Patrice Greenwood - Wisteria Tearoom 03 - An Aria of Omens by Patrice Greenwood Read Free Book Online Page B

Mr. Ingraham probably had access to it, I realized. He could have bought a round of drinks with no waiting. How kind of him not to say so.
    “Sorry it’s such a heavy piece,” I said to Tony. “There are light-hearted operas, this just isn’t one of them.”
    “I guess you didn’t choose it.”
    “No. But I did want to hear Mr. Solano sing. He’s got such a marvelous voice.”
    “That’s the bad guy?”
    “Scarpia, yes.”
    Tony nodded, gazing reflectively toward the stage. “See, I have to deal with guys like that all the time.”
    “Oh! I’m sorry. This really isn’t the best opera for you.”
    He shrugged. “I’m enjoying the company, at least.”
    “If you want to, we could go.”
    He looked at me, dark eyes catching mine and making me tingle. Finally he shook his head.
    “That’s tempting, but I don’t want to take you away from your friends.”
    “Nice of you.”
    He smiled. “I’m a nice guy, if you can believe it.”
    “Oh, I believe it.”
    “—practically snogging him right on stage. Neil wasn’t happy,” said a man’s voice above us in a distinct accent.
    Tony glanced up, then looked at me and whispered, “Snogging?”
    “British slang. It means making out.”
    “Yeah, I know. I saw Harry Potter . But what’s a Brit doing here?”
    “It’s an international company. He could be here with one of the artists, or as an artist. Or he could just be visiting Santa Fe.”
    Tony tilted his head, looking up, but there was no one in view. I swallowed the last of my coffee.
    “Please excuse me. I’ll be right back.”
    I hurried to the ladies’ room, where there was fortunately no waiting. Many of the audience had elected to remain in their seats … and probably a few were asleep. Though how anyone could sleep through Puccini, I didn’t know.
    When I rejoined Tony, he hastily removed his hands from his pockets.
    “You’re cold. Shall we go back in?”
    “Yeah. Really glad you brought that blanket.”
    “I always do. Even if the weather’s ideal, it can get cold toward the end of the evening.”
    At the gateway in the low adobe wall surrounding the audience, we nearly collided with the arguing woman I’d seen earlier, now swathed in a dark fur coat. She was alone, and looked no less argumentative: more so, if anything. We yielded to her and I watched her stride across the house and out into the southern patio.
    Tony and I hurried back to our seats and the comfort of my blanket. We tucked the edges around ourselves. Manny and Nat were sharing a blanket, too. Mr. Ingraham and Claudia each had their own, and Claudia had donned a close-fitting, vaguely Russian-looking fur hat. I peered at it, trying to decide if it was real fur.
    “No,” she said, as if she’d read my mind. “But it’s a good imitation.”
    “As long as it’s warm.”
    My thoughts drifted back to the arguing woman as we waited for the intermission to end. I suspected that her fur coat was real, and that the color of her pale blonde hair was not. She had large eyes and a small chin, and was probably pretty when she wasn’t angry.
    The lights finally dimmed and Act III commenced. I tensed for a moment, until I remembered that Scarpia was dead. A horn played a melody, not quite a fanfare, with lilting tones that calmed my anxiety and foretold the dawn.
    A single figure came onstage: the shepherd-boy. I gasped, realizing that it was Vi.
    Nat turned to look at me, eyes big. I nodded, then looked back at the stage.
    Vi was dressed in shepherd’s clothes, with a cap over her auburn curls. She sang briefly; two verses, sweet and simple. I glanced at the captions.
    I give you sighs,
There are as many
As there are leaves
Driven by the wind
    Nothing to do with the story, really. Just scene-setting, to get the audience back into the opera. I watched Vi’s face, serene, perhaps a little sad.
    It was over too soon. Vi left the stage, and a man with a lantern crossed it. Behind him, the scenery shifted to become the jail