When Stars Collide (Chicago Stars #9) - Susan Elizabeth Phillips Page 0,55

my . . . friend Thad Owens. Thad, Charles is one of the administrators who keeps this place running.”

Charles shook hands politely, but he was far more focused on The Diva. “I was thinking about Elektra this morning and your Klytaemnestra. ‘Ich habe keine guten Nächte.’ I still get shivers. You were incandescent.”

“Elektra,” she said. “Our operatic version of a slasher movie.”

“So deliciously bloody.” He rubbed his hands. “And you’re doing Amneris at the Muni in Chicago. Everyone’s thrilled.” The Diva’s smile momentarily froze, but Charles didn’t notice.

They exchanged more opera talk, with Charles treating Liv as if she were a goddess who’d descended into his midst. A few more staff members appeared, and one of them actually kissed her hand. Thad had to admit it was interesting watching someone other than himself being fawned over. It was also enlightening. He knew Liv was a big deal in the opera world, but seeing the reality drove the point home.

And made his mission even more urgent.

The expression on her face over breakfast as she’d listened to Cassandra Wilson had been too much for him. He’d told her he wanted a backstage tour of the Met because he was curious about the place, which was true, but more important, he hoped being back in these familiar surroundings might somehow unlock her voice.

Helping The Diva get her voice back had become almost as much of an obsession for him as picturing the two of them in bed on their last night in Las Vegas. It still seemed months away even though it was only a few days. As he knew from experience, great athletes didn’t choke under pressure—except when they did. He’d done some research into psychogenic voice disorders, and he wondered if the lessons he’d learned from athletics through the years could carry over into music.

Unlocking the potential of others was something he’d become good at. The Diva was a head case, but so was every athlete at one time or another. Maybe it was his ego talking, but he liked the idea of being the person who freed her.

Eventually, Liv extricated herself from her admirers and took him up some stairs to the parterre level, where the box seats were located, and where they could look down on a rehearsal for an upcoming production of something in Russian, the name of which he didn’t catch. Seeing what had to be a hundred singers moving around was impressive. “There are three additional big stages,” she told him. “They come out on motorized platforms.”

And he thought putting on an NFL game was complicated.

Liv took him to the maze that made up the various rooms of the costume department: areas packed with bolts of fabric, sewing machines, long tables where garments were being cut and hand-stitched, and rows of headless mannequins wearing parts of costumes.

“Madame Shore!” An older woman with cropped, pumpkin-colored hair bustled toward them, a pair of reading glasses jiggling on a long chain at her chest.

“Luella! It’s good to see you.”

Liv performed the introductions, and Luella took over the tour, showing him vast racks where thousands of garments were stored. “We had fourteen hundred costumes for War and Peace alone,” Luella told him.

He met a cobbler resoling a pair of boots and watched a wig being made. The meticulous process of adding only two hairs at a time required a patience he couldn’t imagine.

Everywhere they went, he witnessed the staff’s affection and admiration for Olivia, an affection she returned. She remembered the names of husbands, wives, children, and boyfriends. She asked about ailments and work commutes. She advanced through her world the same way he did through his, paying attention to everyone, from the top administrators to the most junior employee.

A few people recognized him—the guy in charge of pressing the wrinkles out of bolts of fabric, a middle-aged woman doing intricate embroidery work, a couple of millennials, but this was clearly Olivia’s show.

Luella disappeared around the corner and returned with the gown he recognized from YouTube videos of Carmen: a deliberately tatty, low-cut dress with a purposely grimy white bodice, a corseted middle, and a full scarlet skirt. Olivia tensed next to him as Luella spread it out on the table and opened the back.

“L’amour est un oiseau rebelle,” the woman said. “Love is a rebellious bird.”

He knew that one by now; it was the official title of “Habanera.” As he took in the neckline, he remembered the way Liv’s oiled breasts had spilled over the top. The way the