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Following Lola’s announcement, Annie's cast and crew members fell into an immediate state of duress. The littler orphans wrapped their arms around the older ones and shook with tears. However, Rachel, Gail, and Abby seemed to take the news in stride, whispering to one another about the probability of an overnight sleepover at the auditorium. Miss Hannigan’s brother, “Rooster,” played by a man in his early forties, gossiped with the woman who played Grace Farrell, saying, “I reckon there’s some food in the cafeteria down the hall. They always have big celebrations here— birthdays and retirement parties and graduations. I’m sure they’re well-stocked. We won’t starve.”
Cora, for her part, felt just about as low as ever. She remained in her Miss Hannigan costume with a full face of make-up, feeling foolish. Cecily chattered beside her, her brow furrowed with worry. Cora couldn’t make out what she said. Midway through Cecily’s chatter, Cora stepped off to the side and fled for one of the back hallways, where she could stand in the silence of herself and feel all that she needed to feel.
Once in the back hallway, Cora leaned heavily against the wide white wall, closed her eyes, and allowed the first of probably many tears to fall. When opening night had been canceled the day before, she had stayed in her robe all morning and afternoon, playing Miss Hannigan tunes on her piano and perfecting her voice for the upcoming performance. She’d felt Victor there alongside her, giving her pointers as she went. “They’ll love you out there. You were born to play this part.”
Now? Now, the previous couple of months’ work would come to nothing. The auditorium was booked up every weekend over the next month or more. The children in the musical would have other obligations: gymnastics and music lessons and softball and the like. People would move on from Annie as though it had never happened. But what was Cora meant to do? Was this really all she got, after the bravery of stepping out of her house as a widow?
Cora wandered down the hallway, headed toward a wide window that allowed a gorgeous view of what was poised to be the worst blizzard she’d seen in all her years on the island. Before she reached the window, she paused alongside a collection of photographs from previous performances. Her stomach clenched tight at the sight. She’d forgotten about this, forgotten about the framed photographs of herself and Victor from years past— Tony and Maria in West Side Story, Curly and Laurie from Oklahoma, Maria and Captain Von Trapp from The Sound of Music. The list went on, of course; there were other photographs in other places, lodged away in Cora’s old dresser drawer.
Gosh, they’d been young. Cora gazed at a photograph of herself, age twenty-nine, not long after little Madeline had come into this world and then immediately left it behind. You couldn’t see that sorrow marred across Cora’s face within the photograph. Her face as Maria from The Sound of Music echoed with longing and belief in beauty. In many respects, the Cora from back then didn’t believe in beauty at all. Not after what time had done to Madeline.
Cora inhaled sharply and closed her eyes. It felt claustrophobic, standing there in the auditorium as the snow locked them away for who knew how long. She could practically feel the government workers brimming with fear about what to do next, how to get rid of the snow. Meanwhile, they would probably be stuck at the auditorium for a night or two— eating whatever there was in the attached cafeteria, just like Rooster suggested.
A step echoed at the end of the hallway. Cora turned to find Daddy Warbucks’ Hank, still dressed in his bald cap. Cora’s stomach twisted at the sight. This was to be her private time with her thoughts. She couldn’t face him, a man that a small part of her heart had dared to crush on. Yet here he came, his footsteps growing nearer.
“You’re still in the bald cap, I see,” Cora tried out a joke.
Hank’s face widened with laughter. “You don’t think it should be a full-time thing?”
“On the contrary, if you still have your hair, shouldn’t you celebrate that?”
Hank shrugged. “I think the baldness demands respect.” Even still, he lifted a hand and removed the bald cap gently, then swept his hand through his unruly mane. His eyes found the large window as he took in the weight of snow outside. He whistled. “I’m a New Englander through and through, and even this seems like something special to me.”
“It’s like a sign from God himself,” Cora tried.
“That we shouldn’t perform the acclaimed musical, Annie?”
Cora laughed, recognizing how silly she sounded. Maybe everything she’d built up in her mind didn’t matter as much as she thought it did.
Hank whistled as he took in the framed photographs of Cora and Victor and the rest of the Vineyard cast hanging on the wall. “Look at you! How old were you here?” He pointed to The Sound of Music photograph and arched an eyebrow.
“Twenty-nine,” she told him. “It pains me to think what role I would have if we did The Sound of Music again. Maybe one of the old nuns...”
Hank shook his head. “No way. You could play anything you wanted to. You’re transcendent on stage.”
Cora’s throat tightened at the compliment. Hank descended further down the hallway and stopped short in front of the Fiddler on the Roof photograph. “I love this one,” he explained. “I always watched the musical on television. My ex-wife thought it was insane that I liked it so much. I think she would have preferred that I watch more football.”
“I suppose football can be a sort of performance,” Cora tried, giving him a small smile.
“Not like Fiddler on the Roof,” Hank told her pointedly. “That one song... ‘Sunrise, Sunset’...” He placed a hand on his heart, closing his eyes as he began to sing it. It turned into a soft and somber chant, his beautiful voice rising and falling.
A moment later, it surprised Cora to realize that she’d joined him in singing. Their voices came together beautifully, harmonizing. During these moments, Cora forgot totally where she was, how the snow continued to swirl outside, locking them in tightly together. She only knew the sound of her voice, aligning so beautifully with Hank. She only knew the power of music. She only knew this.
After several seconds of this beauty, Cora stopped swiftly, biting her tongue. It was as though she’d suddenly remembered the heaviness of her life. How could she possibly allow herself to shove away any memory of Victor, even as she stood directly in front of their old photographs?
Hank’s eyes clouded as he slowly faded out of the song as well. He blinked back at the photographs, clearly seeing the handsome man beside Cora and easily putting two and two together. But instead of mentioning something, instead of demanding something from Cora that she couldn’t possibly give, he placed a hand timidly on the back of his neck. He bowed his forehead toward the far corner, nearest the window, where a large vending machine sat, lying in wait.
“I don’t know about you, but I get hungry when I’m stressed,” Hank told her as he headed for the machine.
Cora followed after him, her heart jumping into her throat. Once at the end of the hall, she leaned her forehead against the sharp chill of the glass. The snow seemed hungry to swallow up the world all at once.
“What do you think?” Hank asked her without turning back to catch her eye. “Milky Way? Snickers? PayDay?”
Cora laughed lightly. “I haven’t had a candy bar in like ten years— maybe more.”
“What?” This time, Hank did turn around to ogle her.
“I’m fifty-seven, Hank. I can’t just stuff a Snickers in my pocket for lunch and call it a day anymore,” Cora teased. “I miss that from the old days, though. You always had this sense that your body was your friend, your ally. It all changes so quickly, doesn’t it? Your jeans start to tease you for your bad eating habits. Your brain fogs up.”
“Listen up, Cora. You can be sad about a lot of things right now. And you have a right to be. But don’t ruin my candy habit for me,” Hank told her, his grin crooked as he snuck a dollar bill from his wallet.
For not the first time, Cora took in the full breadth of this man, down to the athletic flatness of his stomach. Clearly, whatever he was doing, it was working.
“I would take a couple of bites of a Snickers bar,” Cora glanced at him, feigning her annoyance. “But only because we’re trapped in this place in the worst blizzard I’ve ever seen.”
Hank and Cora watched in silence as the little coil rotated back and spat the Snickers into the belly of the vending machine below. It was such a simple action, something Cora had witnessed probably more times than she could count in her life. Hank removed the candy bar from the bottom and lifted it, nodding as he slowly peeled back the wrapper and placed it in Cora’s hands.
“You haven’t had a Snickers in ten years. Do me the honor of taking the first bite.”
Cora positioned her teeth tenderly at the very top part of the chocolate bar and bit down slowly, eyeing the snow outside as it swirled mere inches from their heads. A cascading waterfall of caramel and peanut and chocolate met her tongue. The sweetness was overdone and entirely false, but there was something nourishing about it, if only because it brought her back to another time. A time she could only get back through memory—a time of youth.
“See?” Hank said as she chewed. He accepted the chocolate bar back and placed his mouth exactly where hers had been moments before. “It’s better than you remember it being, isn’t it?”
“It’s almost revolutionary,” Cora agreed. “And I don’t even really know why.”