Disclaimer: Based on the novel by Gaston Leroux. All Phantom related works, as well as lyrics quoted in the story, belong to their respective owners. All the places/monuments/streets/shops etc. in Milan that are mentioned in this chapter really exist.

Chapter 12 - Déjà vu

"What's the deal between you and my sister?"

Erik turned to face Andrea, Carlotta's big brother, who'd plopped on the couch right next to him.

It was St. Stephen's Day the house was swarming with people: family and friends who'd come to visit the Giudicellis as it was custom. Among them was a certain aunt Luisa who, pointing out Erik was the speaking image of the Phantom of the Opera, had him play almost the entire score of the musical on the piano. After an hour of banging at the keys as the older lady butchered the lyrics he just needed a minute to himself. Apparently, it was not to be the case.

"Why so silent?" Andrea probed. "The cat ate your tongue?" he laughed, glancing at Diana nested in Erik's lap.

The cat just hissed at him hatefully.

Putting his annoyance aside, Erik replied calmly, "My relationship with Carlotta is none of your concern."

"None of my concern?! She's my little sister!"

"She's a big girl. She can take care of herself."

Andrea cackled. "The last time she told me that, she ended up blowing up her entire career and running away to another country."

Erik's ears perked up. "Here in Milan she was a primadonna," he guessed, hoping Andrea would take the bait and tell him more.

"She'd been finally given her big chance. Hadn't it been for that jerk..."

What jerk?! Antonio? Yes, it had to have been Antonio but…

"What happened exactly?"

Andrea squinted his eyes suspiciously. "Now that is none of your concern."

"Actually, it is," Erik argued. "Carlotta is a dear friend of mine and a pupil of sorts. I care that her career progresses but I can't help her unless I know what is bothering her."

"It's not my call to tell you."

"It's influencing her performance. Why do you think she hasn't made the lead yet?"

"Because she has a lousy teacher?"

"I'm the best she could ever get," Erik replied to the accusation.

"Right," Andrea sneered, getting off the couch.

It was pointless, Erik thought, gritting his teeth. The brother wouldn't tell him a thing. He'd have to figure out a way to get the confession out of Carlotta herself.

An opportunity presented itself a few days later. The two of them were on a stroll across the city, sightseeing. After a visit to the Duomo, Milan's magnificent gothic cathedral, and at the Palazzo Reale, an 18th-century mansion and the former headquarter of the Italian Government that currently hosted a museum, they headed across the square to the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. The historical shopping venue, famous for its stained glass roofs, housed a number of exclusive boutiques and fancy restaurants, one of which they stopped at to have some dinner.

Erik had his doubts whether he'd be welcome at a place like that but Carlotta argued that she didn't drag him all the way to Milan to have him eat at MacDonald's. When Erik got up his courage and asked the maitre at the door for a table for two the man didn't as much as flinch at his appearance. Was he by any chance used to masked people? Or perhaps it was his job to remain neutrally polite to all customers who were ready to pay almost a hundred euros for some starters, two plates of pasta and a bottle of wine?

Leaving the restaurant later, they took a different exit from the one they came in by, accidentally ending up on the other side of the gallery.

"I think I got a bit confused," Carlotta said, looking around.

They were on a square with a stone monument in the middle. On the far side, there was a familiar looking building bearing an Italian flag, it's lit up windows glowing in the darkness of the night.

"Isn't that your Opera House?" Erik asked.

Carlotta nodded. "La Scala. I used to work here before Palais Garnier."

"Can we go inside?"

After a few agonizing minutes of silence, Carlotta said, "Sure. Why not."

She walked across the square on led feet. La Scala was the last place she wanted to go but she failed to find a reasonable excuse to deny Erik's request.

They barely made it to the foyer when someone called her name.

"Signorina Carlotta! Allora è tornata?"

It was one of the guards. A chubby forty-year-old that had always been strangely fond of her.

"Sono solo venuta per Natale," she told him. "Il mio amico," she pointed to Erik, "voleva dare un'occhiata in giro."

As they went farther into the theater she ran out into more familiar faces: a fellow singer, a couple cleaning adepts, a group of ballerinas, even one of the patrons. They all asked if she'd decided to come back and she had to explain each and every one them she was just visiting for Christmas and she only came to the Opera House to show her friend around.

"Do you think you will ever come back here?" Erik asked after yet another awkward run with one of Carlotta's old acquaintances.

"No."

"Why not?" he probed. "It looks like you're being greatly missed."

She replied, "It's no fun to sing in an Opera House that doesn't even have its own ghost."

She was laughing him off again! The more she did it the more convinced he was she was hiding something from him. Something painful.

As they entered the brightly lit auditorium, they immediately realized they walked in on an ongoing rehearsal. On stage, a young woman in full costume was in the middle of an aria. When she noticed them she stopped to a halt.

"Oh mio Dio!" she squealed, running off the stage. "La Giudicelli è tornata!"

"I'm not back," Carlotta corrected. "Just came for a visit."

"Who's your friend?" the girl scanned Erik from head to toe, lingering a bit longer on his masked face.

"Giorgia, this is Erik, a friend from Paris, " Carlotta introduced him. "Erik, this is Giorgia Vellieri, the current primadonna at La Scala."

Primadonna? She must have been Carlotta's rival back in the day! It would certainly explain the animosity that still lingered between them. Could it be that Carlotta left Milan simply because she didn't get the lead? It didn't seem like her to give up so easily. Now, what about Antonio? How did he fit in this scenario? Perhaps he didn't. Perhaps his break up with Carlotta was not the reason but rather the outcome of her decision to leave. Judging from their message exchange that boy still loved her.

"So, how are doing at the Paris Opera?" Giorgia asked Carlotta with a vicious smile.

Before Carlotta could reply, Erik cut in. "She's going to be our new leading lady, starting next season," he said with a certainty that would have fooled anyone. "She is a remarkable singer. Her voice… Never before have I heard a voice like that. When she sings even the dead rise from their graves to listen."

Carlotta almost burst out laughing at Erik's exaggerate flourish.

"Congratulations," Giorgia said with a visible scowl. "To be honest, I never thought you'd make it."

"I just found this really good vocal coach." Carlotta sent Erik a playful wink. "I think he could even make you sing like a pro."

Giorgia didn't seem to pick up the insult, busy staring unceremoniously at Erik.

"Is he really the Phantom of the Opera?" she squealed excitedly. "There are pictures of him all over Facebook and Instagram. The web is boiling up with conspiracy theories."

Damn, Erik cursed in his mind, he should've known better than to let people take selfies with him. It's just that they were all asking so nicely, sneaking right under his arm and asking him to smile for the camera. He enjoyed the attention, the good kind that makes one feel like a celebrity rather than a freak show.

Carlotta laughed perhaps a bit too loudly to be realistic. "Oh, Giorgia! Are you stupid or what?! How could he possibly be the Phantom?"

Giorgia threw her arms in the air as if to say: I don't know! Magic?

Carlotta flashed her a condescending glance. "People on the web say all kinds of weird stuff, like that Ramin Karimloo is really the Phantom."

"His name is Erik," Giorgia pointed out.

"It's a common name in France," Erik cut in, a bit worried about the direction this conversation was taking.

"He wears a mask! Why the hell does he wear a mask?"

"It's a fetish thing!" Carlotta spat pushing Erik back towards the corridor.

They made their way out of the theater in record time. Once outside, Carlotta took her phone out and checked all the socials.

Giorgia was right. Erik's masked face was all over the internet! Selfies with #thephantomoftheopera were posted and reposted with some doubt rising captions: Who's the masked man at Palais Garnier? Go to Paris, meet the Phantom. The Opera Ghost is alive and he's cute. Phantom or prankster?

"I can't believe you let the phans take pictures with you!" she exclaimed. "You hate them!"

"Only those that try to sing, having absolutely no aptitude for it, or ask me to marry them or blabber some nonsense about swans and beds and monkeys."

Carlotta laughed, then she powered up her front camera and getting closer to Erik she held her phone at arm's length.

"What are you doing?"

"Everyone has a picture with the phantom. I want one too."

He rolled his eyes but then posed for the photo.

She took a few, trying different angles. At some point, they both turned their heads so that they were facing each other.

Erik stared into Carlotta's deep dark eyes, sparkling brightly in the orange glow of the streetlights. His grip on her waist fastened closing the remains of the distance between them. Time stopped as they just stood there, locked in an embrace, too afraid to do anything and yet unwilling to let go of each other just yet.

A wet drop landed on Carlotta's cheek. Another one hit the tip of Erik's mask's nose. It was beginning to rain.

Snapping out of their trance, they ran towards the gallery. Inside they crossed the half-empty corridors until they reached the exit on the side of the Piazza del Duomo. Then, covering their heads, they sprint through the drizzle to the glowing red "M" sign of the subway that would take them home.

In the morning the skies cleared again and it was supposed to stay sunny for the rest of the week. Carlotta took the opportunity to show Erik a few other interesting places on the town, all the way steering clear of La Scala. She first took him to the Sforza Castle and on a walk across the Parco Sempione all the way to the Arco della Pace. Then they went to the Maria delle Grazie gothic church that housed Leonardo's famous 'Last Supper' and had some fun, counting hands and discussing details of the painting in relation to the Mary Magdalene theory, brought up to the general public a couple decades earlier by a bestselling American fiction author. Finally, they also visited the MUDEC Interactive Art Museum stopping for an aperitivo at the Navigli.

Erik had visited many countries in his life, Italy included, but never like this, walking the streets in full daylight, taking pictures, dining in exclusive restaurants, laughing and talking with his beautiful companion.

Laying in bed on the morning of his final day in Milan, he thought about Carlotta. The insolent little Carlotta that drove him crazy on every step. The brave daring Carlotta that constantly pushed him out of his comfort zone, showing him possibilities he never even dared to consider. The more he tried to define his feelings for her the more confused he was.

Suddenly the door opened and she burst into the room.

Jumping on the bed, she cheered, "Rise and shine sleepy head!"

"What time is it?" he mumbled

"Almost eleven a.m.."

"What?!"

He'd never slept in. Usually, he barely slept at all and now he suddenly went out for over ten hours? Was it too much wine? Too much fresh air? Too much of... something else?

"There's some coffee and cornetti waiting for you."

"Just give me five minutes."

"I'll be downstairs," she said, getting off the bed.

A few minutes later he joined her at the kitchen table. As soon as he got seated Diana jumped into his lap. Stroking her with one hand he grabbed at his coffee mug and took a long sip.

"One of my friends called earlier," Carlotta said, munching on her croissant. "She said she was meeting with some people on Piazza del Duomo later tonight to celebrate New Year's. She asked us to come as well."

"She asked you to come as well."

"No, I told her I was here with a friend and she asked us both to come." Seeing Erik waver, she added, "Come on, it's gonna be fun. We'll hang around, have some booze, listen to the concert, watch the fireworks."

"Okay, okay, we'll go," he gave up.

When they left for downtown later in the evening, Erik braced himself for what was about to come. He was just as nervous about meeting Carlotta's friends as he was about meeting her parents. Would they accept him? Hopefully the bottle of Absolut he kept hidden under his parka would convince them he was cool.

Arriving at Duomo, a small group was already waiting for them near the subway exit. Carlotta did all the introductions, then they waited for a couple more people, before moving to a more comfortable spot at the base of the Vittorio Emanuele II monument.

She square was quickly filling in with people gathering around a stage that had been erected in front of the cathedral, right between two hundred feet high live Christmas trees illuminated by thousands of tiny golden lights. Around nine p.m. the music started, a good deal of which wasn't much to Erik's liking but he decided not to care.

Carlotta's friends turned out to be more than welcoming, even more so after a few shots of vodka. They didn't mind the mask, albeit some were curious as to why he wore it. Just to make fun of them, he told them the very same thing Carlotta had told the leading girl at La Scala: that it was a fetish thing. They totally bought it. One of the guys even joked he was getting one too, just to see how it worked on his girlfriend. The girls immediately joined in the topic, claiming masks were so 'Fifty Shades', whatever that was, and that any guy in a mask had ten points to sexiness.

As the evening went by, more people joined their party, friends of friends that just happened to have had the same idea on how to spend the night.

"Ue, guarda chi si vede!" one of the guys exclaimed as another person approached their group. It was a man of about thirty, with dark eyes and hair styled into the latest fashion and a two days old stubble that only added to his latino lover charm.

"Ciao ragà!"

He began exchanging man hugs with the boys and air kisses with the girls.

"Ciao Antò!"

Antò? As in Antonio? That Antonio?!

Erik glanced at Carlotta. She looked flushed and he wondered whether it was because of the vodka, because of the cold, or rather because of Antonio.

"Ciao Carlotta," he said showing off his perfectly white teeth in a wide smile. "Sei ancora più bella di quanto mi ricordassi."

Carlotta instinctively smiled at the compliment. "Anche tu stai bene," she replied.

Antonio was just as handsome and charming as she remembered. As soon as she saw him all the memories of their times together pushed their way to the front of her mind: the parties until morning, the dinners on the town, the skiing trips, their cozy apartment, her diamond ring.

"Ahem," Erik coughed, making his presence known.

Carlotta immediately realized her faux pas and introduced them.

Antonio shook Erik's hand but he didn't seem too interested in his humble persona. Instead, he asked Carlotta, "Can we talk for a minute?"

"Sure."

Antonio glared at Erik. "I meant privately." He made a move as if he were leaving, looking at Carlotta expectantly.

She appeared to be weighing her options until she looked at Erik and said, "I'll be right back." Then she jumped off her seat and followed Antonio into the crowd.

Erik waited for her patiently but when half an hour passed and she wasn't back he went looking for her. He almost made a full circle around Vittorio Emanuele II when the final countdown began.

Ten, nine, eight, seven…

He elbowed his way through the crowd, heading back to the monument in case Carlotta returned and was waiting for him there.

...six, five, three, two…

Then he saw her just a dozen feet away, hidden in the shadow of the statue.

...one!

There was a deafening bang and the sky lit up with colorful fireworks. People cheered, popping bottles of cheap Spumante and exchanging New Year's wishes. Among them a lone dark figure stood rooted to the spot, a pair of blazing eyes fixed on the young couple locked in a kiss at the Italian King's feet.

Next chapter: Erik needs to take a decision of a lifetime. Perhaps some wise advice from Daroga might be of help?

Looks like Carlotta has some skeletons in the closet of her own?

What's the exact story behind her leaving La Scala? Did Antonio have something to do with it? Or did he not?

And most importantly, will Erik ever find out what's the deal with them all?