A Phantom Enchantment (18 page)

I sighed. “I've always been a people pleaser,” I said.

“I know. But doing something for yourself doesn't make you a bad person. In fact, it can be the best course of action to prevent people from getting hurt in the future.”

“What do you mean?”

“You forget, I was young once, too. And I was a lot like you. I ended up marrying my high school sweetheart, and we loved each other very much.”

“I wish I had known Grandpa,” I said.

“I wish you had, too,” she said. “He was a good man, and we had a good marriage. But I always wondered what could have been. I never allowed myself to explore other options, to go down other paths. I wasn't as brave as you.”

“Brave? I'm not brave.”

“Sure you are. Going to Paris by yourself? That took guts. And living through this nightmare with Gray? Emma, you've been so strong, much stronger than I would have been. And now you have to make a decision that is going to hurt someone. You can't avoid it. And it takes strength to realize that and do it anyway. I know you'll make the right decision, whatever you choose.” She held up her empty glass and shook it. “Refill?”

“You bet. Hey, it's almost midnight,” I said when I saw the kitchen clock.

“Let's break out the noisemakers.”

I was gathering the pots and pans when my phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket and looked at the display, grinning stupidly. “Owen!”

“Happy New Year!” he said.

And then it occurred to me that it was just before six
A.M.
in Paris. He had woken himself up early so he could call me at midnight here.

“I can't believe you remembered, time change and all,” I said.

“How could I forget you on New Year's Eve?” he said. “It's a tradition.”

“Oh, so two years in a row, and we have a tradition now?”

“That's how traditions start,” he said.

I loved hearing his voice. At that moment I wanted to be wherever he was. We caught each other up on the past few days we'd spent apart, feeling like it was much longer than it had been.

“I'm sorry I didn't call you at midnight there,” I said. “I was still at the hospital.”

“Of course you were,” he said. “How was Gray today?”

“Better,” I said. “He thinks he might come to Paris when he's feeling a little stronger.”

“Really?” Owen said. Immediately, I was sorry I'd told him. His buoyant tone deflated in an instant.

“Owen, I really miss you,” I said, trying to make up for the mood shift.

“I know,” he said. “I didn't want to call because I knew you'd be busy. But I hadn't realized how much I'd gotten used to hearing your voice every day.”

“My voice?” I said, doing a terrible falsetto.

“Still you joke,” he said. “But secretly you know you want to belt out an aria onstage. You're a closet diva.”

“Oh, right,” I said. “I think one diva is enough for this show.”

“Do you mean Elise or Flynn?”

“Good point,” I said.

“Flynn's already shopping for his costume. He said he wants his Phantom to be ‘wicked sexy,' not a ‘foppish tool in a tux and tails,' his words, not mine.”

I laughed. “It sounds like everyone is in usual form.”

“Except me,” he said.

“Why not you?”

“Because Raoul is without his Christine.”

“But I'm not Christine anymore, remember?”

“You are to me,” he said.

And three days later, I boarded a plane back to Paris.

C
HAPTER
18

W
hen I arrived at the airport, I had this foolish fantasy that Owen would be waiting for me at baggage claim. I knew it wouldn't happen, but I hoped.

Elise was back a few days early, too, but she was miserable. Over the break, she'd found out that she got wait-listed at Berklee. You would have thought her life was over.

“Elise, you got wait-listed,” I said. “That's incredible.”

“It's humiliating,” she said. “I might as well go to community college.”

“Don't you think you're being a bit dramatic?”

“Hello,” she said, gesturing to herself as a reminder that drama was what she was good at.

“Being wait-listed means they're still considering you, and besides, you're probably going to get into all your other schools.”

“But I don't want to go to any other school,” she said. “Berklee was the one.”

“How do you know?” I said. “Maybe the universe is trying to tell you that you belong somewhere else. Or that there are infinite places you could belong. With all the stuff going on with your parents, I would have thought you'd welcome the opportunity to go far away for school.”

“Stop making such sense,” she said, continuing to pout even though I thought I saw the glimmer of a smile. “What about you? Are you thinking it's going to be Miami now that Gray is back?”

“I don't know,” I said. “There's a lot to consider.”

“Like what?”

Ugh. How could I explain this to her without sounding like a horrible person?
Well, even though my boyfriend survived a treacherous two months at sea during which his only thought was of me, all I can think about now is Owen.

“Things with Gray are complicated. This whole experience has been surreal. We need to take a few steps back and make sure we're in this for the right reasons.”

“Huh,” she said, looking shocked.

“What?”

“I just always thought you considered him your
soul mate
or something. Does Gray know you feel this way?”

“Um . . . I don't know.”

“Well, maybe you should tell him before he flies more than three thousand miles to see you.”

Elise wasn't assuaging my feelings of guilt one bit. But she did remind me that I had to talk to Mademoiselle Veilleux to make sure that if Gray did visit, it was okay for him to stay here. My stomach lurched a little at the thought of him staying in my room for several weeks. Maybe that was exactly what we needed. Maybe the only problem was that we'd been apart for so long and needed time to reconnect and remember how good we were together.

After lunch, I walked over to Mademoiselle Veilleux's office. As usual, she was dressed impeccably in a sheer blouse over a camisole and black wide-leg trousers, her hair twisted into a chignon.

“Emma, chère,” she said, standing to hug me. “How is your boyfriend doing?”

“Better, thanks,” I said.

“I was thinking about you over break. What a miracle.”

“I know,” I said. “I did say a prayer to Saint Anthony.”

“Ah, so perhaps it was fate that you ended up here at Saint-Antoine. Meant to be.”

Meant to be.
The universe and everyone in it seemed to want me and Gray together forever.

“I actually have a favor to ask,” I said. “The Coast Guard agreed to send Gray wherever he wants while he recuperates. Sort of a hard-earned vacation. And he wants to come here.”

“Of course he does!” she said. “How romantic.”

“Yeah,” I said, feeling my palms begin to sweat. “I was wondering if it would be okay if . . . if he stayed here at the dorm.”

“Bien sûr,” she said. “Of course, he will have to stay with one of the male students. Then again, these are coed dorms, and you are eighteen.”

“I'll ask Georges or Louis,” I said. “But thank you for letting him stay. I appreciate it.”

“Anything for
l'amour,
” she said. “Oh, how are rehearsals coming for your
Phantom
?”

“We haven't started yet,” I said. “We won't be able to use the Studio space at the opera until their Debussy series closes. We're not really sure where to rehearse.”

“I have just the place,” she said. “The chapel.”

“The chapel? Here?”

“I know it's small, but it is soundproofed, and it has a surprisingly good sound system. Plus, no one's ever there.” She laughed. “You'll have plenty of privacy.”

“But . . . what about God?”

“I do not think God will mind some beautiful music in his house.”

I smiled.

I was about to leave when I thought about Crespeau and all the years he'd invested in his unrequited love for Mademoiselle Veilleux. My well-intentioned matchmaking on Christmas Eve hadn't done the trick. But I wasn't out of ideas yet. “Mademoiselle, can I ask you a question?”

“Oui.”

“Monsieur Crespeau has been here for a long time, right?”

“Many years.”

“Did you ever wonder why he stays here?” I asked. “I mean, he's intelligent and talented and kind. He could be so much more than a handyman.”

“Oh, Emma,” she sighed. “He was broken after his parents died. He couldn't move on. And when I got hired as headmistress, I thought I was doing him a favor by giving him a permanent job.”

“How do you mean?”

“In high school, I knew he was in love with me. And I loved him, too. Just not in the way he did. But I liked knowing he would always be there for me. I didn't realize how much I was hurting him until that day when I went away with my boyfriend, and he tried to come to the train station to stop us. I've always felt partially responsible for what happened to his parents. Like I owed him something. But I wonder if it kills him to be so close to me.”

“I think it does,” I said. “But he doesn't blame you. He only blames himself.”

“I know, Emma, because that's the kind of man he is. The world is a sad, strange place.”

“It is, isn't it?”

I left her office, feeling overwhelmed by emotion. I owed it to Gray to give us another chance, to try to recapture what we'd once had.

Over the next few weeks, Gray and I began Skyping again. Slowly, our former dynamic resumed, complete with our requisite sign-off of “I love you” followed by “I know.” But in a way that I didn't want to admit to myself, we were playing old roles, delivering lines memorized so long ago they had almost lost their meaning.

As the new semester got underway, academics took a backseat to rehearsals for our Phantom opera. My applications and transcripts had been sent to my schools long ago, so grades hardly mattered anymore. And I was barely worried about my performance on the AP exams. The only class I really cared about was Opera II, taught by Luke again. Since our school had two teams that had advanced in the competition, Luke took a more active role in advising us as we blocked out scenes, revised the librettos, and rehearsed the songs.

First, we had to scale back our cast list, since we only had three solid performers. Having been replaced by Elise, I took over the role of director. But things got off to a rocky start. For one thing, Owen was being rather cold toward me since he'd discovered Gray was coming to visit. I understood why, but I didn't know what to do to change our dynamic. He would dutifully listen to my notes after each rehearsal, but I no longer felt like we were collaborating as we had during the fall. He was merely doing his time.

The other difficult part was that he and Elise seemed to be getting close again. I knew it was probably just the intensity of their roles and having to perform together each day as Raoul and Christine. They had acted together in last year's production of
The Crucible,
and their chemistry onstage had been palpable. At least I hoped it was just stage chemistry. But for a moment, I couldn't help wishing that I was playing Christine again. Dark thoughts occasionally blindsided me— visions of Elise croaking like Carlotta in the original
Phantom,
losing her voice so I would have to replace her.

Of course, since Mademoiselle Veilleux had given us permission to use the chapel, she'd extended the same offer to Jean-Claude's group. We negotiated a rehearsal schedule, and Jean-Claude, Georges, and Yseult claimed the time slot before us. But they would always stay over their time. Not to mention, the chapel would reek of smoke after they left.

I tried to put these tensions out of my head and focus on Gray's impending visit at the end of the month. A voice inside me kept telling me what I was doing wasn't fair, that I should tell him not to come. But each time I imagined letting him go and moving on without him, guilt rose up in me again, that feeling of obligation to the gods or saints or forces that had reunited us.

On the day his flight arrived, I met him at the airport. He walked into the baggage area, looking very tired but a little more like his old self. His hair had been trimmed and he'd gained some weight and some color in his cheeks. And when I hugged him, I could no longer feel his ribs.

“I've missed you so much,” he said, clinging to me like he was afraid I wasn't real.

“I can't believe you're really here,” I said, as we wheeled his bags to the taxi stand. “I have to keep pinching myself.”

He reached over and pinched me playfully, like the old Gray. I smiled, and he let his bag drop to the ground so he could kiss me.

It should have been terribly romantic. Then why was I dissecting everything and feeling a little uncomfortable around him? Gray kept finding excuses to touch me on the ride home, and after all this time apart, his touch should have been welcome. But I kept fidgeting, feeling like the taxi doors were closing in on me.

Finally, we got back to my room, and I was relieved when Gray asked if he could take a shower. I needed some time to get my thoughts together, to moderate my feelings so my discomfort didn't show plainly on my face. But I was also worried.

When Gray came out of that bathroom, he would want what any red-blooded nineteen-year-old would want after being separated from his girlfriend for six months. And that terrified me.

He came out ten minutes later with a towel wrapped around his waist. I don't know why this surprised me, but a jolt of adrenaline raced through my limbs. He was still pretty thin and his skin was tanned in a way that looked almost permanent. But his eyes had a spark of life in them again. I burned with nostalgic longing and threw my arms around him, shocked to find that I was crying.

“What's wrong?” he said, pulling back so he could wipe the tears from my eyes.

“I'm just so happy you're here,” I said.

“I am,” he said, placing his hands on my waist. “I'm really here.”

And then I broke down again, unrepentantly sobbing. Once I started, I couldn't stop.

Gray led me to the bed and rubbed my back until I had calmed myself. I took a wad of tissues and wiped off my face, and Gray traced a line of tearstain down my cheek. Then he placed both of his hands on my cheeks and stared into my eyes with an intensity that made my insides twirl.

He leaned in to kiss me, and some familiar ache drew me toward him. His lips pressed on mine, and for a moment, we were back—Emma and Gray, meant to be—our kiss petal-soft and sweet. His palm cradled my neck, and then he was guiding me to the bed, the weight of his body so thrilling and right. I kissed him back a little harder, and we switched places so I was on top, removing his towel while he removed my shirt, my bra, my jeans.

Then he pushed me away suddenly, jerking back toward the headboard.

“What's wrong?” I asked.

“The scorpion tag. Where is it?”

“Gray, I was going to tell you. I just forgot, with all the craziness of the past few weeks . . . I lost the necklace.”

“You lost it? What the hell, Emma?”

I stood up, hiking my jeans back on. Gray pulled the sheets up to cover himself. “Look,” I said, “I didn't do it on purpose. I was walking around one day, and when I got back, it was gone.”

“Were you with him?”

“With who?” I said, but I could feel my cheeks burning.

“You know who,” he said.

“Gray, why are you acting like this?”

“Because I know something's going on between you two.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Because of the grasshopper!” he said. My insides froze.

How could he know? I'd hidden it away in a drawer.
“Gray, what are you talking about?”