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"Having a good time?" I ask. "I sang ‘I won’t Grow Up’ at my graduation," he says. "But when the music started, I forgot the words." "What’d you do?" "I made them up, you
know, like: Margaret Hitchcock, who runs a bed-and-breakfast in Nantucket, flails her feather boa to "The Saga Of Jenny." Barbara Fisher, who was once Nellie Forbush when Carol Burnett was in the chorus of "South Pacific," dedicates "Somebody Loves Me" to the new man in her life, her grandson. Everyone has enormous stage presence. Everyone seems, well, fabulous. Everyone looks like they’ve been trouping since birth. The audience is having a ball. It’s over way too soon. "You have to do this," a graduate says, scribbling Linda’s number on my napkin as the room empties out. "It’s not just about singing, it’s about getting past self-imposed limitations." "The thrill of it for me is to watch these people come in like mice and leave like Mermans," says Linda, who believes in the healing power of song. She literally sang her way through a divorce, belting out all the angry tunes she could think of till one day she found herself singing "Ready To Take A Chance Again." You mother used to perch you on the Hardman grand when you were three, and you’d do "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" for strangers. Every summer the kids knew: You and only you get the lead in the camp play. As you walk down the street, your feet are a metronome you sing to. Carpe diem. You can do it. Linda is gonna see to it.
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