Fun. Something that hadn’t played a big part in her life until Thad Owens had appeared.
Being with Clint tonight—trying to follow his steps in the country line dances—had been a reprieve from the overwhelming sexual sizzle she experienced when she was with Thad. The sizzle, mixed in with foreboding—an ominous sense she was inching too close to the rim of an active volcano.
She rinsed her mouth and stowed her toothbrush in the charger. Even though Thad’s jealousy had only been a manifestation of his professional rivalry with Garrett, she’d enjoyed tweaking it.
As she slathered her face with her almond-scented cleanser, dabbed on her toner, then her retinol, she decided Thad Owens might be the most decent man she’d ever met. He’d assumed the role of her caretaker, whether she wanted him to or not. It was so odd. She’d been the caretaker in her relationship with Adam. The guardian of his career, the custodian of his feelings, the one who always accommodated. Having someone watch out for her was a new experience.
She hesitated, then turned the water on full force to mask the noise of her voice as she began singing her scales. Finally, she reached for a high C.
She didn’t make it.
11
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 N?chte.’ 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.”