Chapter 11 Raoul
Raoul
We’ve been rehearsing for weeks, and Sidewinder is everything I feared it would be.
A disaster.
On day one, the entire packet of sheet music disappeared—the whole score for the musical. I gave it to the conductor, and he swears he left it on a table backstage. Yet somehow the whole thing vanished into thin air. I had to reprint it all.
Since then, it’s been one thing after another.
A dancer twisted her ankle. Mist and smoke drift through the backstage areas.
The lights are finicky at best, despite a technician coming to work on them multiple times.
Most of the cast and crew claim to have either spotted a floating object, felt a cold spot, or seen an actual ghost. A few of them have quit—not that it matters much, since they’re easily replaced.
In Nashville, there’s always a crowd of eager young talent ready to jump into any available role, even when that role involves a potentially haunted theater.
Carlotta is always late to rehearsals and offers an endless litany of excuses, from a mishap at the salon to a flat tire to ghosts stealing her possessions.
This week, she has seemed unusually fragile, probably due to a rumor circulating online that she made insensitive comments to another influencer.
I’m not on socials much, but the drop in her follower count was noticeable, even to me.
Whenever she’s not singing, Carlotta complains loudly about being targeted, stalked, and harassed.
Not a good headspace for my leading lady to be in, but I’m not sure how to fix it.
The few times I’ve tried to encourage her, she has seemed a little too interested in receiving physical comfort from me, so I maintain a professional distance.
I’ve thought about the masked man in the black coat, but I haven’t seen him again, nor have I mentioned him to anyone.
I did ask Firmin Richards to hire a couple extra security guards for the New Orpheum, though, and he says he did.
I’m not sure I trust his word. He’s more jittery than usual these days, always startling and sweating and glancing over his shoulder. He’s as spooked as the cast.
The preview performance is tomorrow, and we’re far from ready. In fact, I’m actually beginning to believe my musical is cursed…or haunted.
Standing just offstage, I gnaw the end of my pen.
I’m supposed to be watching Carlotta so we can finesse her choreography and gestures during this song.
But I can’t help watching Christine in the chorus.
I can’t get over the way she dances—like she’s part of the music, like it’s a living entity that’s possessing her, moving her limbs, transforming her into the perfect expression of itself.
And yet despite how beautifully she dances, I can’t shake the crawling sensation that something is with the music.
Something is missing. The score isn’t everything I hoped it would be, and I’m not sure how to make it better.
I had such a strong vision for this musical in my head, but the reality is a sketchy, distorted reflection of my dream.
I’ve barely spoken to Christine since we saw each other downtown the night I played at Tupelo Pie.
I couldn’t think what to say after the wind carried her scent to me.
Smells are stories, distinctive threads blending to tell a tale, and I couldn’t understand the narrative I scented on her that night. I still don’t know how to interpret it.
Blood and sex and ancient forests and raw, surging power…
Carlotta’s voice shrills on the high note of her solo, breaking me out of my trance. At the same moment, movement catches my eye—something high above the stage, swaying, dropping, then plummeting downward—
“Carlotta, move!” I shout, and I dive forward, shoving her aside just as a piece of the lighting rig crashes to the stage, denting the boards.
Cries of shock rise around me as I climb to my feet and reach out to Carlotta. She knocks my hand aside and gets up on her own.
“This shitty theater is falling apart!” she exclaims. “What next? Is the stage going to fall out from under us?”
I crane my neck, staring up at the catwalk. No one is up there that I can see. “Joe, could you run up there and see if you can figure out what happened?”
Joe Buquet, the stage manager, mouths the unlit cigarette between his lips. “Sure, boss.” Unhurried, he saunters off backstage.
I don’t like him. He never shows any of the forethought or urgency that a guy in his position should demonstrate.
I need somebody capable, proactive, and quick-thinking, but in this, as with almost everything, I had no choice.
Buquet worked with Richards on the renovations for the New Orpheum, particularly the residential section, and Richards wants him to keep him employed, apparently. So I have to make do.
But I’m pissed enough to mutter while he ambles away, “No rush, of course. Nothing urgent, just our star almost getting squashed.”
Christine smothers a giggle.
Carlotta’s head whips toward her, eyes narrowing. She gives Christine a death glare for a couple seconds before turning back to me.
“So how was it?” Carlotta asks. “Before I almost died? What did you think of the way I moved my hands during the second verse?”
“Oh…” Fuck, I was watching Christine. Thinking about Christine. My eyes dart toward Christine for a moment before I say, “It was good. But we should run through it again once Joe checks everything out and we’re sure it’s safe.”
Carlotta’s gaze sears into mine. “You weren’t watching me. You were watching her.” She jerks her head toward Christine. “You’re always watching her. Are you two fucking or something?”
“What? No, I would never— I mean, no,” I splutter, giving the bridge of my glasses a nervous poke.
Christine hooks an eyebrow as if to say, You would never?
“We’re rehearsing,” Carlotta says with vicious emphasis.
“You’re supposed to be listening to me and looking at me.
Not that I need your input, because I’m fucking amazing, but the least you can do is show a little interest in the star who is carrying your whole shitty musical on her back!
I don’t have to deal with this, you know.
I can get another role like that.” She snaps her fingers.
“I’m sure you could,” I say.
“Damn straight. Do you know how many directors would suck dick to have me in their show? And you take me for granted.” She gives a dramatic sniff and fans herself hastily. “Somebody get me a tissue.”
One of the dancers hurries to comply, and Carlotta dabs the tissue delicately beneath her eyes.
Firmin Richards and Gil Leveque hurry onstage at that moment. Richards is sweating anxiously, and Gil looks unusually red in the face when he says, “Raoul, what was that goddamned crash? Sounded like the place was coming down around our ears.”
I point to the chunk of metal and glass on the stage. “That fell.”
“‘That fell’?” mimics Carlotta with an incredulous laugh.
“That’s all you can say? It almost fell on top of me, Gil.
While I was singing. I could have been killed.
And Raoul can’t be bothered to even look at me.
Someone bring me my phone. I need to film a video about this right now.
My followers need to know how I’m being treated. ”
“Oh, now, now, let’s not be hasty,” drawls Gil, coming forward.
“You’ve had a scare, no doubt about it. The important thing is that we’re gonna make sure nothing like that happens again, okay?
You’re our beautiful star, darlin’, and we’d be nowhere without you.
Everyone knows that. Ain’t that so, Raoul? ”
“Of course.” I force a smile.
“Of course. Can I give you a li’l ol’ side hug?” When Carlotta nods, Gil wraps an arm around her shoulders. “Honey, you have every right to be angry, but trust me, we got you. Everyone is here to back you up and support you. Right, Rune?”
He shoots a look at our male lead, Rune Donaldson, who’s handsome in a mediocre thirst-trap sort of way.
To be honest, I keep forgetting about him when he’s not actively singing.
He has a good voice and a decent stage presence, but he’s a bit vacuous, not as charismatic as he seemed during his audition.
When Gil speaks to him, Rune blinks and says, “Yeah, no doubt, man. All the support, bro.”
“See? We’ve all got your back,” says Gil. “Now show me that beautiful smile. Can you do that for me?”
Carlotta sniffs. “Don’t tell me to smile.”
“Of course not, darlin’. Only if you want to.”
She nods with a haughty flutter of her lashes, then gives him a dazzling, tearful smile.
“Gorgeous,” purrs Gil, squeezing her shoulders. “And here’s the truth, from me to you—you’re the most beautiful woman on this stage and the most talented, too. Ain’t that right, Raoul?”
The lie hovers on my tongue. But I can’t speak it, not with Christine standing right there, looking like a goddess in dancewear, hiding that exquisite voice.
My eyes flick to her for a mere second. And I’m done for, because Carlotta sees. Everyone sees.
Anger floods Carlotta’s gaze again. She throws off Gil’s arm. “That’s it! I’m done. You can find someone else to sing your precious Eugenie.” She stalks away backstage.
Gil glares at me, then hurries after her. Firmin Richards remains where he is, twisting his hands together like he’s trying to wring water out of them.
“Whoa, man…can she do that?” asks Rune.
“She has a contract,” I tell him. “But technically, she doesn’t have to sing in the preview performance, so…yes, she can.”
He stares, then scratches his head. “Bro, if she’s gone, then…who’s gonna sing with me?”
“Christine is the understudy,” pipes up Meg Giry, one of the other dancers. “She can sing the lead tomorrow night.”