Upon hearing the knock, Charlotte opened her bedroom door. She sighed when she saw it was her mother and not her father. "Dada said he was going to come talk to me," She turned around, her pale pink dressing gown dragging the floor.
"He will, later," Christine closed the door a little blue satin bag dangling around her wrist. "I believed it was beyond time for us to have a proper conversation about the feelings you've had this summer."
"What feelings?" Charlotte sat down on her bed.
"Your feelings for Rasputin," Christine smiled softly at her daughter. "I was your age when I fell in love for the first time. It was during the summer as well. It was also the same year I became a woman." The soprano sat down next to her daughter and smoothed out her dress before handing her the satin bag. "This is for you."
Charlotte pulled the drawstring open and removed the contents, "Cold cream and rose soap? Mama, these are your things."
"They are things I use that you can start using as well as a young lady. I should have given them to you in November when you started your menses. And these two are brand new, I have never opened them. You'll want that cold cream to remove that make up before your father speaks to you. And I practically enjoy the rose soap during my monthly to help with the smell and make me feel fresher."
"Mom! Please!" Charlotte's face went crimson and she pulled her dressing gown tighter.
Christine giggled as she wrapped her arms around her daughter, "Oh Lottie! It is something all ladies have to get to used to having, even if we do not discuss it publicly. I am just thankful I am here for you and your sister. When I started and started having these feelings, my mother my was dead…"
"Do we have this our whole life? I don't like it. Last month I stained a petticoat."
Christine's face dropped, as she rubbed her daughter's deformity, "It stops when you are with child and after a certain age when God has decided you are to no longer have babies."
"Are you of that age, Mama?"
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, "Not quite, but sometimes things happen and you can no longer have any more babies. But you've distracted me, I wanted to talk about your feelings for Rasputin."
"What about them?" Charlotte turned away.
"How you loved him and he didn't love you back and yet he was very sweet to you wasn't he?"
"Why, Mama? Why?" The young lady finally sobbed and threw herself into her mother's arms. "He kissed me goodbye but said he has to find himself. Why can't he be like Dada?"
Christine ran her hand down her daughter's hair, "Sometimes, feelings are complicated. You know I didn't always love your father like I do now."
"He told me how you came back to him, but he left you because he thought he couldn't give you a happy life."
"Well, that is his side of it," Christine pulled away and pulled a handkerchief out of her sleeve. She handed it to her daughter. "The truth was I was falling in love with him, or I was falling in love with The Angel of Music. That's who he told me he was at first when he gave me voice lessons, never letting me see him."
"The Angel of Music? How old were you, Mama?" Charlotte arched her good eyebrow as she wiped the tears off her cheeks.
"Way older than you are now," Christine giggled. "But you see my father had promised he would send me The Angel of Music when he died and he was dead when your father showed up. I was still so sad and alone I believed anything for the company. And your father…well he was just as sad and lonely and would tell a lie if it meant he could have some company."
"What does this have to do with me and Rasputin?"
"Well…at this time your father loved me more than I loved him. You see, the young man I had fallen in love with the summer I was your age, came back into my life."
"Was that this Raoul I hear so much about?"
Christine gasped, "What exactly have you heard?"
Adjusting her dressing gown as she stood, Charlotte spoke, "That you also loved him. And dada said he kidnapped you thinking he could make you love him but then he realized if he wanted you happy, he had to let you go even if that was without him." She sighed as she lifted the blue drawstring bag from the bed. She walked over to the small vanity in her room and sat down. "He said you came back to him right before you married Raoul and that's why he's Gustave's dad. And he left you again because he wanted you happy and he didn't think he could provide for you then."
Oh, thank you, Angel that is all you've told her. Christine balled her skirt into her fists. I could not handle her knowing your other secrets.
"He told me this to say I can't make Rasputin love me," The contents of the drawstring bag dumped with a loud clank and thud onto the vanity top. "Seems like you're saying the same thing."
"Oh darling, I kind of am. Except, it's not so black and white," Christine walked over to the vanity. "At that time I cared for both your father and Raoul. I'm just trying to say just because Rasputin doesn't want to be with you doesn't mean he doesn't care for you." She picked up a brush and brushed Charlotte's hair as the girl removed her make up with the cold cream. "You're still young and need to finish school and sort through all your emotions. Really understand them and yourself."
"I've been trying, Mama I really have!" Charlotte met her mother's gaze in the mirror's reflection. "I don't like being mean or being a brat! Rasputin really showed me my errors while caring for who I was. That's why I love him."
The soprano smiled as she sat the brush down and started a French braid in the white blonde hair, "I am glad of that but you need to learn to love yourself like that."
"But what about the other feelings? Does love cause those too? It's like an ache that pools by my legs." Charlotte leaned back as her mother pulled on her hair in making the braid. "Sometimes it just happens when I think about Rasputin."
Christine sighed large her shoulders sinking, "I was waiting for this. They are a part of becoming a young lady that go along with your menses. They are related to the excitement of seeing someone you really like to the point of love; someone you'd want to have a baby with…"
"What if I don't want to have a baby? What if I just wanted Rasputin to touch me there? Do men feel the same way?" Charlotte handed her mother a ribbon to tie off the braid.
Taking a deep breath, Christine held it as she tied off the braid. This is so much more difficult than I thought it would be. Oh how did Erik handle this with Goose?
A light tap at the bedroom door interrupted the thought. It creaked open, "Is everyone proper enough for me to join?"
Mother and daughter watched The Phantom enter the room in the mirror's reflection.
"So, what was all the commotion about this evening? The make-up and the dress?"
"Don't play dumb, Dada, you know what it was about. Just don't be mean to Rose about her loaning me one of her S-Shaped corsets."
"Yes, the summer saga of your first love and heartbreak."
"Erik! Don't be cruel!" Christine turned and faced her husband. "Besides did we even say we were ready?"
Erik entwined his fingers behind his back, "No but I have waited long enough. So, Charlotte, you went looking for Rasputin even though I assured you he would come by the house to say good bye."
His daughter spun around on her vanity's stool, "You said he was only going to stop by on his way to the train station. That was not the good bye I wanted with him. I owed him a proper apology."
"And I am guessing some stolen kisses that wouldn't have happened in front of us?" Erik tilted his head and arched his good eyebrow.
"And what of it?" Charlotte jumped to her feet. "I am not a child! He told me I was beautiful, lovely, nice…he's made me better this summer."
"Has he? I would say you're still acting pretty entitled, dressing up, defying your parent's requests…"
"At least I didn't kidnap him to prove my love," Charlotte snapped spinning around heading toward her bed. "I'm done, Dada. Mama and I have a lady's only conversation to finish."
Erik's eyes met his wife's and when they did, she nodded.
"Yes, Lottie we will finish that conversation but we also need to have one that involves your father," Christine took her daughter's hands and guided her so they both sat on the bed.
"You know how you don't want to go to Florida with us for the winter?" The Soprano squeezed her daughter's hands gently. "Well, your father and I found a nice boarding school for you attend in Manhattan."
"Boarding school?" She yanked her hands away from her mother's. "Just because I don't want to go to Florida, you're going to send me away like I am a problem?"
"Charlotte, you are a problem!" Erik snapped before he realized he did.
Charlotte's eyes burned black as she turned and looked at her father. They looked just like his when he wouldn't get his way during the days of the Paris Opera House.
"Lottie, darling," Erik took a deep breath and regained his composure, "You are so much like me when I was younger. And I have indulged you since the day you were born. You have matured so much this summer; becoming less selfish, more composed; even if it was born from some dramatics. I want to see you continue that. You have the chance to be a part of proper society; to be something I never was from the beginning."
"But what if I don't want to be part of proper society?" Charlotte stood and turned to her father. "I have seen how they treat people who look like us."
"You have seen how individuals treat us, especially if you let them bother you. How often have we walked Manhattan and been just another face in the crowd? How many other people have we seen their bodies and faces pockmarked from disease and not from birth deformities? I have learned we shall be so fortunate that ours are only birthmarks."
Christine spoke up, "No one is going to make you be a part of society. You can still do your shows at Phantasma. School will just help show you be more considerate, mature…help you close the gap on the progress you've made this summer."
"How so?" The young lady arched her good eyebrow.
"Besides doing your academic lessons there instead of with a governess, it is also a finishing school."
"Didn't Rose go to a finishing school?" Charlotte twirled the tie of her dressing gown.
"She did," Christine smiled at her daughter.
"You have grown rather fond of her…"
Christine cut her husband off, "Angel, let's finish this conversation in the morning. Now that we have at least approached the idea, I think finishing the discussion will be better after a good night's sleep; especially after Charlotte and I finish our lady's conversation."
The young lady giggled, "Yes, Mama very much so." She walked over and threw her arms around her father giving him a large hug, "Good-night, Dada."