Something Wicked

Given the overwhelming success (and/or marketing) of Wicked, please enjoy a related early chapter from my book, Susie Sweetheart Is Back From the Dead

A bead of sweat trickled past my eyelash, stinging my eye and temporarily coloring my vision emerald. It was fitting. Nerves bubbled in the cauldron of my stomach.

The act before me was wrapping up—a not so impressive diablo whip performance set to the tune of a popular rap song I couldn’t tell you the name of if I tried.

I flexed my hands, knuckles and fingers tightening around the heavy curtain. Paint cracked along my skin, flaking onto the floor backstage. Little green specks, floating and disappearing into the black.

A love of musical theater was one of the few things my mother and I had in common. She even took me to Broadway twice a year. Just us. Every single one of those trips into the city made me feel special—me, important enough to share orchestra seat tickets with. The songs swelled within me, speaking to my heart in a way I didn’t know was possible—making me feel things I didn’t know were possible.

The theater may have been my favorite place in the world, but only when I was watching a story unfold on the stage. Never when I was on it. The attention made my skin crawl.

Across the stage, behind a similar curtain, a blonde woman in a pink dress revealing far too much cleavage for her age, leaned over to whisper into the student music director’s ear. Dylan. He had been the top musician at the school for the past three years, and I adored him for every day of it. His blonde wavy hair fell into his warm brown eyes as he smiled, stretching the freckles across his nose. I loved that smile. When he became my lab partner this past fall, it was an effort to even speak to him. And there my mother was, flirting with him like it was nothing.

Eleanor Beatrice Whitney put a hand on his shoulder and laughed.

My jaw tightened, pulling the green paint taut across my face, probably creating fractures along the jawline. I’d look even more frightening out there.

The diablo act ended with a smattering of luke warm applause.

Ugh, for the love of libraries, I really don’t want to be here. How’d I let her talk me into this?

My whole life was differing degrees of appeasing my mother.

“Catherine,” a stagehand whispered behind me, pressing a microphone into my hand. “You’re up.”

My feet remained stuck until his hand on my back pushed me onto the stage. I stumbled. One lone spotlight shone on the center, a beacon of doom. Dread pooled in my stomach. The audience, faces hardly visible, chittered and shifted.

I turned the mic on, my hand trembling slightly. “Good evening,” I said, wincing at the pinch of playback. I moved the microphone further from my mouth. “I’m Catherine Whitney, and I… we…” I looked over at my mother just as Dylan was slipping a piece of paper into his back pocket. “Are performing a duet from Wicked.”

Dylan walked deeper backstage, away from my mother, away from me. Midlife Barbie turned her attention to me. She smiled and waved, trying to seem innocent.

I gestured with my free hand for her to come out on stage. Please. It would be so like her to make me do this on my own after she begged me to do this with her, all so she could watch me crash and burn.

The music started, quiet at first, then picked up volume. My heart skipped a beat, eyes widening. I whirled to the stagehand who gave me a thumbs up. This isn’t the music I…

My mother strut onto the stage, a microphone of her own in hand, and began singing. “Whenever I see someone, less fortunate than I,” her eyes are trained on me, “And let’s face it, who isn’t less fortunate than I? My tender heart tends to start to bleed…”

She approached, beaming. The spotlight suited her. With her free hand she closed my gaping mouth then circled me, same hand trailing across the back of my shoulders. “And when someone needs a makeover, I simply have to takeover…”

The audience laughed. She picked up a piece of my hair, styled in a way that made me feel pretty, and let it drop limply back to my shoulder.

I didn’t feel pretty anymore.

I felt so, so small.

That was my mother’s real hidden talent.

Putting an arm around me, she continued, “I’ll teach you to talk to boys, little ways to flirt and flounce…”

To my utter horror, the audience began to sing with her. “Popular. You’re gonna be popular.”

Blood rushed to my cheeks.

Line after line of the song slammed into me as if she was directing every lyric at me, my person, her daughter. This duet wasn’t a duet at all. I didn’t have a single line to sing. Just four words spoken at the very end.

“Don’t be offended by my frank analysis, think of it as personality dialysis…”

Tears sprung to my eyes. Do not cry. Do not let them see you cry. My hands tightened into fists.

“With an assist from me, to be who you’ll be, instead of dreary who you were, well are…”

I tried to walk off the stage but she grabbed my black gown—the one she picked out—and dragged me back. Again the audience snickered, thinking it all part of the act. I blinked, forcing the torrent of emotion rising in me behind the wall I’ve built in my mind.

“When I see depressing creatures with unprepossessing features, I remind them on their own behalf to think of celebrated heads of state or ‘specially great communicators! Did they have brains or knowledge? Don’t make me laugh!”

I bit the inside of my cheek hard enough to draw blood.

“It’s not about aptitude, it’s the way you’re viewed, and it’s very shrewd to be very, very popular like me.”

The audience erupted into applause, standing and heaping praise upon our act—my mother’s performance.

I cleared my throat. “I have to go.”

Her eyes lit up, glad I upheld my end of the ‘duet,’ and she finally let me edge off the stage.

I watched from the curtain as she finished her last few lines. She bowed and threw kisses to her fans, all the people who loved watching her take me down a notch.

High school was already a nightmare, but now I wasn’t sure how I would ever be able to show my face. I might as well die. It’d make no difference.

Standing behind the curtain, I let one lone tear escape my lashes. It snaked down my cheek and clung to my chin. When it dropped to the floor, disappearing into the dark like my green flecks of paint, I would shut down these feelings and join in the applause.

Smiling like my life depended on it, I became another of my mother’s adoring fans.

“Wasn’t I spectacular?” My mother ran a preening hand through her hair, beaming from her end of the dining table, an antique handed down from one of my father’s father’s fathers. I lost track.

“Absolutely glorious, Nell,” my father crooned, holding his glass of expensive red wine up in salute across the table from her. Christian Whitney Jr, judge extraordinaire and lackluster father, was all old money air and charisma. Brown hair graying at the temples gave him a look of austerity he relished leaning into—both at home and in the courtroom.

“Sensational, Mom,” my brother, Christian Whitney III, agreed. He was the spitting image of my father though he lacked the same caliber of intelligence. “Best performance of the night.”

“Thank you, Trip,” Eleanor said, squeezing his hand. “It was just such a rush to be on stage again!”

I stabbed a sad, little, purple, limp leaf of Romaine on my plate. The fork screeched against the ceramic.

“Catherine.” My mother shuddered. “What are you grumpy about now?”

“Sorry, mom,” I mumbled, not sorry at all.

My father shook his head, a smile on his face, presumably still thinking about my mother’s performance at my talent show. “I’d say aging like fine wine, but you don’t look a day over twenty.”

She glowed at his sickly-sweet praise.

It should be noted that she actually looked forty years old trying to look half her age. I tried not to gag but maybe I didn’t try hard enough since a small sound escaped my lips.

“Catherine!” My mother snapped, glaring at me.

Trip sniggered behind his napkin.

Emotion flared deep in my chest—though I wasn’t sure if it was anger or humiliation or just desperation. I wanted to say something, but I hesitated. My parents pulled all my puppet strings, but they could also cut them. Then what would I be?

Nothing.

“I thought we were supposed to sing together,” I mumbled. My stomach rumbled, my eyes tracked around the table to everyone else’s plate.

She waved her fork at me, shrimp dangling off it. “Didn’t we, honey?”

“Well, the song was different. I just thought we picked something less,” my mind wracked itself for a word strong but inoffensive enough to avoid a blowup, “conspicuous.”

She tsked, looking at the ceiling as if asking God for patience as she pat her mouth with her napkin. “Well, you made the decisions that brought you there.”

“Mm,” my father hummed after swallowing another bite of food. “She’s right. Hiding in your room with a stack of books. That’s no way to win friends or influence.” He scoffed, putting down the fork. “Your grandfather would be disappointed.”

Just like my parents so obviously are.

“A little too different, Cat,” Trip said, planting his arms on the table. “Maybe you should’ve stayed green.” A self-satisfied smile spread across his face.

I pursed my lips. “We have the same genes, dumb-ass.”

“Language,” Eleanor snapped.

“Stop being so dramatic, dear,” CJ said, stern gaze focused on me. From the corner of his eye, he must have caught sight of Trip’s smug display because he brushed my brother’s elbows off the table in one dismissive move.

“Besides, the song was about how I can make you something better than you are.”

“Really? ‘Cause it sounded like it was about you.” I took a bite of salad, mumbling around my food, “Isn’t it usually?”

My father’s fist slammed against the table, rattling the silverware and glassware. I jerked back in my seat. “That is enough.”

Every thought emptied out of my head.

“Your disrespect is disappointing.”

I know what it means when his voice gets deep and quiet like that.

Don’t push.

“How dare you talk to your mother that way? After all she’s done for you? All we’ve done for you?”

I closed my eyes, breathing deeply. Suck it up. Just get through this meal. Then one more year. Then…

When I looked back up, swinging my gaze between the two of them, anger should have fueled everything that came next. Instead, I nodded. “You’re right,” I said, voice meek. ‘I’m very lucky.”

Eleanor sniffed.

“You stole the show, Mom,” I said, swallowing the bitterness clawing up my throat. “Really.” The lie felt rancid on my tongue.

She smiled, appeased; my father settled back into his chair.

For the rest of the meal they discussed my father’s court cases, my mother’s nonprofit fundraisers, Trip’s looming graduation. Not a single one of them looked my way again, let alone asked me a question.

Just another day in the Whitney household. Isolated and lonely.

Such joy.

I watched the lettuce wilt further on my plate, tuning out the noise. My stomach grumbled again.

Maybe after I fit into the dress for Trip’s party, I’d finally be able to have pasta again.

My room, much like the rest of the house, was all white. Sterile. Eleanor wouldn’t even let me have a colored pillow or hang posters on the wall. She felt it disrupted the clean, relaxing energy of our shared spaces. To me, it felt like she had no idea what she was talking about. The only vibes I could pick up were ‘asylum’ and the occasional ‘Bond villain lair.’ Truthfully, the latter may have been just a wee bit exciting if I was allowed to do anything. As it was, asylum was more accurate.

It wasn’t until I was back in my semblance of a safe space, door closed, that I let the fortress I built around myself fall. Sitting at my vanity, I stared at myself in the mirror—I looked like a sad caricature, drawn out in black and white. Blue eyes that could have glittered looked cold, hollow. Puppy eyes would have been more flattering. My hair was still wet from the shower I took after the (forever infamous, to me) talent show and tied in a messy knot atop my head. Only a few tears managed to sneak past my lashes, and for that I was proud.

Whitney’s didn’t cry.

The door creaked open. I stiffened. Standing in the doorway was a lean figure with a hesitant smile. Our live-in maid who did practically everything for us—cooking, cleaning, laundry. She even felt like my salvation. Before Anya, we had a series of Spanish-speaking nannies. All of them were old, and mean.

When I was feeling self-indulgent, I imagined my parents hired Anya to be a proxy older sister.

I wiped my cheeks with my fingertips. “Come in.”

She slid into the room noiselessly and closed the door behind her.

“How’d it go, solnishka?”

Sunshine. That shouldn’t be used in reference to me. It was Anya who embodied the word. Only a few years older than me, she kept me sane. She once told me she moved to the US from Lithuania to model but by chance (and luck) she ended up with us. I thought she was too smart to model, anyway. We shared a love of reading, improving our minds, watching silly romantic comedies. When she moved in with us, I latched onto her, like she was my prettier, cooler other half. I didn’t even give her a choice, I was that desperate for companionship.

“There’s a Tony with our name on it,” I said drily.

Anya walked up behind me, putting her hands on my shoulders, and met my gaze in the mirror. Her eyes snagged on the lingering wetness on my lashes. “That good, huh?”

My posture sagged. I reached up to my ears, unfastening the jewelry there. Anya had lent me her bright drop earrings—a gift from her Russian mother long ago—for confidence. I rolled the round ornament between my fingers. It was aquamarine and blue with adorned with gold and red enamel. Her hand closed around mine, squeezing lightly, before returning her jewelry to its rightful place.

She looped a finger under the scrunchie holding my hair in its messy knot, pulling. Dark curls fell past my shoulders. Picking up a brush from the vanity, she began to ease it through my strands.

I closed my eyes, letting myself feel safe and loved.

“She let the whole school know what a loser I am.” My chest ached. “How am I supposed to go back to that place?”

Stroke by stroke, her movements soothed me. “They’ll forget about it by the end of the summer. You have two months to not worry about them. And then, just one more year until you’re free.”

The wistfulness in her voice made my eyes pop open. I peered at her, curious. “What’ll you do when Trip and I go to college?” I had never thought about it before.

She shrugged, her face falling carefully blank. “Stay here, I suppose.”

“Come with me,” I say, brightening at the idea. “We can find an apartment together! I’ll pay for everything until you can find another job. We’d both be free of these crazies!”

Anya wrapped her arms around my shoulders, pulling me close into her stomach. There was such tenderness in her touch that my heart cracked a little. My upbringing ensured that I was emotionally illiterate, so I wasn’t quite sure why it was breaking. I brushed it aside and hugged her closer.

“I would if I could, solnishka. I really would.”

Hope you enjoyed… and if you listened, I’m sorry for singing! LOL

Until next time!

xx, bb