over the steering wheel and she had to start taking the long, deep, slow breaths (in-two-three-four, out-two-three-four-five-six-seven) her yoga teacher had taught her to help stave off an anxiety attack.
She breathed and refocused her attention above the road at the bluff that overlooked Lake Michigan. Several houses dotted the tree-studded, rolling hill, all spread out and partially obstructed by more trees. There was a tiny bungalow, a newer-looking mansion, a white clapboard farmhouse. But one stood out because it was an anomaly: a slant-roofed ranch that had been built in what she thought of as Brady Bunch style. It didn’t fit the otherwise contiguous look of the hill, but it must have one hell of a view.
The thoughts and the distraction had calmed her, so by the time she turned into the parking lot near the end of the dead-end road, Vivien wasn’t feeling quite so ill.
But now she was in the parking lot, facing the building, and there it sat: the Wicks Hollow Stage.
The theater had been closed since the early nineties, and the parking lot was strewn with broken glass and grass growing between cracks in the concrete. The building itself, made from brick and constructed around 1900, was in excellent shape—Vivien had made certain of that.
Back when they visited Wicks Hollow as young actors, she and Liv had been fascinated by the idea of a cute little stage plopped down in the middle of their grandmother’s tiny town.
They were used to performing all of their shows in large, imposing, thousand-seat theaters in busy, loud cities. This minuscule venue was strange to them, their young minds imagining how different it would be to arrive at and leave a place like the Wicks Hollow Stage. But they both loved coming to visit their grandmother, and for obvious reasons, the theater that lived there captured their attention and imagination.
The building had been for sale at the time (in fact, it had never been taken off the market for as long as Vivien had known about it, with the same weathered sign hanging crookedly from the front for decades), and on a whim, Mom had insisted they take a look at it.
“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 in Les 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 in Oliver! 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.