“Something a bit more intimate?” He shrugs, nodding at the ringing bell signaling the end of the second intermission. “And I urge you to make it snappy.”
He pivots away with his walking stick before she can grab it and slap the man with it.
Back in the Ameses’ box, Cora takes her seat beside Harry with a manic smile.
Intimate. Not in the box itself. Someplace private.
Farther along the box seat arc, she sees that Mr. McAllister has returned to Mrs. Astor’s box with refreshments, looking irritatingly undaunted as he takes his seat.
“Do sit down, Arabella; you’re blocking the way.” Mrs. Ames settles into her seat, nudging her daughter back into the corner.
As the houselights sink, so do Cora’s spirits, her head pounding with the realization that she may well have minutes before it’s too late and their entire plan—all the ground they’ve laid this season—is destroyed, and all because of her shortcomings. But what is there to do? She cannot fly across the opera house and force Mimi Vandemeer to use the water closet.
“Good grief, I’ve overfilled this,” Harry says, handing her the glass. “Sorry, dear.”
She looks down at her wine.
Yes. Wine. That’s it!
Cora perches on the edge of her seat and stares at the Vandemeers’ box. For once, Alice isn’t watching her. Of all the luck!
Cora takes her own turn boring holes into Alice, wishing she could channel Prospero and will the woman to look up and see her. Seconds pass. A full minute, a quiet romantic scene below, and then finally,finallyAlice takes a sip of her wine as she glares accusingly across the theater.
She catches Cora’s pointedly wide eyes, her own expression faltering.
Cora furtively downs her glass of champagne. She discreetly mimes dumping the glass beside her, careful not to draw any unwanted attention.
Alice raises her eyebrows. Cora knows this expression. It is Alice’s signature “have you gone entirely mad?” look.
Cora puts her glass down, clandestinely rattles her hand back and forth, before miming dumping the invisible contents of this invisible glass onto Harry’s lap.
“Everything all right?” Harry murmurs, wide-eyed, beside her.
“Quite,” Cora says. “This scene is just so romantic. I feel rather fevered.”
“Your temperature is rising?”
“Only in the figurative sense,” Cora hisses, eyes on Alice, who now glances at Mimi.Perhaps she understands?
Alice shifts in her seat, eyeing Mimi’s lap.
Do it, Cora pleads silently, an incantation.Now, now, now—
But rather than spill her own glass, Alice adjusts her body suddenly so that it’s Mimi’s glass that’s jostled, dumping its contents straight onto her lily-white gown.
Mimi leaps up, shaking her dress—fully splattered, not with champagne but cabernet!
Alice, clever thing that she is, backs away in apparent horror, signaling to the box steward to bring fresh napkins.
Cora rises, clutching her fan tightly.
“On second thought, Mr. Peyton, I do think I need to excuse myself. In the corporeal sense. Be right back.”
Cora whisks out of her box just as Mrs. Vandemeer and Mimi exit theirs.
She picks up her skirts, racing down the lush, red-carpeted hall and around the nearby circular set of stairs. She needs to beat the Vandemeers to the parlor water closet or this is all for naught.
“Do be careful, madame,” an opera officiant tells her as she rounds another corner.
