Meg almost forgot her nerves as she neared the stage for the fateful audition. A wave of glad euphoria hit her at the familiar clatter of practicing feet and excited voices. It had been too long since last she'd heard the stage so full of anxious voices, of shouting stagehands.
She was surprised when tears stung her eyes as she walked through an actual throng of people across the stage once more. The opera house had come back to life.
To be sure, the stage wasn't quite full yet. Meg was raised that showing up on time to an audition was the same as arriving late; therefore, she'd arrived twenty-five minutes early to check in with Monsieur Reyer's stagehand. Only a handful of new girls eager to make a good impression in the ballet corps auditions preceded her.
As she spoke with the stage manager, she darted what she hoped was a subtle look around the seats.
Reyer was just arriving along with yet another assistant, but no sign of Pierre Robard.
At least, there was no sign of an older, distinguished-looking gentleman, which Meg assumed was what Monsieur Robard looked like. There was an old portrait of him hanging in the opera foyer, but it was from when he was a young man, and who knew if the artist had truly done him justice.
Madame Giry was absent. She would see to the other leading and supporting roles, and pass final judgement on the chorus, but she refused to involve herself any way in the casting of Belle. She was more adamant about avoiding nepotism than the strongest critic could have been.
Meg felt a little relieved when she remembered La Sorelli was no longer in competition with her, which was why there was an audition for the role of Belle to begin with. After Don Juan, the prima ballerina proclaimed she'd had enough of these theatrics and retreated to her native Italy – just in time for Robard to come out of retirement after spending years in La Sorelli's homeland.
Meg's heart pounded with the realization that she who got the role of Belle increased her chances of stepping in as the next prima ballerina.
Meg scolded herself a little for the excitement she felt at Sorelli's absence; after all, she'd always considered Sorelli a friend despite the older dancer's growing resentment of her. For when it came right down to it, Sorelli was no Carlotta: the flighty dancer had not the resolve to continually make Meg's life hell as Carlotta tried with Christine.
As Meg turned back to the stage, a familiar "Why, hello there!" stopped her.
Meg smiled widely in pleasant surprise. "Justine!" The young coloratura soprano Justine Laurent was seated at the aisle seat front row, dressed in forest green velvet trimmed with ermine. Meg happily shook her hand. "I didn't know you'd come back from your tour!"
"Well, I have! And here I am!" Justine's parents divorced while she was still a child; her mother had run off with an American businessman and her father took up with a mistress in Spain. Therefore from childhood up she'd rarely seen her parents and had instead been raised primarily by her father's vastly wealthy older brother, who adored her. So protective of her was he that after the chandelier fall almost a year ago, he promptly took Justine on a tour of England, Germany, and Switzerland until this "nasty Phantom business" worked itself out.
Meg liked Justine very much, though she hadn't the chance to socialize with her too much given Justine's rather high rank in the chorus and Meg's rather high rank in the ballet. But Justine had an eminently sane air about her that was a balm right now on Meg's fretful spirit.
Justine craned her neck around, observing the hubbub around her. "Hope you ladies don't mind me barging in on your audition. I figured I'd head over early before talking to Reyer and the managers."
"What about?"
"Why, the next opera, of course."
This caught Meg's attention. "The next opera?"
Justine lowered her voice conspiratorially. "Yes. They confided in my uncle. Apparently if this ballet is successful enough, they'll lift their unofficial ban on operas and put on The Marquis de Lafeyette." The tribute to one of France's greatest heroes had not been performed since its debut the year following Lafeyette's death in 1834. Justine's eyes twinkled shyly. "They're interested in me auditioning for the role of Adrienne." Adrienne, Lafeyette's wife, was the principal female role.
As Meg congratulated her, she thought it no wonder Justine seemed uncharacteristically shy. Meg knew Justine never thought she'd reach the ranks of a Carlotta or Christine role despite her great talent.
Justine Laurent did not possess a typically beautiful face, but Meg couldn't help finding it more attractive to study than some classically lovely faces she had seen. The singer's mouth was too small but her lips were soft and delicate, and her wicked, sweet little smile was charming. Her eyes were also rather small, but exquisitely shaped, tilted up at the ends, and they gave her face a feline symmetry. Her eyes were a dark charcoal gray color, framed by heavy black hair and cropped bangs.
This face was complemented by an equally contradictory personality: tempestuous and bright balanced with sweetness and wistful romanticism. She was headstrong and reserved, witty and modest, cynical and innocent. She could be the gentlest soul in the world and then the next moment display the most willful resolve that would turn her from a lamb into a tigress in the blink of an eye.
It was the sort of personality that Madame Giry once told Meg could drive men out of their minds.
Yet at age twenty-five Justine had as yet to garner a serious suitor. The ballet and chorus girls all concurred as to the reason why, showing every evidence of smug sympathy whenever the topic came up: Justine was quite fat.
She was not just plump or chubby; she was large, solid: simply put, fat.
There was no getting away from the truth, the girls would say quietly amongst themselves, a look of almost censorial pity on their faces: Justine was just plain fat.
She dressed herself well, they conceded. That dark hair was always washed and shining, and she took good care of her skin. But why wouldn't she do something about that weight? If she could just shrink her waistline, they dared say she would be almost pretty if never beautiful. She did have those flashing eyes and that flirtatious grin. So why not just shed those surplus pounds?
They didn't know about the diets. They didn't know that her beloved uncle had once almost dragged her to a hospital when she practically stopped eating for several days her fourteenth year. They couldn't know because Justine Laurent's most dominant personality trait was her pride, which she'd built as a wall between her big body and the sneers and simpering from outside. She'd learned to erect that wall as a teenager, back when the other teenagers in the chorus and the ballet did not limit gossiping about her to just behind her back. The bullying had been intense, so the wall Justine built was sturdy.
There were a few times she peeked out from behind that wall and made reference to her girth, crouched in self-deprecating humor. Each time the ladies she spoke to would coo, "No, you're not fat! You're a lovely thing!" Or "You're just…curvaceous, that's all!" (This said even though relative to the rest of her, Justine's bosom was rather small). They would then pat her hand as if she were a child that must be comforted. If they would not deny her fat, they would instead quickly change the subject with a hasty, "Nonsense! You look just fine. Did you see La Carlotta's latest gown? They say it came all the way from Milan…." And these, the same girls who'd oinked like a pig at her when they were thirteen years old!
The only person who surprised her was Meg. They had been gossiping backstage about some romance or another (as Justine recalled, it was between a stagehand and a soubrette from a rich family) when Justine cursed herself for accidentally letting slip, "But I'm certainly no expert when it comes to love. Who'd take a cow like me? I'm far too fat." To cover this moment of bitter vulnerability she laughed weakly, and waited for the syrupy words of denial she was sure would come out of Meg's mouth.
Instead the dancer shrugged and said, "So? Signor Piangi is too, and he's never had a problem attracting women, so I've heard."
Justine's contradictory personality manifested in her reaction to Meg's statement: she felt relieved and emboldened that Meg didn't condescend and lie to her – yet she cursed herself again for feeling hurt that Meg didn't bother lying. This meant that Justine had to face an ugly truth: that as much as she hated the false reassurances from others, a very small part of her secretly pretended they were true.
All she could say in reply to Meg was a mumbled, "It's different for men."
"I don't see why it should be," Meg answered. "After all, your face has far more character than his."
For all that Justine refuted this and silently agreed with the other girls who said no man would take her the way she was, Meg's assessment was in this instance closer to the truth. There had been men who'd shown interest in Justine: Leopold the opera's barber, a shy cousin named Royce, and an older widower friend of her uncle's who almost proposed before her dark glare stopped him dead.
For Justine did not love any of these men, and their courtship never lasted long or were of any great depth. She felt in her heart of hearts that while they might genuinely feel some affection for her, it was not with the devoted passion she dreamed of. Justine wanted to fall passionately, madly in love with someone, and wanted someone to love her passionately and madly back. If she couldn't have this, she would settle for nothing less.
She resigned herself to spinsterhood, and threw herself instead into singing, traveling, and tending to her beloved uncle and friends.
Yet those fiery dreams of romance still danced in her fascinating eyes and smile.
Justine and Meg chatted in the present about Justine's tour and the museums and sights she'd visited. Meg was losing herself in the singer's descriptions of the Swiss Alps when Justine saw someone enter the theater. "Oh, look there! Is that not the mysterious Monsieur Robard?"
Meg spun around, excitement caught in her throat. Then an endearingly silly smile graced her face as she saw him, one of her composer heroes.
It is rare when someone so perfectly captures our mental picture of them that it is often more surprising than when they look the exact opposite. This surprise is what Meg felt now: Pierre Robard looked so completely like she imagined him she was taken aback.
He was handsome for his advanced age, and he walked straight without stooping. His white hair and the wrinkles at his eyes were the chief evidences of age, that and a wise, melancholy look about him. He wore a thick scarf and a brown coat, making him look every inch the artist.
Meg was ecstatic to note there was kindness in the lines of his mouth and its thin, vague smile.
With him was a tall, familiar, handsome figure with bushy black hair and dark eyes: Carolus Fonta, male principal dancer. With Sorelli gone, he was the only 'Old Guard' ballet dancer left to take a part without audition: the lead dual role of the Beast and the Prince.
Robard pat him on the back as they sat down. It appears they knew each other, probably from when Robard had gone to Italy some years ago in retirement.
Once Reyer saw him he shot up dutifully and spoke quickly and quietly with the composer. With an amused, careless expression, Robard nodded and shook his hand at the director, as if to say, "Whenever you want, however you want it, it makes no difference to me, my friend."
Reyer bowed stiffly and then turned to the stage, clapping his hands.
"Ladies, ladies! Thank you. Auditions for the ballet chorus first, if you please."
As Meg nodded goodbye to Justine with the singer's "good luck" whispered behind her, Meg hurried backstage in wait for the chorus to finish auditioning.
She stood just barely in the wings, leaning out a little. Her keen eyes watched not those auditioning in the chorus, but strained instead to make out the reactions of the white-haired gentleman in the audience. What was Monsieur Robard thinking? What sort of reaction should she expect when it was her turn?
From what she could see of him, his face revealed nothing. Someone just glancing at him would have thought him bored, but his expression was instead dreamy, far away. His eyes were locked on the stage, but their expression was one of tranquility and mild amusement instead of professional discernment. The disinterested smile never left his face.
He was too opaque for Meg to read. Slightly frustrated, Meg did something she never had before an audition: she removed herself mentally from the moment, the place. Before, she'd always been tightly observant and alert during auditions, calculating the space in front of her, running through the steps in her mind, looking to see who was there and figuring out their role and place.
But a foreign calm fell over her now.
She was down below, with Erik.
Since her revelation when she danced for him that first time in his lair, she'd returned three times more. Each time he'd point out one other key ingredient her dance was missing: melancholy one time, yearning the next, and discontent at last.
And each time she'd add those ingredients to the recipe, until at last she danced not as Meg Giry but as Belle.
All under his dark, mismatched gaze, that sent a wave of heat straight to her very core.
She shivered now as she recalled those eyes, the blue one shadowy behind the mask.
Her almost enchanted state of serenity stayed with her as the chorus finished and they moved on to Belle. It stayed with her as she watched the first two girls audition for the role, so that she didn't really see them. She didn't see Sonya's soft but too elusive turn, or Monique's fine acting but rather stiff movements.
The calm followed her as she almost sleep-walked to the center of the stage and began her own audition.
As she raised herself up en pointe and stretched her arms out to embrace her imaginary mop, she could almost see the arm of the imaginary lover –
And she could almost see the sliver of porcelain white covering half his face….
Her dance was as magical as in the lair.
But –
And this Pierre Robard noticed at once as he sat in the audience –
The dreamlike quality was almost too ethereal, too…possessed?
As if strings were attached to her, and if he looked up to the rafters he'd see the devil working them.
That, or an angel.
Yet just as the slight skepticism of the thought crossed his face, he locked eyes with the young girl.
And Meg the scrappy, observant opportunist – not the faraway artist giving herself over to dance and Erik's influence - was finally able to read him.
Pierre Robard saw those pretty eyebrows just slightly come down in a look he felt secretly thrilled to recognize.
Determination. Young Meg Giry had seen his challenge and accepted it.
Suddenly it was not only Belle dancing, the character coached and shaped by the Phantom.
It was Belle and Meg Giry – coached and shaped by her alone.
The dance became less ethereal and more immediate, grounded.
Meg made a decision right then: Belle was not entirely a dreamer, even in her life of servitude.
Deep within her was a woman of action, dying for the chance to prove herself.
Her fire was contagious. Though she danced better than she ever had, there was something in this interpretation still undeniably hers, still undeniably Meg Giry.
Pierre Robard had never met Meg before or seen her dance, but by the time she finished, he felt he knew her.
And he found he liked her. More than liked her: he understood and appreciated her vivacious ambition, recognizing what he felt when he was a young, poor student knocking on stage door after stage door trying doggedly to sell his music.
Meg stood still on the stage, letting the buzz in the air that follows a charged performance wash through her. She panted, catching her breath. Then she curtseyed politely, as she'd always been taught.
She stole another quick glance at Monsieur Robard. There was a light in his eyes that wasn't there before, she was sure. And so she barely heard Monsieur Reyer thanking her for the audition, the director professionally keeping his own enthusiasm at bay.
As Justine and the other chorus girls congratulated her afterward, assuring her she would absolutely get the part, she thought she saw the curtain in Box Five flicker just slightly, as if a hand had been there before its owner disappeared from view.
Her preoccupation with this and Monsieur Robard kept her from seeing another figure, leaning unseen against one of the pillars below Box Five. Someone dressed as a stagehand and wearing a false mustache that hid his smirk.
Although he was no connoisseur of the arts, Stephen Marcus felt confident he could ease his superiors' lingering doubts about Mlle. Giry securing herself the leading lady's role.
A/N: Is my inclusion of an opera about Lafeyette a sneaking reference to my growing obsession with Hamilton? Maaaaaaybe.