Page 56 of Our Strange Duet

I’d barely seen Raoul since the day he’d arrived at my apartment with his hopeful heart pinned to his sleeve. While he’d fallen headfirst into our courtship, sending flowers and chocolates and more boxes of gloves than I could ever hope to wear, we hardly ever saw each other. We met for an occasional coffee at nearby cafés, wedged between my call times. Sometimes I’d spot him emerging from the managers’ office and could offer a quick wave before being whisked to a costume fitting. But our schedules were so at odds we hadn’t had the time to so much as share a kiss.

Lovers indeed.

But that was hardly the sort of thing I’d tell La Carlotta.

Days went by, frustratingly long and painfully fast.

I missed Meg, who was also caught in a series of grueling rehearsals. She’d been given the featured solo in the Act III ballet and was taking the opportunity more seriously than anything I’d ever seen her do. I heard her music tinkle down from the ballet’s practice room every night as I left the stage, heading to my dressing room.

Part of me wanted to climb up the winding staircase and watch as she perfected each twirl and pointed toe. We could giggle and trade secrets as we always had when we were starting out, two little dancers in the corner, lost in layers of tulle and wild dreams.

But no. I had more rehearsals of my own to attend…at least in theory.

Every night, long after the rest of the company had retired, I sat in my dressing room and waited for Erik to appear.

On the first night, I’d braced myself, jumping at every sound as I anticipated the storm of his fury. I’d not been cast as the Countess. I’d gone out to a frivolous luncheon with a man, sacrificing hours that could have been spent on my craft in a reverie. I’d unmasked him—I was certain he’d not yet forgiven me for that. So many offenses had begun to pile up he was sure to be cross.

But he didn’t come.

Not that night or the one after that, or the so many others which followed.

Then one evening, just after midnight, as I sat at the piano, working through a section of the Countess’s fioriture, I felt a charge in the air, a sudden awareness of someone else in the space, even though the great mirror showed only myself.

I stopped playing. “Erik?” I dared to ask, feeling breathless in the silence that followed.

“Go on,” he encouraged.

“Where are you?”

I’d thought we were past this, the disembodied coachings, the pent-up frustration of having him so near yet so impossibly far away. I’d seen him, finally seen all of him. Why did he have to hide away again?

“I’m here,” he said, offering no further elaboration. “Go on.”

I stepped away from the piano, deciding to sing unaccompanied, and crossed to the mirror. My voice grew, filling the room with a flood of staccato notes and soaring runs. It was a difficult selection, technical and fussy, though I knew I’d performed it well.

But as seconds ticked by, with Erik saying nothing, doubt began to creep in.

Had I made mistakes? Was he disappointed in my choices?

An uneasy ache filled my stomach, and I began to worry that his silence was the prelude to an outburst of criticism.

When at last he spoke, his words nearly knocked me over: “You sang well.”

I was stunned, wondering if I’d misheard him. “I could have held out the middle section a touch more.”

“It was fine.”

I frowned. He’d never given such lukewarm feedback.

“Let me try it again. I was thinking if I took a breath just before—”

“If you wish.”

His clipped indifference left me reeling.

“Erik?” I reached out to stroke the surface of the mirror. I would have given anything for it to dissolve beneath my touch and open the passage back to my Angel and his world, back to when everything had been so much easier and uncomplicated. But it remained a hard and unyielding pane of glass. “Have I done something to upset you?”

Even as I asked the question, I knew it had not been phrased correctly. I’d seen him upset. I’d felt the heat of his barely contained violence, the waves of animosity which had rippled off him when I’d pulled the mask from his face. This…this was something altogether different.