Surviving the Applewhites Read online

  Jake had just managed to finish reading the play before they left for the audition. He didn’t think it was as bad as Randolph had said. It was about a family of Austrians—the von Trapps—at the beginning of the Second World War, when Germany occupied Austria. The Baron von Trapp, an Austrian naval officer whose wife had died, hired a young woman from a nearby convent to be a governess to his seven children. After the governess had taught all the children to sing, the baron fell in love with her. When the Nazis invaded Austria, they demanded that the baron join the German navy. Instead, the whole family, including the governess who had by that time become his wife, used their singing at a music festival as a cover to escape over the mountains into Switzerland.

  Rolf, the part Jake had read for, was a messenger boy who was in love with the oldest von Trapp daughter. By the end of the play he had joined the SS, which was the Nazi security force, and was helping the Germans look for the von Trapps to keep them from escaping. It was Rolf who, because of his love for Liesl, let the family get away.

  “So,” Randolph said now as they turned into the driveway at Wit’s End. “It’ll be you and Jeannie doing Rolf and Liesl. You’re not a bad actor. And you can dance as much as you’ll need to. Plus, you’re just tall enough and she’s just small enough that you’ll look okay together onstage. The Ngs are a talented family. I’m going to use her younger brother to play Kurt. What is that ungodly sound?”

  A wail that reminded Jake of a tornado siren gave way suddenly to deep barking. As they curved around the trees and shrubs, the Miata’s headlights picked up an astonishing sight. Winston, tail waving, ears flapping, barking frantically, came running—galloping—toward them from the house. When Randolph stopped the car, the dog threw himself at it, leaping at the passenger door, whining and barking. “Keep that bloody beast’s claws off my car!” Randolph shouted as Jake opened his door. “What do you suppose is the matter with him?”

  With an ungainly leap, Winston managed to launch himself from the driveway onto Jake’s lap, landing like a ten-ton truck, his back claws digging into Jake’s legs, his tongue slathering Jake’s face with foamy saliva.

  Right behind him came Cordelia and Sybil. “What have you done to that dog, Jake Semple?” Cordelia was asking as she came, her voice accusing. “He’s gone completely berserk!”

  “I—I—” Jake couldn’t have said more even if he’d had anything more to say. He had to close his mouth firmly against the onslaught of basset greeting.

  “He started to howl when the two of you drove away,” Sybil said, “and he hasn’t stopped for fifteen seconds since. It’s been hours! He has sat on the front porch and howled as if the world were coming to an end.” She waved her reading glasses in the air. Jake had the feeling that she would have preferred to beat him with them. “I can’t think, much less work, with that racket going on. If it isn’t The Sound of Music, it’s the wretched hound. I might as well give up writing altogether.”

  “You can’t go away anymore,” Cordelia said to Jake. “That’s all there is to it. Not without Winston. Nothing would make him stop. I offered him liver treats, his favorite, and he looked at me as if I was out of my mind. He was inconsolable. Wherever you go, you have to take Winston with you!”

  “What are you two going on about? Jake’s going to be at rehearsals every night. I can’t have a dog at rehearsals,” Randolph said. “Under no circumstances will I have a dog at my rehearsals!”

  “Then you can’t have Jake either,” Sybil said. “Your choice. If you want Jake in your show, you’re going to have to have Winston. I will not have him here howling like a soul in torment. That’s all there is to it.”

  “But what if he starts howling at rehearsal?”

  “He won’t.” E.D. had joined them. “Not if Jake’s there,” she said. “He’s gotten it into his doggy brain that he’s Jake’s dog and that’s all there is to it.” She frowned at Jake. “Alienation of affections it’s called, and people can get sued for it.”

  “Not when it’s a dog,” Cordelia said.

  “Yeah, well, Winston’s our dog, and now he thinks he’s Jake’s dog.”

  Jake had finally succeeded in dislodging Winston from his lap. The dog was now sitting on the drive, staring up at him and wagging his tail so hard that his whole body wagged with it. “I didn’t do anything! I just feed him a little and pet him once in a while. Nobody else seems to take any notice of him at all.”

  “I do!” E.D. said. “At least I used to, before he turned into your shadow. Now he won’t so much as look at me. Or anybody else except you.”

  “Not even with liver treats!” Cordelia said.

  “Enough, enough, enough!” Randolph said. “We will deal with the question of the dog some other time. Let’s go inside. I’m calling a family meeting. Right now.”

  “A family meeting? Everybody?” E.D. said.

  “Everybody except Destiny. And Hal. I haven’t lost touch with reality.”

  Sybil checked her watch. “It’s nearly eleven o’clock! Lucille and Archie will be asleep by now.”

  “Well, then, wake them up! Send that howling monster of a dog over to roust them out. We need a family celebration! And someone get that Bernstein fellow up here. This involves him, too, if he really intends to do that documentary he’s talking about. I have news. Wonderful news. I have finally succeeded in casting the show!”

  Chapter Seventeen

  You’re kidding!” Sybil had just brought in a tray of coffee, and she set it down with a bang so that coffee sloshed out of the mugs.

  E.D. thought it was unlikely that her father had dragged everybody to a meeting to make a joke. Zedediah hadn’t come—he’d told her when she went to get him that unless someone was at death’s door at that very moment, he saw no reason why whatever it was couldn’t perfectly well wait until morning. But Lucille and Archie were there, even though she’d had to wake them. They were sitting blearily on the couch in their nightclothes. Jeremy Bernstein was there, too, complete with notebook and pen.

  “Why would I kid about a thing like this? It’s been the most grueling audition process I’ve ever been through in my life. And the hardest part of it was finding the person to play Maria. Annalouise Mabry sings and acts, and she’s young and pretty besides. She is absolutely perfect for the part!”

  “Well, it will certainly get the show some attention,” Sybil said. “I don’t know that anyone has ever cast an African American as Maria before.”

  “That’s because nobody else had to cast the show in Traybridge, North Carolina, before.”

  “I thought The Sound of Music was a true story,” E.D. said. “Wasn’t Maria von Trapp a real person?”

  “Of course,” her father said. “The guiding force behind the von Trapp Family Singers.”

  “But she wasn’t black.”

  Jeremy Bernstein took a cup of coffee off the tray and blotted its bottom with a napkin. “Technically speaking, the show is only based on a true story. It’s literature—a piece of musical theater—not a documentary. Rodgers and Hammerstein probably took some liberties with the truth in creating it. Your father can take a few when casting it. It’s called color-blind casting.” He turned to Randolph. “That’s what makes you such an extraordinary director! That you have the courage, the vision, to make such a choice.”

  “It was the only possible choice,” Randolph said. “Annalouise is incredibly talented. She graduated from Northwestern with a degree in musical theater. She’s the lead singer in a gospel choir that’s toured the country three times. If I hadn’t located this girl, I’d have had to call the whole project off. There wasn’t a single other possible Maria for a hundred miles in any direction. She isn’t the only color-blind choice, though. It’s going to be a rainbow cast. The children playing Louisa and Friedrich are black, and Liesl and Kurt are Vietnamese.”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” E.D. said. “I get it that the show isn’t a documentary. But won’t the audience have trouble understanding it? The vo
n Trapp children all have the same parents. There’s biology to think about. You can’t have three different races in one family! It doesn’t make sense.”

  “It makes perfect sense! It’s musical theater. Singing. Acting. A little dancing. The kids I cast sing and act better than anyone else in town.”

  “Color-blind casting is the right thing to do,” Jeremy said. “Biology or not, your father’s morally bound to cast the best people regardless of color or ethnic background.”

  “Exactly!” Randolph said, stirring a heaping spoonful of sugar into his coffee. “Anyway, appearances don’t count. Once the show gets started, I guarantee that the audience won’t notice.”

  Sybil shook her head. “Well, they’re likely to notice.”

  Jeremy waved his coffee mug in the air. “I think it’s a philosophically powerful concept. What’s The Sound of Music about, after all?”

  “Falling in love and escaping the Nazis,” Cordelia said.

  Jeremy nodded. “Escaping the Nazis. What were the Nazis most infamous for? The Holocaust—the killing of six million Jews. One of the most terrible examples of racial hatred in modern times. What better way to hold a mirror up to our own prejudices than to cast this particular show across racial lines. It’s positively inspired!” He began jotting in his notebook. “Think of it. Probably the first time The Sound of Music has ever been done this way. And it’s being done in the South. This’ll make a great hook for the TV show. The network people will love it. We can have them come for the opening.”

  Randolph grinned. “That’s it, of course. I cast the show the way I did for philosophical reasons.”

  That was an outrageous lie, E.D. thought, and everyone in the room knew it. But from now on, she knew, that was how her father would think about it. And that’s the way Jeremy would write about it.

  “I told you I would give the show an edge, Cordelia. Didn’t I? Didn’t I? I said I would send the audience away both humming and thinking.”

  “Let’s hope the Little Theatre board doesn’t pull the plug on you and cancel the whole thing,” Sybil said. “Traybridge might not be quite ready for this.”

  “They wouldn’t dare!”

  Lucille stifled a yawn. “I think it’s wonderful that you finally got your cast, Randolph. I’m sure it will all work out. Never fear, Sybil, there’s a shift in consciousness happening these days all over the world. Unity out of diversity. It’s surely happening in Traybridge, too. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  In Lucille’s view of the world, E.D. thought, there was never anything to worry about. She looked over at Jake, who was sitting at the end of the couch with Winston draped across his feet. He was staring into space as if he hadn’t heard a word that was being said. There was an odd look in his eyes. It reminded her, somehow, of the look Cordelia got when she started talking about her ballet.

  “We need to be getting back to bed,” Lucille said then. She nudged Archie, who had fallen asleep where he sat. “Let’s go. Govindaswami will be here bright and early.”

  “Who?” Randolph asked. “Who’ll be here?”

  “Ravi Govindaswami. My guru. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten that, too! He’s going to be staying in Sweet Gum Cottage.”

  “Your guru’s coming to stay? Tomorrow?” Sybil asked in a horrified voice. “Why didn’t you warn us?”

  Lucille stood, pulling at Archie’s arm. “I did warn you. Nobody pays attention to anything around here except their own projects.”

  “But I haven’t had time to do the grocery shopping yet this week. We won’t have enough food—again!”

  “That’s all right. Govindaswami is fasting.”

  As E.D. slipped into sleep later, she was glad she didn’t have anything to do with her father’s show. She was beginning to have a strong premonition of catastrophe.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jake had finished gelling his hair. Now he turned his face one way and then another so that the light above the mirror picked up the dusting of hair on his upper lip. Darken that down and he could pass for seventeen—couldn’t he? Not according to the red-haired kid who’d expected to get cast as Rolf and ended up playing an anonymous soldier instead. “It’s ridiculous for you to play that part. No way an audience is going to believe you’re old enough to get into the SS.” What the red-haired kid thought didn’t count, Jake reminded himself. Or what anybody else in the show thought either, for that matter. About anything.

  Last night they’d had their first rehearsal, and Randolph had made that very clear at the beginning. The director, he had told the assembled cast, made the decisions, starting with casting, and anybody who didn’t like those decisions could go do another show somewhere else for some other director. He had directed in theaters all over the country and had had a smash Off-Broadway hit, and he intended to maintain a professional atmosphere at all times. “I am a professional and I will expect every one of you to behave as if you are, too. I don’t put up with lateness, laziness, or sloppy work. You will not be called to every rehearsal, but when you are called, you will arrive on time and you will be prepared. When you are not actually onstage, you will be silent and respectful of the actors who are onstage. There is no place in a Randolph Applewhite production for amateurs who behave like amateurs.”

  If he hadn’t started that way, Jake thought, there might have been open rebellion. There had been so much hostility in the air when they first came in that Winston had gone right underneath a folding chair in the corner and hadn’t come out again until it was time to go home.

  Nobody except the leads had been happy with the casting. The people who’d expected to get the leads were playing unnamed townspeople or nuns or storm troopers instead. There were so many people in the show that, except for the children, Randolph had had to cast almost everyone who had auditioned. But it hadn’t made them happy. “I’ve been with the Little Theatre since the building was the Masonic fellowship hall,” he’d heard one man say, “and I’ve never played anything but a major role! Now he’s brought in all these—these—outsiders and given them the plum parts. It’s a travesty!”

  “There are no small parts,” the woman he was talking to said. “Only small—”

  “Easy for you to say. You have lines!”

  “Little Priscilla Montrose didn’t even get cast,” someone else said. “The daughter of the president of the board!”

  “And she actually looks the part!”

  After Randolph’s speech about professionalism, people quit complaining, but the atmosphere hadn’t really changed till rehearsal was over and he mentioned the possibility that a TV crew would tape some of their work for national television. “And why, you ask, do they wish to focus on the Traybridge Little Theatre?” Randolph asked. “Because we are doing something different, something important—an edgy, innovative, truly American version of a classic of the musical theater.” Jake didn’t know whether anyone bought the philosophy part, but the prospect of being on national television had settled them right down.

  Now Winston, who had been whining at the bathroom door, began to scratch to come in. Jake sighed. He opened the door and Winston waddled in, his tail wagging furiously. “Hey, old guy—you don’t care whether I look thirteen or seventeen, do you?” he asked, rubbing Winston’s ears. The dog’s long tongue swiped across his hand, leaving a trail of saliva. Jake wiped it off on his pants. “Disgusting,” he told the dog as he patted his head. “That’s what you are, disgusting.”

  An hour later, when the family gathered for breakfast at the main house, Lucille’s guru joined them. Jake had seen him coming up toward the house from the cottage he was staying in and couldn’t get over the idea that the man was a sort of human version of Winston. He was short and round, dressed in voluminous pants and a long tunic, and moved as he walked the way the dog did, almost as much from side to side as straight ahead. He had the same dark, solemn, almost mournful eyes. In Winston these were contradicted by a perpetually wagging tail, in Govindaswami by a perpetually s
unny smile. “I am having a cup of tea,” he told them, beaming as he settled himself into the chair at the head of the table, “so as to join with you for the fellowship. I hope you will not be offended by my fast.”

  Far from being offended, Jake thought, the family was thrilled not to have to share their breakfast. Jeremy Bernstein offered, as he stared at the single spoonful of scrambled eggs that was left in the bowl when it had been passed to him, to take the grocery list to Traybridge. Archie agreed to lend him his pickup.

  After breakfast Jake slipped into the schoolroom, took an empty coffee can and a printout he’d made from the Internet, and hurried around to Lucille’s vegetable garden. Lucille had come in that morning just as he and Winston emerged from the bathroom, complaining loudly that there were caterpillars all over her parsley, eating it down to the stems.

  She had asked them kindly to leave, and they hadn’t gone, she said. That method had worked with slugs and earwigs and even aphids. But the caterpillars had refused to listen to her. She wouldn’t use poison and didn’t even like to pick them off, because whatever caterpillars started eating they had to go on eating, or they’d starve. She’d consulted with the nature spirits, and they had had no advice except to relinquish her need for control. “So I guess we’ll just have to leave the parsley to the caterpillars and do without. So much for the tabouli I was planning to make.”

  “You can put parsley on the grocery list and get it from the grocery,” Archie had suggested.

  “Oh, sure! Covered with pesticides and probably genetically altered besides.”

  Lucille’s complaints had given Jake an idea. In the garden he found exactly what he’d been hoping to find. As Lucille had said, the parsley was covered with green-and-black-striped caterpillars that were busy eating all the leaves. Stem after stem had its caterpillar, some small and newly hatched, others fat and almost ready to pupate. He checked them against the photograph on the printout. Just as he’d thought, they were the larval stage of one of the most beautiful of the Carolina butterflies, the black swallowtail. Black swallowtails had a particular preference for parsley, the printout said. Carefully, he picked the caterpillars off the parsley plants and put them into the coffee can. Then he picked the rest of the leaves off the parsley plants and put them in with the caterpillars. It wasn’t enough to feed them for long. He would add parsley to the grocery list before Bernstein went to town. He hoped if he washed it carefully, the store parsley wouldn’t hurt the caterpillars. Back in the schoolroom, he found an empty aquarium that would be just perfect for his plan.