Winner Take All (21 page)

The man was so familiar she could have drawn him from a hundred different scenarios. “Thank you.”

“This hall, it is so very British, is it not? It reminds me of a Victorian train station, all glass and steel and noise and bad air.” Klatz found reason for disdain in everything he saw. Another common trait of such hangers-on. “Do you know, they held the final topping out ceremony here when the house’s reconstruction was completed. But the week before, they discovered pigeons nesting in the steel railings. How were they to get them out? Of course with all this glass they could not use guns.” He gave her a tight smile. “So they brought in sparrow hawks. Very hungry ones. Ingenious, no?”

If there was a message intended for her, she missed it entirely. “Ms. Brandt sings beautifully.”

“Of course. Oh, I almost forgot. There’s a reception by one of the corporate sponsors after tonight’s performance. Ms. Brandt has agreed to make a brief appearance. Naturally you’d be welcome to join her.”

“Thank you.”

“If you’ll excuse me.” He bustled away. Kirsten watched him stop at one table after another, hovering like a well-padded moth, but never landing.

The second and third acts were endless and timeless both. Just before Erin began her final aria, she seemed to turn and look directly at Kirsten. The electric quality of her singing intensified to where it left Kirsten breathless. Forget the spotlights, forget even the sun. Erin gestured, and there was such a joy to the movement and the song the audience accepted the invitation and flew with her. Erin gave everything to the crowd, and did so with an abandon that was both ethereal and grippingly erotic.

There came the crescendo and the curtain. The crowd responded with a frenzy. Kirsten could not help but join in—watching them, watching Erin, watching herself.

After the performance she was collected once more by the hostess, who gave her the hasty grimace of one whose night was only gathering steam. “Did you enjoy the performance?”

“Very much.”

“I’m so glad. This way please.” Down the same hallway, then a
jink to the left, and the hostess held open a leather-padded door. Beyond stretched a golden Raphaelite chamber illuminated by a tier of mammoth chandeliers. Thirty-foot-high walls were adorned with Renaissance-style paintings of stage performances. The chamber was aswirl with chatter and jewels and perfect makeup and people who pretended not to observe Kirsten’s entry.

Before the hostess could depart, a voice behind them announced, “I’ll take it from here, if you don’t mind.”

The hostess became a fluttering bundle of nerves. “Oh, Ms. Brandt, forgive me, I didn’t see—”

But her apology was swept aside by the throng pressing in from all sides. Erin slipped her hand around Kirsten’s elbow, smiled a benign acknowledgment to the crowd, then said softly, “There are a few people I must speak to here, darling. Then we’ll be off to somewhere more delicious.”

Erin released Kirsten and permitted herself to be drawn into the milling throng. People made room for Kirsten, a glass was offered, a few polite words spoken by those to either side. Kirsten was granted entry because the diva clearly wished it. Just one more courtier.

Eventually Erin waved the others aside and said to Kirsten, “There is a horrid little man over by the bar. He’s the intendant of the Berlin opera. I must go over and pay homage. Would you mind terribly being my support?”

“All right.”

Erin’s fairy-like movements granted her a miniature quality. Walking beside her, Kirsten had the impression that the woman never left her toes, never truly connected with the earth at all. Erin asked, “You’re not surprised a star must still bother with the unpleasantries and the mundane?”

“I was a model.”

“But of course you were, darling.” The hand returned to Kirsten’s arm. “How else could all this be so perfect?”

The intendant stood beside Reiner Klatz, Erin’s manager. He was a toothpick in gray gabardine. A silk foulard tickled the bottom of his silver goatee. He observed their approach as a gourmand would the presentation of his fantasy meal. Erin did not bother to introduce Kirsten. Reiner Klatz’s blue-clad gaze never left her. Erin sparkled for the man, then mentioned casually, “I’ve heard you’re doing
Rosenkavalier
next season.”

The intendant’s gaze traversed Kirsten’s form once more. “That is correct.”

Erin continued to stroke Kirsten’s arm, her hand out where the intendant could observe. “Do you have your Marschallin cast yet? I haven’t sung it in four years and I miss it terribly.”

“Your last time was in Wien,
neh?
”

“How nice of you to remember,” Erin purred.

“The papers gave you rave reviews.” He could not force his gaze to settle anywhere for long. “Perhaps we should meet and discuss this.”

“Speak with Reiner, why don’t you?” She drew Kirsten around. “Come, darling. Our night awaits.”

The halls were filled with staff and singers who wanted to exclaim over the diva and her performance. Erin glided through, smiling for all and seeing none. Even the stone-faced guard by the rear door stood to pay her homage and help her with the silk summer mantle. Outside, the purple Rolls was still waiting, a uniformed chauffeur by the open rear door.

“On loan from an admirer who was made positively livid by your arrival,” Erin said, sliding in beside Kirsten. When the chauffeur slipped behind the wheel, she ordered, “Take the long way to the Savoy.”

“Very good, Madame.”

“I love being driven through London in a Rolls. In Germany it looks outrageous. Here it is merely good taste. The house assigns me a car, of course. I couldn’t possibly ask for a Rolls, not when I could have a week of five-star luxury in Malaysia for the same price.” Erin snuggled deeper, her pleasure so complete it bordered on the obscene. “Isn’t this divine?”

Surrounded by Erin’s scent and her voice and her eyes, Kirsten decided this was how an alcoholic must feel passing a bar. There was no reward for taking the clean road. No feeling of goodness or rightness. And afterward, the unsatiated desire remained a bare and shrieking nerve. She had never thought of herself as a potential addict until that very moment. “Why Malaysia?”

“The beaches. White sand, coral atolls, perfectly empty. The hotels are very Asian, very discreet, a hundred smiling young men eager to make this a perfect day.” Eyes turned obscure by the night studied Kirsten. “Do you have a perfect beach?”

For reasons only half formed, she responded, “Wrightsville.”

“Now that wasn’t nice.” She traced a fingernail along the back of Kirsten’s hand. She leaned closer, such that her lips all but flickered over Kirsten’s ear. She breathed, “This is your thousand and one nights, sister. The genie is out of the bottle and at your command. Do you really wish to vanquish the spell, and make the magic vanish like smoke?”

She replied overloud, “Yes.”

Erin smirked down at Kirsten’s hand. She said nothing more, merely continued the soft stroking, until they pulled past Simpson’s and entered the Savoy cul-de-sac. When the doorman opened Erin’s door, she whispered, “Let’s go see what we can find.”

S
TRIPED MARBLE COLUMNS
with gilded caps marched stolidly down the center of the Savoy lobby. The tray ceiling was frescoed in gold leaf and framed ten brass and smoked-glass chandeliers. Kirsten knew because she counted them as she waited. Three steps away, Erin stood surrounded by fans and photographers and chatter. Twice Erin looked her way, imploring her to join in. But Kirsten felt no desire to be a star by proxy. As she watched Erin revel in the diva’s role, Kirsten almost wished she could resign herself to falling tonight and never rising again. At least then she would end the terror of being wounded anew by myths of love and hope.

Erin returned then, slipping her arm around Kirsten’s waist and smiling as photographers trapped the pair of them in electric epoxy. Another soft grip of her hand, an even softer “Come.”

Erin led her to the side hall, away from the lower lounge with its live jazz quartet and smoky elegant din. They entered what was more of an alcove than a restaurant, one named merely “Upstairs.” A dozen stools lined the narrow bar, with nine tables set along the windows overlooking the hotel’s front entrance. The talk was as muted as the illumination from the Savoy sign over the hotel portal.

Erin stopped by a table where a bottle of champagne already peeked from a glistening bucket. “I only drink champagne and I never smoke. Those are the only traits I covet of the baritones and their breed, how deep-voiced men can have whiskey and cigarillos and still sing. I have tried both and love them too much for a fragile-throated
woman.” She waved Kirsten into a seat. “Are you always so quiet?”

“Usually.”

The look Erin gave her was liquid with tenderness. “You poor fragile beauty. They’ve robbed you, haven’t they?”

“What?”

“Words do nothing for what you’ve been forced to carry around inside.” She leaned across the table, drawing in so close Kirsten could not help but breathe her spiced perfume. “Listen, my sister. I know you. So very, very well.”

Erin turned away momentarily, and spoke to the hovering waiter. “Bring us a selection of whatever is freshest and best.”

“Of course, Ms. Brandt.”

Erin stripped the foil from the champagne bottle and expertly twisted out the cork. “I love doing this, releasing the night’s music. Why should I allow a strange man to have this pleasure?”

She poured them both a measure, then raised her fluted glass by the stem. “To sisters bonded by what the world will never understand.”

Kirsten listened to the crystal bell and sipped from her glass. She tasted only bubbles.

Erin raised her chin until the faint cleft was accented. The skin of her neck drew tight as an artist’s line. She kept this position as she set down her glass. Her dark eyes targeted Kirsten along the bore of her nose. “I know,” she murmured. “It’s so hard to speak of, all you have inside, all you’ve been forced to choke off. No words will ever do.”

Kirsten drank once more, swallowing tiny fragments of air her lungs could not find.

“How do I know? Because it has happened to me. I said we are sisters, did I not? The world has hurt and cheated and stolen from me as it has from you.”

Kirsten looked out the window, down to where the tide of wealth and people passed beneath her. Try as she might, she could not convince herself the night’s gaiety was any more real than smiles off a backlit strip of cellotape. She sighed. Perhaps the only way to endure it all was through finding a comfortable lie.

Erin reached across the table and gripped Kirsten’s hand with both of her own. “Let me be your voice. Let me sing my arias for both of us.
Let me shout the pain. Then, when we are alone, let us find one another in the intimate sharing of our secret.” Fiercely she clenched Kirsten’s hand, though her voice remained an enticing murmur. “Shall I tell you what that secret is?”

A shadow appeared and hovered by their table. They looked over together to find a nervous young man in the Savoy’s uniform of starched shirt and tails. He handed Erin an engraved calling card. “Excuse me, Ms. Brandt. But the gentleman says it is most urgent.”

“Impossible. The man is utterly impossible.” Erin tossed her napkin aside. “Forgive me, my dear. This will require two seconds only.”

Kirsten tried to lose herself in the champagne and the theater outside her window. But this unbidden space could not have come at a worse time. Now that she was alone, she could not help but acknowledge the inaudible lament. This was not working. Her mental confusion was a serrated blade sawing at the night’s façade.

She found herself recalling the high school guidance counselor who had helped her graduate early. Such memories were normally dreaded events, yet this image merely came and spoke and lingered, like a dawn delayed by a passing storm. Once a term she and the counselor had held the same terse conversation, a ritual between two people who were almost but not quite friends. The counselor asked Kirsten if everything was all right. Kirsten always gave the required answer, that she was fine, her home was great, her parents the best. Then the counselor spoke the words that echoed now in the smoke and the chatter and the clink of fine crystal. Know when to ask for aid.

So ask she did. Then and there. Her eyes were wide open, yet she saw nothing save the vague reflection of a lonely young blonde in the window beside her. Kirsten stared into a candlelit gaze of empty confusion and spoke the words. Help me.

So swiftly it could only have been in response, a barrier rose between her and the opulent chamber. The unseen curtain blanketed even sound. Kirsten stared anew at her reflection, this time searching with the honesty of total isolation. Her reflection said nothing. Merely waited.

She knew then what it was she needed to apprehend. Softly she spoke the words, You do not belong here.

Her translucent apparition stood up, and she rose as well. The image guided her out of the restaurant. She walked down the stairs and
through the fancy foyer and out the front doors. She thought perhaps she caught sight of the apparition in the window of a departing taxi, moving so swiftly Kirsten had no choice but accept that she was both alone and where she should be. She looked up in time to see Erin return to the table, sit down, drink from her glass, and laugh at something the waiter said. At home in a realm from which Kirsten had been forever expelled.