SHOUT - Adopted by Lin Manuel Miranda

CURTAIN CALL

The day of the talent show creeps up so fast, it hardly feels like any time passed since the day we rehearsed Sebastian's act for the first time. He ran a tight schedule. Each day at 5:00, he'd drag me out from the guest room to practice. He'd substitute two dining room chairs for the two boxes and a plastic knife for a saw until last week when Lin went out and bought a sturdy detachable box and a plastic saw painted to look like metal. Lin's parents are coming over at 6:00 for cocktails, then leaving for the show at 7:00. Sebastian and I have to be at the elementary school at 5:30 to prepare our act. Vanessa helps me get ready around 4:00. She flat irons my hair, does my makeup, and lets me borrow one of her silky black dresses. She waits at the foot of her bed while I slip on the dress in her bathroom. 

When I open the door, she has a close-mouthed smile waiting for me. "You look beautiful." 

I drop my arms to my sides. "You think so?"

"I've never seen you dressed up like this. I mean, you're always pretty, but--" She brushes some hair out of her face. "You're a true beauty, tonight." 

I smile at the word beauty. Then I catch myself. "What time is it?"

She shrugs. I glance at the makeup laid out on the bed behind her, at her outfit hung on the bureau. "Where's Lin?"

"Getting Sebastian ready," she tells me. "You know how that kid is with getting dressed up."

I turn and shoot a look down the hallway through the open door. But instead of leaving like I thought I would, I slowly turn and sit at the foot of the bed next to Vanessa. Her hair is curled. she's wearing the same perfume she wore on New Years Eve. I remember the fragrance, how the smell made me feel the way I thought I should at this age. 

"Lin will come for us once Sebastian is ready," she says.

My hair feels smooth and foreign against the sides of my head. I feel the edges parting at the center of my forehead, running down my neck smelling sweet with shampoo. I twirl Leslie's friendship bracelet around my wrist. "Where'd you guys meet?"

I want to hear that story again. Vanessa checks her makeup in the vanity mirror before meeting my gaze. "Lin and me?"

I nod. 

"We were in high school together."

I feel smug. "You danced with him at lunch?"

"How'd you know?"

"He told me," I shrug. 

"Lin and his beat-box." She grins, making that sophisticated rueful expression I've grown to recognize. She sets her hand on my knee. "I thought it'd be easy. I thought we'd fall in love, then get married. That simple."

"You did."

"Sure, we did, but it wasn't simple." She catches my eye. "It's not as easy as you think."

I hold her gaze. "What's not as easy as I think?"

She strokes the skin of my knee and brushes a loose strand of hair from my face. "Relationships. Truly loving someone for who they are."

I stare at her and wait for more. 

"No teenager understands real love. I'm only just starting to understand love, now." She looks up at the ceiling, like she's searching for something in the plaster. "He was, like-- I don't know. He was bigger than anything else to me, at the time." 

I find that hard to believe. I can't picture Vanessa as some scrawny, naive teenager who danced in her high school courtyard. I can't imagine her being anything but sure of herself. Hell, who would doubt themselves if they had a brain like hers?