When Stars Collide by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

If Olivia hadn’t been so drunk, she wouldn’t have let anyone in, but apparently her alcohol-soaked brain decided she needed a drinking companion. Once she opened the door, however, and saw Sarah Mabunda on the other side, she changed her mind.

“What do you want?” Olivia had lost her good manners. Sarah, a woman she’d considered her friend, had frozen her out.

Sarah’s long Aida wig was gone, but she still wore her stage makeup with darkened brows, matte brown lipstick, and exaggerated eye makeup. Neither she nor Sarah ever left the theater without taking off their makeup, yet now one of them had.

Sarah slipped her finger under the strap of her shoulder bag. “I’m sorry.”

Olivia didn’t need her pity. It wasn’t Sarah’s fault Olivia couldn’t perform. “Thank you.” She proceeded to close the door on her, but Sarah was strong, Olivia was drunk, and Sarah managed to push her way in.

“Lena was fine, but she isn’t you,” Sarah said.

“I don’t care.” Olivia looked for her drink, but saw only the pile of cocktail napkins the previous renter had left behind. “Amneris loved Aida.” Her tongue wasn’t working as it should. “They were friends. Both born princesses. Both in love with the same man. Friends.”

“Except one was a captured slave.” Sarah dropped her bag on an easy chair near the couch, disregarding the fact that she wasn’t welcome.

Olivia needed to blow her nose from her crying jag, but she couldn’t find a tissue. “Amneris didn’t mean for Aida to die. They were like sisters.” Her voice sounded woolly, and she felt like crying again. Where was her drink?

“Jealousy does strange things to a woman,” Sarah said.

Olivia picked up a cocktail napkin that said Save water. Drink gin, and blew her nose on it. “Jealousy’s never been my problem, so I wouldn’t know.”

“Lucky you.” Sarah found Olivia’s drink on the fireplace mantel, but instead of handing it over, she took a gulp.

“Alcohol isn’t good for your voice.” Something Sarah should know for herself.

“I’ll risk it.”

“It’s your funeral.” Olivia gave a choked laugh. “That’s funny, right? Because of Aida getting entombed and all. Thanks to me.”

“Hysterical,” Sarah said dryly. She carried Olivia’s drink to the windows and gazed out at the view across the street. “I loved him, you know. It happened so fast, but I loved him more than you did.”

Olivia’s fuzzy brain made it hard for her to sneer. “Nobody could love him the way I do.”

Sarah turned. “Still?”

“I’ll never stop.”

“Then why did you leave him?”

“Because I had to.” Olivia picked up another cocktail napkin—It’s five o’clock somewhere—and blew her nose again.“I’m not like other women. I can’t handle a career and a relationship. Look what’s happened to me.” She gave her nose another honk. “I let my voice get stolen.”

Sarah’s hair was matted from the wig cap, but she still looked beautiful and defiant, more like the powerful Amneris than like Aida. “If he loved you so much, he wouldn’t have fallen for me so fast. We had something special right from the beginning.”

“You’re crazy.” Olivia grabbed her Negroni from Sarah. The ice had long ago melted, but she didn’t care. “You don’t even know him.”

“He asked me out on what was supposed to be your wedding day.”

“Wedding day?” Olivia tried to focus because she was clearly missing something.

“You didn’t know that, did you? Less than a week after you broke up with him, he asked me out, and by the end of our first date, we knew we had something special. He loved me more than he ever loved you.”

Olivia scrambled to put the pieces together. “Are you talking about Adam?”

“Who else would I be talking about?”

“Thad! I love Thad!”

“That football player you’ve been seeing?”

“He’s not just any football player! He’s one of the greats. He’s—” The Negroni sloshed onto the floor. “He’s the greatest second-string quarterback of all time.”

“You’re drunk.”

“Of course I’m drunk! I can’t sing, and I’ve lost my way.” She couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Adam killed himself because of me!”

Instead of being shocked, Sarah scoffed at her. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? He sent me an email!” she exclaimed. “A suicide email. Technology, right? I mean, what happened to the old-fashioned suicide note? Now everything is electronic.”

Sarah cocked her head. “He emailed you, too?”

“‘Too’? What do you mean, ‘too’?”

“That bastard.” Sarah didn’t say it angrily. More like she wanted to cry. She sank into the couch. “Now there are three of us.” She picked up a cocktail napkin.

“Three?”

“You, me, and Sophia Ricci.”

“Sophia Ricci?” Olivia didn’t understand. Ricci was the lyric soprano who’d stolen the role of Carmen from a mezzo. Rachel had told her about that when they’d had lunch in LA, and Sophia had dated Adam before Olivia. But an email . . . ?

Sarah blew her nose on a cocktail napkin with a gold embossed, Drink up, bitches.“Sophia and I met at the Royal Academy. We’ve been friends for years, but I hadn’t heard from her in a while. A few days ago she called. She’s been having panic attacks, and she thought I could help. I don’t think she intended to tell me about the suicide email, but it came out.”

“I don’t understand.”

Sarah hugged herself. “It seems he sent all three of us an email. Sophia’s and mine were identical. ‘You let me believe we were forever. You meant everything to me and I meant nothing to you.’”

Olivia’s mushy brain finally absorbed what it was hearing, and she finished what had been in the note. “‘Why should I keep on living?’ Yes, that’s what mine said, too.”

Sarah slumped into the couch. “You lost your voice, Sophia’s having panic attacks, my eczema’s out of control—my legs, back, chest. And I can’t stop eating. I’ve gained twenty pounds.”

“You look good.” A stupid comment, but that’s how Olivia was feeling now. Stunned and stupid.

“I loved him with all my heart.” Sarah swiped at her eyes with the napkin, smearing some of her makeup. Even in her drunken state, Olivia could see Sarah’s pain, and it made her want to cry right along. “I fell hard and fast,” Sarah said, “but I wasn’t blind to his faults. He was a wonderful teacher, and he could have been a great coach, but he wanted to be Pavarotti, except he didn’t have the voice.” She wadded up the napkin, looking at it in her lap. “When he lost out on a part, he blamed the acoustics or his accompanist. The weather. Sometimes, he blamed me. Not directly. More like, if only I hadn’t insisted on going to the Turkish restaurant, he would have sung better. Little things like that.”

Olivia circled back to the beginning. “But those emails? To all three of us? The Adam I knew was spoiled, but he wasn’t cruel.”

“He lost out on one too many roles. He fell into a severe depression and refused to see a doctor. He kept saying there was nothing wrong with him.”

“It was always other people.” Olivia gazed at what was left of her drink. It reminded her of sewer water, and she couldn’t imagine taking another sip. “You weren’t at his funeral.”

“I’d seen him the day he killed himself. We’d had an argument.” She stared straight ahead, looking haunted. “He never told his sisters about me, and I couldn’t face them. Cowardly, I know.”

“But why have you been so cold to me? We were friends.”

“Jealousy. That’s why I came here, to tell you about Adam and apologize for the way I’ve been behaving.” She tugged on her bottom lip with her teeth. “I always suspected he loved you more. Ironic, isn’t it? Aida eaten up with jealousy toward Amneris. I wonder what Verdi would have made of that.”

“Adam was no heroic Radamès.” Olivia experienced a moment of drunken clarity. “He didn’t love me more. He loved what he thought I could do for him.”

They both took a moment to ponder that. Olivia rubbed the glass across her forehead. “Adam couldn’t ever have been a great tenor, but he could have done other things: taught, been satisfied with smaller roles at smaller companies.”

“Instead, he put a gun to his head and blamed us for making him do it.” Sarah wiped her eyes. “It’s such a waste.”

Olivia set aside her glass. “So you and Sophia have been going through the same emotions I have. But neither of you lost your voice.”

“It didn’t affect my voice, but you’ve obviously never had eczema so bad you gouge bloody tracks in your skin.”

“I’m so sorry.” Olivia gazed down at her hands, sticky from her spilled drink. “Blaming other people . . . He wanted us to feel responsible for what he did.”

“I’m done with it,” Sarah said angrily. “I’ve had enough of scratching my skin till it bleeds. You and Sophia and I need to schedule a three-way conversation.”

Sarah was right. “Let’s make it a four-way and include a therapist,” Olivia said.

“Good idea. And, Olivia, I really am sorry for the way I froze you out.”

“I understand. Truly.” She knew too well the damage guilt could cause.

Sarah had started crying again. Olivia moved over to the couch and put her arm around her. “You loved him, and you tried to help him.” She rested her cheek against Sarah’s head, not sure which one of them she was talking to. “No more guilt. You’re going to forgive yourself, and I’m going to forgive myself, and so is Sophia.” She thought about what they hadn’t discussed. “Then we’re going to talk about those threating notes . . .” She shuddered. “That bloody T-shirt.”

Sarah lifted her tear-streaked face. “What do you mean? What threatening notes?”

*  *  *

Olivia awakened at noon the next day, her head throbbing. She downed two ibuprofens, swore never to drink again, and stumbled into the shower.

Sarah and Sophia had only gotten the suicide note, none of the other things. They hadn’t received any newspaper clippings with their heads cut out or watched a T-shirt covered with fake blood tumble out of an envelope. Neither of them had been assaulted on the second floor of an antiquarian bookstore or kidnapped in the Mojave Desert. She yearned to call Thad. Knowing she couldn’t do that was worse than the hangover.

She wrapped herself in her fuzziest bathrobe and staggered into the kitchen for coffee. Three days ago, when she’d broken up with Thad, she’d added twice as much water as she needed to the pot. Since then, she’d lost her apartment key and found it later in the piano bench. She’d added cumin instead of cinnamon to her oatmeal and nearly brushed her teeth with a tube of facial serum.

If only Thad were a man like Dennis, a man with a portable career and no ego. A man who’d never won a Heisman or completed seventy percent of his passes during one shining football season. Thad was her male doppelgänger. They’d taken different career paths, but they had the same internal makeup, the same passion for what they did, the same drive for excellence, and the same refusal to let anyone stand between them and glory.

Cradling a fresh mug of coffee, she called Piper and told her what had happened last night. Afterward, she wandered into the living room and gazed at her piano. What would it be like to sing without the heavy weight of guilt hanging over her? She plucked a few keys with her free hand. What would it be like to sing with nothing but a broken heart?

*  *  *

Thad had become familiar with the Internet’s opera news sites, and the story was all over the place. Liv had been benched for opening night. He’d gotten her to sing, but he hadn’t gotten her to sing well enough to perform, and he hated failure.

He talked to Piper daily. Sometimes more than once. Sometimes enough to make her tell him to get a life. But he couldn’t stop thinking about Liv wandering down some dark alley or jumping into a strange limousine. Even secure apartment buildings weren’t always secure. He called Piper again, and this time she had news. “It turns out Olivia’s former fiancé liked to spread the guilt around.”

“What do you mean?”

She told him about Sarah Mabunda’s revelation. “I’ve done some digging since then,” she said, “and it turns out Adam had a fourth target, a French horn player he dated between Sophia Ricci and Olivia.”

“He sure didn’t have any trouble attracting women.”

“He was very good-looking, like a floppy-haired angel.”

Thad suppressed the desire to ask which one of them was better looking—himself or Adam—which only went to show how far he’d sunk.

Saturday came, the day of the Aida premiere. To distract himself, he biked all eighteen miles of the lakefront trail. Olivia had said she loved him, and he knew her well enough to know she wouldn’t toss around those words lightly. But what kind of person announced they loved somebody and broke up with them?

When he got home from his bike ride, he saw that his favorite opera blogger had put up a fresh post.

*  *  *

Olivia arrived at the Muni early. She’d somehow managed to convince Mitchell to change his mind about her appearance tonight by reminding him how angry the season ticket holders would be if she didn’t sing. Eventually, he’d capitulated.

Last week, when she’d still had hope, she’d ordered beautifully boxed mini–opera cakes as opening night gifts for her fellow cast members. Now she traveled dutifully from one dressing room to the next with her gifts and “Toi, toi, toi . . .” for the others who’d arrived early.

Everyone treated her carefully, as if she had a terminal illness. Only Sarah gave her a long hug. “Toi, toi, toi, my friend. Let’s make magic.”

Magic was a long way off, but Olivia was done with the burden of responsibility she’d been carrying for too long. It was time to do what she loved, even if she did it badly. She’d honor Amneris, Verdi, and herself in the best way she could. If the critics massacred her, so be it. If she shredded her reputation, it was hers to shred. She’d let her fear of failure rule her for long enough. Tonight, she would be as fearless as Amneris vying for the love of Radamès.

Which ended very badly for everyone.

She shook off that unpleasant reminder.

Good-luck gifts from the others were waiting in her dressing room: a gag key chain from Arthur Baker; an alabaster statue of Isis from Sarah. Lena had left a fragrant package of Egyptian incense sticks and a note saying it was a pleasure watching her work. Jose Alvarez, who was singing the high priest, Ramfis, gifted her with chocolates, and the maestro sent flowers.

After makeup and costume, she closed the door of her dressing room for her solitary preperformance ritual: a few vocal warm-ups, a quick double-check of the notes she’d made, and a teaspoon of Nin Jiom cough syrup in warm water to keep her throat clear.

Yesterday’s vocalizations had been promising, but her chest still felt tighter than it should. No more fear, she told herself. Public humiliation was better than private cowardice.

She wished Thad could see her now. In her formfitting amethyst-blue gown with its elaborately jeweled collar piece, she looked every inch a pharaoh’s daughter. Fortunately, the collar piece wasn’t as heavy to wear as it looked from the audience. A wide white sash embroidered with gold papyrus hieroglyphs extended to the gown’s hem. She had dark, winged eyebrows and a fierce lapis-blue cat’s eye outlined in black extending to her temples. The long, intricately braided black wig bore a gold cobra on top, poised to strike. With gold sandals on her feet; big, lotus drop earrings; and her own gold cuff at her wrist, she was a portrait of fierce Egyptian royalty—a woman entitled to have everything she desired, except the man who’d claimed her heart.

Another gift had appeared on her dressing table while she was gone, a small box wrapped in white tissue paper. She glanced at the wall clock—twenty minutes to overture—slid her finger under the tape to pull off the paper, and opened the lid.

With a gasp, she dropped the box.

A dead yellow canary fell at her feet, its single black eye staring up at her.

She shuddered. Who would do something this depraved?

There was a scent. A strong scent she recognized. But not from the dead bird. No. She picked up the box that had contained its corpse. The cardboard held the smell of Egyptian incense.

Rage bubbled up inside her. There was only one explanation, the one she’d been refusing to accept. The wrapping paper was different, but the box held the identical scent as the incense Lena had given her.

She picked up the bird in her bare hands, too furious to grab a tissue, and marched through the hallways, the dead canary extended in front of her. She stormed past the extras on their way to be costumed for the Triumphal March, her gold sandals striking the tile floor, amethyst gown swirling around her calves. They took one look at her and backed away.

She stormed into the stairwell, lifting her gown with her free hand so she didn’t trip on the hem. Up one flight, out into the hallway, and down the corridor to the room where the covers were required to stay during a performance so they’d be close at hand if they were needed. If, for example, a famous mezzo-soprano was so traumatized by a dead bird that she lost her ability to sing.

They were gathered in the lounge, a golf tournament muted on the television. The tenor covering for Arthur Baker played a game of solitaire. Sarah’s cover was doing a crossword. Others were on their phones, while Lena sat at a table reading a book.

Their heads came up in unison as she stormed into the room—her gown rippling at her ankles, dead canary in her hands, gold cobra on her head. She marched across the floor and dumped the bird in Lena’s lap.

Lena shrieked, leaped to her feet, and then fell to her knees in front of the bird. “Florence?”

The rawness of Lena’s emotions—the way her expression shifted from horror to shock to grief—gradually penetrated Olivia’s fury. She began to realize she might have made a mistake.

Three people she didn’t recognize were in the room. Someone’s wife or girlfriend, an older woman who might be one of the singers’ mothers, and a person she did recognize. A man Lena had introduced as her husband, Christopher.

Instead of showing concern for his wife’s distress, his eyes were on Olivia, as if he were assessing her—or wary of her. As if he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t have.

Lena’s husband . . .

It all came crashing back to her. Rachel had worked with Lena in Minneapolis. She’d said the couples had hung out together. As much as Olivia adored Dennis, he was a gossip. How many conversations had she had with Rachel where she’d said, “Don’t you dare tell Dennis”? Rachel generally kept her word, but occasionally she’d share a piece of news with him before Olivia was ready to make it public. Olivia had talked to Dennis about it, and he’d apologized. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Rachel told me not to say anything, and I didn’t mean for it to slip out.”

Olivia didn’t know exactly how the pieces fit, but she was certain they did. Rachel knew Olivia was guilt-plagued about Adam’s suicide, and she’d suspected Olivia’s vocal issues were worse than Olivia was letting on. Rachel had put two and two together and mulled it over with Dennis. If Dennis knew, he could very well have told Lena’s husband sometime when the couples were together.

Lena hadn’t been her saboteur. It was Christopher, Lena’s husband, a man who had a sizable stake in his wife’s career. A man who wanted his wife onstage instead of Olivia.

Lena lifted her tear-streaked face to her husband. “What happened to Florence?”

“That’s not Florence!” he exclaimed.

“It is Florence! Look at the white on her tail feathers, the little dash by her eye.”

Christopher addressed the rest of the room with a fake, dismissive laugh. “Florence is Lena’s pet canary. The bird stopped eating, and Lena’s been worried, but . . .” He returned his attention to his wife. “Florence was alive when I left home. I swear.”

His swearing lacked conviction. Lena, looking lost and confused, her dead pet cradled in her hand, gazed up at Olivia. “I don’t understand.”

From the speaker, the opening notes of the overture began to play. “You and your husband need to have a long talk,” Olivia said. “And if I were you, I’d hire a lawyer.”

*  *  *

She hurried back to her dressing room. When she got there, she made a quick call to Piper outlining what had happened and then muted her phone.

The stage manager’s voice came from the speaker. “Mr. Baker, Mr. Alvarez, please report to the stage.” Her call would be next.

She locked the door and turned off her dressing room lights. She had so many questions, but for now she had to set them all aside. Lena’s husband’s sabotage had stolen enough from her. She wouldn’t let it steal any more.

Be fearless.She drew herself to her full height and breathed into the darkness.Long inhales. Slow exhales. Even, deliberate breaths. Trying to trust herself once again.

Inhale . . . Exhale . . .

“Ms. Shore, please report to the stage.”