Love, Lust, and Jealousy.
It's a story Cora knows all too well - not because it's her own, but that of her character in Illicit Affairs, the murderous romance that's about to take Broadway by storm. It's her crowning achievement, her pride and joy...
Not all of her memories in the theater were happy ones.
Her freshman year of high school was perhaps the worst of it.
Cora sat at the dinner table with her parents, picking at the baked potato on her plate. She was one of those uncool teenagers who generally still enjoyed family meals—her mom's cooking was more than enough to make up for any unwanted conversations that ensued.
Silas and Stella Kline had always been good parents, albeit overbearing at times, but whose parents weren't? He was a director of data strategy, she was an HR specialist, and Cora very rarely wanted for anything that they couldn't afford. The house was clean and spacious, they had a fenced-in backyard, and her parents liked and trusted Simon enough to let him come over virtually whenever Cora wanted him to. They weren't the richest people in Rothbury, but they certainly weren't the poorest, and nobody in the town was truly poor to begin with. No, this town's definition of lower-class was simply the people who sent their kids to public school or couldn't afford annual memberships at the country club.
"How were rehearsals?" Mom asked as Cora nudged a chunk of potato around her plate with her fork.
"Fine."
She wasn't looking up, but she could feel her mother's gaze boring into her. "Are you okay, Cora?"
"I'm fine," she echoed herself. "Just tired."
But she wasn't fine, and she could still feel a stinging in the back of her eyes. The theatre club was preparing for their fall musical, The Addams Family, and Cora was in the ensemble along with some other freshmen girls. They got to try on their costumes for the first time today. But while all the other girls had barely gone through puberty and were still as slim as sticks, Cora was already curvier, and her costume clung tightly to her where it was supposed to hang loose. Like it did on everyone else.
She'd heard them all giggling at her.
"Are you not hungry?" Dad spoke up. "You've barely touched your food, sweetheart."
"I'm sorry," she said dully, staring at her plate. "I guess I just don't have much of an appetite today."
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Since Rasmus and Cora shared the great misfortune of living in the same building, they begrudgingly agreed to meet in the lobby and go to their interview together.
He wasn't all that surprised when he got there first. In the grand scheme of humanity, he supposed that he would classify her as one of the more punctual people out there, but girls always took twice as long to get ready than you expected them to. Even Ava, who was still young enough that he sometimes struggled to forget that she wasn't a little kid anymore, was the same way.
To Cora's credit, she showed up just a minute later than he did. But to her discredit, she looked a little bit silly—as she walked over to him, he noticed that a piece of hair at the back of her head was sticking up.
