Phantom

by Laura DeLuca

  In the play, the managers sang the song to Carlotta to try to coerce her into performing after she had been upstaged. But they had all been through the scenes enough that they had the whole play memorized. The two of them, the black-haired Goth and the blue-eyed surfer, were polar opposites of one another, yet they managed to sing in perfect harmony. For the first time, and most likely the last time, they were fighting for a common goal—to get her to return to the play. Rebecca couldn’t help but smile at their performance. They noticed the change in her demeanor right away, and she could tell by both sets of gloating eyes that they knew they were winning; she was about to give in.

  “What are you guys doing out here?” Carmen demanded from the auditorium doors. “Miss King is just about ready to have a heart attack. Becca, you aren’t really going to quit, are you?”

  Rebecca was quiet for a minute. Justyn and Tom were both waiting, looking at her pathetically. Justyn looked a little more confident about what her answer was going to be, even before she knew for sure herself.

  “No, I’m not quitting,” Rebecca told Carmen. “Come on. Let’s get back to practice.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “I can’t believe you’re letting them fight over you like this.” Carmen made a face as she picked through Rebecca’s minimal nail polish selection. She finally settled on a dark shade of maroon. “It’s completely degrading. Not just to you, but to the entire female gender as a whole.”

  Rebecca rolled her eyes. “I think you’re exaggerating a little.”

  “I think its romantic, watching them vie for your affection,” Debbie added in her defense. “They must both really like you.”

  “Everyone loves Becca,” Carmen said, not without some bitterness. “And she won’t let us forget it.”

  Rebecca stopped painting her nails long enough to look up at Carmen in surprise. She was a little peeved by her attitude, but she couldn’t think of a quick enough comeback. She let the comment pass altogether. Besides, the last thing she wanted was to fight with her friends. She didn’t really understand what Carmen was so upset about. They were supposed to be having a relaxing Friday night, free from the drama of her feuding co-stars.

  Carmen had come by after school, and Debbie had shown up not long afterwards for a girl’s night out. After a small amount of deliberation, they decided to catch a movie. They had a few hours before the film was going to start, so they broke out the beauty supplies and started on one of their favorite pastimes—makeovers. Once they had played around with their makeup, they moved on to manicures. It was peaceful and calming. Rebecca was hoping that the night would pass without any male influences, but Carmen and Debbie couldn’t talk about anything else.

  “So Becca, do you seriously like Justyn?” Debbie asked. “Or are you just curious about what’s underneath the black makeup?”

  Rebecca felt herself blush. “I think Justyn is . . . interesting. He’s artistic. Dramatic. You know, he’s not like other guys.”

  “He’s not like other human beings.” Carmen crinkled her nose in distaste. “I can’t believe you would even consider dating him when you have a hottie like Tom interested in you. I mean really, you’ve been fawning over Tom for years, and now that you have him . . . what? It’s not a big enough challenge anymore?”

  “It’s not like that.” Rebecca insisted. “I never meant for things to happen this way. Believe me, the last thing I ever wanted was to be attracted to Justyn, especially since he scares me a little sometimes. But I can’t help the way I feel.”

  “No one can choose who they love.” Debbie mused with faraway look in her eyes. “If we could, no one would ever have to get hurt.”

  The statement was true enough to make them drift into a few moments of thoughtful silence as they waited for their nails to dry. Rebecca leaned back into the pillows of her twin bed and closed her eyes. Instantly, an image of Justyn popped unbidden into her mind. He was dark and mysterious. But did she like him as a person, or the rebelliousness that he represented? Was she tired of always being stereotyped as the good girl, always playing it safe? Maybe for once she wanted to see what it was like to walk on the edge of the precipice. Or at the very least, peek over it.

  “Aren’t you a little worried that Justyn might not be safe?” Carmen asked. “I would think a scaredy cat like you would want to keep your distance from someone like him.”

  Rebecca felt a little indignant, and her annoyance was obvious in the angry tone of her voice. “What do you mean by ‘someone like him’? You know, you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.”

  Carmen shrugged, and suddenly became uninterested. “You’re the one who was worried that someone was stalking you. And if you’re going to eliminate Wendy because of her accident—” She made quotation marks with her fingertips. “Then Justyn would be the only logical suspect.”

  “Not really,” Debbie said. “Tom’s motive is just as strong as Justyn’s.”

  “We’ve known Tom since junior high. Do you really think he’d be capable of killing Mr. Russ?” Carmen asked. “Assuming that Mr. Russ was murdered.”

  Rebecca shuddered. She had managed to forget about the janitor in the last few ordinary days. True to their words, Justyn and Tom were on their best behavior, both making a valiant effort to avoid each other. And even Wendy had stayed quiet and caused no trouble. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened since the Halloween dance. Still, there were occasional reminders, such as the new janitor she had seen whistling happily in the hallway after school.

  No one had officially said that Mr. Russ’s death was anything but an accident. Rebecca had noticed a few men around the school, talking to teachers and students, who could have easily passed for plain-clothes policemen. She had to wonder how much, if anything, they knew about what had happened to Mr. Russ. She almost expected one of them to show up at her locker with a string of questions. But so far, no one had involved her. It made her feel a little better. If she were somehow connected to his death, surely the police would have figured it out by now.

  “I don’t believe that either one of them killed Mr. Russ,” Rebecca said with more confidence than she felt. “And I have no intention of living my life in a bubble because of a few random notes and phone calls. Like you guys said before, it’s probably just one big coincidence.”

  Debbie cheered her on. “That a girl, Becca! Don’t let this nut job scare you away from what you want. Love is worth fighting for. There’s nothing else in the world that matters more than love.”

  Carmen rolled her eyes. “Whatever. You’re being yanked around like a rope in a tug of war between two barbarians. If you call that love, then go for it. As for me, I’d rather stay single.”

  When she put in that way, Rebecca wondered if she would be better off single, too. But she figured she had to at least fulfill her end of the bargain and give both guys a chance. Maybe when it was over, she would decide she didn’t want either one of them. And that would be okay. In fact, it would make everything much easier. The trouble was that she was afraid she might still find herself drawn to both of them. If that happened, she wasn’t sure how she was going to make a decision without hurting them—or herself. But she would cross that bridge when she came to it. Right now, she was more concerned with heading to the chick flick they were planning to watch.

  “Come on,” Rebecca told her friends. “Let’s get out of here. I don’t know about you two, but I’m sick of talking about my love life. Let’s go wrap ourselves up in someone else’s love story for a few hours.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Debbie said as she slipped into her shoes.

  The three girls jogged down the steps, making as much noise as a herd of elephants. They grabbed their lightweight jackets as they came closer to the door. They were all giggling as Carmen told them about Jay’s most recent escapade. He had released a dozen mice during gym class, sending their female teacher into near hysterics. Rebecca was so busy laughing that she didn’t even notice the box on the steps when she went to o
pen the door until she practically tripped over it.

  “The queen of klutzes strikes again!” Carmen teased.

  Rebecca was a good sport and laughed at herself as she bent down to pick up the culprit. It was a long white box, wrapped with an elaborate black velvet bow. A little note in a small square envelope had her name emblazoned across it in beautiful, calligraphy-style handwriting.

  “Ohhh.” Debbie gushed. “It looks like one of the guys is trying to score a few extra points.”

  “Do you think so?” Rebecca smiled, secretly pleased at the prospect.

  “Duh, it’s a flower box,” Carmen said. “Of course it’s from one of the guys. Well, come on. Read the card already. Don’t leave us in suspense.”

  Rebecca felt her heart flutter in anticipation as she slipped the small note from the envelope. The same fancy handwriting greeted her, with a few poetic lines that she read aloud for the girls. It was a quote from one of her favorite and most exciting parts of the play. The phantom brings Christine down to his lair the second time, and gives her the choice of loving him, or having the entire opera house blown to pieces by the trap he’s set. As twisted as it was, it was strangely appealing to think of someone loving anyone so much.

  “The beauty of your soul is matched by your voice

  I am your master, but to love me is your choice.

  Sing with me angel. Join me this night.

  And never again look upon my face with fright.”

  Rebecca read the words a few times, and she wasn’t sure whether to swoon or panic. Justyn always had a way of making the lines from the play seem personal—so did whoever was trying to scare her. She didn’t know who had left the package on her doorstep. Maybe the two were one and the same. Either way, she wasn’t sure that she wanted to open the box.

  Carmen had no such qualms, and was already pulling off the fancy black bow. She ripped the top off the box with equal enthusiasm, but the glimmer of amusement and humor in her eyes quickly faded as the lid slipped from her trembling fingers and fell forgotten onto the floor. The smile died on her lips, her face turned white, and she put a hand over her mouth to stifle a gag.

  “Oh . . . gross . . . .”

  “That’s disgusting,” Debbie echoed.

  Rebecca didn’t say anything at all. Her churning stomach had a lot more to do with fear than with the awful smell or the sight that greeted her from the depths of the flower box.

  They were roses, or at least they had been at one time. Now they were slimy and rotten, and only barely resembled the thing of beauty they had once been. Squirming white maggots wrapped themselves around the decaying stems. As Rebecca struggled to keep down the greasy pizza she’d eaten for dinner, she began to realize that the phantom’s ways had a lot more to do with obsession than they did with love. The verse, which she read one last time, lost all their appeal.

  Chapter Seventeen

  When Saturday night finally arrived, Rebecca refused to let the awful gift—which she had tossed into the nearest dumpster—ruin her evening. She was turning over a new leaf. No longer would she play the role of the helpless victim. No longer was she going be a twenty-first century Christine, falling to pieces at the first sign of trouble. She was a modern, independent woman. She was going to proceed with confidence, with her head held high. She wasn’t going to spend a single minute worrying about the maggoty flowers or whoever was twisted enough to leave them on her doorstep. If the stalker had meant to scare her enough to ruin her evening with Tom, they had not succeeded. There was only one person who might ruin the night, and that was Tom himself. Rebecca was a little worried that their second date might not go any smoother than their first.

  She dressed with extra care even though Tom told her he was going to keep their evening casual. She didn’t mind. She was never one for excess, and anything other than casual would have been unlike him. After all, he was an all-American, blue jean sporting kind of guy. So Rebecca wore her jeans as well, along with a lightweight sweater. They were having an Indian summer in South Jersey; even though it was the beginning of November, it was still warm enough to go outside without a jacket in the early evening. She applied her makeup and brushed her hair. When she checked her reflection in the mirror, she was pleased with the results.

  Once she was dressed, there was nothing left to do but wait. It was nearly six and Tom would be arriving at any moment. She kept expecting the nervous jitters to begin. It was strange. She should have been a complete wreck. A month ago she would have been hyperventilating. Now, she was surprisingly calm, hardly even excited at all. Yet, when she thought ahead to the next weekend with Justyn, she felt her heart begin to flutter.

  Rebecca wandered over to her nightstand and picked up the book Justyn had given her. She had forgotten about it after the excitement of the Halloween dance, but that afternoon, she had read more than half of the paperback. She was surprised by how interesting it was. The more she read about the pagan deities, the guardian elements, and all the amazing magical practices that Justyn believed in, the more familiar it seemed to her. It was like she was reading a book that she had already read years before and it was all coming back to her as she flipped through the pages. Yet, she knew for a fact that she had never read anything about Wicca before. So why did the strange feeling of familiarity persist?

  Rebecca dropped the book onto the table when she heard the doorbell ring. She finally started to get the nervous jitters, but it was more because she was worried that her father would make it to the door before she did and begin the type of interrogation usually reserved for hardened criminals. Luckily, Rebecca moved a lot faster than her middle-aged father. She yelled out her goodbyes before her parents could even stick their heads out of the kitchen, and slipped out of the door before they had a chance to open their mouths. She found Tom waiting on the porch steps looking twice as nervous as she felt. A month ago, she would never have believed his demeanor possible.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey.”

  There was a moment of awkward silence, and he scratched his head. “So, are you ready?”

  She smiled. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  “Cool, then I guess we should get going.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  Rebecca followed him to his truck. She was incredibly relieved to see that Jay wasn’t waiting inside. Tom was much more gentlemanly than he had been on their first disaster of a date. Of course, he was sober this time. He opened the passenger side door, and even took her hand as she stepped up into the seat—probably a good idea considering her reputation for tripping and/or falling. It was a sweet gesture, and Rebecca felt her heart warm up just a little.

  “So,” Tom said once they had pulled out of the driveway. “I thought we’d grab something to eat and maybe catch a movie or something.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  It also sounded ordinary. It was the all-American date with the all-American boy. Why did that suddenly seem so boring? All her life she had settled for the simplest, the easiest, and the most normal course of action. When did that change? When did she start longing for something more, something different, something more exciting? In the back of her mind, she pondered that Justyn Patko would have thought of something much more interesting than your basic dinner and a movie.

  When they arrived at the restaurant, Rebecca was hardly surprised to find it was the typical Italian chain complete with the never-ending pasta bowl, and their famous salad and bread sticks combo. The walls were covered with paintings of Venice, the counters were lined with wine bottles, and every waiter and waitress recited the same greeting as they walked up to their tables.

  It was a nice place with a decent menu, but Rebecca was watching her waistline, so she stuck with just a salad. She needed to be sure she would be able to get into her costume, which the cast of the play had already been fitted for. Tom wasn’t worried about his weight. He ate so much lasagna, meatballs, sausage, bread sticks, and even dessert, that she was a little conce
rned they might have a repeat of the Halloween dance, with him spending half the night with his head in the toilet bowl. But he did manage to keep the conversation pleasant and flowing, asking her just as many questions about the things that she enjoyed as he spent talking about his love of surfing and basketball. It all seemed to be going well, and Rebecca was pretty much over her pessimistic thoughts. She was even starting to remember why she had liked him for so long. That is, until they got to the movie theater. Then she was reminded that Tom worried too much about what everyone else thought about him.

  They pulled up to the little theater about twenty minutes before the movie was supposed to start. Tom bought tickets for some thriller flick without even asking Rebecca whether she wanted to see it. But that wasn’t the worst of it. As they were standing in line to get popcorn and sodas, Jay and several other members of his posse came up behind them, slapping Tom on the shoulder.

  “Dude!” Jay shouted. “You didn’t tell me you were going to be here tonight.”

  “There’s a reason for that, Jay. I’m on a date.”