Rosethorn (17 page)

At the very bottom, beneath a dried wreath of yellowed roses and a stack of journals, was the only picture she had owned of her and Andrew. She had steadfastly refused to give him any pictures of herself, hating the way she looked in any photo ever taken of her, except for this last.

It was the first Homecoming dance she had ever attended and she had been unable to find a dress in the stores that fit her right, so she had gone through the boxes of her mother’s clothes and found a floor-length, sleeveless dress of white cotton eyelet and lace. She had been able to tell by the stitching that it had been handmade. The old-fashioned dress had simple lines, with a delicate halter top, high waist, and a scalloped hem. It was the most beautiful dress she had ever seen and fit her perfectly, as if it had been made for her. Rummaging through more of her mother’s things, Sera found white shoes with platform heels, which made her several inches taller, to her delight.

The night of the dance, she had arranged her hair in long waves, the way her mother had worn hers, and adorned it with white rosebuds from Miss Haviland’s garden.

Draped in her mother’s white lace shawl, Sera awkwardly walked down the stairs, careful not to trip in unfamiliar heels. Her grandmother and Andrew both stood up as she came down, her grandmother in shock, tears in her eyes. “Oh, Sera,” she had cried out.

“I hope it’s okay,
lola
,” Sera asked, thinking she should have asked first.

“You look so much like-" Her grandmother did not finish but smiled through her tears and hugged her tightly.

Sera turned to Andrew, tall and handsome in his brother’s crisp navy suit, who stood shaking his head and looking at her as if he had never seen her before.

He had said nothing, even as he walked her in bewildered silence to the Mustang. As he opened the door for her, she asked him if he was okay, if she was wearing too much white, she, who only ever wore black.

“You look different,” he had said enigmatically.

Before meeting up with Allison and Paul, they had made a detour to the mansion down the road from Miss Haviland’s, where, slipping through the crack in the gate that Andrew forced open during summer, they had made their way to the porch.

Sera had set up her camera on a tripod a few feet away and they were to pose standing on the steps of the house, the rose door behind them and Andrew by the wooden post, with Sera next to him. After she had set up the timer, Sera had joined Andrew on the steps and they stood facing the camera with their best smiles.

Andrew unexpectedly turned to her and so she had turned to him, questioning.

“He was right. That man at the party,” he had said solemnly. “You take my breath away."

It was at this exact moment that the camera had taken their picture, when they faced each other as they stood in that old house they had claimed for their own, and it had captured the look that passed between them.

It was a record of the past best buried in a box and shut away.

Sera’s eye was caught by an old diary mixed in with her journals. She had only been able read it once all the way through, but there were passages in it that had been burned in her mind, each word engraved upon her as if it had been she that had penned it. The afternoon when she found it was one she would never forget.

She had often gone through her mother’s things, which were, even now, contained in boxes in the storage and the spare room. Her mother had been dead for over 25 years, yet Sera’s grandmother had not thrown away a single box. They were mostly clothes, almost all of which had been handmade, sewn, Sera thought, with the old Singer machine her grandmother had owned. The girl who had worn them loved bright colors, azure blues, scarlets, deep greens, sunflower yellows. Her mother had favored floppy hats with wide brims and bands of silk ribbons, platform shoes in every shade, fringed shawls, scarves, and chandelier earrings.

As a child, Sera had fingered the silks and laces secretly, feeling for any embedded hints. Over the years, each article of clothing had helped paint a picture of a creative, exuberant girl, not quiet or monochromatic like Sera but bold as the colors she wore, romantic and girlish as her dresses.

It had been a cold winter’s day years ago when a 17-year-old Sera, all alone in her house, had been seized with a sudden compulsion to unearth her mother once more. Some of her clothes already hung in Sera’s closet, spots of color here and there in a wardrobe of endless black. She had opened all of the boxes at one time or another, but faced with a whole day with her grandmother gone, Sera could linger with its contents.

Her favorite ones had contained costumes:  a red flapper dress, a Victorian gown of pale rose pink with voluminous skirts, a poodle skirt and sweater from the fifties, an Egyptian headdress and gold pleated gown. These had given Sera’s mother a dramatic, theatrical dimension. Had she played dress-up and engaged in pretend games?

Sera had sat cross-legged in the midst of opened boxes and still felt bereft. She would never truly know who her mother was. She could only guess and make assumptions based on objects her mother had possessed. Sera did not have the heart to pry from the one person who did know, her grandmother, for she knew that even her gentlest questions would cause her grandmother great pain and remind her of her terrible loss.

Sera had carefully folded all of her mother’s clothes and placed them back in their boxes. She meticulously closed the flaps and had begun to put them back in their proper places in the storage, arranging everything in such a way so that they looked as if they had been undisturbed these many years.

As she reached to the top with the last box, smaller and lighter than the rest, she lost her balance and the box fell from her hands to the floor, spilling its contents everywhere. It was the box of maternity clothes, which Sera had only given a cursory glance once.

Although it should have been the box most dear to her, for it represented her arrival in her mother’s life, it saddened Sera the most. These clothes had been bought in the store and differed drastically from the style and essence of the rest of her mother’s clothing. They were pastel-colored, ghost-like shifts, indicating that mother had spent her entire pregnancy in dull house dresses bleached of color. Sera had felt distaste and a degree of guilt when she looked at them.

Dismayed, she had started grabbing the shapeless dresses and shoving them in the box, not bothering to arrange them neatly when she uncovered a folded package of shocking red silk that had been entombed among the pale cotton swathes.

Even before she had recognized that it was tightly wrapped around something hard and rectangular, Sera’s heart beat faster. She had carefully unfolded the package, which was a daring sleeveless silk dress, handsewn, tucked in at the waist with flounces in the skirt. The girl, the woman who had worn this had been fiery and passionate and was the complete opposite of the meek creature who had inhabited the pale maternity clothes.

But it was what lay inside its silken folds that had made Sera’s heart stop beating, a bound volume covered with wine-colored fabric and containing yellowed pages of flamboyant writing, the first of which boldly declared, “
Diary of Stella Rose Vasquez or the Rise of a Star."

Sera had stared at the book in her hands, too shocked to move. She felt all of a sudden as if she had landed in the middle of a bizarre fairy tale, wherein her most oft-repeated, secret wish had just come true. Her mother had finally been delivered to her in a scarlet silk package, her words, her voice reaching Sera from over seventeen years ago. She had hurriedly boxed up the rest of the maternity clothes and replaced the box on the top, firmly closing the storage door.

Grabbing her mother’s dress and diary, she had run up to her room. She could barely contain her excitement and happiness and it was only with a brief, disquieting hesitation that she had paused before reading her mother’s diary. A small thought occurred to her that perhaps it was better to leave it unread and put it back where she found it, but Sera dismissed it.

Even if she wanted to, it was already too late. Nothing could keep Sera from what lay inside.

Chapter 14

February 3, 1986

Rather presumptuous of me isn’t it-titling my little book of nothing as the “Rise of a Star”? I’ve been saving this book for such an occasion as this, the day when one of my dreams has come true. Everything will be different from now on, I can feel it. Days of worrying and biting my nails and being unable to sleep or eat all worth it for I AM GUENEVERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  There aren’t enough exclamation points in existence to express how happy I am.

Let me set the scene. Three days ago. I was the last girl, as usual, to audition for Guenevere, but I didn’t care. I had seen all the others perform with basically the same wide-eyed, broad gestures, traipsing about the stage in caricature of young maidens. Lila and Greg wanted to audition together (typical) and did I Loved You Once in Silence, which made me want to throw up. I would have, except I had eaten nothing all day. I could tell that Lila thought she had the part, the way she smiled her superior little smile as she flounced off the stage with her milktoast Lancelot.

Oddly enough, when my turn came, all my fear disappeared and I felt calm. I took off my coat and I heard Lila say not too quietly it wasn’t fair I was in costume. I just ignored her, after all, she could have come in costume if she wanted to, she just wasn’t creative enough to think of it herself. Besides, the dress was just a very simple medieval-style tunic, enough to convey innocence and hopefulness. I didn’t have enough time to do anything elaborate.

I got up on stage and took a minute to think—I’m a young girl, never been in love, but has dreams for herself and now I’m being forced to marry a man I’ve never met. I don’t care if he’s the King of England. I’m headstrong and independent and I want true love, not an arranged marriage. Something came over me then, like a veil and even though I heard Lila and her friends snicker at my long silence, it was if they were far away from me as I stood on stage. And then I started to sing my prayer to St. Genevieve as a prelude before the Simple Joys of Maidenhood.

From a strictly musical point of view it doesn’t really reveal my strengths. But Mrs. O’Connell already knows my range and how strong my voice is. That wasn’t as important as showing that I knew who this girl was, how defiant and strong and full of life she is and show all the reasons in one song why King Arthur and his best knight both fall in love with her. I think it’s the most important song for Guenevere because it sets up what comes later. The audience has to believe that Guenevere is not only beautiful but interesting enough to come between two best friends and almost destroy Camelot.

I could hear by the applause that I had accomplished my goal. And I knew I did really well when Lila, sweet Lila, stood up and asked Mrs. O’Connell how the audience was supposed to believe that an English queen was Chinese and that it would be too much of a distraction for me to play the role. Of course she said all this in her cloying, polite tone that’s supposed to hide the fact that she’s an evil, delusional bitch.

“First of all, Lila,” I said just as sweetly, “I’m Filipino, not Chinese." And then I turned to Mrs. O’Connell-

“Second of all, this is musical theater and the audience will have to suspend their disbelief pretty much from beginning to end. It’s just as probable that Guenevere be played by an Asian actress as it is for people to burst out in song about a castle on a hill." Everyone except for Lila laughed at this. And so I turned back to her with my most venomous glance.

“A good actress will make the audience believe anything she wants them to." And with that, I walked down the stage with queenly dignity.

I knew I did my best and that it was not only different but a better performance than all the others. Even Lila’s stupidity couldn’t shake the knowledge that I was perfect for the role. I understood who Guenevere was and I knew that I could bring her to life on stage. But still I worried Mrs. O’Connell would not see it that way. I’ve been agonizing these past three days and this afternoon when Miss O’Connell posted the parts, I couldn’t believe it at first. But it’s true. At last-not understudy, not a minor character but the lead in a romantic musical with beautiful songs.

Lila’s my understudy/Morgan Le Fay (you should have seen the look on her face!), Greg’s King Arthur (you know what I think of his arrogant ass), and one of the swim boys is Lancelot.

I have the script lying next to this diary, pristine and white, with Camelot in big black letters on the front. It will be my companion for the next three to four months. I can’t wait!

February 17, 1986

I haven’t written in awhile-been busy learning all my lines and I’ve got them memorized!  Funny how easy that is when you’re the leading lady. I’m in a dream of knights and ladies and castles. I hope I never wake up.

February 23, 1986

My parents got my progress report today. Mr. Kearney gave me D in algebra and the rest of my grades have fallen too, except for choir and drama. Papa is livid and actually said that he won’t let me go to the Conservatory this summer like he promised if I don’t bring up my grades to B’s and C’s. Not only
that, he won’t let me take drama next year. He might as well have stuck a knife in my heart.