A Tender Thing

by Emily Neuberger

  Eleanor thought about all of the shows she’d loved as a girl, even the flops. She’d found the records in the back of the store, dug out the scripts at her library.

  “You put in your piece,” Rosie said. “No one can ever take that away from you.”

  Eleanor smirked and sang a bit from the Gershwin song, the first one Pat had ever played her. “‘The way you wear your hat . . . ’”

  Even Rosie knew that one. She leaned up on her toes and kissed Eleanor on the forehead. “This show would have never happened without you.”

  Eleanor couldn’t take any more; the praise hit somewhere weak, and she felt too exposed. She wrapped her arms around Rosie.

  “You know I love you more than all this.”

  Rosie laughed.

  “Okay,” Eleanor said. “As much.”

  * * *

  The news of the shooting had brought a special breed of person to the theater that night. The house was packed. People were wondering if there would be another disaster. Everyone thought the show would close, apparently, but everyone wanted to be one of the few who’d seen it.

  “They want a car crash,” Don said in Eleanor’s dressing room before the performance.

  “They won’t get one,” Eleanor said. “They’re going to get a piece of art.”

  Don touched her face. “I’m sorry I couldn’t give you a hit.”

  Eleanor looked out her dressing room window at Times Square outside and thought of her first day in New York with Tommy and Rosie. She’d wanted to be a Broadway baby, wanted the lights and the costumes and the bright music.

  “This is better than any hit,” she said. “I think you did your legacy well, Don.”

  “Not in this lifetime,” he said.

  “Maybe not,” she said. “But wasn’t that the point?”

  He met her eyes.

  “Says the twenty-one-year-old.”

  “Yes, who finished it for you.”

  Don let out a laugh, a real bark. “Oh, Eleanor,” he said. He stuck out a hand. “Friends?”

  “There was a time I would have died to have you call me a friend,” Eleanor said. She took his hand, shook it. “Are you going to watch?”

  “From the balcony.”

  She slid her wig cap over her pin curls. “I’ll do you proud.”

  He turned to leave, then stopped. “You already have.”

  Once he left, Eleanor felt the nerves come in, persistent and strong. Though no one would pay enough attention to the program to realize she’d contributed to the writing of the show, she would know. If they got their closing notice that night, there would always be a part of her that felt it was somehow her fault, no matter how true that was. But it didn’t matter, because it was 7:50, and the show would begin in ten minutes.

  Backstage, she and Charles held hands. The entire cast was quiet, solemn. Right before curtain, they drew together in a circle, everyone’s arms around everyone else’s, and said a prayer. Even with such weight hanging over them, the rumble of the audience worked on the group of actors. None of them were immune. Charles had tears in his eyes. Eleanor embraced him.

  “Thank you,” she said. “For everything.”

  “And you.” He hesitated. The lights were going down. “Will you be his godmother?”

  Eleanor was speechless. “Gwen?”

  “Agrees.” He smiled. “Well?”

  She couldn’t speak; she nodded. “I won’t be helpful with the church parts.”

  Charles smiled. He drew her close. “One more time, Molly.”

  * * *

  By the time the overture began, Eleanor was ready.

  It was a good audience. Perhaps because the group was a daring sort, or the bad news made the show an underdog to be rooted for. They clapped, laughed, and when Luke climbed through Molly’s window at the end of act one, she heard gasps.

  Eleanor avoided Harry at intermission, not wanting to break the momentum of the show. She drank water and freshened the powder on her face, then got ready to begin again.

  The second act came easier than earlier. It was like that phrase her mother used: the other night had put the fear of God in her. She sang “A Table and Chairs” with a real weight, feeling the knot in her stomach that had not dissipated since the gun went off on Sunday.

  The anxiety carried through the city picnic, where everyone was onstage mingling together. Molly slipped away to get her things, still unsure of her decision. When Luke ran on to meet her for the elopement, his smile was so welcome after such sorrow that the knot loosened.

  But then her father spotted them. He gripped her arm, preventing her from joining Luke.

  She reared back and spit in his face, wrenched her arm away, and ran after Luke. They met up in the alley behind Molly’s house.

  The riot scene swelled up better than in any previous performance, the woven voices sounding ghostly and hateful and afraid, lacing together until the fears of Molly’s family and Luke’s family were indiscernible.

  “Luke,” she said, her voice cutting above the chorus. “I love you.”

  She opened her purse and pulled out the gun. This time, it had been locked in the safe until the very last minute. The props master had even fired it at the floor beforehand to check that it was empty. Still, Eleanor heard gasps from the crowd. This was the moment they had come for. Hairs raised on her arms. She held up the gun so it flashed in the lights.

  The sound of the riot was still going behind her.

  “This will frighten everyone into letting us go,” she said.

  “Molly, you’re playing with fire!”

  “They need to know we’re serious.” Her voice was infused with concentration; no tremble betrayed her fear, though adrenaline flooded her body.

  Luke tugged the gun away from her. The audience’s murmuring grew louder.

  “No,” he said. “I won’t pull a gun on anyone. Go hide in the church.”

  “Luke, if you think I’m going to leave you here—”

  “I won’t risk the gun,” he said, dropping it in the garbage can in the alley. “If you want to be my wife, go hide in that church! I’ll come find you!”

  Molly made to leave, but Luke tugged her back, giving her a kiss so decided and romantic that the audience reacted with a buzz. Too quickly, he let her go. Molly straightened herself, and then Luke gave her a push.

  “Go!”

  So Molly ran offstage. The riot music picked up again, the crowd milling about. The stained-glass window and pew came up, her hiding place for the rest of the show. She tucked herself behind a pillar, waiting for Luke, heart pounding. The sounds of the riot from the picnic came through the church walls, until Molly was clutching her hands together in fear, waiting to hear screams or gunshots.

  The sound of a door opening, then closing. The music cut off. In a moment of clarity, Eleanor realized that the theater was silent. No one rustled a program.

  Someone was inside. Molly tucked herself farther behind the pillar.

  The person entered the stage; a murmur went through the audience.

  Molly did not reveal herself, her eyes wide, afraid to look and see who was in the church. Quietly, she began to sing the last lines of “Sunday Evening,” unaccompanied, so that the audience understood Molly was singing inside of her head and not out loud.

  One cough went through the audience, amplified throughout the theater. Molly held her arms around herself.

  Just then, the door on the other side of the church opened.

  Her eyes flew open. A second person was inside, and she was between them.

  “Molly?”

  It was Luke. Molly whipped around, seeing him standing behind the altar. She couldn’t speak for fear, still behind the pillar, and saw her own father standing at the back of the church.

  “You!” Mr. Sheeran screamed. He rais
ed his hand. Molly caught the glint of metal, reflected against the stone walls.

  Luke’s eyes went wide. He held up his hands.

  Molly didn’t think. “No, Pa!”

  She ran out from behind the pillar just as the crack of the gun sounded; she heard it, and then she fell.

  Duncan raced toward her, but Luke threw him off. He dropped to his knees beside her, gathering her in his arms.

  “Molly.”

  “Luke.” She swallowed, her breath coming fast.

  His grip was tight around her, as if he could hold her in the world. He said her name over and over.

  Molly closed her eyes, fell back into Luke’s arms. He held her close.

  All was quiet for several long moments.

  Someone stepped forward to put a shawl over her body. Luke’s grip tightened, but then his mother’s voice: “Someone should cover her.”

  He allowed it.

  Mr. Sheeran stooped, but Luke shoved him away.

  “Let me move my daughter.”

  “No.” Luke looked up at Mr. Sheeran. He was shaking, whether from anger or repressed sobs, he didn’t know. He retracted his arms from Molly’s body and laid her on the ground. He removed his coat and placed it beneath her head. Then he stood.

  He turned to the rest of them. “You didn’t believe us.” He turned to Mr. Sheeran. “You didn’t believe she knew her own heart.”

  He looked at his mother. “None of you.”

  He looked at the crowd behind him, his back to the audience.

  Don’s underscoring began to swell, the slow notes of “Sunday Evening” coming through the theater.

  “Now she’s gone,” Luke said, his voice breaking. “Now . . .”

  He collapsed, his knees going out until he landed hard, prostrate before her. He kissed her forehead.

  One by one, the cast members began to leave the stage. Don’s music swelled until it took over the whole theater, the blue notes filling the space with a thick sorrow.

  Eleanor felt Charles’s head on her stomach, heavy and warm. She kept her face upstage so the audience could not see her tears.

  Finally, when the violins bowed the last, legato notes, Charles gathered her in his arms and carried her offstage.

  * * *

  A taxi pulled up as soon as she stepped outside the party; she was conspicuous on the street, a young woman in a fitted tuxedo jacket and trousers before dawn. They sped down Broadway—no traffic—but by the time they reached the East Village, they stopped so that Eleanor could read the headlines in the papers newsboys were unloading outside corner stores.

  Don’s name was emblazoned on the front page, above the fold. Years later, when Don was doing more ambitious work that failed to grasp the hearts of the masses, Broadway openings would no longer make the front page. The composer’s picture would hardly ever be included. This was the only time Don, called a genius for decades after, would have his picture on the front page. When he died, the best he would wrangle was the front of the arts section. Like a true genius—and over the years of her career, Eleanor would never be sure she’d met more than one—he put everything into his work, and his work had a life longer than the man.

  But that morning, he and Harry were on that front page, Eleanor between them, beaming. Charles was of course nowhere to be found. Without buying the paper, Eleanor knew the review would focus on the shooting. Would the music receive a mention? What about their one standing ovation, so hard-earned? The article might say New York wasn’t ready for such a story, even with the new ending—an ending that punished the lovers for challenging a system that wasn’t ready for change. People would always sympathize with the losers.

  That night, the audience had left in tears. Some called it a masterpiece. A few still called it vulgar. Lots said it was Luke’s fault that Molly was killed. But for the most part, between the new ending and the terrible event that had previously overwhelmed newspaper headlines and changed the audience’s sensitivity, the show worked. With Molly’s death, the audiences could afford to be generous. People wept for Luke and Molly and the life they could have had. They mourned their lost future.

  The taxi pulled up to her destination. She let herself out, feeling the waning champagne in her blood. There was nothing worse than sobering up.

  Once in their apartment, she locked the dead bolt. Men’s shoes were paired by the door. Rosie’s own pumps were probably back in the closet already. This little evidence of them warmed her deeper than anything else that night. She couldn’t bear being alone tonight, now that it was all over. Rosie, hugging her goodbye before she left the party, must have seen the exhaustion on her face, and invited her to join when the party ended. After the rush of the last few days, Eleanor needed to be with a friend.

  Tommy and Rosie’s door was open, the light of the sign for a twenty-four-hour diner across the street shining through the window over their bed.

  Tommy still slept on his back, one hand over his heart. Rosie lay on her stomach, hands out like she was proclaiming innocence. Her hair was spread over the pillow, mouth open. Rosie had never been one to tolerate anything other than a perfectly restful night’s sleep.

  She climbed into the bed between her friends, fitting herself around Rosie.

  Tommy stirred. “El?”

  He pulled up the blankets to cover all of them.

  Rosie, still asleep, rolled over and wrapped an arm around Eleanor’s waist, nuzzling into her. Tommy leaned over and kissed her on the forehead before letting sleep claim him again. Between them, smelling them, Eleanor felt her heart rate return to normal. The energy of the show leaked from her body, slow as honey, until at last, her muscles relaxed. The faces she’d seen in the audience, all the moist hands clasping hers in congratulation, the burn in her cheeks from smiling, faded from her mind until it was another night.

  She looked at the ceiling. Charles was back in Harlem with Gwen and Jimmy. Don was likely staving off sleep at the piano. Even then, her body ached for him. But it was like a ghost, and gone in a moment. She turned and pressed her nose to Rosie’s hair. It was damp and clean. It was a smell she knew better than anything in this city, had known since she was small, even as Rosie changed shampoos or perfumes or bed partners. The smell predated New York, Broadway, her picture in the paper.

  The sun was firmly in the sky by the time Eleanor fell asleep, warmed by their bodies. Seventy-eight blocks north, Don Mannheim sat at his piano and started something new.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  First and foremost, thank you to my parents, Loretta and Carl Neuberger, whose love, support, and example are the foundation of everything in my life. My grandmothers, Marilyn Carolan and Loretta Neuberger, who nurtured my love of music and stories, and led by example. My grandfathers, Eddie Neuberger and Don Carolan, whose lives shaped mine, and this book. My brother, Will, I love you so much.

  This book would not be possible without Christy Fletcher and Sarah Fuentes, who guided this book and me through every decision and leap of faith. Sally Kim and Gabriella Mongelli—editors are book superheroes, and I’m so grateful you’re mine. Gabriella, I couldn’t have asked for a better teammate for this book. Sally, thank you for sitting with me at LPQ and sharing your wisdom, long before this process even began. Thank you to everyone at Putnam whose work improved this book, especially Aja Pollock, Claire Sullivan, Elke Sigal, and Tal Goretsky.

  Thank you to everyone at Viking Books, but especially Laura Tisdel, Pamela Dorman, and Amy Sun, for your advice, ears, and support.

  Linda Plym, Bill, Sigourney, Odessa, and Dash Buell—thank you for being my New York family. A good bulk of this book was written in your home.

  I have such deep gratitude to all of my writing teachers, starting with Brando Skyhorse. David Lipsky. My teachers at Brooklyn College: Joshua Henkin, Helen Phillips, Ellen Tremper, Sigrid Nunez, and especially Julie Orringer, who taught me to find
guidance through writing, and Ernesto Mestre-Reed, who read this first and asked me the hard questions. My writing community, Chelsea Baumgarten, Garrard Conley, Jenzo DuQue, Sameet Dhillon, Wesley Straton, Jill Winsby-Fein, and so many more, thank you for your reads, companionship, and advice. Special acknowledgment to my friend Jivin Misra, who has read this book almost as much as I have.

  Ben Bartels, for my first real home in New York. Navin Raj, je t’aime, I’ll take the subway with you anytime. Matthew Campos, for Paris, for growing up with me, and for believing in me. Jenny Poth—The King and I brought us together. Rose Bisogno, for your name and wisdom. Laura Boehm, from lunch next to Canal Saint-Martin to here. Danielle Dettling, my sister—Quack! I’ll never let go. My life is so much richer for each one of you.

  And last, thank you to my voice teachers, Dr. Dorothy-Jean Lloyd, Matthew Ellenwood, and Frank Schiro. Each of you introduced me to a bit of the world through musical theatre. I wish every young artist could be taught with such dignity and joy.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Emily Neuberger is an MFA graduate and grant recipient at Brooklyn College's fiction program, and previously worked as an editorial assistant at Viking Books. She has a music degree from NYU, where she studied musical theater and writing. A performer for fifteen years, she performed at Carnegie Hall in Stephen Schwartz's birthday celebration and sang for Stephen Sondheim at the Music Institute of Chicago. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. A Tender Thing is her debut novel.

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