When Stars Collide by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Olivia handed Rachel a tissue. “Are you done crying yet?”

Rachel blew her nose. “I’m never going to be done. Dennis and I are responsible for all the crap that’s happened to you.”

“You had nothing to do with Norman Gillis trying to kill me.”

Rachel wasn’t listening. “All the problems with your voice. I hate myself. You should hate me, too.”

“I do.”

Another honk of her very red nose. “No, you don’t, but you should. Every time I think about poor Lena and that dead canary . . . About what he did to you . . .” She shuddered. “I’m sorry. I’ve never been so sorry about anything in my whole life.”

“I believe you’ve mentioned that,” Olivia said. “About a dozen times. Forgiving you is getting boring.”

It was early Monday afternoon. Rachel had shown up at her door two hours ago after driving in from Indianapolis, where she was doing Hansel and Gretel. She’d been crying and apologizing ever since.

“I love you,” Rachel said. “You’re the best friend a person could ever have, and I violated our trust.” She started crying all over again.

Olivia handed her one more tissue and rose from the couch. “I’m making us something to eat, and you’re going to stop crying long enough to eat it.”

“Okay . . .” She sniffed. Blew her nose. “Let me help.”

Olivia lifted an eyebrow at the wadded tissues in her lap. “Wash your hands first.”

That elicited a watery smile. Rachel headed for the bathroom, and Olivia went to the kitchen. She’d had groceries delivered that morning, although she wasn’t sure why since she was too miserable to eat.

Thinking about Thad led her into a painful, fruitless spiral, so she thought about Eugene instead. She’d spoken to Brittany again this morning. Kathryn still wasn’t cooperating, but the details Norman had provided about Swift Auctions were checking out. In addition to its legitimate operation, the company had been smuggling artifacts, only a few at a time, but each one highly profitable.

The investigators didn’t have a timeline yet, but as Olivia had predicted, it looked as though the illegal activities had begun several years before Eugene died, after he’d turned the operation over to his wife and her son. Only when Norman was questioned about Olivia and the bracelet had he clammed up out of self-protection. Smuggling was one thing. Attempted murder another.

She reminded herself she was safe now. Norman and Kathryn were in jail without bond. Marsden faced federal charges of interstate stalking and harassment. No one was threatening her.

But she’d lost Thad, and what would happen when she took the stage again tomorrow night? Her body had survived its icy plunge. She had no sniffles, no sore throat. But her heart wasn’t in nearly as good a shape.

She wanted to see Thad. Talk to him. See how he was doing. To understand why they couldn’t be together again. Why they couldn’t take their relationship day by day. Why they couldn’t stop worrying about the future.

Which was exactly what he’d asked of her and she’d rejected him. She was the one who’d put a stop to their relationship because her work always had to come first. Even before love.

She opened the refrigerator. Nothing appealed to her except the tub of raspberry sorbet in the freezer. As she dished it up, Rachel reappeared and sat on one of the counter stools. Olivia stayed on the other side of the counter, holding her glass dish and a spoon. Rachel gazed at the sorbet. “You got any chocolate syrup?”

“No. Would ketchup do?”

“Never mind.” Rachel poked the end of her spoon into the dish without taking a bite. “I think Dennis and I need to separate for a while.”

Olivia’s head shot up. “You’re not separating from Dennis over this! He should never have told you.”

“It’s not only this.” She impaled her spoon. “My life isn’t my own anymore.” Rachel regarded her with stricken eyes. “He’s suffocating me!”

Olivia set down her bowl, the sorbet untouched. “Rach . . .”

“I hate feeling this way. He does everything for me. I never have to pay a bill or make a plane reservation. He plans our meals, keeps the apartment clean. He buys birthday presents for my family. Calls my father every week. I don’t have to do a thing. He takes care of it all.” Her eyes started leaking again, although this time without the noisy sobs. “I feel like it’s his career instead of mine.”

“Rachel, you need to talk to him.”

“I’ve tried to, but he gets so hurt. He wants to know what he can do so I feel better, and I want to scream at him to start having his own life and stop living mine!”

A wave of vertigo made Olivia grab the edge of the sink. Her world had flipped over. A man like Dennis was everything Olivia had dreamed of in a life partner, everything she’d believed would make her happy. But Rachel was miserable. Olivia took in her friend’s blotchy face and red eyes. “I never suspected . . . I thought . . . You love each other so much.”

“I need space!” Rachel stuffed a spoonful of sorbet into her mouth followed by another, and then pushed her bowl away. “Don’t ever get married, Olivia. Look at what happened to Lena.”

“Dennis is not Christopher Marsden. Not even close. Marsden was threatening and abusive. Dennis is a good man.”

“But maybe not good for me. Don’t ever marry a man who doesn’t have a life of his own unless you want him to take over yours.”

Olivia sank onto a stool. “You’ve never told me any of this. You and Dennis are what I’ve always wanted for myself.”

“I know and telling you this makes me feel like a complaining, entitled, ungrateful bitch.” She grabbed her spoon and pointed it in Olivia’s face. “You’re going to sing the hell out of Amneris tomorrow night. Do you hear me? You’re going to own that stage. You’re not going to let anybody—not Marsden, not Dennis, not me—steal your voice for one second longer. You’ll sing like you’ve never sung before or I won’t ever speak to you again.”

Rachel wasn’t exactly in a position to make threats, but Olivia understood and gave her a weak smile. “I’d love nothing better, but—”

“Then do it! Don’t you dare let the assholes win.”

*  *  *

Rachel drove back to Indianapolis, and Olivia alternated between absorbing the bombshell news about Rachel and Dennis’s marriage, agonizing over tomorrow night’s performance, and obsessing about Thad. When she couldn’t stand the tumult in her head any longer, she settled in front of her computer, something she’d been doing periodically when she should have been sleeping.

Her bracelet obviously wasn’t the costume piece Eugene had assumed or the copy that the Las Vegas jewelers had declared it to be. But stolen artifacts did occasionally show up at an auction house. All the management had to do was plead ignorance and attempt to return it to its owner. Why hadn’t Kathryn done that? What was so special about her bracelet?

Although she wasn’t a trained Egyptologist, she’d studied Egyptian history the same way she studied the historical background of every character she sang. She’d already googled Egyptian jewelry, ancient Egyptian jewelry, Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, New Kingdom jewelry. She’d checked out Pinterest boards and followed links to the Egyptian Book of the Dead, but she’d found nothing.

Both men and women in ancient Egypt wore jewelry, and before Rachel’s arrival, she’d begun a search of pharaohs. Now, she took a detour into the pharaohs’ wives, looking for images of any pieces that might be connected to the most obvious queens: Hatshepsut, Nefertari, and Nefertiti. She found nothing. Cleopatra was more Greek than Egyptian, but she also searched for her and found nothing.

And then . . . Olivia sucked in her breath. “Oh my God . . .”

*  *  *

Brittany wasn’t on duty that evening, but she wanted to hear what Olivia had uncovered, so instead of making the drive to the station house, they met at a local coffeehouse with brick walls, lots of dark wood, and wing chairs upholstered in worn green and gold velvet.

“Your bracelet was looted?” Brittany said, after they’d ordered their drinks and settled in a quiet corner.

Olivia nodded. “Yes. It was looted on January 28, 2011.”

Brittany regarded her quizzically. “How do you know the exact date?”

“Because it was the day looters broke into the Egyptian Museum of Cairo during the uprising against Mubarak’s regime, the so-called Arab Spring. Among other objects, they took a gilded wooden statue of Tutankhamen, a couple of wooden sarcophagi, and the bracelet of Queen Hetepheres.” Olivia paused. “The sarcophagi and statue were both located and returned.”

“But not the bracelet.”

“Not the bracelet.” She passed Brittany her phone. “This photo is from the museum’s archives.”

Brittany studied the photo. “It’s your bracelet. Either that, or an exact copy.”

“Considering what’s happened, I think we can assume it’s the real thing. I’ve been wearing Queen Hetepheres’s bracelet.”

“You said Mr. Swift gave you the bracelet over a year ago, right before he died. Why would Kathryn and her son wait so long to try to get it back?”

“They probably didn’t know until recently that I had it.” Olivia leaned into the chair’s worn cushions. “One of the stones fell out right after he gave it to me. I slipped the bracelet in a drawer and forgot about it until just before the tour when I was packing my costume jewelry. I superglued the stone back in and added the bracelet to the pile.” She frowned. “I dread telling the Egyptian Museum about the superglue.”

“I’m guessing they’ll forgive you.”

Olivia leaned forward. “A couple of days into the tour, a photograph of me wearing it showed up in the newspaper. That was the first time I was photographed with it. Right after was when the trouble started, so Kathryn must have seen that photo.” Olivia considered the carefully timed arrival of the limo driver at their Las Vegas hotel. Because of Kathryn’s position on the Muni’s board, she had easy access to every detail of the Marchand tour schedule.

“She finally knew where the bracelet was,” Brittany said, “and she was afraid people would recognize it.”

“Once that happened, it would be simple to trace it from me to Eugene Swift and from there to his company.”

“Establishing a direct link between a stolen Egyptian artifact and Swift Auction House would have ruined them.”

“Not necessarily. It isn’t easy to trace the provenance—the chain of custody—of ancient artifacts. If one that turns out to have been stolen or looted shows up in a catalog, the auction house acknowledges the mistake, tries to make it right, and all’s well.”

“Why couldn’t the Swifts do that?”

“Because my bracelet was stolen from a museum that issued a well-publicized list of every object that had been looted.”

“Meaning that Swift Auctions couldn’t plead ignorance.”

“Exactly. Every dealer in the country knew what was on that list, and if Kathryn couldn’t get the bracelet back, her entire illegal operation would be exposed.” Olivia ran her thumb over her wrist. “Eugene loved Aida. It felt right to wear his bracelet onstage opening night. I can only imagine how panicked she must have been when she saw it.”

“She must have been even more panicked when you walked into the gala wearing it.”

“I think she expected that. I ran into her about three weeks ago when I was in Manhattan, and she specifically asked me to come to the gala in costume. She didn’t know for sure I’d wear the bracelet, but it would be a logical accessory for me to choose, and she must have seen it as her fail-safe opportunity to get it back if her son couldn’t retrieve it before then. I’m guessing she didn’t have a lot of faith in Norman.”

“He did turn out to be a bit of a bumbler.”

“Fortunately for me.” And for Thad.

Brittany took more notes and promised to follow up with Olivia as soon as she knew more. After she left, Olivia ordered another herbal tea and called Piper.

“Amazing work,” Piper said, when she’d heard Olivia’s story. “I’d hire you for myself if you didn’t have that other silly career going on.”

Olivia smiled, and then hesitated. “Thad should know about this. Would you tell him?”

“Why don’t you tell him yourself?”

Piper would never know how much Olivia wanted to do exactly that. “It . . . would be better if you told him.”

There was a long pause at the other end. “All right.”

She couldn’t keep from asking. “How is he?”

“He’s not in great shape,” Piper said bluntly.

“Did he get sick? He was in the water so long, and the Chicago River isn’t exactly clean. He shouldn’t have jumped in. He— Is he all right?”

“He’s not sick. He’s quiet. I’ve never seen him quiet. Earlier today, Coop went to check on him. He said Thad looked like hell. Also, he was wearing something like bike shorts with a plaid dress shirt and black tuxedo shoes. You know that’s not right. Coop almost took him to the emergency room.”

Olivia gripped her phone tighter. “Would you . . . Maybe you could . . . I don’t know. Invite him to dinner or something?”

“It’ll take more than a dinner to fix what’s wrong with him.” Olivia heard papers rustling in the background. “Olivia, I like you, but Thad has been my friend for a long time, and I owe him my first loyalty. You’ve hurt him badly.”

But not as badly as she’d hurt herself.

She walked home from the coffee shop with her head down, eyes on the sidewalk, wishing she were invisible.

*  *  *

She warmed up her voice in the humidity of her shower the next morning. She tested her low range, her high, not pressing too hard, merely exploring. Unlike her heart, her gut and diaphragm felt strong and steady. She searched for the constriction that had stolen her breath. She found sadness, despair, but none of the tightness that had strangled her voice.

She got to the theater early, unable to shake the feeling that the gains she’d made would be stolen from her at any moment. She went to the piano and assessed her voice. Still steady. Maybe . . .

She finished hair and makeup. By the time she was done and on her way back to her dressing room, she was resolved. Tonight, she would give the performance she should have given on opening night. Tonight, she would reclaim herself.

And then she turned the corner.

Unlike Piper’s description, Thad looked perfectly put together—blazer, dress shirt, pants, shoes—all coordinated.

He wasn’t alone.

Sarah Mabunda, striking in her white gown as Aida, stood with him. Or rather in front of him. Or rather, between him and the wall.

Both of them turned to look at Olivia, their glances smug and dismissive. They returned their attention to each other. Sarah snaked her arms around Thad’s neck. Thad snaked his arms around Sarah’s waist. And the two of them kissed.

Not a little peck on the cheek. This was a full-on, mouth-to-mouth, grind-it-out, passionate kiss. Sarah Mabunda and Thad Walker Bowman Owens.

They made a beautiful couple.

Too beautiful.

Of all the—

*  *  *

The orchestra concluded the overture. Radamès and Ramfis sang about the aggression of their enemy Ethiopia. Ramfis exited, leaving Radamès alone dreaming of leadership, victory, and his beloved Aida. His beloved “Celeste Aida.”

Olivia stood in the wings, heart pounding, waiting for her entrance. Unlike Amneris, she understood exactly who Radamès loved.

He hit the high B-flat that finished his aria, and she swept onstage, a royal princess accustomed to having whatever she wanted. She sang of her love, her passion, for this beautiful warrior. She sang from the bottom of her heart.

But all he wanted to talk about was war.

She stomped her foot. Amnerisstomped her foot! She’d never stomped her foot at this particular moment before, but now she did. She was giving him her heart, and all he wanted to talk about was leading his team to victory.

Her toes curled in her sandals. Something in his expression, the way he carried himself, the way he wouldn’t quite look at her. Something was very wrong.

An ugly thought needled its way inside her. What if he loved another?

He dodged her questioning.

Her beloved Aida appeared. Yes, her slave, but also her closest friend. The sister of her heart. So why the hell was Radamès looking at Aida that way?

And why was Sarah starting to cry? Thad loved beautiful, talented women. He’d taken one look at Sarah, and every other woman he’d known had ceased to exist.

Aida might as well have plunged a knife into Amneris’s ribs.

*  *  *

Something was happening onstage. Thad could feel it. He saw it in the way the audience sat straighter in their seats. The way they leaned forward. One woman covered her mouth with her hand. Another caught the back of the seat in front of her. A man in the next row tilted his head to the ceiling as if he couldn’t bear to see what was about to unfold.

Olivia loomed above everyone. Fierce. Tortured. Vicious. She had all the power while her slave had none, which made her manipulations even more unforgivable. He wanted to tell her not to use the power she’d been born with. Not to betray her friend. Friends should stand together. That guy wasn’t worth either one of them. Thad understood exactly what extreme jealousy felt like. Everyone sitting around him understood. But she was too trapped to see how this would play out.

He could see it.

The hair on the back of his neck stood up.

*  *  *

Betrayal and vengeance. Olivia fumed. Fuck the consequences! No one else in Egypt cared about consequences, and Amneris didn’t, either.

She seethed. She raged. She begged and pleaded. Radamès was to marry her, love only her!

Finally! Egypt’s victory over Ethiopia and Radamès’s victory parade. He’d been given the hand of the princess of the land in marriage for his service. Amneris’s hand. Not his beloved’s.

But Radamès wasn’t having it. And Olivia wasn’t having him not have it.

Radamès made his fatal mistake. Treason.

Pigheaded, stubborn bastard only wants what he wants.

So be it.

The Judgment scene . . . The famous Judgment scene. La Belle Tornade’scolossaltour de force.She begs him to defend himself. He won’t. She cajoles. Threatens.

Give up Aida, my beloved, and marry me. In return, you’ll live! And trust me on this. Nobody in the kingdom will make you a better offer. Marry me, and we’ll rule all of Africa together, right along with ESPN and the NFL. All you have to do is renounce her, and I’ll save you!

But he would rather die.

The knife twisted. Amneris’s love turned to destruction. She would have her revenge, and in the fire of her hatred, she watches him being condemned to die.

Wait! Hold on! I take it all back. She cries out. Her cry shakes the stage, blisters the audience, echoes right down Michigan Avenue, and shoots across the lake into eternity.

Too late, cupcake. He’s doomed.

No! You can’t do this! He doesn’t deserve to die!She curses her father, curses the priests. She caused this, and she curses her own jealousy as she watches her beloved being led alive into the vault where he will be entombed forever.

With his love.

Although she doesn’t know that.

She collapses on his tomb, pleading for peace. But she’s too late. There’s no peace for her without him.

Curtain.

*  *  *

Brava! Brava! Brava!

It was a triumph.

Later the critics would write:

La Belle Tornade was at the top of her game. Doing what she lived for.

And it wasn’t enough.