Broadway Love

Meeting Lin-Manuel Miranda

*2005 words
"Lin-Manuel Miranda"
He stuck his hand out towards me.
"Cassandra Reynolds, Pleasure to meet you."
"Oh the pleasure is all mine."
My uncle looked between the two of us.
"Have you two met before?"
"Nope not at all."
"Never seen this man before in my life."
"Nessa this is the guy that I wanted to hear you sing. He's working in the Broadway theatre system."
"Oh that's cool! But I thought we were going out for supper?"
"Well we are but maybe, Lin would you like to join us for supper?"
"I don't think a busy ma-"
"I'd love to join you and your wife for supper. It would be a pleasure to hear more about this fascinating girl as well."
He looked at me and pulled the left side of his mouth into a lazy smile.
"Well then it's settled Lin will be joining us for supper."
Great.
"What was that?"
I looked at my uncle with wide eyes not thinking he had heard me.
"I said that's great that he can join us."
"Whose joining us Mich- oh hello Lin how are you?"
"I'm doing great Danielle! How are you?"
"Oh you know same Ol' same Ol'. But enough about me lets go get that wine."
"First can I change and bring my stuff
to my room?"
"Of course! Lin be a dear and help Cass get her bags up the stairs."
"No problem Danielle."
Lin grabbed my bags and followed me upstairs. I grabbed the door knob to my room to see it the same way I had left it. Lights were streamed from the outside of ceiling, rugs were spread across the floor, the tv was in the corner with movies stacked up on the side of it. My dresser had a lighted mirror stood on another wall facing the opposite of the tv. My Bed was facing the tv with a navy blue duvet and many throw pillows.
Broadway was on the wall above my head written in big block letters. A poster of The Sound Of Music hung on my wall with signatures from the original cast, As well as many other of the playbills I have collected from the different shows I had seen. Lin was looking around at the different pictures on my walls and the furniture around my room. I had one big window that was towards the back of my room. You could open it and go out to the small balcony. On my nightstand was a small bonsai tree and a picture of my mom and dad with all of my siblings.
"Well looks like someone that lives here is fancy."
"YOU COULDVE TOLD ME THAT YOU KNEW MY AUNT."
I chucked a pillow at him and he caught it against his chest.
"Well if I had only known you were the Cassandra Reynolds."
Silence had formed between us.
"I like your room."
"Whenever I would come to live with my aunt for the summer this was always my room. Of course it never looked like it does now but this was always my room. Over time of course I started to grow and become more smart so to speak in what was "cool" or not and it just so happened this was cool."
"Well you have incredible taste."
"Why thank you. Uhm you can put those down now."
Lin looked at me like he didn't know what I was talking about.
"The uh suitcases? You can put them down now."
He looked down at his hands and started to laugh.
"Right, kinda forgot I had these."
"Uhm it's no problem. If you want to help me some more you could grab a few hangers and bring them over to me?"
He walked over to my closet and opened the door.
Grabbing 7 hangers he walked his way back over to me.
"Thanks."
He bent down by my nightstand and grabbed the picture of my family from last winter when we all came back to New York. He sat down on my bed carefully examining the picture.
"Whose this?"
I sat on my bed and took the picture from him. He got closer to me and laid down on his side as I looked at the picture. A smile slowly spread across my face as I remembered exactly where this picture was taken.
"Okay left to right. Ready?"
"Ready."
"That's my dad Paul, next to him is my mom Maria. Behind them is my brother Brandon, then the other one Alexander, the girl is Tressa the oldest daughter,  then Megan the middle kid, and then me."
"Wow five of you?"
"Yup."
"Wait whose the one in the front?"
"Oh that's James, he's my youngest brother.
"So there's six of you."
"Yup!"
"Wow big family."
"You could say that."
"What are the ages?"
"Uhm Brandon is 37 Alex is 37, Tressa is 36, Megan is 34, Im 33, then James is 30."
"Wow! Twins?"
"For Brandon and Alex yes, the rest no."
He got off the bed and helped me up.
"Hey you two we have reservations at 6 lets go!"
I walked down the stairs with Lin following behind me.
We got down the stairs and turned into the kitchen.
"How about we take a stroll to the restaurant? That way if we do get drunk we don't have to worry about driving home."
"That's a fantastic idea Danielle, Cassie are you ready to go?"
I looked over myself in the mirror and did a slight nod.
"Yup lets get this show on the road."
We walked out of the house and locked it up.
We headed down the street and towards the restaurant. My aunt and uncle leading the way with Lin and I trailing behind them.
"If you didn't want me to come along you could've said something."
"Well I'm not that mean! I couldn't say no to you."
"Oh really and why is that?"
"My own reasons are why I can't say no."
"Oh you're "own reasons" were why?"
He started to laugh at me as we walked down the street.
"So where are you from?"
"As in where I grew up or where I live now?"
"All of it, where you grew up, living now, everything."
I smiled to myself as I saw the restaurant in the distance.
"Well I grew up in a small town in Iowa. By the age of 15 I was in high school involved with anything I could get involved with within theatre. By the end of my freshmen year I was accepted into the national thespian society. By 19 I had graduated high school and got accepted into NYU with a full scholarship in the drama program and music program. By 20 I was finishing my freshmen year of college. I graduated college by the age of 24 and I've been outta there for 9 years now. When I graduated however I decided I needed to start a new life and figured that NYC was a bit too big for me, so I moved to Maine."
"So what exactly is your job in Maine?"
"Uhm, I do some writing for the Maine Newspaper. I'm hoping to cover a piece on the biggest Broadway musical that's going to take Broadway by storm."
"So my musical?"
He got a smile on his face as he got closer to me. He nudged me with his arm against my arm.
"So your musical."
He laughed at me as we got to the restaurant.
My uncle held the door open for us as we all took our seats at our table.
The waiter came by and took our drink orders. My Aunt and Uncle sat next to each other while Lin and I sat next to each other. My aunt was next me and my uncle was next to Lin. My uncle cleared his throat getting us all to look at him.
"So Lin tell us about this big Broadway hit you're working on."
Lin looked at me with a smile as he began to explain the brilliance behind Hamilton. His eyes were very big as a smile grew on his face as he explained what he was doing and how much he loved doing it.
"I think that's fantastic. I can tell how much you love this and I love that."
The waiter came back with a bottle of wine and four glasses.
My uncle grabbed the bottle of wine and opened it up, pouring each of us a glass.
"A toast, to our little Cassandra for coming back home and to Lin for being the incredible genius that he is. To Cassie and Lin."
We all repeated back to Cassie and Lin each hitting each others glasses. We took a sip and placed the glass back onto the table.

The night began to simmer down as we all wined and dined. We paid for the meal and headed back to the house. My uncle unlocked the house and the two men sat down in the couch. My aunt took a seat on the piano bench and I stood next to the piano as she began to play Think of Me from Phantom of the Opera.
"And now Cassandra Reynolds would like to present Think of Me from the hit musical Phantom Of The Opera."
My aunt yelled as I took a stand by the piano. The two men yelled and yipped with glee as I started my college piece.
"Think of me, think of me fondly when we've said goodbye. Remember me every so often please promise me you'll try. When you find that, once again, you long to take your heart back and be free if you ever find a moment, spare a thought for me. We never said our love was evergreen, or as unchanging as the sea but if you still remember stop and think of me...Think of all the things we've shared and seen don't think about the things which might have been... Think of me think of me waking, silent and resigned. Imagine me trying so hard to put you from mind. Recall those days look back on all those times think of the things we'll never do. There will never be a day when I won't think of you."
I looked at Lin throughout the song and watched as his eyeslit up as he smiled at me. His eyes crinkled at the corner as He got up from the couch and took my hand. He started to sing along with me.
"Can it be? Can it be Christine? What a change! You're really not a bit that gawkish girl that you once were..she may not remember me but I remember her."
He let go of my hand and placed a kiss on it. He sat back down on the couch, never letting his smile fall from his face.
"We never said our love was evergreen or as unchanging as the sea but please promise me that sometimes you will think.. Ah-ah-ah-ah-aaah-of me!"
I finished the song and a loud round of applause erupted from the two men and my aunt.
"Bravo bravo."
I threw kisses out and took a bow.
"That was brilliant Cassie."
"You were fantastic darling."
"That was incredible."
I smiled at Lin and walked over to the other couch. Lin looked at me and got an idea a gleam to his eye.
"Hey Michael would you be okay with me giving Cassandra some lessons? Just to get some more ideas of her pitch range?"
"I think that's a brilliant idea."
"I couldn't agree more"
Lin looked at me and let out a smile.
"Let's exchange numbers so I can message you our times."
"Okay."
We exchanged numbers and he thanked everyone for dinner. He gave my aunt a hug and my uncle a handshake. He came over to me and gave me a handshake. He brought me into a hug.
"See you tomorrow Cassie."
"See you tomorrow Lin."