Saturday: Climax and Anticlimax

"Brook? It's Solei." No answer. The audience of ballerinas held their breath. At least five of them were crowded into the tiny hallway.

"Shouldn't you be stretching or something?" I asked.

"What about Brook?" One asked, not taking the hint.

"I'll take care of Brook. Get lost." The ballerinas went off in a sulk and I turned me attention back to the door. It was unlocked.

"Brook?" I stuck my head in carefully. I didn't want to be on the receiving end of a ballistic shoe or vase. Brook was sitting in front of her dressing table, her face a mask of quiet fear.

It never failed. There was always someone who has a meltdown on opening night, and somehow it was always up to me to coax them out of hiding.

"Are you all right?"

"I can't do this." She sounded as if she was on the brink of tears.

"'Course you can. I've been listening to you in practice all week. You sound fantastic." This was, strictly speaking, a lie. I hadn't been paying the least bit of attention to Brook's singing, or anyone else's for that matter, until the night of the falling spotlight. But she did sound good then.

"No I can't. I must have been mad to agree to this."

"You can do this." I said. "You have done this."

"But that's just practice. Practice doesn't count."

"Why not?"

"A full house on Opening Night. I must have been mad to agree," Brook said, ignoring the question. I glanced at her bedside clock. It was a half hour to curtain. We didn't have time for this.

"Dear me, and what would Marguerite think?" I said sarcastically. Brook stiffened at the mention of her formal rival. "She walks away and the whole Opera falls apart."

"Do you really think I can do this?" Brook asked, turning to look me in the eye. Professional pride was beginning to win out over stage fright.

"I know it." Brook examined herself in the mirror critically and stood with a sigh.

"The show must go on."

I'd always wondered about that particular phrase. The show must go on. Why? What was so important about the show? It was just entertainment. If the show stopped, the worst that could happen was an angry crowd and a bad review in the morning edition. It wasn't like it was life or death, was it?

I didn't have much time to ponder the aphorism, since I was due in the orchestra pit five minutes ago for the inevitable tuning up. Most people find this part annoying or funny, nothing but a grating atonal dissonance. To me, that's the sound of magic.

Brook's crisis averted, I rushed downstairs, hoping that the orchestra hadn't walked out yet. There was quite a lot of impersonal shoving going on backstage as people tried to get organized and in position for the curtain. No one bothered with excuses, because if they did, they'd never stop talking.

So I hardly noticed when someone ran into me so hard he bounced off the opposite wall.

"Miss Solei!" He called.

"Sorry, I've got to go." I apologized without looking.

"But I need to speak to you." He said, running to catch up with me. I took an actual look at him and recognized Junior the Stagehand.

"Can't it wait? I'm due in the pit."

"Not really." Junior cast a glance around, then steered me down the hallway leading to the practice rooms. "Over here, where we can hear better."

"I can hear you fine. What is it?

"The conductor wanted me to have a word with you."

"He did?" I asked, baffled. Why was Dr. Cocteau sending stagehands on errands? "What about?"

"I am sorry about this." Junior said. The mental alarms went off, but it was too late. Junior shoved me into one of the practice rooms and slammed the door shut behind him. I tripped over my pretty skirt and landed hard. There was no lock on the door, so Junior took one of the wooden chairs and jammed it under the doorknob.

"I am really sorry about this. I don't want to hurt anyone, but you can't go out there." Junior swung around, a small penknife in one hand. He was sweating and cracking his knuckles nervously. Options flashed through my mind at lightening speed. Junior was a couple of inches shorter than I was and probably not as good at kung fu as me, but he wasn't wearing six yards of silk. I could scream, but these rooms were meant to be soundproof, so it was unlikely anyone would hear me.

"Just sit down and shut up."

"Right. Fine," I said quickly, then I added to myself in a whisper. "I'm just the drummer, how the hell did this happen?"

"Fine?"

"Yep. I'm fine." Junior didn't know how to take this.

"I expected a bit of protest," he admitted.

"Yeah, well, it's only opera, after all." I shrugged. "So, you're the one behind all these sabotages?" I hoped that Alex was on his way. I should have had him point out the potential suspects to me, but I had been more worried about my début.

"Yes. Terribly sorry about the spotlight, by the way." He grinned, not sounding very sorry. "Just business."

"I see." Unfortunately, Junior didn't know me well enough to recognize my tone. Alex called it the Voice of Doom, but only when he thought I wasn't listening. "You're working for LaValle then?"

"Pays a lot better then hauling furniture about. Unfortunately, I don't get paid until the curtain fails to rise. And they can't start the opera without their star attraction." His voice was casual as he paced the room. He was trying for a Bond-villain level of casual menace and failing utterly.

"How much better? Just out of curiosity," I added when Junior paused in his pacing to stare in disbelief.

I didn't get an answer, because the cavalry chose that moment to arrive.

Something impacted against the door with a loud bang. Junior whirled around, swinging in the knife around as he went so that I had to jump back to avoid it. There was another impact and the doorframe began to splinter. I backed into the far corner to get out of the line of fire. After the third hit the chair fell over and the door slammed open.

"Halt!" Watson cried. Junior brandished his knife wildly. Alex and Holmes appeared in the doorway behind Watson.

"Stay back!" Junior shrieked. All his plans had fallen apart; he was cornered. A sensible person would have backed down, given up. But Junior had proved that he was anything but sensible. He brandished the penknife ineffectually.

"Chill, dude," Alex called over Watson's shoulder.

"You are surrounded," Holmes added. "Give up now and it will go easier for you."

"I'm not finished yet," Junior growled, in a final display of idiocy. "You're going to let me walk right out of here." He kept the knife pointed at the three men in one hand, while the other searched wildly behind his back for me. I was not about to become a fainting hostage, so I took the initiative.

I grabbed Junior from behind, wrapped one arm around his neck and grabbed the wrist holding the knife with the other. He was so surprised that he dropped the knife.

Watson leapt forward while Holmes and Alex both tried to get through the door at the same time. Junior automatically jumped backwards. I was slammed against the opposite wall and slid down to the ground, coughing. I shook my head to clear the sparks from my vision and took in the scene in front of me.

Watson was sitting on Junior while Holmes applied handcuffs to the man's wrists. Alex was crouched in front of me, grinning.

"Nice move," he said.

"Thanks. Help me up."

"I suppose we shall have to add attempted kidnapping to your list of offenses, Mr. Jenkins."

"Damn. I bet this means I'll have to testify again." Watson looked shocked, Holmes looked thoughtful and Alex was sniggering at me. In the distance I heard the sound of the orchestra tuning.

"Shit! I'm late!"

"Break a leg!" Alex called down the hall as I sprinted as fast as possible for the stage. I knocked over two ballerinas before skidding to a halt in the wings. I took a deep breath, smoothed the folds of my sari and strolled sedately out to the pit.

I tried to ignore the sudden hush, then considerable upswing in noise that followed my entrance. It was just as well Marguerite was gone; she would have murdered me on the spot. The conductor favored me with a glare as I took my seat.

Dr. Cocteau tapped his baton against the music stand. The noise level in the house took an abrupt upswing then faded into silence. A thousand people held their breath, and the prelude started.

I wonder if the audience could sense the tension humming along underneath the grandiose measures. I certainly could. Members of the orchestra kept glancing up nervously, and the ballerinas refused to dance over the trapdoors, making for some interesting new choreography.

But nothing happened. One of the violins biffed in the opening movements and the flute solo started a beat too late, but that was it. No explosions, no falling lights, no dramatics at all besides the ones on stage. It was terribly anticlimactic.

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.•´¨•»¦«•Kerowyn•»¦«•´¨•.