CHAPTER FIVE
“Of course,” I said, my throat arid, my gaze drawn de-ter-minedly to the swathes of sun-light sweep-ing across scuffed floor-boards. Shame rose in me, a fu-ri-ous heat spread-ing from my toes to my brow, a sear-ing para-noia that he knew it was me.
Had I been care-less? Was my stu-dent ID stamped across the footer of the print-out? Had he caught a damn-ing glimpse of my al-ter-ca-tion with Davina be-fore pulling away in his car?
Maisie cast me a look that said, Ooooh, drama! while Catalina fur-rowed her dark brow in my di-rec-tion. Fraser looked sim-ply like he might vomit J?ger-meis-ter into the wicker bas-ket by Dr-ever’s desk. They filed out with the other dozen stu-dents in our co-hort, leav-ing just me and Dr-ever stand-ing by his desk. I watched from the cor-ner of my eye as he crossed around to the back, shrugged off his faded blazer and sat slowly into his chair.
“Un-for-tu-nately, Davina Burns has had to with-draw from the role of Lady Mac-beth,” he said. A mus-cle feath-ered in his jaw.
A pit opened up in my stom-ach. “Oh. Why?”
“Sched-ul-ing con-flict.”
The boom-ing tenor of his teach-ing voice had qui-eted to a melan-choly mur-mur, with an un-mis-tak-able un-der-pin-ning of emo-tion. Had Davina ac-tu-ally meant some-thing to him? Or was he think-ing only of her unique tal-ent, and the way it had been squan-dered so soon?
What ex-actly was the na-ture of their re-la-tion-ship? Ro-man-tic enough that he had suc-cumbed to black-mail with such ease, at least. But just how many lines had they crossed?
“Oh,” I said, my pulse high and thin in my tem-ples. I forced my gaze up, but he was star-ing out of the bay win-dow onto the quad. Stu-dents milled around in merry clus-ters, mostly in the di-rec-tion of the Cos-tumery or the lit-tle cam-pus gro-cery shop. It was a sea of Fj?ll-r?ven back-packs and high-top Con-verse, with the oc-ca-sional roll-neck jumper and plaid pea-coat.
Fi-nally, as though the very words pained him, Dr-ever said, “We were won-der-ing whether you might like to take her place.”
My heart skipped.
There it was.
Un-de-ni-able proof that I de-served to be here.
So why did it taste so sour?
A rhetor-i-cal ques-tion. I knew ex-actly why.
Thoughts pin-balled around in my mind. I wasn’t the only one at fault, I rea-soned. Davina should have con-sid-ered the po-ten-tial con-se-quences be-fore she laid her lips to Dr-ever in plain sight. And yet I had ex-ploited her mis-take for per-sonal gain with-out a sec-ond thought, and now the vic-tory felt hol-low.
The dizzi-ness in my head in-ten-si-fied—whether from low blood sugar or from stress, I did not know. I leaned back against a desk to steady my-self.
When I said noth-ing for a few mo-ments, Dr-ever mis-in-ter-preted my si-lence for re-luc-tance.
“I know the lead car-ries a cer-tain pres-sure.” He steepled his fin-gers in front of him. “I un-der-stand if you’d rather stick with the weird sis-ter. A fine role, in the right hands.”
“No,” I said, with more fe-roc-ity than in-tended. Raise your chin, drop your shoul-ders, smile gra-ciously. Don’t for-get the Pax-ton pol-ish. “I want to do it.” I beamed, flash-ing pearly white teeth with the slight-est vam-piric points. “Thank you. You won’t re-gret it.”
He smiled. “I’m so glad. Your au-di-tion was very strong.”
It didn’t bring any-one to tears, though, did it? I thought bit-terly.
“You have a lot of po-ten-tial, and I look for-ward to see-ing what you bring to the role.” He opened his top desk drawer and pulled out a fresh script, white and crisp and full of prom-ise. He handed it to me. It was still printer-warm. “And I’m here to of-fer guid-ance when-ever you need it, al-right?”
It was strange not to have his gaze roam over me, not to hear a flir-ta-tious crackle in his voice. Strange, but nice. Know-ing about his re-la-tion-ship with Davina should have set my teeth on edge, but there was noth-ing that felt preda-tory about him. His pres-ence was al-most a pa-ter-nal one—but hav-ing grown up fa-ther-less, I sup-posed I had lit-tle to com-pare it with. All I knew was that the of-fer of guid-ance nearly brought a tear to my eye.
Be-fore I could stop my-self, I thought of how I might have grown up—swim-ming lessons and hot fries on a week-end, fly-ing kites with big, strong hands clasp-ing mine—then of how I ac-tu-ally grew up. Ice cubes clink-ing in vodka so-das, the clack of stiletto heels danc-ing on cof-fee ta-bles. The pound-ing bass and in-tox-i-cated shrieks blar-ing through the house as I tried to sleep. Strangers stum-bling into my room, pass-ing out on the fu-ton where I read my Goose-bumps books. The next day, my mother’s eyes never quite meet-ing mine. The con-nec-tion be-tween us never quite knot-ting, never quite deep-en-ing.
I swal-lowed the lump in my throat. Now was not the time for child-ish imag-in-ings. My life was what it was. Once I was a dec-o-rated ac-tor in my own right, I would be adored in a way my mother had never been able to muster.
Wasn’t that what ev-ery-one wanted, at the heart of them-selves? To be adored?
“There’s one more mat-ter left to dis-cuss,” Dr-ever went on as I stared fixedly at the script, pray-ing he wasn’t about to rightly ac-cuse me of black-mail. “It is tra-di-tion for the first-year fe-male lead to be men-tored by Pro-fes-sor Or-lagh Cam-ran.”
I sti-fled a gasp. Or-lagh Cam-ran was RSC roy-alty.
Her ca-reer had come to a fa-mously dev-as-tat-ing end a lit-tle over two decades ago, when mer-ci-less throat can-cer left her voice hoarse and painful. Af-ter a fi-nal en-core as Lady Mac-beth on the West End, she’d taken up a tenured po-si-tion at the drama school she her-self had at-tended. She only taught one class—tu-tor-ing the third years on mas-tery of Shake-speare—and spent the rest of the time swan-ning around cam-pus in ex-quis-ite ball gowns, eat-ing fresh figs and read-ing bat-tered old pa-per-backs.
She was a god-dess.
Again, Dr-ever filled my si-lence be-fore I could find the proper words.
“I un-der-stand that you have al-ready com-menced your ses-sions with Dr. Ked-die, and given the un-usual cir-cum-stances, you’re wel-come to re-main un-der his wing. But Pro-fes-sor Cam-ran has a … unique abil-ity to pull di-a-monds from the rough. She is a com-mon thread be-tween the girls who leave Do-rian and cat-a-pult to star-dom.”
A dark thrill flick-ered in my chest. Per-haps this would be the thing that made me ex-tra-or-di-nary. That hauled me up to Davina’s level. To my mother’s level.
“I would love to be men-tored by her,” I an-swered, cradling the script to my chest. “Thank you.”
“The plea-sure is all mine.” An-other pa-ter-nal smile. “I’ll see you in re-hearsals this af-ter-noon. You’re go-ing to be great, Penny.”
Still light-headed, I left the class-room feel-ing equal parts ex-hil-a-rated and sick-ened. I was about to be men-tored by one of the best liv-ing ac-tors of all time. She could pol-ish me. She could take my su-per-nat-u-ral beauty and my rough tal-ent and gild it in gold.
The hall-ways of Drum-mond were al-ready de-serted, and my heels squeaked on the par-quet floor-ing. Lin-ing the cor-ri-dor were more of the eerie por-traits from the en-trance hall: fa-mous alumni and hal-lowed di-rec-tors, as well as deans and pro-fes-sors alike. Dr-ever’s por-trait looked freshly painted, the gen-tle jowls hang-ing from his once stoic jaw a cruel re-min-der of the pas-sage of time. His ex-pres-sion was deep and for-lorn, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away.
Hung over the stone stair-case that swept down into the atrium, there was an or-nate gold mir-ror the size of a ter-raced house, re-fract-ing light into ev-ery dark-ened cor-ner. For a rea-son I couldn’t name, I was afraid to look in it.
In fact, I was strug-gling to look at any-thing. My vi-sion swam and swooped, like two swal-lows chas-ing each other. I re-ally needed to eat some-thing.
As I was about to make my way down the steps, a shad-owy fig-ure stepped out from a nar-row al-cove and grabbed me by the pony-tail, haul-ing me into the dark-ness.
Adren-a-line spiked into my veins from the shock of it, but I couldn’t get my vi-sion to fo-cus on the per-pe-tra-tor.
Fear coursed through me as the hand tight-ened around my hair.
My hair.
Stom-ach lurch-ing, I was swiveled around and slammed against a cold stone wall. The im-pact some-how dis-si-pated the spots across my vi-sion.
Davina’s lupine eyes bore into mine, one fore-arm pressed against my clav-i-cle, and the other hand curled around my pony-tail.
“I know what you did,” she whis-pered, and it was more ter-ri-fy-ing than a fully fledged scream, ev-ery hushed deci-bel low and ven-omous.
We were mere inches apart. Her breath was to-bacco-laced and cool as it brushed my lips.
There was no sense in ly-ing. “You would have done the same.”
“No.” She shook her head slowly, threat-en-in-gly. “I would never have needed to in the first place.”
“Why did you get in-volved with Dr-ever?” I asked, hat-ing the pres-sure of her fore-arm against my chest but feel-ing too weak and dizzy to push her back. “Why would you jeop-ar-dize your-self like that? Your tal-ent won you the part. You didn’t need to se-duce the di-rec-tor.”
Some-thing im-pen-e-tra-ble flick-ered across her face. Then she put even more pres-sure over my clav-i-cle, to the point where it started to hurt. “I don’t owe you an ex-pla-na-tion.”
“Maybe not,” I said, as evenly as pos-si-ble, “but you owe your-self one.”
Her lips curled, and I no-ticed her lip-stick was hastily ap-plied and smudged at the cor-ners. “You won’t need to worry about my peace of mind for much longer.”
Even my overly lit-eral brain sensed the threat.
I swal-lowed, and the rise and fall pushed my col-lar-bones into her arm. “Why? What are you go-ing to do?”
The ques-tion was not in-tended to goad. I was gen-uinely cu-ri-ous—and afraid. She was sev-eral inches taller than me, and I fixed my glassy eyes on a point over her shoul-der. The cor-ri-dor be-hind us was de-serted. Dr-ever had not left his class-room. I didn’t know whether it would be good or bad if he found us like this. It would make me safer, yes, but it would also be-come ex-tremely ob-vi-ous who had placed the print-out on his desk—if he didn’t al-ready know.
Shit, what if he al-ready knew? What if that was the real rea-son I got the part—to buy my si-lence?
No. He wouldn’t have been nearly so kind if he knew the truth. There would have been a ten-sion be-tween us. A bit-ter-ness from him, in-stead of pa-ter-nal smiles and words of af-fir-ma-tion.
With-out warn-ing, Davina tugged my pony-tail sharply down-ward, as though forc-ing me to look up at her. There was a hot flash of pain on my scalp, a sharp gasp loosed from my lips, fol-lowed by a look of con-fu-sion on her part.
She pulled her hand away, and with it came a lock of hair as thick as a chop-stick. Hor-ror played out across her face as she held it up to the dim light in the al-cove.
There were a few ter-ri-ble beats in which nei-ther of us spoke. My vi-sion blurred again, and my skull stung. Tak-ing in ragged breaths, I fought the urge to bend at the waist and vomit my morn-ing cof-fee onto her bal-let flats.
Davina shot me a mean-ing-ful glare as she curled her hand around my lock of hair. “You’re go-ing to re-gret fuck-ing with me.” A wide, cruel smile. “Maybe not to-day. Maybe not this week. But sooner or later, I will come for you. When you least ex-pect it.”
She stepped out of the al-cove and strode down the stone steps into the atrium, her slip-pered feet mak-ing al-most no sound.
She took my hair with her.