Melina

September 2023

felt as if she were looking into a mirror. The woman staring back had green eyes, not silver, but tears were shining in them, just like in hers. Her voice spoke words that knew before they were uttered. It was just the two of them in the room, and everyone else had fallen away—the other performers, the artistic director, the audience.

The actress playing Emilia Bassano spoke the last lines of 's play:

It does not matter if they know you. It only matters that they heard what you had to say.

wondered if this was what Emilia Bassano had felt, watching one of her plays performed, surrounded by people who did not know that she was its author. It was so strange for to find herself now in the exact same situation her protagonist was.

The vacuum created by the art suddenly was unsealed, and 's senses were flooded with the thunder of applause, the bows of the actors, the squeeze of Andre's arm around her shoulders. "Listen," he murmured in her ear. "That's for you, Mel."

Almost immediately, people came over to pump Andre's hand and congratulate him. knew that this was supposed to be the moment where she revealed herself as the author of By Any Other Name, but she couldn't muster the energy to get out of the chair. She felt sapped, boneless. The twenty-nine-hour workshop had been intense. She hadn't had time to process the changes to her play, and whether they had been improvements.

Gradually she became aware of Felix Dubonnet talking to Andre about the brilliance of a device used in the play where a sonnet became a child loss poem. A bolt of anger sizzled through : it wasn't a device; it was a possibility. Her play about Emilia Bassano's life wasn't meant to be a fiction; it was meant to be the resurrection of an erasure, like the reveal of Mary Sidney Herbert's invisible ink. Just the fact that history books hadn't included this version of events didn't make it untrue; it merely underscored who'd controlled the narrative.

Side conversations blossomed around the room.

Did you ever hear of this Emilia person before?

You know her, thought. You memorized her words long before you knew she wrote them.

Only crazy people question Shakespeare's authorship….

And yet you are entertaining the notion, mused.

And one woman, gesturing wildly to her male companion: It was so… real. You have no idea what it's like to talk and know no one's listening to you.

The man: What?

"What I found most impressive," Felix continued, "is the question of whether the art is more important than the recognition. This piece stands on the shoulders of Sondheim and Lapine, John Logan…Yasmina Reza."

"Shouldn't that be the other way around? Since Emilia Bassano came first?" Andre yanked 's arm until she was standing. "Speaking of art and recognition…"

"Mr. Green," a voice interrupted, and turned to see Jasper Tolle standing with his hands clasped behind his back. "Might we speak in private?"

Andre darted a glance toward . "I would like that very much."

Felix Dubonnet patted Andre on the back, ignoring . "I'll let you two talk. Good work, lad. Good work." He caught the eye of someone across the theater and began to weave away through the aisles.

Jasper seemed unreasonably crisp in a linen suit. His ubiquitous Moleskine was held tight in his palm. His eyes were neither blue nor green but some strange, seascape combination of the two, and realized she had never been close enough to him to notice that. She could see, too, a patch on his jaw that he had missed while shaving, and a few threads of silver at his temples. It made him so human that, for a second, she forgot how much she despised him.

This is my moment, thought. This is where I tell him the truth.

But first, she wanted to hear his feedback.

Jasper led Andre toward the stage, where a stagehand was setting out the ghost light now that the performance was finished. followed at their heels.

"I'm not going to beat around the bush," Jasper said. "I love your play."

Andre glanced at . "Thanks, but—"

"I don't think you understand how rarely I say those words," Jasper continued. "And I've never said what I'm about to say now: I want to help this show transfer."

froze, stunned. Andre, too, stood speechless. "It is truly exciting to me to see a man write from the female point of view so clearly, and to eloquently explain what it feels like to be sidelined because of gender," Jasper said. "It certainly calls into question the debate that only those who've lived an experience should create art about it."

"No one has ever stopped a man from writing about women," blurted out. "But when their hot takes on what it means to be a woman fill up slots in theaters that could instead be given to female playwrights, it's problematic."

Jasper blinked. "I'm sorry… who are you?"

Andre opened his mouth, presumably to introduce as the actual writer of the play Jasper was raving about. But in that moment, realized two truths. The first was that Jasper Tolle did not recognize her as the student whose work he had savaged at Bard College. The second was that if Jasper knew she had written the play instead of Andre, he would no longer champion it.

stepped—hard—on Andre's foot and stuck out her hand. "I'm Mel's assistant. Andrea."

Jasper frowned. "So…I should contact you to set up a meeting to talk further about next steps for the show?"

glanced at Andre, who still seemed paralyzed. "Yes! I'm the one who keeps Mel's schedule." She smiled, all teeth. "Creative types. Too lost in their art to pay attention to a calendar, am I right? I'll give you my contact information. I'm the best way to reach Mel. He…isn't on social media and he usually keeps his phone turned off so it doesn't interfere with his…process."

"I do?" Andre said.

ignored him, taking Jasper Tolle's phone and typing in her own contact information under the name andrea washington . "There!" she said brightly. "Looking forward to hearing from you!"

Jasper looked back and forth between and Andre, as if he couldn't quite figure out this relationship. Then, he leaned closer to Andre. "I hate these public things, too," he said, apparently deciding that Andre's discomfort was social anxiety. Jasper took back his phone. "I'll be in touch."

Andre and watched the critic lope up the aisle. Through his teeth, Andre hissed, "What the actual fuck was that, Mel?"

"He wants it to transfer. Transfer, Andre. Can you imagine By Any Other Name at a real theater? Earning real income? When am I going to get this opportunity again?"

"Well, you're not, because apparently I'm the one who is getting the opportunity," Andre exploded. "We agreed on this! You were supposed to come clean after the performance."

"That was before I knew he wanted to help produce it!" She softened. "Please, Andre? You're my best friend, and I really, really need this break. I know I'm asking a lot. But it's just a few more weeks."

"And then? When are you going to tell him? When it earns out? Transfers to Broadway? Or will you wait for the Tonys?" Andre shook his head. "I can't keep playing a role for you, Mel. I have a day job. "

"I know. It's why you never have time to finish your own plays. But if Jasper Tolle gets this to a real theater, it means I'll get paid…something. You can have the money, and use it to take a few weeks off from the casting agency to write."

He considered this; she could see him softening at the thought of having the luxury of time and money. "Your name won't be in the Playbill, " Andre pointed out.

"It doesn't matter. My play would be out in the world, " said. "I can worry about getting credit later."

"Friends don't let friends fuck up their lives with I Love Lucy– type schemes that are bound to fail," Andre argued.

"Friends don't let friends down when they need them most." turned a beseeching gaze on Andre.

He pursed his lips. "Fine."

threw her arms around his neck. "Thank you. Thank you. "

"You're welcome," Andre sighed, peeling her off. "Now go get me a coffee."

"Get your own damn coffee."

"Best watch that tone, Andrea, " he said, grinning. "Good personal assistants are a dime a dozen in this town."

—

When was young, her mother had been diagnosed with cancer. She would come home from school and sit on her mother's bed, waiting for her to wake up from her exhausted sleep, or whatever cocktail of chemicals had been pumped through her system to try to eradicate the disease. When her mother did stir, she never asked , "How was your day?" Instead, she would say, "What do you wish you'd done today?"

At the time, 's answers ranged from the mundane to the esoteric— I wish I'd clocked Jimmy Faraday in the nose when he called me Pizza Face during recess; I wish I was a mermaid and I could swim around the world.

As her mother's illness raged and ebbed, turned the question back on her. Her mother's answers were a list of the things she no longer had the stamina to do: ski on a day so cold that when you breathed in, your nostrils stuck together; do a back dive into a clear, cold pool; read an entire book in one sitting.

knew that her mother's failing health wasn't really because cancer was winning but because, after so long, her mother was done fighting. One weekend, when was sixteen and doing her English homework, she looked up to find her mom uncharacteristically alert. "I wish," her mother said, "I could see the northern lights."

"We will," said.

Her mother shook her head. The words she wasn't saying filled the space between them.

"," her mother asked. "Will you take me out for some air?"

She put down her books and pulled the wheelchair over to her mother's hospice bed. But after she had pushed the chair to the wildflower garden outside the facility her mother said, "Keep going."

"Where?"

"The parking lot," her mother said. "Your car. You're breaking me out of here."

"Mom," said, "I cannot break you out of hospice. What if you—"

"Die?" her mother interrupted. She reached for 's hand. "Let's go see the northern lights."

had a provisional license that wasn't legal outside the state. She had no idea where you could see the northern lights that didn't require boarding a plane. "Okay," she said softly.

With her mother manning the GPS, drove north. She was exhilarated and terrified, and kept sneaking glances at her mother in the passenger seat.

They did not reach Canada. They didn't see the northern lights. Instead, 's father caught up to them at a rest stop just over the border in Vermont, having tracked her phone on their family mobile plan. "," he said, furious. "What were you thinking ?"

's mother held up a hand. "It was my idea, Matthew."

"Do you have any idea how dangerous this is? You could have cut weeks off your life—"

"It's still my life," 's mother said. "Don't take that away from me, too."

At that, her father had choked on a sob, and then he was kneeling beside the wheelchair and embracing her mother, and once again, felt, for a moment, utterly excluded.

They pushed the chair to the edge of the parking lot, a hilly rise with the roar of the highway somewhere behind it. and her father sat on a quilt streaked with bike grease from the back of his trunk. They watched the stars burn holes in the fabric of the night. , who had barely seen her mother awake these past few weeks, was amazed to find her attention unwavering. She reached out her hand so could take it.

felt the knobs of her mother's knuckles, the skin stretched thin over her palm. She thought about how strange it was that at some point when she touched her mother, it would be the last time. She looked away, because she was afraid she might start to cry, and blinked up at the sky.

There weren't any northern lights, of course.

"I'm sorry I couldn't make your wish come true," said.

Her mother turned, her gaze brushing over . "You will," she said, "and then some."

—

Three days after the reading of By Any Other Name, woke to a text from Jasper Tolle. Producer interested—3 PM, Glass House Tavern bar, will meet Mel there.

She leaped out of bed and began pounding on the bathroom door. Andre appeared, a towel wrapped around his waist. "What's a girl got to do to get some privacy around here," he grumbled.

"You have a meeting. We have a meeting. Today," babbled. "With a producer."

He pushed past in a cloud of steam. "Okay."

"It's at Glass House Tavern." followed Andre into his bedroom, watching him disappear into his closet and begin throwing clothes on his bed. "At three."

"Great."

She narrowed her eyes. "You're being awfully amenable."

He popped his head back out. "That's because I'm not going."

crossed her arms. "You have to go. You're Mel Green."

"Actually, you're Mel Green, but I can see how this is confusing," he said. "Look, I promised I'd pretend to be the playwright, but I said nothing about taking meetings in the middle of a workday."

"What am I supposed to tell the producer?"

"That you're Mel Green?" Andre suggested. At 's murderous look, he shrugged. "You're a writer. You'll think of something."

Six hours later, was stepping off the subway when her phone dinged with another text from Jasper.

Unable to join—work emergency. Will check in with Tyce later and report back.

Tyce? typed, her stomach sinking.

D'Onofrio. Sorry—that's the producer.

She knew Tyce D'Onofrio. She'd met with him last year, after sending him one of her plays. She'd bought him a ten-dollar venti Starbucks concoction. In return, he'd said the main character in her play was unrelatable, because she made questionable choices. At the time, he was producing a revival of Sweeney Todd, about a barber with anger-management issues who murdered his patrons.

made her way into the Glass House Tavern, heading toward the bar. This time of day, the restaurant was empty. There were only two men at the bar, both on their phones. Her mouth was cotton dry. "Um," she said. "Tyce? I think you're waiting for me."

He glanced up and smiled, getting off his stool. "You are definitely not Mel Green," he said, not a single glimmer of recognition in his eyes.

sucked in a breath and smiled brightly. "Guilty!"

"Jasper said Mel would probably bring his assistant along. Is Mel on his way, then?"

"He is not," said slowly. "He had…a work emergency."

"Paper cut?" He laughed, toothy. "Because he's a writer…"

"Yeah, I got that," said.

"What's your poison?" Tyce asked, gesturing to his drink and taking a seat.

She turned to the bartender. "Grey Goose martini. A double." She sat on the barstool beside the producer. "Mel asked me to keep the meeting so that I could answer any questions you have," said. "I—um— he is truly grateful for your interest in the show. So…what is it about By Any Other Name that excites you?"

Tyce shrugged. "Well. I mean, where do I start ? I just think it's something that's really been missing from the theatrical landscape, you know? Men like me don't think about what it might be like to be erased from history, because we haven't been. But a work of art from a man that forces you to look through the eyes of someone who hasn't been given a lens of her own—well, it's good allyship, right? It's pointing out one's privilege and decrying it simultaneously." He popped a handful of cashews into his mouth, speaking around them. "I also think having a Black playwright speaking to the plight of women is fascinating—you know, it takes one marginalized person to recognize another one, and all that." He hesitated. "That's probably not something I should say out loud."

No, thought. It is not.

The bartender passed 's martini to her and she drained half of it in a single swallow. "You know, we've met before."

Tyce D'Onofrio squinted at her. "Really?"

"We had coffee. I had sent you one of my plays."

"Ah!" Tyce said, the way people signal remembering when they really don't recall a thing.

"You told me my main character was hard to relate to," replied, smiling pleasantly. "I think you used the words emotionally unapologetic. "

"Good on you for getting a job as Green's assistant," Tyce said. "Never hurts to have a mentor with the same interests."

"Just out of curiosity—for my own personal growth, of course—" said, "what was it Mel's play had that mine was missing?"

Tyce didn't hesitate. "Jasper Tolle's recommendation. If he likes it, it's going to be a hit." Then he pushed the little dish of cashews closer to . "Nuts?"

She looked down at them. "Yes," she agreed.

—

All newscasters could talk about was the heat wave that had engulfed the city. had slept fitfully, naked on top of her sheets, letting her oscillating fan blow hot breath over her skin. Like everyone else who did not have the privilege of air-conditioning, she only wanted to find a place to spend the day that was cool and did not charge twenty bucks or multiple lattes for admission.

She headed for her usual go-to place, the Manuscripts and Archives room of the New York Public Library, where she had done most of her deep-dive research on Emilia Bassano. She had found precious few primary sources that mentioned Emilia—the most notable being the client records of an astrologer named Simon Forman, whom Emilia had visited after several miscarriages. Emilia was also present as a footnote in the lives of more famous Elizabethans, like Henry Carey—Lord Hunsdon—and the long line of Bassanos who were court musicians for Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. Then there were the spotty, incongruous records of Shakespeare's life, where Emilia had not been mentioned at all, yet where blatant holes in the time line seemed to take on her shape.

The secret that most New Yorkers did not know was that even if you were not in the reading room to get access to a rare book, you could sit in its cool, quiet space.

Today she had brought a novel from home—a romantasy Andre had been trying to get her to read for a year so that they could discuss the twist at the end—and she planned to remain in the air-conditioned room until her stomach started growling and she had to venture out for food.

She pulled her T-shirt away from her chest, fanning it as the cool air of the library worked its magic. She had no sooner cracked open her book than her phone dinged with a text. Immediately six pairs of eyes snapped to , and she cringed. "Sorry," she whispered, setting her phone to silent.

D'Onofrio onboard, Jasper Tolle had messaged. His office will get rehearsal space. Would like to set a meeting with Mel about casting/schedule.

's thumbs scrolled over the screen. Will get his avails.

Somewhere behind her, another patron's phone pinged. Well, at least she wasn't the only one.

Then she added: Mel wants to know if you have a theater in mind.

Another ding. "Sir," a librarian said, pejorative. "This is a quiet space. "

's phone buzzed in her hand. Cherry Lane.

A cold finger of awareness pressed between her shoulder blades. She whipped around in her seat and found herself staring into the shocked eyes of Jasper Tolle, who sat one table away, a laptop open in front of him.

She found herself standing, moving toward him. "What are you doing here?" she whispered.

"Reading," he whispered back. "It's a reading room."

"Nobody knows about this spot," said, frustrated.

"Clearly," Jasper said, glancing around, "that is not the case."

A woman to his right narrowed her eyes at him. "Sssh."

"Did you follow me?" said.

"Why on earth would I follow you?"

"I've been coming here for years and I've never seen you here before."

"How flattering to know you were looking," Jasper replied drily.

"Miss," a librarian said, her voice a knife. "And sir. I'm afraid if you want to have a conversation, you'll have to do it elsewhere."

Neither of them looked at the librarian. Instead, focused on Jasper Tolle's unfathomable eyes and the line of his jaw. He, likewise, coolly regarded her. Then he closed the top of his laptop.

whirled to stuff her book into her backpack and sling it over one arm. She exited the room, feeling Jasper Tolle just a step behind her.

Neither spoke as they passed through the grandeur of the Rose Reading Room, through the catalog room to the rotunda. It wasn't until they were at the staircase leading to the Fifth Avenue entrance that Jasper said, "For the record, the reason I like the Manuscripts and Archives room is because it's too crowded everywhere else."

She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. "Same."

"When I was little, I wanted to live in a library. Everything seemed so loud in my head, and libraries were always quiet," Jasper said. "It was devastating to learn that the librarians didn't actually sleep overnight in the stacks."

"Did you know that the New York public libraries used to have apartments in them for the caretakers?" said. "The one in here was seven rooms. The guy who lived in it had once been a designer for Thomas Edison. The library made him move out in 1941 because they needed to renovate the space into a telephone switchboard and a smoking room."

Jasper's eyes gleamed with interest. "How do you know that?"

"I read, " said. "In the reading room. "

"Did you know," Jasper said, "that the library has over four million books, but also Charles Dickens's favorite letter opener, Jack Kerouac's crutches, and a letter Columbus wrote in 1493 announcing that he'd discovered the New World?"

" Discovered, " scoffed. "Fucking Columbus."

Jasper laughed. "Fucking Columbus indeed." He slid a glance toward her. "I, too, read."

They walked through the front doors of the library, smacking into an oppressive wall of heat. "So," said. "Cherry Lane?"

Jasper nodded. "If Mel agrees, of course. What did you think of Tyce?"

"He's…enthusiastic," finally said.

"He's a moron," Jasper said cheerfully. "But he gets the job done. What did Mel think of him?"

"Mel wasn't there," said.

Jasper stopped dead on the street. "I thought he wanted his play to actually transfer."

"We do! He does! He just…" She cast around for a lie that would sound like the truth. "He's finishing a new piece. Creative types, can't be disturbed when the muse strikes…"

But Jasper, still unmoving, narrowed his eyes. "You are lying to me," he said, "and you truly do not have to."

had thought she could not possibly sweat more in this infernal heat than she already was.

"Most new playwrights have to hold down day jobs," Jasper continued. "There's no shame in figuring out how to support your art with a second career."

"Yes!" gushed. "Exactly."

"What does he do?"

She couldn't say that Andre worked at a casting agency, because Jasper knew too many people in the theater world. So instead, blurted the first thought that landed in her mind. "He's a nanny," she said. "That's why he needs me."

Jasper turned the corner. "It's counterintuitive to have to pay someone else a salary when you're starting out."

"Oh, he doesn't pay me. I do it for room and board."

Jasper raised his eyebrows.

"Not like that. God!" said, horrified. "We knew each other in college." She took a quick, sharp breath and decided to jump off a cliff. "I'm a playwright, too."

Jasper's face was blank, still completely devoid of recognition of who she was or what he had done to her. "And Manhattan is expensive, so you took the job instead of running home to Mama."

struck back like a viper. "My mother's dead," she said flatly.

They were still waiting for the walk signal. Jasper looked at her, then nodded.

"This is where you say you're sorry for my loss," said, incredulous.

He flinched. "I didn't know her, and I don't like lying."

The signal changed, and Jasper stepped off the curb. When didn't follow, he turned. "Coming?"

She started walking. "You know, you're kind of an asshole," she muttered.

"So I've been told."

She realized that they were headed to Bryant Park. Jasper stopped at a kiosk and ordered a coffee and a croissant, then turned to . "What would you like?"

"Oh, I don't—"

"Milk or sugar?" he interrupted. "Gluten-free?"

"Milk and sugar, please. And all the glutens."

He handed her a coffee and asked for a second croissant before continuing across the great lawn of the park, near the mainstage where the Broadway in Bryant Park performance ran on Thursdays. He sat at a round table with two chairs, beside a large metal tablet on the ground. "Do you know what this is?" Jasper asked.

read the dedication to the benefactors of the park, including mayors David Dinkins and Ed Koch. "A commemorative plaque?"

"Yes, but it covers up an escape hatch. The library stacks are under there—eighty-four miles' worth—and there had to be an emergency exit."

broke into a delighted smile. "How did you—"

Jasper shrugged. "I like learning about things that are usually overlooked."

"So do I! It's why I started researching—" broke off abruptly, realizing that she had almost blown her cover.

"Listen," Jasper said, "I know you had a great deal of input into By Any Other Name. "

"You…do?"

"Personal assistants don't usually have quite as candid an opinion as you do about their boss's work. So what if you researched Bassano for Mel? It doesn't take away from the beauty of his actual writing. And you shouldn't hide your contribution. After all, theater has always been collaborative." He smiled, handing her a croissant from the takeaway bag. "I wrote my thesis on Shakespeare and the theatrical code of conduct. That's likely why By Any Other Name spoke to me. Why did it speak to you?"

"Because Emilia Bassano is my ancestor, on my mother's side," said.

"Your late mother," Jasper repeated. His brow pinched. "I'm sorry for your loss."

's gaze snapped to his, to see if he was making fun of her, but he seemed tentative, nervous—as if he still wasn't sure he was saying the right thing at the right time. It was almost as if…he was waiting for her approval.

She felt a knot inside her give the slightest bit. What had he said before? He didn't like to lie. But was starting to realize that he couldn't lie. What you saw, with Jasper Tolle, was what you got. It might be blunt and it might be devastating, but there was something refreshing about cutting through all the bullshit in this business and speaking truth instead of platitudes.

She may not have agreed with the truth he dropped on her ten years ago. But it also occurred to her that she had run away instead of standing up for herself.

For so long he had loomed large as 's nemesis. She had grown him to monstrous proportions, and he'd taken up an outsize amount of her emotional and intellectual energy, seeding so much doubt that it crowded out space for anything else.

She'd been one of the people calling him an asshole.

What if she'd been wrong?

—

Jasper often felt like he had been dropped into a life-size board game without anyone giving him a set of rules. If he knew what was expected, he could memorize it and act accordingly. Otherwise, he invariably made a misstep. And it wasn't just constantly having to recall social cues that were second nature to most people, like a stock response you were apparently supposed to give upon hearing that a near stranger's relative had died. It was constantly wondering if the things that were interesting to him were also interesting to the person caught in the web of his conversation, or if he was just boring them to death.

He'd taken a gamble, leading Andrea to the emergency exit hatch in Bryant Park. But she seemed to be a collector of odd information about the New York Public Library, too, so he'd dragged her to see the plaque that hid the entrance to the bowels of the hidden stacks.

He wasn't quite sure why he wanted or needed to impress a woman who was easily ten years younger than he was, in an entry-level job that involved getting coffee and keeping someone else's schedule. He also didn't know why he, who barely registered important information like which subway line went downtown, knew that Andrea Washington had silvery eyes the color of lightning flashes.

She was smart, that was evident—too smart to be wasting herself as a personal assistant for a young playwright. "You said that theater has always been collaborative," Andrea mused. "Didn't it make you ask, when you were writing your thesis, why Shakespeare was a one-man wonder?" While she ate, she leaned her elbows on the rickety metal table, which delighted Jasper, because that was a rule that he had broken hundreds of times as a child, too.

She went on: "Marlowe collaborated. Middleton. Kyd. Beaumont. Now, everything is copyrighted and licensed and God forbid a word gets changed. Back then, a play was a living thing, getting revised all the time. They wouldn't even bother going back to the original playwright! An author never thought that the work was ruined if it got revised by another writer. In fact, it would have been really, really strange for an Elizabethan playwright not to collaborate. But Shakespeare—who had a full-time job, by the way, as an actor—managed to write almost forty plays by himself? That's not just impressive, it's fantastical."

"Well," Jasper countered, "there are scholars who think he collaborated with George Peele on Titus Andronicus, and we know he worked with John Fletcher on Two Noble Kinsmen —"

"That's if he wrote anything at all," Andrea said. "Shakespeare's will was incredibly detailed. He gave his property to his daughter Susanna, a silver-gilt bowl to his other daughter, Judith…twenty-six shillings and eight pence each to three of the actors he worked with so they could buy mourning rings. He gave his clothes to his sister, a sword to the son of a friend, ten pounds to poor people in Stratford, and his second-best bed to his wife—but he didn't bequeath any unfinished manuscripts or works. When Shakespeare died there wasn't a single play with his handwriting on it."

"Not true," Jasper said. "He left behind additions to the play Sir Thomas More —"

"All we know is that he edited it. We don't know that he wrote it. His name isn't even printed on a play until 1598. There are plenty of documents putting him in Stratford at that time—just not in London's theater world."

Those silver eyes of hers were molten; Jasper found himself leaning closer. "The Henry plays and Titus Andronicus have been traced to the 1590s," he said.

"Yes, but not to Shakespeare, specifically. They were performed at the Rose Theatre. The owner, Philip Henslowe, kept meticulous notes of the plays he bought—he had a diary with the names of twenty-seven other playwrights who sold him works, and he wrote down the Henry plays and Titus Andronicus— but with an anonymous author. Shakespeare doesn't even appear as an actor on a pay stub for the Lord Chamberlain's Men until 1594."

Jasper leaned back in his chair. "You know most of the anti-Stratfordians are utter crackpots," he said.

"Not all of them. A Supreme Court justice—John Paul Stevens—thought there was reasonable doubt that Shakespeare was the true author of the plays. So did Mark Twain, Helen Keller, Sigmund Freud…and Malcolm X!"

"Don't get me wrong—you know I love Mel's play. But ultimately, it's still just a hypothetical," Jasper said.

"I'd argue that it's a bigger fiction to say that Shakespeare was the greatest playwright of all time and that he worked alone," Andrea said. "What made him decide out of the blue to write a whole bunch of Italian wedding comedies? Why did he use Italian in his plays, colloquially, though he didn't speak the language? Why do his plays have more allusions to music than any other works from the time, when he didn't even play an instrument? How did he write about court when he was never a courtier, or law when he wasn't a lawyer?"

"Books," Jasper countered.

"But he couldn't just mosey over to the New York Public Library to check them out—and he also didn't have any books in his will when he died." She looked at Jasper, almost sheepish. "The real thing that got me thinking were his female characters. Beatrice…Rosalind…Viola…Portia. They were feminists long before there was ever a women's movement. But Shakespeare, in real life, had two daughters that he never educated. They didn't even know how to write their own names." shook her head. "I just can't believe a man who created such iconic women in his plays wouldn't want his daughters to have the same rights."

Jasper folded his arms. "On the other hand, Emilia Bassano was the first published female poet in England."

"In her forties," Andrea said, reaching across the table to take the second half of Jasper's croissant. "It's rare for a writer to just appear out of nowhere, right? Much more likely that she was writing before that, but not using her own name. Plus, she was highly educated, Italian, came from a family of musicians, and was the mistress of the guy who controlled all theater in England. She was a Jew who had to hide her religion. Every gap in Shakespeare's life or knowledge that has had to be explained away by scholars, she somehow fills."

"The one fact I remember about writing my thesis was that often Shakespeare's name was hyphenated in texts from the era," Jasper said. "It could have been a printing press thing. But hyphenating back then also traditionally signaled a make-believe name."

Andrea considered this, and then shook her head. "I don't think it was a pseudonym, because we know that William Shakespeare existed. There are documents I read—in the Manuscripts and Archives room, as a matter of fact—that showed him selling malt at a great markup in Stratford during a famine. Another document shows a restraining order put out against him, and others show him defaulting on his taxes. The actual proof we have of Shakespeare shows that…well…he was not a great guy."

"You can be ‘not a great guy' and still be an extraordinary playwright," Jasper pointed out.

"Then you'd think someone else would have mentioned it," Andrea said. "His son-in-law, John Hall, kept a diary—"

"Which you read in the Manuscripts and Archives room—" Jasper interjected.

She grinned. "Yes. And Hall never mentioned his father-in-law wrote plays. His cousin, who wrote with Shakespeare about land enclosure practices—which were really shady business dealings to get them more private property—never mentioned him as a playwright. We know that all the other great writers at the time were connected because it was an incredibly small world—God, Marlowe was roomies with Thomas Kyd—but none of them ever mentioned Shakespeare as a playwright. And when he died, no one wrote about the loss of a great writer." Andrea met his gaze. "Do you know who Francis Beaumont is?"

"No. Should I?"

"He was a relatively unknown playwright that died seven weeks before Shakespeare and even he's buried in Westminster Abbey with Chaucer and Spenser in Poets' Corner." For a moment, her attention was drawn by a toddler who fell, and a mother who swept in like a hawk to carry her away. Then she shook her head. "It just doesn't make sense," Andrea said softly. "How can a brilliant genius with empathy and moral imagination be the same man who's documented for his crooked business practices and dubious character? Either he had multiple personalities…or there's another explanation.

"That's what I…what Mel wanted to get across in the play. I think Shakespeare let people see what they wanted to see, and only a handful of people knew he was not the actual writer. He was just fronting plays for others who used his name. I think the theater community was in on it. When they saw a play with the name Shakespeare on it, it was an inside joke. But over four hundred years later, we've forgotten the punch line."

Andrea stopped abruptly, as if she realized how long she'd been talking. She glanced down at the table and her cheeks flooded with color. "Shit. I ate your croissant, didn't I?"

"It's fine."

"Sometimes when I talk about Emilia, I get carried away."

Jasper looked at her. He could remember, as a little boy, being fixated on trains. Adults, thinking they were engaging a child, would ask him about the model set he had set up in the basement, and he would chatter about track and rolling stock, about a sixty-foot Pullman-Standard bulkhead flatcar and code 55 flex track and a Bachmann forty-foot wood reefer, until their eyes glazed over and they drifted away. He knew what it was like to be obsessed with a topic and to think there was no one else in the world who might be as interested.

But when Andrea spoke so passionately about her ancestor, Jasper would have listened forever.

She shifted nervously, spinning her empty coffee cup. "What's that look for?"

"I'm wondering how much I'd have to pay you to be my assistant," Jasper said.

"Not gonna happen." Andrea smirked.

"I hope Mel realizes how lucky he is."

"I doubt that's the adjective he'd use."

Their eyes met. Jasper's breath caught in his throat. He wanted to say, Tell me more. Keep talking. Don't leave.

He could absolutely understand how she'd compelled Mel Green to write about Emilia Bassano.

"What time is it?" Andrea asked, breaking the spell.

Jasper looked down at his watch. "Three."

Her eyes went wide, and she began to gather up the empty coffee cups and the napkins, the detritus of their conversation. "I'm sorry. I had no idea it was so late—I need to— Mel's expecting me."

"Let me at least walk you…where? To the subway?" Jasper said.

"I'm fine. I'm good. I'm great. " Her voice came out unnaturally high.

He stood, slipping his hands into his pockets as Andrea turned away, her arms full of garbage. "Thanks for lunch," she said.

"Thanks for the company," he replied. "You'll get me a list of times that are good for Mel, for a meeting?"

"Of course. Yes. Because that's my job." She nodded, hurrying away, only to take a few steps before turning to face him. "Will you be at rehearsals?"

Jasper had not planned on it. He had simply wanted to be a matchmaker: to get Mel a decent director and producer, set the show up at a theater, and then to step back.

But he found himself looking at Andrea, his mind buzzing in a way it had not done for years. "Wouldn't miss it," Jasper said.