Christine's POV
It was 10:30am and I was sitting in the waiting room anticipating my meeting with Max. Max Peterson has been my family's financial advisor since before I was even born. My dad met Max in college and he has been a part of the family ever since. My parents were financially very well off, but they both had come from families who could barely make ends meet. They enlisted Max in order to keep their finances in check in case anything was to happen. Once they had become successful, my father being a world renown violinist playing everything from classical to even modern pop music. He would go on tour with a lot famous bands like Kanas, Genesis, Courtney Love, and Belle and Sebastian when I was little, while my mom had been a litigator for one of the biggest law firms in New York. I was less fascinated with her job than I was with my dad's, and for obvious reasons.
Max was about five minutes late when he finally stepped out of his office to greet me in the waiting area, "Christine!" he exclaimed opening is arms wide and embracing me.
"Hi uncle Max!" I was happy to see him.
"Come in, come in we have so much to talk about." He said leading me into his office.
I sat down in the chair on the other side of his desk, smoothing out the wrinkles on my pencil skirt.
"Would you like anything to drink, water? Tea?" he asked politely.
"No thank you, I have my magic water with me." Showing off my glass water bottle. This had been a joke in my family for a while. My parents had invested in this Japanese water machine called Kangen which alkalizes and ionizes the water while also filtering out all the nasty stuff that's in the water supply. My dad would go on and on about water all the time to people that he was known as "the water guy." Long story short I now have the machine in our apartment and I drink the water that has a pH of 9.5.
"You're just like your dad." He said kindly. I took that as a compliment, my dad was awesome.
"So let's get down to business, I have outlined a monthly budget for you which would allow you to have pretty flexible hours in the day to take all the classes you want to but also if you wanted to get a part-time job to cushion a little you could, but you don't necessarily need to." He handed me a piece of paper laying out how much money should go to what. I studied it for a moment, it was completely thorough and included every expense I could think of.
"Your rent is on an autopay system so I didn't include that in the budget, so if it looks like there isn't a lot of money to play with that's why."
"It is more than enough money, Max. I am pretty low maintenance." I laughed. I mean $1,000 for food a month seemed like a lot.
"I'm sorry, Christine, you're probably right I just didn't want to stress you out if I didn't give you plenty of wiggle room. But a lot of these things do add up. Groceries, laundry, cable, Netflix, Amazon Prime, all of your classes I mean it is a lot of stuff you've never had to deal with."
Great he thinks I am an idiot. He wasn't wrong, I had all of this stuff done for me all of my life, but that doesn't mean I wasn't paying attention. Perhaps I shouldn't be too upset over this, I am sure most eighteen year olds would be thrilled to have their lives mapped out for them.
"Thank you for this, Max. I really appreciate your time." And I meant it.
"Of course, Christine. And you can call or text me anytime if you have any questions or if you think you want to invest in any additional, miscellaneous things that I left out and I will be ready to advise you in any way possible." He stood up and waked around his desk to where I was sitting. He offered me his hand and I stood up, wrapping my arms around his waist. He hugged me back and it felt good, he was the closest thing I had to family.
"Oh I almost forgot," he turned to his desk and handed me an envelope. "Here is a small graduation/birthday gift for you."
I took the envelope in my hands, Max continued to look at me as if he wanted me to open it in front of him. I opened the envelope and opened the plain papyrus card, no funny greeting or anything fancy like that just an ornate butterfly on the cover, opening the card a check written out to me for the amount of five thousand dollars. "Holy shit!" I gasped. Max started laughing at my facial expression, my jaw had dropped to the floor in a Bugs Bunny cartoon fashion.
"How do you like that?" he continued laughing at my reaction.
"Uncle Max! I can't accept this!" I tried handing him back the ridiculous check
"Of course you can, sweetheart." He kept his hands up as to not accept the check back from me. "What kind of uncle would I be if I didn't spoil my niece from time to time?"
"A sane one!" I cried.
"Well we know that I am far from that. Enjoy your present, my dear. But I am afraid I do have other appointments today." He winked at me.
I wasn't going to win this one. Then I had a thought, I should take him to dinner. "Fine, but let me take you to dinner with some of this money." I pleaded with my best puppy dog eyes.
"Deal, how does Friday night sound?" he wrapped his arm around my shoulders walking me out of his office.
"Perfect! I will see you then!" We were standing back in the waiting room. I went in for a final hug and headed towards the elevator.
After having a quick lunch, I was running to make my next appointment. My appointment with Nadir Kahn. I have zero idea what to expect, he was a friend of my maestro and that is all I knew. But I guess if he trusted him, I would have to too. Standing in the elevator I was shaking like a leaf, I was so nervous and I needed to get it together.
The doors opened to a young woman sitting behind the receptionist's desk, "Hi there, how can I help you?" She smiled sweetly.
"Hi, yeah my name is Christine Daae I have an appointment with Mr. Kahn." I was still shaking and I must have looked so stupid.
"Of course, hi Christine. Your lesson will be in Studio D just down the hall and to the right." She was still smiling. Doesn't her face hurt doing that?
I smiled back at her and made my way down the hall and to the right. Studio D, here goes nothing.
Nadir's POV
There was a knock on the studio's door. 1:30pm the clock read, so it must be the famed Christine Daae.
"Come in!" I called out. And she did. Jeez, Erik's description of her did not do her justice. The young woman before me was absolutely stunning. Not exactly my type but I could appreciate her beauty, and did I mention she was beautiful.
She walked right up to me extending her hand for a hand shake. I playfully swatted her hand away and I embraced her. Her body stiffened beneath me, the poor thing, "I'm a hugger!" I said trying to reassure her that she was safe.
She laughed nervously, "I'm Christine Daae." She was practically shaking.
"I know; Erik has told me all about you." I sure wish she would calm down.
"Erik?" Oh shit, did I just fuck this up?
"Your voice teacher," shit, shit, shit need to recover. "Oh I guess he probably wouldn't have told you his first name." nice one.
She looked deep in thought before finally replying, "No I guess not. In fact, I only ever really called him Maestro. When we first met he introduced himself as Mr. Y."
Leave it to Erik to completely leave out of this valuable information before I put my foot in my mouth.
"What does the 'Y' stand for?" she asked, taking me away from my thoughts of cursing out Erik.
"Oh, umm well you see it stands for…" and then I said the first thing that popped into my head "Yachtsman." Stupid.
"Erik Yachtsman? That's an odd name. I guess no odder than Daae, anyway." She fell for it. Good. But what's this? She seems sad.
"Everything alright, Christine?"
"I'm fine, just nervous is all." She blushed and looked up at me. She was a tiny thing.
"Don't be nervous! This is a safe place. Now should we get to singing?" I beckoned her over to the piano, she followed me hesitantly and I knew I was not going to enjoy this shy-act for a moment longer.
"Now normally I would suggest that you come to these sessions already warmed up, I am not a voice teacher, I can play you some scales but I cannot instruct you in that way." She nodded her head but her eyes were distant. "What I do is coach repertoire, which means I will help you build your book, select sixteen to thirty-two bar cuts and really help you sell it at an audition. Now I have been informed that you have quite an impressive voice, so let's vocalize you a little so I can get the gist of what you sound like."
And what would you know, after a few minutes of vocalizing I physically saw this girl bloom before my eyes. I had never heard anything that beautiful before, she had range, depth, maturity and amazing tonality. She was literally Erik Destler's wet dream. Or should I say Erik Yachtsman. Jesus Christ, the minute she leaves I am going to call that son of a bitch.
"Okay, Erik was right about you, your voice is absolutely incredible. I really love the mixy-soprano part of voice so I will pull some music for you over the next few days and I will text you some options. Now, I expect you to know your music so we can dive right in next week, okay?" Was she even listening to me? When she was singing you couldn't tell how sad she was but now all the sudden, oh no, what's this is she crying? "Christine? Are you alright? Why are you crying?" Erik didn't mention she had emotional issues.
After I asked her why she was crying she completely broke down. Slowly she crouched down to wrap her arms around her knees burying her face there. Her whole body was shaking; her crying was heart breaking. I lowered myself down to where she was and wrapped my arms around her. All I could think to do was to make soothing noises and rock her gently. We were like this for a few minutes before she lifted her head, "I'm so sorry, you must think I am such a freak." She sniffled. Well that was a word for it.
"Did I say something to upset you?" I asked pushing the hair that had fallen in front of her face behind her ear.
"No," she said immediately. "Well, yes…it's stupid. I'm stupid." She pushed herself away from me but still remained on the floor. "It's Mr. Yachtsman, Erik, he refuses to work with me anymore."
For God's sake Erik what have you done now? "What do you mean?"
"Well, we have been working together for the past two-years, he even convinced me that I didn't need to go to college, to come here to New York City to train with the best instructors. But up until a week ago that all changed when he told me he could no longer work with me and that I needed to work with you now." I looked and looked at her, this girl who had everything going for her was reduced to a tear filled mess sitting on my floor crying over a deformed musical genius. She continued, "I am just so scared, up until a few days ago I was ready and confident moving here because I thought I could rely on this person. But I was wrong, and I was so stupid to think someone like him would waste any more time on someone like me." I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Thankfully I audio record every lesson, for my own protection, people these days can say just about anything and it's better to keep everything on the record in case someone wanted to accuse me of harassment. I needed to play this for Erik, he literally destroyed this girl's spirit and if her spirit is not in it, I hate to say that all that hard work would be for nothing and all the hopes he had for her would be gone.
"There must have been some miscommunication then, I hardly believe he would give up on his greatest pupil," his only pupil. "I could speak with him if you'd like. Maybe he has reconsidered?" her eyes were sparkling now, and I couldn't tell if it was from happiness or the remaining tears that had yet to escape were just glistening.
"You won't tell him how embarrassing I was, will you?" she laughed, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
"Of course not, I know exactly how to play it." I winked, she laughed more. I offered her my hand so that we could both get off this questionable floor. "Christine, you are a lovely singer, no matter what happens you need to be doing this for yourself. No one else. This needs to be for you." She nodded.
"I understand, thank you for your kindness, Mr. Kahn. This whole move has been extremely overwhelming."
"Please call me Nadir. Now, same time next week then?" I smiled and for the first time this day she gave me a real genuine, not nervous, smile. "You really need to smile more, you're too pretty not to." I wrapped my arm around her shoulder walking her to the door. Her little body melted against mine, I felt almost paternal about her. I wanted to help her, she was too amazing to let this bother her like that.
"Thank you, Nadir. I promise no more crying from here on out." She joked.
"We will see, it was lovely meeting you, Christine. And I will speak to Erik on your behalf."
And with that she was gone. I made sure she got into the elevator before I began to dial Erik's cellphone. Not even a minute passed before she left there was a knock on my studio door. I wasn't expecting anyone after Christine so there must be someone who came to the wrong door. But before I could say anything, there was my masked friend towering me in the door way. He shut the door behind him and strolled right into my studio, "So how did she do? She is amazing is she not?" was he serious?
"Erik, I think we need to talk about this." I folded my arms in front of my chest.
"Talk about what? What happened? What did you do?" he voiced was building up to that final accusation.
"What did I do? What did you do? You didn't prepare me at all for this!" I was near shouting.
"What on Earth are you blathering about, Nadir?"
"Ok, so let's count the ways I fucked up because lord knows you won't own up to anything. So let's start with me calling you Erik, and gee why would I do a thing like that? After all you told her your name was Mr. Y and why you wouldn't let me in on that, who knows I guess today was think on your toes day to which I replied oh it stands for Yachtsman. So now that's your name congratulations." I was practically pacing the room I was so angry.
"Wait, what slow down. What is Yachtsman?" His calming tone was really irritating me. I took a deep breath and tried to relax myself.
"I was speaking to Christine, your student Christine, or should I say your former student because I just spent the last ten minutes sitting on this dirty ass floor with her consoling her while she cried her eyes out about you abandoning her." Couldn't even keep calm. With every sentence I began to yell louder and louder till I was practically screaming. Erik was still standing there quiet as a church mouse, which under usual circumstances would have scared the shit out of me, but I took his silence to mean for me to continue. "Anyway, I said to her 'Oh Erik recommended you highly' meanwhile you hadn't even told her your first name let alone your last name. She told you had introduced yourself as Mr. Y, which by the way would have been great information to know, so thank you for that. Then she asked me what the 'Y' stood for so I had to tell her it stood for Yachtsman. So maybe you would be so kind as to tell me what I need to know so that when she comes back next week I don't make a complete ass of myself."
The room was so silent you could hear a pin drop. My attitude of not caring what Erik thought of my rant was slowly going away and I felt myself gulp. His eyes were always so intense; it was like he was looking right through me.
He walked over to the chair across the room and sat down, "She cried to you?" was all he said. Never you mind everything else I had said to him, he decided to harp on that one comment.
I walked over to where he was and took the chair adjacent to his, "She broke down and starting sobbing about how she thought you would be here for her when she moved to the city. She said you no longer wished to work with her, so I told her I would speak to you about it." I was on the edge of my seat, with my elbows resting on my knees and my fingers interlaced. "What happened between you two? She seemed overly upset over losing a teacher." At this Erik shot me a nasty glare.
"Nothing happened between us and that's just it." He crossed his leg and leaned back in chair is head resting against the back for just a moment. "You saw her today, did you not? She is a strikingly beautiful young woman and then on top of that has the voice of an angel. You see why I could not continue to work with her, especially now since she could physically see me."
I was still confused, "Didn't you two have Skype lessons?"
"Yes, what about them?"
"Well, doesn't that require video chatting?"
"It does, except for when you tell someone your camera is not working." He muttered, thinking I would just let that tiny detail slide.
"So you're telling me she has only ever heard your voice?"
"I have a plan, Nadir. Although now it seems like there will have to be some adjustments made." He stood up and began pacing himself, his fingers interlaced at the small of his back.
"Well are you going to let me in on this plan? And are you going to contact Christine?"
He kept pacing and thinking pacing and thinking, I thought I was going to get dizzy watching him.
"I still have a lot to think about. Your meeting with Christine didn't go the way I had hoped." He finally said.
"Well, it wasn't all bad," I finally stood to meet him. "When she opened her mouth to sing I swear it was like there were two people in this studio. One was the girl who came in here with a vacant look in her eyes and the other who sings so beautifully that I literally saw her come to life right before me. It was incredible, Erik. You must be really proud." I put my hand on his shoulder and of course he instantly rejected my touch.
"More than proud, Nadir…. I think I'm in love." My eyes widened and suddenly all of this began to make sense. I had to choose my words wisely, for I think this is probably the first time he has admitted his feelings for well, anyone.
"Do you want to go get a drink?" Was all I could think to say.
