When Stars Collide by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Thad played it cool for the next two days, acting as if the incident with Clint hadn’t happened, but her attitude still bugged the hell out of him. Thad had been leading the offense since he was a kid. He was the play-caller, not The Diva. What kind of game was she running?

She gazed at him across the room service cart. They’d gotten in the habit of eating an early breakfast together in one suite or the other, and today she was deep into an egg white omelet.

He looked up from his phone. “I’ve got this urge to hear you do Cassandra Wilson’s version of ‘Time After Time.’”

Her nose went up. “Then call Cassandra Wilson. I’m sure she’d be more than happy to sing it for you.”

“Come on, Liv. Give a guy a break.”

“I can’t even do Cindy Lauper’s ‘Time After Time.’ And I don’t know what Cassandra’s version sounds like.”

“I’ll play it.”

And he did. She sat back in her chair, breakfast abandoned, and listened to Wilson’s wrenching, soulful version of the ancient Lauper hit. When it ended, she turned her head away and gazed out the window at the Manhattan skyline.

She began to sing. It wasn’t Lauper or Wilson; it was some beautiful hybrid only she could produce. But even he knew it wasn’t opera, and as her voice faded away, she looked so wistful that he couldn’t bear it.

He pushed back from his own breakfast. “We’ve got a couple of hours before we have to be at Tiffany, and I have an idea . . .”

*  *  *

The eleven crystal chandeliers in the lobby of the Metropolitan Opera House were still a spectacular sight in the morning light. This place couldn’t be more different from the basement jazz clubs where Thad usually hung out.

“There are twenty-one more chandeliers in the auditorium.” Liv looked her normal superstar self in one of those black pencil dresses she’d changed into for the day, along with some gold Spanish earrings, her wide Egyptian cuff, and the Cavatina3. A pair of nude stilettos made her thoroughbred legs look ready for the runway.

She rested her hand on the curved railing. “Right before the performance begins, twelve of the big chandeliers in the auditorium ascend above the audience. It’s a spectacular sight.”

“I’ll bet.” Outside the Metropolitan’s soaring windows, a swarm of tourists clustered by the Lincoln Center fountain for photos, and in the distance, traffic jostled for position on Columbus Avenue. Manhattan was crazy. The noise. The traffic. The city’s chaos bothered him in a way Chicago’s midwestern bustle never did. Or maybe his sour mood had more to do with the memory of Clint Garrett’s lips on The Diva’s mouth.

“The Met’s chandeliers were a gift to the United States from the Austrian government in the 1960s,” she said. “A very nice thank-you present for the Marshall Plan.”

She shot him a sideways look that suggested she doubted he knew what the Marshall Plan was. He hadn’t taken only finance classes in college, so he suspected he knew more about the billions of dollars the US had earmarked for Western Europe’s World War II recovery efforts than she did.

He decided to deadpan it. “Not all jocks are ignorant, Liv. If it hadn’t been for the Marshall Plan, small towns all across America wouldn’t have a sheriff.”

She blinked and laughed, but whatever retort she intended to make was cut off by the appearance of a short, rotund man with steel-wool hair and an elastic smile. “Olivia! My dear! Does Peter know you’re here? And Thomas? It’s been forever since we’ve seen you.”

“Four months,” she replied, after they’d done one of those double-cheek kisses Thad considered anti-American. “And this isn’t an official visit. Charles, this is 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 skirt had swirled around her bare, splayed legs. Sexier than porn.

Luella opened the back of the gown. “Look at this, Mr. Owens.”

Three white labels had been sewn in, each one printed in black marker with the name of the performer who’d worn the gown, the act number, and the opera in which the costume had been worn.

Elīna Garanča, Act 1, Carmen

Clémentine Margaine, Act 1, Carmen

Olivia Shore, Act 1, Carmen

Olivia touched the label. “The history of each costume.”

“I hope it won’t be long before you wear it again,” Luella said.

Olivia nodded, even as her lips tightened at the corners.

*  *  *

Luella’s comment stayed with Olivia for the rest of the day. What if she never again wore Carmen’s costume? Or, more pressing, Amneris’s elaborate Egyptian headdress and jeweled collar? The last time she’d sung the Judgment scene as Amneris, the audience had come to its feet. Now, she’d be booed.

*  *  *

Henri accompanied her as she spoke to high school students at an Upper East Side music conservatory the next morning, while Thad visited a group of student athletes with Paisley. The conservatory teens were a dynamic mixture of scholarship kids and kids from wealthy families. Their enthusiasm for music, honest questions, and uncensored opinions reminded her of the way she’d been in that innocent time years earlier when she could never have imagined she’d let her voice be stolen.

Henri had insisted on a limo, although they could have made the trip faster on the subway. As he spoke on the phone, her thoughts took an unpleasant turn to Adam, the threats she’d been receiving, and her upcoming performance at the Muni. They stopped at a light on Fifth Avenue. She glanced over at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and what had been only the faintest notion grew in urgency. She checked the time on her Cavatina3. It was 9:56 a.m. on the dot. Perfect.

“Henri, the museum is opening in four minutes, and I’m going to make a quick stop. I’ll meet you at the hotel.”

“Non, non! Thad has insisted—”

“It’s the Metropolitan. I’ll be fine.” She jumped out of the car before he could stop her, crossed through a break in traffic to the curb, and waved him on. An impulsive visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art just as the doors were opening hardly counted as high risk.

“We will wait for you!” Henri shouted, sticking his head out the open window, his brown hair streaming straight back from his face. “Text me when you’re ready.”

She waved in acknowledgment and climbed the front steps.

It didn’t take long to clear security and pay her entrance fee. She knew exactly where she wanted to be—where she needed to be—and she took a quick turn to her right. She moved through the Tomb of Perneb without stopping. He was only a Fifth Dynasty court official, and she needed more power than he offered. She wove past the mummies and funerary equipment of the Ptolemies and the chapel reliefs of Ramses I until she reached the Temple of Dendur.

The hordes of visitors hadn’t yet descended, and the spacious light-filled gallery with its sweep of angled windows was quiet. This might be the Met’s most popular exhibit, but popularity hadn’t brought her here, nor had nostalgia for the times she’d performed in this same spot at cultural events and black-tie galas. She’d come here because the Temple of Dendur was dedicated to Isis, and Isis was one of the Egyptians’ most powerful gods of both healing and magic, two things she sorely needed.

The reflecting pool representing the waters of the Nile glistened in the morning light. She bypassed the temple’s gate and went directly into the temple itself, passing through its twin columns with their papyrus plant capitals. Two other visitors had beaten her here. Maybe they, too, felt the sacredness of this space because neither was speaking.

She’d once visited the temple with an Egyptologist who’d been able to read each of the ancient hieroglyphics covering the sandstone walls, but she’d been more interested in imagining the lives of the Nubian people who’d gathered here.

She touched the wall. Isis, if you have any mojo left, would you fix me? Would you ease my chest, open my throat? Give me back my confidence. Let me—

“Olivia?”

She spun around to see a small woman entering the temple. Her hope for solitude vanished.

“My dear.” The woman took Olivia’s hands. “I was just thinking about you!”

“Kathryn, how are you?”

“So busy! With the Aida gala only three weeks away, my head is spinning with ideas. We’re building a re-creation of Dendur at the front entrance for the guests to pass through.”

“I’m sure that’ll be amazing.”

Eugene Swift’s widow looked like the stereotype of a seventy-year-old art patron. Slim and trim, with a black velvet headband holding her gray bob away from her face, she wore what was surely vintage Chanel, along with the low, square-heeled black pumps—probably Ferragamo—that women of her age and social status favored. As her husband’s replacement on the board of the Chicago Municipal Opera, as well as one of its most generous donors, she was the last person Olivia wanted to know about her voice. “What are you doing in New York?” she asked.

Kathryn gave a dismissive wave. “We have a place here. Only myself and my son now that Eugene is gone.”

“He was a wonderful man,” Olivia said truthfully. “We all miss him.”

At Kathryn’s request, Olivia had sung at his funeral. Eugene Swift had been a true opera scholar with a deep appreciation of all its forms. He’d also been Olivia’s friend.

“He would have loved the Aida gala,” Kathryn said. “I’m suggesting costumes, but only for the women. Frankly, the idea of potbellied men draping themselves in white linen would put me off my dinner. I’m having a robe made for the event. I can give you the name of my dressmaker if you’d like.”

“I’m sure I can borrow something from the costume shop.”

“You’re a dear. Everyone will look forward to seeing what you wear.” Kathryn gazed up at the temple walls. Olivia knew her real passion lay with art museums, not opera, and Olivia appreciated her continued involvement with the Chicago Muni Opera to honor Eugene’s memory. “I adore this temple,” she said. “Since it’s not looted like the Elgin Marbles, one can admire it without feeling guilty.”

Olivia was well acquainted with the history of the temple, a gift from the Egyptian government for the part the United States had played in saving it, along with other artifacts, from the bottom of Lake Nasser when the Aswan Dam was constructed.

Unlike other socialites’ brows, Kathryn’s still had the ability to wrinkle. “It’s such a dilemma. One has to believe museums should return stolen artifacts to their rightful country, but what if it’s a country like Syria or Iraq where ISIS has destroyed so much? I don’t want to be accused of cultural insensitivity, but until those countries stabilize, our museums should hold on to what we have.” She set her hand on one of the temple’s oval cartouches. “I’ll never forgive LBJ for giving Dendur to the Metropolitan instead of to Chicago. It would have been such a magnificent addition to the Art Institute. Still, one has to admit that the Metropolitan’s done well by it.”

Olivia didn’t hear the rest of Kathryn’s monologue as a familiar, unwelcome figure made his way through the gate. He headed directly toward them, all athletic grace and frosty glare. As he stopped at Olivia’s side, she offered up her brightest smile. “Kathryn, this is Thad Owens. Thad, Mrs. Swift is our honorary hostess for the Muni gala.”

Kathryn extended a wrinkled hand displaying, among other things, an impressive jade ring. “Yes. The football player. I’ve met your delightful owner, Mrs. Calebow, several times.”

Before Olivia could point out that Phoebe Calebow owned the team, not Thad personally, he’d taken the older woman’s hand. “A pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Swift.” The look he shot Olivia was anything but pleasurable.

She appreciated his concern, but she didn’t enjoy having a full-time watchdog. “We have to run, Kathryn.”

As soon as they cleared the temple gates, Thad started lecturing her. She barely listened. Instead, she was distracted by his Victory780—not the watch itself, but the way his wrist displayed it, with masculine perfection.

No matter what Mariel Marchand might think, she couldn’t have found a better man to represent that watch. He was a natural leader, protective of others and demanding of himself. He was self-confident, but didn’t take himself too seriously. He was intelligent, charismatic, and sexier than any man should be.

Desire thrummed through her body. Las Vegas. Why had she struck that crazy deal with him? Why wait for Las Vegas? Why not now? This morning? Tonight?

Never?

The world was spinning out of her control.

“When are you going to get a handle on your porn addiction?” she said, as they stepped out onto Fifth Avenue.

“My what?”

“Don’t think I haven’t noticed how much you’re on your laptop, and the way you make sure no one can see what’s on the screen. You’re clearly addicted to porn.”

He smiled. “When you can’t have the real thing . . .”

He was messing with her again. He wasn’t watching porn. Something else had his attention, and she wondered what it was.

*  *  *

Four-star hotels excelled at fulfilling their guests’ last-minute requests—in this case, supplying Thad with a pair of rain jackets. Liv’s was too big, his too small, but at least the top half of them was staying dry.

The weather, in typical April fashion, was cold and drizzly, which gave Thad the opportunity he’d been looking for. They had a few hours before tonight’s dinner, and after this morning’s visit to the Metropolitan Opera and Olivia’s reckless side trip to the museum, Thad’s determination to do something to help her had strengthened. But he needed a special place for what he had in mind.

Liv peered at him from under the hood of her rain jacket, a few drops slithering down her nose. “Where are you taking me?”

“Never you mind where I’m taking you. You keep forgetting I’m the man in this relationship, and what I say goes.”

That cracked her up, as he’d known it would, and she emitted a trio of unladylike snorts.

They were in his favorite part of Central Park, the North Woods. During his days with the Giants, he’d often come here to run. Because of its location in the park’s far northwest corner, the North Woods wasn’t as heavily visited as the central and southern sections, and today’s inclement weather had left it virtually deserted.

Which was exactly what he needed. Hotel suites, no matter how luxurious, weren’t soundproofed, leaving him to wonder where, in this busy, crowded city, he might take a woman who could potentially break glass with her voice. The answer had come to him as they were leaving the museum. The North Woods on a rainy day when no one would be around.

He’d been surprised how easily he’d gotten her to agree to go out with him in this less-than-ideal weather until he remembered she liked being outdoors nearly as much as he did, although in typical diva fashion she’d wrapped her neck in a couple hundred wool scarves.

“It’s raining,” she pointed out unnecessarily.

“It’s drizzling. There’s a difference. And I thought humidity was good for your voice.”

“Not if I’m freezing to death.”

“Are you?”

“No. But I might be.”

“If that happens, we’ll head right back to the hotel, lock all the doors, and settle into whichever one of our beds we get to first.”

Apparently, he looked exactly as lecherous as he felt because she gave him another of her snorts. “This is Manhattan. Not Las Vegas.”

“We could pretend.”

She laughed, but she sounded nervous. He wasn’t exactly calm himself. They’d made too big a deal out of the last-night-in-Las-Vegas thing. They should have been getting it on from the beginning. This was what came of lusting after a high-strung diva.

He steered her off the paved pathway onto a side trail leading in the general direction of the part of the North Woods known as the Ravine. A woodpecker drummed on a dead tree, and ferns pushed their way through the winter leaf debris bordering the stream that ran through this section of the park. He could hear water rushing down one of the cascades. Frederick Law Olmsted had wanted to re-create the Adirondacks here, and he’d designed the woodlands with a stream, waterfalls, and outcrops of boulders.

They hadn’t seen anyone for a while, and as they reached a thick grove of ironwoods where the distant sound of traffic was barely audible, he decided now was as good a time as any. “I need a rest. It’s been a busy day and after this morning, I’m in the mood for one of those arias you’re so famous for.”

She looked so hurt he wanted to snatch the words back, but that wouldn’t help her. “You mean one of those arias I can’t sing well?”

“I’ve got a theory about that.”

“You don’t know anything about opera, so how can you have a theory?”

“I’m that smart.”

“Seriously?” She managed a skeptical smile.

“Face it, Liv. You don’t have anything to lose and everything to gain. Start with those warm-ups. There’s nobody around to hear except me, and I’ll stick my fingers in my ears.”

Her forehead knit in frustration. “I can’t do my warm-ups, not the way I used to. You know that. My chest feels like it has a boa constrictor around it.”

“That’s why you have to stand on one leg.”

“What are you talking about?”

“What I said.”

“That’s crazy. I can’t sing on one leg.”

“You can’t sing on two legs, so what difference does it make?”

Her face fell. She looked as if he’d betrayed her, and his gut twisted. He fought against it. “It’s starting to rain harder, and we’re not leaving until you try. So do us both a favor and stop procrastinating. Warm up on one leg. And stick the other out in front of you. I dare you.”

“I’ll do it just to show you what an ass you are!” She shot one leg out in front of her, wobbled, regained her equilibrium, and balanced on the other leg, pulling her scarf up to her chin. She started with her ees.Ees to ewws, then some mahs.

They sounded okay to him, but they didn’t to her, and he could feel her getting ready to clamp her jaw shut. “Louder!” He grabbed the ankle of her extended leg with one hand and her rain jacket with the other to keep her from falling.

She shot him a murderous glower, but she kept going. A red-tailed hawk circled above them The ees transitioned into ewwsinto mahs, and son of a bitch, her voice was gaining strength. He knew it wasn’t his imagination because he could see it in her face.

He kept his grip on her extended leg and moved it ever so slightly to the side. She wobbled, shot him another death ray, but kept on vocalizing.

It continued that way as she flew through her exercises. Whenever he suspected she was starting to overfocus, he did something to unbalance her. He’d move her leg. Bend her outstretched knee. He made sure she didn’t fall, but he also made sure she had to focus on keeping her balance instead of judging her singing, because one of the biggest reasons athletes choked was from overconcentrating in crunch situations. Tension disrupted rhythm. An experienced player going through a bad streak only made it worse by focusing so much on the outcome he lost touch with his natural instincts. It was exactly the kind of mental disconnect he suspected had happened to her.

She wasn’t quite done when he cut her off. “That’s enough.” He released her leg. She ducked her head and shook out the leg she’d been standing on without making eye contact. “I’m not done vocalizing.”

“Yes, you are.”

She raised her head, regarding him with fake condescension. “You know nothing about opera singers.”

“But I know a lot about athletes, and I want to hear one of those arias you’re so famous for. You get to choose which one.”

“There’s a big difference between warming up and singing a complicated aria in the freezing cold while—”

“No excuses.” He pushed his hands under the bottom of her jacket and set them on her waist, just under the hem of her top so he could feel a few inches of bare skin.

“What are you—?”

“Sing!”

She did. Launching into something that sounded like really, really pissed-off German. Her voice began to strain. He gave the bare skin under his right hand a tiny pinch.

“Stop that!”

Son of a bitch.She sang the words at him instead of speaking them.

She looked as shocked as he felt. But she kept going. Launching herself into the dark, foreboding aria.

The music began pouring from her, the notes big and furious enough to make his ears ring.

Her skin was warm under his palms, but he somehow kept his focus. If he sensed her struggling for a note, he slid his hands higher along the bumps of her spine. He forced himself to stay below her bra line, not getting nearly as personal as he wanted to because this wasn’t about his goddamn lust. It was about her.

The aria went on, and she sang and she sang and she sang. The wind picked up, the rain turned to sleet, and that glorious voice challenged the oncoming storm.

*  *  *

As they walked toward the 103rd Street subway stop, he kept quiet, giving her the time she needed to process what had happened, but the longer the silence stretched between them, the more he wanted to know what she was thinking.

“That was from Götterdämmerung,” she finally said. “The last of Wagner’s Ring cycle. It was Waltraute’s ‘Höre mit Sinn was ich dir sage.’”

“And you chose it because . . . ?”

“Waltraute is one of the Valkyries. I’m not a Wagnerian singer, but I figured I needed supernatural help.”

“It seems like you got it.”

“My vibrato still has a wobble, my lower passaggio isn’t close to where it should be, and I’m strangling my high notes.”

“You’re the expert.”

“But at least I was singing.” She gave a choked half laugh, half something else. “All I need to do now is perform on one leg with somebody feeling me up.”

“Happy to oblige.”

She squeezed his wrist through the sleeve of the rain jacket. Only for a moment before she withdrew. “Thanks.”

“You can pay me back in Las Vegas.”

*  *  *

Her hair was tangled, and she needed a shower before their client dinner. As she adjusted the water temperature, she saw that her hands were shaking. She understood the psychology of what Thad had done for her. Focusing on keeping her balance instead of thinking so much about the sound she was producing had helped her over one psychological hurdle. But she was still a mess.

She slicked the shampoo through her hair. Amneris’s aria in Aida, “Già i sacerdoti adunansi,” swelled in her head, but even in the protective womb of the shower, she was afraid to try singing it.

Eight more days until she started rehearsals. Two more days until they reached Las Vegas. One event filled her with panic, the other with a mixture of lust and panic.

*  *  *

Thad had left his sport coat in Olivia’s suite. She didn’t answer the door, so he let himself in with the duplicate copy of the key he made sure he had in every hotel.

The shower was running in the bathroom. His sport coat lay on the couch, right where he’d left it. On his way to retrieve it, he spotted an unopened brown manila envelope on the table by the door. It was addressed to her. He picked it up without a qualm and opened it.

Inside was a glossy photograph of a .38 pistol with the Smith & Wesson logo stamped on its grip.