Showstopper (18 page)

“I kind of figured.”

“We understand that this theater means the world to you,” said Mom. “And we can only imagine how terrible you felt when you realized your clubhouse was off-limits.”

They exchanged glances, as though trying to decide which one of them was going deliver the crummy news. Dad, it seemed, drew the short straw. He gave me a serious look.

“Anya, Mom and I have decided that—”

From the depths of my tote bag, my phone rang. Talk about bad timing.

I fished into the bag and checked the screen. “It's Susan,” I said. “Should I get it? In case there's a problem?”

Dad nodded.

I swiped my index finger across the screen, then put the
call on speaker. “Hey, Susan. Everything okay?”

“I should be asking you that!”

Mom frowned.

I glared at the phone. “Kind of in the middle of something here, Susan. What's up?”

“Okay, well . . . Maxie wants to know if she should use the risers we found backstage for the extra Scylla heads to stand on, or if she should bring in milk crates or something.”

I considered this. The last thing I needed was to have actors falling off wobbly milk crates on a dark stage. “I think for safety's sake, we should use the risers,” I said. “They'll be sturdier. But send Maxie to the front desk and make sure she gets permission first.”

“I'm on it. Thanks.”

I disconnected the call, put the phone on the coffee table, and turned apologetic eyes to my parents. “Sorry. Go on.”

Mom sighed and picked up where Dad had left off. “Lying is never acceptable, Anya. You know that, don't you?”

I was about to tell her I did know that, when my phone dinged again. This time it was a text message from Austin:

D wants to know if there's enough $ in the budget to rent a follow spot for the clubhouse.

“Austin has a financial question,” I told my parents. “Do you mind if I . . . ?”

“Go ahead,” said Mom.

“Okay. It'll just be a sec.” I pulled my notepad and the budget report Susan had prepared for our business meeting with Matt out of my tote bag. I spread these across the coffee table and opened the calculator tool on my phone. I punched in a few figures, adding, subtracting. I compared the results to the paperwork, murmuring to myself as I did. “Hmm . . . okay, so adjusting for the cost of the stage weapons, and taking into account the Krause mini-mart ad . . .”

“Excuse me, did you just say ‘the Krause mini-mart ad'?” asked Mom.

I nodded. “Uh-huh. We're selling advertising space in the program. Matt Witten has a professional arrangement with Mr. Krause, so I did a little networking and got him to place an ad for the filling station. He paid top dollar.”

My father looked a little flabbergasted. “Ad space. Really.”

“Matt Witten's going to promote his lawn service, and when we get a free moment, we're going to see if any more local businesses might want to jump on board.”

“That's . . . very impressive,” said Mom.

“Thanks.” I made a few more calculations on my phone, then used the speech-to-text feature to respond to Austin. “Tell D I love the idea. We can probably swing it, but have him shop around and compare prices. Don't finalize anything
until we discuss it.”

I hit send, then turned back to my parents. “I'm really sorry about this. It's just that—”

My apology was cut off by the ringing of the house phone; we could hear Nana answering it in the kitchen.

“Wallach residence. . . . Yes, she is. Who may I say is calling?”

A moment later Nana appeared in the family room, holding the cordless phone. “Sorry to interrupt, dears. But it's a Mr. Jefferies. He says he's a reporter with the
Chappaqua Chronicle
, and he's asking to set up an interview with—and I quote—‘Ms. Anya Wallach, the director.' ”

Despite being in the middle of a sentencing hearing, I smiled. Mr. Jefferies had written an amazing article about our first show (thanks to Sophia Ciancio, believe it or not) and the fact that he wanted to do a follow-up interview with me about our second performance was kind of a big deal.

“Can I take the call?” I asked eagerly.

“Absolutely,” said Mom. At the same time my father said, “Of course.”

“Hi, Mr. Jefferies,” I said in my most professional voice. “Thanks so much for calling. I'm in a meeting right now, but I'd love to set up a time to talk.”

He gave me a few dates and times. I chose Tuesday
morning at the community center theater. This way, he could interview a few of the actors and crew members as well. I thought it would be way more interesting for the
Chronicle
readers to get input from other theater members, instead of just hearing about me.

I hung up the phone and once again turned my full attention to my parents. They were looking at me with the weirdest expressions on their faces. Neither said a word; they just looked from me to each other, shaking their heads and looking utterly amazed.

When I couldn't stand the suspense one minute longer, I blurted out the question I'd been stewing over for the last three days.

“Did you guys decide to make me cancel the play?” I asked.

Dad took a deep breath.

Mom looked down at her hands.

I gripped the sofa cushions for dear life and waited for an answer.

Finally my father looked me in the eyes.

“Yes,” he said. “We did.”

CHAPTER

17

“Yes?” I echoed. My voice was a whisper. A croak. A gasp. It sounded exactly how I felt: as though every ounce of life had been drained out of me. “Yes, you decided to cancel the play?”

Mom nodded. “Yes, we did.”

“Oh. Okay.” I swallowed hard. “Well, I don't really blame you, I guess.”

“Anya,” said Dad, his face unreadable. “You have to understand. Mom and I talked about this for a long time and, ultimately, we came to the conclusion that making you cancel the play would be the right thing for us to do.”

Yeah, I get it!
I wanted to shout.
I heard it the first time; you don't have to rub it in!
Sniffling loudly, I kept my eyes low and managed a nod.

“But . . . ,” said Mom.

But?
I snapped my head up and saw that Dad was smiling.

“We've changed our minds,” he said. “Just now, in fact.”

I looked at them in utter disbelief, as though, like Scylla the sea monster, they'd both suddenly grown five more heads.

“We had every intention of canceling your show,” said Mom. “You broke the rules and you were dishonest. And for the record, you
will
be punished for that.”

“Okay,” I said, now at the edge of my seat. “But the show . . . What about the show?”

Dad shrugged, as though even he couldn't believe what he was about to say. “Anya, what you're doing here”—he gestured to my phone and the theater budget on the table—“is truly impressive. I can't imagine another twelve-year-old—or twenty-year-old, for that matter—handling a business with such natural ability. We saw how wonderful the first show was, but honestly, I don't think we really understood just how many behind-the-scenes responsibilities you had to juggle to bring it to life.”

“I didn't either,” I admitted. “Until they started happening.”

“That's the point,” said Mom. “You're stepping up and handling this like a real professional. All those other children are looking to you and counting on you to get the job done. And from where I sit, you're not letting them down.”

Happy as I was to hear that, I felt a pang of guilt. “But I let
you guys down,” I said quietly. “And I'm so, so sorry.”

“We know you are,” said Dad. “And as Mom said, you're going to be punished for what you did. But canceling the show wouldn't just be punishing you, it would be punishing Susan and Austin and all the other members of the cast. That wouldn't be fair.”

“I think the lesson here,” said Mom, reaching over to take my hand, “is that sometimes in business you have to make hard choices. As an adult, I know bending the truth is never the right option, but we're taking into account that you're still learning. You're under a lot of pressure for someone your age, and in a moment of desperation you did what you thought was in the best interests of your business . . . even if not in the best interests of my washing machine.”

I quickly pushed the spreadsheet toward her, pointing to a notation in red ink. “We've put aside some money to pay you back for the plumber's fee.”

“Most important,” said Dad, “you told the truth in the end.”

He stood up just as my phone chirped again. A text from Maxie:

Jane refusing to wear crinoline! Way 2 itchy.

Athena's wig tangled in lyre strings. Sophia

demanding gold lamé toga. WHERE R U???

I showed my parents the message.

“Come on,” said Dad, laughing. “We'd better get you back to that theater fast. Clearly, your cast needs you.”

It was one of the best things “Ms. Anya Wallach, the director,” had ever heard.

A pretty cool thing happened during our second week of rehearsals. We really started to feel like part of the CCC community. Or maybe, more accurately, they started to feel like part of us.

Although we considered our rehearsals private, we never turned away any CCC employees who wanted to slip in and observe. Mrs. Crandall (who'd returned to her post at the swimming pool entrance) got into the habit of popping in during her lunch break to see how the show was coming along.

And it turned out that Mrs. McPhee, who'd taught Maddie and Jane's origami workshop, didn't just teach paper folding. She was a retired high-school art teacher who now worked part-time, overseeing all the arts and crafts activities that took place at the center. Her assistant, Kevin, was a summer volunteer who'd be heading off to the Rhode Island School of
Design in the fall to pursue a degree in fine arts.

On Monday, Kevin and Mrs. McPhee dropped by between workshops to offer Maxie and Brittany some cans of leftover paint to help complete our two enormous backdrops—one, a beautiful sunset over the Aegean Sea (which we'd use for all of Odysseus's wild adventure scenes), and the other an impressively detailed mural depicting the interior of his Ithaca home. In addition to this second backdrop, Gina had created two enormous Corinthian columns by stacking large cardboard cylinders (used for pouring cement pilings, and generously donated by her father) and spray-painting them grayish white. So Kevin taught Brittany a faux-painting technique called trompe l'oeil and assisted her in turning the cardboard pillars into stunningly realistic-looking architectural elements. Gina topped them off with ornately decorated capitals, which she'd created out of good, old-fashioned papier-mâché.

“Let's be sure to give Mancuso Construction a free plug in the advertising section of the program,” I told Susan. “As a way of thanking Gina's dad for supplying the cardboard molds.”

“Good idea.” Susan made a note of it.

“And we should probably acknowledge Kevin and all the other CCC folks who've pitched in, too,” I added.

“That's what I like about you,” said my sister with a big smile. “You haven't forgotten about all the little people who've helped you make it to the top.”

“Well, I'm not exactly there yet,” I said, laughing. “And right now I'm not as worried about getting
to the top
as I am about getting back into the clubhouse theater.”

But Susan was right. We had been fortunate to receive all kinds of help and encouragement from places we'd never even imagined, and I didn't want to miss the opportunity to let these benefactors know how sincerely grateful I was.

For example, when the day camp programs let out for the day, the counselors would give us all the leftover juice boxes and water bottles they hadn't distributed to their campers. And the front desk receptionist, Mrs. Sawicki, insisted on putting one of our posters in the lobby, as well as placing an announcement about the play in the CCC's weekly online newsletter.

On Tuesday, Mr. Jefferies came and conducted his interview. I told him all about why we had to move to the CCC. Then he spoke to Maxie about the challenges of costuming the play, and to Joey about switching from the guitar to the lyre. Sophia, of course, weaseled her way in and used the word
star
every chance she got. Teddy said something profound about how theater had helped him to
grow as a person. Elle talked about how funny the song lyrics were.

By Wednesday everyone was off book (which meant they'd all memorized their lines and knew them by heart) and, for the most part, the dances were really coming along. Mackenzie's ballet solo as Calypso was absolutely breathtaking, and her jazz number during the big battle scene was a high-energy showstopper. Thanks to her, the suitors' tap dance was, in a word, hilarious. The swords had
still
not arrived, so for the time being we substituted these with pool noodles (thank you, Mrs. Crandall!).