Free Viola in Reel Life by Adriana Trigiani Page B

anything about lame Founder’s Day being this much fun.
    I pull out my video camera and begin filming the backstage area. I press Record and then Audio:
    “The Viola Diaries continued. It would appear that I am showing you rows and rows of objects called props. They are. This is my first theatrical venture. The program calls me the set designer, though really I didn’t do any of the crappy wooden chairs and tables you see in the scenes, but rather the high-tech visual landscapes that appear behind the actors as they play through their scenes. It’s probably important to make note of this because someday, when I look back, it may signify the very moment where I set foot in the theater and stayed for a lifetime. Who knows? I can’t be sure. I’m fourteen and it’s pretty obvious to me that things change. But this is where I am today. At the Prefect Academy. South Bend, Indiana.”
    I sign off and lock in the date.
    The theater has the scent of buttery wax and fresh paint. I go onstage and face the audience. I close my eyesand imagine a stage filled with ballerinas or World War I soldiers or a 1930s dinner party where ladies wore gowns. I open my eyes. I wonder if this feeling I’m having right now is “the bug.” Grand always talks about when she was a girl and was bitten by the acting “bug”—as though it’s a virus that races through you and once it does, you’re never over it. And I think that might be true. Look at Grand. She’s in her sixties and she’s still got the “bug.” I wonder if I’ve caught it too.
    I look up and squint past the glare of the work lights. In the rafters over the stage, where complicated skeins of pulleys and ropes, wires and beams that lift scenery and hold lighting instruments in place live, I see a flash of red.
    Whatever I’m seeing sort of freaks me out. I’m not one to stand still when I’m freaking, so I move quickly across the stage in rapid small steps like a geisha. When I get to the stairs that lead into the audience, I quicken my pace. I grab my laptop and my backpack off the lip of the stage and head up the aisle to go out into the lobby.
    “It’s only me,” a voice says.
    I turn slowly, afraid of what I’ll see.
    Mrs. Belldoin, the janitor, pushes her cart loaded with cleaning supplies through the stage door and onto the stage. When she sees me and the look on my face andthe way I’m gripping my backpack like a pillow during a bad dream, she says, “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
    “I’m okay.”
    “You know we lock the building at eight,” she says.
    “I know.” But instead of heading out the door I get some courage, mostly because Mrs. Belldoin could take any guy in a fight, and there’s nothing to fear when she’s around. So I walk to the downstage lip of the stage and look up, up through the ropes, pulleys, and wires, past the work lights, and into the grid. The flash of red is gone—but not the scent of perfume. That stays.
    Dear Viola ,
    I called Aunt Naira about the possibility of the Red Lady following you around and spritzing places you go with her perfume. She said that ghosts don’t, like, move around much. They stay in one building until they’re chased out. So maybe you’re not dealing with a normal spirit but something else. What, I don’t know. She also recommended that you get your eyes checked. Flashes of red indicate something medical — like maybe the onset of myopia. At our age, that is very common .
    Tag Nachmanoff is dating two girls—Lucy Caruso and Maxine Neal. That’s right, both at the same time . Not on the same dates of course, but neither are objecting. Can you imagine?
    Love, Caitlin
    (Oh, I might not be able to write back for a while. My mom is looking for a new computer — this one is acting up too much. It’s so old it actually throws heat. xoxox)
    I can literally feel the admiration from my roommates when I enter the dining hall for breakfast the morning after our show. The Founder’s Day show was a hit