“Does he live on the second floor?” Julia referred to the Suzanne Vega song.
“What?”
“Don’t worry. I’m raving. He’s…well, for one thing, he has a stupendous voice.”
“And for another,” Liddy said, “he could stunt-double for Adonis.”
“Yeah. He’s…nice.”
“You don’t go for handsome men, do you, though?” Liddy sighed. She had spent the last few months of rehearsal trying to fix Julia up with a selection of Rome’s most eligible bachelors.
“I…oh, I think I’m on in a minute.”
Liddy was flapped out of the way by a stage manager who looked close to the verge of dramatic nervous breakdown.
“Julia, so sorry.” He elongated the vowels in that Italianate way. “We not expect Luca this week. He arrive very early. You are okay?”
“I’m okay,” said Julia tensely. Hearing her cue, she took those first steps towards playing a love scene with a total stranger.
Feigning suspicion of her lover, she crept up behind him where he sat at his easel. Tempi had always looked towards her as she approached, smiling generously, but she was almost at Luca’s shoulder before he suddenly whirled around, as if surprised and overjoyed by her presence.
He held out his hands to her, drawing her into his tall, athletic body until she was held in his arms, having to look up and sing into a face that was just too handsome to regard without sunglasses. Julia, overwhelmed, found that her voice failed her.
The conductor frowned, halted the orchestra, waited for the director’s words.
“So sorry, Julia,” he said.
Less of the apologising, thought Julia crossly, more of the explaining how I’m supposed to work with a man who could have come straight off the cover of GQ.
“I think you have not been introduced," the director continued. "This is Luca di Cecco, our new Cavaradossi. Luca, this is Julia Markland, our English rose all the way from London. Okay, Luca doesn’t know the stage directions yet, so Julia, just sing it through and we’ll work on those later. I just want to see the two of you together. I want to see the chemistry.”
“Hello, Luca,” said Julia awkwardly, conscious of his arm still wrapped tightly around her.
“Salve,” he said, taking one of her hands and moving the fingertips to his lips.
“You…” Julia began, agitated beyond measure at the godlike tenor’s intimate behaviour.
The orchestra started playing again, and she had to put back her shoulders and sing.
He’s good, she told herself as the scene progressed. I’m lucky they replaced Tempi with somebody so good. But… She could barely concentrate on her lines, and breathing from the diaphragm had never been harder. The way he looked at her was so unlike Tempi’s stagy over-the-top passion, and yet his eyes communicated so much more longing and desire than the famous tenor’s ever had. Anyone would think he really wanted me or something.
He reached out for her to create close contact for their romantic duet. In his arms she found her voice soaring, blending with his, just as their bodies seemed to meld and fit perfectly with each other. The ground beneath Julia’s feet fell away and she was in the moment, she was Floria Tosca, dreaming with her lover of a night of passion in their secret hideaway.
She could feel his powerful chest vibrate against her arm as the secret interior mechanisms of his body worked to refine and set free his astonishing voice. She wanted to lean into him, to find
shelter and sustenance, to let him lead her to the secret little house in the hills and, once there, to…
“Beautiful!” shouted the director, leaping to his feet. “You two will be the talk of the town! I knew this would work!”
Back in the dressing room, she collapsed in the chair next to Liddy’s and struggled to regain her breath. The face in the bulb-lit mirror didn't look like hers. Her hazel eyes were restless, her usually tanned skin pale and the smooth chestnut hair ruffled.
“You’re shaking.” Liddy put a hand over Julia’s. “What’s up?”
Julia turned bewildered eyes to her friend. “I don’t know. I really don’t know what happened out there.”
“You two were amazing. Wow. You looked so gorgeous together too, like a real young couple in love. Fantastic work, Jules.”
“That’s the thing,” said Julia. “It wasn’t work. It felt nothing like work. It felt like…it felt real.”