The Encore
After appearing in a school play at the age of nine, Kenzie McAdams fell in love with the stage and set her heart on becoming a performer. Encouraged by her parents, she devoted the following decade of her life to dancing, singing and acting lessons. The years of hard work were rewarded with a spot in the chorus line of a Broadway musical. Looking at her future through rose-tinted glasses, the naïve nineteen-year-old imagined that by the age of twenty-five, she would be playing supporting roles. By thirty, she would be a star. She never imagined her rise to stardom would hit a plateau and that she would go from one chorus line to another, without ever having the opportunity to put her acting skills to the test. By the age of thirty-four, she was bored with having to perform the same song and dance routines for eight performances a week.
Just when the frustrated actress was giving serious thought to a career change, she learned of an open audition for a small role in a non-musical off-Broadway production.
"This could be my chance to get out of the chorus line," she told her roommate, Angela Sansone. "The shelf life of a chorus girl isn't that long, and I already feel like a senior citizen next to some of these new kids that I'm dancing with."
When she arrived at the New Amsterdam Theatre, where the auditions were to be held, she found herself in a group of more than fifty aspiring actresses, all of whom were hoping to get the same part.
I mustn't get discouraged. I have as much of a shot at this role as these younger, prettier girls do.
Kenzie took a seat and waited for more than two hours to deliver her lines.
"Thank you," the casting director said mechanically upon the conclusion of her reading. "We have your number. Next."
And that was it. Her dreams of becoming a Broadway star slipped away as she walked off the stage and the next hopeful actress took her place.
What a waste of time. Maybe I'd be better off if I traded jobs with the hatcheck girl.
Such was her frame of mind at that moment. Then she met Estella Drew. There was something about the dark-haired beauty in the vintage dress that immediately caught Kenzie's attention.
"Are you here to read for the role of Zarabeth?" she inquired. "If you are, you can get rid of the costume. The play is set in 1960, not 1920."
As she passed by the woman, who was dressed like a character out of an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, she caught a whiff of lavender. It reminded her of the sachets her grandmother used to keep in her underwear drawer. She was less than two feet away from the stranger when suddenly the woman vanished.
"What the ...! Where did she go?"
"Something wrong, miss?" asked the cleaning woman who was coming out of the ladies' room, pulling a mop and bucket behind her.
"There was a young woman here just a moment ago. She was right there, and then she disappeared."
The cleaning woman chuckled.
"I see you met Estella Drew."
"That name sounds vaguely familiar. Where have I heard it before?"
The cleaning woman pointed to an old black-and-white photograph on the wall, one of many former stars to grace the stage at the theater.
"That was Estella Drew. She appeared in the Ziegfeld Follies here back in 1915."
"That was more than a hundred years ago! The woman I saw was young. I'd say in her late teens or early twenties."
"The woman you saw died a century ago this year. Estella Drew is a ghost now. Although she died in Paris, her spirit haunts this theater."
"I don't believe in ghosts," Kenzie insisted.
"Well, maybe now you'll change your mind."
* * *
Since Kenzie had four hours to kill before having to report to the theater for the evening performance, she got out her laptop, googled Estella Drew's name and clicked on the IMAGES button. There were hundreds of photographs of the dark-haired beauty, all taken more than a century ago. In none of them did she appear to be any older than her early twenties.
That's her! That's the woman I saw.
According to Wikipedia, Estella was a silent film actress and model who was born in 1894 and died in 1920, one month shy of her twenty-sixth birthday.
That's why there were no pictures of her growing old. She died young.
As Kenzie read further into the article, she realized that Estella's life story seemed to be taken from the pages of a movie script. She was born near Pittsburgh, and when she was only eleven, her father, a steelworker, was killed in a work-related accident. His widow and three children then moved to a small town in central Pennsylvania. At fifteen, Estella, the oldest child, quit school and went to work at a department store to help support the family. A year later, she married. After two years of marriage, the couple separated and the wife headed for New York City, where she found work in another department store.
At the suggestion of a coworker, the attractive teenager entered a beauty contest and won. Once crowned the "most beautiful girl in New York City," she easily found work as an artist's model. During this period, she posed for some of the day's most gifted artists and photographers, and her face graced dozens of magazine covers, including that of the Saturday Evening Post.
From there, Estella Drew's beautiful face took her to Broadway. After joining the Ziegfeld Follies in 1915, she had a brief affair with Florenz Ziegfeld. Because the famed producer refused to leave his wife for her, she ended the relationship, left New York and headed for Hollywood. Again, her beauty opened doors of opportunity that were firmly closed to less comely women.
As her career flourished, adoring men vied for her attention. They showered her with gifts, and she received several marriage proposals. It was Dexter Keene, a well-known actor and member of a revered theatrical family destined to become legends of the silent film era, who ultimately won her hand.
Kenzie started to read about Estella's marriage to Dexter Keene when her cell phone rang.
"Hi, sweetheart," her mother said when she answered. "I didn't disturb you, did I?"
"No, Mom. I was just reading."
"A script?"
"No, an article on the internet about an actress of the silent screen era."
"Are you researching a role?"
"Not everything I do is career-related. I was curious about her after I saw her ...."
She was going to say that she saw Estella's ghost but then thought better of it. If Camille McAdams learned her daughter was seeing ghosts, she would no doubt worry about her offspring's sanity.
"... photograph on the wall of the New Amsterdam Theatre today."
"What were you doing at the New Amsterdam?"
"I had an audition."
"Really! How did it go?"
"I don't know. There were dozens of other actresses there, and I guess that one of the younger ones got the role."
"Don't be so pessimistic!"
I'm not being pessimistic. I'm being realistic. I'm not like Estella Drew. I can't get by on good looks.
Unfortunately for less attractive females, the performing arts relied heavily on visual appeal.
"And how's your roommate doing?"
"Angela's fine. She's still working for Penguin Random House. And, yes, before you ask, she's still dating that same guy from Staten Island."
"It's been—what? Five years? When are they going to get married?"
"Possibly never. They're happy with the way things are now. Not everyone wants to get married, buy a house in Jersey and raise children."
"You obviously don't."
Here it comes! Why does every conversation I have with my mother lead to my being single at thirty-four?
Knowing Camille would keep her on the line for at least another hour, she closed her laptop and went to the kitchen to make herself a cup of coffee.
* * *
A cold, drizzling rain was coming down when Kenzie left for the theater later that evening. The dismal weather matched her mood. She used to look forward to going to work but not anymore. Being on stage, once considered fun, had since become monotonous, and on days when there were both evening and matinee performances, it could be physically draining.
I'm getting too old for this kind of life, she thought as she huddled beneath her umbrella and walked toward the theater district.
As usual, there was a throng of people on 42nd Street. Kenzie could easily spot the New Yorkers among them. They were the ones who hurried along, deftly navigating through the crowds, anxious to get where they were going. Meanwhile, the out-of-towners, heads turning from side to side as they strolled down the street, were in no rush. They often stopped to stare at something that caught their eye and frequently took out their phones to snap pictures.
Shortly after passing Ripley's Believe It or Not museum, she was stopped by a middle-aged woman with a pronounced British accent.
"Excuse me. I'm trying to get to Times Square. Am I going in the right direction?"
"Yes," she replied. "Go up to 7th Avenue and turn left. It'll be just a couple of blocks ahead. You can't miss it."
Shortly after the woman thanked her and continued on her journey, Kenzie passed the New Amsterdam Theatre. Already, she had convinced herself that what the cleaning woman claimed was a ghost was nothing more than a figment of her imagination. There were no such things as ghosts. And if they did exist, they would more likely be found in a medieval castle in Europe, not in a theater in the most populous city in America. Yet as she walked beneath the marquee, she turned toward the glass entrance doors and saw a now-familiar face peering out at her.
Estella Drew!
When Kenzie stopped to stare, she was nearly run over by a fellow New Yorker, who was in a rush to meet a date for dinner.
"What'd ya doin' stoppin' in the middle of the goddamned sidewalk?" he grumbled.
"Why don't you look where the hell you're going next time?" she countered.
When her eyes went back to the glass door of the New Amsterdam Theatre, no one was there, living or dead.
"Shake it off," she advised herself. "You didn't see a ghost—not now and not this morning."
Despite her insistence, a doubt lingered in her mind. She also felt an eerie sense of foreboding. What was that old saying? ... "as though someone was walking on her grave."
When Kenzie arrived at the theater, she went to the dressing room, where she vied with the other women in the chorus for a spot in front of the mirror. With the efficiency of a robot, she went through the motions of applying her makeup and changing into her costume for the opening act. No one in the audience would have suspected that the smiling dancer on stage was desperately trying to come to terms with her brief encounter with the supernatural. Somehow, she made it through the evening without missing a step. By the time she returned to the dressing room, she was both physically and emotionally exhausted.
"Don't take this the wrong way, but you don't look so hot," one of the teenage dancers told her. "Are you feeling all right?"
"Yes ... no ... I ...."
A moment later, she slid off the chair and fell to the floor.
"Oh, my god!" the teenager screamed. "Kenzie passed out. Someone get her a drink of water or something."
Although she quickly came to, her fellow performers were concerned.
"I'm fine. Really. There's no need to fuss."
The stage manager was not willing to take her at her word. He insisted she skip the next several performances and get some rest.
Maybe it's for the best, she thought when an usher called a taxi to drive her home. I could definitely use a few days off.
* * *
Kenzie woke the following morning to an empty apartment. Angela was in London on business, so she had the place to herself. With so much free time on her hands, she got out her laptop and continued researching Estella Drew.
So much of her life reads like a Cinderella story. A poor girl from a small town goes to New York, has a successful career as a model and then on Broadway, after which she makes the move to Hollywood, where she not only becomes a well-known actress but also marries one of the most popular leading men of her day.
However, where Cinderella lived happily ever after with her Prince Charming, Estella's tale had a tragic ending. In an effort to ease the trouble that developed in their marriage, the couple decided to take a second honeymoon and went to Paris. After a night of partying, they returned to their suite in the Hotel Ritz in the early morning hours. Dexter Keene immediately fell asleep, but Estella went into the bathroom and—either deliberately or accidentally—swallowed a mercury bichloride medicine that had been prescribed to her husband for the treatment of syphilis. After drinking the toxic medication, she screamed and awakened Dexter, who rushed her to the hospital. Tragically, five days later, she died.
Estella's life reminds me of the plot of an early Hollywood tearjerker. I can just imagine a young Betty Davis or Joan Crawford playing the lead role.
Following the actress's passing, the usual conspiracy theories arose. Although her death was ruled an accident, rumors hinted at drug addiction, suicide and even murder. Speculations were rampant, and the star's mysterious death resulted in the first major Hollywood scandal of the era.
It must have been suicide. Even though the label on the bottle was written in French, who would swallow an unknown medication?
Eager to know more, she visited close to fifty more websites, most of which dealt only with the alleged haunting of the New Amsterdam Theatre. The few that did offer a biography of the actress rehashed the same information presented in the Wikipedia article.
Kenzie was about to give up her online search when she followed a Google link to hauntednyc.com. Run by a group of ghosthunters who called themselves the Manhattan Paranormal Investigators, the site described alleged hauntings in the Big Apple. Included as "proof" of the existence of visitors from beyond the grave were audio and video files from the team's investigations of, among other landmarks, the Dakota, Hotel Chelsea, Radio City Music Hall and the "House of Death" on West 10th Street.
Curious, Kenzie clicked on an audio file from the team's investigation at the Belasco Theatre. After several moments of static, there appeared to be a garbled voice. As to what the unknown person said, she did not have the slightest clue. She could not state with any certainty that he or she spoke in English. Next, she clicked on a video file taken at the Merchant's House Museum. According to the narration, a blurry shadow, barely visible in the dark room, was supposedly the ghost of Gertrude Tredwell, the spinster daughter of the original owner, Seabury Tredwell.
Sorry, guys, but your so-called evidence doesn't convince me of anything.
There were several links at the bottom of the page, all under the general heading LIVE GHOST CAMS. One of the titles seemed to jump out at her: "New Amsterdam Theatre." When she clicked on the link, a live feed opened. The theater's lobby was easily recognizable, albeit the picture was a bit "grainy" and the lighting was poor.
It's hard to believe that people actually watch ....
"What was that?" she said aloud, her voice echoing through the empty apartment.
It was not a shapeless blur like the alleged ghost of Gertrude Tredwell. It was definitely a human form that flitted across the screen. It returned a moment later. It stopped, turned its head and stared directly into the camera.
"Hello, Miss McAdams."
Trembling with fear, Kenzie reached out her hand and shut the lid of her laptop.
* * *
When the sun set that evening, Kenzie reached for the lamp on the end table and turned it on. She had been sitting in the same chair, in front of her closed laptop, all afternoon. During those hours, she desperately tried to reassure herself that what she had seen and heard on the webcam was nothing more than an elaborate hoax.
It was a woman who looked like Estella Drew, pretending to be a ghost—that's all.
What followed that conclusion were questions to which she had no answers.
How did she know my name? And how did she know I would visit that particular website and watch the live feed from the theater?
Kenzie stared at the closed laptop on the snack tray in front of her. Were the answers there? She was too frightened to find out.
I'm being foolish. It's not as though the ghost, or whatever the hell it is, is here in my apartment. It's only a video feed.
Summoning her courage, she opened her laptop and typed in her four-digit PIN. The web browser was still open to the Manhattan Paranormal Investigators' site—specifically, the page with the live stream from the New Amsterdam Theatre. Relief flooded over her when she saw that the lobby was empty.
See! There's nothing there!
Then the shape returned.
"Hello, Kenzie."
Her heart raced with fear, but she did not close her laptop.
"Can you ... hear me?" the frightened dancer managed to ask.
While she was not familiar with all the latest technology, she was fairly certain webcams were only capable of one-way transmission. Was this some kind of new communications app like FaceTime or Skype?
"Yes, I can hear you," Estella replied. "But it's a bit awkward talking to you like this ... like some kind of long-distance telephone call."
One moment, the silent film star's ghost was in the lobby of the New Amsterdam Theatre, the next, she was in Kenzie's apartment.
"There!" the ghost announced. "That's much better."
"How ...?"
It was all the astounded young woman could manage to say.
"It was easy. I just traveled through the wires. Now, I'm sure you have millions of questions you want to ask me, so let's get it over with."
Kenzie, her mind trying to come to terms with the bizarre and terrifying situation, was still incapable of speech.
"Cat got your tongue?" Estella laughed. "Okay, I'll start. You already know who I am ... or, more accurately, who I was. Let me explain how this works. Not everyone can see me. In fact, very few people can. I've been waiting around that theater for—what year is it? Oh, right, 2020. Wow! I've been dead an entire century! In all that time, only you have been able to see me."
"Other people have, too," Kenzie corrected the late actress once she recovered her ability to speak. "People have written about the ghost that haunts the New Amsterdam Theatre."
"Oh, every now and then, someone catches a quick glimpse of my spirit. Rumors spread and legends grow. But no one has really seen me the way you do. I'd ask you if you've ever seen a ghost before, but I doubt you would know if you had."
"I suppose that's true. I thought you were alive the first time we met, right up to the moment you suddenly disappeared."
"I'm sorry about that. The cleaning woman was coming, and I'm a firm believer that two is company and three is a crowd."
"You picked an odd place to haunt, then, didn't you? A city with more than eight million people? Or did you pick it? How does this haunting thing work? I read that you died in Paris. Why aren't you haunting the hospital where you passed away or the Hotel Ritz where you drank the poison? Is it because your husband brought your body back to New York for burial?"
"Good god, no! He buried me at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. Why would I ever want to spend my afterlife in the Bronx?"
"So, you do have a say in where you go?"
"Yes. I could easily have remained in Paris, but I came back to New York for a reason."
"What is that?"
"I want to find out what happened to my child."
"Child? Wikipedia never mentioned anything about your having a child."
"Just after I moved here from Pennsylvania, I discovered I was pregnant. What I made working at the department store barely covered my living expenses. I couldn't afford a doctor, so one of the women in the tenement where I lived delivered him. Then she told me about a woman who took in unwanted babies and found good homes for them."
"You put him up for adoption?"
"I handed him over to her, yes, along with what little money I had to cover his expenses. I never signed any papers, though. Of course, in those days, things were different. There often wasn't any formal legal procedure. Unwanted children were frequently left on the steps of foundling homes. I honestly don't know if he was sent to live with a family or was raised in an orphanage."
"Later, after you became a successful model and then joined the Follies, didn't you try to find him?"
A look of profound sadness marred Estella's beautiful features.
"No. I ...."
The dead actress seemed to disintegrate before Kenzie's eyes, first becoming a diaphanous revenant and then dissolving into nothingness.
"Where are you?" the dancer called.
There was no answer.
* * *
The conversation with Estella's ghost failed to satisfy Kenzie's curiosity; on the contrary, it only whetted it more. Over the next two days, she frequently watched the live stream from the New Amsterdam Theatre, but she found no evidence of the beautiful ghost that haunted the tall, thin Beaux-Arts building.
When Angela Sansone came home from London, she was surprised to find her roommate at home at eight in the evening.
"What are you doing here?" she asked, rolling her suitcase through the front door. "The show didn't close, did it?"
"No. I wasn't feeling well, so management told me to take a few days off."
"Nothing serious, I hope."
"I just needed some rest."
Kenzie did not dare tell her roommate about the ghost. Angela was an intelligent, well-educated woman, a senior editor for one of the "Big 5" book publishers. She was hardly the type of person to believe in the supernatural.
"You haven't been cooped up in the apartment all this time, have you? I'd be bored out of my mind!"
"I managed to keep busy."
"Playing video games on your computer?"
Kenzie decided to couch the truth inside a plausible lie.
"I had an audition earlier this week at the New Amsterdam. While I was there, I saw a photo of a silent film actress on the wall, one who appeared at the theater when it played host to the Ziegfeld Follies. I wanted to learn more about her, so I looked her up on the internet."
"Find anything interesting?"
Kenzie gave her roommate an encapsulated version of Estella Drew's biography, up to and including her tragic death in Paris in 1920.
"Her life sounds like a plot from one of Yvette Delacroix's novels."
"Everything sounds like a work of fiction to you."
"What do you expect?" Angela laughed. "I'm an editor. My life revolves around books. Hey! You've been talking lately about a change in career. Did you ever consider becoming a writer?"
"Me? A writer? You've got to be kidding!"
"You could write a book about Estella Drew or, better yet, a work of fiction based on her life."
"Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't know how to go about it."
"I could help you. I've got fifteen years of experience with Penguin Random House."
"Writing a book takes a good deal of time. How am I supposed to support myself in the meantime?"
"I'll pay the rent and living expenses, and I can get you some part-time proofreading work you can do here at the apartment. Come on! Give it a try. You know you're getting too old to kick up your heels on stage."
As Angela unpacked her bag, Kenzie went to the kitchen to pour them each a glass of wine. While removing the cork from the bottle, she mulled over her roommate's suggestion.
"All unpacked," the editor announced, taking her glass of wine to the living room. "There's a lot to be said for traveling light."
"Getting back to our previous conversation. There is one thing that intrigues me," the dancer said. "I read on one of the webpages that there was a rumor going around back then that Estella Drew had a child shortly after arriving in New York, but I can't find any information to substantiate that claim."
"I know someone who might be able to help, an NYPD detective who has aspirations of becoming the next Joseph Wambaugh. I'll call him up tomorrow and invite him to dinner."
Three days later, Ed Barksdale arrived at the apartment.
"Thanks for coming," Angela greeted the police officer at the door.
"No need to thank me. Since I got divorced four years ago, I've learned never to pass up the offer of a home-cooked meal. So, you must be the lady who's writing a book," he said, turning his attention to Kenzie. "What's it about?"
"A silent film actress named Estella Drew."
"Silent films, huh? That was before my time."
"She was born in 1894 and died in 1920. There was a rumor that she had a baby sometime around 1913. I'd like to know if the rumor is true. If so, I want to know what happened to the child."
"That was more than a hundred years ago. Everyone who might have known about the birth is in the grave. I'll have to rely on whatever records still exist. But let me see what I can find out."
Eight weeks went by, and Kenzie heard nothing from Detective Barksdale. Since she had no real intention of writing a book, she went back to dancing in the chorus. During her free time, though, she kept returning to the webcam that the paranormal investigators had carefully hidden in the lobby of the New Amsterdam Theatre. However, there were no further sightings of Estella's ghost.
"Was she nothing but a figment of my imagination all along?" the dancer asked herself.
* * *
It has been said that opportunities come along when you least expect them. Kenzie certainly had not anticipated the opportunity that presented itself at the end of her performance one night. She was sitting in front of the mirror, removing her makeup, when Daria Alderney, an old friend and fellow dancer, entered the dressing room.
"What are you doing here?" Kenzie cried after hugging her visitor. "Are you in between shows?"
"No, I quit dancing six months ago."
"What are you doing now?"
"I opened my own dance school. I don't want to brag, but I've got more students than I can handle. That's why I wanted to see you. I need another teacher."
"Me?"
"Why not you? You're a talented dancer, you work well with others and I'm sure, like me, you've had enough of being in the chorus. Look, I'm here with a date, and I don't want to keep him waiting. Why don't we meet for lunch?" Daria suggested. "There's a little café right across from my studio. They serve a great apple and goat cheese salad."
The following day, the two women met at the restaurant and came to an agreement that benefited them both. When Kenzie returned to her apartment, her mind was on her new job, not on a ghost that she may or may not have seen. She was pondering what it would be like to work during the day and have her evenings free when the doorbell rang.
"Detective Barksdale!" she exclaimed and let her visitor inside. "I didn't think I was going to hear from you again."
"I think I may have located the child."
"He can't still be alive!"
"Oh, no. He's long dead. Have you got a computer? There's something I want to show you."
She brought out her laptop and placed it in front of him on the kitchen table.
As he waited for a specific page to load, the detective asked, "Do you know what baby farming is?"
"No."
"Baby farmers took in unwanted infants, not out of the kindness of their hearts but for profit. Desperate women either paid them a lump sum when they handed over their children or made regular payments to them for a child's care. This," he declared, pointing to the image of a stern-looking elderly woman in nineteenth-century dress, "was Elvira Jannet, arguably the most notorious baby farmer in America. It's believed she was responsible for the deaths of as many as four hundred children."
"And you think Estella Drew gave her baby away to such a woman?"
"You have to realize that at the time, the orphanages were overcrowded, and the conditions in them were often deplorable. Many women felt their babies would receive better care when placed with someone like Elvira, who was a trained nurse and mother herself."
The detective took a flash drive out of his pocket and stuck it in the USB port. He then clicked on a file to view the contents. A scanned image of a handwritten ledger page appeared.
"Mrs. Jannet kept records of all her transactions. This was taken from her accounts book," he explained and then zoomed in on a single line.
The date in the first column was given as May 10, 1913. The amount received was in the second column. In the third was the notation REC'D FROM E. DREW – NEWBORN MALE.
"That must be her!" Kenzie cried.
"It might be her."
"You said Jannet kept records. Does she say what happened to the baby?"
"She kept financial records only. She would hardly write down the names of the children she killed."
"Killed? You think she murdered Estella's son?"
"Most likely."
After ejecting the flash drive from the laptop, Ed put it back in his pocket and asked Kenzie, "Do you want me to continue searching for further evidence?"
"No. You've been really helpful. I do have a question, though. Do you know how this Elvira Jannet woman ... how she ...?"
"Killed them? Smothered them with a pillow. Infants can't put up much of a fight."
After the detective left, Kenzie visited the Manhattan Paranormal Investigators' website one last time. When she clicked on the link to the live webcam feed, she was startled to see Estella's tear-stained face fill up the screen. A moment later, the actress's spirit wafted into the dancer's living room.
"I overheard what that detective told you," she sobbed. "I ... I ... Oh, my poor little, defenseless baby! If I had thought he would be in any danger, I never would have left him with that ... that vile monster!"
Both Kenzie and Estella saw the screen of the laptop glow as if it were a prop from a cheap Fifties sci-fi movie about nuclear radiation.
"Are you doing that?" Kenzie asked.
"No."
Suddenly, what appeared to be a glowing cloud with no definite shape came out of the screen and floated toward Estella.
"Is that ... yes, it is you! My son!" the ghost cried.
The cloud moved closer and appeared to come to rest in the dead actress's arms.
"You did what?" she asked, able to silently communicate with the soul of her son. "It's okay. I understand, and I forgive you."
"What do you forgive?" Kenzie inquired. "What did he do?"
"It was my son who ... arranged for me to drink the poison in that Paris hotel room. He thought I wanted him dead, and that was his way of getting revenge for what that Jannet woman did to him."
"I don't understand any of this! The ghost of a dead infant murdering his own mother? How is that even possible?"
"You can't understand because you live on a different plane of existence. You're not familiar with how things work on this side. To be honest, I'm not terribly knowledgeable about it all myself. But now that I've found my baby, I might be able to figure it out. And who knows? Maybe my son, Dexter and I will be able to come back to this world for an encore someday."
* * *
That was the last anyone ever saw of the ghost that haunted the New Amsterdam Theatre. Eventually, painters, hoping to freshen up the lobby with a new coat of paint, found the hidden webcam and tossed it into the trash. As the years went by, Kenzie McAdams thought less and less about her encounter with the supernatural. By the time she turned forty, she was married with two children and had become a full partner in Daria Alderney's dancing school.
On the occasion of her seventy-fifth birthday, friends, children and grandchildren took her to one of New York's most popular restaurants to celebrate. As the salad plates were being taken away so that the main course could be served, there was a commotion at the entrance to the dining room.
"What's going on?" the guest of honor asked her husband, who was seated to her right.
"It looks as though some celebrity is here."
"Who is it?"
It was her daughter who answered.
"It's Evangeline Wofford and Ewan MacLeish. They're the stars of that new Broadway show that opened at the New Amsterdam Theatre. And look! They brought their son with them."
When the actress passed by the table, her eyes briefly met Kenzie's. There was no inkling of recognition in them.
She doesn't know me, the elderly woman realized. But I know her. Who could forget that beautiful face, even after forty years?
"Grandma, what are you smiling at?" her youngest grandchild asked.
"Encore performances, sweetheart," she answered cryptically.
And, hopefully, this time Estella and her son will get a happy ending.
Estella Drew is loosely based on model and actress Olive Thomas. Elvira Jannet is based on "Angel Maker" Amelia Dyer, the notorious baby farmer from Victorian Britain.
Salem went to an audition for a production of Hamilton, unaware that the character's name was Burr, not Purr.
