Now she
had
to open it. Something good had to come out of this day. She dashed into the back hallway to the closet where Whaley stashed his tools and grabbed a crowbar. She slipped behind the bookshelf again and inserted its edge into the doorjamb. It was hard work. Dried paint had melded with the moisture in the walls and created a sort of seal. She had to pry the door loose from its frame bit by bit.

When she had maneuvered the crowbar halfway down the crack, she tried the handle again.

This time, the door breathed out a bit more. Addie dug in her heels, braced herself, and pulled with all her might.

It flew open, and the photo fluttered to the floor.

For a moment, she could have sworn she heard a trill of laughter feather through the air behind her. Startled, she jerked around to see if anyone was there.

Of course not.
It was just her overactive imagination. But her heart was beating fast, and it was a relief to hear faint laughter from upstairs, and footsteps creaking across the ceiling.

“Food's on the table!” Dad shouted down the back steps.

Quickly, she snatched the photo from the floor and held it to the light.

It was a scene from a play. Three women in long gowns, their hair piled on their heads, stood stage left, and three men in tails were stage right. They all wore hideous masks with enormous jutting noses, bristling eyebrows, and buckteeth. The men were bowing to a king on a throne, the women curtsying. The king's mask covered only the bottom part of his face, with a great frowning
O
for his mouth. His hand was stretched out in a gesture of command. Another man, wearing a loose peasant blouse, knelt before him.

Wait a second.
A slight shiver played down her back. Wasn't this
Peer Gynt?

But she'd looked in the section of the book about Ibsen's plays many times and never seen this photo. Where had it come from? Was it like the door behind the bookcase, something that had just this moment materialized for her eyes alone?

Oh, don't be a dork.

She picked up the book and flipped to the section on Ibsen, but there was no indication that anything had fallen out. She turned the rest of the pages, searching, but it wasn't until she reached the end that she figured it out. Someone had pasted one of those ex libris sheets inside the back cover without putting his or her name on it, and the sheet had come unglued at the bottom; maybe the photo had slipped out from behind it. Addie frowned. It certainly seemed odd.

She turned the picture over and found that there was writing on the back. It took a moment to make out the faded lettering:
R. before the mob
—
1917.

Before the mob?
What could that mean? The audience? Addie thought unhappily of the divas and their boyfriends at the audition and turned the photograph over, focusing on the actors once more. A yearning to be part of their world shot through her like an arrow.

“Addie!” Dad called again. “We're starting without you!”

She slipped the picture carefully into her pocket, then closed the book and slid it back into its space on the shelf.

But she couldn't leave without having a quick look behind the hidden door. She pulled it open wider and stuck her head in.

There was no light inside, but she could tell that it was a storage closet, six or seven feet deep, with a sort of bench built into the wall on one side. It smelled of camphor and cedar. And it was filled with dusty crates. Now that was intriguing. She stepped in and lifted the lid of the nearest one. It was hard to see much of anything, but the crate seemed to be filled with fabric.

Quickly, she dropped the lid and stepped out, then shut the door behind her. She'd move the bookcase back tomorrow.

Upstairs, everyone was already eating dinner. After the cold bookstore, the warmth and color of the living room made her head swim. The threadbare Persian carpet glowed with reds and blacks; the hanging lamp drenched the room in warm orange light. Addie shoved herself between Almaz and Zack at the table. No one seemed to remember what she'd gone down for; they were deep in a political conversation.

“We could have avoided it,” Mrs. Turner was saying. “You'd think we'd learn. How many people have died so far in our other war? Thousands of our soldiers, thousands of theirs, and who knows how many civilians? Tens of thousands. And despite the fact that it solved
nothing,
we're going to war again.” Mrs. Turner punctuated this with a gulp of red wine.

“And it's a good thing, too,” Whaley said, twirling his spaghetti.

“Try not to sound so pleased about it,” Dad grumbled. “That's the last thing we need, boys like you getting heroic ideas.”

“That's me. Always the hero.”

“Always
fighting,
” Almaz corrected. “I don't know if that's the same thing.”