A Twist of Hate (2 page)

              “We haven’t cast ‘Amanda,’ and I would like my objection to the casting of Michael Littlefield to go on record,” she insisted.

              “So noted,” Mr. Cleese groaned with a roll of his eyes.

              “He’ll do fine, Siobhan.” Camden lightly touched her shoulder. “Michael really wanted this part.”

              She shrugged from his touch, her dark gaze pinned on him. He almost flinched. “Michael will do just enough to get by,” she said. “It isn’t fair to everyone else who’ll be working their hardest on this show. And it’s definitely not fair to David.” She collected her French book and class notes and slid them into a binder. “He’s
your
friend. Just make sure he doesn’t screw us.”

              “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.

              “You’re not attractive when you play dumb.”

              Camden tried not to think of the numerous times Michael had skipped out on group presentations in class and the countless occasions he neglected term papers and special projects until two days before they were due. He mentally shook himself free of those memories. “The play is different. It actually means something to Michael.”

              “Stellar endorsement,” she snapped.

              “Okay, kids.” Mr. Cleese slung his scarf around his neck and started for the door. “Enough. Who’s the lucky duck playing ‘Amanda Wingfield?’”

              Like rival gunfighters eyeballing one another across a sun-burnt stretch of dirt, Siobhan raised an eyebrow and Camden clenched his jaw. “Ann Lewis,” they said together.

              “Ann Lewis…” Mr. Cleese wrinkled his brow, searching his memory banks. “Ah, yes. Junior. Shy. Dyslexic, I believe.”

              “She really opened up in her audition,” Siobhan remarked.

              “It was like flipping a switch,” Camden added. “She’s so quiet offstage, but the second she was onstage, she became ‘Amanda Wingfield.’”

              “Then let’s print the cast list and post it outside my door.” He grabbed his jacket and shoved his arms into it. “Whoever said two heads are better than one certainly had the right idea. Good night, fair underlings.” Happily humming, Mr. Cleese vanished, leaving his sullen assistants to carry out his command.

***

              They studied in the Curran living room on their last free evening before rehearsals were to begin. Brian and Courtney occupied the ends of the long part of the sofa while Siobhan sat adjacent to Brian, on the shorter part of the “L” shaped, snow-white leather sectional. Notebooks, textbooks, papers and half-empty bowls of popcorn and pretzels were situated around them.

              Courtney had something on her mind other than homework. “I had to go back to the auditorium for my makeup kit after auditions yesterday,” she told Siobhan. “I heard you and Camden arguing in Mr. Cleese’s office.”

              Siobhan shrugged one shoulder and kept her gaze on the pages of her text. “I thought David Kent deserved the part of ‘Tom.’  Brian, do you have the handout Mrs. Dunlop gave us on Pandora’s Box? I can’t find mine. You know, I’ve always liked the story of Pandora, the version we’re working with anyhow, but I can’t seem to stay on a direct train of thought about Mrs. Dunlop’s question. I really hate blind debates. It would be easier if I knew who my opponent is.”

              “Don’t change the subject.” Courtney scooted closer to Siobhan. “Everybody knows Michael got the part because he’s a senior. But what’s the damage between you two? You go ghost when he’s around.”

              Siobhan set her books aside. She looked from Courtney to Brian. With her shoulder-length chestnut hair and sparkling violet eyes, Courtney was the spit and image of Vivian Leigh in
Gone With the Wind
. As handsome as he was smart, Brian sported unruly short hair the golden-brown of ripe wheat, and glasses that did nothing to mute the spring green of his eyes. He and Courtney were opposites who complemented each other in looks, personality and temperament. They had been Siobhan’s best friends from the moment she first met them five months ago, at Prescott’s New Student Orientation. Siobhan decided to tell them the secret she had kept since August.

              “My dad insisted that I go to the Orientation,” she began. “He thought it would be a good idea for me to meet some of the other kids before school actually started.”

              The southern wall of the living room was floor-to-ceiling one-way glass facing Forest Park. Siobhan pulled her knees to her chest and hugged them, absently watching an elderly woman walking the tree-lined boulevard with a pack of four Yorkshire terriers that attacked her right ankle with each step.

              “If it weren’t for the two of you,” Siobhan nearly whispered, “I don’t think I would have come to Prescott.”

              Brian set his laptop and his books aside. Prescott High was one of the finest preparatory schools in the United States. Its students were the children of renowned scholars, politicians, professional athletes, entertainers and prominent businessmen. From its multimillion-dollar endowment to each blade of grass comprising its impeccably landscaped grounds, Prescott was second to no other school in Missouri, with the possible exceptions of its most intimate rivals, the all-girl Shelby Institute and its brother school, Warwick Country Day, and the intellectually elite Jefferson Academy.

              Located on sixty acres in the St. Louis suburb of Adler, Missouri, Prescott boasted twenty tennis courts, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, a national poet laureate, a Nobel Prize winner, and two Olympic gold medal winners among its faculty, no dress code, and a one-hundred percent college matriculation rate.

              Prescott’s liberal admissions policy and its expansive financial aid programs ensure a diverse student body. Despite its best efforts, the overwhelming majority of Prescott students were white-and trust fund babies. Siobhan—pretty, smart and wealthy—was the perfect recruit for Prescott’s diversification efforts.

              “Michael almost kept you from Prescott?” Brian joined the girls at the short end of the sofa.

              “He thought you were the hottest thing on two legs when he first saw you,” Courtney told Siobhan. “He said so, when we were showing you the campus.”

              “Remember when you guys walked me to my car, after the tour?” Siobhan said. “I felt so lonely when you said goodbye and I watched you walk away, holding hands. I didn’t know anyone else in town, and my dad was away. Michael hung around and asked me out. I said yes.”

              Brian covered Siobhan’s knee with one hand. His normally cheerful and pleasant face hardened. “Did he do something to you? If he did, I’ll…I don’t know what I’ll do, but it’ll cause lingering pain and probably require stitches.”

              “Calm down, tiger.” Courtney threw an arm over Brian’s shoulder.

              “He tried, but he didn’t get far,” Siobhan said. “You know that black eye he had on the first day of school? My work.”

              “Wow,” Courtney grinned in admiration. “He said he got hit in the eye with a tennis ball.”

              “I’m glad you didn’t let him keep you from Prescott,” Brian said.

              “Michael scared me with what he said, not just what he did,” Siobhan admitted.

              “I can imagine what he did,” Brian said. “What did he say?”

              “The first thing he asked me when he came over was, ‘Does your mama work here?’  I told him I lived here, and that my dad designed and built this house. I’d already made the mistake of telling him Dad was out of town and I was here alone. Michael suddenly didn’t want to go out. He suggested we stay here and ‘make our own fun.’  He told me that he liked ‘brown sugar,’ and that there’s a girl in the junior class he’s been with. Veronica Armistead.”

              Courtney’s eyes widened. “Veronica’s mother was the Littlefield’s housekeeper!” She whirled on Brian. “Did you know about Michael and Veronica?”

              “Michael said she went out with him a couple times and that…well…that they hooked up. I didn’t believe him. He’s always bullshitting about things like that.”

              “Is it still going on?” Siobhan asked, equally amazed and repulsed that any girl would involve herself intimately with Michael Littlefield. Scrawny with flame-red hair and eyebrows and eyelashes so pale they seemed invisible, Michael was no heart stopper, like Brian. But he had a decent smile and friendly eyes—until he turned on you. Malice, not merriment, fueled the glee that shaped his smile and brightened his gaze.

              “I don’t think so,” Brian answered. “He’s been with Chrissie Abernathy for awhile now. Actually, I wouldn’t know. I’ve been in school with Michael since third grade, but we never sparked. Camden is all we have in common.”

              “Michael and Veronica,” Courtney exhaled in amazement. “I had no idea whatsoever. I must be losing my touch. Then again, if I was Veronica, I wouldn’t broadcast that byte, either.”

              “I tried to talk to Veronica about Michael when school started,” Siobhan said. “She made it totally clear that she had no desire to be friends with me. She seemed so resentful and angry toward me, and we’d only just met.”

              “Maybe it’s because you have money,” Brian suggested. “Or because you’re half white.”

              “I’m half
Irish
,” Siobhan corrected. “As for having money, my dad would be the first one to tell you this is all his, and I have nothing.”

              “Didn’t you get paid for modeling in England?” Brian asked.

              “One summer of catalog work does not a model make,” Siobhan chuckled.

              “On the surface, the biggest difference between you and Veronica comes down to money. She might resent you because of that,” Brian said.

              “Half the girls in our class are jealous of Siobhan,” Courtney pointed out.

              “Why?” Siobhan squeaked, bewildered and mildly offended by the very idea.

              “Because you’re working so closely with Camden,” Courtney grinned. “He’s Prescott’s most eligible bachelor. You haven’t noticed?” Courtney’s inquisitive gaze took in the raging blush coloring the tips of Siobhan’s ears. “Yeah, you’ve noticed.”

              “Michael’s always hanging around Camden,” Brian said. “They have this really weird symbiotic relationship.”

              “Like a fungus growing on an oak tree,” Courtney snickered.

              “Cam’s great,” Brian said. “You don’t have to worry about him.”

              “I suppose I’ll find out in the next few weeks.” Siobhan picked up her notebook and found her handout on Pandora’s Box. “But if he isn’t, I’ll black his eye too.”

              Michael Littlefield repeatedly bounced the capped end of his ballpoint pen against his desktop as he delivered his argument on Pandora’s Box. “Brevity is the key to a good debate and my remarks are deceptively brief. In answer to the question you’ve posed, Mrs. Dunlop, I must say that Hope should never have been in the box the gods sent to Earth with Pandora. Hope should have been out in the world already.” He flashed a sugary grin. “After all, what’s a world without hope?”

              “Thank you, for that unsullied example of brevity, although that’s not the ‘b’ word I believe most aptly describes your remarks, Michael,” said Mrs. Dunlop. “Let me remind you that this assignment called for a thoughtful commentary, not a moralization.” She absently tucked a tendril of her graying brown hair behind her ear and pinned it in place with a No. 2 pencil. “Miss Curran, are you ready to deliver the counterpoint?”

              Siobhan nodded and began. “Prometheus created mankind and provided everything he needed—food, shelter, clothing. He went further and gave man fire, which offended Zeus, who believed only gods deserved fire. Prometheus was punished by being tied to a mountainside where an eagle ate his liver every day. Pandora was the punishment Zeus crafted for Mankind, the recipient of Prometheus’s gift. She was sent to Earth to be the wife of Epimetheus, Prometheus’s brother, and she had been given a large jar to take with her. Erasmus of Rotterdam mistranslated
pyxis
, the Greek word for box. The original Greek text used the word
pithos
, which meant jar, possibly one several feet tall.

              “Instructed to never open the jar, Zeus counted on Pandora doing just that, as the gods had given her curiosity when she was crafted. Mankind had been protected from disease, and social and personal strife. Unbeknownst to Pandora, the container was a Whitman’s Sampler of physical and psychoemotional poisons. Once she opened the vase, Pandora released every kind of evil into the world of man.

              “The question we are asked to answer is, why was Hope in the jar among such things as envy, spite, lust and revenge? The answer is obvious. If you work with rattlesnakes, you’d keep antivenin:  If you work with fire, water is usually within reach. Though the gods wished to punish mankind, they didn’t want to destroy him. Hope wasn’t in the world prior to Pandora’s arrival because man had nothing to hope for. Hope wasn’t needed until the vase was opened and evil covered the world. Hope is an antidote to man’s troubles. That is why Hope was in Pandora’s vase, and that is why only Hope remained when the vase was opened. By its very nature, Hope is always within mankind’s grasp.”