When Stars Collide (Chicago Stars #9)(72)

He knew her tricks, and he wasn’t intimidated. “You said you had a cold.”

Her distorted reflection looked back at her from the lenses of his sunglasses. “I told you that.”

His perfect mouth set in a deadly line. “You lied.”

“I told you that, too.” She wished she’d kept her mouth shut.

He whipped off his sunglasses and drilled her with those ridiculous green eyes, which now seemed exactly the same color as a particularly virulent patch of poison ivy. “Guess what, babe? You’ve had a miraculous recovery.”

“You don’t understand.” She tried to get away from him, but he shifted his weight to block her.

“Oh, I do understand.” He shoved his sunglasses in his jacket pocket. “You’re Olivia fucking Shore. The greatest mezzo in the world!”

“I’m not the greatest—”

“You’re at the top of your game. In the starting lineup! A fucking tornado, not some twenty-year-old pretender afraid to open her mouth!”

“That’s easy for you to say. You’re not—”

“Stop being such a pussy.” He gripped her by the shoulders. “I heard you loud and clear this morning. Sitzprobe. It means everything to you, and you only have five rehearsals to get ready for it. You’ve worked too damned hard to give in to this crap. Your voice is exactly where you need it to be.”

“You have no idea—”

“You’re going in there right now, and you’re going to sing your ass off.” He actually shook her! “Do it one-legged, standing on your head, or with your eyes crossed. I don’t care. You pull yourself the hell together and show them exactly who they’re dealing with. Do you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Louder!”

“Yes!”

“Good.”

He stalked away.

*

She straightened the collar of her trench coat and glared at his back—the ignorant jock. She marched from the abandoned garden. It was easy for him to say. He didn’t understand. He knew nothing about the kind of pressure she faced. Nothing about the critics who were waiting to gnaw on her bones, the fans who would desert her, the reputation that would turn to dust. He never had to face—

But he did. He knew exactly how she felt. He’d played hurt. He’d played with the crowd booing him. He’d played in blistering heat waves, frigid snowstorms, and with the clock ticking down to its final ten seconds. He’d played under every kind of pressure, and he understood what she felt as well as she did.

She marched directly to the maestro’s office and rapped on the door.

“Avanti.”

She stormed in. “Maestro.” She dropped her tote by the door. “I know I’m early, but . . . I’m ready to sing.”

It wasn’t pretty, but it wasn’t horrendous. She didn’t have the breath support she needed to make her vibrato dependable or keep from falling off some of the notes, but she didn’t once go flat.

Sergio still believed she was suffering from the aftereffects of a cold, and he wasn’t overly concerned by what he heard. “Most important now is for you to take care of your voice.”

Back in her dressing room, she made a phone call. The voice that answered sounded distinctly displeased. “Olivia Shore? I do not recognize this name.”

Olivia ignored that. “Can I come in today? I have a long break at one o’clock.”

“I suppose. Bring me plums. The purple ones.” The connection went dead.

*

The old woman met Olivia at the door of her musty Randolph Street apartment. She wore her customary black serge dress and pink bedroom slippers run down at the heels. Her coarse, gray-streaked black hair was knotted on top of her head, with wiry strands escaping around her wrinkled face, which bore her customary scarlet lipstick.

She greeted Olivia with a gruff, “You may enter.”

Olivia replied with the gracious nod of her head she knew Batista expected.

Batista Neri was one of Olivia’s longtime vocal coaches, and someone Olivia had been deliberately ignoring since she’d lost her voice. Batista had once been an accomplished soprano. Now she was one of the best opera coaches in the country. She was maddeningly condescending, but also highly effective.

Olivia set the bag of plums on an ornate mahogany side table near the door. “My voice . . . ,” she said. “It’s gone.”

“Ah, well.” Scorn dripped from Batista’s every word. “Now you will find a husband to take care of you, and you will make him gnocchi every night for supper.” She waved a dismissive hand. “Enough of this bullshit. Let me hear you.”

*

When Olivia reached the rehearsal stage later that afternoon, she found Lena Hodiak moving through Amneris’s blocking for the Judgment scene in act 4. Olivia watched as Lena mouthed the lyrics, “Ohime! Morir mi sento . . .” Alas! I shall die! Oh, who will save him?

Lena waved as she spotted Olivia and quickly moved into the audience to give Olivia the stage.

It felt like midnight instead of late afternoon. Olivia had sung badly for the maestro and only a little better for Batista. At least Batista had abandoned her crotchety prima donna routine and gotten serious when she heard the state of Olivia’s voice.

“Lift your palate, Olivia. Lift it.” At the end of the lesson, Batista had prescribed bee propolis throat spray and more abdominal exercises and ordered Olivia to come back the next day.