She checked her watch as she walked through the outer door. “Eep! I’m late.” By the time she walked into the room, she had her coat, hat, and scarf off, and she was tugging her gloves off with her teeth. Everything got plopped in a pile on a table by the door.
Thankfully this room, while not exactly warm by up-time central heating standards, was much warmer than the great out-of-doors. She waved at Amber, where she was talking to some well-dressed—in a relatively sober manner—down-timer. Hermann Katzberg raised his chin at her from where he was playing through one of the aria accompaniments on the rehearsal hall piano, so she headed his direction.
“Hey, Hermann.”
“Good morning, Marla,” he said as he finished a percussive run up the keyboard, ending with a chord that almost shivered in the air. Then he repositioned his hands and looked up at her. “The usual?”
“Yep.”
Hermann played through a series of chords to help her establish the sound of the piano in her mind again. Marla had perfect pitch. She had never met anyone else with perfect pitch, but speaking for herself, she had found it as much a curse as a blessing. Any performance that was not perfectly in tune was to her like listening to fingernails scraping on a blackboard. Perhaps even more so. She had never been able to communicate even to other musicians just how torturous that could be.
Likewise, it took some effort on her part to blend with instruments whose tuning had drifted off the mark. She could do it, but she had to spend some time listening to the instrument to set its tuning in her mind. And unfortunately, her mind seemed to reset itself back to the “normal default tuning” every night when she slept, so she now had a morning ritual of listening to Hermann play the piano until she could mesh with its tuning. Then she would warm up with her vocalises, at which time she was ready to begin the rehearsal. It was a bit time consuming, but by getting in early every morning, it worked.
She turned and faced Hermann, placed both hands on the piano top, and opened her mouth.
* * *
Amber Higham heard Marla beginning her warm-ups. That was good. Now if she could only get this man out of Her Rehearsal Space, maybe they’d be ready to start on time.
“One more time, Herr Schardius,” she started again, holding on to her temper with both hands, “when I agreed to let you view the rehearsals, I meant after we moved to the opera house for the final rehearsals. We are too early in the process and we have such a restricted amount of time to prepare, I can’t allow any distractions for my people right now.
“And trust me,” she held up a hand as he opened his mouth to interrupt, “you would be a distraction on the order of an elephant trying to hide under a table.”
Actually, if all the performers were of the caliber of Andrea Abati and Marla, it probably wouldn’t have been that big a deal if the merchant had hung around. Professionals of the up-time theater were used to strangers being around while they were rehearsing. But over half of her performers were basically rank amateurs, and none of them, Andrea and Marla included, had performed an opera of this magnitude before, so yeah, it was a big deal. She crossed her arms, leaned forward slightly—a dominance trick she had learned early in her acting career—and focused her strongest and most draconian glare on the merchant who was intruding into Her Rehearsal Space.
Schardius seemed a bit distracted himself now, listening to Marla’s voice make even the warm-up vocalises seem like works of art. After a moment, he shook his head in a sharp motion, then focused back on Amber. Her glare was unrelenting, and he seemed to finally get the message that he was not going to be spending the morning watching the rehearsal.
“Very well, Frau Higham.” For all that he had to be angry and frustrated—or at least disappointed—the cool tones of his voice revealed no such thing. He might have been discussing the morning weather, for all the passion that was in his voice. “But I shall hold you to your word. When you move to the opera house, I will be there to watch.”
Amber gave him a short nod, but did not change her posture or release her glare.
After another long consideration of Marla at work, the merchant sauntered to the door, looked around one final time, and left.
Amber dropped her arms. Finally! They could get on with rehearsals. She picked up her notebook of a nearby table and leafed through it until Marla finished warming up. At that point, Amber raised her voice.
“Okay, everyone, gather ’round.” In a matter of moments, the cast scheduled for this rehearsal was standing in front of her. “Right. We’re going to pick up where we left off last rehearsal. Hermann,” she looked over to the piano, “start with the interlude before the big Act Two duet. Dieter, Marla, you’re on. Everyone else, step over there until we get to your piece.”