How to Be an Opera Ghost
Part Two: "Prepare"
"You want a suit of men's eveningwear?" repeated the elderly tailor.
"Entirely black."
"With a cloak."
"Correct."
"And you want me to use your measurements, mademoiselle?"
"That's right. The gentleman is roughly the same size as I am, and I want it to be a surprise for him. It's, er, my brother."
It was a stupid cover story and Isabelle knew it, but she'd be damned if she could think of a better one. Either way though, it worked. As long as she could pay for the suit (and she could), it didn't matter how suspicious the tailor was of her request. He'd make it anyway; and the better she tipped him, the fewer questions he'd ask.
Her trip to the millinery shop was even worse.
"I'd like a gentleman's hat, please," said Isabelle as innocently as she could. "Black, and a bit floppy if you could manage it."
"Floppy?" echoed the poor milliner, who looked more than a little confused.
"Floppy," said Isabelle.
"Er," said the milliner. "You do realize that this is a ladies' hat shop?"
Isabelle stared at her. Of course; how could she be so stupid? How could she have come in here for years to buy her own hats, and never once noticed that there were no men's hats to be seen?
"Oh," said Isabelle. "Right. Well. Do you know where I could find a men's hat shop, then?"
The milliner, smiling indulgently at her, proceeded to give her the address of a nearby shop where she'd once bought a very nice hat for her husband. Isabelle slunk out of the shop, feeling very foolish indeed.
o o o
As the sun set over the city, Isabelle walked back to her flat with a hatbox tucked under her arm. After searching through five different shops, she'd finally managed to find a black hat that was floppy enough to suit her purposes, but not so floppy that it would look silly. All in all, she was quite pleased with how productive her day had been. The suit was on its way. White shirts to wear underneath the coat hadn't been a problem to find. And she'd even found the right sort of hat.
Now all that remained was the mask, which was after all the most important part of being an opera ghost.
And, as it turned out, the most difficult. Especially since, though everyone knew the ghost's mask was white, nobody had ever gotten close enough to see what it was made of. And Christine, that stupid little twit, hadn't been thoughtful enough to mention in her letters what sort of mask it was.
The first thing that Isabelle tried was white cloth, stolen the previous day from under the costume mistress' nose. But no matter how Isabelle cut and sewed it, she couldn't make it look like anything the opera ghost might wear. The forehead kept flopping down over the nose, and the lower half fluttered away from her mouth whenever she breathed. It simply wouldn't do.
Next she tried papier-mâché, which was a veritable disaster. As hard as she tried to form a wearable mask out of the pasty stuff, the best she could get was an odd lump of mush with two eyeholes that were too close together.
She thought about leather, but gave up approximately three seconds after the idea occurred to her. She was sure to have as many problems with leather as she'd had with cloth, and it would probably be too hard to cut anyway.
In the end, she had to admit to herself that she wasn't a master craftswoman by any stretch of the imagination. But she couldn't simply go out and purchase a mask, as she'd done with the clothing! Well, she could… but that wasn't the point. There would be no mystery involved that way; no intrigue! No. Her mask had to be her own.
So back to the costume department she went, the very next day. She ended up choosing a thin porcelain mask, which was large enough to cover her entire face save the jaw, but not so large that it weighed her head down and made her neck ache. It was bright purple with a gold star over one eye, which was a problem – but that was easily fixed. White paint was easy enough to come by.
As she sat beside her bed that night and carefully painted the mask, a tiny voice inside Isabelle's head tried to point out that this was not exactly what she'd meant when she resolved to have a mask of her own devising.
But Isabelle told the voice to shut up.
It was close enough.
