I flip to the back, where my own words fill the last pages. Now I understand exactly what I have to do.
thirty-four
But just because I suddenly know what I need to do doesn’t mean I’m not terrified. It’s like I’ve realized that in order to pull this whole thing off, I’m going to have to jump from a cliff, leap across a canyon, and safely land on the other side—while dragging the entire class with me.
When the first few Advanced Drama nobodies arrive, their footsteps clicking loudly through the theater, I step to the edge of the stage and shade my eyes with my hand. The footlights seem especially harsh—every bit as harsh as my fear.
I step out of the glare to find Kiki and Liz standing in the center aisle waving me over.
Yes. Kiki’s here, and the Avery’s still lit up and looking new. This is the right time. This is the moment it all comes together. The moment that Bertie foretold all those years ago. It’s happening, it’s happening. . . .
“This was inside all along? Did you have any idea when you suggested we use the Avery?” Liz asks.
“How could this be? It doesn’t even smell old,” Kiki chimes in. “It used to—” But she stops short of admitting she was here, interrupting Cass and Dylan’s private practice.
“How can the neon sign outside still be working after all this time?” Liz asks. “Wasn’t it broken?”
“Yeah!” Toby shouts as he bursts into the theater. “The electric’s on! And I’ve got the screen.” He holds up a finger. “It’s in my truck. Wait just a second.”
I remind Liz she has a job to do, pointing at the costume rack on the stage.
The first dress on the rack is perfect for Kiki. The next garment—a suit—works fine for Toby. He grabs it, then quickly rushes to attach his enormous screen to the rigging—with the help of the other two red ball caps, who have arrived as well.
The rest of the class trickles in slowly. And each time a new face shows up, it’s washed in shock, confusion, even bewilderment—but never disbelief. How can you not believe something that’s right in front of you? Especially when everyone else sees the same thing you do?
Up on the stage, Liz’s eyes sparkle joyfully. Each time she removes one costume, another slides to the front of the rack—and it’s perfect for the next person in line. “Everything’s the right size,” she keeps muttering. “How’s that possible?” Then giggles. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
Toby keeps calling me over, asking for feedback on his hopeless screen. “Is it straight?” he asks. “Are you sure?”
Between nods, I peek through a tiny gap in the middle of the now-drawn curtains. “Quiet! Everyone’s coming,” I hiss over my shoulder.
I wave Liz over to take a look, too. They’re all in vintage. For the most part, they appear to have pulled out a few old pieces from the backs of their own closets—or their parents’ closets. Some of the parents are even in the letter jackets they wore years ago to parade through the halls of Verona High. Those faces from the school fire are all here—in their vintage garb, they all look just as young as they had the night of the lightning strike—and I feel it again: that sense that the story bubbling around us is ours, all together. Not just mine. Or Mom’s. Or Cass’s. It belongs to those who are flipping down their seats, settling in to watch the show, every bit as much as it belongs to those of us who are about to perform it. Now, I think, if I can just present it in a way that makes them feel that, too.
The crowd murmurs, pointing at the gilded embellishments, the sparkling chandeliers, the floral carpet. The same cluster of choir kids who crashed our rotten first rehearsal are all checking their tickets—the same tickets they surely bought weeks ago, when the announcement of our production was first made. They’re pointing at seats, their ticket stubs matching up with the rows in the Avery—as though it were somehow predestined all along that this was where our performance would take place.
With no wisecracks—and too stunned even to think about getting out their phones—they settle into their plush seats. Eyeing each other. Shrugging. Shaking their heads.
When Cass arrives, her eyes are the widest of all. The Avery has never done this before, not to this extent—the lights, the perfect interior.
The dress now at the front of the costume rack is blue. A perfect match for the familiar pillbox hat with mesh resting on the top shelf, beside the mirror.
Cass’s hand shakes as she reaches for the hat. Stepping before the mirror, she secures it to the top of her head. A shower of sparks tumbles down the side of her face, scrubbing her birthmark away.
“Cass,” Liz gasps.
Which draws the attention of the rest of the class. Suddenly, they’re all talking, pointing. One races to pull the last person from the dressing room. But this attention doesn’t sting. It tickles Cass into a round of laughter.
Dylan steps into view, reaching through the students who have clustered around Cass to retrieve the next garment on the rack: Nick’s jacket. The moment he slides into it, another puff of sparks flies from his shoulders.
“Should I warm up the piano?” Dylan asks me with no struggle or stutter or hiccup.
“Not yet,” I say. “I’m going to need you onstage. I’m changing things around.”
But hardly anyone hears me. Everyone’s still marveling at what’s happened to Dylan. “He— How?” they all ask.
I catch Cass’s eye—she’s waiting for my response. My shock, my hurt, even, that this secret of hers is in the open. I smile—and in that smile, I say, It’s okay, Cass. It makes me so happy to see you this way. It all makes me happy—the new face she wears, the way it makes her feel, even Dylan. What’s happening between her and Dylan makes me happy, too—no jealousy about it.
How can I be jealous when they obviously opened this thing up? Together, with their first impromptu performace, they unlocked the Avery. They unleashed that first burst of sparks and let me see the old theater in a new way. Dropped this new scene right into my lap.
Always before, I’ve taken others’ stories and made them into something I could use—all those novels in my room becoming furniture. Now it’s up to me to take pieces of others’ stories—Bertie’s and Mom’s and Emma’s and even Cass’s—and string them into a story of my own. But can I? I never have before. Not out loud. Not like this. I start to sweat. Noises trickling through the curtain from the audience sound louder than before—every murmur punches my eardrum.
And suddenly, I’m reliving the joy that found me as I scribbled new passages in the back of Bertie’s journal at the same time I’m remembering Bertie’s words: This is a once-in-forever love that has the power to change the world around it.
This was Alberta’s prediction for me all along—why my name was on her journal. My love of words—but is it enough? Can I pull off what I’m imagining?
Cass must read all that in my face, because I swear, when she smiles back at me, I see her saying, You can. You have that kind of power.
Her smile fades as the lights dim.
“Who did that? Is the curtain about to come up?” Kiki asks. “You haven’t told us what we’re doing. If it’s not what we practiced . . .”
Darkness explodes. The entire cast is backing up, eyes glowing like animals looking for a place to hide. Let’s face it—we’ve never been good. We’ve had a few decent moments in rehearsal, sure. But any time we’ve even dared to think we were getting somewhere, the outside world—a radio station interview, a few comments under a YouTube video—would haul us right back into reality. For the most part, we’ve all been afraid of becoming an online laughingstock.
The curtains are starting to slide open.
It’s showtime.
I step to the center of the stage, wearing a red-and-white seersucker dress. The same dress I saw on Bertie the first time we met face-to-face on the square. “Welcome to the Avery Theater,” I announce. “I’m Quin Drewery, the director—and”—I take a deep lungful of air—“the writer—of tonight’s production. You all arrived ton
ight expecting to see the Advanced Drama class perform the original Anything Goes. But tonight we’re going to be sharing another story, one that has been waiting a long time to be told.
“Our production is also called Anything Goes. But it’s a story whose beginning is rooted in truth. In the past—in our past. What’s past is prologue, as the Bard said. So we invite you to come with us as we relive the final tragedy that played out right here on this stage. A tragedy not of the page but, as I said, of real life.”
I take a deep breath. Open Bertie’s journal as if to read from it. “It’s June 1947,” I announce. When I sweep my arm out to the side, a shower of sparks explodes; in their wake, the square appears. The old square, the bustling square. Right there on the stage. All of it—the cars, the streetlights. On one end of the square, the Avery looks new. The class takes up the roles of the Verona residents of 1947, all of them racing from one store to the next, calling happily to one another.
The auditorium fills with gasps.
“This story involves a real-life Romeo and Juliet,” I announce. When I point, Cass and Dylan emerge, both of them dressed as Emma and Nick.
Those scenes that we’d put together in rehearsal that had never seemed to have much of a place fit perfectly now. I hadn’t been revising the boy-wants-girl story in the script as much as trying to find a way to write down the love story I’d been watching play out between Emma and Nick. Cass realizes it, too, falling right into the dialogue I’ve already penned and that she’s already memorized. Dylan follows suit.
Another surprised murmur ripples through the theater. Her birthmark. His stutter. Both gone.
I take up the role of Bertie as narrator, pointing at the skies, saying, “This is a tale of star-crossed lovers. Ill-fated. But I know there’s more to it. I know about the magic that exists in the world. If only you’ll let yourself see it.”
A wild yellow streak bursts in the air above Cass. It snakes along the ceiling of the theater, swirling and cascading over the audience.
As their characters begin to fall in love, an electric-green light shoots above Dylan, dancing alongside Cass’s yellow streaks.
“These are the same colors that rose from the horizon on that tragic night in 1947,” I continue in my storytelling voice. “The same colors I always knew could not be the aurora borealis. Verona’s in the wrong place, after all—too far south. Tonight, though, we’re all in the right place to bring them back.”
As we move deeper into the first act, the players lose any last semblance of clumsiness. They’re no longer stiff or robotic. Cass’s and Dylan’s lights continue to curl about the air, and that somehow changes what the entire class thinks they’re capable of. They’re suddenly all infused with confidence, some of them even going so far as to exhibit a newly acquired swagger.
When I’m not on the stage myself, I hiss directions at my classmates, giving them the gist of the next scene, telling them what their motivation is before pushing them back out to perform. The colors of the overhead light show deepen, intensify as the story moves forward—the color of a first crush becomes the color of a first kiss becomes the color of not wanting to ever let go.
The cast’s improvised words are spot-on, filled with just the right sprinkles of emotion. As though in answer, lights begin to rise from them: purples and pinks and blues, joining together in the space above our heads to complete the display.
The audience responds, giggling at Emma’s clumsiness. Sighing as Emma and Nick grow closer. Clucking their tongues in disapproval when George tries to tear them apart. Shaking their heads at little Trouble and her meddlesome ways. Cocking their heads to the side, feeling sorry for Bertie.
The cast begins to feed off the audience—every response encourages them, makes them better than they were just a moment before.
Mom was right—they’re rising to the occasion.
And she knows it. When I glance her way backstage, she’s smiling. Tears glitter behind her glasses.
When the curtains fall on the first act, I’m anxious to see what the response is. I peek through the gap in the red velvet; the audience is visibly moved. The powerful last scene—the death of the two star-crossed lovers—has them dabbing the corners of their eyes. Shaking their heads. Murmuring to the person seated at their side. I’ve got them, I think. They see what I see. Feel what I feel. We’re doing it.
As Act II opens, I return to the stage, wearing a pair of khaki shorts and a white T-shirt, along with my cat’s-eye glasses. “Now, we leave the past behind,” I insist. The set responds, following my instruction. The bustling square of 1947 turns into the empty, dilapidated square of today.
The audience falls into stunned silence.
Behind me, the entire class emerges, all of them in their normal daily clothes—red ball caps, jeans, Cass’s vintage polyester maxidress, Dylan’s black T-shirt and skeleton key necklace.
“How do you uncross stars?” I ask. Behind me, Toby lets out a yelp of triumph as his screen takes flight, soaring up into the air. The screen fades, as do the wires of the Christmas lights, replaced by a ceiling full of twinkling stars.
“How do you rewrite history?” I ask. “How do you fix something as tragic as Nick and Emma’s story?”
I let my question hang beneath the aurora borealis swirls and the stars.
“You don’t,” I say simply. “You don’t rewrite history. You don’t revise the past.” I couldn’t—not even when I was crying out to Emma from the balcony, yelling at her to watch out before she took that final tumble. She couldn’t hear me, no matter how loud I screamed. “You don’t bring Nick and Emma back. You can’t change what’s already taken place.
“The past isn’t just written,” I go on. “It’s etched. Bertie’s is. The Avery’s is. You don’t erase that. But if you keep moving, keep pushing the story forward, adding brighter sentences—then it isn’t a tragedy anymore. The dark time becomes a sad scene in the middle of a tale of triumph. A sour note that can lead to a richer, more beautiful chord.”
I point, making a piano appear in the middle of the stage. Cass and Dylan sit at the bench. Dylan starts with a few introductory chords; Cass hums. Slowly, the words to the songs we’ve learned for Anything Goes begin to swell.
And suddenly, the entire cast is involved in a medley, dancing and belting the lyrics to “It’s De-Lovely” and “I Get a Kick Out of You.” Kiki’s front and center now, hitting the arm of the red ball cap beside her, egging him on, pushing him forward. Come on, come on, this is fantastic. Keep up. Keep going.
As they perform, the set begins to reinvent itself, to depict the Verona town square as it could still be. Lights return. The Avery’s windows are no longer cracked. Signs appear. The sounds of car engines and voices and laughter spill out from all directions.
The square in the center of the stage is vibrant. Bustling.
Of course it is. Anything you imagine is real here. That’s truly the magic of the theater.
The cast falls quiet as Dylan’s piano leads Cass into a solo performance of “You’d Be So Easy to Love.”
Cass and Dylan are both themselves and unlike themselves at that moment; on the stage, they’re characters we’ve all seen or befriended in real life. Characters we’ve all been. At that moment, the members of the audience are right there, with Cass, falling in love for the first time all over again. Whatever separated them from that old love no longer exists. And for those who haven’t fallen yet, whatever obstacle has ever stood in their way is gone. Just as Cass’s birthmark is gone, as Dylan’s stutter is gone. At that moment, first love is a present tense, with nothing in the way of a happy ending.
Star-crossed lovers uncrossed.
The aurora borealis colors begin to shift in the space above our heads. The previously stationary streaks of color are moving, like lines being drawn by an invisible pen, bouncing from one person to another. Bouncing between the audience and the players. Tying us together. Connecting us—like dots—to create a bigger picture. The past
and the present, who we are and who we wish we were coming together on the stage. All that’s needed to witness the magic is just a spark of belief.
From somewhere deep in the background, a drumbeat begins to thump out a syncopated rhythm. But I know that’s not a drum at all. The Avery’s heart is beating. The Avery, that old woman, is alive. And young again. The Avery has risen from the dead.
We join together for one more rousing number—“Anything Goes.” And at that moment, it’s true. Now that the town has seen it, the soul of the theater alive and well, anything can happen. As the play winds down, everyone inside the walls of the Avery knows that Verona is at the beginning of a new act of its own.
Once the final note stops echoing, the audience is on their feet. Applause erupts.
Curtain calls. Whistles. Bravos.
“Go,” Mom says. “Take your bows. You deserve them.”
I grab her hand and haul her—the new owner of the Avery—out with us.
She glances out into the auditorium, a young woman coming face-to-face with her old love again. And more—her eyes sparkle in the stage lights as she stands in the midst of sad, sour endings that now can be bumps in the road.
“See? You kept your promise,” I tell her as we all line up at the edge of the stage.
She bows with the rest of the class—all of us drenched in sweat, but ecstatic.
Epilogue
Needless to say, every one of us got an A on our senior project.
Ever since our night in the Avery, Advanced Drama has been treated as far more than just the plain old Grays and Navy Blues in the crayon box. We’ve become Electric Lime, Laser Lemon, Razzmatazz. Next year when Jenny’s back, the drama class is going to have (as Mom puts it) a deuce of a time figuring out how to live up to the bar we’ve raised.
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