Once again, I'm sorry I'm so bad at updating on anything resembling a regular schedule. And as usual, if you're still sticking around to read you are awesomesauce.
Chapter 10
Everyone at Garnier had new years day off, and Christine spent hers strumming her guitar half heartedly, eating ice cream, watching old movies and generally doing her best to avoid the internet as well as her own emotions. She was acting like she was going through a break up, and it felt a little bit like that if she was being honest with herself. Erik had said nothing had changed, but that was a blatant lie. Every sign of friendship or gesture of affection, every fear that Christine had confided and Erik had calmed, had been ripped away with his mask. All she saw when she thought of him now was his ghastly face twisted in anger, positively hating her. The image of Erik suffering in his strange home, possibly sitting in his own bedroom and thinking of her with anger and betrayal, hurt worst of all. There was a knock on her door a few hours into her marathon of moping, and Christine found herself glad of Meg's interruption.
"I just thought you'd want to know that possibly the most eligible bachelor in the city dropped off your purse this morning before you got home." Christine didn't miss the way Meg peered over her shoulder, probably searching for some clue about what had caused Christine's weird mood.
"Raoul was here?" Christine supposed she should feel guilty about inadvertently standing him up last night too, but there didn't seem to be room in her for that.
"Yup. Said he found your address on your license. He also left his number so you could call him when you got back." Meg's voice was almost teasing, but then she frowned. "He seemed worried about you."
"I'm fine." Christine insisted, forcing a smile on her face.
"Right." Meg said, raising an eyebrow and handing Christine her purse. "If it's a man who hurt you I'll break his legs." She said cheerily. Christine gave an undignified snort of laugher at that image.
"Thanks." She said. "I just need to figure some stuff out I guess."
But all she had figured out by the next morning was that she needed to know what people were saying about her online before she went into work and got it in person. She fortified herself with a big gulp of coffee before googling her own name and clicking a link at random. It led to a big headline that read "Who Is Christine Daaé?"
"Good question." She muttered, scrolling down to see two pictures of herself side by side. The first was of her performing in the sparkly dress. Christine didn't look like herself in that picture. She looked like someone much more glamorous and confident, eyes closed and mouth wide open as she belted a note, her hair whipping around her face and her legs looking longer than they had any right to. It was much easier to believe the second one was her. It was taken during the paparazzi ambush of the previous morning. She was in Erik's ill fitting coat, her hair a wild mess and mascara streaks running down her face. Her eyes were wide and alarmed, her lips chewed to bits. She shook her head and forced herself to click on another link. This one described how "Carlotta's Replacement Has Wild Night," claiming that sources reported Raoul Chagny visiting her dressing room. It speculated that the jacket was his and that they'd been conducting a secret affair for months. Christine groaned, remembering the scribbled phone number Raoul had left that she still hadn't called. Christine went back to the first pictures and wondered if Erik had seen them yet, if the one of her on stage would still make him proud at all, and if the one in which she was clearly upset would fill him with satisfaction or regret. She remembered that she would have a lesson today, that she would have to face him in some capacity, and drained the rest of her coffee in one swig. At least she hadn't disgraced him on stage, she reasoned. Everything she had read online made a point of gushing over how good her performance was before fabricating theories about her social life. Maybe Erik would still value her as an artist even if all of his esteem for her as a person was gone. The thought had her blinking back tears and she shook her head and left for work in a hurry.
As she sat on the train she toyed with the paper with Raoul's number on it. She could just text him, she reasoned. Or not contact him at all. She had a paranoid sense that Erik would know if she did, and it was that fear that pushed her into calling Raoul. It was ridiculous to think that Erik would know who she talked to, and even more ridiculous to think that she needed his permission. Still, though, as she was met with a brisk and cheerful "Raoul DeChagny speaking. Who's this?" Christine thought that all the same it would be easier for everyone if she didn't mention it to Erik.
"Hi. It's Christine. I was just calling to say thanks for bringing my purse back this morning." She paused, suddenly glad that at least they weren't speaking in person before she said, "And uh, I don't know if you've seen, all the gossip about us, but-"
"Oh I've seen it." Raoul laughed. "Half my office asked me why I never mentioned you before."
"Oh jeeze, I'm sorry." She sighed. "And I'm sorry I bailed on New Years eve. Something, ah, came up, kind of out of nowhere." She shook her head at how dumb and suspicious she sounded.
"Hey don't worry about it." Raoul said. "Make it up to me by getting coffee with me tomorrow.
"Oh, um-" She stuttered, trying to think of an excuse. If she didn't have the dark cloud of her fight with Erik hanging over her, she guessed she would have been pleasantly flustered at the invitation, but as it was the whole thing seemed like a bad idea.
"Come on." Raoul said, and she could almost hear his charming smile. "Supposedly we've been having a torrid affair for months." Christine felt herself go bright red at that and she almost felt a genuine smile form for the first time since she had left Erik's house. "The least you can do is catch me up on how you've been for the past what, five years?"
"Six." She corrected softly.
"So is that a yes, then? We'll go somewhere with no paparazzi, since you're so famous now." Christine hadn't even considered that. How long would they stay interested in her, she wondered.
"Hmm, tomorrow." She stalled.
"Unless you're still a nerd who doesn't drink coffee cause it's bad for you?" And then Christine actually laughed, which felt like a miracle just then, because he had remembered a stupid childhood argument about coffee, and because lately it seemed like all she ever did was drink it or get it for other people.
"I drink coffee so hard." She replied.
"See you tomorrow then." He said, and she couldn't pretend to be unhappy about admitting defeat.
The warmth of her conversation with Raoul dissipated quickly when she got to her stop, the subway entrance closest to Garnier. She now knew that she was only a few walls and passages away from Erik's home, where they had shared so much music and pain. She almost ran up the stairs, eager to be away from the shadows that were too full of memories she hadn't processed yet.
When she entered the break room at work she was met with applause and enthusiastic whoops of congratulations, and she put a hand over her face in surprise and embarrassment. "Aaw thanks guys."
"Ok yeah, you were great and all but it sounds like the real show came after, am I right Christine?" Joe Buquet called, loud enough for everyone to hear. There were assorted laughs and groans, and Christine felt her face fall.
"Don't you wish you knew." Jamie said, rolling her eyes. She turned to Christine. "Hey, Rich and Andre wanna see you, by the way."
"Good or bad?" Christine asked. Jamie shrugged noncommittally, and Christine approached their office with some trepidation. Her knock was met with a distracted
"Yeah yeah come in." Both Andre and Rich were inside, bent over the desk and looking worried. They straightened quickly and gave her false, cheery smiles.
"Ah Christine." Andre said. "Quite the it girl right now. Congratulations on the performance."
"Thanks" She said, taking the chair he waved her towards.
"You ran off so quickly afterwards we didn't get a chance to say it then." Rich said coolly, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah." She said, giving a little laugh even though nothing was funny.
"Well anyway," Andre smiled even bigger. "We thought, if you were interested, we'd offer you a fun little project."
"What kind of project?" She asked, her heart beating faster. This could be anything from ordering a new copy machine to her wild fantasies of putting out her own album.
"Since everyone responded to you so well on New Years, we thought you could have a sort of duet on Carlotta's next single. If that goes well, who knows, maybe she would even have you on at concerts in the future."
"Carlotta's coming back then?" She tried not to sound too unhappy.
"Of course." Rich said. "She was just a bit startled that night. She would never really leave us." Christine decided not to share her feeling that "a bit startled" was probably the understatement of the century. Instead, she said
"Well, thank you. That-that will be great." It was ridiculous to feel disappointed about their offer, she reminded herself. They didn't have to offer her anything. They nodded, and Rich pulled out a pen and a long contract.
"If you'd like to make it official, we can start scheduling recording time." She reached for the pen almost instinctively, but stopped short when the image of Erik, masked and pursing his lips in that way that silently questioned her sanity, popped into her head. She drew her hand back and asked
"Would it be all right if I took a day to look this over?" Rich looked annoyed and even Andre's smile faltered a bit. But he nodded and said
"Of course. Take what time you need." She thanked them again and felt that it was time to leave, which she did with relief.
The rest of her work day was full of people she had never spoken to before stopping to tell her how good she had been, or regarding her with thinly veiled jealous sneers. Carlotta did her part by walking straight into Christine as she passed in the hallway, hard, with no attempt to apologize or even acknowledge Christine's existence.
But all of that hardly seemed real, compared to how Christine felt later that night, walking towards the booth where she and Erik had lessons. She saw him through the window, rifling through the music on her stand, a moment before he looked up at her approach. She tried for a friendly smile when they made eye contact, but felt it falter when she was met with his blank, stony stare. She tried to keep her hand steady as she opened the door, the other one clutched tightly around her contract. And then she was inside, nothing between them but the mask, and oh, how she had learned her lesson about taking that away.
"Hi." She said weakly. He nodded, barely inclining his head, and turned his back on her to move to the piano. "Andre and Rich offered me a contract today." She said, her tone horribly, falsely bright in this dark room.
"Yes." He said, not sounding at all surprised.
"Could you, I mean, do you think I should sign it?" He held out an imperious hand over the back of his piano, refusing to meet her eyes. She handed it to him and forced herself to stay quiet as he read it. His eyes scanned the page quickly, and after a few moments he said
"Apart from the fact that this is a blatant insult, there is no harm in you signing it."
"How is it an insult?" She asked.
"Your performance brought Garnier and two of its employees huge amounts of free publicity, and instead of appreciating your talent, or even capitalizing on your success, they are relegating you to one accompaniment." He handed the contract back to her impatiently, and repeated, "Insulting."
"But you still think I should sign it?"
"Yes, you may as well continue to play their games for now." He sounded so businesslike and distant it took her breath away. It hardly seemed like he cared what happened to her anymore, and Christine wondered why they were continuing lessons at all. She didn't want her one stupid decision hanging between them like this, so she began
"Erik, about the other night-"
"Don't." The syllable was spat through gritted teeth. He was gripping the edge of the piano so hard his knuckles were going white. "Just do your warm ups. Please." There was a note of desperation to his command, and she nodded, trying her best to do as she was told around a thickness in her throat.
Her singing was uninspired that night, and she left Garnier feeling cold and empty. She was walking around with a contract from one of the biggest recording companies in the world in her purse, but it didn't seem like much more than a mass of words on a page without someone to get excited with. Meg wasn't there when Christine got home, and thankfully neither were any paparazzi. She was probably already old news, Christine thought grimly. She sank down into her favorite armchair, not bothering to turn the lights on since the glare of the streetlights was enough to fill the tiny apartment, and tried not to wish her Papa was there.