Read Viola in the Spotlight for Free Online

His family is nuts, including two spinster aunts who live in a house in Brooklyn and have taken to poisoning old men with wine that is laced with arsenic. Grand is playing Martha Brewster, one of the old aunts. George has a young love interest in the play, and Grand is not one bit jealous of her. Mom says that’s one of the things about Grand that makes her alluring. Grand has self-confidence.
    Dad and Mom are totally sucking up to Mr. Longfellow. Anything he needs, he gets. Dad even loaned Mr. Longfellow our Bose CD player. The great director is playing CDs of Victrola-style music constantly, which makes me depressed. It sounds like somebody is hand cranking old records from a Norma Shearer movie, scratches and wah-wahs and all. Evidently, Mr. L isn’t listening for pleasure; he is choosing transition music for the play. He is very picky (Grand says), so he’s listening to every tune of that era he can get his hands on (George says).
    Grand, like all actresses, is that mix of eternally grateful at having a job on Broadway, which makes her humble, and confident that she will do a good job, which makes her seem a little stuck-up. It takes humility and guts to be an artist, as she and my parents are quick to remind me. You have to believe in yourself just enough, not too much, and then push until you get what you want.
    Mom is already planning what she is going to wear to opening night, which is only six weeks away. Grand always throws a big opening-night party in her apartment after the official party thrown by the producers. She makes casseroles from her Arlene Francis cookbook (Arlene Francis was famous in the 1950s, and Grand was in a play with her once) and sangria from an old recipe she’s had for years. People sing, laugh, and smoke at her parties, and leave never having had a better time. Sometimes I think Grand loves her opening-night party more than being in the play.
    “Viola, come down. Our guest has arrived,” Mom hollers from the bottom of the stairs. I turn off my laptop and slip into Mom’s welcome home gift to me: laceless red Converse sneakers. I look in the mirror on my way out, smoothing down my hair, which has gotten awful pouffy in the summer humidity.
    “Viola, I’d like you to meet Maurice,” Mom says.
    I size him up politely without staring or acting too interested, a technique that Suzanne taught me. Basically, you just look away a lot, as if you’re aware of everything going on around the boy instead of the boy himself. Using Suzanne’s focus and glance technique, it appears that Maurice is a little taller than me, with blond hair that’s cut super short. He has green eyes and a good face—definitely not as handsome as Tag Nachmanoff (king of LaGuardia High School and the best-looking boy in the coastal U.S.) but pretty cute for a boy from another country.
    “Doesn’t Maurice look like Jude Law?” Mom says.
    I glare at my mother while Maurice’s face turns the color of my sneakers. I can’t believe my mother is bringing up way older actors. If anything, Maurice looks a lot like Sterling Knight, but Mom wouldn’t know him.
    “Welcome to Brooklyn,” I tell him.
    “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he says politely, which is not a shock, because, let’s face it, the British are known for their excellent manners.
    “I’m going to take Maurice down to the apartment. He came here straight from the airport, and he’s very tired.”
    “Okay.”
    I race back up to my room two steps at a time and call Caitlin. “He’s here,” I tell her.
    “What’s he like?”
    “Proper and British. And my mother, I almost died, said he looked like Jude Law.”
    “Does he?” Caitlin wants to know.
    “It wasn’t the first thing I thought when I looked at him. I mean, he sounds like Jude Law, but so does every British guy.”
    “I wish he looked like Robert Pattinson,” Caitlin says dreamily.
    “You are so obsessed with movie stars.”
    “I know. They seem so perfect to me,” Caitlin