36. Pre-performance Jitters
Christine was sitting on the floor of the chapel in front of the stub of a candle that was left standing by her father's picture and name. She lit it silently, watching the little flame flicker to life. Christine had been bored, that was really the only reason she was down here. She stared at the pretty flickering light, easily entranced by anything shiny. She just sat quietly by the candle for a little while, feeling vaguely sad for her dead father and vaguely excited about the opera, which was opening that very night. (Yes, that's right, faithful, friendly readers! Don Juan is here! Yay!)
Just then she heard footsteps coming down the stone stairs and looked over her shoulder to see Jeoffery standing in the doorway, looking somber. "Christine" he said, anxiety in his usually energetic voice.
"Jeoffery?" Christine asked, sounding confused and suspicious.
Obviously the vicomte read her tone of voice and posture wrong, because he wandered over to her side and said, still sounding distressed, "Oh Christine, I'm so sorry about all of this!" Christine's eyebrows creased in shock, but again Jeoffery mistook her alarm for distress. "I know you must be so scared!"
This only further bewildered Christine. "What? Jeoffery, I'm not scared." She replied.
The patron didn't pay her any attention. "I'm sorry we have put you through all of this," he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "But it's the only way!"
"Jeoffery-" Christine insisted, trying to interrupt him, but he just continued like he didn't hear her.
"We need you to be in the opera tonight, it's the only way we'll be able to draw the Opera Ghost into the open."
"Jeoffery, I-"more forcefully Christine attempted to interrupt, to no avail.
"Don't worry though, we'll make sure you're safe, there'll be hundreds of police there!" The vicomte persisted.
"I'm not scared Jeoffery!" She was practically yelling now.
"I know you're worried, darling, but you mustn't be. We're going to keep you safe! Please, love, we need you to do this for us!" And then he pulled her up and wrapped Christine in a huge comforting hug, patting her gently on the back.
Christine gasped and pulled her arms free of his embrace, pushing on his shoulders with enough force that the patron stumbled back away from her. "You retard, Jeoffery! I'm not scared!" She yelled at him, her face livid.
Jeoffery blinked and his eyebrows furrowed. He tilted his head to the side, like he was only now hearing what she said. "You're not?" he asked, confused.
"No I'm not! I'm fine, Jeoffery, honest. Now will you leave me alone?" She insisted, her tone still exasperated.
"Oh. Well, all right. Good luck tonight, then!" He exclaimed, suddenly changing back into his exuberant, chipper self again. He waved enthusiastically and skipped out the door, leaving the soprano alone in the chapel.
She sighed deeply and walked slowly over to the stain glass window. She sat deliberately down on the stone floor again, leaning carefully against the cool colored glass. Christine gazed up at the high ceiling, thinking about Don Juan. She couldn't believe that it had come up so quickly, but the day was finally here and she was surprised to find that her stomach had filled with butterflies as she thought of Erik's opera. She had thought that she was used to performing, over the stage fright, but apparently not. Christine was suddenly hit with a longing to talk to Erik about the performance. She stared at the angel painted on the stone wall, remembering when the Phantom had first sang to her in this very room, when had still believed that he was an angel sent from her father. That seemed like so long ago to her now, and of course she now knew that he hadn't been sent by her father, but Erik was still her Angel of Music. She smiled as she remembered singing with him, and grimaced when that brought Don Juan sharply back into the front of mind.
She was so caught up in her thoughts that when a voice rang out, echoing around the little chapel, she jumped violently in surprise. "Nervous?" It called, with a laugh in its musical, velvet voice. Christine recognized the voice immediately, a grin springing back to her face.
"Erik!" she called, "Is that you?"
He sighed, "No, it's David Letterman. Of course it's me, Christine."
She blushed, "Sorry. But what are you doing?"
Christine could almost hear his shrug as he replied, "I was a bit bored bored, and I thought that you might want some support before the big performance."
"I just can't believe that the opera is tonight. It came on so fast, and I guess I am nervous."
"Don't be," said Erik soothingly. "You'll do wonderful, as always."
Christine sighed, fidgeting with the hem of her dress. "You always say that."
"Yes, because you always do wonderfully." She gave a nervous little laugh, and after a pause Erik said "You have an adorable laugh."
Christine blushed, but she laughed again. "Thank you. I guess. Um… I was wondering just how you'll be partaking in the opera tonight." She said, trying to sound nonchalant but really wishing that he would tell her, just to ease some of her stress.
"Oh no," he replied, suddenly stern. "No, that would ruin the whole surprise. I've spent a long time coming up with this plan. It isn't really as if I have anything better to do, but still."
Christine scowled, and then she realized that they had a final rehearsal this afternoon. She held up her wrist and frowned at the bare pale skin there. They really need to hurry up and invent digital wrist watches, she thought to herself exasperatedly. "Do you know what time it is?" she asked Erik.
There was a short pause and then Erik said, "It's 3:02."
"Shoot, only 13 minutes! I've got to go Erik, see you." Christine got up and slowly walked out of the chapel, glancing around the room once before dashing up the stairs.
"Have fun singing with the whale." He called to the empty room. Erik sighed from his position on the other side of the wall of the chapel. He could sit there and it was incredibly easy for him to throw his voice so it would echo around the little, high-ceilinged room. The Phantom got up and started off down a secret passageway back to his lair.
After taking one wrong turn and ending up in Firmin's closet, Erik backtracked and continued on more carefully, eventually getting back to his cave. He ended up in his own closet, which was what was supposed to happen. On his way out of his closet he grabbed his costume for tonight, taking it over to a table where he could examine it. This ensemble had been hard to come up with, but it did look exactly like Piangi's costume, which was essential. If people were stupid enough, they might not even notice the difference. Erik had debated simply stripping Piangi after he killed him, but he had decided against it with force. For one, he didn't want or need to see that. Not to mention that he would need tighter pants then Piangi's to pull this entire stunt off.
He wasn't a bit worried about tonight, because if anything went wrong he had a trap door and a chandelier that he had messed with quite a bit in the past few days. He was completely confident, so he messed with a few more things and got the last details ready for the big opening night of Don Juan Triumphant.
Soon it was 7:00 (The Phantom didn't really know what he had spent four hours doing) and Erik knew that people would start arriving in front of the Opera Populaire any minute, dressed in their finest clothes with no idea what they were about to see.
Erik went over to the table where his costume was laid out, only to find Apollo curled up on the deep maroon fabric. "Argh! Dammit, cat, get off of my clothes!" Erik bellowed at the kitty, striding over and throwing him out of the room. Apollo slunk away, looking extremely put-off, and Erik examined the light orange fur sticking to his costume. "What a hell of a time to have my god damn costume covered in god damn cat hair." He muttered angrily to himself, riffling through drawers until he came up with a roll of duct-tape. Erik wound a piece around his hand, sticky side up, and set to work removing all traces of Apollo from his costume.
When that was done he changed, fixed his hair, and found the black mask he would need for the performance. Erik actually swept the drape away from one of his full length mirrors and examined his ensemble, making seductive faces at himself for a bit. Once he was convinced that he looked the part of Don Juan, that his pants were tight enough, and that he could pull off an even more seductive face then usual, he stepped away from the mirror and let the curtain fall back. He was almost embarrassed about making faces at himself, but he got over it. Besides, he had looked pretty gosh darn seductive to himself.
Erik walked over to the little table where he kept his little scale model of Don Juan Triumphant, complete with figures of himself and Christine and everything. He didn't play with it though, of course not. On his way across the room Erik picked up a lighted white candle. He bent down to peer at the model, and with one dunk of the candle into the little pool of gas in the middle of the tiny stage, set his model on fire. The hungry, searing flames were just the thing to get him in the mood for his fiery opera, and he could even feel a maniacal laugh coming on as he watched the stage burn.
A/N: I have began to gradually go back and edit previous chapters...not a major overhall, but I'm trying to keep them from sounding like they were written by a seventh grader. (They were.) I'll put the new ones into the story eventually; that first chapter is soo not up to par. In the mean time, Thanks for reading! Drop me a quick review! I want to hear ANYTHING you have to say.
More chapters up soon!