The Our Time marquee dominated the entire block with its bright lights. Everything else fell into shadows. When Monica entered the stage door, Jimmy was in his usual spot. He offered her a magic trick. Monica wasn’t in a hurry to get backstage and enjoyed the distraction.
Once she was backstage, the electricity of opening night was tangible. A mixture of cologne and hairspray filled the air. There was a great deal of laughing and hugging. People were fully dressed in gorgeous costumes. The set designers had worked up until the very end.
Amanda rushed toward her. “Oh, Monica, you look lovely!” Amanda handed her a grand bouquet of flowers. The most beautiful bouquet Monica had ever received. “These came for you earlier. I wanted to be sure you got them personally.” Amanda smiled. “If you need me for any reason tonight, I’ll be left stage.” Amanda winked.
Monica nodded firmly. Maria swept by and offered Maria a smile. She anticipated a hit tonight, and it carried her in the moment.
Monica finally took a look at the card that had come with the flowers. The bouquet was from Marissa. It made her both happy and sad that her best friend—and her parents and brother—couldn’t be there She found a big empty plastic jug and placed the flowers in ever so carefully. They looked like they’d come directly from her garden back home: roses, peonies, lilies, and, Freddy’s favorite, snapdragons. Summer felt long ago and far away.
In her new dressing room, which she shared with a few other understudies, she quietly pulled out a silver rectangular box from under her dressing table. Gino’s shoes had arrived a few days earlier. She took them out, two little dovelike creations. She held them to her chest. They made her feel a bit like a fraud, since she wouldn’t be performing in them, but they also made her feel like Cinderella. She smiled, remembering how excited Relly, April, and Hudson had been when the shoes arrived.
Fourteen OPENING NIGHT
The audience is packed with kids!” April galloped into Hudson and Relly’s dressing room, her hair matted down with bobby pins and netting as she waited for her turn in the wig room. The boys’ dressing room always surprised her with how tidy it was. Fresh flowers, which had been arriving for actors all day, perfectly lined the windowsill.
The two faces she encountered were not so in order. Hudson cracked his knuckles. Relly, who was never able to keep still, paced the room like a colt ready to bolt from his stall.
“And theater critics are everywhere!” April danced the first few steps of the opening number, “Come on,” she encouraged.
“What do you bet everyone’s come just to see the curse,” Hudson said.
“Look, curse or no curse, we have to go on,” April said matter-of-factly. “The reporters are barely even talking about the curse anymore. They are asking me about being the Legacy Robe recipient, though.” She stopped to swoop and swoon. “I’ve died and gone to heaven!” Monica posted it with #legacyrobe.
“Why would the curse just go away?” Hudson said skeptically. “After thirty years, it just vanishes? Doesn’t make sense.”
“I hear what you’re saying. We got on television, which was lucky. Tabitha’s back, Hugh Lavender’s here, tickets are sold out from now until June. But the curse is not gone; it’s just gotten quieter as we got closer and closer to opening night,” April said. “That’s how these things work.”
“They always work that way in the movies,” Relly said. “You think everything’s gonna be okay, and then wham! There’s a creepy ax murderer waiting for you in the closet.”
Hudson caught April studying him from beneath her brow. “Don’t do this to me now, Hudson,” she said.
“Look, I have family members who traveled all the way from India to be here tonight, and I don’t know why my costume isn’t fitting right.” Hudson tugged at his costume, which did seem a size too small all of a sudden. “It feels like it’s going to tear off my body. I just want everything to go smoothly.”
“I’m worried about getting hiccups onstage. Happens when I get nervous,” Relly said as he pulled in air to hold his breath, still pacing the room.
“We have forty-five minutes before the curtain goes up; let’s keep it together,” April said, her mood suddenly shifting in line with the boys’ anxiety.
“You have a visitor!” Monica poked her head in. They were all glad to see her.
“Telegram for the kids.” A stagehand leaned in, holding a small yellow envelope in his hand. Receiving a telegram the old-fashioned way was another tradition in the theater.
April reached for the telegram. “May I open it?” She waved the envelope in front of her face like a fan, batting her eyelashes, before she tore it open. Her eyes widened with surprise as she read; she hugged the telegram.
“I’ve never seen one of these before! Aren’t these used by really old people?” Relly asked.
“Telegrams are literally the cutest form of communication,” April said, and with that she pulled out her phone and took a photo of the old-fashioned typewriter font on the yellow note card. #Everseenoneofthese?
“April, tell us who it’s from!” Hudson said impatiently.
“It’s from Chris Columbus!” April said with a loud squeal.
Relly knew it. “A really really really old person!” he blurted out.
“No, not that Christopher Columbus. Chris Columbus, the writer of some of the biggest movies from the 1980s!”
“And also the director of the first Harry Potter movie,” Hudson said in his best British accent.
“Well, what does it say?” Monica asked with equal giddiness. An important telegram might be just the thing to lighten the mood and calm their nerves.
“It says: ‘Can’t wait to hear the Squad show ’em how it’s done! Break four legs, Our Time squad!’ ”
The kids jumped in a circle, and Monica felt perfectly comfortable joining in the excitement.
Then Tabitha entered. “It’s nothing short of magic!” she said with a tight, sarcastic smile. “Now, let’s focus, people. I can’t have this thing be a flop. My entire career is riding on this.”
* * *
A hush fell upon the Ethel Merman. The lights dimmed. Monica watched on a small television in a tiny backstage room.
Relly, April, Hudson, and Tabitha took their spots, their heads bowed. They were in the living room, the set bare but for a couch, a chair, a lamp, and, in the corner, a piano. The music began, and April hit her cue, her voice strong:
“It’s our time.…” She held the note as the three others echoed her: “It’s our time.…” The lights angled at the stage rose as all four actors began dancing their first number.
“They look good,” commented Jacob, Relly’s understudy, who was standing next to Monica.
“It’s our time, to show what we’ve got.… Yes, it’s our time, to be what they’re not.” Then the whole orchestra played, and the lights onstage got brighter, revealing all the characters and the full set. The scene was a thrilling opening, and everything seemed perfectly in sync. Audience members looked on in awe at the set design and at the intricate, quick dance moves that the kids seemed to so effortlessly perform.
Monica smiled. It was going to be okay. But just as soon as she thought it, she caught a curious look that Hudson flashed April. Onstage, April mouthed something. And Hudson mouthed back, Oh no, oh no. April was puzzled, then gave him a look that said, Whatever it is, no!
But it was too late. His costume pants had ripped in the back, all the way down the middle to the backs of his knees. His dance moves got weird, like he was hopping on hot coals. He tried not to let the audience see his back side, which made it even more awkward. Relly caught on quickly and couldn’t help but laugh. Once Relly started laughing, it was almost impossible to stop him. He missed his line: Our adventures begin when we all meet in the back. This was the big introduction to the living room scene. But without being fed that line, Tabitha stammered, “Yeah—yeah, meet at my house,” which now didn’t make sense. Hudson missed his line entirely too; April slapped her foreh
ead. Relly stopped laughing and began to hiccup. Quiet laughter could be heard from the audience.
The show was so tightly choreographed that once one thing went wrong, it all unraveled. The orchestra got tied up and the laughs came even louder. The picture frames on the faux living room walls started to fall off and come crashing down. The orchestra stopped playing. The actors stopped acting. The lights stopped moving. Everything froze.
From the back, a low, steaming hum could be heard. It got louder and louder. The Ethel Merman’s old pipe organ, its anger building, like a dragon awoken. Fog that was meant for act two started to rise from the stage floor. Tech crew scrambled to figure out if someone had inadvertently turned on the dry-ice machine. The kid actors shuffled around onstage and moved back behind the leg of the curtain. Audience members shifted in their seats. Stagehands didn’t know what to do. Artie, who watched from the wings, knew there was nothing to do but watch the curse unfold. Secretly, it excited him. The organ kept playing, faster now. People started to whisper. Was it safe? They got visibly stiff in their seats.
“Oh no! Stop!” Monica yelled at the TV monitor with great fury and spine-tingling authority. “Stop!” she yelled again. Then a crack of lightning came, loud and direct. The bolt hit the theater so hard that it appeared to have come straight through the roof and onto the organ, which started to sizzle and smoke. It stopped playing, and the entire theater went dark. The audience screamed.
“Is this part of the show?” an audience member called out.
“I can’t see a thing!” shouted another person.
“It’s the curse!” someone else yelled.
Tabitha ran offstage.
The three other kid actors stood frozen in place.
Silence.
For several seconds no one said a word. The packed theater was still. Some waited for something to happen; others waited hoping nothing would happen.
In the back studio, the monitors went dead, and the understudies sat in horror wondering what was going on out front. Amanda tapped Monica’s shoulder and whispered, “They need you. Let’s hurry.” Amanda and Monica raced down the dark, empty hall. The entire theater, even backstage, felt frozen. Within seconds Monica and Amanda reached the wing of the stage.
Slowly they walked onstage. Amanda went to the piano on the set; Monica took center stage. The three kid actors faded back.
“Listen…,” Monica said with lovely clarity.
“Liiiiiisten…,” she repeated, stronger now.
There she was, pure confidence. In total darkness. On a Broadway stage in front of a full house on opening night. The curse present and powerful. Monica present and powerful.
Monica looked over to the piano and whispered, “Are you ready?”
A music-stand light turned on next to the piano onstage. “Ready!”
The audience hushed. The piano sounded an even chord, round and sweet. It was a striking contrast to the destruction. Artie instantly saw it as a gift and leaned in to listen with everyone else.
Monica began to sing.
“Standing here
Feel the light on my skin
I see myself
In a place I’ve never been
No longer scared
No longer alone
I am home
I am home
I am finally found
Finally free
Content and at peace from the wars
That have built up inside of me
I am finally found
By a wish that came true:
That someday I’d be finally found by you
Thought I’d lost my voice
But it was here all along
Just waiting for me
To discover my song
The tune is familiar
But the words feel new
And now I sing them for you
I sing them for you
I am finally found”
The essence of the song was hard to describe, other than to say it was deep-feeling and hazy. Warm and comfortable. Then a wonderous energy built as Monica’s voice made a shift in mood from softly dreamy to an expanded quickness, in the most pleasant, crisp way. Amanda picked up in staccato to match Monica’s voice. The words came like a pearl necklace, every note separated by a knot to hold it in place. Her voice soared and swooped with emotion, and as she stood, her lone dark shadow grew and grew onstage. The theater throbbed with drama. The entire audience sat, entranced, on the edge of their seats, and like Orpheus taming the wild beasts, Monica kept singing to the curse.
Her friends recognized the music and several lines of the song right away. They were from the missing score they’d found in the vault. Other notes and lyrics were Monica’s own creation. Old Broadway, new Broadway. The entirety of it was mesmerizing. It embodied irrepressible optimism, joy, hope. When darkness comes, hold it, love it, learn to understand it. Let the darkness speak; don’t shut it out. The audience listened in rapture. One could almost see that as she sang each line, she was bending the curse. The theater started to moan as she held notes in quivering vibrato, curlicued melisma, past the vanishing point. This was Our Time. Stunning. Extraordinary. Perfect strangers held one another and wept.
Monica’s voice got higher and higher until finally she hit the highest note of the song and held it… just like Ethel Merman. High C for sixteen straight bars. Edge-of-your-seat electricity! All the walls in the theater started to shake. The lights flickered; a cold wind ripped down the aisles; the twenty-thousand-beaded chandelier danced. Monica’s arms flew in the air as she held the note even longer. The audience was in awe; the kid actors were in shock; a theater got swept away in emotion. And then she dipped down again to the last line, softly.
Listen.
No one clapped right away. No one spoke. People were stunned by what they had just witnessed. Until finally one loud critic in the audience exclaimed: “Best show of the year!”
“Yes, she is!” Monica’s abuelita hooted and began to clap. The entire audience followed until the theater roared with applause.
The lights in the theater came back on. The stage was bright. From the stage’s piano came Amanda, who was perspiring and elated and smiling ear to ear. She walked toward Monica and they hugged.
“Happy Birthday, Hildy,” Monica whispered to Amanda. It was right in front of them, but they didn’t make the connection like Monica did. She had promised Amanda earlier that she would keep Amanda’s identity a secret. Why? Because, for now, Amanda liked her new, quieter life as a tutor. But she did promise Monica that maybe someday, Hildy would make a return to Broadway.
* * *
After Monica’s performance, the theater settled into a calm. It almost seemed like the old cracks in the walls had instantly healed themselves and the musty smell had vanished. Even the chandelier shone brighter than before. The audience members started to chant, “We want Our Time! We want Our Time!” With very little convincing, Artie agreed to start the show over, with Monica playing Tony! The costume department quickly got Hudson a new pair of pants. Tabitha, still shaken and embarrassed, didn’t complain.
Magic was made that night at the Ethel Merman. Their performance was flawless. Amazing, in fact. And a curse, which everyone had thought would be impossible to break, was broken. The kids bowed to a standing ovation and then almost collapsed in a huge group hug onstage. People called out “bravo” and “brava.” Monica wanted to pinch herself. So she did.
As the lights went up, Monica heard a familiar voice calling, “Monica, Monica!”
Freddy was running down the center aisle. Was she seeing things? She wasn’t seeing things! “Freddy!”
And right behind him were her parents.
“You’re awesome! I can’t believe you’re my sister!” Freddy said, jumping on the stage and wrapping his little arms around her, followed by her father, who had tears in his eyes.
“How… who?” Monica said, half laughing, half crying.
“We couldn’t miss openi
ng night.” Monica’s mother gave her a long hug and a soft kiss on her forehead.
“And what an opening night it was! Broadway history in the making.” Artie came over with a long, fast stride and shook Monica’s parents’ hands firmly and a little too enthusiastically. Freddy’s, too. “Your sister is very proud of you,” Artie said to Freddy. “I hear you want to be an astronaut one day.”
“Yeah. And now that I have a sister who’s a star, I’ll definitely have to travel to outer space!”
* * *
The show’s after-party was at the famed Al Joseph’s restaurant. Famous for its meatballs and, well, its after-parties. Everyone dressed in their best outfits, and a press line greeted the actors and crew as they walked in.
“Al Joseph’s! Never in my life!” Monica’s abuelita said, and hugged an unsuspecting waiter, causing him to almost spill the two water glasses he was carrying. But before they got much farther in, Monica was surrounded by reporters. “Monica! Monica!”
“Let her through, people; let her through,” April and Relly said, ushering Monica past the crowd. April pulled her aside. “Before you say anything to anyone with a notepad or a tape recorder, here’s what you need to know about giving an interview. Trust me, I learned the hard way. One: Talk, but don’t talk too much. Two: Gesture with your hands. You know, it makes you look really passionate about your work. Like this. People love that. Three: Be humble. Never ever act like you knew the show would be a hit. Be almost surprised but not too surprised when they compliment you. Of course, while not saying too much and still using your hands…”
Hudson came over with a meatball on a toothpick. “They call these meatballs?” He shoved it into his mouth. “Mmm, actually, they are pretty good.”
“You guys…” Monica’s eyes were bright and warm. “We did it!”
“We did it!” they all said with a mix of joy and relief.
“But we still have to wait for the reviews to come in…,” April said nervously.
Fearless Page 14
