by J. Smith
29 WICKED GAME
He heaved a heavy sigh and tried once more. “Alright, Jenna. I know you're probably a little tired from the medication, but if you can hear me, please try to squeeze my hand. It would make Red and me feel so much better if you did.” He held her hand gently in his and waited—as he had been waiting for a while now, and still nothing. It had been about a week since Dr. Charleson had begun administering the Zolpidem, and since the start of drug therapy, the sensory therapy had been completely ineffective. Gone were the little moments when her smile would brighten, or her fingers would close around his. Before the drugs, he had been so sure that Jenna was in there, trying to let him know that she heard him, but now…he wasn't sure where she was.
He had had his misgivings about the new course of treatment, but his concerns had fallen on deaf ears. No, he thought to himself, remembering how Jenna's aunt had been so clearly manipulated by Charleson. Maybe not deaf ears, but ears that were simply clogged with the noise of another.
Now he was really beginning to wonder if his fears were being realized. Had Jenna slipped further into the coma?
He was still there, holding Jenna's hand, his thumb rubbing slow circles on her palm. He held his head low, praying for something, anything to let him know she was still with them. When the door to her room opened, he did not bother to look up. He knew who it would be, and he had no desire to see him ever again.
“Still here?” Charleson asked, a bit of smug humor in his voice. “How many squeezes did you get today, Doctor?”
“Since you began your miracle treatment,” he spat with rigid jaw, “she has been entirely non-responsive, and you know that.”
“Hmmm,” Charleson murmured, as he flipped open her chart. “Seems to me she's been unresponsive since she had her accident. It was only your wishful thinking that allowed you to think otherwise.”
He gritted his teeth together and told himself not to engage on that matter. Charleson wanted to get the better of him, and he refused to allow it. “How long are you going to continue your charade, Charleson?”
“And what charade would that be?” he asked, with a pompous grin.
“The one where you pretend to actually care about Jenna's well being,” he looked up then and met Charleson's gaze. “The one where you keep pretending your treatment is going to work?”
“Oh! I'm sorry,” Charleson retorted. “Did you not want me to play your game, Doctor? That's not very friendly of you. You really should be better about sharing your toys.”
“You know as well as I do,” he began, not allowing himself to be swayed by the act Charleson was putting on, “that when Zolpidem has been effective, results were seen much more quickly than this—starting with the first dose. Jenna has been receiving the drug three times a day for a week now. There has been no therapeutic effect. So when are you going to admit it isn't working?”
“Oh,” Charleson responded nonchalantly, checking Jenna's pupils with his penlight, and writing something on the chart. “It probably isn't working.”
The younger colleague could not believe his ears. “What?”
Charleson looked him directly in the eye. “It probably isn't working.”
“Then stop the treatment,” he retorted, surprised to even be having this conversation with Charleson if he admitted the medication was having no effect. “Start weaning her off the drug.”
“Maybe I will,” he answered.
“What do you mean, maybe you will?” he asked incredulously. “Why would you continue to medicate her when you know it isn't working?”
“Well, basically, because the ball's in my court now, Doctor,” he said, with an egotistical expression. “Go ahead and tell James we had this conversation. Let's see if he believes you for one minute. Go ahead and pester Penny about it. I have ways of persuading her.” He let out a self-assured laugh as he closed the cover to Jenna's chart.
“You're disgusting,” the doctor noted, disdain dripping from his words.
“Your point?” Charleson asked, looking right at him.
“Don't you care that you could be harming her?” he asked, outrage coloring his tone.
“No,” he answered, matter-of-factly. “I care about winning, Doctor. And from my vantage point, I win.”
“You pig!” he spat, rising as if to advance on him.
“Careful, Doctor,” Charleson warned, in a condescending tone of voice. “You wouldn't want me to mention this little tête-à-tête to Penny now, would you?”
The younger man backed off, breathing heavily, knowing that he could not afford to do anything that would get him tossed off Jenna's case.
“That's what I thought, Doctor,” Charleson said, making his way toward the door. With his hand on the door handle, he turned back and said, “Good luck getting a squeeze out of her tonight. I hear she's not that kind of girl.” He turned the handle and left the room, chuckling as he went.
It seemed somehow strange to be walking these quiet corridors alone. For the past week, Jenna had been his almost constant companion. The night they had discussed Jenna's eventual leaving had made Erik realize that she would not be with him forever, and he wanted to make every moment she was there count. So, on a whim, he had invited her to join him for rehearsals the following day, and even though Erik had been busy making a long list of issues that needed to be resolved, Jenna had watched with rapt attention, a look of pure joy on her face. He'd found her expression so captivating, that he'd asked her to accompany him again the next day, and when she did, he actually found himself joining her in one of the seats in the back row, and just listening. When she would look up at him from time to time and smile, he'd found that he could not keep the corners of his mouth from curling up as well while watching her.
Christine, of course, sang beautifully. While she was still learning her blocking around the stage, her voice was flawless. It filled him with such delight to hear her sing, and, he found even greater pleasure when Jenna complimented him on his teaching techniques. Truly, he knew that Christine had a star quality voice even before he started teaching her. Yet, strangely, he found that when Jenna gave him the credit for her success, he felt his chest expand with pride.
This morning, however, when Erik knocked on Jenna's door to wake her for their morning meal, she was not feeling well. She met him at the door with one hand held to her forehead, and the other out against the frame, as if supporting her weight. Immediately alarmed, Erik asked, “Jenna, what is wrong?”
“I'm fine, Erik, I just…” a wave of dizziness washed over her and she felt her legs buckle a bit beneath her. In a flash, Erik's arms were about her, catching her before she could fall, and guiding her over to the settee, where Samineh jumped up to join her.
“You are obviously not fine, Mademoiselle,” he said, using her formal title instead of her name, exposing his nervousness at the state of her health.
“Erik, I have a headache, and it made me dizzy,” she argued, waving off his concern, and looking over to the purring kitten, giving her some scratches behind the ear.
“You complained about a headache yesterday as well, Jenna,” he looked at her with worry, while checking her forehead for fever. “Do you need to see a physician?”
“Erik, no,” she said calmly, touched by his concern, but feeling that he was greatly overreacting. “This is probably just a touch of the flu. I just need to sleep it off,” she asserted, still petting the preening cat.
Erik sighed deeply, “But Jenna, the Daroga could easily…”
“There is no need to trouble him!” she insisted, finally meeting his gaze. “I will be fine! I'm a nurse, remember?”
“So you have said, Mademoiselle,” he relented, using his hand, which was still on her forehead, to smooth the hair away from her brow. “I will go bring you something to eat.”
“No, Erik,” she shook her head. “I'm not hungry right now. Besides, you have to get off to rehearsals.”
“I am not going to rehearsals today, Jenna,” he answered
, as if the fact should be obvious. “You're not feeling well, so I will stay here and look after you.”
Jenna stared at him with horrified eyes. “Absolutely not!” she exclaimed, at what he was suggesting. “I told you I am going back to sleep. You would only keep me awake with your incessant piano playing.”
Erik looked offended, “Who said I would be playing piano?”
“You would,” she insisted. “You always do, eventually!” Erik huffed, and Jenna added, a bit more gently, “Erik, I can take care of myself. And besides, what about Christine?”
Erik did feel a bit torn at the mention of Christine, but countered, “Christine is not currently lying on my settee, too dizzy to stand. And I will see her tonight at our lesson.”
“But she will miss you if you are not at rehearsals,” she argued. “She'll know. Go, Erik. I will be fine.”
Erik looked at her a moment longer in uncertainty. “Can you make it back to your room?”
“Sure, I can,” she said as she rose from the settee, causing Samineh to jump to the floor. All of a sudden, the world began to spin, and she was grateful, once again, to have Erik's arms reach out and catch her.
“Allow me to help you back to your room, Jenna,” he said, steadying her step with an arm around her back. Once back in her room, he helped her into her bed, pulling the covers up around her shoulders. “I am still not sure I should leave you, Jenna,” he said, looking ill at ease.
“Erik,” she smiled, wearily. “Get out of here! I'll be fine.”
Erik found, once again, that when Jenna smiled, he could not help but smile too. “Sleep well, Jenna,” he'd whispered, and gave her hand a little squeeze, before leaving her room and closing the door, so the little kitten would not disturb her rest.
But now, as he arrived at his secret entrance to Box 5, he was having second thoughts. It suddenly did not seem right to be here without her. What a strange notion, he thought, as he gazed over to the chair where it had become customary for her to sit. He had been coming here for years on his own, and after a week of having her here with him, he missed her presence so much that the box seemed rather empty without her. Get a hold of yourself, Erik, admonished the voice inside his head. She will not be here forever, and when she leaves, you will be required to go back to being what you have always been. Alone.
Erik took his seat in the back row and compelled himself to watch the rehearsal. Christine was taking the stage, and once again, she was exquisite—as he knew she would be. Every word, every note that spilled from her lips was a pure, crystalline jewel of perfect pitch and resonance—a honeyed timbre more divine than earthly. He expected nothing less from his protégé' and he was gratified at her success, and yet he found himself distracted. The third time he found his eyes had wandered to the seat that was usually occupied by his tag along houseguest, he realized he had to go. He could not sit here any longer and pretend that his mind was even remotely engaged by the melodrama being rehearsed on stage. Erik stood, and with a swirl of his cape, exited the box through his secret passage.
He began to make his way back home, but then remembered that Jenna didn't want him there, for fear he would disturb her rest. This is ridiculous! he thought, with a huff. Am I really allowing her to keep me out of my own home? He'd had years of experience slinking around places unnoticed. He was fairly certain he could manage to be at home and still allow Jenna to sleep. But what if you wake her? His inner voice asked. He knew that upon arriving in his lair, he would never be able to simply go about his business. He would have to creep into her room and check that she was ok—and he most likely would not be able to stop himself from brushing the hair away from her forehead, just to check that there was no fever, of course. And once his fingers were on her skin, he might be tempted to trace the curve of her cheek, which would be so soft and smooth…
Erik shook his head. No, he took too much of a risk of waking her if he returned home now—and he knew she really needed her sleep. The headaches had been troubling—perhaps more so to him than to her. If he had to forego the comforts of his home for a few more hours, he would, on the chance that rest would, in fact, alleviate her pain.
Erik took a detour down one of the side corridors that led to the forgotten storage rooms in the Opera. Here was where the props and costumes of productions past went to languish and fade, in hopes that they might one day be used again. Erik knew from experience that it was entirely unlikely that such a day might ever come—due to the management's complete inability to keep inventory of what they had in stock—so he found the storage rooms to be one of his favorite places to search and plunder for supplies.
Today, his goal was to find more black velvet ribbon. He had taken to leaving a ribbon-tied rose for Christine each night before her lessons—which now took place in her own private dressing room, rather than the chapel—and as such, his supply was running low. As he rummaged the boxes and shelves of discarded treasures, a delicate bauble caught his eye. There in the midst of fake pearls and glass diamonds, a cameo pendant hung from an old bronze chain. While the chain was obviously trash, the shell of the pendant retained a beautiful coral glow, and the intricacy of the white carving indicated the great skill that had gone into its crafting. It was set amidst a tangle of intricate filigree fashioned out of antique gold. What truly made it stand out, however, was the subject of the sculpting itself. Unlike most cameos he had seen, this one did not illustrate the bust of a noble woman with impeccably coifed hair. On the contrary, this trinket captured the essence of nature's most delicate of beauties—a single rosebud, just about to burst into bloom.
Erik lifted the cameo away from its drab companions, a smile beginning to form on his misshapen lips. He had come in search of ribbon, but instead had found a treasure that he would put to much better use.
30 TERROR IN THE DARK
It was not fair! Eight years he had been with the Garnier—since the day it had opened. Eight years he had toiled, lifting heavy scenery, navigating the treacherous scaffolding which comprised the fly space. Eight years of aches in his back and tears in his chest that had turned him to take the bottle to numb the ever-present pain. Eight years of constant temptation from the scantily clad little tarts that called themselves ballerinas. So what if he succumbed on occasion to their enticing seductions? Should that really have caused his wife to abandon him, leaving him flat? After all, it was because of her grand tastes that he had to slave away at the Garnier, working his fingers to the bone, while the whole time the rats flaunted their wares in front of his face.
He had given his life to the Garnier, but that had not been enough. It had taken his family, his health, and now his home. After having been unceremoniously dumped by the muttonhead managers, he had nowhere to go any longer to rest his weary bones. Sacked! Fired! Canned! And all for something he didn't do.
Buquet tossed back another swig of whiskey. How blind were those managers that they couldn't see it was the ghost? He was the one who had been causing mischief around the opera house for years—demanding cast changes and extorting money. He was the one who could snap his spectral fingers and make the entire cast go boo. And he was the one who'd had a long-standing feud with La Carlotta. Why wasn't he the prime suspect when a bolt of scenery had fallen on the diva's back? Buquet had done nothing worse than report for work. He'd set up everything the clowns on the stage needed for their bloody rehearsals. Why shouldn't he have taken a few minutes to sleep off the previous evening's bender in the corner of the flies?
The thought of sleep made Buquet take another long guzzle from his bottle. He would need the warmth of the whiskey to get him through the cold, now that he was out on the mean Parisian streets. Winter had hit with a vengeance, the blustery winds biting right through the threadbare overcoat he had won in a card game years ago. As he lowered the bottle from his lips, he felt the first plump raindrop splash down on his forehead, and soon he was bespattered with a dozen more of its kind. Wonderful! Cold, windy and now, wet. These Parisian winter days k
ept getting better and better.
He reached into the holey pocket of his coat to find that he was out of coins. He would not be able to buy his way into any bar or drinking establishment without money to pay for libations, no matter how starved he was for their warmth. Until he was able to earn more cash—doing God knows what—it was the bleak city streets for him—and all because of the one sin he didn't commit! Thoughts of the true culprit responsible for the debacle with the diva plagued his mind once more. He would be warm and dry tonight in his demon's lair so many stories below the opera house.
A besotted snarl crossed Buquet's leathery lips. He rose from his spot against the stone wall and began to teeter down the familiar paths that would lead him to his recent home. After all, if the Phantom could haunt the Palais Garnier, then so could he.
Jenna opened her eyes and blinked against the soft fire glow of the lantern near her bedside. She stretched her arms up above her and rolled languidly onto her side. She felt like she had slept for hours—days. It was time for her to get up and out of bed.
Pushing herself up with her hands, she hung her legs over the side of the bed and gingerly, rose to a standing position. After a few steps around the bedroom, she was happy to discover that the pain had passed and there was no trace of the dizziness she felt earlier that morning.
“Erik,” she called as she threw open her door, expecting to find him reading or composing, as was his wont in the afternoons between rehearsals and lessons with Christine. “Erik…” she said again, not seeing him anywhere, but instead being greeted by a squeaky meow, as little Samineh discovered she was awake. She checked the small kitchen, grabbing an apple out of the bowl to stave off her hunger, and putting out some fresh chicken for the cat, but Erik was not there either. When she walked over to the little dock and saw that the boat was still gone, she realized that he must still be at rehearsals. “Maybe I didn't sleep as long as I thought,” she muttered to herself in disappointment.