The Rehearsal

beautiful and its ragged tail getting duller and more ordinary as it trails away.
    “Cunts,” says Julia under her breath, and she tugs savagely at the zipper of her schoolbag.
    “Sorry,” says Isolde.
    “Sorry,” says Julia.
    The first bell rings but Julia and Isolde make no move to rise. They sit on the grassy verge side by side and shred grass.
    “I heard she had a nose job anyway,” Isolde says. “The main girl. Last year.”
    “Can I have a bit of your doughnut?” Julia says, because underneath it all, the ordinary rules of thieving still apply.
    Tuesday
    The role of Mrs. Bly requires a fat suit, and special latex pouches that slip into either cheek to fatten the jaw. The fat suit is impeccable. It is made mostly of silicone, sculpted especially for the woman’s frame, and it is heavy enough to make her stagger when she walks. She is wearing a tubular denim skirt that buttons up the front, and a gold link necklace with a slender golden charm, and she has rouged her fattened cheeks and sprayed her hair with scented mist. She waddles gracefully into the room and descends upon one of the armchairs, sighing and reaching down to rub her artificially fattened calf. You can’t even tell it’s a fat suit. The saxophone teacher almost forgets to speak, she’s so busy admiring the effect.
    “You were recommended to me by one of the Tupperware mothers,” Mrs. Bly says. “She said her daughter swapped over to you after that whole scandal at the school, and she’s been very pleased.”
    “I’m glad,” the saxophone teacher says. “Yes, I’ve had a considerable influx of students this year from Abbey Grange.”
    “Wasn’t the whole business just terrible,” Mrs. Bly says, and she puckers her lips and squints her eyes and gives a merry chuckle.
    “Catalytic,” the saxophone teacher says in pretended agreement, guessing that Mrs. Bly won’t pause for long enough to think about the word. She doesn’t.
    “It was just terrible,” she says again. “The girl is ruined. She’s damaged goods now. And all the girls are keeping their distance of course.”
    “As they should be,” the saxophone teacher says.
    “Because it spreads like a virus, that’s what I said to my girls,” Mrs. Bly says, drawing the vast spread of denim over her knee and puckering her lips to form a little thatched smile that draws all the wrinkles around her lips into a single central nub. “That kind of stain doesn’t come out in the wash.”
    The saxophone teacher suddenly feels weary. She sits down. “Mrs. Bly,” she says, “remember that these years of your daughter’s life are only the rehearsal for everything that comes after. Remember that it’s in her best interests for everything to go wrong. It’s in her best interests to slip up now , while she’s still safe in the Green Room with the shrouded furniture and the rows of faceless polystyrene heads and the cracked and dusty mirrors and the old papers scudding across the floor. Don’t wait until she’s out in the savage white light of the floods, where everyone can see. Let her practice everything in a safe environment, with a helmet and kneepads and packed lunches, and you at the end of the hall with the door cracked open a dark half-inch in case anyone cries out in the long hours of the night.”
    The spiderweb lasso of creases around fat Mrs. Bly’s mouth loosens slightly.
    “The good news,” the saxophone teacher says briskly, turning now to her diary, “is that I have an opening on Wednesday afternoon, if that suits your daughter’s schedule. One of my students was hit by a car.”
    “Oh, isn’t it dangerous,” Mrs. Bly says. “I don’t let Rebecca cycle. I flat out refuse to let her cycle anywhere at all. Wednesday afternoon is perfect.”
    “At four.”
    “At four.” Mrs. Bly chuckles again. “She’ll be so pleased,” she says. “She’s practiced so hard to get her clarinet up to scratch, and she’s wanted this so badly. It’s as if for the first time in her life something has just begun to blossom.”
    Friday
    “I suppose you didn’t know Bridget,” the saxophone teacher says to Isolde one afternoon.
    “The girl who died? She was the year above, in sixth form.”
    “She was one of my students.”
    “Oh,” Isolde says. “No, I didn’t know her.” She stalls a moment, looking clumsy and rocking back and forth on her heels. “Are you okay?” she asks finally, wincing to show a kind of concern.
    “Wasn’t it a great