A/N—At long last I've decided to publish my modern day Phantom AU. There are twenty-six chapters completed at this point, though I'm sure they will undergo revision as the story evolves. This will not be everyone's cup of tea or even coffee, for it is essentially a modern-day love story with a phantomesque twist. You'll find our old familiar characters but in a 21st century setting, doing slightly different things, with different backgrounds and careers. The first few chapters are rather short, but subsequent ones will be much longer.

I hope you'll give it a chance, and as always, I appreciate feedback, comments, and questions.

~Riene


The Measure of a Man

Chapter 1 Prologue

2016. 2017

The end of the lawsuit brought two realizations—the knowledge that if she managed things well, she would never need to work again, and the bittersweet knowledge that her life, as she had known it up to then, was irrevocably over.

Christine and her best friend of many years, Meg Giry, sat sipping iced caramel macchiatos under the shaded awning at Starbucks on a Saturday afternoon. For Meg, a top tier dancer with the renowned city ballet, they were probably all the calories she would consume that day. Meg was a natural beauty, all huge hazel eyes and upswept ash-blond curls, long and lean and graceful from twenty-four years of training. Sitting on the wire mesh chair with her impossibly long legs curled sideways and her bohemian clothing, she looked more like an avant-garde supermodel than the girl who had stayed up late nights watching old movies and giggling over the screen heroes of decades past.

"What will you do now?" she asked, fanning away a curious bee. "It's a big chance for you, you know…you could travel, you could retire and go anywhere, do anything." She leaned forward and squeezed Christine's fingers. "Please don't think that I'm callous—I'm not—but you need to think, Chris, before you do anything rash."

"Have you ever known me to do anything rash?" Christine raked her hand through her long brown hair, twisting it up and fanning her neck, wishing this was not one of the warmest springs on record.

Meg grinned evilly. "Yes. The year in college you cut off your hair and permed it. What the hell were you thinking, anyway? You looked like a …"

"Shut up! You swore you'd never mention that again!" Christine cracked the first smile she'd had seen in weeks and Meg privately congratulated herself. Christine had been depressed for months after the deaths of her parents and the endless rounds of haggling lawyers and court appearances. She took another sip of her drink and sighed appreciatively.

"Lovely. You should never have introduced me to these. But no, really, Chris, what are you going to do? You've been talking about making a change for a while."

"Finish the school year, of course."

"Of course," Meg echoed. Christine was the consummate professional. She'd taught Junior High history at a private preparatory school for the last five years. Over her annual evaluation, the principal had approached her with a proposal. She could complete her Master's degree and get a high school certification, and they would be delighted to have her on staff at the upper division main building. It meant more money and fewer preps, more prestige. She knew Christine had been seriously considering it. The problem was getting her moving beyond her grief and the usual end-of-the-year exhaustion and inertia. Meg narrowed her eyes determinedly. This year, she'd see to it.

Two months later, Christine leaned on the balcony of a small rented condo in the achingly familiar college town she loved. The day could not have been more storybook-idyllic. Fluffy white clouds drifted across the perfect blue sky, a light breeze stirred the dark green trees and brought the scent of flowers from the professionally tended beds.

The decision to return to university studies had been difficult. The History Master's program was a minimum of two years, two years if she worked steadily through with no set backs or delays. Money wasn't the issue, but isolation was. All of her friends were in the city, having left their college days long ago.

However, an advanced degree was necessary if she was to continue her career.

Ending the school year had been difficult. Colleagues were genuinely sorry to see her leave, and her students had organized a farewell party on the last day of school. Clearing her classroom had taken the better part of a week, deciding what to keep, pass on, and what to put into storage. Moving from the small apartment had been easier. She'd had dinner with Meg and her boyfriend Brian, hired a local moving crew to transport her belongings to this new condo, and said goodbye to her old life.

A decade older than most of the students on campus, she'd declined any sort of college housing and instead moved her possessions into this condo. The master's program would take two years, more or less, and it made more sense to her to settle in one place. Only four miles south of campus, The Village at the Pines complex catered to young professionals and seemed a good fit. Though small, the open floor plan gave the illusion of space. On a good day she could even bike to class.

Wish a sigh, Christine went back indoors. There were boxes to unpack.

Exploring her former college town—now a small city, really—took the next several days. Many of the old ratty 1930s-1950s houses the upper level students once had rented for a pittance had been removed to make way for sleek new apartment complexes and a parking garage. Fraternity row looked the same, as did the bars and boutique shops on Campus Corner, the Strip, and Eastside. The campus itself had grown but had kept the same mellow Georgian architectural style that made the university so photogenic. The library bell sounded just the same, its tolling bringing a lump to her throat. The library now offered a coffee bar, e-readers, and free WiFi, as did the Student Union. WiFi hadn't even been a thing when she was enrolled here last. A quick scan of the campus directory showed that the few professors she remembered from her undergrad days had retired or moved on.

The Union bookstore was as enticing as always; the aroma of paper, ink, art supplies, and university-themed apparel at once familiar and intoxicating. Christine consulted her list and quickly selected the few textbooks needed. Bemused, she added a Quiz Clicker to the basket, a small device resembling a Blackberry, for attendance and interactive testing. The high school had used something similar. One t-shirt and shockingly high bill later, Christine exited and climbed the worn marble stairs up to the fourth floor of the Union hopefully, and yes, the Terrace was still there. It had been her favorite vantage spot for the campus, looking over the Quad and the tree-lined sidewalks and lawns that sloped down toward the small lake. Students with book bags lolled on the emerald grass chatting with friends or cuddling with lovers. Nothing there had changed.

Summer classes began on a Monday morning that promised to become very warm later on. As usual, the air-conditioning was set to Arctic Maximum in the buildings, but she'd remembered this and brought a sweater. For all its beauty, there was a touch of melancholy about the campus, purely in her imagination. Perhaps, she reflected, those who'd reminded her of the old saying to make no decisions for a year were correct. But it had been nearly a year since her parents' deaths. She was enrolled in nine hours, three classes, each meeting an hour a day. With a little discipline, any reading or assignments could be completed easily in the afternoons or evenings, leaving plenty of time for explorations, movies, and the like.

And therein lay the problem. On a campus of thirty thousand, Christine Daae didn't know a soul. Her classmates seemed nice enough, but most were married and eager to return home at the end of the day. Back in the city, Christine had often met friends for dinner, movies, shopping, or at local venues, or else had been grading papers until late at night. Meg had frequently called with invitations to arts events. Now her calendar was empty. She'd have to find something to do with all this spare time.