A Phantom Enchantment (26 page)

C
HAPTER
26

J
ust as the show must go on,
life
must go on.

About a week after Crespeau's funeral, the opera company selected Jean-Claude's modern
Cyrano
to be performed next fall on the main stage of L'Opéra Bastille. I was disappointed but not unhappy. Jean-Claude's opera was beautiful and haunting and it had moved me. It deserved to be seen by a larger audience.

For me, the only audience I cared about was my father and Gray. And after everything I'd accomplished, suffered, and endured this year, I was ready to go home.

Graduation Day was bittersweet as I found myself reunited with my dear friends Michelle and Jess, and saw my loved ones all gathered in one place in honor of me. My dad. Grandma. Barbara. Michelle's aunt Darlene. Even Gray and his family.

Elise had been named valedictorian, no shock there. But her speech did surprise me. It was very personal, vulnerable, and heartfelt. She explained how disappointed she'd been when she didn't get into Berklee, her first choice of college. For someone like Elise, accustomed as she was to getting her own way, this rejection had been humiliating and devastating. Until she'd had time to reflect on what it might mean for her future.

“No, I didn't get into Berklee,” she said, “but I did get into UCLA, which has one of the top vocal programs in classical and opera in the country. And I realized I'd been too fixated on defining my life by these narrow definitions of success or these promises that one school held the key to my happiness. Once I mourned the loss of that dream, I opened myself up to new possibilities. Who knows where my life will go from here, what connections I might make out in California, what opportunities I might encounter or make for myself? Because life isn't a script to be followed; it's a novel to be written.”

I thought about her words as I mingled with my classmates and family at the reception. Gray approached me with his parents and Anna, who hugged me so hard I couldn't feel my legs afterward. Simona also hugged me, without any words, but transmitted through her embrace all of the regret she felt at that awful conversation we'd had on the phone. I was sorry, too. Gray was her little boy, and she'd only wanted what was best for him. And in the end, she'd been right.

I never contacted the Coast Guard after all. Gray had done it himself.

He told me later that day once we were alone. “After my ordeal,” he said, “I was so messed up and lost that I wasn't in control of myself. But I was scared of what might happen if I admitted this to anyone, showed any sign of weakness. Now I'm working with the Coast Guard's Employee Assistance Program, and they're providing counseling until I'm back in fighting shape.”

“Which will be in no time, I'm sure,” I said.

“And I'm not going to be discharged,” he said. “In fact, they're giving me a commendation for my role in
The Lady Rose
rescue.”

“Gray, that's wonderful. Congratulations!”

“Thanks, Emma, for believing in me even when I was so awful to you.”

“I just wanted you to realize how strong you were so you'd go back to doing what you love most.”

He smiled. “Speaking of things I love doing,” he said, “I, uh . . . got my feelings back.”

“You got your . . . oh!” I said, realizing what he meant. “Gray, that's fantastic! I'm so happy for you.”

“Me too,” he said, and we both laughed in the way two friends might when reuniting after a long separation.

I knew that someday we really would be friends again. We'd forge something new out of the wreckage of our failed relationship. I realized that all that time I'd spent grieving for Gray wasn't in vain. The Gray I knew and loved really had died out there on that ocean. But this new Gray would endure his losses and become stronger, just like I had, and one day he would move on and find the next love of his life.

Because there wasn't one person out there for each of us, one soul mate who held all the answers to our problems. Even after heartbreak, we could find love again if we were brave enough to open our hearts to someone new. It was scary, leaving the familiar and the safe for the unknown, but what we found on the other side might be exactly what we were looking for.

Although I no longer believed in Darlene's voodoo spells, I did believe the universe wanted us to be happy. But we couldn't wait for happiness to come to us. We had to go out and find it.

 

So in late August the day before my nineteenth birthday, I got off a train and walked through the station toward the streets of an unfamiliar city. I stood on the corner amid tourists and businessmen and artsy teenagers, wondering how I'd ever find my place amid all this foreignness and bustling energy. Looking down at my map, I found the café, turned down a side street, and picked up my pace. He would be expecting me any minute.

I'd spoken to him on the phone only yesterday, but it was so different seeing him in person. I saw him seated at a table by the window, sipping a latte and reading a book. My heart beat wildly.

Dr. Goldman, Ph.D., author of five works of fiction and two volumes of poetry and head of creative writing at NYU, had agreed to meet me to go over my course selections. This was such a New York moment, and right then, I didn't wish to be anywhere else in the world.

While I still craved knowledge and experience, I'd had enough traveling for a while, and what I really needed was to find myself at college. Owen was searching for his true self in Australia this year. He promised to come home for winter break, and I planned to visit him next summer if I could save up the money. Before we went our separate ways, we said
I love you,
but we made no claims on each other's futures. We'd have to wait and see where our hearts led us.

Because life was an adventure—sometimes tragic, sometimes transcendent. But it would change us if we let it. I was pretty sure that was the point of it all.

Dr. Goldman spotted me at the entrance and waved. I waved back and felt a tremor in my chest. I took a deep breath and opened the door. My life, which for so long had relied on other people's stories to give it meaning, was finally opening to a fresh new chapter.

I couldn't wait to start writing.

C
REATING
E
MMA'S
P
ARIS:
O
N
M
EMORY
AND
THE
M
AGIC
OF
G
OOGLE
E
ARTH

You could say I had a one-night stand with Paris. Not that I've ever had a one-night stand, but if I had, I imagine it would have been like my trip to Paris: brief, intense, and memorable. I was there only once, many years ago in what feels like a different lifetime, and I stayed for a brief three days that feels much longer in my memory.

And ever since I selected
The Phantom of the Opera
as the inspiration for the final book in this trilogy, I have been fantasizing about going back to Paris. Unfortunately, timing and finances prevented a return visit, which means that when I sat down to write the book, I was summoning memories that were almost two decades old. Had Paris changed much since I'd been there? And were my memories too clouded by nostalgia?

As the book began to come together, I realized that what mattered more than the authenticity of locations or even of my own recollections was the spirit of my time spent in Paris, that joy and wonder I felt at discovering a city I could fall in love with. So I channeled my inner twentysomething and tried to infuse the novel with the same
joie de vivre
and romance that characterized my first trip there.

But in my short stay, I hadn't been able to visit so many of the sights and landmarks that are iconic in Paris's history. How would I make those places come alive for the reader? Or for Emma?

It was then that I discovered Google Earth, which allowed me to “wander” the streets of Paris from the comfort of my living room couch, taking in museums, cathedrals, rivers, bridges, restaurants, cafés, even the tiny back alleyways of Paris. As I researched various places for the book and took virtual strolls through the city, I found myself falling in love all over again.

These are just a few of the locations that were special to me when I visited Paris or that are crucial to Emma's story as she begins her own romance with the City of Light:

 

La Bastille:
Emma's school in Paris stands on the grounds of the old Bastille, the fortress stormed during the French Revolution and, later, the prison where Louis XIV detained enemies of the state without trial. I wanted Emma's environs to have a dark historic past, to play up her fear of ghosts and the supernatural. The Bastille seemed one of the likeliest places in Paris to be rife with restless spirits seeking redress for past grievances.

Saint-Antoine:
This is the neighborhood where Emma's school is located and also the school's namesake. The district was immortalized by Dickens in
A Tale of Two Cities
when he described: “The wine was red wine, and had stained the ground of the narrow street in the suburb of Saint Antoine, in Paris, where it was spilled. It had stained many hands, too, and many faces, and many naked feet, and many wooden shoes. The hands of the man who sawed the wood, left red marks on the billets; and the forehead of the woman who nursed her baby, was stained with the stain of the old rag she wound about her head again.” See how he creates a metaphor for the blood spilled during the Revolution? Brilliant.

Not only did this “colorful” locale suit my dramatic purposes, but Saint Antoine (Saint Anthony) is also the patron saint of lost things, which ends up being relevant to a major plot point in the book.

Le Marais:
This is the neighborhood where I stayed during my visit to Paris, and thus it is my favorite. Whether meandering its narrow medieval streets or trying delicate pastries from a bakery in the Jewish quarter or traipsing through the trendy bars and cafés, this is a neighborhood for the young and fashionable. Ironically, its aesthetic is more Old World than hipster, boasting cobblestoned streets, ivy-covered buildings, and hidden courtyards. Its network of streets has been described as “dizzying,” and I can testify to that. One night, I wandered for an hour trying to relocate a bar I had visited the night before, only to conclude that it must have disappeared overnight.
Midnight in Paris,
anyone?

Belleville and Chinatown:
I never got to Belleville during my stay in Paris, but I stumbled upon the area while researching Paris's Chinatown, where several important scenes in my book take place. Belleville was an independent commune during the revolution of 1848 and was known for its leftist politics. It's safe to say that blood ran through its streets, just as it did through the streets of Saint-Antoine nearly sixty years before. In more recent years, Belleville has become home to a diverse and bohemian crowd, as well as lively outdoor markets, ethnic restaurants, and artists' studios. Edith Piaf grew up there and performed at the cabarets.

Père Lachaise Cemetery:
This was another destination I regretfully never made it to, but I had so much fun looking up photos of the various graves, tombs, and crypts. It's a creepy, fascinating place that's home to the bodies of literary and artistic geniuses such as Victor Hugo, Molière, Edith Piaf, Gertrude Stein, Chopin, Colette, Oscar Wilde, and (if we're playing “Which of these things doesn't belong?”) Jim Morrison.

Notre Dame Cathedral:
Built in the French Gothic style and boasting flourishes like flying buttresses, gargoyles, and a show-stopping stained-glass rose window, this cathedral is even more impressive in person than you've imagined. Watching it emerge through the treetops as I walked along the left bank of the Seine was one of the most stunning experiences of my travels.

Shakespeare and Company:
For any bibliophile, this bookstore is a must-stop. With its iconic green-and-yellow exterior and its cozy, dusty interior bursting at the seams with books going every which way, this was the quintessential independent bookstore before indies were cool. Set on Paris's famed Left Bank, the shop was a favorite haunt of literary giants like Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, and James Joyce.

Musée d'Orsay:
While my mention of the museum in the book is brief, Musée d'Orsay was one of my favorite places in all of Paris. Housed in a defunct turn-of-the-century railway station, the museum is now home to the largest collection of Impressionist and Postimpressionist art in the world. When I saw van Gogh's
The Church at Auvers
from three feet away, I felt like I was standing in the presence of God.

L'Opéra Bastille:
I remember stumbling upon L'Opéra Bastille and having the same reaction Emma has when she first sees it: “
That
is the Opera House?” Anyone familiar with
The Phantom of the Opera
has come to expect a magnificent columned building with a green dome and golden statuary, not an ugly round building covered in mirrored tiles. (My apologies to the architect.) Aesthetics aside, this modern opera house is now the main facility for the Paris National Opera after President Mitterrand green-lighted its construction to compensate for the limitations of the old Palais Garnier. Thus, L'Opéra Bastille became the host to my fictional Young Artists' competition in the book.

Le Palais Garnier:
What better testament to the power of place in fiction than the brilliant depiction of the Paris Opera House in Gaston Leroux's
The Phantom of the Opera
. While I never got to enter the opera's illumined doorways or climb its golden stairwell or watch an opera from its opulent gallery, the mystique Leroux created of a place steeped in music, tragedy, and romance provided all the inspiration I needed. The scene in which Emma, Owen, Elise, and Flynn attend
Orphée et Eurydice
at the Opera House was based half on inspiration, half on imagination, and was pure fun to write.