Born to Sing, no. 1

by Donna Del Oro

  English-speaking patrons clapped in amusement. Several Japanese tourists smiled and bowed after translations were made. A few Brits and Americans approached and wished them well. Minutes later, they were back on the Royal Mile, their arms slung around each other, striding purposefully down the hill.

  “I can’t believe you said yes,” he crowed. “Gotta call Mom and Dad tonight after the performance. Think it’ll be afternoon in Texas then. This’s gonna knock ‘em on their asses!”

  Eva’s happiness dimmed. Her momentary ecstasy vanished.

  “D.J., wait ‘til we get back to London. We’re going to Glasgow next, then York, two more stops after that. Please wait. Just two weeks.”

  “Why? Nothing’s going to change—I’ll get you a ring in London. Harrods, that’ll be the place to get it. What kind do you want—”

  “The agent in London, Duncan Leonard, should know—”

  “Know what?”

  “About any offers that’ve come in. We should wait to see whether we get offered contracts or not…”

  “Doesn’t matter, Evie. I’ve got a small allowance from my trust fund and I’ve saved most of my salary from this tour. We’ll bum around Europe until something comes up. We’ll audition all over and won’t take an offer unless we’re both hired.”

  Eva was beguiled by D.J.’s fantasy. Was that how it could be, she found herself wondering, buoyed by his hopeful enthusiasm. It sounded wonderful, traveling together, experiencing it all together, so in love. But…

  No, she wasn’t going to let reality ruin it for her, not this time, she determined. She was going to let herself get swept up by D.J.’s joy and optimism and squash those niggling doubts that threatened to crush her happiness. Like so many nasty wood ticks, she’d pluck them out and stomp on them. Just once in her life, she was going to go with the flow and let herself be happy.

  “Let’s push for Barcelona, Marseilles, Naples, Palermo, Nice. Anywhere it’s sunny and warm and by the Mediterranean. What do you say, my sweet fiancée?”

  “Since you rhyme, I’m sublime,” she trilled gaily. “Sunny and warm sound wonderful, D.J. Call Mr. Leonard and tell him we want the south of France or the coast of Italy.”

  “Si, signorina! Subito!”

  * * * *

  “So we got engaged, D.J. and I.” Eva laughed into her damask napkin at the memory and shook her head. “My petty jealousy was just that—petty. He wanted ME and no one else.”

  “Wait ‘til I tell my mother. You were once engaged to Darren McKay! Wow!” the girl gushed.

  “He gave me this ring. I never returned it, even after we broke up.” Eva held up her right hand so that Serena could take a closer look. Next to the silver, Celtic-knot ring on her little finger gleamed a brilliant diamond solitaire in a platinum setting.

  “Ohhh, lovely. Emerald cut.” The journalist looked surprised all of a sudden, then frowned. “But why—”

  “Why am I still wearing it even though we broke up three months later?” Eva sat back in the dining chair and gazed at the diamond, recalling how proud D.J. had been when he presented it to her. She’d never had anything so beautiful. “I refused to give it up even though I gave up on us. Strange, isn’t it, how things like rings and lockets become symbols we focus on, latch onto, can’t live without? The power of symbols, I suppose.” She sighed heavily. “This ring was a symbol of our love. Rather, D.J.’s love for me. Which I guess I felt at the time—deep down—I didn’t really deserve.”

  “Tell me why and how you broke up, Miss Villa—uh, Eva.”

  Half standing, Eva poured hot tea for them both from the silver carafe. She couldn’t help but sigh audibly when she sat down. This was the hard part.

  “When we returned to London, there were numerous messages at our flat. D.J. had gotten an offer to play two principal roles, an incredible opportunity for him although it came from Munich, not France or Italy. One role was reprising Marcello for another production of La Boheme. He was a wonderful Marcello, too. So soulful, yet youthful and charming. I think he swept up audiences with his portrayal.”

  She beamed with pride at the memory. “Duncan, our agent, was so excited. Munich offered D.J. a second role, as Count Orlofsky in Strauss’ Die Fledermaus. It’s usually what is called a trouser role, meaning a mezzo soprano plays the count but in this instance, the Munich StaatsOper wanted a tenor with a foreign accent in German to play the Russian count. Trouser roles are not popular with the Germans, so they wanted a man to play the count. One of their scouts had seen D.J. in London as Marcello. D.J. had enough German to pull off that role and of course, he looked the part of the dashingly handsome Russian count.” Eva smiled. “He was SOOO excited about the count’s role. He was thrilled that Munich wanted him so badly.”

  “Did you get an offer?” Serena asked.

  “Not what I wanted, however. I was offered a supporting role in a production of Massenet’s Manon by the Lyons City Opera. They liked my French phrasing and felt I could handle the understudy role if the leading soprano took ill. Unfortunately for me, there was a glut of sopranos that season, so I had no other offers. D.J. was furious with Duncan and told him to keep looking. Professor Woronicz’s agent in New York, who’d also signed me on, was looking for me, too. For American placements. There were a few possibilities but nothing firm.”

  “Did you go to France, then?”

  “I wanted so desperately to make my European debut—that was my dream since childhood, you know.” Eva shook her head, feeling a residue of the bitter disappointment that had devastated her twenty years ago. Like a stab in the heart, even after all these years. “I would’ve taken the understudy role—who knows, I might’ve had the chance to sing Manon in Lyons…at the age of twenty-two!”

  “You didn’t?” Serena looked crestfallen.

  “No, not then. I played Manon a few years later, though.”

  Eva paused to clear her throat. Even recollections about that terrible time evoked some of the churning emotions she’d felt back then.

  “What happened?”

  “My father died, you see, the first of September, a week before I was to report for rehearsals in Lyons. D.J. was already rehearsing in Munich for his role in Die Fledermaus. I was with him when I got the call. I had to cancel the booking in Lyons and fly home. Help my mother take care of matters at home. She was crushed…we all were. My father was forty-seven.”

  Eva recalled a fraction of the grief that had consumed all of them in that horrible month. Her mother had sunk into a depression that lasted for months, wouldn’t get out of bed, rarely ate or spoke. Vonnie and Enrique did all they could to help her but they were too grief stricken to make arrangements.

  She and Vonnie made the funeral arrangements and her father’s band, Los Cinco Lobos, played at the funeral. All their relatives and neighbors in Nacogdoches County showed up, bearing food and offers of help on the farm. Several close cousins, aunts and uncles from the Houston area had come, too, to hold vigil with her mother during her father’s last days. They’d returned for the funeral and, crowding into the family’s small country home, took over the cooking and chores for a week.

  At the conclusion of the minister’s remarks, Eva had sung “Amazing Grace” while Vonnie played guitar. She’d been able to swallow the painful, omnipresent lump in her throat, take a deep breath and the actress in her had taken over. She’d distracted herself by pretending it was just another day, singing in the church choir. Her voice had quavered terribly and the tears had flowed but she’d managed to get through the haunting, Scottish hymn. Her father would’ve wanted her to sing it, her mother had told her. In the Catholic cemetery, surrounded by looming loblolly pines, tall redbuds and shading magnolia trees, the local VFW’s flag bearing company presented arms. The bugler played “Taps” and everyone wept.

  D.J. had come, flown in at the last minute even though he’d incurred the wrath of the German maestro in Munich. Two days later, he flew back. Many years later, Eva learned that he’d given Ric
ky a check for ten-thousand dollars, which her brother had surreptitiously used to pay off some family debts, including three years’ worth of property taxes. Unbeknownst to Eva, her family had been on the brink of losing their home and farm, land which had been the Villalobos homestead for over one-hundred years.

  Serena slowly put down her cup of tea.

  “I’m so sorry. But hurray for Darren McKay. He came through for your family. What did he think, meeting them for the first time and under such sad circumstances?”

  “I don’t know. He was very quiet and solemn, of course. He spent some time with Ricky, helped him with the farm chores one day. Helped him give the Mexican donkeys some injections—some kind of equine virus was going around then. It’s not in his memoirs, that whole experience. He never mentioned that gift of money. He knew I wouldn’t have accepted it. He knew how proud we were but I guess Ricky was desperate.”

  “So you stayed in Texas and he went back to Germany? Was that what caused the breakup? The separation? Don’t tell me he was tempted by the pretty frauleins in Munich.”

  Eva inhaled slowly, calming herself. Even now, the back of her eyes brimmed with unshed tears. Such a terrible time. How did she ever get through it? Visits to her father’s graveside helped a little, remembering their family musical nights, playing and singing rancheros, country and gospel songs. Talking to her father’s spirit. Helping Ricky with the animals. Sharing warm autumn evenings on the porch with Vonnie, relating her and D.J.’s adventures touring in Great Britain. The happiness of that summer helped to soften the crushing grief she felt later.

  “D.J. and I kept in touch by phone. By October, my mother was a little better. Then Ricky got arrested for growing and selling pot. I used up the rest of my summer-tour salary paying his lawyer’s fees. He got probation and DEA agents came in and burned up his five-acre crop of marijuana plants. You’d think they’d have better things to do. Like stopping the Mexican cartels from sending truckloads of drugs into Texas.”

  Eva sighed and stood up. Could she tell the rest? Did she really want to? Why was she putting herself through this ordeal, reliving all that past sorrow? In front of the gilt-framed mirror hanging over the credenza, she paused and stared at her face. Still comely and fairly unlined even though she was forty-three, Eva smoothed back the sides of her upswept, French twist hairdo. D.J. had always liked her reddish-brown hair worn long. But twenty years of wearing opera wigs had made her decide long ago to cut it to shoulder length. Simple and easy to put into flat pin curls.

  Her green eyes, though, had grown hard and tough. Like malachite stones, not the soft, brittle emeralds of her ingenue days. Her childhood had made her pretty tough but she’d toughened up even more. This exercise in baring her soul, she knew would prepare her for what was to come.

  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that about the pretty frauleins in Munich,” Serena offered ruefully. The girl was looking at her with naked fear in her eyes.

  Good grief, was she THAT intimidating? Her reputation for being a temperamental, perfectionistic diva was groundless. Every artist she knew in the opera world had his or her moments of frustration and temper. Try singing a high F with a corset strangling your midriff and a five-pound, powdered wig and hat balanced on your head. It came with the territory.

  “I shouldn’t have made that fraulein remark,” Serena repeated.

  Eva turned to face her, the mask of a pleasant smile in place. Violetta in La Traviata, pretending not to care that she must give up her young, aristocratic lover. She’d played the doomed courtesan that very winter in another cold climate.

  “The frauleins loved him, I’m sure, and he loved them. Partly that—the adoring females—our separation, my decision to go to Chicago.”

  “Chicago? Wasn’t that where the baritone was singing?” The girl hesitated, a forefinger pressed against her lips. “Uh-oohh, I can imagine how D.J. felt about that.”

  Eva’s eyes sparkled.

  “Oh no, you can’t. Turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes of my life.”

  Chapter Five

  “It was the week before Thanksgiving and I was down to my last fifty dollars, all that remained from my summer tour salary. I’d paid Ricky’s attorney and a court hearing was set. It appeared, in light of my father’s death and the family’s circumstances, that the local assistant D.A. was going to plea my brother down to a misdemeanor, a fine and community service. Federal marshals would be combing the farm every few months in case he felt tempted to start another contraband crop but this was his first offense and he was getting off lightly.”

  Eva shook her head and smiled.

  “Y’know, it seems that even such misfortune brought some good. My mother was so angry at the feds for arresting Ricky that her anger shook her out of that deep depression. She was the one who appeared in court and reminded the local judge that he slept under one of her homemade quilts. The judge and grand jury all knew the Villalobos family, and half of the old families had worked the fields with my relatives. It didn’t go badly for Ricky, thank God. The poor guy was just doing what he had to do to get the bills paid and keep the farm and I swore then I’d take anything that came my way and help support the family. I felt it was my turn to do what I could. Years later when I found out that Ricky’d taken all that money—ten thousand dollars!—from D.J., I was furious with him and I paid it back into D.J.’s trust fund. I sent five checks of two-thousand each until my debt to D.J. was paid off.”

  “So what happened in Chicago?” Serena asked, clearly bored with the Villalobos family’s financial and legal problems.

  Eva remarked, “I’m getting to it.”

  Talking about it was difficult but she was determined to see this through. Grateful that her icy numbness of the past week was wearing off during this narrative, Eva knew, nevertheless, that she had to choose her words carefully. She had to be fair.

  “I was on the phone with D.J. nearly every day and he was pleading with me to join him in Munich. His plan was for me to audition all over Europe for the following season but that was almost a year away. Meanwhile, I was to live with him and, although he never said as such, be at his beck and call. A kept woman. I’d be well taken care of and a part of me was sorely tempted, I have to tell you. But then I’d see my mother and Vonnie struggling to make ends meet, watch how hard Ricky was working on the farm to keep the animals and hay crops going…both postponing their own dreams. Well, I just couldn’t do it.”

  Eva poured some tea, still hot in its thermal carafe. She stirred in a Sweet’n’Low packet. Serena was now listening intently.

  “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t continue to be selfish. My family needed my help. So after I took a call from the agent in New York, telling me that one of the understudy roles at the Chicago City Opera was now vacant, the girl having quit suddenly to take a more lucrative position in Japan, I was naturally very interested. Then I got a call from David Fogel, who was under contract with the Chicago City Opera. Apparently, he’d learned of this vacancy and alerted the agent. He urged me to FedEx a performance tape and glossies overnight. The company needed to act quickly and would be making a decision within two or three days. He promised to put in a good word for me and whatever he said or did must’ve helped. The day after Thanksgiving, I got the call!”

  Eva clapped her hands together in unsuppressed girlish delight. “Chicago! How exciting! My first real break!”

  She put her tea down and stood up, adrenalin pumping through her. Remembering that first real job flooded her with warmth and pride.

  “The opera house there is first rate, too. I was thrilled but when I heard what the job really entailed, I was ecstatic. I was to understudy the lead for La Boheme’s Mimi—evidently, everyone was doing Boheme that year. Not only that, I’d understudy two more leads, Violetta from Verdi’s La Traviata—a role I’ve always loved—and Bizet’s Carmen. They had enough faith in me as a singer and actor to step into leading roles if I had to. The salary was excellent and per diem
s were included. When I accepted, with relief and gratitude, they sent me a plane ticket. I had to be in Chicago the following Monday for rehearsals.”

  She crossed and hugged her arms. Such an exciting time!

  “Even now, I get so thrilled just thinking of that big break at such an awful time. By the way, after the close of La Boheme, the leading soprano singing Violetta became ill—it sounds so cliche but it’s true! She had to have an emergency appendectomy and after the operation, flew home to Italy to recuperate. Opera singers are human, after all, so with a ton of anticipation, I stepped into the role which later became my signature role. La Traviata’s Violetta. Life is funny, isn’t it? You never know what’s going to happen next. When one door closes, another opens.”

  The girl was beaming at her. “I’d love to hear you sing that part.”

  “You’ll have to buy the CD, for I doubt I’ll play her again. Besides, I’m too old to play a courtesan in her early twenties. But then, it was the perfect role. I love Violetta. She was a hopeless romantic and, though doomed, continued to love the aristocratic Alfredo ‘til the very end.”

  Eva sighed, wishing futilely that time would stand still…just once in a while. However, she’d sung Violetta countless times and now she had to move on. Her love affair with opera and the stage was over. She had to accept her fate.

  “Anyway, Chicago will always have a place in my heart. The people were warm, encouraging—even the theatre critic was indulgent and made allowances for my inexperience. He praised my debut in La Traviata and declared that I had a promising future. That declaration opened many other doors for me. David was singing the Alfredo role and I must say we were superb together as the two star crossed lovers. Other than my wonderful experiences on the stage there, it was a time and place in my life that I felt badly about later. I think fiction and reality should never mingle. At least, one should not confuse the two. I think that’s what I did. I confused the two.”