But Adam wasn’t at fault. She was the one who’d handed over her power.
*
Instead of being in the theater the night of final dress rehearsal, Olivia locked herself in her apartment and got drunk on Negronis. She’d perfected this combination of Campari, sweet vermouth, and gin during her twenties when she’d studied in Italy, but she’d never drunk so many at one time. She’d also never drunk them at midnight, with her tears turning into ugly sobs at the memory of that cold, hard look on Thad’s face.
She was an emotional screwup incapable of having a healthy relationship. He’d accused her of loving drama, but he was wrong. She only loved drama on the stage. In real life, she hated it. She was bad at love. The worst. A bad person. A person who needed another drink. She mixed one, going extra heavy on the sweet vermouth. How many of these would it take before she passed out?
She didn’t get an answer because the concierge called to tell her she had a visitor.
18
If Olivia hadn’t been so drunk, she wouldn’t have let anyone in, but apparently her alcohol-soaked brain decided she needed a drinking companion. Once she opened the door, however, and saw Sarah Mabunda on the other side, she changed her mind.
“What do you want?” Olivia had lost her good manners. Sarah, a woman she’d considered her friend, had frozen her out.
Sarah’s long Aida wig was gone, but she still wore her stage makeup with darkened brows, matte brown lipstick, and exaggerated eye makeup. Neither she nor Sarah ever left the theater without taking off their makeup, yet now one of them had.
Sarah slipped her finger under the strap of her shoulder bag. “I’m sorry.”
Olivia didn’t need her pity. It wasn’t Sarah’s fault Olivia couldn’t perform. “Thank you.” She proceeded to close the door on her, but Sarah was strong, Olivia was drunk, and Sarah managed to push her way in.
“Lena was fine, but she isn’t you,” Sarah said.
“I don’t care.” Olivia looked for her drink, but saw only the pile of cocktail napkins the previous renter had left behind. “Amneris loved Aida.” Her tongue wasn’t working as it should. “They were friends. Both born princesses. Both in love with the same man. Friends.”
“Except one was a captured slave.” Sarah dropped her bag on an easy chair near the couch, disregarding the fact that she wasn’t welcome.
Olivia needed to blow her nose from her crying jag, but she couldn’t find a tissue. “Amneris didn’t mean for Aida to die. They were like sisters.” Her voice sounded woolly, and she felt like crying again. Where was her drink?
“Jealousy does strange things to a woman,” Sarah said.
Olivia picked up a cocktail napkin that said Save water. Drink gin, and blew her nose on it. “Jealousy’s never been my problem, so I wouldn’t know.”
“Lucky you.” Sarah found Olivia’s drink on the fireplace mantel, but instead of handing it over, she took a gulp.
“Alcohol isn’t good for your voice.” Something Sarah should know for herself.
“I’ll risk it.”
“It’s your funeral.” Olivia gave a choked laugh. “That’s funny, right? Because of Aida getting entombed and all. Thanks to me.”
“Hysterical,” Sarah said dryly. She carried Olivia’s drink to the windows and gazed out at the view across the street. “I loved him, you know. It happened so fast, but I loved him more than you did.”
Olivia’s fuzzy brain made it hard for her to sneer. “Nobody could love him the way I do.”
Sarah turned. “Still?”
“I’ll never stop.”
“Then why did you leave him?”
“Because I had to.” Olivia picked up another cocktail napkin—It’s five o’clock somewhere—and blew her nose again. “I’m not like other women. I can’t handle a career and a relationship. Look what’s happened to me.” She gave her nose another honk. “I let my voice get stolen.”
Sarah’s hair was matted from the wig cap, but she still looked beautiful and defiant, more like the powerful Amneris than like Aida. “If he loved you so much, he wouldn’t have fallen for me so fast. We had something special right from the beginning.”
“You’re crazy.” Olivia grabbed her Negroni from Sarah. The ice had long ago melted, but she didn’t care. “You don’t even know him.”
“He asked me out on what was supposed to be your wedding day.”
“Wedding day?” Olivia tried to focus because she was clearly missing something.
“You didn’t know that, did you? Less than a week after you broke up with him, he asked me out, and by the end of our first date, we knew we had something special. He loved me more than he ever loved you.”
Olivia scrambled to put the pieces together. “Are you talking about Adam?”
“Who else would I be talking about?”
“Thad! I love Thad!”
“That football player you’ve been seeing?”
“He’s not just any football player! He’s one of the greats. He’s—” The Negroni sloshed onto the floor. “He’s the greatest second-string quarterback of all time.”
“You’re drunk.”
“Of course I’m drunk! I can’t sing, and I’ve lost my way.” She couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Adam killed himself because of me!”
Instead of being shocked, Sarah scoffed at her. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? He sent me an email!” she exclaimed. “A suicide email. Technology, right? I mean, what happened to the old-fashioned suicide note? Now everything is electronic.”
Sarah cocked her head. “He emailed you, too?”
“‘Too’？ What do you mean, ‘too’？”
“That bastard.” Sarah didn’t say it angrily. More like she wanted to cry. She sank into the couch. “Now there are three of us.” She picked up a cocktail napkin.
“Three?”
“You, me, and Sophia Ricci.”
“Sophia Ricci?” Olivia didn’t understand. Ricci was the lyric soprano who’d stolen the role of Carmen from a mezzo. Rachel had told her about that when they’d had lunch in LA, and Sophia had dated Adam before Olivia. But an email . . . ?
Sarah blew her nose on a cocktail napkin with a gold embossed, Drink up, bitches. “Sophia and I met at the Royal Academy. We’ve been friends for years, but I hadn’t heard from her in a while. A few days ago she called. She’s been having panic attacks, and she thought I could help. I don’t think she intended to tell me about the suicide email, but it came out.”
“I don’t understand.”
Sarah hugged herself. “It seems he sent all three of us an email. Sophia’s and mine were identical. ‘You let me believe we were forever. You meant everything to me and I meant nothing to you.’”
Olivia’s mushy brain finally absorbed what it was hearing, and she finished what had been in the note. “‘Why should I keep on living?’ Yes, that’s what mine said, too.”