The Complete Where Dreams - Volume 2 of 2

Chapter 15-3

The problem, Perrin had to admit that night as she crawled into bed alone and watched the ceiling spin slowly, was that even being creative had achieved so little.

She and Bill had found that their best opportunity to see each other at all was having lunch together. On days when he was too busy to even leave the office, she’d at least arrive with sandwiches to share at his desk among the prop layout plans. She’d never thought about the problems of a scepter being carried off one side of the stage, then needed at the head of a staircase on the opposite side two scenes later.

When she could coax him out of the office, they lunched in her apartment. Okay, they had fantastic s*x on her bed, her couch, the floor, the kitchen—more than once they hadn’t made it past leaning against the closed front door—followed by him bolting down a sandwich on the ten-block drive back to the office.

They had tried finding a moment at the Opera offices, but with the pending production the staff was increasing and there wasn’t even a quiet corner. The Opera normally employed a hundred people full-time. But for a new build of a major new opera, there were over four hundred people underfoot everywhere they went.

Then the ballet that had been in residence at the Seattle Opera House after the production of Turandot had closed and cleared out. Emerald City Opera descended on the Opera House like a hammer blow. In twenty-four hours the main electrical, pressurized air, and propane systems had been in place. There were parts of the set that would appear to burn during the dramatic second act, giving the Tragic Prince physical scars to match the psychological ones.

Forty-eight more hours and the set was in place. Impossibly, hundreds of pieces of scenery were delivered and assembled. Two trucks constantly worked the loading dock, disgorging great loads from the scene construction shop, that were then rapidly assembled. Another truck was actually parked on an elevator a story below that then delivered it directly to the stage right wing.

The crews who had been setting up in the Emerald City Opera’s offices were also preparing for the move across town. The lowest floor of the offices was normally props storage. One end had been taken over by an eight-person props team. They’d even backed up a semi-truck trailer to a loading door which contained a full machine shop where they made anything they didn’t already have: swords, lanterns, armor, fake foodstuffs for the grand banquet, including the tables and tablecloths. It was amazing to watch.

The other end of the ground floor was taken by fifteen electricians servicing and calibrating the lighting instruments. Massive coils of cable were stacked on pallets or dumped into bright yellow rolling hampers. Light poles and triangular steel trusses made up of those funny zig-zag metal pipes were loaded onto semi-trailers for the fast approaching move-in day.

This world was a mystery to Perrin. It was also the only place she ran into Jaspar during the whole week. But he looked to be very busy learning how to wire a connector properly, so she didn’t disturb him.

On the second floor, the costume department was really humming. The chorus had started coming through for fittings. A dozen seamstresses were fitting pre-made pieces to measurements cards. And altering the many costumes that didn’t work out quite right. A man they planned to use as a village cartman had recently joined a gym and his shoulders no longer matched his card nor fit his intended uniform. A woman was four months pregnant, still able to sing, but her form-fitting gown had to be switched with someone else’s less revealing attire.

In the middle of the floor, a temporary makeup department had been set up. There, Mika worked with five other specialists to turn the photographs of the designs he and Perrin had developed into face cards for every single character: base powder Ben Nye BV71, Sandy Rose CR3 cheek rouge, auburn eye pencil blended with… The list went on to define the lip outline which emphasized them at a distance, degree of blending or highlights, aging lines on backs of hands and neck, wigs, prosthetics like latex scars, stage blood to be coordinated with costuming as they’d be laundering it out of the costume after every performance.

A couple of the major roles, the Prince, Princess, and the True Love had several face cards. For Carlo as the Prince sometimes he had a makeup call between two scenes as his look evolved: hope to scars to loss of hope to premature age to destitution and ultimate failure as he dies in the arms of the Princess who loves him. His final aria ending with a demented cry for his murdered True Love.

“So Bill,” Perrin asked after they’d stolen a kiss in the office’s central freight elevator, “Is it always going to be this difficult for us to have s*x?”

“Make love?” He’d brushed a hand down her body that electrified every single nerve ending.

“Oh man. You have to cut that out.”

“Cut out this?” he kissed her fiercely for two seconds while groping her wildly. “Or stop telling you that I love you?”

Perrin made sure that her clothes were straight by the time the elevator stopped even if her pulse was thoroughly chaotic.

“Okay,” she struggled for a breath then nodded for him to open the heavy steel gates that split horizontally across the middle to raise and lower. Just as he put his hands on the heavy strap to start them moving, she rubbed her palm downward over the front of his pants then whispered in his ear.

“Don’t stop doing either one.” She shoved the door down so that it clanged open and walked out onto the main office floor, leaving Bill to trail somewhere far behind.