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At seven-thirty the following morning, Lola stood with a mug of steaming coffee and gazed up at the impenetrable mound of bright white snow, which piled itself against the glass window of the backstage hallway. The very top line of the snow glowed with morning sunlight, proof that the storm clouds had dumped all they could upon them and left a blue sky in their wake. Still, there would be no appreciating the glory of a winter’s sun. Not from within the walls of the auditorium. Not until Oak Bluffs sent out its crew of snowplows and got them out.
“Wow.” Audrey’s voice groaned sleepily from behind Lola as she crept down the hallway to join her. “Look at that.”
“It’s really something, isn’t it?” Lola turned to greet Audrey, whose black makeup streaked down her cheek, flirting with her top lip.
Lola rubbed her thumb across the black streaks as Audrey erupted with a yawn.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m sure I’m a mess,” Audrey said sleepily. “Amanda’s already down in the cafeteria inspecting the breakfast situation.”
“She really is a mini-Susan, isn’t she?”
“She might be even worse,” Audrey returned with a laugh. “Only time will tell. Can you imagine when Amanda has a baby, though? She probably won’t let anyone near the baby with a ten-foot pole. Not until they’ve been tested of all diseases and washed their hands for thirty minutes.”
“And yet she just slept on a dusty floor of the backstage of the theater,” Lola pointed out.
“She contains multitudes,” Audrey said.
Suddenly, Lola’s phone buzzed in her pocket. She reached for it as Audrey’s, too, buzzed in her sweatshirt pocket. The service had returned and with it, Audrey and Lola received a number of missed phone calls and text messages, all from family members and close friends.
CHRISTINE: Hey, honey. I know the service is out. Just thinking of you and missing you and hoping this text message will get to you soon.
CHARLOTTE: Ugh, Lola! This is a disaster, isn’t it? Twenty-five of your guests have emailed to say that they can’t get to the island in time for the wedding. The storm knocked out so much of the east coast.
SUSAN: Love you, Lola! I wish you were here, cozy with us. Max misses his grandmother. (I know you hate the term grandmother.)
DAD: Image: A bright red cardinal.
DAD: He’s back! I couldn’t believe it. He arrived this morning and hovered on a branch outside the second-story window. He survived the storm!
Lola chuckled inwardly and then continued through her text messages, only to discover that Tommy hadn’t sent her a single text. Her heart dropped into her stomach. Was there something wrong?
“Did Grandpa send you a picture of the bird he’s obsessed with?” Audrey asked.
Lola nodded, half sharing a smile as she dialed Tommy’s number. The call went directly to voicemail. Where on earth was he?
Without his answer, Lola dialed Susan. Her heart thudded in her throat.
“Lola! L-O-L-A Lola!” Susan called out the lyrics to the old Kinks’ song as she answered joyfully. “The phones are back, I see!”
“Yes. I just got all of your messages. Have you managed to get back to your house yet? Or are you still at Dad’s?”
“We’re all at Dad’s place right now,” Susan replied. “Except for Scott, and I still haven’t heard from him.” There it was: a hint of fear edging along her words.
“Gosh, I’m sorry. That’s one of the reasons I called you. Tommy was supposed to come back to the island on one of the Frampton freights. I haven’t heard anything from him, and his phone seems to be off.”
“Scott’s is off, too,” Susan groaned.
Lola dropped her head back as worry permeated through her. “I don’t know what to do.” Her voice broke. “We were supposed to get married tomorrow.”
And now, she didn’t even know if he was safe...
“Listen, honey. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that Tommy and Scott are very strong and capable men,” Susan told her, seeming to know that she needed to step up and be the “courageous” sister. “They’re fine. They probably just forgot their phone chargers. That’s not exactly Scott’s strong suit.”
“Tommy’s not great at remembering his charger, either,” Lola admitted. “Still, I wish they’d contact us.”
“It’s a weird time,” Susan affirmed. “But we’re in a warm place, and we have food and water and shelter. I’m sure Tommy and Scott are somewhere warm and safe as well, and maybe they’re even together.”
**
AROUND NINE, THE THEATER troupe banded together to eat Amanda’s cheesy-gooey egg casserole, drink coffee, and talk about the night’s talent show event as though it had been the performance of the season. Nearly everyone’s phones had gotten service back, which meant that every child had been able to call his or her parents and report their safety.
“Yes, Mom. I’m well-fed. Yes, Mom. I’m warm. Yes, Mom. I’m behaving myself,” a little girl said in a bored tone as she swung her legs beneath the cafeteria stool.
“My mom says hi.” This was Rachel, who appeared before Lola, Audrey, and Amanda and grinned excitedly. Her hair had been braided into several different and sloppy “cornrows.” Abby and Gail hopped up on either side of her, sporting similar hairdos. Probably, they’d found a little corner of the auditorium for a sleepover all their own and had whispered long into the night as they braided one another’s hair. This would be a memory for the ages.
“How is she doing?” Lola asked.
“She’s pretty upset that your wedding won’t go through,” Rachel admitted.
“What a sweetie. She worked so hard for me,” Lola said with a sigh. “And your momma, Gail? Abby?”
“She’s good,” Abby recited. “She was worried sick, but now that she knows we’re okay, I think she’s just glad we’re out of the house for a few days.”
“She’s counting down the days till we go to college,” Gail affirmed.
“I don’t think that’s true at all,” Lola told them. “Your mom won’t know what hit her when you two run off the island.”
The three teenage girls shrugged into a group giggle and then sped back to their table, where they tore through another helping of breakfast biscuits and gossiped about whatever it was teenage girls gossiped about.
“I was just that age,” Audrey stated, her eyebrows lifting. “But I think when I had Max, something changed, and I can’t speak that language anymore. Speaking of which...” Audrey grabbed her phone to bring up another photograph Christine had sent of little Max, who was now three hundred and sixty-four days old. “I can’t believe it. My little man, all grown up.”
“Almost one year on the planet.” Amanda slid some butter across her biscuit with a plastic knife. “And to think. He won’t remember the drama of his birthday at all.”
“Christine says we’ll have a birthday party when we’re all back home,” Audrey said. “She was going to make the birthday cake yesterday but held off.”
“Looks like she just made mounds of croissants instead.” Amanda flashed a photograph from Susan of the breakfast table at the Sheridan House, making them all groan with jealousy.
“I’d give anything to be there,” Lola confessed.
“Sam reports that the plows have begun to dig the town out,” Amanda affirmed. “But who knows how long that will take?”
“Certainly not as long as it will take the Sheridan crew to eat all those croissants,” Audrey admitted. “I have half a mind to dig out of this auditorium myself.”
“What will you do once you’re out there? Snowshoe to the Sheridan House?” Amanda teased.
Audrey grumbled. “I don’t know. The only thing I know is that I’ve seen The Shining. And people don’t act nicely when they’re trapped inside due to snow for very long.”
“We can keep everyone sane for another day,” Lola said as she scraped her plate. She then snapped her fingers as an idea came over her. She jumped onto the stool and quieted the cast before her as she announced her plan.
“It’s looking like we’ll be trapped inside another day at least...” Lola announced. “But I’ve thought of a great way to pass the time. We all know the musical Annie backward and forwards by now, don’t we?”
“Yes...” The cast eyed one another curiously.
“I think everyone should swap parts,” Lola suggested, looking out into the crowd before her. “Throw caution to the wind. Cora, you’ll play Annie. Hank, you’re Rooster instead of Daddy Warbucks. Jenny, you’re Miss Hannigan instead of Annie.” One after another, Lola assigned different parts to an excited batch of actors, all of whom couldn’t wait to sink their teeth into another role for one performance and one performance only.
“What should we wear for costumes?” Jenny cried as she scrambled past.
“Anything you want to!” Lola told her. “Anything you find in the backroom is yours to wear in any way you choose. I’m sure Cecily can help you figure something out.”
Because it was a one-time performance and a very strange one at that, most everyone took their scripts out on-stage to ensure they got their lines down. Jenny was all-out hilarious as Miss Hannigan, sauntering across the stage like an angry, arrogant woman instead of a little girl. Hank was excellent as Rooster, getting almost all of the song and dance numbers down as he and Jenny fell in cahoots to take advantage of Annie and get Daddy Warbucks’ cash.
Most notably, of course, with hardly a glance at the script, Cora knew nearly every single line that Annie said throughout the musical and absolutely nailed every single song. Despite her fifty-seven years, she matched the innocence and the sorrow of a youthful orphan Annie, and her solos were absolutely electric, mesmerizing every other person in the cast.
After a particularly wonderful solo, Cora’s eyes filled with tears as she suddenly broke character. When the scene ended, she whirled around to find Hank beside her, his eyes alight with wonder. Lola’s heart shattered as she watched Cora step into his arms, shaking with what seemed to be a strange mix of emotions. Hank held onto her while she shook, becoming her anchor to the world even as her thoughts took her somewhere far, far away.
“Gosh, that was intense,” Audrey whispered into Lola’s ear as Hank and Cora slowly walked off the stage.
“They certainly have a relationship all their own,” Amanda added. “It’s like this in every survivor movie. There’s always a romance.”
“You and your survivor movies,” Audrey said. “You know, I wonder if they’ll point to this time in the auditorium as the time when they realized they’re in love...”
“You think this storm changed the course of history?” Amanda rasped.
“Absolutely,” Audrey affirmed. “It canceled my mother’s wedding, eliminated Jenny’s debut as Annie, made us all realize Amanda’s two steps away from being a prepper, and brought the unlikely duo of Cora and Hank together. Wake up, Amanda. We’re living history.”