Page 80 of When Stars Collide
I hadn’t expected him to come to my door, and now he was left to fend for himself with Jo. At this rate, I had fifteen—maybe twenty—seconds before he turned tail and ran. Frantically, I searched around my room for my purse, finding it hidden on my bed underneath the third and fourth dress I’d tried on. After snatching it up, followed by one quick glance in the mirror, I scurried out my bedroom door.
“There’s my best friend and roomie,” Jo announced my entrance.
“Best friend, eh?”
“Look, after you spend a couple minutes on a bathroom floor holding a girl’s hair while her head’s in the toilet, you kind of earn the right to call her your best friend.”
“I sense a pattern here,” Phineas added. His back had been turned to me until he heard my voice.
It was hard to tell what he was wearing from behind. The only thing I could see were the legs of his trousers from the knees down poking out from underneath his wool coat. Never before had I’d seen him without a suit on, and I expected he’d be wearing the usual fair tonight. But when he turned around and his open coat revealed the tuxedo hiding underneath, coupled with his onyx hair slicked back for the evening, I gasped.
“You look lovely,” he greeted me.
“Are you sure it’s enough?” I asked, my insecurities bubbling to the surface once more.
“You’re perfect. It’s … it’s perfect.”
“Okay,” Jo interceded, “I’m just going to go back to my game and leave you two to whatever it is you’re doing right now.”
“Novel idea, Jo,” I replied through clenched teeth, grabbing my own wool coat from the closet. She was right. Rarely was Phineas flustered, and rarely was I rendered speechless, with my mouth agape and my heart fighting to burst its way through my chest.
I’d been to the opera before, years ago with my parents. In hindsight, that could have been what soured me on the idea of seeing another one. What I hadn’t done, however, was attend a performance in a box seat. Even though I hadn’t spent a dime of my own money to be where I was, I still felt a sense of importance sitting perched above everyone else seated below. It was an experience Phineas usually reserved for potential clients he was wooing. And it worked like a charm.
“It’s in Italian?” I asked. “That’s going to make the night far more interesting.”
“It’s been performed in multiple languages,” Phineas replied, skimming through the playbill, “but I much prefer the ItalianOrfeo ed Euridiceover the others. There’s something more authentic about it than the others.”
“And yet English is still the only version I’m able to understand.”
“That’s not true. Music is a universal language, no matter the words being spoken. Close your eyes and listen to the melody. You’ll understand everything that’s happening, for the melody speaks for itself. And if you’re still puzzled, I’ll be right here to give you a synopsis of what’s happening.”
“My hero.”
The lights in the theater began to dim until we were enveloped in darkness, awaiting the start of the performance. It didn’t take long. As Phineas instructed, I closed my eyes, taking in the first scene with my uncompromised senses. Grief. That’s what I gathered from the melody, which was confirmed when I opened my eyes to see Orfeo grieving the death of his wife, Euridice. The last opera I’d seen was a bit on the depressing side, and this one was promising to be no different.
Phineas leaned in close to my ear. “Orfeo is devising a plan to rescue his wife from the Underworld.”
“Those are the actions of someone who’s either seriously committed or seriously mental.”
“Some would say only a fine line separates the two.”
I was aware, to the point of distraction, just how close his lips were to my earlobe when he whispered in my ear. With every exhale, his warm breath caressed the side of my neck, melting into my body. Goosebumps rose down my arms, having little to do with the temperature in the room. Breathless, I peered over at Phineas from out of the corner of my eye, hoping he was just as distracted by me as I was by him.
That wasn’t the case. His eyes were thoroughly trained on the stage before us. And the fact that I thought for a second they wouldn’t be made me feel foolish.
“Amore, the God of Love, has appeared and is comforting Orfeo.”
“Where the hell was she when Euridice was bitten by that snake?”
Phineas chuckled, transferring more of his warmth from his body to mine. “Amore is telling him that Jove has pitied him and is allowing him to descend into the land of the dead to rescue Euridice. However, there are conditions.”
“Aren’t there always?”
“Orfeo must neither look at Euridice, nor explain to her why looking is forbidden. Otherwise, he’ll lose her forever.”
“He’s lost her forever, anyway, hasn’t he? That’s not much of a gamble. Even if he doesn’t succeed, at least he had a chance that no one else would ever have.”
“That’s both a depressing and optimistic way of looking at it.”
