Читать книгу A Diva in Manhattan: HarperImpulse Contemporary Romance - Aubrie Dionne - Страница 9

The alarm blared in Alaina’s ears. She stuffed her head under her pillow and moaned. How could anyone get up at this ungodly hour?

Most of the world did. Teachers, nurses, TV anchors, bakers, businessmen like Lance. If they could do it, she could.

Slamming her hand on the alarm, she pulled herself out of bed. If she wanted that role, then she’d better get her butt in gear. Alaina threw herself in a scalding hot shower to wake herself up. The last time she’d gotten up this early was back in her Julliard days for music theory, and she hadn’t always made it on time. Or at all.

Now more than a grade rested on the line.

She slipped on a pair of navy pants and a blouse and twisted her hair in a bun, to make her best teacher impression. At least she looked the part.

So maybe she’d never taught anyone in her life, or talked with high school kids. She could act like no tomorrow, and act she would.

She hailed a cab and rode to the crummy part of the Bronx, where she wouldn’t be caught dead walking alone at night. Or more like, she would be dead if she did. She paid the cab driver extra to pull up right to the door, then grabbed her purse and entered the building feeling like it was her first day of school all over again.

An older, worn out looking woman in the office told her she’d be subbing for a teacher on maternity leave and directed her to room three fifteen.

Her heels clicked on the linoleum as she paced quickly to the room. Her school had polished floors, brand new lockers, and reproductions of Monet’s works hanging on the wall. This school had scuffed floors, beaten in lockers with graffiti scrawled in all manner of curses, and bare walls. Her heat raced, and her throat constricted. If she’d tried to sing anything, it would have come out as a cracked whisper.

When she opened the door, a girl with purple hair sat on her desk picking at holes in her racy stockings, while a guy dressed in black with black eyeliner played Candy Crush on his phone. Three other hoodlums with saggy pants and baseball hats pulled sideways over greasy hair wrote profanities on the chalkboard. None of them even looked up at her entrance.

Alaina clutched her purse tightly to her chest and walked to the front of class. “Good morning students. My name is Alaina Amaldi, and I’ll be taking the place of your teacher today.”

They didn’t look impressed. Alaina was used to getting standing ovations, and these students barely stayed awake or made eye contact. She had an urge to tell them just who the hell she was, but somehow she didn’t think that would impress them either.

“Take your seats and shut off your phones.” She gave the goth guy a steady glare. The previous teacher had left her a book on the desk, and she opened it to a page with a substitute lesson plan on Bach.

Thank god. She’d sung enough Bach to teach a whole semester.

“Take out your books and turn to page twenty seven.”

Three kids dug into grimy backpacks, while the rest of them just sat there.

“I said, take out your books.”

A gangly boy hiding half his face under his hood raised his hand. “I don’t have a book.” The rest of the class laughed.

Alaina started erasing the profanity on the chalkboard. “Share with someone next to you.”

When she turned around, half the class still didn’t have a book. She glanced at the girl with the purple hair. “And where’s your book?”

The girl gave her an I-don’t-give-a-shit kind of look. “I left mind at home.”

“O-kay.” Alaina resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “No matter. I’ll read the chapter out loud.” She cleared her voice. “Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist and violinist of the Baroque Period.” She glanced up. “Now, who can tell me when the Baroque period was?”

Purple hair raised her hand. “Can’t we study some great music legend of today, like Justin Bieber?”

The whole class burst out laughing. Alaina closed the book. Looks like the traditional method wasn’t working. At all. “I happen to like Bach. I’ve sung many of his cantatas and oratorios. They are beautiful staples of vocal literature.”

“What are you, some kind of opera witch?” A boy grumbled while writing on his desk.

Again, raucous laughter erupted.

Alaina fought a rising wave of panic. She wanted to run from the room and back to her safe apartment on the east side where people had manners. How dare they talk to her like this?

But, if she gave up, she’d be reinforcing exactly what the president of the board thought of her- a pampered rich socialite who wasn’t capable of holding down a volunteer job, never mind expressing compassion or unrequited love.

She was stronger and smarter than that.

Maybe it was time to broaden her image. She couldn’t let these little bullies defeat her. She needed them on her side. She needed to show them opera wasn’t some stuffed up snobby thing of the past. It could actually be a lot of fun.

Think, Alaina think. “Opera witch” reminded her of Bianca and her role as the Queen of the Night. Then, an idea sparked in her mind.

As the laughter settled down, she straightened up, crossed her arms and addressed the student. “As a matter of fact, sometimes I am.”

The students quieted. Some of the ones who’d been on their phones the whole time glanced up. She had their attention.

Alaina paced the front of the classroom, drumming her fingers on her elbows. “Opera is made up of stories. Sometimes you play the sweet heroine, and other times you play the evil villain.” She raised an eyebrow. “Anyone know who Carmen is?”

Silence, then one hand went up. “You mean Carmen Electra?”

A few of them giggled.

Alaina shook her head. “Approximately one hundred and forty years before Carmen Electra, there was the original Carmen in an opera by Bizet. She was a seductress who enchanted a young soldier with exotic dances. His unbridled passion for her drove him to forsake his duty and the woman his mother wants him to marry. But Carmen is not a one type of guy kind of gal. She tires of the soldier and falls in love with another man. In the end, the soldier pleads for her to return to him. When she refuses, he stabs her, killing her on the spot.”

“Or take Puccini’s Turandot- a daughter of a Chinese empire who is looking for a husband. She asks each suitor three questions. If they answer correctly, she marries them, but if they fail…” She chopped her hand down on the front desk and the boy who sat in it jerked up.

Alaina smiled wickedly. “They lose their heads.”

She took a tissue from the box on her desk and covered the bottom half of her face. “I’ve also studied the infamous Salome who enchants the head of the palace with her dance of the seven veils. He agrees to give her her heart’s desire. But, little does he know her heart’s desire is the head of a man who’d rejected her advances…on a plate.”

“Ouch. Tough luck for him, huh?” Purple hair actually leaned forward across her desk, engaged with what she was saying.

“Maybe you’ll think twice about scorning any admirers.” Alaina winked. “Anyway, when Salome gets the head on the plate, what do you think she does with it?”

“She kicks it.” Purple hair crossed her arms. “That’s what I would do.”

“No, I bet she sticks it on a pole to show everyone what happens when they piss her off.” The boy without the book didn’t raise his hand, but she let his comment go. At least he was involved in the conversation.

“Not quite.” Alaina gave them a mysterious smile. “She kissed it.”

“Ewwww.” Purple hair scrunched up her pretty little nose pierced by several nose rings.

Alaina went on to tell them stories of all the characters she’d played or studied in the past. Before she knew it, the bell rang, and they students stood from their seats.

“Wait a second!” Alaina held them in their places by the commanding tone of her voice. She’d grown more and more confident as the class went on. “For your homework, I want you to start writing your very own opera.”

“What? We can’t do that.” Goth guy whined like a baby.

“Yes you can. You’re all students here at this arts school. You’ve all taken theory and writing classes. You have a mind- an imagination.”

Goth boy opened his mouth to complain again and she cut him off by raising her hand. “Don’t worry I’ll help you through it, step by step. Tonight I want you to think of a setting for your story. That’s all. Just a place.”

As the students filed out, Purple hair approached her desk. “See you tomorrow, right?”

“That’s right.” Alaina sipped from her water bottle, expecting the student to walk away. But she didn’t move. “Is there something else?”

“No. I’m Jackie, by the way.” She stuck her hands in her pockets.

Alaina nodded and made a mental note to remember her name. She didn’t know any of their names and if she was in this for the long haul, then she should learn them. “Nice to meet you.”

“I sing, too. I don’t have a teacher or anything, but I like to harmonize to songs on the radio.”

Alaina blinked in surprise. “I’ll have to hear you sing sometime.”

“I’d like that.” Jackie picked up her backpack and left.

Alaina watched the girl turn the corner. At the beginning of class, she could have cared less about Alaina, and now here she was staying late to tell her she sang, too. Alaina smiled to herself as she packed up her purse.

There was hope after all. For both of them.

***

“Why do you want me to look up a fancy restaurant?” Phil stuffed the rest of his tuna sandwich in his mouth.

Brett threw the other half of his ham sandwich back in the bag. The bread was stale and he wasn’t hungry anyway.

“Well?” Phil took out his phone and turned it on. “We only have five more minutes of break.”

Brett crumpled the bag and stuffed it under his feet. He wasn’t going to get his friend’s help unless he told him the truth. “Because I have a date.”

“A date?” Phil widened his eyes. “Looks like it didn’t take you long to get over that red head from yesterday.”

Brett ran his hand over his face. Was asking Phil a mistake? “It is the red head from yesterday.”

He spit out his soda. “What? How’d you manage that?”

“It’s a long story. Now, can you help me or not?”

Phil wiped his mouth on his sleeve and pulled out his iPhone. “Sure. What exactly do you want me to look up?”

“I want to take her to someplace nice, but also someplace that reflects who I am. I don’t want her believing me to be someone I’m not.” Brett ran his hands though his hair.

A little too late for that, isn’t it?

Phil nodded. “I get ya. Sarah was always trying to dress me up and get me to go to all these weird art exhibits. It all just looked like splattered paint to me.”

Oh no, not Sarah again. Phil could talk about the-one-that-got-away for hours.

Phil stared into the traffic. “Maybe I should have just gone with her and stopped complaining.”

“You were just being yourself.”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t that bad. Man, what I wouldn’t give to have another chance. I’d go to every museum in New York, even that American folk art museum. You know once they had an entire exhibit of quilts. Quilts.”

Brett tightened his lips to keep from smiling. Quilts weren’t exactly high on his priority list, either. “I get your point.”

Phil went back to his phone. “So what do you want me to look for?”

Brett told him about the restaurant up in Maine. He hadn’t mentioned Maine other than to tell people that was where he was from. Speaking of his hometown made me feel vulnerable, naked. “Can you search for something like that around here?”

“I’ll try.” Phil dragged his finger across the screen. “What about this?”

Brett glanced at a picture of a restaurant on a rooftop with a garden overlooking the city. “Kinda, but it’s not very secluded.”

“You want secluded? In New York?” Phil laughed. “How about this?”

A picture of a Moosehead beer on top of a bar came up. Brett shook his head. “Not nice enough.”

“Geez, aren’t you Mr. Picky?”

Brett stood. “Look, I’m sorry I bothered you.”

“No, no, no. It’s no bother. It’s just what you’re looking for doesn’t exist.” Phil shut off his phone and stuffed it back in the pocket of his jeans. “Too bad you can’t rent a jet and fly her there.”

Wait a second. Mrs. DeBarr had said to do whatever it took. Brett pointed at Phil. “That’s not a bad idea.”

Phil stood and they stared walking back to the construction site. “I was joking, man. Where you gonna get the money for something like that?”

Brett clapped his friend on the shoulder feeling more confident than ever. This would be a night she’d remember. “Leave that to me.”