Anio Szado (39 page)

He grinned. “Yeah.”

She could hear Mignonne approaching down the aisle, congratulating the actors and musicians. Somewhere further afield, Bernard was giving kudos and suggestions to the lighting crew. Consuelo bent down. “I can tell something about you, too.”

“What’s that?”

“You would love to go for a drink.”

“You got that right, honey. Maybe two or three.”

A handful of models had returned to the stage to demonstrate for each other their favorite moves. In the opposite wings, Yannick and Philippe were collecting their music sheets and pretending they weren’t straining to hear Consuelo’s conversation.

She twined her fingers into Leo’s. “I can hardly wait. Let’s go.”

Leo, bless him, jumped to his feet. He led her toward the stairs with an urgency that almost cost her a shoe.

As they came around the curtain, there was Mignonne on the bottom step. “You were terrific!”

“Time to celebrate,” said Leo.

“Just us two,” added Consuelo, holding tight to Leo’s arm. She fit her foot back into her shoe and prodded him forward.

“What are you doing?” asked Mignonne, catching Consuelo’s arm.

“Someone is thirsty, darling. And someone,” she indicated Leo with a meaningful look, “is awfully hungry. If you know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t. Just … No.”

“Take it easy, Miggy,” said Leo. “We’re just going for one little drink. Come with us.”

Consuelo said, “Don’t be ridiculous, Leo. We’re going for many drinks. Alone.”

Mignonne lowered her voice. “You leave him be. Leo, stay here.”

“Hey,” he said, “you’re not my boss.”

Bernard was watching from across the theater. Yannick called from the stage. “Is everything all right?”

Leo gestured toward him. “Didn’t Yannick say Mother asked you to keep an eye on me, make sure I didn’t get into trouble with the ladies? Good job, Mig. You’re finally doing what you came back to New York to do.”

“That’s not true! Mother wanted us to look out for each other. That’s what Yannick said.”

The siblings glared at each other.

It was time to bring the uncle in. The theater had excellent acoustics; Consuelo was certain Yannick would hear. “Now, children, stop your fighting.” She shook a disapproving finger at Leo. “Naughty boy! Go to your room. Better yet, Leo darling, I’ll bring you to mine.”

She hadn’t planned to do anything more than have a few drinks. Men like Leo were good to drink with. But his sister was forcing her to take it further. If Mignonne thought she could command Consuelo like she’d tell a dog to give up a prized bone, she was wrong. Consuelo was going to gnaw this boy down to the marrow.

Yannick was coming over, as surely as if Consuelo had pulled a string. Oh yes, she could cast a spell; she had the power. She felt engorged with it, a rose about to burst into bloom.

“Imagine,” she proclaimed to the theater at large, “Mignonne telling her brother whom he should or shouldn’t see. Given that she herself is desperately in love with a happily married man.”

Mignonne paled.

Leo snarled, “He’s divorced.” But when his sister only looked stricken and reached for his arm, he reared away from her. “He’s married? He’s still goddamn married?”

The uncle’s expression was pained, but not the least surprised.
“Well, Yannick,” said Consuelo, “I see I’m right about Mignonne and Tonio.”

Leo said, “What? Who’s Tonio?”

Consuelo continued. “If your niece wasn’t so intent on clawing her way to fame—”

“Shut it,” said Leo. “I asked a question. Who the hell is Tonio?”

“Tonio is the man whose work your sister used so she could have a show. The writer whose story you just read so well.”

“Hold on,” said Leo. “I thought you were talking about Antoine.”

Yannick put his arm around Mignonne.

Consuelo said, “Also known as my husband.”

Yannick nodded. “Antoine. Tonio. Saint-Ex.”

When Leo left—with Consuelo—he had not been angry at her machinations, but furious with me. It was as though by allowing him to hope for the best for my future, I had betrayed his own hidden dreams.

“He’ll be here,” Consuelo assured me now. “You’re damn lucky we called this business Studio Saint-Ex. I explained to him that it’s my name on the line. He promised to show up—for me.”

For the past hour, a steady stream of ticket holders had been arriving for the show. A few stragglers still chatted in the foyer while the usher showed others to their seats.

The student volunteers were poised over the lighting controls and the models stood awaiting their cues in the wings. Philippe and Yannick bided their time with a duet of a lengthy, low-key classical number. I resisted the impulse to run back and forth from the lane to the front foyer looking for Leo as I had last night. He knew the way in. He was either coming or he was not. The show would either start with him, late, or it would not start at all.

From the edge of the stage curtain, I scanned the crowd again, looking not for Leo this time, but for Antoine. He, too, had not appeared. Half an hour ago I had been hoping to see him, but now I prayed that he would not show his face, not see my failure. He would feel the effects of it soon enough.

Bernard approached, looking bleak. “I found your brother vomiting in the lane. I put him in a cab and sent him home. He can’t do the voice-over. He’s so drunk he can hardly see.”

Bernard took my arm and steadied me.

There was barely enough time to rush to Antoine’s apartment and return to the auditorium. I didn’t worry anymore that the show would start late; I worried that Consuelo would cancel it before I returned. If the production was going to fail, I wanted it to be in spite of my best efforts.

“Wait here,” I told the cabbie when he had pulled up at the curb. “I’ll be two minutes, then I need you to take me back to the Alliance Française.”

“You want me to wait, pay me for this part of the fare. It’s a busy night.”

“I’m getting something heavy.”

“Give me the fare.”

“I’ll be right back!”

“Just pay me now, lady, so I know you’ll come back.”

I dug into my purse and shoved money toward him as I scrambled out of the cab. “Two minutes!” I yelled.

I hadn’t dared take the time to ask Consuelo if she had a key and provoke a discussion I hoped never to have. I had chosen, instead, to have Bernard find and distract her and assure her that our narrator was on his way.

I ran to the concierge’s desk. “Elmore! I need a big favor. I need you to let me in to Mr. Saint-Exupéry’s apartment.”

“I don’t think he’s in, Miss Lachapelle.”

“I’m sure he isn’t.” Antoine would be out on the streets, smoking. He might even be circling the Alliance, obsessing over what could be happening inside. “I need something from his apartment, from beside his bed.”

“Something you left behind in Mr. Saint-Exupéry’s, um, room?” The concierge rose to his feet with reluctance. His expression betrayed both his embarrassment and affection for me, and his competing unwillingness to forsake the dictates of his post.

“It’s not something of mine. But it’s something that I need,
right away, to get him out of a mess. Please, Elmore. I’m trying to help him. Will you help me?”

I followed him away from his desk. Never had an elevator seemed so slow to arrive, so reluctant to ascend. When Elmore had his key in Antoine’s lock, I thanked him incoherently and pushed past him through the door and into the bedroom.

I pulled a blanket from Antoine’s bed. I had only been in his bedroom the one, unforgettable time; now this second time would surely be my last. No matter what happened with the show tonight, Antoine would never forgive me for taking a piece of him and using it—his actual voice—without his permission.

I threw the blanket over the recording instrument and hoisted it into my arms.

“It’s heavy,” Bernard had warned me, “and somewhat delicate. Be careful with it—Saint-Ex could have bought a car with what he paid for it. But it works like magic.”

I know, I had wanted to say. Instead I had given Bernard a grateful and appreciative smile, and the smile he had returned seemed to mirror mine.

In the lobby, I mouthed “Thank you” to Elmore, who was on the phone, opened the door with my hip, and was on the street.

The cabbie was gone. A number of taxicabs passed in the roadway, all of them carrying passengers. I caught sight of an empty one and yelled, but couldn’t lift a hand without dropping the bundled machine, and the cab hurried past.

“I need to put this down,” I said aloud. I swiveled, looking about for a platform of any sort on which to rest my load. A mailbox. A planter. Anything.

Pedestrians swerved around me.

Elmore appeared. “Taxi!”

A cab slowed.

“You’re a lifesaver!”

He took the box while I slid into the back seat. “Not to worry, Miss Lachapelle. I figure my job is pretty safe.” He settled the
recording device carefully beside me. “Sounds like Mr. Saint-Ex is leaving anyway, if you can believe what he was hollering when he got his mail the other day.”

I closed the door on Elmore’s words and urged the driver on. From my purse I pulled cash for the driver, and a notebook and pen for the challenge at hand. The dry winter air or the wool of the blanket over the recording device was frizzing my hair. I pushed it off my face as I wrote frantically.

I checked my watch. Bernard had said he would meet me at the front door.

Let him be there. Let him be right. This solution had to work.

He had assured me: “Saint-Ex recorded the whole book. I heard it myself, read in his own voice. He played it for me to persuade me to join your project. It’s an exquisite reading. It’s what convinced me to sign on to your crazy plan.”

At the Alliance, I paid the cabbie and slipped out, pulling the recording device out after me. God, it was heavy; my knees almost buckled.

Wordlessly, Bernard came up and took my burden. I followed him backstage to the table with the microphone.

“You have the discs?” he asked.

I felt the blood leave my face.

He opened the casing. The inside of the lid had a pocket, strapped with leather and lined with heavy pale pink satin. He reached in and pulled out a stack of discs, looked through them, and placed a selection on the table. On each, Antoine’s handwriting indicated “
Le Petit Prince
” and a number: 1, 2, 3 …

Bernard fitted the first one into the player. Over the sound of the piano—tireless Philippe!—came a thunderclap. I peered through the curtains to see Consuelo, not yet in costume, trying to right a piece of wooden scenery that had fallen onto its face. Bernard left to attend to the problem.

“You try moving things in high heels,” she complained. “Where’s Mignonne? She’s strong.”

Bernard started dragging sandbags onto the stage. “More of these. Come on, Consuelo. Quick.”

How to work this device? I pondered the mechanism and fit the first disc onto the spool. I turned a knob and the disc started spinning, its rhythmic hum not quite drowning out Consuelo’s rant from a few feet away.

“Where the hell is Mignonne? And where is Leo?”

“Mignonne’s finalizing the voice-over.”

“Why does she wreck everything? We should cancel this whole thing!”

Bernard’s voice was firm. “Remember who we’re doing this for. Okay: the scenery looks great. Are the models in position? I will check on Mignonne. We’re almost ready.”

The audience was murmuring. Gingerly, I turned another knob. From the instrument Antoine’s voice boomed, “
Le Petit Prince.
” I snapped off the device as a hush fell across the entire theater—except in my ears, where my own heartbeat roared.

Consuelo appeared. “Jesus Christ!”

“This is our Leo,” I said. “Go tell Philippe to start playing the opening piece, loudly. Tell him to draw it out for a good few minutes. I have to figure out this contraption. I’ve got to find and mark the passages we’re using so I can skip the ones we don’t need. We’ll start with chapter two and—”

“Where did you get this?”

“I stole it. Tell Philippe that he’s got to play good and loud and lusty between scenes—so I can take that time to line up the next section we’re going to use.”

“You’re deranged. I’ll have your skin if this performance fails!”

“Go. And give the actors their final instructions. This won’t take me long. I’ve already made a list of the scenes I need to find and mark.”