A Phantom Enchantment (20 page)

“I think so,” I said, smiling at this touch of the old romantic Gray. “I only have Opera and French on Fridays. I can probably skip. Where do you want to go?”

He told me he'd always wanted to visit Dunkirk, the site of a WWII battle in which over 350,000 British and French soldiers had gotten trapped on the beaches. The British wanted to evacuate them by sea, thinking they'd only be able to save a fraction of them, but the navy called on civilians to help. For ten days straight, ordinary citizens in small fishing boats began arriving to evacuate the soldiers, even though the Germans were shelling the area the entire time. Many civilians lost their lives, but in the end almost all of the men were saved. People called it “the Miracle at Dunkirk.”

“Dunkirk is supposed to be a pretty seaside town,” he said. “We could get a hotel on the beach.”

“Gray, it's February.”

“So? We used to walk the beach at Hull's Cove in the winter.”

“That's true.”

“It'll be like old times.”

I smiled, feeling a little relieved by Gray's change of mood and heart. But also a little apprehensive about going away with him. It was one thing to be stuck together in my room, surrounded by other students on all sides, and quite another thing to spend the Valentine's Day weekend with him in a hotel room overlooking the ocean.

That next week with our romantic holiday on the horizon, Gray's spirits seemed to lift. He let me go to my rehearsals without giving me the third degree and even joined us at the dining hall a few times. Sophie and Yseult eyed him with interest from the table across from us, and I couldn't help but beam with pride that Gray was mine. That he had chosen me.

But despite the miracle that had happened to Gray on that stormy sea, we had a tempest brewing in a Bermuda Triangle of our own. Owen and Gray couldn't be in each other's company for more than a half hour before things got awkward and tense. It was uncharacteristic of Owen to act cold and hostile, but he could barely make eye contact with Gray, and every time he looked at me with those puppy-dog eyes, I felt like the most fickle and disloyal person ever.

Worse, I had to face him at rehearsals and hear my own words being sung to me, hear how his voice caught at certain lines. I wanted to talk to him, to explain my behavior, but as soon as rehearsals ended Owen would gather up his things and take off before I could reach him.

And then things started to go missing. A mask we'd taken from the masquerade ball to use for the Phantom. A page from my libretto with the duet between Erik and Christine. And then the sound track CD Owen had spent hours recording in his friend's studio for me. We asked Jean-Claude if he had seen any of the items.

“No,” he said. “It must be the curse of the Phantom.”

“Shut the hell up, dude,” Flynn said, looking like he was at his breaking point. “I'm the Phantom, and I'm anything but cursed.”

“I am not talking about your Phantom,” Jean-Claude said. “I am talking about the Bastille Ghost.”

“Not this again,” I said.

“What? You still don't believe me?” he said. “Even after a Christmas tree almost killed your boyfriend?”

I didn't bother to correct him. “Why would the Bastille Ghost care about our production?” I asked.

“Imagine you were imprisoned without trial in the Bastille,” Jean-Claude said. “You waste away in a filthy cell as the Revolution rages outside. No one will listen to your pleas. No one sees you weeping at night. You have no touch of tenderness, no hope for love. And you die there, cold and alone. And in death, you are cursed to wander that place for eternity. One hundred years later, they build a school where the prison once stood. Young people move here and there, beautiful and carefree and in love, and you know you can never be a part of that world again. So you grow bitter. You come to loathe the sight of lovers kissing. You begin by taking their things, just to prove you're there, that you exist. But then your anger rises, and sometimes, it gets the better of you, and you can't help but lash out.”

“That's bullshit,” Flynn said.

“I don't know,” Yseult said. “There was that fire in your room, Emma. Well, Mademoiselle Veilleux's room.”

“It's an old building,” Owen said. “She probably used too many extension cords or something.”

“Believe what you like,” Jean-Claude said. “But don't say we didn't warn you.”

They left the chapel finally, leaving us to begin our rehearsal. It didn't go well. Flynn and Owen were both on edge, and Elise was distracted and couldn't hit her notes. Then she beat herself up about it and sulked.

“Are you letting Jean-Claude get to you?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “Well, maybe. I just have a bad feeling about this.”

“Don't let him get inside your head,” Owen said. “That's exactly what he wants to do. Psych us out.”

“Well, it's working,” she said.

By the time Valentine's Day weekend arrived, I was looking forward to a break from school and people as much as Gray was. I had done a little research on Dunkirk and found that there wasn't much to see beyond the beach where the evacuation had taken place. I convinced Gray that after our historical research trip to Dunkirk, we'd drive on another hour to Bruges, a Belgian town that boasted quaint medieval streets, charming canals, and Belgian chocolate. It seemed the ideal destination for Valentine's Day.

We rented a Peugeot that Gray drove, since my manual transmission skills were a bit rusty. But I noticed he wasn't quite as adept at navigating as I'd remembered. A few times, he nearly drove off the road, distracted by the sights. I also noticed his hands trembling as he shifted gears, like he was nervous. The word that came to my mind as I watched him drive was
shell-shocked
.

We drove to the nearby suburb of Dunkirk called Malo-les-Bains so Gray could see the beach where the evacuation had occurred, now covered in a thick blanket of snow. The landscape reminded me a lot of the New England coastline. Gray walked me through the entire mission as I scanned the harbor, the white beach a blank canvas on which I could almost imagine the hordes of exhausted soldiers, piles of dead horses, rusting artillery, and the armada of little ships filled with ordinary heroes.

I volunteered to drive the hour to Bruges to give Gray a break, and we arrived just a little before dark. We had booked a room at a charming red-and-white-brick guesthouse with a tiny orangerie in the back. Our room was at the top of the house and had sloped ceilings, a fireplace, and a skylight that caught the snow. It was small but cozy.

We settled in, changed into warmer clothes, then walked around in search of a place to eat. At night, the town looked like something out of
Harry Potter.
The narrow, gingerbread-cute houses along the canal were lit warmly from within, shining their reflections onto the waterways. Rowboats were moored in front of the houses like cars parked on a curb.

We found a casual café off the market square that sold the Belgian specialty
moules-frites,
mussels with fries dipped in mayonnaise. Along with a couple beers, the meal ran us over 40 euros. Bruges was every bit as expensive as Paris.

After dinner, we strolled the canals, climbing up and down the ubiquitous stone bridges and watching flurries fall in lazy swirls to the water. As we were climbing one bridge with a striking view of the cathedral spire, Gray grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the edge.

“We've known each other our whole lives, right?” he said.

“Right,” I answered, shivering. The North Sea air was bitter cold.

“We have a past together. I know it's been rocky at times, but you don't just throw away years of history.”

“Of course not,” I said.

He looked down at the river, like he was trying to channel some of its momentum. “I know I haven't been easy to deal with since I got here,” he said. “Part of it is jealousy. I'm so in love with you it's hard to see you happy without me. Because I can't be happy without you. I need you.”

“Oh, Gray. I need you, too.”

“No, that's just it. You don't anymore. And that's okay. I want you to be independent. I want you to be happy on your own. I'm glad you have good friends to watch over you when I can't be here,” he said, with his hands in his pockets. “Like you said before, we have our past together, and your friends claim your present. But I want to claim your future. Will you marry me, Emma?”

He opened a clamshell box to reveal what looked very much like a diamond engagement ring. And even though this was the appropriate thing to be holding given what he'd just asked me, my cold-addled brain wasn't connecting the dots.

A funny thing happens to a girl when she hears this particular question. No matter how many objections float around in the rational part of her brain, there's another part of her that's been fed such a steady diet of fairy tales and romantic movies that her knee-jerk reaction is to say yes, not to ruin the moment with practical concerns like age or readiness or even whether she truly wants to spend the rest of her life with this person.

And yet, some tiny gnawing in my gut gave me pause, just enough pause for Gray's face to fall. His change in mood was so profound that I knew no amount of belated enthusiasm on my part could have brought him back from that ledge of disappointment.

“Your answer's no, isn't it?”

“No,” I said. “I mean, it's no answer yet. I need time, Gray. We're so young. What's the rush? We love each other. We don't have to make this decision right now, do we?” I was rambling, not wanting to stop talking for fear of what Gray might say or do. What he did say surprised me.

“Here, I want you to have it anyway,” he said, foisting the ring on me. “You don't have to wear it, but I want you to keep it with you while you consider.”

“Gray, I can't.”

“Emma, please do this for me. It's all I ask.”

I took the ring and slid it into my coat pocket, where I imagined it burning a hole of guilt into my chest.

Even though Bruges was a perfect town to explore over a snowy winter weekend, it was clear that my non-answer had succeeded in sucking all the romance out of it. I tried to explain later, even less articulately, why I couldn't give him an immediate answer, how I needed a few days—a week at most—but by the time we got back to the guesthouse, Gray no longer wanted to talk about it. In fact, he didn't seem to want to talk, period.

So Valentine's Day ended in romantic disaster, with a failed proposal from Gray and a sleepless night for me. In the morning, Gray was fast asleep, so I snuck out and asked the hostess if it would be too much trouble to bring our breakfast to the room. It was a conciliatory gesture—breakfast in bed—but I knew it would do little to assuage the pain of my implied rejection.

Because that's exactly what it had been. I couldn't agree to marry Gray. Not now when I doubted his mental soundness. When I doubted my own feelings for him. It wasn't a few days I needed. It was more like a few years.

But how could I tell him that in a way he would understand? After the horrific nightmare he'd endured at sea, he wanted things settled. He wanted the rest of his life to be a safe trajectory of events in which he could control all the elements. My saying no had not been a part of his plan.

I could see all of this plainly, but it didn't make it any easier to explain it to him. He would have to be patient, to trust that events would unfold according to their own plan, and perhaps to accept the possibility that despite our earlier romantic sentiments, we weren't destined to be together after all.

I tried to salvage the rest of the weekend with an itinerary that included a chocolate shop and a brewery (both with free samples), a trip to the Groeninge Museum, and finally, a stop at one of Bruges's famous “discussion cafés,” where guests could sit around for hours listening to jazz and talking politics over beakers of cherry lambic.

But at night, we slept facing away from each other, and everything felt tainted. Church bells ushered us home on Sunday morning. My heart felt heavy as we drove back to Paris, like we'd come to the end of an era together. Like nothing could ever return to the way it had been.

When we got back, Gray grew even more withdrawn. He'd been holding on to that trip as our possible means of salvation, and now that it was over, he had nothing to look forward to. And we still had a week of holiday to endure before I'd have an excuse to go to classes and get away from his brooding. I was surprised Gray didn't opt to go home early, and, I'm ashamed to admit, a little disappointed. Since he'd arrived, my life had not been my own. And I was in a constant state of emotional upheaval, like that saint in that painting we'd seen at the museum, drawn and quartered by four horses pulling him in opposite directions.

I needed to talk to someone objective, someone who might have some idea of what I was going through. One day while Gray was napping, I went in search of Crespeau and found him in the administrative building, waxing the floors of the lobby where the masquerade ball had been. The room looked so plain and ordinary now without the velvet fabric, the Christmas tree, and sparkly lights.

“Hey,” I said, waving to him over the noise of the buffer.

When he saw me, he shut off the machine. “Emma, this is a pleasant surprise. How are you?”

“I've been better,” I said. “Gray and I are . . . struggling. Rehearsals are going terribly. And some ghost is stealing our things.”

“A ghost?”

“Yeah,” I said, laughing at how silly it sounded. “Monsieur Crespeau, have you ever heard of the Bastille Ghost?”