Gilda Joyce: The Ladies of the Lake (24 page)

Of course, Ashley knew very well who wrote the letter. Everyone glanced in Lauren’s
direction. She was pretending to read
Antigone
with great interest, as if it were the Christmas catalog from Abercrombie & Fitch, but her cheeks were obviously flushed. Britney and Ashley kept whispering back and forth.

Then, out of the blue, Lauren jumped up from her desk and ran from the room. I could tell she was on the verge of tears–that moment when you know you’re going to bawl right in front of everyone if you don’t leave the room.

It’s always weird when something happens right in front of you, but you feel that you’re supposed to pretend that you didn’t see it at all. I think most of us felt bad for Lauren, but if I’m being totally honest, the truth was that we also found the scene a little entertaining. Mr. Panté taught us a German word to describe this feeling: it’s
Schadenfreude
–the secret, happy feeling you have when something bad happens to
someone
else, just because you’re glad it isn’t happening to YOU. “Nobody wants to admit it,” said Mr. Panté, “but believe me, everybody has felt it at one time or another.”

I still think “Miss Petunia” gave Lauren some great advice; the problem is, she’ll never use it after what happened in class today.

L
ooks like we’re ready, Gilda!” said Marcie.

“Break a leg, Marcie. Thanks for everything you did to help.”

“Gilda, even if people don’t
like
the play, the point is that we
did
it. We pulled the whole thing together in just a week!”

“I don’t really care if people like it or not.” But was that the truth? In the process of working on
The Drowned and the Damned
, something had changed. Gilda still wanted to set a trap for the Ladies of the Lake, but she had to admit that she also wanted the audience to
like
her play. Peeking out from behind the curtain, Gilda saw Mr. Panté leaning against a wall, his arms folded across his chest as if defying anything onstage to actually entertain him. Would he be impressed with her theatrical debut?

Standing in the wings of the theater, Gilda felt nervous. Her play was up next, and there had been so many technical details to oversee: the falling of fake snow, the opening and closing of the stage trapdoor, the placement of a crash pad beneath the stage so Tiara didn’t hurt herself when she fell through the sheet of Mylar—the shiny mirrorlike material that represented ice. There was so much to think about; it would be easy to forget the entire purpose of the performance—to observe the Ladies of the Lake.

Gilda positioned herself strategically where she could monitor the action of her play while also keeping an eye on the senior class sitting in the front rows of the audience. In the second row, Nikki and Priscilla struggled to contain a fit of laughter as the mournful saxophone solo meandering along onstage lapsed into a hysterical squawk. A few seats behind, Danielle appeared to be studying notes from one of her classes.

A roar of relieved applause greeted the end of the saxaphone solo, and Marcie, Tiara, Sheila, and Amelia quickly took their positions. Recorded moans of howling wind blasted into the room, and the curtain opened upon a scene of pink-skirted girls frolicking in a landscape of Insta-Snow The freshmen sitting in the back rows of the audience hooted when Tiara skipped onstage, carrying her pink bunny rabbit. Giggles swelled into little roars of laughter as the actors hammed up the scene of snatching the stuffed animal, mittens, and hat, then tossing them to one another, keeping everything just out of Tiara’s reach.

They think it’s a comedy
, Gilda thought, glimpsing wry smirks on Danielle and Priscilla’s faces.

Then Tiara plunged through the trapdoor without warning and the audience gasped. Shadows descended on the stage. Thunder cracked and rumbled, echoing throughout the theater.

Gilda pressed a remote control to turn on the fog machine and activated the small elevator that raised Tiara onto the stage floor. Tiara appeared with her face painted in white stage makeup and long, tangled knots of material resembling water rushes and seaweed draped over her pale shoulders. She looked like a dead water nymph rising from beneath the misty surface of a lake:

Priscilla remained stone-faced as she watched the scene. Next to her, Nikki’s mouth gaped with disbelief. A few rows back, Danielle stared at a single spot on the chair in front of her, as if the subject matter of the play might change if she simply made an effort to keep staring at something else. It reminded Gilda of a time when she had felt seasick while riding on a motorboat. Her mom kept telling her to “look at a spot on the horizon! Just look straight ahead!”

Nikki leaned over to whisper something to Priscilla, who looked as if some wonderfully horrifying idea was taking shape
in her mind, filling her with glee. It seemed that she was looking
through
the action onstage, toward the backstage wings of the theater.
I feel like she’s sending me a message
, Gilda thought. What was the message?

I’m going to get you
.

Gilda instinctively backed farther into the shadows.
I’m onto them, and now they know it
.

As the play concluded, Gilda braced herself for the audience’s response. Dead silence? A contemptuous hurling of spitballs? Had the other seniors guessed that three of their popular classmates had played a role in the drowning of Dolores Lambert?

The velvet curtains closed and then reopened to reveal the four-member cast standing arm in arm. They received polite applause, but when Tiara stepped forward to take a separate bow, the freshmen and sophomores in the back rows jumped to their feet with a standing ovation. The upperclassmen gradually took the cue, and a few of them reluctantly stood up and applauded as well. Tiara beckoned enthusiastically to Gilda, urging her to join them onstage.

As she gazed out into the audience, Gilda felt dizzy with euphoria at the rush of applause for a play she had created combined with an uneasy awareness of Priscilla’s simmering stare.
Priscilla isn’t like Hamlet’s stepfather at all
, Gilda thought.
In
Hamlet,
King Claudius at least felt guilty about killing someone. I get the feeling that Priscilla doesn’t even care
.

The rest of the afternoon was maddening in its sheer ordinariness. A few people smiled at Gilda in the hallway and said,
“Good play!” but nobody seemed outraged or shocked. No tearful confessions ensued.

Tiara grabbed Gilda by the shoulders and jumped up and down like an exuberant child. “Everyone loved my performance!” she crowed. “I am so into this acting thing now!”

“Great,” said Gilda, slightly annoyed that Tiara was only focusing on her own performance. “What are people saying about the play in general?”

Tiara shrugged. “They thought it was okay.”

“You haven’t heard anything else?”

“I think they got the whole ‘don’t be mean to people’ thing, but what they really liked was the acting and all the costumes and special effects.”

Gilda suddenly felt vulnerable and alone. The play remained a private message between herself and the Ladies of the Lake. She had patched things up with Marcie and helped Tiara rediscover her love of acting, but the performance had accomplished little for her investigation. If anything, she had merely tipped her hand so the Ladies of the Lake now
knew
her suspicions.

The memory of the evil delight on Priscilla’s face made Gilda feel queasy. A nagging thought kept popping into her mind:
What if Priscilla is actually quite dangerous
?

G
ilda, can I see you for a moment?”

Mr. Panté beckoned, and Gilda’s heart beat faster. Throughout English class, she had been wondering what Mr. Panté thought of her play.

Other students lingered, hoping to overhear something interesting, but Mr. Panté waited for them to leave, then closed the door.

Gilda hoped she didn’t have bad breath from the salami sandwich she had eaten at lunch.
I’ve never seen such a moving play produced at lightning speed, yet with such a commitment to excellence
, she imagined Mr. Panté saying. He would grab her shoulders and press his lips against hers for a brief, ecstatic moment. Then he would tear himself away, sit down at his desk, and weep with tormented frustration because of his forbidden love. They would begin a secret affair, and she would help him grade his papers. Amelia would end up with a C-minus instead of an A in his class. Eventually, Mr. Panté would be sent to prison as a result of their scandalous affair.

“That was an interesting performance today,” Mr. Panté said.

“Interesting” wasn’t the kind of compliment Gilda was hoping to hear, but it was a start. “Thanks,” said Gilda.

“Something about it made me curious.”

Gilda smiled coyly.
I’m interesting enough to make Mr. Panté curious
.

“Was there some real-life inspiration for your play?”

Gilda had expected Mr. Panté to comment on the influence of Shakespeare in her language or to praise her glitch-free operation of the under-stage elevator. Could she confide in Mr. Panté? She felt eager to share her secret with someone other than Wendy Choy, and particularly eager to say something interesting to Mr. Panté.

“I know who’s responsible for Dolores Lambert’s death,” she blurted. Gilda had a momentary sensation of unreality. Had she actually said these bizarre words aloud?

Mr. Panté frowned. “That’s what worries me. Something reminded me of the play within a play we studied in
Hamlet
—almost as if you were staging an accusation against other students.”

“I have very good reasons for my theory.”

“Such as?”

“I overheard three of the seniors talking—Nikki, Priscilla, and Danielle. They have a secret club.”

“I see.”

“They do a ritual to keep Dolores’s ghost away because they know it’s their fault she’s dead.”

Mr. Panté stood with hands on hips. His eyes clouded as if he suspected he was listening to a series of fabrications that he didn’t want to hear.

“Gilda, I think you have the potential to be a very good writer. But you have to be careful to keep fiction separate from truth in your mind.”