Surviving the Applewhites (10 page)

E
.D. had very little time to revel in being a hero. “The show must go on,” her father said once it was clear that it could. “Fire’s out. No real damage done. Call the next scene.”

“The next scene has all the children,” E.D. said. “Gretl fell off the stage. Her mother took her to the emergency room.”

“We’ll do it without her tonight, then. She can catch up next rehearsal.”

“There won’t be a next rehearsal for her,” said the nurse who was playing the role of the housekeeper.
“That was a broken arm.”

“We’re going to have to find a new Gretl,” E.D. told her father.

“That’s impossible! No one else who auditioned for that part could possibly play it. That’s why I cast her in the first place.”

“We’ll just have to find someone,” E.D. said.

The phone rang early the next morning when E.D. was in the schoolroom, revising the history section of her curriculum. Instead of the Civil War, her fall history project from now on would be World War II, specifically the Nazi occupation of Austria. That way she could count the show as schoolwork. The phone rang again. When nobody had answered it by the third ring, E.D. picked it up. It was Mrs. Montrose, president of the board of the Traybridge Little Theatre. “I want to speak to your father!” the woman said. “I understand there was an arson attempt at the theater last night.”

“Not arson,” E.D. hastily assured her. “It was purely an accident.”

“I have my sources,” the woman said, “and they say the fire was deliberately set. Furthermore, a child was injured—”

“It was only a broken arm,” E.D. said.

“I wish to speak to Randolph Applewhite immediately.”

“I’m sorry, but he’s not here,” E.D. said. Strictly speaking, this was not a lie. Her father was not in the schoolroom. It was only eight o’clock in the morning. He was upstairs, in bed, sound asleep. “May I take a message?”

“You tell him that I’m canceling the show. From the moment he took over this project, I have had serious doubts about the appropriateness of his choices. But this—this
disaster
is the final straw. The Traybridge Little Theatre is a historic landmark and we came perilously close to losing it. As for injuries, our liability insurance does not—”

E.D. thought fast. “That will be a shock to the television crew that’s coming for the opening. I’m sure you know that
The Sound of Music
is expected to be the centerpiece of the story they’re putting on network TV.”

“I don’t care about that; I care about the future of—” E.D. hurried on. “I was planning to call you this morning, actually. It was the little girl playing Gretl who broke her arm, and if the show
were
able to go on, we would need to replace her. I noticed that your daughter auditioned for that role as well as the role of Brigitta originally. I was hoping you could bring her by to let her audition again. Of course, there would be no point if the show’s being canceled….”

There was a long silence, broken only by what sounded like fingernails being tapped on a hard surface.

“Would this be an open audition?”

“Oh no. Only your daughter. My father just wants a chance to hear her again. He told me that none of the others could possibly play the role. In fact, he actually refused to hear any of them again.”

“Well…well…” The tapping went on again for a moment. “When would he need to see her?”

“Perhaps the two of you could come this evening,” E.D. said. “After your daughter auditions, you could stay for dinner. We’re having fried chicken. The associate producer will be here for dinner as well.” These things were both perfectly true. Govindaswami had promised them fried chicken, and Jeremy had taken to introducing himself as associate producer. “You could talk to him about the television project.”

This time the pause was considerably shorter. “Dinner. I think we might be able to manage dinner. What time?”

E.D. grinned. “Rehearsal is due to begin at seven. How about coming here at about four-thirty? You and your daughter can meet the producer, your daughter can sing, and then we’ll all have dinner.”

“All right, then. Four-thirty. But tell your father that there will have to be much stricter control maintained during rehearsals in the future.”

“Of course. He was just saying that very thing last night—after the accident.” That, too, was true. “You’re not to let Destiny out of your sight for an instant!” he
had told Jake. When Jake had reminded him that Destiny had done the deed while Jake was onstage, he had threatened to put Destiny on a leash and tie the leash to a theater seat.

When E.D. put down the phone, she sighed. It had worked. But Mrs. Montrose was only the first part of the problem. The second part was Randolph Applewhite.

“Absolutely not!” he said over breakfast when she told him her plan. “I can’t possibly use that child as Gretl. Gretl’s the youngest. She has to be little and cute. The Montrose kid has a wretched voice, she’s not little, and she’s definitely not cute. It’s completely impossible.”

“I thought appearances didn’t count,” Sybil said, looking up from the hem she was stitching.

“Not when there’s talent. That child has no talent.”

“At least listen to her,” E.D. argued. “They’re due to come at four-thirty and they’re staying for dinner. If you don’t do this, Mrs. Montrose will cancel the show.”

“Let her! Better to cancel than to have a Gretl with a voice like a buzz saw.”

“No, no, no!” Jeremy Bernstein said. “If the show is canceled, the television piece will be canceled, too. I’ll never get another chance to produce for network television. The multiracial
Sound of Music
is the hook the TV execs bought! They won’t do the story without the hook.”

“Don’t let the TV people cancel us!” Cordelia said. “I want to get my bit in about
The Death of Ophelia.
”

“And my gallery showing,” Archie said. “And Lucille’s new volume of poetry.”

Sybil held up the black costume she was hemming. “Do you mean to tell me that you would let the seven million nuns’ habits we’ve made go to waste? Do you mean to tell me that I’ve given up my writing time and let my masterpiece go totally cold for
nothing
?”

E.D. resumed her attack. “Come on, Dad. Just
listen
to Priscilla Montrose. Talk to her mother over dinner. Maybe you can convince her to let the show go on even if you don’t cast her daughter. You have to at least
try
!”

“All right. All right! But I will not, under any circumstances, cast that dreadful girl as Gretl!”

W
hile the others were having breakfast at the main house, Jake, desperate for some time away from Destiny, was in the kitchen at Wisteria Cottage, eating dry Cheerios and drinking a cup of Archie’s morning coffee. Every so often he threw a Cheerio at Winston, who snapped it out of the air and swallowed it. Jake had just drifted into a reverie about Jeannie Ng, who had taken Cordelia’s place as the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, when he heard the yodeling refrain of “The Lonely Goatherd.”

Destiny, he thought. Somewhere nearby. And getting nearer. He was just considering the possibility of barricading himself in his room when Destiny’s voice began to fade. He waited. Maybe he was safe after all. After a moment, though, the yodeling began to come closer again. Closer, closer. As Jake pushed his chair back from the table, ready to bolt and run, the voice began to recede again. This went on for some time, fading, coming closer, fading, coming closer. Jake resisted the urge to go see what the kid was doing. Once Destiny caught sight of him, his time alone would be gone for the day.

Suddenly Destiny quit singing. There was a loud yelp, followed shortly by pounding footsteps up the steps and across the front porch. Destiny tore open the screen door and hurtled across the living room and into the kitchen. Moments later hoofbeats sounded on the porch and Wolfie smashed into and then through the screen.

Jake looked up in time to see the goat, that crazed look in his yellow eyes, pieces of screen dangling from his horns, collide with the couch. Winston had begun to bark, and his barking apparently infuriated the goat. When the couch didn’t move out of his way, Wolfie butted it again and again and then went totally berserk, knocking over a lamp and an end table, upending the hippopotamus coffee table, crashing into the bookcases, and scattering books and candles in every direction. Jake hurried Destiny into his
room, closed the door, and then went after the goat. He managed to grab one horn, but the goat twisted away and charged at him.

Jake leaped out of the way. He snatched the tablecloth off the kitchen table, ignoring the crash of his cereal bowl and coffee mug hitting the floor, and flung the cloth over the goat’s head. Blinded, Wolfie knocked over a chair, then bounced off the kitchen table. Jake grabbed the ends of the cloth and held on.

When he had wrestled Wolfie out the door and down off the porch, he managed to get the cloth tied around the goat’s neck like a leash. Then, partly dragging and partly shoving, with a still barking Winston following at a safe distance, he got the goat back to the pen and in through the gate. A few moments later Destiny showed up, Hazel walking docilely at his side. Hazel came into the pen after Wolfie. “Stay outside the fence,” Jake warned Destiny. Gingerly he untied the cloth and managed to get out of the pen and close the gate just as Wolfie’s horns crashed resoundingly into it.

“I was herding the goatses!” Destiny said. “Just like in the song.”

“It looked more like Wolfie herding you,” Jake told him.

“Wolfie doesn’t like to be herded.”

“Remember that! Don’t try to herd him ever again. Hazel’s okay, but you stay away from Wolfie.”

At four-thirty Jake and Destiny were in the schoolroom watching a butterfly chrysalis that had begun moving slightly on the thread that held it to its twig when a car pulled up in front of the main house. Through the schoolroom window Jake saw Mrs. Montrose and her daughter get out. As always, Mrs. Montrose’s hair was elegantly coiffed. She was dressed in a yellow silk suit. Her daughter, a tall, thin girl of seven or eight, with blond hair braided in two pigtails, was wearing a white sailor dress, shiny white strapped shoes, and socks with white ruffles. They went up the porch stairs and disappeared from view.

A short time later a shrill, piercing voice filled the house with an off-key version of “The Lonely Goatherd.”

Destiny, his nose pressed to the aquarium, announced that he could sing it better than that. He was right, Jake realized. He and Destiny had been singing together a whole lot lately, and the practice had made a difference. On the other hand, Destiny had never sounded as bad as Priscilla Montrose.

The chrysalis had cracked open, and something that looked nothing at all like a butterfly was pushing its way out. “Doesn’t look like much, does it?” Jake asked. Destiny shook his head. E.D. came in to ask Jake to help set the table for dinner.

“Look, E.D.! That yucky thing was in the criss-liss. What happened to the butterfly?”

“That
is
the butterfly,” E.D. said.

“Those black crumply things on its back are its wings,” Jake said. “As soon as it pumps them up and they dry out, it’ll be able to fly. You’ll see.”

“I’m not gonna eat dinner then,” Destiny said. “I wanna watch it get wings.”

Jake felt a little that way himself. He’d actually never seen a butterfly come out of its chrysalis before. On the other hand, he didn’t want to miss one of Govindaswami’s dinners.

“Don’t worry,” E.D. said. “We’ll be finished eating long before it’s ready to fly. It takes ages and ages. You’d get bored waiting.”

“Do you promise it’s going to be a butterfly?”

“I promise.”

Destiny turned to Jake. “Do
you
promise?”

“I promise.”

B
y the time everyone was settled at the table for dinner, the dining room was so jammed with people and extra chairs that it was difficult to move. Winston, who had insisted on settling under the table by Jake’s feet, had been banished to the out of doors. E.D., perched on one of the bar stools from the kitchen, had an excellent vantage point for watching the interaction between her father and Mrs. Montrose. But there was none. Her father, at the foot of the table, was avoiding eye contact with anyone. As the serving dishes of rice and lentils,
chutney, flatbread, and yogurt sauce were passed, he stayed resolutely focused on serving himself and passing them on.

Mrs. Montrose, squeezed between her daughter and Jeremy Bernstein across the table from E.D., was just as resolutely focused on Jeremy, alternately asking him questions about the life of a TV producer and dropping offhanded remarks about the many roles her daughter had played in Little Theatre productions.

Govindaswami came in from the kitchen with a huge bowl and offered it to Zedediah at the head of the table. “The main dish,” he said as he settled in his place nearest the kitchen. “As promised—fried chicken.”

When Zedediah dished himself some, E.D. thought it looked pretty much like most of Govindaswami’s main dishes—chunks of meat and vegetables in a thick, red sauce. It certainly wasn’t like any fried chicken she’d ever seen.

When the bowl reached Mrs. Montrose, she sat for a moment, looking at it. “You did say fried chicken, didn’t you?” she asked.

Govindaswami nodded. “Fried chicken. Yes. An old Govindaswami family recipe. My mother made it often, as did her mother and her mother before her.”

“Ah! I see. It isn’t quite what I expected.” Mrs. Montrose spooned some onto her plate next to her rice.

“You’ll want some of the yogurt sauce,” Govindaswami said.

“No thank you, I’m not particularly fond of yogurt.”

“Suit yourself.”

Mrs. Montrose spooned a small amount of the chicken onto her daughter’s plate and passed the bowl on.

When everyone was served, Zedediah asked them to join hands. “Let us offer heartfelt thanks to Ravi Govindaswami for his fine, rich, and pungent cooking. Thanks as well to the Traybridge Little Theatre for the opportunity to work together to bring a new artistic vision to the stage. And thanks to all the powers that be for the joining here of family, friends, and colleagues, for this abundance of food, of companionship, of”—here he looked directly at Randolph and raised his voice meaningfully—“tact and good sense.”

When they dropped hands, E.D. watched her father dig into the food on his plate. She didn’t think he’d been listening. Now that she’d watched Priscilla Montrose’s audition, she understood his problem. It wasn’t just that the girl was too tall to be the littlest von Trapp. It wasn’t just her voice. It was everything about her. The girl had stood like a telephone pole—rigid and totally unmoving, with her hands clasped in front of her like some old-fashioned opera star, and all through the yodeling part had sung every syllable as if it were a separate word.
Oh. Ho. Lay. Dee. Odl. Lee.
Oh.
It didn’t sound anything at all like yodeling. The lines she read were even worse. She could see why he thought it would be better to let the show be canceled than to have her in it!

E.D. looked over at Mrs. Montrose. She was just taking her first bite of chicken. She chewed once and her eyes grew very wide. She looked wildly from side to side like a trapped animal, her face going a deep, rich pink. Her eyes watered. She gave a little squeak, put her napkin up to her lips, swallowed, and snatched at her water glass, gulping down its contents without pausing for breath. Beads of sweat had broken out on her forehead. “Very—very—
interesting
,” she said in a strangulated voice. She smiled at Govindaswami. Then she reached for her daughter’s water and drank that, too.

“The yogurt sauce is quite cooling,” Lucille said.

“If you are finding it a little too spicy for your palate,” Govindaswami observed, “you will discover that water does not help. It only dilutes the acid.”

“No, no!” Mrs. Montrose said after a moment. “Not too spicy. It’s—delicious.” She wiped her forehead with her napkin. “I’m just—ah—very thirsty.”

Priscilla Montrose had been picking at her rice. Now she raised a forkful of chicken. Her mother reached to stop her, but the girl had already popped the chicken into her mouth. She chewed, and began to shriek. “Hot! Hot! Mommee-ee-ee, hot!” She spit the
chicken back onto her plate and grabbed for her water glass. It was empty. She went on shrieking.

“Manners, Prissy dear, manners!” Mrs. Montrose said, patting her daughter’s back, her face getting pinker by the moment.

Sybil, sitting on the little girl’s other side, reached for the pitcher of grape Kool-Aid in front of Destiny. “Try this,” she said, pouring it into the empty water glass. “Sugar cuts the burning.”

Priscilla stopped shrieking long enough to gulp down the Kool-Aid. Sybil filled her glass again. Mrs. Montrose held out her own glass. “That looks so good. Perhaps you might pour me a little as well.”

Wimps
, E.D. thought. The chicken wasn’t nearly as hot as some of Govindaswami’s dishes. She passed a plate of bread across the table. “She might like the bread. And the rice is good with a little fruit chutney.”

“I’m terribly sorry,” Mrs. Montrose said. “She’s just not used to—
ethnic
cooking.”

After that the meal went fairly smoothly, E.D. thought. Priscilla ate nothing but bread, washed down with grape Kool-Aid. Mrs. Montrose, still a little pink in the face, withdrew from the conversation. Smiling and nodding, she kept moving the chicken around on her plate, but E.D. noticed that she was careful to actually eat only rice that hadn’t been contaminated by any of the sauce.

The other adults kept up a constant stream of
positive chatter about
The Sound of Music
. They talked about how well things were going with the sets and costumes, how successful the run was bound to be. Jeremy mentioned several times how interested the TV executives were about the way it had been cast, and how impressed they were that such a ground-breaking production was being done by a theater in Traybridge, North Carolina. Randolph remained absolutely quiet.

Twice Destiny got up from the table and went off to the schoolroom to check on the butterfly. When Jake explained what he was doing, Priscilla Montrose asked if she could go with him next time. Her mother took a bite of bread and nodded vaguely.

Destiny finished his chicken, topped with liberal portions of yogurt sauce, drank the rest of his Kool-Aid, and got up again. “Come on!” he said to Priscilla. “Betcha he can fly now.”

It wasn’t until Govindaswami announced ginger saffron ice cream for dessert that everyone noticed that Destiny and Priscilla had not returned. Jake was sent to find them. In moments he was back. “They’re not in the schoolroom.”

“Where do you suppose they went?” Mrs. Montrose asked, her voice carefully polite, but tinged with alarm.

Before anyone could respond, the answer was clear. From outside came the sound of two voices, one
of them shrill and off-key, singing “The Lonely Goatherd.”

“Uh-oh,” Jake said.

Randolph sat up a little straighter, listening.

Jake got up from the table and started toward the front of the house. “I’d just better make sure Destiny hasn’t—”

He was interrupted by a blood-curdling shriek. The singing had stopped. Wild barking had started.

“Mommy! Mommy! Help! Mommy!”

Mrs. Montrose rose from her chair and started to push her way around the table toward the sound of her daughter’s voice. Zedediah, Archie, and Sybil all leaped up and started for the doorway. As they reached it, Priscilla Montrose, sobbing now, came running in, squeezed her way between them, and dove past E.D. and under the table, headed for her mother. Immediately behind her came Wolfie, and behind Wolfie came Winston, barking steadily. Wolfie butted Archie out of the way, then Sybil, then smashed into the table. The jolt tipped over all the glasses and the pitcher of Kool-Aid.

A black swallowtail butterfly fluttered into the dining room, drifting serenely above the chaos.