“Whose birthday?” Hudson said.
“Let’s go through the list of possibilities. Relly, what’s Ethel Merman’s birthday?” Monica looked at him with determination. He was holding his notebook.
He flipped a few pages in: “Born January sixteenth, 1908.”
“Okay, let’s try one-sixteen-nineteen-eight, or maybe one-sixteen-eight…,” Monica said.
“One, for January.” Hudson twisted right to the number 1.
“Sixteen, for the day.” He twisted left to the 16.
“Nineteen.” He twisted right to the 19.
“Final number, eight.” Hudson twisted left to the 8.
Nothing.
They tried it again with 1-16-8. Nothing.
They leaned against the table and studied the safe.
April had a thought: “Relly, pull out those old newspaper clippings about the Ogden. Is there anything about a birthday?”
Nothing.
They looked at any dates that stuck out.
Nothing.
“Wait! Look at this,” Relly pointed out. “Hildy and Henry’s birthday is November eighteenth, 1961.”
“November eighteenth is the same day as our opening night!” Monica said.
That was it. 11-18-61.
Hudson turned the combination to the first number.
The room started to shake even harder, and the door started to shake as theater objects piled up on the other side.
“Hurry, Hudson!” April yelled.
He messed up and started over.
“Go slowly,” Monica corrected. She put a gentle hand on his shoulder.
11… 18… 61.
Click.
The moment it clicked, the theater went calm.
Slowly, Hudson pushed down the heavy handle.
It opened.
“It opened!” Hudson laughed.
“It opened!” the others said in amazement.
“What’s inside?” Relly and the others moved closer.
Inside was sheet music so old, so yellowed, and so badly water-stained that only a few stanzas could be made out, with large gaps of smudging in between.
The kids stood, wide-eyed, not knowing if this was a good discovery or a bad one.
Seven days until opening night
“We might be able to pull this thing off!” Artie announced, clapping. A preview performance the night before had brought in a few positive reviews from theater critics, who told Artie their thoughts privately. (“Captivating!” “Endlessly surprising!” “These kids bring it!”) The curse had become silent the final days before opening night—eerily silent or delightfully silent, depending on who you talked to. “Your solo was brilliant yesterday, Relly! Just brilliant. Waterfall scene. Spectacular.”
Monica rehearsed with the understudies. She tried not to show how much Tabitha’s return bothered her. When the understudies weren’t rehearsing, she would sneak to the back of the auditorium and watch her friends rehearse.
That day, Artie called up to her, “Monica, come down here and sit with me.”
She sank into the velvety red auditorium chair next to him and watched the leads go through the last two scenes. Maria kept starting and stopping the music, hammering away at little details based on comments offered by the creative team during previews.
“Once the final tweaks are made, the show is ‘frozen’ until opening night. Meaning that that’s it for any changes,” Artie explained to Monica.
“Does this blocking look right?” Tabitha called onstage.
“No, no,” Maria huffed, and pulled her a couple of inches to the left. “Here!”
“Maria’s got a heart of gold, you know,” Artie chuckled. “She could choreograph the song from an auto-insurance ad and make it interesting.”
Monica turned to him and smiled.
Artie flipped a page in the script as he followed along with Maria. He crossed out a note and wrote a new note above it. Highlights in every color of the rainbow covered the page.
“How do you write music?” Monica asked.
Artie had written all the music for Our Time.
He raised the large legal pad that sat under the script, pointed to a page full of notes, then pointed to his head.
“And personal experience,” he said.
She half nodded.
“Did that answer not satisfy you?”
“Well, not really.”
He laughed. He actually had a quirky, fun, avuncular quality that Monica hadn’t recognized before.
“Ever read poetry?”
“Yes, a lot of poetry,” Monica said.
“Do you know what rhyming sonnets are?”
She did.
“Start there. Get your lyrics down as you pull in melody. Figure out what inspires you.”
Monica closed her eyes and thought of what inspired her. She smiled. Artie studied her. They sat in silence. A switch in tempo onstage made Monica open her eyes.
They both turned their attention back to the stage.
“See how April’s voice changes ever so slightly to almost become the pirate? Not overwhelming, just in hints.”
Monica listened for it. “Yeah, I hear it now.”
“Do you want to know something?” Artie asked with a smile before continuing. “I have five sisters.” He paused, still looking at the actors onstage. “They were all very determined. Just like you.”
Monica blushed.
“I was the only one who really had a passion for the theater. Funny thing is, I never learned how to play an instrument. Do you know how to play an instrument?”
She shook her head.
“Find someone who does. If you’re interested in writing music, it will come faster. I learned to write music on my own. I could have been producing shows in my twenties had I worked with people who knew what they were doing instead of trying to do it all myself.”
He scratched his chin.
“Tomorrow afternoon I have tickets to a charity concert at the Museum of Natural History. I can’t make it. Would you and your abuelita like to go?”
Monica lifted in her seat. “Yes!” She hadn’t been beyond the Ethel Merman for an afternoon of fun since she arrived.
The next day, Monica wrapped up rehearsal early with Artie’s permission, and she and her abuelita walked through Central Park to the Museum of Natural History, an autumn chill pushing through the trees. The main hall where the concert took place was grand. “This would be a great place to ride a scooter,” Monica’s abuelita said in awe. Chairs in a dozen straight rows faced five seated musicians—two violinists, two violists, and a cellist. There were no seats left when they arrived, so they stood to the side next to the large T. rex, one of several dinosaur skeletons that loomed large in the massive hall. The room felt both old and new, strange and familiar. The quintet performed with scrupulous matching bow strokes. In perfect tempo they played a sunny kind of classical piece. Her abuelita studied the program that the attendant had handed her when they walked in.
“Mozart’s String Quintet in C, K. 515,” her abuelita whispered, as if this were obvious.
Monica leaned back against the waist-high wall that encased the dinosaur display to listen. A crowd closed in around them as more people gathered. For such a large space, it felt warm and intimate.
“You’ll get yelled at for having your hand beyond the rope,” a friendly, familiar voice said softly.
It was Amanda.
“Nice to see you’re enjoying a slice of New York finally,” she said, then turned to watch the performers. Though the musicians were seated, their bodies were lively and seemed to be in constant motion. They wore black dresses and tuxedos. Women in the audience wore fancy, stylish outfits; men wore suits with ties. Monica felt underdressed in the nicest tan pants she had brought, and one of her favorite pink sweaters.
After the performance, they toured the great hall with Amanda, who, unsurprisingly, knew every stone and speck of history about the place.
“This is one
of my favorite museums in New York City.” She pointed to one of several quotes displayed on the wall. “ ‘Keep your eyes on the stars and keep your feet on the ground.’ Isn’t that lovely? Theodore Roosevelt said that. This room is named after him: the Theodore Roosevelt Rotunda. Grand! Just grand! Ceilings soar to one hundred feet tall.”
Later, the three of them walked outside where the air was calm and refreshing. They decided to share a cab. Amanda lived in the East Village, in a cozy one-room studio with her cat, Dolly, so she would be dropped off last.
They bumped along as their cab driver honked at another driver holding up traffic. Monica’s abuelita, who sat in the front seat with the driver, didn’t seem to notice the delay or the driver’s growing impatience. She kept right on talking to the driver.
“I heard you were going to be at the concert tonight,” Amanda confessed to Monica in the back seat. “Artie gave me an extra ticket as well.”
“Oh!” Monica was surprised by this.
Amanda continued, “Did you know that Mozart wrote his first string quartet when he was only sixteen years old?” She smiled out the window. “Isn’t it remarkable when you think about music? In one line, you can start off as gentle as a hummingbird and hit full throttle like an asteroid by the end! Just amazing when you think about it. I can’t think of anything else in the world that can do that. Can you?”
Monica couldn’t.
Back at the hotel room, Monica sat in one of the small chairs that went with the table and studied the sheet music they’d found in the vault. She’d studied it for four days, wondering what clues it had to offer, but this time, she saw it differently. Faded notes danced and played on the page in a way they hadn’t before. Monica knew she was holding the real key to saving the Ethel Merman.
Thirteen THE DAY OF OPENING NIGHT
All right, all right! Ladies and gentlemen,” Artie said, entering the stage, where the full cast had formed a circle. The cast and crew started to clap and cheer and hoot.
Next to Artie was a stout, affable-looking man.
“Everyone, this is Mr. George from the Actors’ Equity Association.” Artie waved his hand toward the smiling man and stepped back.
The actors clapped loudly.
The stout man stood in the center of the circle.
“Thank you, thank you everyone. Our Time cast and crew,” Mr. George said, smiling.
More applause.
He continued, “On behalf of the Actors’ Equity Association, I’m here to welcome all of you to the Legacy Robe ceremony for opening night, on Broadway, of—drum roll—Our Time!”
Everyone erupted in applause. A photographer went around the stage taking pictures. April smiled ear to ear. Relly and Hudson stood on either side of her.
“Now, the Legacy Robe ceremony is one of Broadway’s oldest backstage traditions, and it is honored by the Actors’ Equity Association. It is a ceremony that both acknowledges and celebrates the actors working hard to made this musical come alive on Broadway.
“We’d like to invite all those actors making their Broadway debut into the center of the circle.”
Relly ran into the center of the circle along with three adult actors. The photographer took their photo, and everyone clapped. “Wow, this is pretty awesome!” Relly laughed. The adult actors laughed with him.
“Now, in attendance today,” Mr. George continued, “we have your director, Artie Hoffman, and his crew, who have worked so hard to get everyone to this point today. A round of applause for the crew.”
More cheers.
“Next, I would like everyone who has received a robe in the past to come to the middle.”
Tabitha proudly went to the middle of the circle and took a bow along with a few adult actors. “Thank you, thank you!” she said, graciously waving her arms to applause. Tabitha had received the Legacy Robe for her role in Beauty and the Beast a year earlier. But today was not her moment in the spotlight.
“And so it is time…”
The lights onstage began to flicker.
The actors looked at one another, but Mr. George only paused briefly and then continued, “I have the greatest pleasure of all time to announce this show’s Legacy Robe recipient—he looked around the stage—“Miss April DaSilva!” The circle of cast members clapped and hooted loudly. Relly gave her a big hug. “I knew it!” He smiled.
A gust of wind blew a door closed with a loud slam backstage. Cast members looked around, but April waved and bowed with a big, grand sweeping movement. Nothing was going to dampen her moment. Especially not a curse.
“Miss April, please come to the middle of the circle.”
Mr. George lifted the robe and opened it for all to see its details. It was a patchwork of designs from the different shows the robe had been passed to: Miss Saigon; Hello, Dolly!; Jesus Christ Superstar; A Chorus Line; Wicked; Hamilton. They all made up this robe’s story, and now April was part of it. When she put on the robe, it was so big on her that her hands weren’t visible through the sleeves and the entire bottom half dragged on the floor. The cast laughed at this and cheered.
“Thank you, everyone! It is such an honor to be here among your brilliance. And thank you, thank you, thank you so much for letting me be on this stage, sharing in the telling of this marvelous story. I am in the presence of such incredible minds,” April declared.
The cast clapped some more. April had waited her whole life for this moment.
“You know, sometimes we forget. We just forget. We are so busy doing our thing and getting our work done that we don’t stop to think how very lucky we all are to be on Broadway, doing a job we love doing.” April had tears in her eyes.
Everyone nodded in agreement.
She shimmied her arms through the robe so they were visible, then continued. “The ritual of the Legacy Robe started in 1950, when an actor named Bill Bradley persuaded his fellow actor Florence Baum to let him have her dressing gown. He wore it for luck on opening night. He then passed the gown to an actor at the Imperial Theatre on their opening night, saying the robe would ‘bless their show.’ Then a rose from one of Ethel Merman’s gowns—yes, our Ethel Merman—was attached, and the robe was sent on to another show.”
Hudson leaned over to Relly. “How does she know all this stuff?”
“Because she’s April. She knows all this stuff,” Relly said in a whisper.
April continued, “The robe kept getting sent on to other opening nights, and soon enough the ritual was established. And so began the tradition of Broadway’s Legacy Robe ceremony. Now I wear the robe, and per tradition, I am to circle the stage counterclockwise three times, and everyone touches the robe.” The cast clapped eagerly.
“After that,” April continued, “the recipient of the robe shall visit all the dressing rooms and announce, ‘The show is blessed!’ ”
Everyone clapped again, and with that she circled around three times, counterclockwise, high-fiving cast members as they all hollered, “Brava!”
* * *
A thin beam of sunset stretched into the hotel room. Out came Monica from the bathroom with her hair in tight curls and dramatic eyes with a little sparkly eye shadow. She wore a semiformal black satin knee-length dress—the only dress she had packed, the only semiformal dress she owned, really. She noticed only after she put it on that it had an egg-sized chocolate stain smack-dab in the middle of the skirt from the last time she had worn it. It didn’t matter, she thought—she would be hidden backstage with the other understudies in a small room, watching the show on a tiny TV monitor.
Her phone rang. It was Marissa, on FaceTime.
“Let me see you,” Marissa said. Her usually long curly hair had been chopped very short.
“Your hair! You cut it!” Monica said in surprise.
“Yeah! I just felt like a big change! So my mom helped me cut it really short.”
Monica laughed.
“Wow! You look amazing!” Marissa said.
Monica stuck out her tongue and then sm
iled. “Thank you. I’ll look great for backstage.”
“Are you worried about the curse?” Marissa asked.
“Ha! I’d rather talk about your new haircut,” Monica said, leaning into the phone. “Show me the back.”
Marissa angled the phone. “Guess who wanted to see my new do first?”
They both said the answer at the same time: “Freddy!”
“He kept telling me how next time, he would help Mom give me a ‘fresh cut.’ ” This made Monica laugh hard. Marissa was like a second sister to Freddy; Monica could imagine the scene.
“Have you talked to your family lately?” Marissa’s tone changed.
“Just a little bit ago. They couldn’t talk. They were in a hurry. I guess they needed to do something at the farm. Why? Is there something wrong?” Monica felt an immediate wave of panic come over her. Were they not telling her something? Her mother had seemed a little strange over the phone.
“No, nothing’s wrong. Nothing at all! I just saw Freddy yesterday. He was his usual wild self. He’d caught a bat and was racing around with it in a shoebox showing everyone.”
“Oh!” Monica could always trust Marissa. This made her feel relieved.
“Come, Kita. I want to get to my seat early. I don’t like to feel rushed,” her abuelita said.
“I have to go, M.,” Monica said.
“Well, I just wanted to say break a leg. Actually, I hope Tabitha breaks a leg,” Marissa said, and then hugged her phone. “Love you, Mo!”
“Love you too. I’ll call you after the show.”
Her abuelita was waiting by the door.
They each slipped on nice black gloves.
“When I woke up this morning, Kita, and took my walk around the block—which I’ve enjoyed so much, by the way… what a lovely and simple thing to do… take a walk around a city block…” Her abuelita reflected on that before continuing. “But this morning, I could still see stars out from the night before. Stars in the morning are a good sign, Kita. It means the universe is not sleeping. It’s fully awake and paying attention.”
They were greeted by a blast of cold air, which infused a sort of liveliness as they walked briskly to the theater with tight smiles.
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