Page 51 of How To Plot a Payback

For starters, she blew everyone away opening night, which is great and wonderful and just brilliant. Then, of course, we have yet to discuss the part about the agent, the aunt of a sixth-form student with a minor role who came and was so impressed by this young understudy, who jumped into the role of Puck with such vigor and a fresh, wide-open face, that she just had to talk to her afterwards. Which, four weeks later during summer break, led to Lavender flying to LA to audition for a handful of roles. Which led to her parents’ decision to homeschool Lavender for her Upper Sixth year while she flew into the world of acting, arms open wide. All facts I learned about, for the record, while painfully crutching around campus in a cast.

I reach for her hand on my shoulder. Lift it as I look down at her shining, hopeful face. Step back. Let it go. “Third door down, right?”

Chapter 10

Lavender

Wednesday, Rehearsals, Stage 2

So Finn has a chip on his shoulder.

It isn’t a healthy way to go through life, carrying that weight around for fifteen years, but who am I to judge? I, too, have faced my own demons, not in the form of grudges but equally self-damaging. Don’t we all have our own particular stumbling blocks? I will just make it my job to mend the situation. To help him move on.

I stand offstage during a break, munching on an apple, staring at the wall. I must look visibly off, because Sonya is at my side before I’ve had two bites, crossing her arms, staring at the wall as if trying to see what I’m seeing. “What are you doing?” she says at last.

“I’m thinking,” I reply.

“I can see that. But there’s regular Lavender thinking, and there’s Lavender-is-off-plotting-something-and-I-should-probably-cut-her-off-before-we-end-up-doing-something-really-stupid-together thinking. What are you scheming up?”

“Nothing,” I say. “Well, not yet. It’s just”—I hold the partly eaten apple to my lips—“I’ve just been enlightened to the fact that I’ve been a thorn in someone’s side for the past decade or so, and I’d like to remedy it. I’m just trying to figure out how big of an offering I’m going to need to provide to make up for being someone’s object of wrath for so long.”

Sonya laughs. “Object of wrath, eh? You know, I think I did see that on a Kay Jewelers flyer recently. A really nice set of pearls beneath the words ‘Need to ask for forgiveness for being an object of wrath? Come on by and ask for the Object-of-Wrath Remedy special!’”

I take another bite. Munch thoughtfully. After a long pause, I say, “I think he’s more of a watch man, but I like where your head is at. Keep brainstorming.”

She shakes her head. Turns to the snack table, where there is no enormous charcuterie board with swirls of lavish meats (and apparently allergy-inducing turmeric) this time, but a much simpler, grabbed-at-the-last-minute deli spread. Sonya begins rearranging the little blueberry muffins by muffin-liner color.

Pink.

Red.

Pink.

Red.

I watch her for a substantial length of time, then switch two muffins when she’s not looking.

“So what did you do exactly?” she says, frowning at a man reaching for a turkey sandwich from the lineup of sandwiches she’s currently rearranging. She pushes his hand away. Hands him a muffin.

“Well,” I say, “he accused me of breaking his ankle and, I gather from his muttering as we walked down the hall, sabotaging his lifelong dreams.”

Her perfectly plucked brows jump and her perfectly polished (white, of course) fingers stop stripping the toothpicks of their neon green and red frill. “Did you?”

“Did I sabotage his dreams? Well, yes. Technically. I forgot to shut a trapdoor just before he went onstage . . . and it was pitch-black where he was supposed to be crouching in this little tree prop.” I pause, remembering. “And the drop-off was actually through the floor to this whole room below the stage. So he probably fell a good fifteen feet before landing on concrete.”

Sonya winces.

“Not to mention the ladder he probably struck on the way down,” I add. “Which explains the screws they patched his foot back together with—”

Her face looks a little green now.

“And then of course, there’s the whole problem that I happened to be the understudy for his role, and that was how I first met Nancy—”

“Nancy Harra,” she says. “Our agent?”

I nod.

“Wait,” she says, putting up a finger. “So you’re saying he fell fifteen feet and shattered his body because you didn’t shut a door, then you took his role, then from said role you landed Nancy as your agent, who brought you to LA and landed you ultimately in Neighbors, the number-one most-watched sitcom in television history?”