Cinnamon Read online

  "Cinnamon," Miss Hamilton said. "Cinnamon Carlson."

  "Yes, Cinnamon. All of it is at least thirty percent perseverance. Then there is about thirty percent luck, being in the right place at the right time. The rest has to do with talent. If it's in you to do it, you'll do it, if not..."

  "I'll teach?" I countered. Miss Hamilton laughed.

  "Or take tickets at the entrance," he shot back. He turned to Miss Hamilton. "You will have the information you need," He looked at me. "Good luck."

  "That's thirty percent," I said.

  He almost smiled. His eves brightened with some appreciation. Then he nodded, thanked Miss Hamilton for inviting him and left.

  "Who was that?" I grimaced.

  "He really is a very powerful agent. Cinnamon, and his mother's school is really the most sought after in the county. All her graduates go on to find success in a most competitive world. I want you to think about auditioning. Two weeks from now, in New York. I'll go with you, if you like. I'll get all the information to you and your parents."

  "I don't know. Miss Hamilton."

  "Talk it over with your family. I'll mention it to your mother and father when I see them out in the lobby now. You were wonderful. Cinnamon. Really wonderful."

  She left me wondering what all this meant. Most of my fellow students were already planning their futures and applying to colleges. Daddy wanted me to go to his alma mater. NYU, but I had vet to submit the application. I was anxious to see how Mommy reacted to Miss Hamilton's suggestion.

  By the time I arrived in the lobby, there were only a few stragglers left. Mommy and Daddy and Grandmother Beverly, who looked impatient, were still talking with Miss Hamilton.

  "Here's our little star," Daddy said and gave me a kiss on the cheek. "We're all very proud of vou. Cinnamon, very proud."

  Miss Hamilton stood there. beaming. However. I saw how Grandmother Beverly was looking at her, her eyes fixed with accusations.

  "I'm tired," I declared.

  "Of course, you are. sweetheart." Mommy said. She put her arm around my shoulders. I said good night to Miss Hamilton and we left, my triumph hovering around me like an angelic light. Anyone left in the lobby and in the parking lot shouted their congratulations. I couldn't help but wonder where Iris Ainsely and her friends had gone to pout.

  "Miss Hamilton told me about Edmond Senetsky," Mommy said after we started away. She and I sat in the rear and Grandmother Beverly sat up front because she hated sitting in the back. She said it made her feel like she was in a taxicab. I wondered why it didn't make her feel like she was in a limousine, but her answer was she hated that feeling. too.

  "We'll have to learn more about this school," Daddy admonished.

  "Ridiculous," Grandmother Beverly said. "What kind of an education will she get in a school run by an old woman?"

  "She's not just an old woman. She's a famous international actress." I said.

  "It sounds very exciting." Mommy declared.

  "It's very competitive, Mommy. I don't see how I can get chosen."

  "Of course you will." Mommy decided. "Look what you did tonight."

  "We'll see. It does sound very, very

  competitive," Daddy said, punctuating the air with a heavy note of caution. He glanced at Grandmother Beverly who simply shook her head and stared at the road.

  I suddenly felt like the two of them were coconspirators, conspiring against Mommy's dreams and mine. My pride rose quickly up my spine like some flag of defiance.

  "I'd like to try nevertheless," I announced, almost more out of spite than desire.

  "Good," Mommy squealed and hugged me. "I'm so terribly proud of you, sweetheart, so very, very proud."

  Dare I say I was proud of myself, too? Or was that being arrogant?

  I didn't have to say it. Mommy could see it in my face. She was the only one who could, but that was enough. I thought. That was enough.

  The next evening our second performance went as well as the first. During the curtain call, the president of the student government came up to present me with a bouquet of red and white roses. The audience was on its feet applauding. Mommy and Daddy had come again, but Grandmother Beverly had remained at home to watch one of her old movies.

  When I arrived at school on Monday, the accolades continued. All of my teachers lavished so much praise on Inc, I felt myself in a constant blush. Iris Ainsley was never so quiet and in the background. She and her friends were chased off like mice into the corner of the cafeteria, whispering among themselves. They looked small and so insignificant. I chastised myself for ever taking them seriously enough to feel bad after anything they had said or dont.

  The cast remained close. We ate lunch together and all of us basked in the continuing adulation. Then. on Wednesday. Miss Hamilton nave me the information about the audition. It was being held in a week at a small off-Broadway theater Madame Senetsky used every year for this purpose. I clutched the paper containing the details in my hand. My parents had to call to make the appointment.

  "If you want me to go with you. I will," Miss Hamilton offered again. "But it might be something you and your parents should do together, a family thing," she added, "I don't mean to interfere."

  "I'm sure my mother would want you to go if I do," I said.

  "Give it a try, Cinnamon. If you don't, you'll always wonder. Believe me. Those kinds of questions haunt you for your whole life."

  I nodded, but I was so nervous about it that I almost decided not to tell Mommy when I arrived home that afternoon. She was reading and listening to music in her room, but I could tell from the way she sat and from the tightness of the lines in her face that she was upset about something. Was it something Grandmother Beverly had done or said? I wondered. "Hi, honey," she said lowering her book.

  "What's wrong, Mommy?" I asked

  immediately. Her face was a book I could easily read.

  She smiled at me.

  "We're too alike, you and I. How can I ever hide anything? Your father was supposed to take us out to dinner, to celebrate your success, but he called just a half hour ago to tell me he was called to a very important meeting and wouldn't be home until ten tonight. Grandmother Beverly made one of her famous bland meat loafs."

  My heart raced, chased my own rage,. "Let's go out for pizza," I suggested.

  "Really?"

  "Yes, Mommy.I'll change into something more pizza-ish and well just go ourselves," I said, my voice laced with defiance. She laughed.

  "Yes, why not? Grandmother Beverly doesn't mind eating alone. She's alone when she's eating with us anyway," Mommy said.

  We laughed and I went to change. Mommy informed Grandmother Beverly of our intentions.

  "She didn't say a word," Mommy told me when we got into my car and I started for my favorite pizza hangout. "She barely nodded."

  "She uses silence like a sword," I said.

  "I can't help feeling sorry for her sometimes. Cinnamon. She has no real friends, no one from her past life with Grandpa Carlson who cares to stay in touch with her, just a bunch of busy-bodies looking for juicy gossip. She puts so much emphasis on taking care of Daddy and competing with me that she doesn't have time to nurture relationships. But the truth is your father seems oblivious to the both of us these days," she added sadly.

  Should I tell her what I knew, what I had seen? Was she ready, strong enough? What if it set her back, wounded her so deeply she had to return to the clinic? How could I live with myself? How could I ever look at Daddy, much less live with him afterward? It was hard enough doing it now.

  I swallowed the story back and stuffed it tightly in the dark drawer under my heart.

  Mommy loved the pizza place. She said it reminded her so much of her own childhood and teenage years. She talked incessantly, almost with a nervous energy that made me suspicious, but she did tell me stories about her youth that I had never heard, stories about boyfriends and girlfriends and her own fantasies.

  "I didn't want to be an actress. I wante
d to be a singer. I had an old aunt. Grandma Gussie's sister Ethel who told me that you could train your voice or turn it into a good singing voice if you found a place where you could get a good echo. I found one about a half-mile from our house, a little canyon. and I used to go there and practice the scales. I think I frightened off not only the birds and squirrels, but the insects. I did go out for chorus. but I was never chosen to do anything more than sing along.

  "Fantasies die slow, quiet deaths. They're like cherry blossoms breaking away and sailing down slowly, still holding onto their color and their softness and beauty, but ending up on the ground to be blown about by cold winds.

  "Don't let that happen to your dream. Cinnamon," she warned. "This is more than a fantasy. You've got something, a Gift, and don't let anyone or anything stop you. Promise me. Promise me you won't let anyone discourage you." she begged.

  I promised and then I showed her the paper Miss Hamilton had given me,

  "Then this is real, an opportunity!" she cried. She was happier for me than I was for myself. I think. I hated myself for even harboring a hesitation. "I'll take care of this in the morning."

  "Miss Hamilton offered to go with us if we'd like her to," I said.

  Mammy seemed to lose some of her excitement and glow. I shouldn't have told her. I thought.

  "Of course, if you'd like her to go with us, she can."

  "It's not that important. Mommy. I think she's just so excited for me. She's an orphan, you know."

  "Oh?"

  We both ate some pizza and I told her as much as I knew about Miss Hamilton.

  "No," Mommy decided after she heard the details. "she should go with us. She is the one really responsible for all this. Why shouldn't we make her part of it? Besides, if I treat her like I believed those nasty rumors. I would be as guilty as someone spreading them."

  I nodded.

  Then we went back to giggling, eating our pizza, listening to the music and acting like a couple of teenage sisters. It turned out to be the best time we had together since she had come back from the clinic.

  When we got back to the house. I went to do my homework and study for a math test. Mommy returned to her reading. Daddy didn't come home at ten. It was nearly eleven-thirty when I heard his footsteps on the stairway. He went by my room quickly and quietly. I heard their bedroom door close and then the silence of sadness closed in around me, driving me to the sanctity of sleep.

  The next day Mommy had all sorts of information for me when I returned from school. Madame Senetsky's administrative assistant told Mammy to have me prepare a speech from The Taming of the Shrew. We had a collection of Shakespearean plays and Mommy had already found the pages.

  "We're going Saturday," she told me. "Ten A.M."

  "Saturday! That's only two days away!"

  "Don't worry, We'll practice plenty." she declared. Then she added. "Tell Miss Hamilton and ask her for any suggestions. too.'

  Meanwhile. Mommy and I began that evening. She thought it would be so right for me to practice in our attic room where my dramatic life had really had its beginning,

  "Besides." she said almost in a whisper. "the spirits will be with us as they were with you on that stage."

  Who was I to doubt it? I thought.

  We went up right after dinner. Daddy came to see what we were doing because we were there so long. He listened a little and then he left, shaking his head and smiling. At dinner Friday night,

  Grandmother Beverly gave voice to her disapproval.

  "Why shouldn't she be chosen?" she asked. "Don't believe all that business about it being very competitive. I saw that paper. I saw how expensive it is to attend that so-called school of dramatics. It's a waste of good money-- and while she should be at a proper school learning something useful,"

  "It is expensive," Mommy ageed. I looked up quickly. Daddy stopped eating. too. "I was going to ask you to release some of the trust fund that Grandfather Carlson and you established for her."

  "She's not to touch that until she's twenty-one." Grandmother Beverly declared.

  "I know, but that wasn't well thought out. Young people need college money and they need that before they're twenty-one."

  "But this isn't a college. It's... it's... a foolish indulgence. I won't agree to waste a cent on such nonsense."

  "It is a hefty tuition," Daddy said softly.

  "Yes, but it includes everything. She lives at the school, is taken under wing by Madame Senetsky."

  "Lives at the school." Grandmother Beverly practically spit. "It's just some old New York house. She's running this scam to meet her expenses because she was probably a great failure."

  "That's a lie," I cried. "I read all about her. She was a very famous actress and people from

  everywhere try to get into her school. I probably won't even have a chance."

  "Lucky for you," Grandmother Beverly said.

  Mommy looked like she was going to burst a blood vessel.

  "Yes," I said calmly, softly, almost sweetly, "if I don't make it, it's probably lucky because I won't chase a foolish dream. You're so right. Grandmother Beverly."

  Mommy's eyebrows went up and then she looked at me and I at her and we both burst into a fit of laughter that surprised Daddy and drove

  Grandmother Beverly from the table mumbling to herself.

  Daddy woke up with a terrible sinus headache on Saturday morning. He had said he was going with us and would take us all to a nice lunch in Greenwich Village. but Mommy told him to stay home and nurse his head cold instead,

  "You'll only be uncomfortable and take Cinnamon's attention from her work." Mommy added.

  He didn't put up a neat deal of resistance and, of course. Grandmother Beverly agreed.

  "You should all stay home," she said.

  "You don't want to come then?" Mommy asked her. "We could have a nice day in the city."

  "Me? I hate the city." she replied, but she looked unsure of Mommy's motives, almost as if she wanted to believe we really hoped she would come. For the first time I wondered if Mommy was right about her: she was just a very lonely old woman we should pity.

  We left and picked up Miss Hamilton. On the way in she talked about the auditions she had undergone during her acting days.

  "Everyone is nervous. If you're not, you just don't care enough." she said.

  "That's very true." Mommy agreed, "I imagine if you're too nonchalant, you give off an air of indifference and turn off the director."

  "The trick, if there is a trick, is to not think of yourself in that theater on that small stage. Cinnamon. Get into the play. You know it so well. We read it in class earlier this year," she told Mammy.

  "Yes, Cinnamon loved it, and actually went around reciting some of Kate's lines long before this."

  "That's wonderful," Miss Hamilton said. "Then this is meant to be."

  They got into a discussion about plays they had seen and by the time we arrived at the little theater, they were laughing and joking together like old friends. It made me happy and took away some of my nervousness. but I was still so terrified. I thought my legs would surely fold up beneath me the moment I stepped onto that stage.

  When we entered the theater, we were surprised to see no other candidates. The room itself was dark and there was just a small spotlight turned on, dropping a circle of light upstage.

  "Edmond told me this might be the case," Miss Hamilton whispered.

  "She doesn't like other candidates sitting around. watching someone else audition."

  "Someone else?" Mammy said. "There's no one here at all!"

  "Not true," we heard a strong, deep female voice state.

  At the rear of the auditorium, seated in the shadows so that we could barely make her out was who we imagined to be Madame Senetsky herself. Her pewter gray hair was pulled tightly up into a coiled chignon at the top of her head and clipped with a large, black comb.

  "Madame Senetsky?" Miss Hamilton asked.

  "Of course. Please have your can
didate take the stage immediately. Promptness is essential in the theater, as it should be in life itself," she added.

  "Why is she sitting in the dark?" Mommy wondered in a whisper.

  "Go on. Cinnamon," Miss Hamilton said. She moved into an aisle, taking the second seat and leaving the aisle seat for Mommy.

  "She could greet us at least." Mammy muttered but sat.

  I started for the stage, my heart not pounding or thumping so much as it was tightening in my chest. It felt difficult to breathe. Why should I be so nervous? I wondered. There's only one person in this audience. I told myself. It's not like it was at the school play with nearly a thousand in attendance. One pair of eyes and one pair of ears are out there.

  Mommy was right. Why didn't she have the decency to greet us and at least make me feel comfortable? What arrogance, I thought. I grew angrier with every step toward the stage.

  Who does she think she is? She didn't win an Academy Award, did she? Most people won't remember who she is. It's impolite not to have greeted Mommy and Miss Hamilton. I felt like turning around and unleashing a tirade that would shake that chignon loose.

  Instead. I stepped onto the stage, took a deep breath, closed my eyes and told myself to be Kate, to move forward into the play, to do such a good job. I would make that pompous woman feel terrible about her treatment of us.

  "Well?" she cried.

  If that was intended to throw me off, to unnerve me and see whether I would crack and run off the stage, it didn't work.

  "Well, indeed," I whispered.

  I stepped forward and began... "Fie, fie..."

  I loved Kate, loved her fury and her defiance. but I also loved the way she was conquered, convinced and ultimately wooed to love Petruchio. In the end they were the most romantic, loving and considerate couple on earth. I dreamed I would have such a romance someday and such a marriage,

  Miss Hamilton and Mommy clapped at the end of my speech. I stood there waiting, to hear

  something, but there was just silence after that.

  Then the spotlight went out. "What the..."