Prima Donna: A Novel

by Megan Chance

  When I made no move to do so, he pulled back the folds of the handkerchief to reveal a filigreed circlet of gold, close-webbed with sapphires and a large pearl for a moon and nine diamonds--one for each year we'd been together. The last time I'd seen this had been in a pawnshop in Cheyenne, in the owner's dirty hand. I had never thought to look upon it again.

  "How did you get this?" My voice sounded flat and far away.

  "Pinkertons. When the agent told me he'd found it, I had him buy it back for me."

  I stared down at the brooch. I could not look at him.

  "You saved it for last," he said quietly. "It must have meant something to you."

  I curled my fingers tight around it until I felt the press of the diamonds against my skin. Then I forced myself to release it. I held it out to him. "You should keep it. I think it matters more to you."

  He laughed a little. I heard his disappointment. But he didn't take the brooch. He pushed my hand away. "Come back to your life, Sabine," he murmured. "Please."

  CHAPTER 19

  I tucked the brooch and the journal away beneath rolled stockings in the far corner of the dresser drawer. I thought of what he'd said, "It would do you good to read it again," and my reluctance to do so rose solidly before me. What did the scribblings of the girl I'd been matter? I had already lived through it, and I remembered it too well. Why remind myself of the regrets I had, when all I wanted to do was leave them behind?

  It was already time to return to the Palace. I knocked on Charlotte's door and got no answer; she must have already gone. The thought made me hurry. When I got to the box-house, there were men gathered around the poker tables, but it would be a slow night, I knew from experience. Mondays always were. I didn't see Johnny, and that was a relief.

  I found Charlotte just outside the dressing room, adjusting the ruffle at her bodice. I pulled her aside and said in a low voice, "Have you seen Johnny today?"

  "Not yet. I only just got here."

  "If he asks, tell him I was with you this morning."

  "All right."

  I squeezed her arm. "Thank you," I said, starting to move away.

  "Why are we lying to him?"

  I looked back at her. Now was my chance to tell her the truth. I'd meant to do so eventually, someday, but I realized I wasn't ready to tell her or anyone else about Gideon or what he'd offered me. I felt too unsettled. So I made myself smile and said, "I'll tell you later. I'd best get back to the floor."

  I spent the next hour at Jim Ryan's table, trying to make up for my neglect the night before. I forced myself to concentrate on the part I played as if it were a role and I were on a stage, as if the girls singing were the chorus, and the men sitting at the tables and playing cards were scenery. And I found myself watching for him, waiting for his arrival, thinking that at the end of the show I would find him backstage the way I always had, a smile on his face, criticism or praise ready on his lips. "You were perfect tonight, Sabine. No one plays Marguerite as you do...."

  Then I saw Johnny hovering near the bar, and I remembered last night with Kerwin, and the truth of who I was and what I was came back hard enough that I sank into the nearest chair with the force of my disappointment.

  He wandered over. "Feeling all right, honey?"

  I shook my head tightly. "Like hell."

  "No wonder." He pulled up a chair, straddling it.

  "What happened to Mr. Kerwin?"

  "At his hotel."

  "He hasn't gone back to Portland?"

  "Not yet."

  "So I didn't ruin everything?"

  "Not quite. Thanks to the fact that I got him drunk enough that he's mostly forgot the evening."

  I let out a sigh of relief. "Thank God."

  "God had nothing to do with it." Johnny's gaze was thoughtful. "He's staying another few days. You want to try again with him? I'd say tonight, but he seems worse off than you."

  "You still trust me with him?"

  "I don't know. Suppose you tell me what last night was about."

  "I was just ... stupid."

  "Ah. Talk it all out at the docks this morning with your tall friend?"

  I frowned at him. "The docks?"

  "Ain't that where you went so early?"

  It took me a moment to remember that I'd asked Charlotte to lie, to realize that he'd spoken to her. "The docks. Yes."

  "So now you got it worked out? Whatever was eating you?"

  I nodded. "You won't see me that drunk again."

  He let out his breath and rose, twisting the chair back into place. "See that you keep that promise." He paused; I felt his gaze hard on my face. "I didn't know you had a fondness for watching ships."

  My smile was wooden. "Didn't you?"

  "Something new to know." He bent to kiss me, and his lips were soft and warm, and I felt guilty. Yet not guilty enough to keep him there, and I was relieved when he stepped away.

  THAT NIGHT, WHEN the last customer left, and Johnny was in his office, I went up to the orchestra loge to bring down the beer glasses the musicians always left behind. There was an empty bottle of whiskey turned onto its side on top of the piano, sitting in a pool of spilled drink, and with a sigh, I picked it up and wiped at the whiskey with my sleeve.

  I sat on the piano bench, setting the bottle aside. I raised the lid and laid my fingers gently enough upon the keys that they didn't depress, and I looked down at my hands and saw Gideon's instead. His long fingers, knobby jointed, spreading and jumping over the keys without effort, as if they moved separate from his thought, so quick and sure they were.

  Slowly, I depressed a key, a low, resonant E that seemed to vibrate into the floor. When the sound faded, I heard some of the girls talking below, readying to leave.

  I pressed another key--a G this time, and then higher, to a B and then an A, and when I hit the A I let out the air from my lungs in a matching hum--so softly I barely heard myself. One, two, three. A, C, F. My voice was breathy and quiet, for myself only. "Vanderbilt's tired of waiting for a box at the Academy. He's building an opera house." "They need singers." "Notoriety fills houses." Little temptations hiding in every note, in every catch of breath. "It could be different."

  I felt the desire, coiled hard and tight, not the same as it had been before, when the church choir had been enough to quiet it. This desire could not be assuaged by choral music and hymns so easy to sing I could do so in my sleep. It quivered now, waiting, hungry with possibility, needing adoration and acclaim, anticipating joy.

  I hit the G; my voice wavered.

  C, A, D. My fingers pressed harder. The notes jarred. I hit a sharp. I stopped humming.

  Impatiently I slammed the lid back down and rested my elbows on it.

  I don't know how long I sat that way. When I heard the soft step up the stairs, I thought I had imagined it. Voices were still murmuring downstairs. But then she settled her hand upon my shoulder, and I wasn't the least bit startled.

  "Duncan wants to know if you're going home or staying with Johnny."

  I looked up to see her standing behind me. "I don't know."

  "He's tired, Marguerite. He wants to go now."

  "Then you should go ahead. I'll stay here."

  She hesitated. Her fingers tightened on my shoulder. "Why don't you come home tonight? You said you'd tell me where you were today."

  "I was ... nowhere. I went for a walk."

  She sat down on the bench beside me, forcing me to move over. "Maybe you can get Johnny to believe that shit, but I ain't Johnny. You ain't the kind to go promenading by yourself. Where were you?"

  "That is where I was," I said irritably.

  "Walk down by the water, did you?"

  "Yes, as it happens."

  "I'm surprised I didn't see you. I happened to be promenading myself." Her voice took on a mockingly aristocratic tone. "With the good Dr. Marsdon."

  "Were you?"

  "I never thought to like a respectable man so well." She sighed, a soft breath of air, scented with the
watered-down whiskey we gave the girls. "You know, I been thinking. Maybe ... if this place goes the way you and Johnny say ... I don't know ... maybe I could ... give up the whoring."

  She was waiting; I felt it. She was telling me something important, and I knew I should listen. But all I could hear were Gideon's words in my head. All I felt was my own longing. "I suppose."

  She went quiet. She traced the keyboard cover with her finger, leaving a greasy streak behind. "You learn to play this from your musician?"

  I said without thinking, "The first time I saw him, he showed me how to play 'Hot Cross Buns.'"

  "The first time you saw him?" she echoed.

  I nodded.

  "He had a piano there on the street under your window?"

  Too late I heard the flatness of her voice. Too late I remembered the lie I'd told her. "I meant ... the first time ... face-to-face. The lesson."

  She rose. I felt the loss of her warmth, which made me shiver. "How much of it was true, Marguerite?"

  I could not answer her; I could not look at her.

  She went down the stairs, and I heard her call out to Duncan, "She's staying with Johnny tonight," and I heard his quiet assent and the cross of her footsteps to the door, the open and close, and then the silence she left behind.

  I WOKE SWEATING, haunted by a nightmare I could no longer remember. I was too distressed to care about waking Johnny as I slid from beneath his arm. I went to the window, pushing aside the curtain of fading, dusty calico to stare out onto the street. It was just past dawn; I'd been asleep for only a short time. Below, it was quiet, only a crow pecking at something lodged in the mud, cawing raucously as his fellows joined him.

  I knew I must make Gideon go. If nothing else, the despair I felt at the thought should convince me how necessary it was. I wanted what he offered too much, but I could not let myself forget what had led to my own hands covered with blood and the scar that marked me. I had meant to leave him. I had been desperate to do so. The girl I'd been had known what was best; I could not let four and a half years of distance tell me otherwise. I looked over my shoulder at Johnny. I had another life now. A life I meant to be happy in.

  I stood there gathering my courage and my resolution, and then I dressed and went to the New Brunswick Hotel and knocked upon his door.

  He did not seem surprised to see me. He was only partially dressed--it was early, after all, and I supposed I'd been lucky to not find him still abed. His shirt was open to reveal his long underwear beneath, his hair tousled from sleep. He'd obviously been shaving; he wiped at his face with a towel as he stepped back to let me in. He missed a bit of shaving lather. I reached up to wipe it away with my thumb--a reflex born of habit, a quick flick that I wished I had not done the moment I did so. His skin was warm, the hardness of his jaw familiar. I curled my thumb into my palm and stepped quickly away.

  He seemed hardly to notice. He flung the towel to the top of the dresser and asked, "Did you read the journal?"

  I'd forgotten all about it. "No."

  "Have you changed your mind?"

  I shook my head.

  "Then why are you here?"

  "I came to convince you that I mean what I say." I sat down at the desk. The music folio was there, stuffed full, the curled edges of the sheets peeking from between the covers, and the hunger to see that music again made my mouth water. I rested my fingers on the smooth, worn leather. "I'm not going back. I want you to leave. It's a waste of your time to stay."

  "Let me be the judge of that."

  "You've wasted so much time already." I drew my finger down the soft leather, down the side, over the edges of the pages. "Four years. I should think you would hate to waste more."

  I meant to be cruel; I couldn't help myself. I expected him to make some cutting reply and was surprised when he didn't. He came up behind me.

  "Why don't you look at it?"

  I glanced at him over my shoulder. "Look at what?"

  "The music."

  I drew my fingers from the folio. I shook my head.

  He said, "Come, Bina. You know you want to."

  "I've seen it all before."

  "The mad scene from Lucia's there, and the Fountain Song," he said softly. "Music from La Trav, and your Marguerite, the Barber, Il Trov--"

  "I don't need to see."

  "Aida, Don Giovanni, L'africaine--"

  "I've never really liked that one."

  "Sonnambula." He was almost whispering. "Ernani." He was closer now, leaning over me, pulling the ribbon of the folio so it slipped loose, then opening the cover. On top was The Barber of Seville, Rosina's aria. Despite myself, I looked at it. The notes jumped off the page and into my brain like an electric current, the little notations above written in familiar pencil, the notations he'd made for me. This was the music we had practiced with in the past, his commentary on where I should embellish and where I should not, his always brilliant assessment of the music and how it should best be sung.

  Each note leaped free and into my head, long remembered, never forgotten. My eyes raced hungrily over it, and the room disappeared before me, fading until what was real was the illusion cast over it, a glamour of white satin beneath my fingers and silk flowers in my hair, the smell of the gas footlights and the too-fresh paint of scenery strong in my nose. "Una voce poco fa,"--"a little voice I heard just now...."

  I reached to turn the page. One after another and then the next, not pausing until I came to the reconciliation duet from Ernani, and then I stopped, suddenly breathless.

  "'Tu, Perfida.' Remember?" he asked softly.

  I nodded. I felt him against me, though the back of the chair was between us. He bent to read the music over my shoulder, his hair brushing my cheek.

  "I think it's when I first fell in love with you," he said. "Onstage, watching you sing those words to me. I remember thinking you were either the best actress I'd ever seen, or that you were in love with me too."

  I could barely get the words past my throat. "I wasn't that good an actress."

  "One night Barto was watching from the wings--did I ever tell you this?--and he pulled me aside and told me what a lucky man I was. He said that if he'd been twenty years younger and you had looked at him that way, he would never have left your side."

  "You never told me that," I whispered.

  "I suppose I didn't want you to know you'd snared another one." He laughed lightly. His breath stirred the pages. "There was already enough competition."

  The memories were there again, shifting back, shrouded and drifting....

  "When I saw you in Rinzetti's arms ... I wanted to kill him, you know. It was all I could do to let you be with him."

  "You had Follett," I said tightly. "And Willa."

  "Yes. I told myself that mattered. But it didn't, Bina. You know it didn't. Because I had that duet too. I think I would give anything to hear you sing it again now."

  And then he began to sing his part, lightly, teasingly, against my ear. His voice was gravelly and unused, rough with smoke, but still his, the voice I remembered, not good enough for real fame, but one that had disguised very well and for a long time his real talent, and I closed my eyes and remembered looking at him across the stage, his eyes kohled and his reddened lips, his dark hair gleaming red in the footlights. I remembered pretending he meant those words he sang, and how much I wished they were true. And with that memory came another one, hazy, as if through smoke and distance. The way I'd leaned into him as he played piano during practice. The way I'd deliberately put everything I felt into my eyes when we sang together, how I'd meant for him to know I meant to have him.

  The realization startled me. Hoarsely, I said, "I know what you're doing. I'm no callow girl any longer. Your seduction won't work this time."

  "Won't it?" His lips brushed my hair. "Remember, Bina? Remember the way it really was? It was good, wasn't it?"

  "Some of it," I admitted.

  "Most of it." He drew back, and I felt him tug my hair, twirling a
loosened strand of it about his finger. "I miss your yellow hair."

  I tugged gently away. "That's no longer who I am."

  His pale eyes flared. "It's who you'll always be. You belong up on Vanderbilt's stage, Sabine. And not just there, but at La Scala too, and Covent Garden, the Theatre Italien.... Take back your place. They'll come in droves to see you. You barely realized your promise. There was so much more to be had."

  The things he made me see, the things I wanted ... I shook my head desperately. I jerked away from him, on my feet so quickly the chair rocked. "And you would be right there beside me."