Page 22 of Angel's Mask

“Well, I heard he’s hideous underneath, rotting away like a corpse,” Camille sniped back, and Christine bristled, privately. They didn’t know.

“Well, speaking of hideous,” Maxine sighed, and it took a beat for Christine to understand that she had turned her attention to the entrance of the workshop. As it swung open, an extremely familiar woman sauntered in.

“Oh no,” Christine sighed. It was the woman from outside, with a slightly altered retinue. The robust man was gone, replaced by a terrified maid, but the sniveling man with the spectacles was still there.

“Ah, she’s here,” Julianne muttered as she came to stand by Christine in the corner. “The diva herself.”

“Wait are you telling me—” Christine surveyed the woman again: her ostentatious gown and fur, her entitled air. It matched the voice she had begun to detest. “That’sCarlotta?”

“I forgot, you haven’t met her in person,” Julianne said. “I guess your luck has run out.”

“I think it ran out when I met her by the front entrance and nearly told her to fuck herself,” Christine replied, and Julianne raised a delighted eyebrow. “I didn’t. But I wasn’t polite.”

“Maybe stay out of view then,” Juliane offered, and Christine attempted to shrink even more. Carlotta strode through the workshop, giving bored glances to the work going on as she headed to Louise.

“Shall we get this over with?” Carlotta drawled, her accent curiously muddled.

Louise for her part looked as annoyed as could be politely managed. “As I told your maid and your...whatever he is,” she gestured at the man beside Carlotta. “I am not ready for your fitting today, nor do we have room here to do it at the moment.”

“Well, there is no room in my dressing room any longer,” Carlotta retorted.

“Because she had a copperbathinstalled this week,” Julianne whispered to Christine. “Demanded it of the management after someone broke her mirror or something.”

“And I’d like to have more input on the new gowns,” Carlotta went on. “Especially forFaust. They’re far too drab.”

“Again, Signora, there has been no order from the directors for new costumes forFaust. These will just be forRigoletto.”

Christine shuddered. She couldn’t stand this woman as innocent Marguerite; she could hardly imagine her as Gilda.

“The Signora would like a new dress for the prison scene,” the little man said. “In the Spanish style, as a tribute to her.”

“The Signora doesn’t sound Spanish at all,” Christine whispered to Julianne under her breath and the other girl repressed a snort of amusement.

“Don’t speak for me, LeDoux,” Carlotta snapped, smacking him with the end of her fur. “But he’s right. I cannot abide that sack they make me wear. The bodice isn’t even boned!”

“It is a prison dress, Signora,” Louise replied through her teeth. “And I can have it refittedanother day.”

“I’ll expect you to be ready with something suitable it at my next fitting. Which I will be doing here, but I’d rather not have –” she gestured at the workers around her “– the unwashed masses about.” Carlotta’s eyes surveyed the room and Christine’s stomach dropped as they fell on her. “Some of them are so dirty I don’t know why you even let them touch anything for the stage. I wouldn’t want to get fleas. What’s next, Gypsy tinkerers building our sets? The disgrace.” With a flourish of her fur stole Carlotta spun and exited the room.

“Bitch,” Julianne muttered.

Christine sank into her seat, a well of emotions bubbling inside her: shame, fear, rage, doubt. She knew she was more than that woman saw, or at least that her angel saw more. But she couldn’t help but feel like Carlotta had also seen the truth: that she didn’t belong among the gilded finery of the Opera and its callous, cruel denizens.

Most days there was only one place she wanted to be and yet it would be hours before she could retreat there. She had waited for so much of her life, she thought as she sighed and returned to her stitching. She could wait a few hours more, but sometimes that need to be close to him was so deep she didn’t know if anything could fill it.

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Erik knew Christine’svoice very well by now. He could tell when she needed more sleep or water, knew the difference between a lesson in the morning or in the evening. But tonight, there was something else causing imperfection in the sound.

“Are you alright?” he asked as she finished an octave run. He knew he’d hit on something as she looked at her hands with a frown. “You sound...sad.”

“I’m sorry,” Christine stuttered, shame and disappointment written clearly on her face.

“Don’t be sorry, just tell me what’s going on.”

“I metLaCarlotta.”

“Well, I can see how that would be upsetting for anyone,” he said. She smiled weakly at the joke. “Was she cruel to you?”

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