Fearless Read online

  “I bet you’ve seen lots of stars come and go in here,” her abuelita said with giddiness.

  “Tons,” the woman answered without expression.

  Monica’s abuelita made her way to the elevator and spotted a trash can along the way. She went over and pulled out a plastic container. “Perfect!” she said. At the same time, the woman behind the counter said, tapping her head, “Garcia, Garcia… hold on.”

  She turned around to the wall of mailboxes behind her. A few boxes had mail, but most were empty.

  “You Monica?” the woman asked.

  “Yes.”

  “This came for you,” she said to Monica, and handed her a white envelope.

  It had her name on it in blue cursive. The penmanship was sloppy, so it looked like it read Monico Gargamella. Inside the envelope was a key. No note, just a key.

  That was strange, Monica thought. The key was smaller than a house key, and gold-colored, not steel. It looked old. A secret key, Monica thought, or maybe just a key to her dressing room at the theater. Either way, Monica had no idea what to do with it, and she didn’t want her abuelita to ask too many questions, so she tucked it in her backpack and decided to think about it later. She had quite enough on her mind.

  * * *

  There were many things wrong with their hotel room. For starters, there was no bed, just a pullout couch that hit a small leaky sink when it opened. There was no TV, either. Or toilet paper. “It’s gorgeous! Very New York,” her abuelita said, raising a shoulder and trying to sound encouraging. Monica gave her a sideways glance.

  “We’ll make it our own.” Monica’s abuelita opened the plastic container she’d taken from the lobby’s garbage can, gave it a quick rinse, and emptied her change into it. “Our very own Freddy jar.” She smiled. They had one at home, too.

  She handed Monica one of the pennies. “You’ll do the honors?” Monica pulled over a chair and placed the penny above the frame of the hotel door, like her father had done at home. “Brings in the goodness,” he would say.

  A loud knock at the door startled Monica’s abuelita. Monica hadn’t considered until that point that maybe some of the foreignness of New York was a little scary for her abuelita, too. She might not like sleeping in a dingy hotel or being away from family either. Her abuelita’s home was nice and comfortable. It was a small A-frame near the center of town. The neighborhood was quiet. The woman next door walked a cat on a leash and brought over fresh-baked bread.

  The house had a screened-in porch that sagged. Monica spent hours on that porch sipping lemonade and playing cards or reading books. Monica loved to read. A block from her abuelita’s house was a corner store that sold penny candy. Monica would do odds and ends for her abuelita to earn enough money to buy saltwater taffy—a taste of the ocean. Reedley was in California, but it was a few hours’ drive from the nearest beach.

  Monica bet a part of her abuelita missed her cozy home.

  A housekeeper was outside the hotel room with a handful of fresh towels and a few rolls of toilet paper. Monica’s abuelita spoke to her first in Spanish, then in English, then in some sort of Spanglish. The woman responded the same way. She explained where the trash chute was located and what floor the closest ice maker was on. As the housekeeper was leaving, her abuelita asked if she could borrow a broom. The housekeeper gave her an odd look but went to look for one.

  The woman returned with a broom and handed Monica’s abuelita two clean drinking glasses. The woman expressed no sense of urgency for the return of the broom. She smiled at Monica and, looking at the drinking glasses, said, “The water in New York is very delicious. They call it the champagne of drinking water. It is true. They say it’s why New York’s pizza crust tastes so good. Fantástico.”

  Monica’s abuelita swept the floors, then went around the room and flicked cologne onto the pillows and the table, and into each corner. After they figured out how to make the couch into a bed, which took a lot longer than it needed to, Monica’s abuelita sat on a bumpy cushion of the bed and said a silent prayer, then massaged her arms and stretched her lower back. “Ay, heavy luggage on an old woman’s body.”

  There was one positive feature of the room. It had a fire escape. A good one. One that Monica could sit on to listen to the sounds of the city without being seen. The hotel was a couple doors down from the Ed Sullivan Theater, where late-night shows were recorded. Funny, Monica had always assumed the late-night shows were live, not recorded in the early evening. Before unpacking her clothes, Monica sat out on the fire escape, which looked at nothing but the bricks of the neighboring building, and listened to the sound of laughter and clapping coming from below as they recorded The Late Show. The band would play short tunes to signal the ends of segments. Then there would be more laughter.

  The sun was setting on Broadway, and the lights of the city were intensifying. If she’d been in California, she would just be getting out of school. She would be hanging out with Marissa or, if Marissa had Math Club, Monica would read until her abuelita showed up in her yellow 1965 Malibu convertible, which Monica’s father had kept running for a lifetime.

  Her abuelita called to her, “Kita, do you want to go out? I’m going to try to find that used bookstore we read about.”

  “No, that’s okay. You can go without me. I need to unpack,” Monica said, climbing in through the window. She blinked as her eyes adjusted to the darkness.

  “Fresh air feels nice,” Monica’s abuelita noted as Monica slid inside. Monica nodded. But it wasn’t like the wind that swept down from the California mountains, awoke the crickets, and rustled through the leaves of the one large elm tree and into Monica’s bedroom at night.

  After her abuelita left, Monica opened her suitcase and lifted out her clothes—they still smelled of home. She paused when she saw a pair of raggedy jean shorts tucked in the corner. She didn’t remember packing them. Freddy must have shoved them in when she wasn’t looking. She had worn those shorts the day before she left, when Monica and Freddy had climbed the wall of the middle school cafeteria and sat on the roof and made a pact that by the time she returned to California, she would be a famous Broadway star and he would be an astronaut. The cafeteria was U-shaped, which made the corners of the building easy to climb up. Anything and nothing were possible up there. “Anything” meaning their imaginations could go anywhere, and “nothing” meaning that going to the places they wanted to go, doing the things they wanted to do, seemed like a long shot in reality.

  Inside one of the pockets of the jean shorts, Freddy had tucked her lucky elephant necklace. She hugged it as a tear rolled down her cheek. Her father had given her the necklace many years ago. An elephant because it was one of the strongest creatures on the planet, yet one of the kindest.

  Monica called home. Her brother answered right away. “Tell me about the rats! Are they everywhere? And are they really as big as bicycles?”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, but I haven’t seen one rat yet. Not even in the subway station.”

  “Aw, darn,” Freddy said.

  “Thank you for sending my lucky elephant charm.”

  “I didn’t want you to forget it,” he said. Then he yawned.

  “Rough night last night, eh?” Monica said, trying to sound casual.

  “They plugged me into the Machine.”

  “Blech. You hate the Machine.”

  “Yeah, but I like missing school.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Meh.” He paused, then said, “Have you met anyone famous?”

  “No one you would know.”

  He breathed a few times through his mouth.

  “Is it two hours ahead there?” he asked.

  “Three.”

  “So is it dark out?”

  “Getting there. But I don’t think New York City gets dark the way Reedley does.”

  “So you won’t be able to sing me to sleep.”

  “No. I’ll probably be in bed by then.” Sadness broke over her like a wave.<
br />
  “Can you sing to me now?”

  “Sure!” She closed her eyes and pictured him sitting up in bed in his plaid pajamas, with his lizard on his lap.

  “You want to take the Spanish or the English?” Monica asked.

  “Spanish.”

  “Okay.”

  Monica made up a simple lullaby tune and began to sing softly:

  “I am always with you to sing along.”

  Freddy repeated the line in Spanish:

  “Siempre estoy contigo para cantar.”

  “To hold your hand and sing out strong.”

  “Para tomar tu mana y cantar fuerte.”

  “Our song is the one that we share.”

  “Nuestra canción es una que compartimos.”

  “They try to stop us but we don’t care.”

  “Intentan detenernos pero no nos importa.”

  She repeated the song two more times.

  “That’s enough for tonight. Promise me you won’t sleep with the lights on.”

  “I like sleeping with the lights on,” he said. “Darkness is overrated.”

  After they hung up, Monica looked at a text from Marissa that had come in during the call. It was a photo of Marissa doing a duck face.

  Monica typed: Hi! It’s been a crazy day. Had an actual practice on actual Broadway! She attached a photo she had taken earlier in the day of the actors rehearsing the barrel scene.

  No way! Marissa responded right away. Followed by Is that HUGH LAVENDER?!?!

  How did everyone but Monica know who Hugh Lavender was? She couldn’t bear to say that that was Hugh Lavender before his nose got busted, so she just responded yes.

  Are you filling up your notebook with song ideas?

  Filling my notebook… but not with lyrics, Monica typed.

  After a few beats Marissa responded. You okay?

  Just tired. Sorry. Talk tomorrow?

  Marissa sent back, Miss you, Mo! So proud!

  Monica dropped the phone onto the sofa bed, then pulled out the mystery key and studied it. She went through all the possibilities. Maybe it was just a key to her dressing room, which would make the most sense. Or a key to something here in her hotel. Maybe her abuelita had slipped it to the woman at the front desk when she dropped off the luggage. But why? And what if she found what it opened, like a secret room or a scary dark closet, and she would need to step inside?

  Maybe it wasn’t a key to open something but a key to keep something out. A shiver took over her body. She slid the key onto her elephant necklace and clasped it around her neck, then tucked it away under her shirt. The hotel room took on a darkness that made everything look plum-colored. She wanted her abuelita to return.

  Twenty minutes later, the door opened and her abuelita walked in, carrying a large ficus with little sparkling lights strung on every branch.

  “I had no idea the blocks were so long here,” she said, huffing. Monica scrambled over to help her. “Eight blocks is double what you think it’s going to be. Look, the lights are battery-powered. Homey, isn’t it?”

  They set the houseplant in the corner of the room.

  “Abuelita,” Monica said, studying the plant and its twinkling lights. “I’m nervous.”

  “What are you nervous about?”

  “I don’t know, maybe forgetting my lines.” Monica touched one of the leaves. It felt smooth and oily. She plopped back down on the sofa bed.

  “No, that’s not what you’re nervous about.”

  Monica thought harder. “I guess I’m nervous about being an understudy in a lead role on Broadway.” In Monica’s mind, she was still just a Broadway-actor-in-training. A lead was, well, someone who could put posters up of their past shows all over their dressing room walls. Monica groaned and pulled the pillow over her face. She had found herself in an unimaginable situation.

  “Oh, Kita, let out the reins.”

  Monica pulled her head back out from under the pillow and laughed. “Let out the reins” was an expression Monica’s first voice teacher, Ms. Robbins, had always said. “Close your eyes, streeetch your larynx… now let out the reins!”

  Her abuelita sat next to her on the bed. “The world has been looking for you.”

  Monica laughed. “No it hasn’t. The world doesn’t know I exist.”

  Her abuelita grabbed the pillow. “Don’t hide from it. Now, right now, is Broadway’s time to have you. Let it have you!”

  Monica thought about this.

  “Do you remember what your bisabuela would say whenever someone said they were nervous about something?” her abuelita asked. Monica didn’t remember. Her bisabuela had died five years ago, which felt like a very long time. “She would say, ¡Ponte a trabajar!”

  That night, Monica stayed up late, quietly studying her notes and learning all the moves of that afternoon’s routine—the ducks, narrow escapes, parries, lifts, lunges, and turns—while her abuelita snored softly nearby. Finally, at two a.m., she turned off the light.

  Six AMANDA

  Twenty-three days until opening night

  It wasn’t the best idea to eat a bagel in the pouring rain, but New York City bagels were a food group unto themselves, and Monica couldn’t wait to try one. She stood under the awning of the bagel shop, savoring each bite, thinking what a miracle it was that her abuelita had let her walk to the theater on her own. The rain came at her sideways.

  The city took on a whole different personality in the rain. Crowds thinned out; streets were quieter. Cars passing by made the sound of waves rolling onto shore. All the smells of the city were stronger when they got wet, too. People smells, dog smells, trash smells, food smells.

  By the time Monica made it to the theater, she was dripping wet. The only thing that survived the four-block walk were her dance slippers, which she had double-bagged and tucked inside her rain jacket.

  The street scene in front of the Ethel Merman was very different from the day before. Two large semitrucks idled out front, traffic moving slowly around them, without much ado. A dozen or more stagehands hurriedly carried large prop parts into the theater. Every part was labeled. One stagehand called to another, “Left living room wall. Act one.” Another stagehand echoed, “Act one.” Another stood by with a clipboard, checking off inventory.

  A text came in from her mother that said, Good luck today, my little star! You got this! Call when you can. It was four thirty a.m. in California. Her mom would be up that early preparing breakfast and lunch for Freddy before getting a ride to the farm with some other women. Then her parents would drive to the farm in her dad’s SUV, coffee in one hand, oldies playing on the radio. They would have already listened to the weather report at home. Monica smiled and texted back: Hope you have good weather today. I’ll call during break.

  Little did she realize, there were not many breaks on Broadway.

  “Welcome to Oz,” the stage-door doorman said in a thick New York accent, “home of the oldest working pipe organ and longest-running curse on Broadway.” There was a beauty to this man that Monica could appreciate. He appeared tired, yet lively. Old Broadway.

  “Heard I missed all the excitement yesterday. You must be the new new Tabitha. I’m Jimmy Onions, stage-door doorman and amateur magician. Wouldn’t you know it, I had to get a crown repaired.” He opened his mouth and pointed to the new crown on his tooth.

  “Do these things happen a lot?” Monica asked.

  “Yeah, I’m always gettin’ my teeth fixed.”

  “No I mean the accidents in the theater.”

  Jimmy scrubbed the inside of his mouth with his pinkie finger and thought about it.

  “Kid, I’ve been working this stage door long enough to have let in a president of the United States, two panicked art thieves, a sleepwalking tourist, and an opossum. You work someplace long enough, you see lots of things.”

  He took a hankie and dabbed the corners of his mouth and continued. “So I guess it depends on where you come from and the way you think about things.” He set d
own the hankie and thought. “Is the Ethel Merman jinxed? Maybe. Maybe not.”

  Monica crinkled her nose.

  “But I’ll tell ya somethin’, kid—never in my forty years workin’ the door have there been two falls in one day. Now, that’s a new one!” Jimmy Onions opened the door to the backstage with a big laugh into the wall of darkness. The theater inhaled her.

  “Monica.” She heard a whisper in the dark. It made the hairs on her arms stand up. Again she heard her name. “Monica!” Then someone grabbed her. Monica let out a scream. April whirled out of nowhere. She was wrapped in a shawl.

  “I’ve figured it out.” April pulled Monica by the arm as if they had been best friends for years. “The curse of the Ethel Merman.” They walked on swiftly. “I knew this place wasn’t normal the moment I walked in. I mean, what is normal these days? But this is different, like the place has been forgotten or ignored or something”—then she paused—“or like there’s a spirit presence or something watching us. Plus it’s always cold. Like weirdly cold.” They both went suddenly cross-eyed as they focused on their breath, which could be seen as they exhaled.

  “Hang your stuff in there.” April pointed to a small coatroom. Most of the hooks already had wet raincoats on them. Monica was careful not to let her wet things drip everywhere as she hung them up. She sat on the bench and removed her wet shoes, replacing them with her warm, dry dance slippers.

  April led Monica out of the coatroom and down a narrow hallway, their straight path interrupted by stage crew whisking by with walkie-talkies, a man carrying a saxophone, a group of actors leaning against the wall drinking coffee and talking, singers warming up their voices, and a good deal of hammering.

  “So here’s what I think,” April said, walking around a dancer doing a plié. “I think the Ethel Merman’s curse is to take away people’s superpowers.” She stopped and looked sideways at Monica. “Bear with me.” They kept walking.

  “We all have our own superpower. Mine is acting. I mean, I’m not trying to brag. Of all the things, that’s just what I’m best at. So look at the facts: Hugh’s superpower was his looks—that perfect nose of his, broken. And Tabitha. Her superpower was singing, and she couldn’t hit a high note here to save her.” April pulled on Monica’s arm again.