Mickey had wanted children, so this was in the zip code of accuracy. I don’t think it was hard to deduce Mickey was gay, but the large man with the dark eyes was a pretty spot-on description of his current celebrity look-alike boyfriend. So far, this woman was better than I’d expected.
When it was my turn, she motioned for me to sit in the chair, still warm from Mickey who had moved over to a bench, furiously checking his iPhone. I watched the psychic lay the cards out in a cross shape, turning them over one by one. “Let me see your hands?”
I volunteered them, flopping my elbows on the table and looking about the room, bored.
She stared at the cards then back at my hands and looked up at me. “What are you?”
“I’m an editor.” I cleared my throat nervously.
She shook her head. “I mean, what are you? This is not normal. Have you looked at your hand?”
I turned one over and gasped. The multiple lines that now covered my left hand weren’t there a week ago. “I don’t understand. My hand didn’t look like this before.”
“Look here.” Madame Rincky touched each line. “You have four life lines, but only one love line.”
“You’d been wondering about past lives,” chirped Mickey like a helpful assistant and pointed to my palm. “See?”
But I didn’t look shocked and Madame Rincky picked up on this. She raised her eyebrow. “But you already know this, don’t you? You’ve lived before.”
I nodded. “Three times before.”
She shook her head gravely. “This is the devil’s work.” Folding her hands in front of her in prayer, she mumbled something while her gold bangles clanged against each other. She pointed to my palm. “Bad stuff this is. I need you to leave here. I don’t want any part of this.”
“Leave?” I asked.
“I don’t want you here.” She stood up from the table and pointed to the door. “Go.”
“Let me see.” Mickey grabbed my hand and checked the lines.
“Madame Rincky?” I asked. Beads of sweat had appeared on her upper lip. “I don’t know why this is happening to me. Please… you’ve got to help me. I don’t know what I am.”
“It is simple. A devil has cursed you.” Madame Rincky pointed to a line on my hand.
But Madame Rincky didn’t tell me anything I hadn’t already suspected. This whole thing stemmed from the night in Juliet’s kitchen. Her mother had called a demon into the house. Things were now snapping in place for me. I looked down at my hand. Two lines were longer than the others—the second and the fourth. As much as I wanted to deny it, this was real. “Can you help me?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“But I need help.”
She looked down at the floor.
“Please,” I pushed.
“I might know someone.”
For the next few days, I waited for Madame Rincky to call me with help. I didn’t dream at all those days, which felt like I was wasting time—time I didn’t have. Luke called to check in on me—which meant he was wondering if I’d been having dreams and seemed quite disappointed to hear I was sleeping soundly.
On Tuesday, the car left me off in front of the Kennedy Center—the impressive building on the Potomac River that housed five working theaters. Roger and I had been regular opera patrons, so I knew several of the elderly ushers dressed in red jackets. I entered through the Hall of States and walked down the wash of red carpet, admiring the clean marble lines and high ceilings with the names of prominent Washingtonians etched above me. I stopped and read ROGER AND HELEN LAMBERT before continuing on toward the end of the hall where the impressionistic bronze statue of John F. Kennedy sat on the river side of the building.
I couldn’t get Madame Rincky’s words out of my mind. A devil has cursed you.
As if on cue, I heard the familiar tone of Luke’s voice. “You look stunning.”
I turned to see him walking toward me and wondered if he was, in fact, the devil in a tuxedo. Looking down at my dress, I registered what he was saying. The Reem Acra dress looked like it had been made for me. I’d drawn my hair into a loose, low chignon, leaving the front messy, not unlike Juliet LaCompte. I faux-curtsied. “Thank you. Anything for a pop-up opera—a popera, so to speak.”
He smiled but gave nothing away. “Shall we?” He took my hand, more like a parent than a date, and turned right toward the Eisenhower Theater, my favorite theater house and the one that hosts most of the smaller operas. Displayed in cases at the front of the house were two stunning gowns from famous operas. Oddly, I noticed there were no other patrons. “What are you up to?”
Luke opened the door to a dimly lit theater.
“Do we have tickets? With actual seat numbers?”
He laughed and took the stairs. “We have seats, don’t worry.”
I followed him up the stairs and down the hall, where an usher was waiting to open the presidential box for us. The walls and ceiling of the Eisenhower were wrapped in a red fabric that appeared to be velvet; the cluster of chandeliers above them reminded me of my grandmother’s brooches.
Once we were seated, Luke nodded to the usher and I noticed movement in the orchestra box below. As the opening bars started and the curtains parted, dancers flitted around the stage and a muse appeared. I felt a warm rush of nostalgia, although I couldn’t figure out why. I’d never seen this opera before. And yet I had. The set was different, it was a more avant-garde production, but I closed my eyes and the prelude of music that washed over me reminded me of a feeling of wonder I’d once had. But where? I thought back to Madame Rincky and my life lines. I also understood the French they were speaking, which was impossible—in this life. I closed my eyes. “Offenbach.” I had not known Offenbach. Correction: Helen Lambert did not know Offenbach, nor did she speak French. But some part of me knew this music. I knew this time.
“The Tales of Hoffmann,” Luke whispered. “It was Juliet’s favorite. This company just finished a run in Toronto so I hired them for the night.” His words sounded like tin and he was speaking in slow motion. Then the room went fuzzy.
13
Juliet LaCompte
Paris, France, 1896
The coloratura’s voice died down before the singer slumped over dramatically. Another character cranked the mechanism on the coloratura’s spine, bringing her back to life, her voice rising like a bird’s. The music and spectacle as well as the theater were all so ornate that between her eyes and ears, Juliet could hardly take in anything else. She sat wide-eyed on the seat, not noticing that Lucian Varnier was studying her.
Once again, the singer’s voice slowed and the woman—dressed as a doll—dropped forward, her skirt swinging dramatically as the ensemble gathered around her, disguising that she was not, in fact, a woman at all, but a doll—an automaton—who was deceiving the lovelorn protagonist, Hoffmann.
The entire performance, from the dramatic gaslights to the lavishly painted theaterscapes, had been a feast to Juliet’s eyes. The harmonies and haunting melodies gave voice to something Juliet had not been able to grasp until she sat as a spectator in the red velvet chair. This was the sound of loss—her loss—somehow being dramatized in front of her. Hoffmann’s love eluded him through the magical and the mundane. The performance was like a knife to Juliet’s heart. Every emotion she was feeling had been somehow put to music. It was as though the river of notes flowing from the coloratura had always been hidden somewhere deep inside her.