They hadn’t seen anyone for a while, and as they reached a thick grove of ironwoods where the distant sound of traffic was barely audible, he decided now was as good a time as any. “I need a rest. It’s been a busy day and after this morning, I’m in the mood for one of those arias you’re so famous for.”
She looked so hurt he wanted to snatch the words back, but that wouldn’t help her. “You mean one of those arias I can’t sing well?”
“I’ve got a theory about that.”
“You don’t know anything about opera, so how can you have a theory?”
“I’m that smart.”
“Seriously?” She managed a skeptical smile.
“Face it, Liv. You don’t have anything to lose and everything to gain. Start with those warm-ups. There’s nobody around to hear except me, and I’ll stick my fingers in my ears.”
Her forehead knit in frustration. “I can’t do my warm-ups, not the way I used to. You know that. My chest feels like it has a boa constrictor around it.”
“That’s why you have to stand on one leg.”
“What are you talking about?”
“What I said.”
“That’s crazy. I can’t sing on one leg.”
“You can’t sing on two legs, so what difference does it make?”
Her face fell. She looked as if he’d betrayed her, and his gut twisted. He fought against it. “It’s starting to rain harder, and we’re not leaving until you try. So do us both a favor and stop procrastinating. Warm up on one leg. And stick the other out in front of you. I dare you.”
“I’ll do it just to show you what an ass you are!” She shot one leg out in front of her, wobbled, regained her equilibrium, and balanced on the other leg, pulling her scarf up to her chin. She started with her ees. Ees to ewws, then some mahs.
They sounded okay to him, but they didn’t to her, and he could feel her getting ready to clamp her jaw shut. “Louder!” He grabbed the ankle of her extended leg with one hand and her rain jacket with the other to keep her from falling.
She shot him a murderous glower, but she kept going. A red-tailed hawk circled above them The ees transitioned into ewws into mahs, and son of a bitch, her voice was gaining strength. He knew it wasn’t his imagination because he could see it in her face.
He kept his grip on her extended leg and moved it ever so slightly to the side. She wobbled, shot him another death ray, but kept on vocalizing.
It continued that way as she flew through her exercises. Whenever he suspected she was starting to overfocus, he did something to unbalance her. He’d move her leg. Bend her outstretched knee. He made sure she didn’t fall, but he also made sure she had to focus on keeping her balance instead of judging her singing, because one of the biggest reasons athletes choked was from overconcentrating in crunch situations. Tension disrupted rhythm. An experienced player going through a bad streak only made it worse by focusing so much on the outcome he lost touch with his natural instincts. It was exactly the kind of mental disconnect he suspected had happened to her.
She wasn’t quite done when he cut her off. “That’s enough.” He released her leg. She ducked her head and shook out the leg she’d been standing on without making eye contact. “I’m not done vocalizing.”
“Yes, you are.”
She raised her head, regarding him with fake condescension. “You know nothing about opera singers.”
“But I know a lot about athletes, and I want to hear one of those arias you’re so famous for. You get to choose which one.”
“There’s a big difference between warming up and singing a complicated aria in the freezing cold while—”
“No excuses.” He pushed his hands under the bottom of her jacket and set them on her waist, just under the hem of her top so he could feel a few inches of bare skin.
“What are you—？”
“Sing!”
She did. Launching into something that sounded like really, really pissed-off German. Her voice began to strain. He gave the bare skin under his right hand a tiny pinch.
“Stop that!”
Son of a bitch. She sang the words at him instead of speaking them.
She looked as shocked as he felt. But she kept going. Launching herself into the dark, foreboding aria.
The music began pouring from her, the notes big and furious enough to make his ears ring.
Her skin was warm under his palms, but he somehow kept his focus. If he sensed her struggling for a note, he slid his hands higher along the bumps of her spine. He forced himself to stay below her bra line, not getting nearly as personal as he wanted to because this wasn’t about his goddamn lust. It was about her.
The aria went on, and she sang and she sang and she sang. The wind picked up, the rain turned to sleet, and that glorious voice challenged the oncoming storm.
*
As they walked toward the 103rd Street subway stop, he kept quiet, giving her the time she needed to process what had happened, but the longer the silence stretched between them, the more he wanted to know what she was thinking.
“That was from G?tterd?mmerung,” she finally said. “The last of Wagner’s Ring cycle. It was Waltraute’s ‘H?re mit Sinn was ich dir sage.’”
“And you chose it because . . . ?”
“Waltraute is one of the Valkyries. I’m not a Wagnerian singer, but I figured I needed supernatural help.”
“It seems like you got it.”
“My vibrato still has a wobble, my lower passaggio isn’t close to where it should be, and I’m strangling my high notes.”
“You’re the expert.”
“But at least I was singing.” She gave a choked half laugh, half something else. “All I need to do now is perform on one leg with somebody feeling me up.”
“Happy to oblige.”
She squeezed his wrist through the sleeve of the rain jacket. Only for a moment before she withdrew. “Thanks.”
“You can pay me back in Las Vegas.”
*
Her hair was tangled, and she needed a shower before their client dinner. As she adjusted the water temperature, she saw that her hands were shaking. She understood the psychology of what Thad had done for her. Focusing on keeping her balance instead of thinking so much about the sound she was producing had helped her over one psychological hurdle. But she was still a mess.
She slicked the shampoo through her hair. Amneris’s aria in Aida, “Già i sacerdoti adunansi,” swelled in her head, but even in the protective womb of the shower, she was afraid to try singing it.
Eight more days until she started rehearsals. Two more days until they reached Las Vegas. One event filled her with panic, the other with a mixture of lust and panic.
*
Thad had left his sport coat in Olivia’s suite. She didn’t answer the door, so he let himself in with the duplicate copy of the key he made sure he had in every hotel.
The shower was running in the bathroom. His sport coat lay on the couch, right where he’d left it. On his way to retrieve it, he spotted an unopened brown manila envelope on the table by the door. It was addressed to her. He picked it up without a qualm and opened it.
Inside was a glossy photograph of a .38 pistol with the Smith & Wesson logo stamped on its grip.