He stopped scanning the karaoke list and grinned at me from under his bangs and smudged, wire-rimmed glasses. “Yeah, it’s killing me,” he said, tapping his wallet on the bar. “But please don’t leave on my account…or my bank account.” Then he selected Hues Corporation’s Rock the Boat and sang badly as he made his way around to each stool and table. It was a bigger hit than his melodramatic singing of Morris Albert’s infamous song Feelings.
The only city in which Thomas got more attention than us was New York. Stephen Sondheim-2 invited us to a private meeting at his apartment. He was, of course, the clone-child of the famous musical composer and lyricist. He was also one of the first celebrity clones to be born, and was a year older than Lily. Sondheim-2 had read the book and loved it. He thought it would be fitting to transform it into his first professional musical.
We talked far into the night about the book and Sondheim-2’s vision for its adaptation. He sat down at the piano and played bits of the songs he’d started. The score was rock opera, and it would eventually be filled out with a blend of exhilarating strains of rock music and soaring ballads. It was still in the developmental stage, but we knew then that Sondheim’s clone had inherited a gift for music and lyrics and had made it all his own.
We left the apartment excited. Wilson liked Sondheim-2’s concept, and he also liked the idea that Sondheim’s clone would be writing the musical about the cloned Dolly. It would still have to be good to be successful, but public interest was a given and ticket sales would soar if it received positive reviews.
The following year saw continued fame for Wilson. His book was nominated for the Newbery Medal for children’s fiction, Stephen Spielberg-2 expressed an interest in developing the book into a film, and Sondheim-2 started workshopping the story’s musical version. In October they set the final date and place of the world premiere for Farewell Dolly – The Musical. It would take place in my hometown theatre, the La Jolla Playhouse. And it would open on March 11, 2059 – my twenty-fifth birthday.
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“I love it!” exclaimed Thomas Wilson the moment I opened the front door to let him in. He had just arrived from the dress rehearsal. Previews were set to begin in two days.
“Well come in and tell us about it,” I said, ushering him into my home. Lily was there, too. Our wedding date was four months away, in June, and she had flower samples covering the coffee table, dining table, a couple chairs, and much of the floor. Lily cleared enough bouquets away for Thomas to sit down.
“Visually, it’s simply wonderful,” he began, a gleam in his eyes. “I was afraid the costumes would make the actors look cheesy. I mean, singing sheep, right? But all the animals look human, and the costumes give them a kind of naturalistic feel and enough of a hint to let you know what kind of animals they are. That’s all in contrast to the human scientists who are dressed in these white, sterile, vinyl lab coats and look anything but human. Then there are holographic enhancements that look so real you can only tell they’re holograms because they’re doing things no real prop could do. The sets are so realistic, and during the outdoor scenes you can actually smell the fresh country air.”
Lily made a face.
“No, not to worry. Manure-less country air.”
“And the music?” I asked.
“It’s all really polished now. I wouldn’t be surprised if it went to Broadway as is. And probably with a lot of the same cast.”
“They’re good?” Lily asked, though her eyes strayed to the bouquets.
“They’re incredible. I mean, what a coup to have Bernadette Peters-2 as Dolly’s daughter. I can’t imagine anyone else in the role. And wait till you hear Dolly knock out her solos. She’s done a couple old Sondheim revivals and she just finished playing the lead in the tour version of that Captain and Tennille comedy Muskrat Love Will Keep Us Together. No Broadway leads yet, but I think that’ll be coming soon enough. She’s out of New York, but she was born and raised right here in La Jolla.”
“Oh, good for her!” I cheered. “What’s her name?”
“Evelyn Green.”
I just sat there for a while, slightly dazed. Thomas raised his eyebrows.
“Evelyn Green?” I repeated.
“Do you know her?” Lily asked.
“I…think,” I answered. “Well, I mean, I guess I might. At least, I went to elementary school with an Evelyn Green. Any idea about how old she is?”
“Well, I’d guess she was about your age,” Thomas answered, now amused. “You want me to ask if she knows you?”
I could feel Lily bristling beside me. “No, of course not,” I said. “If I recognize her as the same one, I’ll say hi to her at the opening.”
While Thomas seemed to delight at the new wrinkle and perhaps some new publicity, I tried to relax Lily with a casual, no-big-deal grin.
Lily was as cold as an icy pond.
***
The big night arrived with a fanfare usually reserved for huge Broadway openings. Besides Stephen Sondheim-2, Thomas Wilson, Lily, and myself, the La Jolla Playhouse’s courtyard was packed with other who’s-who members of the cloning world including the clone-children of Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Sally Field, Warren Beatty, Liza Minnelli, and a radiant Shirley MacLaine-2 who had recently written a book to continue her c-mother’s spiritual journey in print.
I’d only met a couple of them, but Thomas Wilson and Sondheim-2 introduced me to most of the others during the pre-show cocktail party. They all had a captivating vibrancy about them. I wasn’t sure if they were always like that or if it was the opening of a big musical about cloning that brought it out, but whatever the cause I found the charisma contagious. Most looked similar to younger versions of the people I’d known from old movies. The only one I didn’t recognize until we were introduced was a pre-teen Olivia Newton-John-2, but as a huge Grease fan I greeted her enthusiastically and was flattered that the little girl recognized us and gave us both a hug. That was the only hug I received from a female that didn’t seem to bother my fiancé, and Lily actually knelt down and talked to the girl for a while. Lily could be sweet when she didn’t feel threatened.
Olivia got the pre-show concert going with some standards including one song just for Lily and me called Twist of Fate from her c-mother’s film Two of a Kind. It asked a fitting question as to whether two people deserve a second chance and included a refrain about love blossoming with that second chance. Wrapping up the entertainment was Barbra Streisand-2 who was then attending college in environmental studies. But she still dabbled in her c-mother’s music, and she serenaded us all with a handful of Streisand classics. The voice wasn’t exactly the same, but it was exquisite. She ended with the apropos The Way We Were, winking playfully at her fellow clones as she asked us, if we were given an opportunity to repeat our lives, whether we would do it.
The wave of celebrity clones led to the creation of the magazine People-2, a title which was supposed to indicate that it was the offspring of the original People magazine, that it dealt with celebrities with the “-2” attached to their names, and that clones were “people too.” Their photographers and interviewers were busy all night.
Lily and I ended up sitting in the center of the fourth row next to Thomas Wilson and his husband Ronnie. Thomas and Ronnie were talkative with excitement, and I didn’t want to be rude by opening up the playbill. But as soon as the theatre’s artistic director came out to thank everyone for coming, I discreetly flipped through the program to the actors’ bios.
And there she was. I recognized her photo even before I read her name. It was my Evelyn. The one who had spoken up for me on the first day of second grade, forgiven me for Friday Flip-up Day, led the charge against the rock throwers, gave me my first kiss on the cheek, won a talent show on our school’s stage, and the one I later married on that same stage. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Lily giving me a look. I closed my mouth, closed the program, and shrugged as if nothing had happened.
br /> The artistic director left the stage, the lights dimmed, and the show began.
And there she was. Right in front of me. The story began with Dolly’s c-mother, who of course was also played by Evelyn. She sang of a life uninteresting and unfulfilled, dreaming of something beyond. Then she started rising above the ground, looking heavenward as she continued to sing.
Her ascension revealed a second Evelyn, still lying on the ground, surrounded by other animals looking down at her corpse. It was her funeral, and the singing sheep rising to heaven was actually a recorded hologram of Evelyn. Thomas was right. Impressive.
Young Dolly, played by a child actress, was then born to a mother and father who knew she was not theirs. Neither parent paid much attention to her, though the mother dutifully nursed the little lamb. Later, when Evelyn replaced the girl playing Young Dolly, her biological siblings snub her and she grows increasingly distant from her family. Her path to self-discovery includes a trip to Wonderland where she meets the sheep in the curio shop as depicted in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass and later has an encounter with a rude caterpillar, which includes this memorable exchange that is both spoken and puffed into the air in clouds of colorful smoke as the caterpillar shares his hookah pipe with Dolly:
“Who are you?” asks the caterpillar.
“Did you ask, who are ewe?” Dolly responds.
“No. Who are you,” he scoffs.
“Why, I am me. But I don’t know myself exactly what that might mean. I could be my mother, or she could me, or we could be we. Do you see?”
“Did you ask, do you sea?”
“No, do you see?” Dolly points to the word written above in holographic hookah smoke.
“No. I do not see!” replies the caterpillar.
“Well I’m sure I don’t know how we can make it any hazier,” Dolly pouts. Meanwhile the form of the caterpillar collapses and a beautiful, holographic butterfly emerges with the actor’s head now attached to the butterfly, the hookah still firmly in his grasp.
“Ah, I believe I can see it now,” says the butterfly. “I just needed to change my vantage point, you see.”
“Well no, I do not see!” Dolly shouts as the butterfly flies away. “Who am I?”
“You are you,” he shouts back as he flies offstage to the right, then mumbles to himself, “Odd I didn’t see it before. Guess I was a little sluggish.”
“Come back!” she calls.
The disgruntled butterfly pops down headfirst from the top of the stage. “Now what?”
Dolly looks around till she finds him far above her. “Oh. Thank you. Um, but do you know why I’m here?”
“Some mad scientists enucleated an egg and put the DNA from a dead sheep into it.”
“Oh,” she replies, more confused than before. “But why?”
“Why?” he repeats furiously, flying down to look Dolly in the eye. “Did you ask why?”
Dolly stands her ground, and nods. “Why?”
The butterfly smiles. “Answer: That you are here – that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on, and ewe may contribute a verse.” He touches her cheek with a wing to look her in the eye. “That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.”
We see Dolly smile for the first time.
The Walt Whitman-quoting butterfly soars away, but pauses briefly at the top to give Dolly one last look. “What will your verse be?”
Ian Wilmut and Keith Campbell raise Dolly in a special indoor enclosure. The scientists talk and sing in English when alone, but whenever they talk to the sheep their lines come out as a series of baa sounds that are translated in subtitles above the stage. The sheep simply shrug.
In the pen, Dolly is introduced to the Welsh mountain ram named David. They discover love, and later Dolly gives birth to Bonnie on Easter Monday. They have five more children, but the rest of the story revolves around Dolly, David, and Bonnie. When Dolly begins hoping to do something grand with her life, she dreams of her c-mother, resulting in a duet between Evelyn as Dolly and Evelyn’s hologram as Dolly’s c-mother. Dolly realizes that she is doing something special by saving David from a life of boredom and by helping Bonnie deal with the restrictions of being Just a Sheep.
As Dolly starts showing signs of premature aging, young Bonnie begins mothering her mother and forgets worrying about whether she can ever change the world. Taking care of her dying mother and helping her father with the other little ewes is more important and constructive than what most world leaders accomplish.
When Dolly dies on Valentine’s Day, she rises to meet the holographic image of her c-mother and they reprise their duet, while Dolly finally sees a vision of a future in which her impact is apparent with the countless contributions cloning technology has made to both animals and humans.
The audience rose in unison as the cast began taking their bows. They went nuts when Bernadette-2 came out, and then again when Evelyn Green made her entrance. While she walked upstage to take her position next to Bernadette, her lifelike hologram descended from above to stand on Evelyn’s other side next to David the ram.
As their bows came to an end and the curtain started descending, the real Evelyn waved to the crowd and then seemed to focus her eyes on mine. I was right in front of her, so I suspected she was probably just looking straight ahead into the crowd. But it was a direct enough look to catch Lily’s attention, and she made sure I wasn’t waving back. I didn’t take my eyes off of Evelyn until the curtain cut us off, and then I was queasy with anticipation knowing that in a few minutes we’d finally meet again.
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We were the last to file out of the theatre and make our way to the reception area. As we walked, I praised the show to Thomas. Stephen Sondheim-2 joined us, and I praised the show again.
“So was it the same Evelyn?” Thomas whispered, not nearly slyly enough.
Sondheim was surprised, and Lily waited.
“Yeah, it’s her,” I answered, trying but failing to contain my excitement.
“What’s this? You know Evelyn Green?” Sondheim asked.
I nodded. “We went to second grade together.”
“And here she is!” Thomas announced.
My stomach tensed and I couldn’t breathe. Not only were my old feelings of first love sweeping back and overwhelming me. I really had no idea how she would treat me. She had lost her father in the church bombing because of me. But there was no time to worry or wonder because there she was, more beautiful than ever and dressed to the nines in a simple black dress, with a smile that would melt the heart of any man. And she was smiling right at me.
“My husband!” she exclaimed, and gave me a vice-like hug. “Happy Birthday!”
I felt her hair against my face. Her skin still smelled like jasmine. I breathed in deeply.
“It’s good to see you,” she said, still holding me tight.
I wasn’t going to be the first to let go. “Good to see you, too.”
“I guess they do know each other,” Sondheim quipped as we finally separated.
“You were…” I began, gesticulating with my hands and arms as I searched for the word, getting more flustered and relieved by the moment.
“Thank you,” she mercifully interrupted. “I hope the critics are as kind.”
I nodded with what I’m sure was a stupid grin. She meant it, and although I still couldn’t find my voice, I was feeling more at ease and more in love.
“So how is my handsome groom?”
I couldn’t answer. My head was pounding like it had on that stage in second grade. Lily sensed I was far too infatuated and glared at me. For myself, I was pretty much unable to meet either of their eyes. I knew my eyes would reveal more than I wanted to both women – revealing that I desperately wanted to flag a cab for Lily and share a cup of coffee with Evelyn, trying not to spill any of the coffee on the sheets. Unless she was into that.
This was not a case of mere lust. If it
had been lust, I would have been able to meet her eyes. I might have been able to speak. I may have had a nanobule of confidence. This was something else – a feeling I hadn’t experienced before.
“He’s happily engaged to his fiancé,” Lily-2 responded for me.
“I’m sorry – this is Lily Gardener,” I managed, immediately wondering if it sounded like I was apologizing for her existence. “Our c-parents were married.”
“Of course,” Evelyn responded, still smiling warmly. “It’s an honor to meet you, Lily. I’m sorry, I hope you don’t mind. I was just teasing him because I married your fiancé in a second grade skit.”
Thomas and Stephen-2 ate it up, but Lily just nodded. “Yeah, he mentioned it.”
Evelyn raised an eyebrow but kept her smile. “Lily Gardener is such a lovely name. Like a garden of my favorite flower.”
“And Lily, this is Evelyn Green,” I continued.
Lily smiled stiffly as Evelyn shook her unwelcoming hand. “And your name sounds like a lovely golf course.”
Lily was always charming when she was jealous. Evelyn didn’t seem the least bit phased, perhaps even a tad amused by Lily’s childish response. In any event, the “golf course” didn’t miss a beat.
“Well if you’d both like to drop by my clubhouse a bit later, Bernadette and I are hosting a little after-show celebration tonight at the house they’ve put us in.”
“Thank you, but it’s been a very long day, Miss Green,” Lily said before I could accept.
“We’ll take a rain check.” I realized I was getting myself into serious trouble with Lily, but I wasn’t the least concerned. We touched our cells together to transfer our contact information. Then Lily grabbed my arm and led me away without another word.
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I cashed my rain check. I called Evelyn a couple days later and we arranged to have lunch the following Tuesday. There was so much pre-date nervousness raging within my body that I threw up before lunch.
This time she had replaced the black dress with jeans and a well-worn sweater. She looked even more stunning, and she gave me another long, strong hug.