Falling Stars

"That's his choice. I have more of an inquisitive mind. It's part of what makes me a good actor."

  "No, what makes you a good actor is your ability to be two- faced," Ice said.

  We all laughed. Howard's smile wilted.

  "What's going on here?" he demanded. 'And don't give me any junk about Honey's love affairs."

  The three of us looked at Cinnamon. She considered and then nodded.

  "Okay, Howard. Well tell you all of it, but if you say anything to anyone else. you'll make big trouble for yourself as well as us, believe me," she warned.

  He suddenly looked more worried than arrogant.

  "So, if you still insist on knowing..." she continued.

  "I insist," he said.

  "All right," she said, and she began to tell him everything.

  "I want to see her' he decided when Cinnamon concluded.

  Rose, Ice. and I sat on my bed and let Cinnamon relate the story. Howard sat in the chair and listened, looking from her to us every once in a while to be sure what she was describing was not something she was making up on the spot. Our glares, half angry, half interested in his reaction, affected him.

  "You can't see her. Howard. As far as we know, they don't take her out of the house. They don't bring her downstairs, unless it's done very late when we're all asleep or something," Cinnamon explained.

  "I'll just go up when you go up again," he decided.

  "Who said we're going up there ever again?" Ice asked him. He smiled, looked from her to the rest of us, and nodded.

  "You will. I can see it in your faces. Well," he said, rising and pondering. "I have to admit this is very interesting, more interesting than I had

  imagined."

  "If you do anything, say anything, we'll all get thrown out of here. Howard, including you, now that you know it all!" Cinnamon emphasized.

  He shook his head. "I doubt it."

  "Why?" I asked.

  "From what you've told me, the last thing in the world our Madame Senetsky would want is this story leaked to the rag papers. No, if anything, should we be found out. I think we can expect the best possible treatment. Maybe we will make sure we're found out, in fact. Our careers may move faster than we all think." he concluded.

  "You're sick. Howard. You're that ambitious that you would try to blackmail Madame Senetsky and use poor Gerta," Rose flared at him.

  "All's fair in love and war, they say. and you've heard Madame Senetsky's speech about being in continuous battle, continuous competition. There are many, many talented people out there. girls. There are probably a dozen girls on this block and the next who sing as beautifully as you do. Ice. Go down to Broadway and look at the line of dancers competing for a Broadway opportunity, Rose. And the number of openings for positions in orchestras isn't exactly overwhelming. Honey. As for us. Cinnamon, you know what the competition will be like."

  "Is this the great Howard Rockwell the Seventh or Eighth admitting he is not God's gift to the theater and therefore guaranteed to win the Tony Award?" Cinnamon quipped.

  "All I'm saying is, when it comes down to it, whatever you can use to your advantage. you use. It's the same in every business, every field of work."

  "It isn't for my father," I said. "We don't blackmail people to get them to buy our corn."

  "You would if it came down to whether you would sell it or not," he insisted with confidence.

  He turned to Cinnamon and glared at her with a face that could stop a charging tiger.

  "You're going back up there very soon. and I'm going with you.," he said. "I want to see all this for myself. Then I'll decide what we should do, if anything."

  "It might be impossible to get back up there. Howard," Cinnamon said, her voice revealing a certain degree of retreat. "If the window is locked and if we can't get up through Madame Senetsky's..."

  "We'll find a way," he said confidently. He looked at the rest of us. "No one say anything to Steven. He's unpredictable," he said.

  He turned to the door and opened it. Then he turned back to us,

  "Isn't it nice how well we're all getting along? Trust. girls. It's all a matter of trust."

  He laughed and walked out, closing the door softly behind him.

  "How can someone so good-looking be so coldhearted?" Rose wondered.

  "Didn't you ever look at a cobra? They're beautiful, but deadly," Cinnamon replied.

  She started for the door. Ice and Rose followed.

  "It's almost as if life is a series of stages, one curtain lifting to reveal another and then another and another," Cinnamon said. "Until you reach the final curtain, take your bows, and leave the stage."

  "Hoping you'll hear applause," Rose added.

  "Instead of boos and catcalls," Ice followed,

  "Good night, sweet ladies, good night," Cinnamon said. We all hugged and they left.

  I stood there alone, the whole evening ringing in my ears.

  Later. after I had gone to bed and my head rested on my pillow, I turned toward my window and gazed out at the night. It seemed to me that a dark shadow flew by and up.

  Gerta, I thought, returning to her body.

  Surprisingly, the idea didn't chill me. It brought me comfort to know that even someone as desperately alone as Gerta could find a way home.

  She wasn't there yet. Not yet.

  Maybe we could help her, which in a strange and wondrous way would help us as well.

  14 Betrayal

  The following day it was impossible for us to concentrate on anything. I should say, with the exception of Howard, and of course Steven, who had no reason not to do his usual good work. All of us girls looked like we had slept on a bale of hay, whereas Howard looked as rested and chipper as ever. He seemed to take pleasure in our discomfort. too. I could see he liked having the upper hand, especially over Cinnamon, who didn't come back at him with her usual biting quips whenever he criticized one of us or ridiculed something we had said.

  The only time we were all alert was when Ms. Fairchild appeared. She surely had discovered the unlocked door and the unlocked window in Gerta's apartment. Would she dare to interrogate all or one of us about it, since none of us had brought up any questions about Gerta or made any remarks? Or would she assume that Gerta had opened the window and she had left the door unlocked herself?

  Her eyes, like some searchlight, moved slowly over our faces, lingering, it seemed to me, the longest on mine. I was usually uncomfortable with the way she looked at me as it was, much less now. knowing I was trying to appear innocent. Ice and Cinnamon especially, but Rose as well, were better at putting on their masks of deception. They had lived with and among people whom it was necessary to fool.

  Rose often talked about Evan's aunt, how cold and cruel she was to him. He had shown her methods he often employed to confuse and deceive her, the best one being his manipulations of his own trust funds. Because of the way Ice's mother was, she often had to keep things hidden from her so she wouldn't take out her anger on Ice's father. Ice had even kept her pursuit of singing something of a secret from her. In many ways, she told us, her mother was competing with her, fighting age desperately and "practically blaming me for her gray hairs and wrinkles."

  Cinnamon readily admitted many times that she had made lying and deceiving a science in her home and in her world. She described her grandmother as a tyrant in the house who had to be deliberately misinformed in order to keep the peace between her and Cinnamon's mother.

  "Madame Senetsky is right." she once said with a bit of sadness in her voice, "we are always performing."

  Well, if that was true. I knew I wasn't good at it. Trust was more than a word in my home. It was closely tied to love. And when Grandad was alive, any deception, no matter how small, was considered a crack in the moral fiber that made our fortress against evil and Satan that much weaker. I didn't think my nose would grow, but when I was younger, he had me convinced a lie breaks out like a pimple and is easily discovered. so I was not very good at being deceptive and conniving
.

  When Ms. Fairchild finally left, I felt positive she had read everything in my face. I told Cinnamon so.

  "Even if she did, she won't dare accuse you or anyone else. Howard's right about that. Just go on about your business and pretend none of this happened," she advised.

  Despite their experience, it was advice neither she nor my new sisters could follow easily

  themselves. All that day and the next we anticipated something, some sign in Madame Senetsky's lectures, some evidence in Ms. Fairchild's orders. At dinner we felt our hearts leap with every long pause in the conversation. All eyes turned toward Madame Senetsky. If she suspected anything, she was surely the world's best actress.

  Nevertheless, every footstep outside our doors, every knock or mention of our names brought a cold wave of fear. It was coming. I felt it in my bones the way Grandad used to feel a coining storm. The end here was coming.

  But it didn't. Nothing happened out of the ordinary until Thursday at lunch, when we were all summoned to the parlor for a rather severe bawlingout by Madame Senetsky.

  Naturally we anticipated the executioner's ax. We sat quietly, waiting. The grandfather clock bonged and she entered briskly, taking the chair she usually took, her hand on her cane. She looked like the queen of dramatics she was purported to be. Our eyes went from her to each other to the floor. The silence was deafening. Finally, she spoke, her words falling like heavy hail, each syllable crisp, sharp, and meant to sting like darts.

  "I have spoken with all of your instructors and, to a man, they have the same complaint: you're all badly distracted. You've all let up on your efforts. You all are revealing yourselves as less dedicated and determined, and this with a second Performance Night just around the corner. I won't stand for it.

  "I have a suspicion," she said, eying me. "that some of you are thinking about other, far less important things-- childish romances, whatever-- and that is taking a dramatic toll on your achievement here. I can't remember the last time I had to give a group of Senetsky candidates a pep talk to motivate them. I pride myself on choosing candidates who are so self-motivated, they are frustrated by their own rate of development. They are usually after me to rush their careers along, as if I could wave a magic wand over them and, poof, make them all into movie stars, stage stars, musical stars, as if I created the

  constellations in the entertainment sky.

  "Well. I do, but not without total commitment." She paused and slowly panned us all, her gaze no less stinging than her words.

  "Sadly, that is not the case with you girls. I haven't had this said so much about our two young men," she added, with a brief nod at Steven and Howard,

  Howard smiled. Steven looked unimpressed, even a bit impatient and anxious to get back to his games.

  "Therefore," she announced, rising like a neverending giant in our midst, her words exploding like cannon fire, "I am prohibiting you girls from leaving this property or having any guests for the next three weekends, which will bring us to the second Performance Night. Is that perfectly clear?"

  "But..." I started to say. Chandler had worked out another trip in two weeks. We had wonderful plans to tour the city and spend private time together. I felt I needed him more than ever. How could I tell him it was impossible?

  She raised her eyebrows and stiffened her neck, pounding the cane once.

  "Yes?"

  I looked down without speaking. Mentioning his name would surely be the kiss of death.

  "Nothing," I muttered.

  "Good. Then it's settled. I expect to hear about a vast improvement beginning tomorrow. I suggest you all give what I have said a great deal of consideration. Go upstairs to your rooms and contemplate yourselves in your mirrors and ask yourselves once and for all, what do I want to do with my life? Who do I want to be?"

  She turned and walked out. I looked at the others, my eyes tearing, a. They knew why I was so upset.

  "What am I going to tell Chandler?" I moaned,

  "Same thing I'm going to tell Barry," Rose said. "The bridge over the moat has been pulled up."

  Steven laughed.

  "Girls," he said, holding out his arms. "you always have me any time you want me."

  The looks on our faces when we all glared back at him raised his eyebrows.

  "Well, you heard our leader. I'm off to do a little extra." he said quickly and practically leaped off his chair and ran out the door.

  "Talk about your disturbed people," Howard muttered. Then he turned on us, his face stern. "What's wrong with you? How many times do you have to be told that when you are performing, when you are on a stage, even in practice, you leave your real lives in the wings? If you're not able to do that, you won't make it. When they say the show must go on, they mean it," he declared. "This dressing down was certainly not necessary, especially for me. Unfortunately, I'm grouped in with the rest of you, and to tell you the truth. I'm totally embarrassed. Despite what she said, all of it will affect my career. too."

  "What we certainly don't need at this moment is a lecture from Howard Rockwell." Cinnamon snapped back.

  "No?" He stared for a moment and then sat back. "Maybe you're right. You won't benefit by it. I can see that." He rose and walked to the door before turning to add. "Tonight, girls."

  "What?" I cried.

  "We're going up tonight."

  "And exactly how are we supposed to do that. Howard?" Cinnamon demanded. "We've told you about the window being locked.'

  He smiled that now-familiar beam of arrogance that tightened all our stomachs.

  "I remembered something you told me. Honey found that door in the costume room. remember? I went up on my own late last night and tried it. Well, Mess what. my little Geniuses? The key is right there in the door. We can get in that way."

  He stopped grinning.

  "We're going in, say about nine. Ms. Fairchild retires to do whatever it is she does with her narrow, limited little life, and Madame Senetsky. I've learned. has been invited to a cocktail party at the Guggenheim Museum. The coast, as they say in melodrama, is clear."

  "Are you crazy?" Cinnamon asked him. "After what just happened, you want to risk her rage. too?"

  "Precisely because of that." he replied coolly. "Wouldn't it have been nice to say something like, 'We've had a hard time sleeping with all that singing coming from above.' "

  "But we don't hear that," I said. "At least, I don't." He smiled.

  "Little Miss Honesty," he quipped. "Somehow. I doubt that would occur to her and be any sort of argument. Right. Cinnamon?"

  She glared at him without speaking. "Right?" he insisted.

  "I don't know," she muttered.

  "Well. I do. Nine o'clock. Everyone quietly, without attracting Steven's attention if possible, meets at the foot of the stairway.

  See you later. girls.-

  He flashed a smile and was gone, "He's crazy," Rose muttered.

  "As a fox," Cinnamon said. "We'll have to be there. If he went up without us, it could be worse. He might frighten Gerta. too,"

  None of us could stop thinking about it the remainder of the day. One look at any of our faces could tell that, vet somehow we managed to do better in our classes and hold back our raging nerves and tension at dinner. At one point I thought Steven had caught on to something. Everything he suggested that he and Howard do. Howard rejected.

  "What are you going to do. Howard?" he slammed back at him. "sit in your room and contemplate your navel all night?"

  "I'm doing some reading, some very intense concentration, if you have to know. I'm not as fortunate as you are. Steven. My talent has to be nurtured. developed."

  "Give me a break." He looked at us.

  "Anyone here up for a game of Killer Spunk on my computer? I just got it day before yesterday. The graphics are incredible.

  You're a killer. Cinnamon. What do you say? Up for the challenge?"

  "When I was a child. I thought as a child. I understood as a child. Steven. Now that I am a woman. I have p
ut away childish things."

  Howard roared.

  "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Steven cried, his face twisted in a grimace of frustration.

  "It's from the Bible, a paraphrase," Howard explained. "It means it's time to grow up. Steven. Very good. Cinnamon."

  She nodded. but with a look that said, "I don't need your compliments."

  "You're all a bunch of deadheads," Steven declared, disgusted, and stood and left the dining room.

  "Hey, you didn't stay to do your share of cleanup," Howard called after him.

  "Let him go. Howard. It's better," Cinnamon advised, her eyes taking on that narrow glint that said. "Don't disagree or else."

  Howard nodded.

  "Right," he said. "Okay, let's get to it." "You're making a mistake," Rose told him.

  "We're making a mistake," he corrected, with his smile as punctuation.

  Quietly, we went about our duties and then all walked upstairs. It was practically a funeral

  procession. We met in my room before we met with Howard at nine.

  "We'll get in and out of there as quickly as we can." Cinnamon began. "Don't do too much talking and certainly don't start her on her music," she told Ice. "Maybe he'll get bored with it and that will be that,"

  "I feel like we're betraying her in some way," Rose muttered, "exposing her to him. I mean."

  Ice nodded.

  "It might be worse for her if we don't," Cinnamon suggested.

  As the clock's hands drew closer and closer toward nine. I felt my stomach burning inside as if the ends of my nerve wires were sparking. The others looked just as tense. Nothing anyone said or did could take away the anxiety. Almost as soon as the bic, hand kissed the twelve, there was a gentle rap on my door. We looked at each other, and then Cinnamon opened the door.

  Howard was there, in a black turtleneck and black pants. "What do you think this is, a spy mission?" she teased.

  "In a way, I suppose it is. Always dress for the part you're about to play in life," he said.

  "Give us a break, will you. Howard? Let up on the theatrics for just a few hours. Girls."

  We followed her out and slipped down the corridor as quietly as possible past Steven's closed door, to the stairway leading up to the costume room. No one spoke. Howard led the way. At night the small corridor looked even more gloomy and desolate, the small light barely casting a shadow on the wall. Howard opened the costume room door as quietly as he could. It squeaked nevertheless, and although it was not a very loud sound, to us it seemed like a fire alarm.