Carrie was familiar with libraries; she'd used the one at her school to look up information for all kinds of projects. But she wasn't sure exactly how an adult one would work, or even if they'd let a kid her age in, so she'd come prepared with a story about a school project and a letter—she'd written it herself—from a nonexistent English teacher requesting that Carrie Manning be allowed to use the research facilities. She was also prepared to cry if anyone gave her a hard time.

It turned out that neither the tears nor the fake letter were necessary. A smiling woman at the main desk sent Carrie to the Billy Rose Theater Collection on the third floor, where a kindly young male librarian listened to her requests and disappeared. He reappeared a few minutes later and placed three thick theater anthologies, a pile of theatrical yearbooks dating back to 1948, and two fat folders full of loose press clippings on the desk in front of her, one folder was devoted to Bobby and the other to Lu. The clippings—mostly theatrical reviews and articles written for magazines and newspapers—weren't organized in any order, so Carrie decided to start with the books, which seemed easier to follow. Heart racing, she opened the thickest of the anthologies and started to read.

She was stunned. She'd known her father and her grandmother were big deals, but she hadn't had any idea how big. The chapter covering Lu Lawson was twenty-two pages long. At the beginning of her career, phrases like “breath of fresh air” and “adorable” had been used to describe her. The theater historian who had written the anthology said that in her early days she had “epitomized the best of the feisty female musical comedyingénues,” and, he added, later on she had “reinvented herself as a queen of her genre.” Carrie noticed with satisfaction that the historian didn't seem to think that musicals were silly. “America's greatest contribution to the magical, incomparable world of live theater” was what he said about them.

There was a section of photographs of Lu Lawson in the book. Excited, Carrie turned to it, looked at the first picture of Lu Law-son—and gasped. Her grandmother's features were as familiar as her own. Because they were her own. That was her mouth, and her nose, and those were her eyes looking up at her from Lu Lawson's smiling publicity photo. She started turning the pages fast. There were several full-length pictures of Lu revealing that she wasn't tall but she did have a nice bust and great legs—which thirteen-year-old Carrie hoped she'd inherit too.