Timeless

by Alexandra Monir

  “Yeah, good plan,” Caissie agreed. “Good luck!”

  Between classes the next day, as Michele was exchanging books at her locker, she heard a familiar voice behind her. “Hey there.”

  She turned to flash Ben Archer a quick grin. “Hey, what’s up?”

  “Need any help with those?” He nodded at her books.

  “Nah, I’m good. Thanks, though.” She shut her locker and fell into step beside Ben as they walked to their science class. Just as she was beginning to wonder what he wanted, she heard him clear his throat nervously.

  “So, um … this Autumn Ball thing…,” he began.

  Michele felt her face freeze. Oh no. Was he going to ask her on a date? How could she stomach going on a date with another guy when she was still so preoccupied with Philip? But how could she say no? She liked him as a friend. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings—

  “I was thinking, you know, since you’re new and all, you might not have anyone to go with,” he continued, then reddened as he seemed to realize how that must have sounded. “I mean, not that you shouldn’t have other offers—”

  Oh, boy. She’d almost forgotten about the lack of game possessed by most guys her age in 2010. Philip, with all his eloquence and elegance, had officially spoiled her. Though this conversation was starting to depress her, Michele forced a laugh, wanting to put Ben at ease. “It’s okay. I know what you meant.”

  “Cool. Well, anyway, want to go with me? To the dance?”

  Michele studied the floor, wondering how to respond. You’re technically not with Philip anymore, Michele reminded herself, the thought causing her heart to constrict painfully. You can’t stay away from other guys the rest of your life. But it was tempting.

  “Um, yeah,” Michele finally answered, giving him a smile. “Thanks, Ben. The only thing is, uh, I’m in a sort of complicated … long-distance situation with someone. But I’d love to go with you as friends, if that’s cool.”

  Ben’s face fell for a moment, but he quickly recovered. “No worries. Going as friends is totally cool,” he said smoothly.

  “Awesome.” Michele looked up to see that they’d reached their classroom. “Well, talk to you later, then. And … it should be fun.”

  “For real.” Ben grinned. “See you later.”

  As soon as she reached the Windsor Mansion and alerted Annaleigh that she’d be working on a school assignment at Caissie’s, Michele gathered the sheet music Philip had written and tucked it carefully into her shoulder bag. She picked up Lily’s composition book to go back to 1925, but a loose paper fell out of the book—a program from one of her Cotton Club gigs. As Michele bent down to retrieve it, she was sent flying backward.…

  She returned to the Cotton Club to find that two weeks had passed since Lily had won the contest. Michele spotted her ensconced in the smoky scene, cozied up in a booth with the producer, Thomas. When Lily spotted Michele, she beamed and jumped up. “I’ll be right back,” she told Thomas, and turned quickly toward the women’s restroom. Michele followed her, and once Lily had checked that no one else was in the bathroom, she let out a little squeal.

  “Spirit girl! You’re back!” She teetered in her heels. “I was wondering when you’d return.”

  “Are you drunk?” Michele asked, noticing Lily’s glazed expression.

  “I’ve only had a little giggle water today,” Lily replied with a sly smile.

  “Why was that Thomas guy practically feeling you up? He’s so old. Have you not noticed the receding hairline?” Michele made a face.

  “Don’t be such a bluenose,” Lily snapped, but Michele could tell she had hit a nerve. “I have to go warm up backstage. My show is about to start.”

  “Okay. Good luck,” Michele called out as Lily flounced off.

  Michele wandered back into the audience. The Fletcher Henderson Orchestra was playing again, and that night Louis Armstrong was singing as well as playing the trumpet. Michele swayed dreamily as she listened to his signature gravelly voice. This was too incredible!

  On all sides of her were couples dancing 1920s dances, from the Charleston to the turkey trot, their legs and arms flying. The women were loud and boisterous, wearing dresses with plunging necklines and puffing on cigarettes, a stunning contrast to the proper, buttoned-up ladies Michele had encountered in 1910. Most of the men were dapper in their pin-striped suits and top hats, but Michele noticed a handful of menacing-looking characters. She wondered if they were mobsters or bootleggers—or both?

  Suddenly, amid the buzz of conversation, Michele heard a familiar name: “Mr. and Mrs. Windsor just arrived, did you hear?” “Came to see the new singer everyone’s been raving about, our own Contessa!”

  Michele froze. They couldn’t be talking about Lily’s parents—could they? Michele followed the craned necks and whispers to the Cotton Club’s entrance. And sure enough, there they were, striding in—and looking furious. They had obviously found out about Lily. Harried-looking footmen flanked the couple, shielding the Windsors from the club-goers pressing in on all sides.

  Michele raced through the club, anxiously looking for the entrance to the backstage area. Once she found it, she spotted Lily waiting in the wings.

  “Bad news,” Michele said immediately. “Your parents are here. It looks like they know.”

  The color drained from Lily’s face. “Oh, my God. We have to get out of here! Help me out of this dress, please!” She started urgently pulling at her costume.

  Michele began to help with her buttons, but then stopped suddenly.

  “No,” she said, realizing something. “You have to go on.”

  “What? Are you off your nuts?” Lily demanded.

  “Your only choice is to do the best singing and performing of your life tonight. The truth is out whether you do the gig or not, but this way, your parents can see with their own eyes how good you are,” Michele insisted. “And who knows … maybe they’ll be impressed enough to let you continue.”

  “Do you really think that’s likely?” Lily asked skeptically.

  “It’s your best shot,” Michele said encouragingly. “You can’t back out now.”

  Lily sat down nervously. “I don’t know if I can do this.…”

  Michele grabbed her hand and pulled her back up. “Yes, you can! You have nothing to worry about. Come on. I have a feeling about this.”

  Lily took a deep, shaky breath. “All right.… Wish me luck.”

  As Michele watched from the wings, Lily stepped onstage and began her first song, a cover of Fanny Brice’s “My Man.”

  “It cost me a lot, but there’s one thing that I’ve got, it’s my man …”

  The audience was instantly riveted, engrossed in this tale of soul-crushing love, as Lily’s mature, bluesy voice made them forget that they were watching someone too young to have lived through it. But one couple was far from entertained—Lily’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Windsor, who were sitting stiffly at a front table, their faces lined with fury. Lily swallowed hard and continued, throwing herself into the performance.

  “Two or three girls has he that he likes as well as me, but I love him …”

  Lily ended the song to a standing ovation. But in the midst of the excitement, as Lily curtsied and the audience cheered, Lily’s father jostled his way through the crowd, his wife right behind him, until they were in front of the stage.

  “Daddy,” Lily gasped, her face pale.

  Without a word, Mr. Windsor marched forward and plucked his daughter off the stage. The applause and cheers died as a shocked murmur rippled through the audience.

  “Hey!” the club owner, Gene, roared. He ran over to Lily and Mr. Windsor, Thomas right behind him. “What do you think you’re doing with my singer?”

  “Oh, crap,” Michele groaned, hurrying to join Lily. This was hardly the reaction she’d been hoping for when she’d urged Lily to go onstage.

  By the time Michele reached the main floor of the club, the crowd had gathered in a circle around Lily,
her parents, Gene, and Thomas, watching with equal parts glee and horror as “Contessa Crawford” was outed as sixteen-year-old heiress Lily Windsor.

  “Sixteen?” Thomas gasped, turning red. “You told me twenty-two!”

  Gene’s face was a mask of fury. “Are you trying to shut me down, little girl? You know I could lose the club if they found out I was hiring underage performers!”

  As Lily looked pleadingly from one angry face to the next, Michele saw her as a completely different person from the confident, defiant flapper she had been before. Now Lily just seemed like a scared, defeated teenager.

  “I—I suppose I wasn’t thinking,” Lily answered in a small voice. “I just wanted so much to be a singer, to make it and be heard—”

  “Well, now that’s the end of that,” Lily’s father told her firmly. He turned his attention to Gene. “I cannot apologize enough for my daughter’s despicable actions. I’ll have my accountant ring you to settle a financial sum for any inconvenience caused by her behavior and the termination of her contract.”

  Gene’s expression brightened considerably at the words “financial sum,” but Lily was now in tears. “Termination of my contract?” she repeated, her voice choked.

  “There’s also the matter of Lily’s audition with Florenz Ziegfeld,” Thomas said, avoiding looking at Lily. “Am I to understand that is being canceled?”

  “Florenz Ziegfeld?” Lily’s mother echoed. Michele could have sworn she saw a look of pride briefly cross her face. “Of the Ziegfeld Follies?”

  “That’s the one,” Thomas answered grimly. “He’ll be none too happy with me when I tell him that the girl I was raving about won’t be showing.”

  “Oh, Father, please!” Lily flung herself at Mr. Windsor. “Please don’t make me cancel.”

  Mr. Windsor hesitated for a split second, then scowled and shook his head. “I think you’ve had enough show business. We’re out of here.”

  Back home in Lily’s bedroom, Lily was a wreck. “What am I going to do?” she wailed, flinging herself onto the bed. “I’ve lost it all!”

  Michele didn’t want to admit it, but she felt just as hopeless as Lily. So much for her plan to rescue Philip through the release of their songs. And then she felt a cold wash of fear come over her as she thought, What if I changed history and stopped Lily’s career from happening? What if she was never supposed to get involved in the Cotton Club, and by helping her I ruined her chances?

  “I’m so sorry, Lily,” Michele whispered. “I was only trying to help.…”

  “It’s not your fault,” Lily replied, wiping her mascara-smudged eyes.

  “Can I—can I ask you something? Why do you want this so bad? Is it just that you want to be a big star?” Michele asked.

  “No!” Lily sat up, momentarily distracted from her crisis. “Of course it’s not just that. It’s about the way I feel when I perform, like I’ve come alive. Like that song of yours—well, music is what gives my world color. Everything’s so gray without it, I’m just bored and muddling through. But then, when I get onstage … magic happens,” Lily explained, a faraway look in her eyes. “And then, the music of jazz and blues, I love how it’s like a bridge between people and races and nationalities; it brings everyone together. I love that the most.”

  Just like Philip, Michele thought. She felt a fresh surge of admiration for both him and Lily. That they both inhabited worlds rife with prejudice and racism yet had no understanding of or tolerance for it showed Michele how special they were.

  Michele smiled at Lily. “I know just what you mean. And I think if you explain it the way you just put it to me, your parents will find it in them to understand. Maybe they just need you to promise that the show biz will stay onstage, know what I mean?” She thought for a moment. “They see you performing in a speakeasy, and I guess it makes sense that they’d freak out, more because of what goes on in those places than the music you’re singing. So show them that they don’t have to worry about you becoming an alcoholic or a ‘fallen woman’ or whatever it is they’re afraid of. Show them that you want to do good things with your talent.” She suddenly remembered Lily’s composition book. “Show them, write a song conveying everything you just told me.”

  “But you’re the songwriter, not me,” Lily said, frowning.

  “You can do it too,” Michele said encouragingly. “Just sit down and try writing something like those jazz songs you like so much, and you’ll see that you’re a songwriter. Trust me, I know.”

  Lily impulsively threw her arms around Michele. “I don’t know how I can thank you for everything you’ve done for me. Especially when I was such a brat most of the time.”

  Michele grinned. “Well, it’s been exciting for me too. Most of the time, at least!”

  “If I do succeed in convincing my parents to let me continue, I promise to perform your songs too,” Lily said. “I know it means a great deal to you and it’s the least I can do. And they are very good songs, besides.”

  “Thank you. And that reminds me!” Michele pulled the sheet music out of her bag and handed it to Lily.

  “ ‘Music by PW and lyrics by MW,’ ” Lily read. “What the dilly? No real names? And who is PW?”

  “No one you know,” Michele replied breezily. “And that’s just how we prefer to be credited. Nice and … simple.”

  “All right,” Lily said dubiously. “If that’s how you want it.”

  Michele pulled Lily into another hug, suddenly feeling emotional. “Good luck, Lily. I’ll be pulling for you.”

  “Thank you. I’ll do my best, spirit.” Lily smiled at Michele.

  In 2010 the next day, Annaleigh was full of excitement when Michele returned home from school.

  “Your grandparents are taking you out tonight!” she exclaimed with the enthusiasm of someone who’d just won a huge shopping spree. “Isn’t that wonderful? It will be so great for the three of you to have a fun night out together.”

  “Where are we going?” Michele asked. She was pleased that her grandparents wanted to do something nice for her, but she had to admit she was a little nervous about spending a whole evening with them.

  “I booked the three of you tickets for Mary Poppins on Broadway, and then dinner at Chez Josephine.”

  “Mary Poppins?” Michele giggled. “Isn’t that a kids’ show?”

  “A family show,” Annaleigh said, correcting her, but she looked a little worried. “I hope I didn’t make the wrong decision. Your grandparents asked me to choose the show, after all. I thought a musical was the best bet, but so many of them are just so modern, with rock music and all, and I knew Mr. and Mrs. Windsor wouldn’t appreciate that. So when the ticket operator said Mary Poppins, I thought, ‘Well, that sounds like the right show’—”

  “It sounds great.” Michele interrupted her with a smile. “Don’t worry. I’m sure we’ll love it.”

  Since it was her first Broadway show, Michele decided to dress up a little. She wore a knee-length black dress with heels, adding Marion’s Van Cleef butterfly necklace as the finishing touch. When she met her grandparents downstairs that evening, she saw that they had dressed up too, Dorothy in a navy blue chiffon dress and Walter in a crisp suit and tie.

  “Michele, you look beautiful!” Dorothy exclaimed when she appeared on the staircase. Dorothy’s eyes warmed as she took in Marion’s butterfly necklace.

  “Thanks.” Michele smiled. “And thank you for planning this.”

  “Oh, Annaleigh deserves the credit for doing the planning. But we wanted to show you a good time in the city tonight. We know you’ve been going through a tough time,” Dorothy said.

  “And … well … we’re sorry we haven’t been better companions,” Walter finished with an awkward smile. “It’s hard for us—but we want to try.”

  Michele looked at them, touched. She was especially surprised by Walter’s softening, and she wondered if Dorothy had filled him in on her emotional meltdown after the Newport trip. “I really appreciate all t
his. And I’m sorry too, about the other night. I should have respected your rules more. I will from now on.”

  “Good,” Dorothy said warmly. “Now, we’d better hurry if we want to make curtain.”

  Fritz drove them across Midtown to Forty-second Street in the heart of Times Square, the boisterous, bright “thoroughfare of the world.” The SUV passed dozens of Broadway theaters, their marquees big and bold enough to be seen from miles away, as well as New York City landmarks such as the MTV studios and Hard Rock Cafe. Fritz pulled up to the New Amsterdam Theater, which had a gigantic Mary Poppins poster emblazoned over the theater’s exterior walls.

  As they entered the lobby, Michele gasped in amazement. The New Amsterdam Theater, disguised amid the kitsch of Times Square, was a veritable palace inside. It was an Art Nouveau dream, painted and designed in lustrous shades of mauve, green, and gold. The lobby was decorated with Shakespearean wall reliefs and ornate carvings, and framed black-and-white posters of old-fashioned showgirls and actresses lined the walls. After they’d handed over their tickets, Walter led Michele toward one of the posters near the staircase leading to the mezzanine level.

  “There’s my mother!” he said proudly.

  With a gasp of excitement, Michele gazed at the poster. There was the ambitious teenage Lily, perched on a stool in front of an antique French tapestry, wearing a lacy dress and her dancing shoes. Her head was turned to the side to face the camera, and her eyes had a knowing look, as if to say, Of course I’m here. Where else would I be?

  “So she did it!” Michele blurted out, nearly limp with relief at the knowledge that her rewriting of history hadn’t ruined Lily’s career after all. “She really made it!”

  Her grandparents looked at her quizzically, no doubt wondering why that was suddenly such a surprise to her.

  “I just realized I’ve never asked you,” Michele said, turning to Walter, “why you and Lily kept her maiden name. I mean, what about … your dad?”

  “I never knew him,” Walter said, his eyes focused on Lily’s photo. “My mother was very … modern. She didn’t believe that a star like herself should have to take a man’s name.” He gave Michele a knowing look. “And she also fully believed in divorcing a philandering husband.”