“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I’ll find out when you find out.”
“Off the record,” Lilly said. “Come on. Who’s the little dude with the glasses?”
Before she could ask me anything else, though, Grandmère stood up—dumping poor Rommel from her lap to the ballroom floor, where he slid around a bit before finding his footing on the slippery parquet—and said in a deceptively kind voice (deceptive because, of course, Grandmère isn’t kind), as the room fell silent, “Welcome. For those of you who don’t know me, I am Clarisse, Dowager Princess of Genovia. I am very delighted to see so many of you here today for what will prove, I am certain, to be an important and historic moment in the history of Albert Einstein High School, as well as the theatrical world. But before I say more about that, allow me to introduce, without further ado, the much celebrated, world-famous theatrical director, Señor Eduardo Fuentes.”
Señor Eduardo! No! It can’t be!
And yet…it was! It was the famous director who had asked Grandmère, all those years before, to come to New York with him and star in an original Broadway production!
He had to have been in his thirties back then. He’s gotta be about a HUNDRED now. He’s so old, he looks like a cross between Larry King and a raisin.
Señor Eduardo struggled to rise from his chair, but he was so rickety and frail that he only managed to get about a quarter of the way up before Grandmère pushed him down again impatiently, then went on with her speech. I could practically hear his fragile bones snap under her grip.
“Señor Eduardo has directed countless plays and musicals on numerous prestigious stages worldwide, including Broadway and London’s West End,” Grandmère informed us. “You should all feel extremely honored at the prospect of working with such an accomplished and revered professional.”
“Tank you,” Señor Eduardo managed to get in, waving his hands around and blinking in the bright lights from the ballroom ceiling. “I tank you very, very much. It geeves me great pleasure to look out across so many youthful faces, shining with excitement and—”
But Grandmère wasn’t letting anyone, not even a centenarian world-famous director, steal her show.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” she cut him off, “you are, as I said, about to audition for an original work that has never been performed before. If you are cast in this piece, you will, in essence, become a part of history. I am especially pleased about welcoming you here today because the piece you are about to read from was written almost entirely by”—she lowered her false eyelashes modestly—“me.”
“Oh, this is good,” Lilly said, eagerly jotting stuff down in her reporter’s notebook. “Are you getting this, POG?”
Oh, I was getting it all right. Grandmère wrote a PLAY? A play she means for us to put on to raise money for AEHS’s senior graduation?
I am so, so dead.
“This piece,” Grandmère was going on, holding up a sheaf of papers—the script, apparently—“is a work of complete originality and, I am not embarrassed to say, genius. Braid! is, essentially, a classic love story, about a couple who must overcome extraordinary odds in order to be together. What makes Braid! all the more compelling is that it is based on historical fact. Everything that happens in this piece ACTUALLY HAPPENED IN REAL LIFE. Yes! Braid! is the story of an extraordinary young woman who, though she spent most of her life as a simple commoner, was one day thrust into a role of leadership. Yes, she was asked to assume the throne of a little country you all might have heard of, Genovia. This brave young woman’s name? Why, none other than the great—”
No. Oh my God, no. For the love of God, no. Grandmère’s written a play about me. About MY LIFE. I AM GOING TO DIE. I AM GOING TO—
“—Rosagunde.”
Wait. What? ROSAGUNDE?
“Yes,” Grandmère went on. “Rosagunde, the current princess of Genovia’s great-great-great-great, and so on grandmother, who exhibited incredible bravery in the face of adversity, and was eventually rewarded for her efforts with the throne of what is today Genovia.”
Oh. My. God.
Grandmère’s written a play based on the story of my ancestress, Rosagunde.
AND SHE WANTS MY SCHOOL TO PUT IT ON.
IN FRONT OF EVERYONE.
“Braid! is, at heart, a love story. But the tale of the great Rosagunde is much more than a romance. It is, in fact—” Here, Grandmère paused, as much for dramatic effect as to take a sip from the glass on the table beside her. Water? Or straight vodka? We will never know. Not unless I had gone up there and taken a big swig. “—A MUSICAL.”
Oh. My. God.
Grandmère’s written a MUSICAL based on the story of my ancestress, Rosagunde.
The thing is, I love musicals. Beauty and the Beast is, like, my favorite Broadway show of all time, and it’s a musical.
But it is a musical about a prince who is under a curse and the bookish beauty who grows to love him anyway.
It is NOT about a feudal warmonger and the girl who strangles him to death.
Apparently, I was not the only one to realize this, since Lilly’s hand shot up and she called, “Excuse me.”
Grandmère looked startled. She isn’t used to being interrupted once she gets going on one of her speeches.
“Please hold all questions until the end,” Grandmère said confusedly.
“Your Royal Highness,” Lilly said, ignoring her request. “Is what you’re telling us that this show, Braid!, is actually the story of Mia’s great-great-great and so on grandmother Rosagunde, who, in the year AD 568, was forced to wed the Visigothic warlord Alboin, who conquered Italy and claimed it as his own?”
Grandmère bristled, the way Fat Louie does whenever I run out of Flaked Chicken or Tuna and have to give him some other flavor of food, like Turkey Giblets, instead.
“That is exactly what I am trying to tell you,” Grandmère said stiffly. “If you will allow me to continue.”
“Yeah,” Lilly said. “But a MUSICAL? About a woman who is forced to marry a man who not only murders her father, but on their wedding night makes her drink from her dad’s skull, and so consequently, she murders him in his sleep? I mean, isn’t that kind of material a little bit HEAVY for a musical?”
“And a musical set in a military base during World War Two isn’t a bit HEAVY? I believe they chose to call that one South Pacific,” Grandmère said, with an arched brow. “Or a musical about urban gang warfare in New York City during the fifties? West Side Story, I believe that one was called….”
Everyone in the room started murmuring—everyone except Señor Eduardo, who appeared to have dozed off. I had never thought about it before, but Grandmère was kind of right. A lot of musicals have kind of serious undertones, if you take the time to examine them. I mean, if you wanted to, you could say that Beauty and the Beast is about a hideously warped Chimera who kidnaps and holds hostage a young peasant girl.
Trust Grandmère to destroy the one story I have ever wholeheartedly loved.
“Or even,” Grandmère went on, above everyone’s whispers, “perhaps, a musical about the crucifixion of a man from Galilee…a little something called Jesus Christ Superstar?”
Gasps could be heard throughout the ballroom. Grandmère had scored a coup de grâce, and knew it. She had them eating out of the palm of her hand.
All but Lilly.
“Excuse me,” Lilly said again. “But exactly when is this, erm, musical going to be performed?”
It was only then that Grandmère looked slightly—just slightly—uncomfortable.
“A week from today,” she said, with what I could tell was completely feigned self-assurance.