Timeless (29 page)

“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 this. 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.”

“Oh. Wow.” Michele stared at her grandfather. “I didn’t know.” And suddenly, a piece of the puzzle fell into place. Walter had grown up fatherless, just like Michele. He’d watched Lily experience betrayal by the man she trusted. It was no wonder he had been so strict with his own daughter, so suspicious of Henry Irving and his motives.
It wasn’t just about his lack of money and social standing
, Michele realized. He had been genuinely worried about Marion. And in that moment, Michele felt sure that whatever Walter and Dorothy might still be hiding, they hadn’t paid Henry to leave.

“I’m sorry,” Michele told Walter.

“Don’t be,” he said with a half smile. “My mother always said that no man made her feel the way her music did. I have a feeling she didn’t much miss my birth father—especially with all the beaus who kept calling, even when she was past middle age. She was very … unusual, my mother. But she was happy.”

Michele grinned. “Unusual” sounded about right.

An usher led them to their seats, and as they waited for the show to begin, Michele’s mind raced with the question of whether Lily had ended up performing the songs she and Philip had written. She didn’t dare ask her grandparents, in case it was now information she should readily know, but she couldn’t wait to get home and check online.

But to her surprise, once the curtain opened and the show began, Michele found her thoughts disappearing as she was transfixed by the story of the magical nanny. The catchy songs, incredible Broadway voices, and awe-inspiring special effects and stage design had her captivated. As she glanced at her grandparents, she was glad to see that they looked the same. The show reminded her of watching the movie with her mom when she was little, and she remembered that
her
mom had watched the movie with her parents as a little girl too. There was something special about that, and on impulse Michele squeezed her grandmother’s hand. Dorothy turned to smile at her.

As the finale song, “Anything Can Happen If You Let It,” began, Michele thought that her travels through time had definitely proven the song’s message. The stage turned dark as Mary Poppins and the Banks family were transported to the stars, and in that instant, something incredible happened. A dark, shadowy pall came over the theater, and then it was suddenly lifted, and Michele jumped out of her seat, crying out in amazement at what she saw.

Her grandparents were gone; all the
Mary Poppins
audience members had disappeared, replaced by women with bobbed hair and dropped-waist dresses and men with top hats and walking sticks. And on that grand stage above was the young Lily
Windsor, standing in an enormous spotlight and wearing a long, slinky white sleeveless dress, a fur stole draped around her shoulders. Her voice was hauntingly beautiful and brimming with soul as she sang.

“Why, I feel numb
,
I’m a sky without a sun
Just take away the lack
And bring the colors back.”

“Oh, my God!”
Michele shrieked. She spun around to look at the audience, and to her amazement, they were singing along. They
knew
the song!

She ran up to the front row aisle, tears welling up in her eyes as she mouthed the words, and Lily caught her eye. She did a double take and then beamed at Michele, but didn’t miss a beat in her singing. As soon as the song ended, Michele ran up the staircase leading to the stage and raced backstage, floating invisibly past leggy chorus girls, until she spotted Lily.

“Lily!” Michele cried.

“Follow me,” Lily whispered, and Michele hurried alongside her into a dressing room with a gold star pinned on the door.

Once inside the dressing room, the girls squealed and hugged, jumping up and down.

“You did it, Lily! You convinced your parents; you made it into the Follies! It’s all upward from here.”

“You did it too. ‘Bring the Colors Back’ is a hit. The phonograph record is selling like hotcakes! And I’m introducing
‘Chasing Time’ in the new Follies beginning next month. Ziggy—that’s what we call Ziegfeld—well, he loves both songs, thinks they’re rather new and fresh,” Lily said excitedly.

“Oh—my—God! Thank you!”
So this is what success feels like
, Michele thought as a warm glow spread throughout every inch of her.

“And that reminds me. A very handsome dapper Dan dropped by the stage door two weeks ago and asked me if I knew a Michele—someone no one could see but me.”

Michele’s heart nearly stopped.
Philip
.

“I was frightened by that, frightened that he knew our secret, so I asked what he meant. He said he wanted to see you,” Lily continued. “I told him you weren’t here, and then he handed over a package and said to give it to you—and then he just left! I kept it here in my dressing table, just in case. Would you like to see it?”

Michele could barely breathe. “Yes,” she whispered.

Lily opened a drawer in her dressing table and pulled out a small package. As Lily handed it to her, Michele was too overcome to speak.

“Who is he?” Lily asked as Michele stared at the package without opening it.

“He’s …” Michele swallowed hard. “He’s the one I wrote the song about.”

“I wondered that,” Lily said with a smile. “Is he a … spirit, like you?”

Michele shook her head. Lily was surprised into silence, and she sat at her dressing table while Michele studied the package. Her heart pounding furiously, Michele opened the envelope and
a letter fluttered to the ground. She picked it up and read it hungrily.

June 16, 1926

My dearest Michele
,

How unbearably long it has been since you were last in my arms, since I last heard your sweet voice and kissed those perfect lips. Since you left, each day seemed to run meaninglessly into the next. That is how it’s been for fifteen long years. I left home as planned, but the emptiness followed me to London, even while I played piano for the London Symphony Orchestra
.

And then, two weeks ago, it all changed. I was at a dinner party held in honor of songwriters George and Ira Gershwin, who are at work here on a new show, when George sat at the piano, as he always does when there’s a party. But the surprise was that he wasn’t playing his own music—he was playing ours. Our very own “Bring the Colors Back”! You can imagine my shock and amazement, and the joy I felt at knowing that you had returned! You had to be back. I found out everything from the Gershwins, that your relation Lily Windsor had made the song a hit with the Follies, and I immediately gave notice to the London Symphony and booked passage to New York. I’m writing you now from the ship
.

Is it possible that you might have reconsidered
your stance, after all these years? I can’t help hoping, though I am afraid to. A part of me knows that if you had, you would have come to me instead of Lily. But regardless of whether I see you again, I hold as a treasure your return and what you have done for our song. It is the sign I’ve been aching for, the sign that you still love me as I never stopped loving you
.

I must confess that I did not pursue my composing in London the way we would have expected. You always believed in me, and now it is time that I believe in me in the same way. The public’s reaction to “Bring the Colors Back” has given me the desire to return to New York for good and try to make it as a composer. Thank you—thank you for returning to me the strong sense of purpose I once felt, when you were in my life. Michele, I promise to find you again—no matter what. And enclosed in this package is a symbol of that promise: my family ring. I’ve also enclosed the address of the hotel where I am living now, the Waldorf-Astoria, in the hopes you might be able to reach me
.

I love you
.

Philip

Michele’s eyes were streaming with tears by the time she reached the end of Philip’s letter. Every sentence seemed to twist her heart in such a way that she felt both broken and whole. She was vaguely aware of Lily’s hurrying to her side and trying to comfort her, but her mind was miles away, as she thought of
what could have been if only she and Philip had lived in the same lifetime. Why had Time made such a mistake with the two of them?

She remembered his mention of the ring, and she reached further into the envelope. Buried inside, wrapped in tissue paper, was a gold signet ring, carved with a raised ornamental
W
.

“Aces!” Lily exclaimed, her eyes as wide as saucers as she stared at the ring. “Are you
engaged
?”

“In my heart I am,” Michele said with a smile. She gazed at the ring, feeling like her heart was so full it could burst at any moment. She slid the ring onto her finger, loving how it looked. But she knew what she must do.

“Lily, do you have any stationery here that I can use?”

“Of course.” As Lily rifled through her things, Michele held Philip’s letter close. If she closed her eyes and imagined hard enough, she could almost hear his voice whispering the words he had written. Michele was suddenly reminded of the Portuguese word her mom had taught her on their last day together:
sodade
. A feeling of nostalgia so intense there was no English translation. That was just how Michele felt now.

“Here you go.” Lily handed her a pen, a pad of paper, and an envelope. “You can use my dressing table to write.”

“Thanks, Lily.” Michele sat down and began to write.

Dear Philip
,

I love you just the way you love me. I’ll even admit that sometimes I wonder if I love you more. No matter what happens in my future, you will always be the one
.

I can’t thank you enough for the beautiful ring. It means so much to me, and I love being able to wear something every day that belonged to you
.

I wish I could say that I had found a way for us to be together, but I haven’t. I still don’t fully exist in any time other than my own. But I came back to show you all that you have left to live for. Please—I need for you to move on, have a family, and of course, keep composing. I couldn’t stand the pain of knowing I caused you a lonely life or stopped you from reaching your full potential. But always remember that I still feel the way I did during our days and nights together in 1910. I’ll always consider you my true family. I hope you will too
.

I love you forever
.

Michele

Her eyes were blurry from tears by the time she finished the letter. She addressed the envelope PW, so as not to arouse any outrage from Lily over her corresponding with a Walker, and then turned to her great-grandmother. “Lily, can you do me a huge favor? Can you please have this delivered to the Waldorf-Astoria tomorrow morning?”

Lily nodded and took the letter. “PW—the composer of your songs,” she said slowly, revelation dawning on her.

Michele nodded but didn’t say more.

“You’re—you’re not just a spirit, are you?” Lily blurted out.