“Oh, that sounds fun,” Monica said in a monotone voice, staring at her oatmeal.
Monica’s abuelita put down the hot water and studied her granddaughter.
“I’m going to take you there so you can ride the roller coaster, too.”
“I’d love that.”
“How about today?”
Monica wasn’t in the mood to talk about roller coasters.
“Kita, what is the matter?”
“I’m just tired. Long rehearsal yesterday. And another one today.”
“So tell me why you have to be at rehearsal another entire weekend and not ride roller coasters with your abuelita.”
Monica shrugged.
“Why don’t you tell me something about the show instead of shrugging your shoulders all the time.”
Monica wasn’t ready to share with her abuelita that their hopes for a Broadway hit would soon be dashed.
Monica’s abuelita sat patiently. She scooped oatmeal into her mouth, studying her granddaughter as she ate.
“Mr. Fernando, my voice coach, he reminds me of Sean.”
This made her abuelita smile. Sean was Reedley’s friendliest mailman. He left little chocolates for the kids and dog bones for the dogs.
“Well, I’m glad Mr. Fernando is nice.”
“Abuelita?”
“Yes?” she said, wiping her mouth.
“Our Freddy jar.”
Her abuelita turned to look at the half-filled jar.
“Not bad. New York has a lot of shiny change on the ground.”
“Loose change won’t pay for Freddy’s surgery, will it?”
“No, it won’t.” Her abuelita took another bite of oatmeal. She chewed quietly.
Monica’s eyes got serious. She looked right at her abuelita and said, “Tell me about the goat men.”
Her abuelita stopped chewing and set down her spoon. She sat back in her chair.
They sat quietly for a moment, studying each other.
“Please, Abuelita, tell me,” Monica said.
It was an old story. A family story. One that was only talked about in hushed tones.
“Yes, Kita. I thought you might want to hear it someday.” Her abuelita removed her large round glasses and cleaned them with a hankie, then put them back on. “And now is a good day for it.” The glasses slid down her nose.
“Long, long ago, my great-grandfather’s village near Puebla, in Mexico, became cursed. Just like your theater.” Monica looked at her. Her abuelita smiled. She had sensed it from the very first moment she saw the Ethel Merman.
“It started when a pack of wolves came down from the cold mountains in search of food. They would steal the village goats in the middle of the night. This went on for several weeks. Finally, the strong young men gathered to hunt for the destructive wolves. My father, your great-grandfather, stayed behind. He was of middle age, but still too old to go climbing around in the mountains in the dark. He and the other older men and women in the village played dominoes and tended to the children and waited patiently for news of the men. The younger women cooked big meals in preparation for a celebration upon their return. But the strong men were gone many days, and the villagers worried they would never be seen again. Finally, a week later, they came down from the mountains, wide-eyed and bleating like goats. Goats!”
Monica’s eyes settled on the small sink of their hotel room. A drop of water hung from the faucet, then dripped into the basin without a sound.
Her abuelita continued, “The villagers could not understand what had happened to them. Then a mysterious woman wearing a green dress, the color of moss, came down the mountain path. She said she’d been angered by the men’s intention to hunt her wolves. The men had tried to harm the mountain’s beautiful creatures, and for that they must pay. The men were sent to their beds to rest.” Monica’s abuelita paused, taking in her granddaughter’s reaction.
“Then what happened, Abuelita?”
“The village’s curandera…” Her abuelita stopped.
“Witch doctor!” Monica said.
“She was a healer, Kita. People would travel from all over Mexico to seek her advice.”
“Cursed people?”
“People went to her for all sorts of things. If you didn’t have an appetite, she would rub an egg on your stomach and bid the evil spirits away. If something scared you, she would make you lie down on the ground and pass a brush full of leaves over you. Her spirit still travels with me.”
“Why with you?”
“Because she was mi mamá. Su bisabuela.”
“Elvia?”
“Yes.”
“Mi bisabuela was a village curandera?”
“She wasn’t just a village curandera. She was a very powerful woman. Do you remember her at all?”
“Oh yes.” Monica shivered.
Her abuelita let out one loud laugh. “She could be very mysterious when she wanted to be. Imagine having a curandera for a mother when you didn’t clean your room!”
By the time Monica knew her, Elvia could only see out of one eye and walked bent over, and whenever Monica got close to her, she would say, “Ayyyy, Kiiiitaaaa,” and Monica would run away.
“What did she do about the goat men?” Monica asked.
“Su bisabuela tried everything. She fed the goat men potions and herbs. She rubbed special lotions on their ears and temples. She said prayers and gathered the villagers to chant around them—”
“Like a séance?” Monica interrupted.
“The word séance comes from the French for sitting quietly. So, yes, I suppose it was like that. She would sit and call to the spirit world to banish the evil from their village.”
“Did the sitting work?”
“No.”
“So the men stayed like goats forever?”
“After a month, their eyes were still wild and their hair grew long. They continued to talk in the language of goats. The villagers had grown tired, exhausted with worry and fear. Fear spread the witch’s spell throughout the village. Houses began to burn, and sudden drought destroyed their crops. People went hungry and thirsty. Soon the village was cursed.”
“The entire village?”
“Yes.”
“So what did they do to de-curse the men and the village?”
Her abuelita thought long and hard before she answered.
“Monica, you can’t break a curse when you live in fear of it. I was nine years old when the men came down from the mountain speaking in goat tongues. We were full of fear.”
Monica had seen a picture of her abuelita at that age. She was standing in front of her family’s pink house. It was the last photo they took before they left the village for good.
Monica’s abuelita got up and cleared the barely touched Styrofoam cups. She went over to the window that looked out onto the wall next door.
“I never went back to the village after we left. But I’m told times got harder. The spirits became too strong. Eventually the village surrendered.”
“Surrendered?”
“Yes, my girl.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sometimes you have to hold the spirit, the curse, inside you. Then you have to release it. Sometimes it’s very difficult to get it out.” Monica studied the deep lines on her abuelita’s face. “The village slowly turned into a pasture for goats.”
“And Elvia?”
“She came to California in her final years. When you met her, she was not much older than the age I am now, but she looked one hundred years old. She had internalized the curse, and eventually it wore her down.” She gave Monica a look full of meaning. “Your theater… people are afraid. Things are off balance.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know the Ojo de Dios that your great-abuelita gave you?” The one Monica had hanging at the theater. “God’s eyes were originally made by the Huichol people of Mexico. The four points represent fire, earth, air, and water—the four elements that make up everything on o
ur planet. When they aren’t balanced, everything is off. The center is the ‘eye’—the portal to the spirit world. The elements are not aligned. It was the same for our little village.”
Monica sent a text to April on her way to the theater that morning: We have to stop the curse from ruining the show.
April texted back immediately: Yes!
Followed by another text: How?
Monica answered: I have a plan.
Interlude
“Jump”
Don’t be afraid
To jump!
Just follow me!
And jump!
Count one, two, three!
The map has led us here
So let go of all fear
We’re not sure what’s ahead
But we know if we stay here, we’ll all be dead
So I’ll see you on the other side, my friends till the end
This has been one crazy ride, and it’s only just begun
Who’d have thought we would be on this chase?
But we have to go now, ’cause, you guys, it’s too late
To go home with nothing to show
We got this moment right now
Just let go!
Don’t be afraid
To jump!
Just follow me!
And jump!
Count one, two, three!
The map has led us here
So let go of all fear
We’re not sure what’s ahead
But we know if we stay here, we’re dead
Ten THE PLAN
The kids met in Monica and April’s dressing room first thing that morning. April slid a red marker across another day on the calendar. “Thirteen days.” The girls’ dressing room was on the second floor of the theater. Even though it was down the hall a ways, it got very little privacy. They needed to talk quickly and quietly before others started to arrive.
“So what’s your plan?” April whispered to Monica.
“Is it a séance? I think we should do a séance.” Relly rubbed his hands as if he were about to sink his teeth into a big meal.
“Yeah, but one that works,” Hudson chimed in.
“Rise, ghosts of the Ethel Merman, and be heard!” Relly lifted his whole body toward the leaky ceiling.
“No. Not a séance.” Monica had a playful smile on her face. An easy kind of friendship had formed among the four kid actors over the past couple of weeks.
“My plan is…” Monica paused, went to the door, and leaned out to make sure it was just them. “My plan is,” she repeated more quietly, “to give up.”
“Huh?” Relly said.
“That’s your plan?” April looked deflated.
Hudson stopped eating his banana.
A silence fell among the four. April sank down into a puffy chair. It ballooned out for a second before the shape settled underneath her. She studied the Broadway posters on the wall. Suddenly it all seemed for nothing. Actors were replaceable; everyone knew that. One flop and you were at the bottom of everyone’s wish list.
“Sure, why not? Giving up is as much of an option as not giving up, right?” Monica smiled smugly. “We don’t have to continue. We can just give up.”
“No!” Hudson said firmly. “I’ve been performing in off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway productions for my whole career. One audition after another after another of rejection. Finally I get here. Here! Broadway, and as a lead! Do you know how many Broadway roles there are for big-boned kids with two left feet? Not many. I’m not giving this up, not for nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “At least, I’m not giving up until Artie officially says he’s shutting down the show.” The others nodded, agreeing with his stance.
Monica walked over to her dressing table, looked at herself squarely in the mirror, and said, “Good. That was a test.” Turning to them, she continued, with deep, intense eyes, “Because for this plan to work, we all need to be in this together. One hundred percent. Got it?”
They observed her, half in surprise, half in awe. Monica wasn’t that same shy girl who’d just stepped off an airplane less than two weeks earlier. She had a sort of finesse. She’d nearly forgotten that she was the understudy to the understudy.
“I got my start singing in malls,” Monica said. She supposed she wouldn’t have felt comfortable telling the others that when she first arrived, but maybe a little bit of April was rubbing off on her. “Everyone gets their start somewhere,” April could be heard saying on occasion.
“My abuelita would drive me to a crowded mall on a weekend afternoon, and I’d find a spot that looked like it could be a good stage, and I’d sing with a boom box and a Barbie microphone and a gold sequined top hat that my mom bought from the local dance school. Sometimes four or five people would stop and listen; a few times I got much bigger audiences.”
“My first gig was for a baby diaper commercial,” Hudson said casually.
“Here’s my plan.” Monica scribbled something on a piece of blank paper. She held it up: Come See Our Time and Be Part of Broadway’s Magic! The others looked confused. “A promotional flyer.”
“We’re going to sing in malls and pass out flyers?” Hudson asked.
“Yes! Guerrilla marketing!” Relly said, pumping his fist. Unconventional tactics to advertise their show using a small budget—in their case, no budget.
“We are completely off schedule as it is now,” April pointed out. “How are we going to find time to do this?”
“I guess April has a point. We don’t even know any of the dance routines all the way through yet,” Hudson said.
“Yes and no,” Monica said calmly. “We can perform in front of crowds after rehearsals. It’ll be extra hours of practice time.”
April lifted herself off the chair enthusiastically and said, “What do we have to lose. Let’s do it! With sold-out shows, Artie will have to keep the production running.”
“When do we start?” Relly asked.
“Tomorrow after rehearsal,” Monica said.
They all agreed.
“So that’s how we’re going to get rid of the curse?” Hudson asked.
“No. That’s about saving the show. We can’t break the curse on the theater if we don’t have a show to perform. There’s another part to the plan.” Monica reached over and held the god’s eye that was hanging from her mirror. “We need to figure out what’s cursing the Ethel Merman. It is our duty,” Monica said.
“We don’t have much to go on,” Relly reminded her.
“Jimmy Onions knows something, and we need to find out what.” Monica smiled.
* * *
Jimmy was sitting in his usual spot at the stage door. He was having his lunch for breakfast and watching the news on a small TV.
“Covering another Saturday shift?” Monica said.
“And my card buddies are none too happy,” Jimmy said.
“Do you believe in life after death?” Relly asked Jimmy. The other three gave Relly a strange look. That was some conversation starter.
“Sure, kid. Guess we all gotta go someplace when we’re not in this place,” Jimmy said matter-of-factly.
There were a few clues about Jimmy’s personal life in his cubby office: he had a wife and two grown sons, and a bunch of grandchildren who liked the beach. A stack of joke books and a dance trophy that looked decades old sat on a small shelf above him, and he had a corner dedicated to his magic-trick supplies.
“Why do you ask?”
“Amanda assigned us to interview a person in the theater each day this week. You’re our interview for the day!” April jumped in nervously.
“I’m honored. What else you got?”
Hudson went next. “So, uh, how long have you been working here?”
“Forty-four years. Best forty-four of my life.”
He lifted his lapel to show off his security badge:
James Lorenzo
44 years of service
Relly took notes. “What’s one of your favorite features o
f the Ethel Merman Theater?” Relly asked.
“The Ethel Merman has the oldest pipe organ on all of Broadway. One hundred sixty-eight pipes, all still in working condition. It’s a beaut.”
“And what’s been your most memorable moment here?” Monica asked.
“That’s easy. When Carol Channing walked through this very door for the first time to star in Hello, Dolly! and said, ‘Don’t freeze on me now, but I need you to tell me where I can powder my nose.’ She was her own creation, that one. True balladeer, you know?”
The kids looked at one another. Monica twisted her hair. Relly continued to ask questions.
“What about the curse thing. Do you believe that stuff?” Relly asked casually.
Jimmy thought for a moment. Looked at the little TV, grabbed a cracker, and held it.
“Thing of it is, yeah, I do. Started getting weird around here… well, it must be twenty-five years ago now. I remember it was twenty-five years, because it was right around when the Yankees won the World Series and all of New York City felt lucky because they’d broken their losing streak of almost twenty years. That was the year all the lights in the city glowed brighter. But in the Ethel Merman, that’s when the lights started to flicker and the doors started to slam shut. Same time that was going on, the theater started to lose money. More and more productions were ending up flops. Didn’t happen quickly. Happened real slow. You know? So as no one really knew it here until it was too late.” He looked at the TV.
“What was your question?” Jimmy asked.
The buzzer to the stage door sounded. Maria walked in.
“Oh, my adoring fans have come to greet me, I see. How nice of you,” Maria said with a clap. “You must be eager to get started on something new!”
The kids looked at one another with smiles.
Twelve days until opening night
Monica pulled her finger along the gleaming marble that surrounded the ice rink in the sunken plaza of Rockefeller Center. She looked up at the bronze gilded statue of what looked like a floating man with his arms held in the air.
“The Titan Prometheus,” Hudson pointed out. “Brought fire to man.”
Fearless Page 10
