“Just for kicks,” she’d said, her eyes bright with promise and prospect, and probably dollar signs as well, but Vivien had been too young to notice that part. The girls were nine by then and had just been cast as Young Cosette inLes Misérables, had sung live at the Tonys, and the world was the Savage Sisters’s oyster.
Gran got the key from the realtor, so it was just the four of them walking into the dim old theater.
“Kinda creepy,” Mom said, rubbing her arms, looking around in disappointment. “And it’s a dismal mess.”
Her daughters didn’t notice. Vivien remembered running down the main aisle and up onto the stage without hesitation, Liv right on her heels. Without any communication, they immediately launched into “I’d Do Anything,” then went on to “Tomorrow” and then “Be Our Guest,” including the dance routines they knew and ones they made up on the spot.
Giggling, laughing, dancing around, singing at the tops of their lungs so their voices filled the space, echoing into every corner, the two of them owned that stage in the dark, empty theater in a way they’d never done in front of hundreds of spectators.
Then they sat on the edge of the stage, panting happily, and chattered to each other.
When we’re rich and famous, we’re going to come here and do free shows for all our friends,Viv said.I’ll play Nancy inOliver!and you’ll play Belle, and we’ll have so much fun.
We’ll make the theater big and bright and beautiful and everyone will come even from New York to see us! And Gran can sit in the front row for every show,Liv added with shining eyes.
The idea flourished and became an anchoring sort of fantasy, something that gave her and Liv roots and a sort of mooring to cling to—a stable, harmless dream—during the crazy days of performing, traveling, touring, rehearsals, auditions, fittings…
They were at the top of their game, their mother was fond of saying, and in the twins’ heyday, Josey Savage believed the sky was the limit.
And then Liv had died and everything changed.
Vivien never told Gran about her dream to return to Wicks Hollow and reopen the theater in honor of Liv and their shared dream, but it was Gran who unwittingly made it possible when she bequeathed Viv a small chunk of money.
It didn’t make her rich by any stretch, but it was enough for Vivien to outright buy the abandoned stage…which would soon be known as the Olivia Dee Theater. She was picking up the keys from the realtor tomorrow, whom she’d known back in high school.
Tomorrow, tomorrow, she hummed.
And if—when—she got the loan from the bank, she’d be able to put it back to rights for performances.
As Vivien looked at the building that was now hers, the culmination of years of wishes and dreams now at hand, she smiled through her tears and pushed away her nerves.
We’re gonna do this, Liv.
Welcome home.
Chapter Two
“I amnotgoingto play a dead body in the window seat,” said Helga van Hest. “Whoever plays Mortimer would break his back lifting out my giant self. He’d collapse there right onstage, die from a heart attack, and that would be the end of Wicks Hollow Stage’s—I mean Olivia Dee Theater’s—production ofArsenic and Old Lace.
“You’d have to refund tickets, and all those renovations on the old place would be for nothing. You’d file for bankruptcy and move back to New York in shame, and I’d never see my best friend again.”
Vivien chuckled at her friend’s rant as she snatched the last lemon blueberry scone from right beneath Maxine Took’s greedy fingers.
The foiled eighty-one-year-old Maxine snarled under her breath, but Vivien ignored her. You had to if you wanted to get anything accomplished when you were sitting at Orbra van Hest’s tea shop, where Maxine and her posse—known as the Tuesday Ladies—reigned supreme.
It was barely eight in the morning on a Tuesday in mid-July, so the glut of tourists who filled Wicks Hollow to bursting were still sleeping in at their bed-and-breakfasts, boutique inns, RVs, or lakeside cottages…which meant Orbra’s Tea House was nearly empty.
This morning, only Maxine Took, her best partner-in-crime Juanita Acerita, and Orbra herself were present from the Tuesday Ladies group. Helga, the granddaughter of the tea shop proprietress, and Vivien were the only other people in the café at the moment.
She had an appointment at ten to finally get her keys for the theater (she’d done the closing remotely while packing up in New York), and had been too antsy and excited to wait at her rental home until then. Plus, she was also expecting a call from the bank, and she needed a distraction to calm her nerves.
“You’re six feet, two inches of gorgeousness, not a giant, Helga, and I’m pretty sure Baxter could handle wrangling you out of the window seat. Have youseenhim lately? He’s not the skinny dork he was back in high school.” Vivien grinned.
“Baxter James is playing Mortimer Brewster?” Maxine exclaimed, spraying moist crumbs from the scone she was still eating. The greedy old crone clearly hadn’t needed the one Vivien had swiped. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“I didn’t think you’d care,” replied Vivien slyly. She knewexactlyhow Maxine Took worked. “You said you were too busy to do the show—”
“Well, Ijustcleared my calendar,” said Maxine, thumping her cane for emphasis. Her brown eyes blazed from behind thick bottle-bottom glasses, and not one of her iron-gray hairs fluttered with her movement. Vivien suspected it was because it was a wig, although she (and everyone else) didn’t know for sure. It could just be an entire can of hairspray. “Can’t make a damned decision if you don’t give a person all-a the information right out front, can I?”
