Haunted Tenor (Singers in Love Book 1)

by Irene Vartanoff

  The cocoa was all gone. I washed the mug and spoon and put them in the rack. There were no other dishes drying. Sean had gone out for every meal or brought in takeout. I had hardly eaten all weekend. No appetite. Could that have made me a little light-headed? I felt as if a shadow were pressing on me. I knew I was running out of time to solve the mystery—or do what the ghost wanted.

  I thought I finally understood. The last time I had stayed all the way to the end, I saw that in this production Don Carlo was killed by the king’s soldiers. It was a harsh ending and an unwelcome one. I read the reviews and learned that the ending had been severely criticized. There had been booing on opening night. Had there been any when I had seen this opera? I did not remember. Once I started getting those weird, otherworldly feelings, I tended to blank out on what the audience did. Recovering from an astral trip onto the stage was even more isolating. I listened only to the compulsions in my brain, and then it was over and I noticed nothing.

  My theory was simple. The ghost did not like the opera’s ending, and kept trying to force me to save Don Carlo. Being a ghost, and (presumably?) devoid of human intellect, the ghost kept pushing me to try it too soon in the story. If I was right, it was the last scene that I must change. Not that it was up to me. I would do my part and sneak into the opera house. The ghost had to do its part and get me onstage again as a character. This would happen only if I had correctly doped out what the ghost required of me.

  If I finally carried it out, what then? All along, it had seemed as if this production of Don Carlo was special. I thought of it that way now because through the opera I had met JC. What came next? Would this ghost haunt the Nat’s current production of Don Carlo for the next ten years, pushing random women to fall in love with tenors and thus develop the psychic connection that allowed the ghost to change the ending? Not that I felt my feelings for him were ghost-created. JC and I would have met at one of Sean’s parties sooner or later. We would have flirted and the spark would have been struck. Our romance would have progressed along normal lines, without any accusations of stalking or any weird ghostly experiences.

  The weekend finally ended and I carefully dressed for Monday on the job. I had one little errand to run at lunchtime, but otherwise, I planned to work all day and then leave as if I was following the rules. Then I would race home and dress in the disguise that I had hidden underneath my bed so Sean wouldn’t see it. I planned to change my look so completely that the ushers and security guards would not recognize me. First, I’d heavily outline my eyes, and rouge up, too. Striking lipliner and gloss would complete the dramatic effect. Since I was a minimal makeup kind of girl, the heavy makeup would blur my usual features and make recognition difficult.

  The pièce de résistance was the dress I would skinny into. It was a slinky red knit and totally lethal. I’d owned it for a year and never dared to wear it. That dress was a threat, utterly revealing while showing little skin. Tonight, I would be another person, a confident, sexy woman. No one would recognize me. Armed with a ticket and a completely new style, I intended to be present. I would outwit the gatekeepers.

  It all went as planned, with the key addition of a wig borrowed from Rachel. She thought I was playing a trick on Sean. Hopefully, none of the ushers would recognize the wig up close. It had been used, she told me, for one of the 1910-era demimondaines in La Rondine last season. The wig was an artful blonde shoulder-length bob with heavy front bangs, very sophisticated. It completely changed my basic boring brown-haired look.

  I completed my makeover and was stunned at my transformation. I’d always had a reasonable amount of self-confidence, but this effect was beyond confident. It was bold. The woman I saw in the mirror was sophisticated, alluring, and totally as glamorous as the Spanish tenor for whom I was doing all this.

  While Sean was out, I had practiced walking in the shoes this dress called for, high-arched stilettos. A swaying, sexy walk, oozing confidence. I had owned them for years, a gift from my friend Wendy on my twenty-first birthday. I’d had no use for stilettos while doing research at the university library. Now, with shoulders back, boobs thrust forward, feet on tiptoe, I swayed enticingly, like a celebrity.

  One cab ride later, I arrived at the opera house for the second time that day. I minced confidently toward the ticket checkpoint. Elderly couples made way for me. Men looked me over with appreciation. The usher simply scanned my ticket, and I was through.

  Now came the hard part, hiding out in the ladies’ room until the last big surge of patrons rushed down the aisles. I had to time it right. I didn’t want the ushers or any other security people to have time to scrutinize me at length, so I needed to go with the crowd. I also didn’t want to be in my seat too early, where again I might be stared at a little too much.

  Maybe my disguise was too over the top. It caused people to look at me. On the good side, the revealing dress called attention to my breasts and derriere, and away from my face. The wig changed the entire shape of my head and covered my cheeks and forehead. Plus, the heavily applied makeup was a veil of its own. After a few minutes, I joined the crowd surging down the aisles.

  Although I was nervous, nothing happened to spoil my plan, and Act I, Act II, and Act III went by without a hitch. At each intermission, I went to the bar and bought a glass of champagne, and then wandered around carrying it while doing my best to look like a woman of the world. I think I pulled it off. I went to the terrace bar, not the ordinary one on the orchestra floor. In that rarefied air, the bartenders flirted with me, and a couple of men on the prowl actually started talking to me and asked for my phone number.

  “No hard feelings, darlings, but I already have a man.” I laughed, wagging a long, manicured fingernail at them. (I’d had my nails done a brilliant red during my lunch hour.) Then I drifted away back down the fabulous double staircase. All part of the role I was playing.

  In my seat for the last act, I wondered if it had all been for nothing. So far, I had experienced none of the jittery feelings that the ghostly presence usually imbued in me. Was anything going to happen? Was I completely wrong about the ghost’s purpose for me?

  No. As soon as the house lights dimmed, I sensed astral projection would happen soon. My chest tightened. A cold rush swept up my extremities, yet the skin of my face was burning hot. The ghostly presence was in me. Now I had to fight my ghost. There was a lot of act to get through first. It began with the king bemoaning that his wife didn’t love him, which I still thought was intensely egotistical of him considering he’d married a girl half his age without even courting her. Then there was a lot more melodrama, including a terrifying scene in which the Grand Inquisitor threatened the king and demanded Posa’s life, and a scene in which the king accused the queen of adultery and she fainted, and Eboli, that traitor, repenting of her sins. Since Carlo wasn’t in this section of the last act, there wasn’t any danger that the ghost would push me into the action there, but my whole body was now tense.

  The next scene was in Carlo’s prison cell, with Posa urging Carlo to save Flanders. As Posa tried to get Carlo on board with his plan, my ghostly presence urged me to jump into the scene. I attempted to chill my ghost out. Not now! Wait!

  After an assassin shot and killed Posa, my body relaxed a little. With the king and the Grand Inquisitor arriving to take charge, Carlo was safe enough. My ghostly visitor subsided. A few minutes later, we reached the final scene. It could not be easy for JC to inhabit the persona of the luckless prince. Don Carlo was a sad figure whose final farewell to his beloved underlined how tragic their circumstances were throughout this miserable story.

  The ghostly presence grew insistent. I must help now. Carlo and Elisabetta’s final sad duet ended as their clasped hands dropped and they reluctantly pulled away from each other, he to Flanders and glory, she to a loveless marriage and duty.

  The king and his soldiers burst in, finally having caught the frustrated lovers in flagrante—finding the queen alone with a man was proof enough, but actuall
y touching him? Outrage. The king set his soldiers on Carlo. He drew his sword to defend himself, but the soldiers were about to kill him.

  Suddenly, I was the ghost of the Emperor Charles V, Carlo Quinto, roused from my mausoleum. In the garb of a monk, I sang in a stentorian voice that the sufferings of the world ended only in heaven. I opened the gate without touching it, and reached my hand out to Don Carlo.

  There was recognition and confusion in JC’s eyes. The other singers also saw me. They gasped. My hand grabbed Don Carlo’s, and with a strength powered by the ghost, I pulled Carlo into the tomb. Because I was a seven foot tall monk statue come to life with ghostly power, JC’s bodily strength was no match for mine, and unwillingly at first, he let it happen. He took the final steps of his own accord, as all the singers continued with their last lines and the music ramped up to a great clashing crescendo.

  The audience shrieked and cried their approval. This ending was counter to the program, but it was the traditional, popular ending. The crowd obviously loved it. There were loud bravos.

  As the music swelled, a large piece of metal crashed down in the exact spot where JC would have been standing if I hadn’t dragged him into the mausoleum.

  The curtain came down very fast, but back in my own body in a split second, even I saw the fallen metal that would have killed JC. Killed him. Ohmigod.

  I shrieked with horror. Applause deafened my outcries. JC and the rest of the cast were hustled in front of the curtain ASAP, probably to show they were uninjured. One of the non-singing soldiers was also taking a bow, holding a bloodied towel to his face. Shrapnel?

  The singers curtsied and took their bows, and flowers rained down on them. Sean got a nice ovation. JC, the star of the evening, got screams and hearty applause. He looked straight at me, despite my disguise. Then he picked up a rose someone had tossed him, and he kissed it. He threw it to me.

  I caught it. Awkwardly, with both hands. I did not know what it meant, only what I hoped. I wondered how he had recognized me. Of course. Sean knew my seat number and probably told him.

  The clapping went on for a long time. I clasped my rose to my heart, finally relaxed for the first time in weeks. The ghost was gone. My work was done. I had saved Don Carlo, and I had also saved JC, the man I loved, who perhaps loved me too. Finally, the tragic opera Don Carlo had a happy ending.

  Chapter 11

  After all the bows had been taken, I stayed at my seat as the auditorium slowly cleared out. People were excited about the dropped piece of equipment. “Did you see that?” “Vasquez could have been killed.” “Amazing.”

  The security chief, my bête noire, appeared at my elbow. He was smiling. “Ms. Grant? Señor Vasquez would like you to come backstage to his dressing room. Please follow me.”

  Could I believe him? It didn’t matter now. My ghostly mission had been completed. I followed him sideways across the vast room to the backstage entrance.

  We passed the door guard, and then walked the long corridor to the dressing rooms.

  “Here we are.” The security chief knocked on JC’s door and left me, giving me a slight bow. “Nice disguise, by the way.” His comment bemused me, but not for more than a second. JC threw open his door and pulled me inside, then slammed it shut.

  I was in a passionate embrace before I could draw a breath. Then he stole what oxygen I had left with his ardent kisses and caresses. “Mi alma,” he called me, and, “my angel,” as his lips roamed my face. “You’re so amazing.”

  He pulled back and looked at me in my slinky red number. “You are incredibly hot in that dress, but I’d like to take it off you. All right?”

  I nodded. His lips curved in a gleaming smile, and one finger played with my hair. “You can leave your wig on, sexy thing.” As he spoke, he was undoing my zipper. He pushed the gown down over my breasts and hips, and then he helped me step over it as it puddled on the floor. I was wearing nothing beyond my tiny panties and my stilettos.

  JC stood back and admired me. Then he gathered me into his arms and carried me to his couch. He was still in his stage costume, although he had wiped off his makeup. Bit by bit, caress by caress, we removed his embroidered jacket, his full-sleeved shirt, those tall boots, and the rest. We smiled at each other and were gentle with each other.

  When we were both naked, JC said one more thing. “Thank you for saving my life. It now belongs to you.”

  We made love, silently and beautifully.

  After it was over, and we were still overcome by what had passed, Sean came banging on the door to break the mood.

  “I know you’re in there, Kathleen and JC. You’d better get your clothes on and come out and explain yourselves.”

  JC started to laugh. “Ah, the older brother.” He sang, in his clear tenor voice, “O fratel, pietà, pietà!”

  Sean sniggered behind the door. I didn’t know why. An opera in-joke, obviously.

  Sean’s next words confirmed that. “Hey, we baritones have to look out for the reputations of our sisters. Family honor, you know. I should probably challenge you to a duel.”

  We hurried into our clothes. JC helped me with the tight zipper but I had to slap his naughty fingers away. My makeup was all gone. JC insisted I keep wearing the wig.

  He threw open the door before he had completely stuffed his shirt down his pants. I was still putting on my stilettos, which were rather obviously under the couch. I would have been mortified, but he was so blandly in possession, and he looked so happy, that I couldn’t be.

  Sean took in our half-dressed state in one comprehensive glance.

  “Okay, spill,” he demanded. He was smiling. “How long has this been going on under my nose?”

  “Months,” JC responded.

  “Four-and-a-half centuries,” I said.

  “What?” Sean looked puzzled.

  By now, we were ready to go. JC gave Sean a hug—he was from Spain, after all, where such open PDAs between men were common—and then drew me close.

  “Let’s go find a bar, and we’ll talk, my brother.” JC obviously was in an expansive mood. Good sex will do that, and we’d shared so much more, even in those short minutes of intimacy.

  Sean showed his perplexity. “I thought you two hardly knew each other.”

  “We’ll explain,” I said.

  “That’s some dress you’re falling out of,” Sean continued. “You don’t look like yourself.”

  JC drew me closer, his fingers splayed protectively on my hip. “She looks beautiful.”

  My elated mood continued after we picked up my coat from the check room and then taxied downtown to a quiet late-night restaurant in the village and found a private table. Sean asked leading questions the whole way. Now JC started to answer them.

  “I thought your sister was a stalker,” he began. I could hear how rough his voice was after his long night of singing. I put a hand on his.

  “Why not rest your voice, and let me tell the story?” I suggested. JC twisted his hand to grasp mine, brought it up for a kiss that sent a shiver straight through me, and nodded. I took a deep breath and then described it all, leaving out the sex, of course. Occasionally, JC interjected a comment. Finally, I got to tonight’s excitement.

  “So, this evening, I created a disguise to fool security. I got in. Then I waited. In the final act, the familiar compulsion started to build in me. Actually, it began in the last scene you two did together, but I fought it. When Posa got shot, I could feel the urgency from the ghostly presence recede temporarily.”

  “The ghost didn’t care that I was dead? I’m insulted,” Sean said.

  “I guess that’s a clue to the identity of the ghost. Anyway, as soon as the last scene began, it started up all over again. Stronger. I knew I would make the astral projection. Or whatever it is.”

  “You did. You didn’t hypnotize the monk,” JC said.

  “No. I’ve never hypnotized anyone.”

  “Of course you have,” he contradicted me. “Especially in that red dress.
”

  “Ha. Maybe. I did collect a couple of phone numbers from friendly men during intermission,” I said, teasing him.

  “You won’t be using those numbers.” Suddenly, he looked haughty and possessive.

  “That’s enough, children,” Sean interjected. He could see that JC and I were beginning to retreat into our own world. “Finish the story.”

  “I felt the ghostly presence growing in power. Then I was the monk, singing his part, but pushing the gates open.”

  “How? They’re electronically controlled,” Sean objected.

  “Another mystery I doubt we’ll ever solve. At least everybody saw it.”

  “Especially the people in the wings. We thought the monk had gone nuts,” Sean said.

  I turned to JC “You were in the middle of it. Didn’t you feel anything strange yourself?”

  “Yes. Your hand, not a man’s hand.”

  He had my hand in his now. I was totally relaxed and happy.

  Sean got impatient. “That’s some tall tale.”

  “Except it’s the truth,” I said. “You know I’m not a liar.”

  “I didn’t say you were, so settle down. Why did that metal thing drop?”

  “The ghost did it.”

  “It’s being looked into,” JC offered. They started discussing the exact name of the thingie. To me it had looked like an old-fashioned spotlight. Even if it had only weighed five or ten pounds, when dropped from one of the dozens of pipes at the ceiling of the stage, that was the equivalent of four stories up. It could have killed him.

  Some of my elation was fading because I was exhausted. The men’s faces also showed fatigue after so many hours of singing, but I had the tact not to say so. This was their life. They were alert, even wired after completing their taxing performance. I, on the other hand, had started my day hours earlier than they. I was beginning to droop now that my adrenaline rush was over. The caffeine in my tea was not keeping me awake. “Guys, I’m beat.”