Chapter Three
Three
The table read is to take place in the main house, which is where Brad and I go once we leave my cottage. At the porch steps, I see something carved into the stone foundation.
A circle, inside of which is a rudimentary six-petaled flower.
“Never noticed that one before,” Brad says when I point it out.
“There are others?”
“Oh, yeah. I’ve found several in the main house.”
Sure enough, I spot an identical symbol above the front door, almost erased under several coats of paint.
“What are they?”
“I think they’re hex signs,” Brad says. “To ward off evil spirits.”
I study the symbol above the door, uneasy. You’d think one would suffice. “Why are there so many of them?”
“I guess the Semple family was superstitious.”
Apparently so, because there’s another symbol just inside the door.
Again, it’s been carved directly into the wall and covered by layers of paint.
I keep looking for them as we move deeper into the house, which is a far cry from the mostly spartan cottages.
The inside is as ornate as the exterior—a Victorian mishmash of dark woods, boldly patterned wallpaper, and massive furniture.
A fainting couch here. A hutch rising from floor to ceiling there.
While I spot a few modern items in the rooms we pass—a plastic trash can, a discarded computer monitor, more paperbacks—the place is mostly dark and dusty.
A museum from an era even earlier than the Roaring Twenties.
“I was told that when the state bought this place, they removed whatever could easily be carted away by boat,” Brad says. “Everything else stayed.”
“So New Avalon is haunted by an evil entity and antique furniture?” I joke as I run my finger through the dust coating a rolltop desk.
“Just wait till you see the kitchen,” Brad says, pointing to an arched doorway just beyond a staircase that sweeps upward to the second floor. “It’s absolutely terrifying. But right now, you are expected in the parlor.”
We keep moving past the stairs to a short hallway, where Ronan and Loretta are waiting. Brad leaves me with them before hustling off to another part of the house.
“Excited to finally see the script?” Ronan says.
I am, although I’ve been trying to keep my expectations in check. The only thing that’s kept my feet on the ground during this whirlwind weekend was knowing my role is tiny at best. Anything more than that would likely overwhelm me.
“Very,” I say, showing the appropriate amount of enthusiasm. “I’m sure it’s going to be great.”
Ronan smiles, pleased. “Then let’s dive in.”
He steers me farther down the hall toward the parlor.
I spot one more symbol etched into the doorframe before I’m ushered into one of the grandest, most unusual spaces I’ve ever seen.
The front half of the room is the same walnut trim and florid wallpaper as the rest of the house.
The back half, however, is encased in a semicircular atrium of iron and glass.
Through the mottled panes, I see a smattering of pines close to the house.
Beyond them, the land drops away in the cliff I’d noticed from the boat.
A feature the parlor was clearly built to take advantage of.
Without the trees, there’d be an unbroken view of endless lake and clear blue sky.
And not even the trees can block the golden sunlight that floods the room, landing on decor that can best be described as Eccentric Great-Aunt Addicted to Antiquing.
Shoved against one wall is an unwieldy sideboard, atop which sit white taper candles stuck into brass holders and a mahogany box with a wicker door woven into a grid-like pattern.
Across from it sit an upright player piano with yellowed keys and an honest-to-God harp.
It’s an elaborate, gilded beast of an instrument that contains, at first glance, at least three broken strings.
The walls are adorned with butterfly specimens inside gold frames. A menagerie of pinned thoraxes and iridescent wings. Joining them is a taxidermied peacock mounted atop a branch hung high on the wall. Dust coats the drooping feathers, bringing to mind an elderly showgirl.
But nothing is stranger than the round table sitting heavily in the center of the room, bearing a tray of snacks and several bottles of water.
The table itself is probably the most normal thing in the entire parlor.
What blows my mind are the three women already seated there, ranging in age from mid-twenties to late sixties. I recognize all of them.
The oldest is Julianne Brown, who for decades has been one of those character actors you see everywhere but can never quite pin down.
With her regal bearing and silver hair, she’s cornered the market on one-off appearances in prime-time dramas.
Stern mothers. No-nonsense judges. She’s probably played a lawyer multiple times on every incarnation of Law & Order.
I know her more from her work on the stage, where she can show off her range.
She was a replacement Martha in the most recent Broadway revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
and won a Tony a few years ago for a production of The Seagull.
Seated next to her is Heather Benchley, who is easy to pin down.
Her forte is cool competence. She’s played a ton of authority figures.
Cops and doctors, mostly. Ones who have no time for bullshit from white male colleagues who assume she’s not up to the job.
She spent six seasons on one of those disaster-of-the-week shows before moving on to a hospital drama that lasted just as long.
Across the table from Heather is Susie Hutchinson, who rose to fame as a tween on a Disney Channel show about a pop star and her robot dog.
That led to about a thousand TV movies in which she played variations of the same character, minus the dogbot.
A singing princess. A singing ballerina.
A singing figure skater. Being the same age as Susie, I will grudgingly admit to watching all of them.
Multiple times. I might have even lip-synced her songs into a hairbrush in front of my bedroom mirror.
Okay, I absolutely did that.
A lot.
To see Susie here now is surreal. She’s petite to the point where, in the right light, she could still pass for twelve.
It’s like she’s stepped out of my television and into real life.
For the first time since Friday, it dawns on me how out of my league I am in this situation.
I do not belong here. A fact made obvious by the confused way Heather and Susie look up from their phones as I shuffle into the room.
I’m the surprise in this scenario. Ronan even presents me as one, gripping my shoulders and nudging me in front of him.
“Everyone, this is Marin Keane,” he says. “She’s graciously agreed to make her film debut in our little movie, and I couldn’t be more thrilled.”
“Hi,” I say, finding it almost impossible to utter that single, meager word.
“Hey, Marin,” Heather says with friendly wave, while Julianne bows my way and says, “Welcome aboard.”
Instead of a greeting, Susie looks at me the way one small dog might when meeting another. A suspicious sizing-up. “Where have I seen you before?” she says.
“You haven’t.”
“Is this your first acting job, dear?” Julianne says.
“Not my first, but close enough.”
“No, I swear I’ve seen you in something.” Susie tilts her head, squint-pouting in the afternoon light. “I know! You’re the bridesmaid with the rash!”
Heather gives her a look. “The what?”
“It was a pharmaceutical commercial,” I say, blushing. “Not my finest hour.”
“We all have to start somewhere,” Heather says. “My first commercial was for tampons. I was having a heavy-flow day. Glamorous, right?”
Everyone laughs except for Susie, who now outright glares at me.
A surprise, since the main reason I watched her show and TV movies as a child was her relatability.
She seemed like a regular kid my age who just happened to be a princess/ballerina/figure skater/pop star with a robot dog.
Now, though, with her heated stare, bleach-tipped ponytail, and angora sweater that exposes her midriff, she comes off as a quintessential mean girl. Brittle and cruel.
Never meet your idols, the old saying goes.
And while I stopped idolizing Susie Hutchinson more than a decade ago, I can’t help but feel let down.
It also makes me nervous about meeting Violet Wright, the one person on this island who truly is my idol.
What if she’s as standoffish as Susie? Or worse?
When Violet does appear a few minutes later, sweeping into the room in a cloud of breathless energy and perfume that smells just like the flower she’s named after, the others become still and silent, as if they’re peasants and Violet is royalty.
Which, in a way, she is. The beloved queen of Hollywood.
“Am I late?” she asks.
“Right on time,” Ronan says.
Violet exhales in relief. “I was walking in the woods doing vocal exercises. I highly recommend it. This lake air is so soothing. Although I’m sure I looked like a madwoman standing among the trees making the most ridiculous sounds.”
She pauses, zeroing in on me. For a moment, I can barely breathe.
It’s a strange sensation to be observed by someone you’ve been watching almost your entire life.
When you’re caught in Violet’s gaze, the rest of the world stops, goes dark, ceases to exist. It’s just her and those expressive blue eyes that have graced a hundred movie posters and that impish smile I’ve seen on just as many magazine covers.
“You must be Marin.” She steps toward me, holding out a hand as pale and delicate as porcelain. “Hello, I’m Violet.”
She says it as if I don’t already know this. As if she’s the unknown quantity here and not the screen legend who’s been a star for the past forty years. As if she’s blithely unaware about being called the greatest actress of her generation, of the past fifty years, of all time.