Disclaimer: I own nothing
~*~
Chloe Lane made her way backstage after her first performance. The resounding applause followed her into the bowels of La Scalla Opera House. Even though she knew they were cheering for the lead soprano and not for chorus girls like herself, the roar of the audience brought a grin to her face and made her heart pound hard in her chest. This was what she had spent her whole life dreaming of, and it was finally becoming a reality. She didn't even pay attention to the multilingual chatter of the other girls as they approached the group changing room. It was like a low, indefinable hum in the background of her mind. She was too lost in the memory of singing on a stage graced by all the legends of her art. It was like living in a dream.
She wandered to her spot at the dressing table to take her wig off before the mirror. Unexpectedly, a bouquet of flowers in a clear glass vase was displayed proudly in the middle of her things. The other girls, who had previously ignored her, clustered around. It was unusual for mere chorus girls to be sent flowers unless their families or lovers were in attendance, and everyone knew Chloe's friends and relations were across the Atlantic in the small Midwestern town of Salem, Illinois.
"Ah, comment beau!" Claudette exclaimed in her native French.
Chloe silently agreed. The flowers were beautiful. Instead of traditional roses, she had been sent an assortment of pink, white, and purple lilacs. Only one person would think to do that. "Brady," she whispered, her heart rising with the crazy hope that he might be here.
"Legga la scheda," the exotic Italian alto whose name Chloe could never remember instructed.
Chloe obeyed, reaching for the discreet white card in the center of the arrangement. She slipped the unsigned note out of the envelope and read one single sentence in Brady's distinctive handwriting.
See you at the Met.
~*~
She sang with the company for sixth months, learning everything she could about life in the theater. The splendor began to lose its appeal. She was bored with being relegated to the background, her voice drowned by the other dozen girls singing the same notes.
During that time, she heard from her parents daily, Belle weekly, Philip and Mimi occasionally, and Brady not at all—except for the flowers that awaited her every evening after a performance. Part of her wondered how he managed it, but she knew it did no good to question Brady's magic. Every night, in his own, non-facsimiled handwriting, the same message greeted her.
See you at the Met.
Her mind mulled the words over again and again. What did they mean? Were they an encouragement, telling her she actually would make it to the pinnacle of her dreams? Were they a promise that when she did come to New York, he'd be waiting for her? Were they an invitation to meet him there at some point? She gave up trying to decipher them, but she couldn't bring herself to throw away Brady's only communication with her. A rapidly-filling box was kept in her suitcase as she traveled across Europe, seeing alone all the places she'd thought she would explore with Brady by her side.
The flowers were always waiting.
~*~
Chloe Lane stepped behind the partition with a sigh of relief. She'd made it through her first fashion show in Milan and had somehow managed to avoid tripping on her six inch heels. Modeling was so much more uncomfortable than singing, but the pay was better, and she could never claim no one noticed her now. Her face adorned fashion magazines around the world.
"Schön, Chloe," Franz, the designer, effused, kissing both her cheeks in his typical dramatic fashion. An amazing feat given that she towered over him by at least eight inches in her shoes. Sinking back down and allowing her to lift her face, he continued his praise. "You are truly my diva."
Chloe winced, turning away to hide her reaction. He was far from the first to call her that. Her gaze landed on her dressing table, overflowing with extravagant displays of roses and bright, tropical flowers. Shunted off to the side, dignified in its gentle beauty, sat the familiar lilac bouquet. Ignoring the rest of the designer's comments, she strode over to it, lifting the card and deriving strange comfort from the simple, long-memorized words.
See you at the Met.
~*~
She modeled for a year, until the strain of having to look perfect every moment of the day took its toll. Watching everything she ate and feeling that food she'd always loved was evil finally broke her. She couldn't do it any more; no matter how good the money was or how much fame she was gaining.
During that time, Joy learned how to walk and started to talk, so Nancy and Craig would let her babble across the phone wires to her big sister all over the world. It made Chloe's heart ache. Belle and Shawn broke up and got back together, broke up and got back together, broke up and got back together. Mimi got engaged. Philip fell in love.
Belle wrote when Brady started to date, but the flowers still came. Belle wrote when Brady broke up with his girlfriends, but the flowers still came. She started to date. It was splashed across magazines all over the world, but the flowers still came. She broke up with her boyfriends, and it made "Entertainment Tonight."
The flowers still came.
~*~
Chloe Lane made her way to her trailer in between takes on her latest film. After bit parts in several movies, she had landed the lead in a sweeping historical drama, opposite one of Hollywood's highest-paid leading men. It was the first day of filming, and she was feeling overwhelmed and out of her league.
Her co-star caught up with her. "You're doing just fine, Chloe. Relax. First days are always rough, but you're a natural."
She shot him a nervous smile. "Thank you, Colin, but I'll feel better if I go over my lines again."
"Want me to rehearse with you?"
"That would be wonderful. Would you mind?"
The gorgeous actor shook his head and followed her into the small trailer. His eyes fell on the splash of color in the room. "Who sent you flowers?"
Chloe smiled, as she gathered the lilacs in her arms. She would never know how he managed to come by them year-round. "An old friend," she murmured, gingerly fondling the card. She wasn't nervous about the movie anymore. She let her eyes dwell on the reassuring words.
See you at the Met.
~*~
She stayed an actress for three years. She made more money than she could spend in a lifetime and carried off a Golden Globe award for her work. Then, as she poured over scripts for her next project, it occurred to her that she didn't want to do it any longer. She hated the superficiality of Beverly Hills. She hated the sixteen hour workdays. She missed her music.
During that time, her family came to stay with her, and she was finally able to watch her little sister grow. Belle and Shawn got married and divorced and remarried. Mimi got married and had a little boy. She tried to ignore the pang of jealousy that came with the birth announcement. Philip got his heart broken and called her drunk one night and crying every night after that for a month. He still loved her, he said. He wanted to get back together with her. She wasn't about to go down that road again.
Brady made the Titan label take off. She didn't need Belle's accounts to keep tabs on him. All she had to do was walk into a record store and see evidence of his success in the number of top ten artists he had signed. He dated one of his beautiful, talented discoveries, and she got to feel what it must have been like for him as she saw their faces together on the tabloids. The flowers still came.
She thought she fell in love again, and her heart was broken. The paparazzi treated it like entertainment. The flowers still came.
She grew jaded and broke hearts of her own and became the subject of an "E! Revealed." The flowers still came.
~*~
Chloe Lane made her way out of the recording studio. Her throat was parched, and her muscles ached. It was ten o'clock at night, and she'd been there recording since ten that morning. Deciding to return to her first love, she was launching a music career. The debut project she was working on would be an eclectic collection, a mixture of pop, rock, and jazz that she was rather proud of.
But tonight all she was, was tired.
Reggie, the producer, was waiting for her in the control booth. "That last track was bitching, boo. You're going to blow them away."
Chloe managed a weary smile. "Thanks. But for now, I'll be happy to get home, take a bath, and go to bed."
"Crazy life you lead, girl. By the way, these came for you a while ago." He handed her a filled vase.
Tears of exhaustion pricked Chloe's eyes and made the words she knew by heart impossible to read.
See you at the Met.
~*~
She continued to sing mainstream music for the next two years. She was swarmed by adoring fans and sang to sold-out stadiums. She had four top ten singles; her album went double platinum in the first year of sales. But the pop world didn't tap into her creative talents, and she hated having to live behind security guards and high walls.
During that time, she bought her parents their own estate and made sure they'd never have to worry about money. Belle and Shawn managed to stay together long enough to have their first child. Mimi and her husband had twins. She was beginning to loathe birth announcements. Philip fazed slowly out of her life. She heard he moved to England and married some daughter of a baronet.
Victor died, and Brady inherited Titan. He and the ingénue broke up, and he too fell out of her radar. Belle's emails and phone calls were too full of little Emma's teething problems to leave room for her brother.
The flowers still came.
She was nominated for a Grammy and took Joy as her date. She had sworn off men. They called her name, and she stumbled to the stage. Looking out over the crowd, she thought of all the people she had to thank: God, family, friends, producers, managers, accountants. She thought and thought, but as she stood before the microphone, tears streaming down her face, only one sentence came to her lips.
"See you at the Met."
~*~
Chloe Lane stood in the wings of the theater, awed by the size of the building, by the noise of the people finding their seats, by the knowledge that her greatest dream came true. She had spent the last year establishing her reputation as one of the world's greatest sopranos, and tonight was the culmination. Tonight, she was in concert at the Metropolitan Opera House.
As if seeing it play before her onscreen, Chloe remembered the time when she was five years old and her adopted father took her to her first concert here. She had listened to the soaring arias and dreamed of the day when her own voice would echo off its walls. Now, here she was. What would her five year old self say if she could see her now?
The orchestra began to play, and she listened impatiently for her cue. Her eyes searched the crowd with a strange, unformed hope that Brady would be there. If he was, she didn't see him. Of course, she could see only a miniscule portion of the sold-out house. The music reached a crescendo, and she stepped out to ear-splitting applause—louder even than that which had followed her down into La Scalla on that first night over seven years ago.
She had been eighteen when she left Salem and Brady behind to pursue her dream. She was twenty-five now and successful beyond her wildest dreams. But not beyond Brady's. He had prophesied it with that first bouquet. See you at the Met. He had foreseen this moment, and tonight, she sang for him, for the one person who had always believed in her.
Everything made sense to Chloe that night as she sang. Every word he'd ever spoken to her—angry, critical, encouraging, loving—all came from the same place inside of him, his unfailing faith in her. He had believed she was worthy of love when she fought against it. He had believed she would survive cancer when she had almost lost hope. He had believed in her dream enough to let her go, to never try to hold her to him for a moment—even if that meant losing her forever.
She prayed with everything in her that he was in the audience that night. She sang the way he'd always told her she could. The audience fell away. She was deaf to the applause she'd spent so long craving. Tonight, there was only her soul finding its way back through space and time to Brady through her voice.
By the time the curtain fell on her last encore, she felt drained of everything inside. She didn't even notice the tears in the old conductor's eyes as he congratulated her. "In all my years, I have never heard such beauty, Miss Lane. You have the voice of an angel." He took her hands and kissed them.
Chloe blushed and demurred, before making her way off stage to her dressing room. On her way, she thought of the first gift that had been waiting for her on a night not unlike this. A new excitement burst through her as she tried to imagine what would greet her tonight. She rushed to the room and flung the door open. Inside, the room was filled with roses; there were so many, the smell stifled her. Devotees sent their appreciation for a job well done.
No lilacs were to be found. No Brady was there to greet her with open arms.
Chloe sank weakly to her chair, not realizing until then how much she had been counting on finding him that night. A knock sounded, and she rushed to open the door, only to be disappointed at the first in a long stream of congratulatory visitors. For the next hour, it was all she could do to keep a smile on her face through their cloying presence.
Finally, the last straggler had been evicted. She had changed into street clothes and was ready to leave. They expected her to make an appearance at the after-show party, but she didn't feel capable of it. The loneliness of seven years had caught up with her in one missing bouquet.
The theater was silent as Chloe's leaden legs carried her out of her dressing room. She paused a moment, reluctant to leave. This was the summation of a lifetime's work. Even without Brady, even without a family like all her friends had, this was the greatest her life would ever be. She might as well enjoy it for as long as she could. If she was enjoying it at all.
Perhaps if she went back to the stage, she could recapture the feeling of release that had been so strong during her performance. Her steps resounded through the silent building. The stage was dark; the musicians had long since put their instruments away and gone to the party. Chloe's fingers fumbled with the light panels, flipping switches on and off in an attempt to light up the stage. One last try produced a spotlight directly on the center of the stage.
Chloe caught her breath. All alone in the brightness, surrounded by the dark, sat a glass vase full of pink, white, and purple flowers. For a moment, she thought her legs wouldn't support her. She summoned her strength and slowly made her way to center stage. Kneeling beside the lilacs, she pulled out the card with trembling fingers. For the first time in seven and a half years, the message was changed. Chloe felt laughter bubble through her, and sobs followed. Tears mixed with smiles, joy met sorrow, as she pressed it to her lips.
Told you so.
~*~
She sent out the birth announcements two years later.