A Star In A World Of Hate

Hey, there. My name is Jane Gardener. All my life I have dreamed of bright lights and wooden floorboards. Of a sea of people mesmerized by dancing figures in intricate dresses and elaborate gestures, masks firmly in place. Charming, lilted voices trapping the audience in enchanted silence. All my life I have wanted to perform. To be on the stage. To be a dancing figure, shoes tapping away to a chorus of singing voices. All my life I have waited to be an actress. I’d saunter up to the middle of the stage in a fashionable gown, heels tapping confidently on the floor, coquettish smile firmly in place. My only duty to play my part and amuse the crowd. Or maybe I’d go in barefoot; sporting tattered rags and greasy hair, garnering sympathy. Either way, it doesn’t matter to me because all my life I have known that I’d be an actress. 

It all started at the age of five. I came home from school and carelessly tossed my bag in my room upstairs. Then I skipped back down and out towards the back yard to begin feeding the chickens.

“Jane!” I turned around at the call. It was Auntie. She motioned for me to get back inside. I dropped the pale with the feed and ran back. I studied her face as I approached. She didn’t seem mad. 

Not a lecture then, I thought. “Yes, Auntie?”

She leaned down conspiratorially, “I was thinking...” She paused for dramatic effect. At this point, I knew I would agree with anything she said next. She had her signature mischievous smile, a simple upturn of the left corner of her lip. “I think I could use an outing. Wanna come with?”

I smiled widely and nodded. Outings with Auntie were always fun. Throughout the years, she never failed to come up with new and exciting adventures, thinking up silly secrets that only she and I were privy to.

Auntie smiled at me and called for the coachman as I hurriedly got dressed. It was a long-sleeved, navy blue dress with simple white lace on the hem, collar, and sleeves, formal enough for a special occasion but comfortable and well-worn to get dirty in case it was not.

I clambered excitedly inside the carriage, swinging my legs back and forth as Auntie gave the coachman directions. At the time, it seemed as if we’d never make it. I was impatient and the consistent ditches on the road felt like they were bumping me away into death by impatience. Now, I realize it couldn’t have been more than a fifteen-minute ride.

As we got out, we made our way into what Auntie said were ‘temporary venues’, something I only paid vague attention to, eagerly drinking in the crowded scene. Everyone filed into an enclosed space, which, due to the people, was almost uncomfortably hot. We got good seats by the front row and waited patiently. For what, I didn’t know. Auntie insisted on keeping it a surprise. That was fine. I like surprises. 

The lights around the crowd went out while the ones shining on the stage seemed to brighten up. Makeshift curtains were pulled aside and-!

A whole other world began! So many people! All dancing and singing and laughing and crying. Bright colors blinked in and out of existence, all carefully choreographed. The voices blended together in perfect harmony. 

And the acting! Oh, the acting! It was like nothing I had ever seen before. They were so in character that you wouldn’t know it was all fake! But, fake, even to my five year old mind, sounded wrong. It wasn’t fake. They were simply entering a new world. A different world. A better world, I realized.

Later, when the play had ended and Auntie and I rode back to the house, she told me more of these plays. I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t pay much attention. As exciting as it all was, I was aching for sleep. As I slowly drifted off, her voice narrated my dreams. It spoke of the land of these actors and actresses, as Auntie said they were called. They came from a city, the North. Full of tall, sleek buildings where carriages moved without horses, where you could be anything you wished to be, where one fell asleep to artificial light and the bustle of people instead of starlight and eerie creaks and groans. A place bordering endless waters, opportunities and people. Where you didn’t know every single person on the block and their cousin’s mother’s best friend’s boyfriend. A far cry from my quiet town of a home. Somehow, the thought of leaving felt comforting. I fell asleep with a firm resolution.

I’ll be an actress. I’ll leave. No one or thing will stop me.

That day marked a change in my life. I practiced day in and day out, getting done with all of my chores as fast as humanly possible. I’d dance away in my room, sing at the top of my lungs in the shower, and hone on my acting as much as I could in the gardens and barn. Auntie even encouraged me to perform for others. ‘If you’re going to be an actress one day, you need to get used to an audience,’ she’d said. 

So I did. I invited my parents to watch. The servants weren’t allowed inside but I could see some of them curiously peering in through the windows. 

I took a deep breath and turned to the stuffed dolls I had as substitutes for characters. I said my lines, improvised when I forgot them, and executed the dance number perfectly, accompanied with music from Grandma’s old record player. I lost myself in the play. I was no longer an ordinary town girl in our living room but a spy, taking on danger at every turn and always coming out victorious. I finished my performance breathing hard as I crashed back into reality.

I looked at my parents expectantly. They were not pleased. I don’t know what I was expecting. Approval? A laugh or something? I would’ve settled for a smile. But they didn’t. They yelled a lot that night. I tuned them out. It’s not like they’ve ever changed their script anyway. Auntie had made a mistake. Or maybe it was my fault, for thinking they’d laugh at the ingenious little quips I’d scattered throughout. Either way, my little act seemed to have been the last straw.

Free time became scarce. They trained me. They used the word ‘refining’ but I’d say training is much more accurate. Training to cook and clean, to be the perfect wife…. At the age of six. Kinda sick if you think about it. All Gardener women were trophy wives, though. With my behavior, they had to start early to set me on the right path. I had responsibilities as the daughter of a rich landowner. I was special, mostly because of my appearance. Or something like that. Again, I tuned them out. 

Long red curls and green eyes were rare in the world. They attracted people. I pushed them away. Not that that mattered much to my parents. Competent suitors had already been picked. I’d choose among them when the time came.

My acting career ended before it had even started. Auntie said it had not. For my twelfth birthday, she’d given me jewelry. They were fancy ones that my parents would approve of resting on a cushion in a box. She’d hidden the gaudier ones I could use for acting or customize to my own needs under the cushion. We smiled at each other. It was our little secret. She had done the same thing four years earlier with the clothes. She continued to sneak me little acting props disguised as proper gifts, like the makeup when I was fourteen.

Then on my fifteenth there was nothing. Nothing but overwhelming pain and heart-wrenching sobs as I tried to see Auntie’s face through my tears, leaning over her casket. Those weeks are a haze. I can’t say I remember much but the terrible grief. The grief and anger as I realized my parents didn’t care. I looked at my mom. Auntie had been her sister. Surely, she could show some emotion? 

Hugging my knees to my chest in my room, I choked out a laugh, struggling to breathe through the tears. Emotions. Ha! As if. Auntie would be sad I thought them to be emotionless lunatics.

Then again, maybe she wouldn’t; because the next year as I sat picking at my breakfast, the time had apparently come. I would need to choose among the suitors by my sixteenth birthday. I’d be married at seventeen. As. Per. Tradition.  

I was absolutely shocked and disgusted. At least, that’s what I’d like to say. I had expected it at this point. 

The day came and I entered the living room to find them standing in a line, all waiting to be picked, overestimating their own worth. Not all of them were horrendous and one could say a few were rather average. That doesn’t mean much when they’re all egotistical bastards that think they’ll get anything they wish simply by waving their daddy’s money around. The only one of the bunch I recognized was Hunter, mildly attractive with his dark brown hair and bright green eyes so similar yet so different from my own.  

My parents ended up picking him when I refused to choose any of them in silly hopes the matter would be dropped.

Hunter had a weird... childhood rival-bully-stalker combo going on. He wasn’t the worst of his little “gang” but he could be a top contender. When I was young and mindlessly babbling about my future acting career, I’d catch him staring at me as I engaged in small scenes. In a way, he was a kind of silent support, a constant presence. All overshadowed when one talked to him and realized he had most likely lost his marbles along with his last working neurons. Not to mention the pure anger and cruelty that would briefly flit upon his face if someone so much as twitched the wrong way.

So, no, I didn’t want him as a husband. Thanks but no thanks. What would happen when that anger turned towards me? Those rumors that men flirt with women by annoying them are bullshit. If that’s what they try to do, then they should evolve their communication skills real damn soon. Then again, maybe it’s just the women who have subpar standards.

Anyway, that’s not really important at the moment; too much of a societal issue to deal with here. I knew my parents had chosen him because he’s the richest of the bunch. I knew he knew that too. He knew I knew he knew too. We all knew. It was a secret out in the open everyone knew about but no one acknowledged.

As the rest of the suitors left, Ben handed me the bouquet of roses he’d brought over and proceeded to ignore me in favor of my parents. The maids brought in the champagne and I stared at the blood red flowers. I could barely register their voices drifting through the fog in my head.

This is it, I realized. Only seventeen and life is already over. Sure, it sounds overly dramatic. But is it not true? It’s not living but merely existing. Existing as a puppet whose sole purpose is to be controlled. Existing for the entertainment of others, for the puppeteer’s. Existing because there’s no other choice. Existing because dying would be dishonourable. Existing to be a-

“... wife….”

That single word pierced through the haze in my brain. I spiraled back, blinking at the roses as if I had forgotten I was holding them. 

Wife. 

With steely determination I had not felt in years, I made up my mind. It was now or never. No one was paying any attention. I slipped out the door and set a brisk pace. Then faster and faster until I was speeding down the road away from my house, my family, my death sentence. The tight feeling in my chest grew. A mixture of fear, anxiety, shock, and excitement all pushing for dominance, rising until it burst in peals of breathy laughs. Though to be fair, they probably sounded more like gasps. Like if a fish had been taken out of water. And maybe, I was out of my depth, but this was the happiest I’d ever been since nearly a decade ago. Despite the lingering apprehension, I knew this was one choice I would not regret.

I sprinted to the train station, disheveled and panting for air, “Which train leaves soonest?”

If the lady minded my lack of formalities and sweaty appearance, she didn’t comment. The lady informed me that it left in ten minutes and the cost was $50. Dams! Thinking quickly, I took off my earrings and asked her if she’d take them. I was denied.

I looked around frantically for any other way I could leave quickly, cursing myself out because this was stupid! I should have waited until night to flee, not right smack in the middle of the conversation! I ran here; they had carriages! They’d be here sooner than the train would leave. What a wretchedly small town!

Thankfully for me, a man seemed to notice my distress. He was short and hairy, dressed in dirty peasant clothes and leading a horse carrying a cart. I told him that I needed to go. Now. He took a look at the earrings and pocketed them with a cheery “Thanks! My wife will love ‘em.” 

I jumped on the back of the cart and managed to conceal myself among sacks and barrels of heaven knows what. My heart beat erratically and I found that sitting still was somehow worse on the nerves than if I had been running. At least then I felt like I was doing something.

Once we were far away from the town, I peeked my head out and looked back, pleased that no signs of guilt reared their heads. The guy, Pogo, as he called himself, slowed down the cart, “So, Miss, where d’ya wanna go?”

I looked up. Oh right. I should know that. “North,” I replied, quiet but sure.

The man’s eyebrows raised, “North? Ya mean like the city?”

I smiled and nodded, “If it’s in your way.” 

“‘Course!” He turned back around and sped up.

Briefly, I wondered what would have happened had I stayed. Most likely, I’d still be caught up having unpleasant flashes of an early demise. Maybe being a wife wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe I’d like that. All I know is that if I ever marry, it’ll be on my own terms.

From then on out, everything was to be on my own terms. Everything in my life would be my decision. No one would control anything for me. I am in control for better or for worse.

I can’t say I've missed my hometown much. I am glad to have left it behind. 

It was for the best. The fact you hold this book in your hands now proves it.

-- End of Chapter 1--

Actress Jane Gardener