Act One; Scene Five
The New York Opera House, a Performance of 'Hannibal'
Tech rehearsals were murder. Absolute murder. From usual starting time until ungodly hours of the night they had to sing and dance until their appendages pile up on the floor, they were then allowed to drag their semi lifeless bodies home, only to have to repeat the experience the next morning. To top it off Christine hadn't seen hide or hair of him all week. Yes she was a zombie but she missed his voice… and his appearance… and his warmth. She missed him. On Wednesday, the toughest day of rehearsal there was a red rose with a black bow but no Erik. She sighed heavily, thankful for his support – however silent. But she could still wish to see him. On her way out she passed the mirror. Silently she rested her hand against the cool glass. Then her head. She pretended she could feel him. For a second she could. The peace was comfort she could carry with her.
Erik stood on the other side of the mirror like he did every night, watching silently over her safety. She had looked so down all week he had to bring a smile back. He was successful. When she touched the mirror at first he was surprised but he soon picked up on the silent hug. He rested his hand on hers through the glass and his cheek atop her head. Through the mirror he held her. Oh to be able to in real life, unhindered by glass. But that was just a dream. He still hadn't figured out how she could stand him after seeing his mask, she might be progressive and 'down' with it but there was no way in hell this Angel of Music could be 'down' with what was underneath it. He must've just barely breathed her new title because she backed away to gaze piercingly at him, to see him but not.
"Erik?" she said again. He again made no sound. Hanging her head she left for the night.
Thursday the director went easy on them, not wanting ill effects on his company come opening they ran the show full without make up, and then were lectured about tomorrow before they allowed to leave. Christine already had butterflies. By make up call of opening night those butterflies had morphed into raptors. Christine was beyond nervous, like water so hot it felt cold she was so hyper – tense she was calm.
Backstage of opening night was a mad house, the chaos was enough to make you cry. Christine wanted to but the make up crew had just finished caking pounds of grease paint on her face, neck, and exposed chest. Her pours were never going to be the same. After getting slathered in make up (making her look like a clown whore) she was passed off to the hair people who yanked and teased every hair on her head until she was sure she was bald before emptying a can of hair spray on her, making her sore head a helmet. She could deflect bullets probably. Then it was time to try and pour herself into her dress. It was a miracle she could sing – she could barely breath. Marie Giry helped her dress and Christine was dearly grateful. Marie was like her mother she hadn't had in twenty five years. She was gentle but firm, a source of support she could sink into. With Marie and her family Christine didn't feel so lonely. Marie had found an ornate 'diamond' necklace for Christine to wear to hide her scar, they had never talked about it but both knew. Christine was most thankful for her blessings. Soon she was finished. Marie embraced her warmly.
"We are all so very proud of you. You will be amazing."
"Merci Madam." Christine said feeling a little more confident.
"He will be in his usual seat, box five it's on your right when you face him. It's closets to the stage." So Marie knew Erik, she had thought as much but never asked. Christine nodded and took a deep breath. Joe, the stage manager came by shortly after.
"Fifteen minutes Chris." He gave her a smile.
"Fifteen thank you." She replied. Marie gave her one last hug before leaving her to get ready for curtain. The curtain rose, Christine crossed herself. It was go time.
Christine was weak with relief, if one of the numerous bouquets that were being chucked at her hit her she'd go down. She had made it, survived and was successful. There was someone looking out for her up there. There was someone looking for her down here as well.
Christine had barely gotten her regular shirt on before her dressing room door flew open.
"Christine Daaé where is your scarf?" She didn't need to turn around to know who had caught her with her pants down. It was a combination of freezing air and expensive cologne in the room along with a silky, snide, deadly voice that brought tears to Christine's eyes without the blatant reference to the past. It was,
"Raoul." Christine said weakly, barely getting her pants up.
"You can't have lost it. After all the trouble I took…" To insure I will forever wear it! She wanted to scream; instead she sat down at her vanity and nervously fixed her turtle neck's neck.
"I threw it away."
"Threw it away? I got myself very dirty to give you that thing." Yes, very bloody. Christine grimly thought, screwing up her courage she turned to face him fully for the first time in nearly two years. He looked very much the same; the same perfectly styled blonde hair, same chiseled, stubble free chin, perfect thin nose, high cheek bones, groomed brows, same expensive clothing, and the same eyes. The same cold, cold eyes. Christine took a breath.
"That special" she spat the words "piece of clothing holds nothing for me now; it's in the past, in the trash where the memories belong."
"Oh little Lottie, you always did throw away important things… like me. I haven't forgiven you for leaving me high and dry alone in Saint Paul." Christine flinched, she knew what he truly meant by not being forgiven, what he did… Dear God get me or him out of here she frantically prayed.
"But you can make it up to me" he said there was no suggestion in his voice. "Make yourself presentable, we're going to a party, and I'm going to have the Diva of the New York Opera on my arm." He stepped behind her laying a large hand on her shoulder, she cowered.
"And she's going to look hot." He squeezed her shoulder painfully. "She doesn't look it yet but thankfully she has some time to fix that, I have business with the managers, you have till I return to look better."
"What are you doing with André and Firmin?" Christine asked, mentally begging him to let her go.
"Those fairies need a patron." Christine opened her mouth.
"Yes I know they're Aunties or else you and I have never fucked – we both know that's not true so I'm right." I wish it wasn't. Their past 'love making' was sickening her yet.
"Raoul, you hate the opera."
"Yes, but I love the image it gives me and I get to screw any and every one in the company. Especially you Christine." He drug his fingertips down her cheek, she tried to ignore the bile in her throat. Go away, please go away! She begged.
"I'll give you fifteen minutes, there will be lots of reporters there so I mean hot." And he was gone. Christine hugged herself, but couldn't stop the tremors.
"Insolent boy! This slave of fashion basking in your glory!" It was Erik's voice, but Christine hand never heard him so angry, it was terrifying, his low voice truly sounded evil. She couldn't take another angry voice, not meanness from the man she felt utterly safe with. Raoul had found her again. Fear and exhaustion brought her to her knees, begging at the mirror. She had to get away.
"Angel of Music! Guide and Guardian!" she sang out in an unknown tune as tears began to fall and her body shook of its own accord. "Don't let him take me! He'll kill me! His eyes will fine me here! Those eyes that burn. Angel of Music, my protector… come to me strange angel…" sobs soon took her.
He couldn't bear to see her cry, little body shaking like a fall leaf in a November wind. These were no crocodile tears no one could put their body in such shakes mentally; this was a break down of the heart. The mirror slid silently and he gathered her in his arms, lifting her easily. She turned in his arms and buried her face in his neck. She was getting tears and make up all over his shirt but he didn't care, he could smell her soft scent. The smell of… her. It had clung to him after their lessons and it would be with him forever. Every lilac would remind him of her. He maneuvered the labyrinth easily despite her body; he wondered how much she was eating. He'd never carried a woman, but he doubted they should be as light as she was.
Christine soon shed every tear her body could and she fell limply against his hard chest, nose still in his neck. He smelled good, like sandalwood, fire, and safety. And he felt good; his broad shoulders were just the beginning of his physical wonderfulness.
Erik stood her up against him long enough to open his Bentley's passenger door. He got her tucked inside securely before heading around to the driver's side and started the car. Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom filled the car. For a time there was silence, save for Michael and Sarah.
"I'm sorry about that." Christine said quietly now embarrassed. Erik pulled the car onto the busy New York streets.
"You don't have to apologize." He told her gently.
"I cried all over you while you carried me down stairs and stuff. You didn't have to do that."
"I heard everything, I think I did. And you were no trouble; I lugged heavier books in college."
"You heard everything?"
"Everything." He confirmed.
"You must think I'm a terrible person for ever being with a person like that." Tears began anew. Erik reached out and took her hand in his. His thumb brushed her knuckles gently.
"I could never think badly of you Christine." He told her softly and truthfully.
"You've got to be wondering why I was ever with him." She said grimly.
"It's not my place to judge." He replied.
"You deserve to know the truth, Erik, you've done more than…"
"It was nothing Christine." He cut her off.
"It was something to me." She finally said a little annoyed. Take my gratitude damnit. "Raoul has been haunting me for years." She took a deep breath and began, Erik still holding her hand.
"I met him in college, I was twenty, he was a few years older and very rich and very popular. Men wanted to be him, girls wanted to be with him. Out of all the girls more beautiful than I, he still picked me. I was flattered, I was star – struck, he made me feel special, beautiful, told me he loved me." She took a breath, Erik squeezed her hand. It pained him to hear her talk about another man, but if it drained the pain he would handle it. "My life was great; my mother's relatives began liking me because I was with such a rich man with an old, influential family. But peace and heaven didn't last long. Raoul got jealous easily, he would get angry if I studied – when I wasn't spending every second of my time doting on him, being his girlfriend was my only job, my only life. When I didn't do as he liked he'd get angry." Erik ground his teeth, if that bastard… "It started with yelling and isolation, it moved to grabbing me, shaking me, throwing that which offended him. I manipulated my life to better suit his mood and he still left me. He left me for another man. My world rocked again, I spent a year with him, and it took me almost two to erase him. My French family once again disowned me, only my mother's cousin still writes – usually a Christmas card. I graduated and Raoul cam crawling back repentant as a pilgrim. I took him back. I didn't know what else to do. The cycle started again, this time the violence was war and the antebellum was short. He'd…" she couldn't say He'd hit me and she couldn't even lead into saying He'd force himself on me. "After he screwed me up again he ran off with another woman, leaving her for a man, him for another, another for me. Again I took him back, this time too scared to turn him down. By this time I was twenty – six." She paused. "I ran away from him. I packed my things, sold the rest and ran. I didn't stop running until I got here. And now he's found me again." Christine's tale was at an end. Erik let out a breath but his rage did not go with it. Christine was an angel, who could do that to an angel, his angel. It hit him like a sucker punch. Christine was his angel; he was falling in love with her. He would fight for her protect her. He'd never felt this way before. They were silent for the rest of the drive. Erik's house was an urban mansion in the aloof Upper East Side. He pulled into his own garage, so strange in the city.
"Welcome." He said helping her out of the car and into the grand house.
"How was the op – Oh!" A woman's voice asked, then stopped at the sight of Christine. Married? Oh it figures! Christine's brain remorsefully cried.
"The opera was lovely I'm happy to say, far better than usual Cecilia." Erik said pleasantly to the woman who appeared. She was small, shorter than Christine and thin as a rail, gone lean and wiry in her age. Her hair was mousy and back in a short French braid. She was looking worriedly at Christine.
"Oh!" Erik just noticed. "This is Christine Daaé, the opera's new Prima Donna. Christine, this is Cecilia Horner, my house keeper." Relief flooded Christine, housekeeper, not heart keeper.
"You'll probably want a bath to get that make up off you." Cecilia said kindly, though the look she gave Erik was anything but. "And then something to eat, you must be all tuckered out after the show." Christine's stomach growled she'd forgotten that nerves kept her from eating anything but a sleeve of saltine crackers and green tea.
"Thank you very much." She said weakly making the woman think she was in a worse state than she was. The older woman sat to work, clucking like a mother hen the whole way. Erik smiled before heading to his own room to change.
Erik had barely fastened his pants when Cecilia burst through his bedroom door.
"You've got some explaining to do Erik," she told him ominously. Erik put his sweater and mask on before he replied.
"I'm not sure what you want explained. How is Christine?" He said sitting on the edge of his bed to find his slippers.
"Don't play dumb with me I know you're too smart. I'm asking you about her."
"I asked you first." He said crossing his left foot to his right knee making a square.
"No, I did when I asked you to explain." Cecilia crossed her arms across her scrawny chest.
"Her name is Christine, she's the lead at the opera and she's had a bit of a night." He told her simply.
"Are you the cause of this 'bit of a night'?" she believed that Erik was a good boy but she knew his temper. She was Marie Giry's sister, it would take a trained eye to notice it but they were. Both women were like mothers to him. Both knew him far too well.
"No, I haven't done a thing to her. An old acquaintance" He couldn't say 'boyfriend' "gave her a scare so I brought her here. How is she?"
"Taking a nice hot soak right now." Cecilia said softening. "I knew you weren't to blame." Erik smiled, accepting the apologetic statement, standing he asked,
"Need any help in the kitchen?"
Christine's skin was already raw but she kept scrubbing, trying to get Raoul off of her, but she had years of him on her; there was no way it'd all come off. But she kept scrubbing. Erik was too good to her, far too good to her. He taught her to sing, befriended and supported her, he had carried her tears and all and was offering his home to her. And she still had Raoul on her. She just wanted to cry, but she had no more tears to shed. Out, damn spot! Out I say! She couldn't rid herself of him, no matter how hard she tried. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand! She tossed the washcloth beside her with a loud splat as it hit the water open. Sinking into the quickly cooling water she gave up hope.
"Christine, Honey, soup's ready if you're alright in there."
"I'll be out in a second, thank you." She replied hauling herself out of the tub. She had been so happy to find the female voice was a housekeeper's, a woman close to his mother's likely age. For unknown reasons she needed him to be single, it was a need deep in her chest, in her core, in her heart. Her heart. There was an organ neglected if you could do such a thing. She dried off and got dressed in her street clothing, she had nothing to tie her hear back, her clip was forgotten on the vanity, thus wet, waist length like a curtain of curls she let her hair go.
Erik could only do so much in the kitchen and none of it was close to getting his mind off the woman in his bathroom. And not even the atomic bomb could get her out of his head when she appeared.
Cecilia observed with delight as her employer's 'friend' downed three bowls of soup, she was far too skinny. This was the Christine her sister and niece raved about, this was the dink of the girl they worried about, and this was the woman Erik would address when he was alone in his study thinking no one was listening. Cecilia loved when the pieces fit.
Christine found that the best place for her eyes to be was the bottom of her soup bowl. It was easiest way to eat, first of all, and she was hungry, the butterflies had left leaving her stomach empty. Also by focusing on eating her soup she wouldn't focus on eating Erik, who looked delicious in her casual faded jeans, a washed soft cashmere sweater. He was too attractive for his own good. Even his mysterious mask was attractive. Oh if only she didn't have her baggage, if only there was no Raoul – not in her soul, not in her world. The other viewing option was Cecilia, who with every second seemed more and more familiar, more like,
"Marie." It slipped off her tongue, she gasped and began apologizing Cecilia began laughing,
"Not even my husband gets my name right, dear, though I think he does that on purpose." Erik made a sound that seemed to say 'ya think'. "Marie is my sister."
"You're Aunt Cece?" Christine exclaimed as the light bulb in her head came on. Erik and Cecilia chortled at her excitement. "I've heard so much about you."
"And I you, my dear." Cecilia said motherly. Christine's eyes got even bigger as she looked at Erik.
"And you're the hermit business genius she works for. We always thought you were middle aged, balding, overweight, with forty thousand cats!" At this Erik threw his head aback and laughed outright and throatily.
"As you can see I am not, are you disappointed?" He replied once he finished laughing, then catching his breath. How could anybody be disappointed with you? Christine mentally asked him. From where she sat he was magnificent, she didn't even notice the mask, she was far beyond that. A meow cut off her reply, Erik bent to pick up the noise maker. He straightened with a cat cradled in his arms; it was black, except for a little tuft of white with attitude atop its head.
"I'm not up to forty thousand, but I do have one cat. This is Ayesha." He lovingly stroked the cat's dark head, it meowed again. For that second she wished she had been born a cat. That cat to be exact. To have those gorgeous hands stroke her, she'd be more than willing to trade in her opposable thumbs for a collar. She was suddenly very aware he was looking at her; it was her turn to say something. She licked her very dry lips with her sudden cotton tongue and thought quickly.
"I'm glad." She said finally, "I like cats but forty thousand is a little excessive. I think two Figaros would be the death of me." She smiled and nothing was amiss.
"Figaro?" Erik asked interest peaked here was another reason to love the woman at his table.
"My cat, he's a calico, although he thinks he's a tiger on a never ending hunt to destroy every pair of socks I own." The kitchen was full of laughs, more than he could ever remember. Cecilia and her husband James were fun, lively people, but with Christine everything seemed right in his home not just his house.
"Named after the Barber of Seville?" Cecilia asked pulling her light frame up to sit on the marble counter.
"Bugs Bunny actually." She said, Erik took the chair next to her, letting Ayesha roam free yet again.
"Bugs Bunny?" He questioned, a little worrisome for the Opera Diva to say.
"Yes. One of my earliest memories was Saturday morning cartoons with my mother" she began adding in a soft voice. "Before she died" back to normal volume "My favorite was when Bugs would do opera. Oh I loved it, I tried to do it, there's a tape of me at five doing my best baritone, God awful thing." She had buried the video with her father. "For my fifth birthday Papá took me to see it for the first time. It was much better than the cartoon. It was then that I fell in love with opera."
Christine couldn't remember a better time than the one she was having with Erik in his home. It was almost enough to make her forget the horrors of old that had driven her there in the first place.
James Horner, Cecilia's husband and Erik's business associate, had arrived and the four had sat in Erik's kitchen for hours talking and laughing – like a family. Never in all his life had he felt more a part of something than he did at tat moment. At that moment everything was perfect.
His mental reattachment parents left at the first signs of Christine's tire. She had every right to be, it was well past one on opening night, plus the emotional battle that had been Raoul. He walked her to his guest bedroom next door to his.
"Give me a second and I'll get you something else to sleep in." he told her. She was in a turtleneck, jeans, and heels – not sleeping garb.
"Don't bother, I'll be fine, you've done for more than more than enough."
"The only thing you'll be is hot and uncomfortable." She made to object again but he cut her off. "Let me do this." He told her before disappearing into his room.
She took the tuxedo shirt and flannel pants gratefully noting the shirt to be the one she had first saw him wearing. They made their good nights and retired.
41
