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Till We Meet Again | A Bette-Tina Beginning Chapter 22

Friday Night, the Met Opera

“You know T, Catherine Clement said that music is a great seducer—the pied piper of the dream state. And music at the opera with its symphonic harmony, soothes the soul, moves the body and lifts the spirit. But the harmonic suspension of this lyrical tragedy is so rare and intriguing, you would see during the climactic exposition. It really captures the Wagnerian androgyny when Tristan is wounded in this reinterp…”

“Bette…” Tina interrupted softly, looked at her companion sideways in their balcony seats, smiling tenderly at her, drinking in the breath-taking sight of Bette Porter in a white, pinstripe suit.

Bette turned her face to Tina, raising her eyebrows in inquiry, trying not to let her eyes travel down to the amount of cleavage Tina was revealing in that black evening gown.

“Shutup,” she whispered into her ear.

Bette pouted. “But…”

“You are creating disharmony and not enabling any sort of seduction.” Tina wiggled her eyebrows at Bette, emphasizing ‘seduction.’

“Oh, in that case, I will shut-up.” They both smiled at each other and turned to pay attention to the overture.

The plot is all familiar and forgettable, but the music weaves romance, sedating both of them, who quickly lose themselves to the binaries of the tonic and dominant, diatonic and chromatic, and before the night is over, their own binaries of Bette and Tina / Tina and Bette.

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Mid-day Saturday, Diva Offices

“Good afternoon Alice honey, all set for your LA flight tonight?” Helena stated nonchalantly as she opened the door to Alice’s office and walked in, taking a seat on the plush sofa.

Alice looked up from her work and smiled sweetly.

“Sure, Helena, just in the office wrapping up some last minute details. Could you do something for me?”

“Anything darling,” Helena drawled in her British accent, pleased that Alice would turn to her for a favor.

“Could you walk back out and shut the door behind you as you leave?” Alice asked nicely, hiding the annoyance and irritation that she felt whenever Helena walked in unannounced but unwilling to put up with it anymore.

Helena’s mouth dropped open with disbelief. “What?” she smiled at Alice,

“And if you want to come in, try knocking and asking for permission.” Alice continued, ignoring Helena.

“As…as you wish…darling,” Helena stuttered in shock, getting up to head out.

“Oh, one more thing Helena,” Alice said, not bothering to look up from her laptop.

“Yes dear?” Helena asked meekily.

“My name is Alice or Ms. Pieszecki or even Mrs. Porter would do, not dear, not darling and certainly not honey. Only Bette gets to refer to me using those endearments. And yes, I am all set to fly to LA tonight with Bette. Thanks for this opportunity—it is our anniversary and we will actually get to spend some time together while I am on assignment. I will see you once I get back.”

Helena stepped out of the office, completely embarrassed, frustrated, jealous and enraged. She would have to take care of Bette the good old way and soon.

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Friday Night, the Met Opera

The harmonic suspensions kept them on their toes, kept them yearning for completion as one act followed another complete with trust, treachery, passion, compromise, romance and tragedy.

When Act I finished with Tristan (tenor) and Isolde (soprano) desperately declaring their love for each other as they faced what they thought was their last hour, Bette turned to see Tina teary-eyed.

“T? Are you alright?” Bette asked, fishing for her initialed handkerchief and handing it to Tina who took it and blew her nose, handing it back to Bette.

“You can keep that,” Bette said, scrunching up her nose in mock disgust.

“Wasn’t that beautiful?” Tina said, pointing to the stage.

“Very beautiful,” Bette said, looking pointedly at Tina, who caught on and blushed before poking Bette in the ribs.

“Ouch…I see we are moving to new geographical locations, how about a little higher T or maybe a bit more down South?” Bette joked, which just earned her a swat from Tina.

“Do you want something to drink or eat before the next Act?” Bette asked.

Tina shook her head. “Do you?” she queried Bette, who also shook her head.

They hushed as the second Act began,

“Dearest lady, lovely Isolde, we must part, and in such a way that it seems, such chances of being happy together may never come our way again. Consider what perfect love we have cherished till now, and see that it endures. Keep me in your heart; for whatever happens to mine, you shall never leave it!”

“Why do you hasten away from me like this Tristan? Without me you cannot live for one day longer than I can live without you. Our lives and our souls are so interwoven, so utterly unmeshed, the one with the other, that you are taking my life away with you and leaving yours with me. Since you are forever one life with me, you must teach me how to preserve this life, first for you and then for me. Why are you silent? Speak now, your tongue and my spirit are at the mercy of the sails and winds. Where shall I seek myself now, where? Tell me – why are you silent?”

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Early Saturday Morning @ Bette and Alice’s Home

Alice woke up in the morning to the delicious aroma of breakfast. She inhaled deeply—freshly brewed coffee, eggs, bacon and all those other kitchen fragrances that smelled like home. Was she dreaming?

“Good morning sweetheart,” Bette said, smiling at Alice as she carried in a silver tray of food that looked as delicious as it smelled, placing it on the foot of the bed.

“I thought we could have breakfast in bed today,” Bette replied as she met her wife’s surprised look. “Happy Anniversary,” she said kissing Alice softly on the lips.

“Mmm…Happy Anniversary to you too,” Alice replied, pulling Bette down on bed on top of her. “Who are you and what have you done with my wife?” she asked teasingly.

Bette just smiled and buried her head in Alice’s neck. You don’t want to know Al, she thought sadly to herself, fighting the tears that threatened to spill over. She withdrew from the embrace. “Will you come out with me tonight?”

Alice raised her brows, “I thought we were going to LA tonight.”

“We are—but before that, I wanted to treat you to something special, so do you think we can take a later flight, maybe even a red-eye?”

Alice smiled. “Of course, anything for you.”

“For us,” Bette replied.

“For us,” Alice confirmed.

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Friday Night, the Met Opera

“Can you hear the silence in the harmony Tina? What does it tell you?” Bette whispered into her ear.

The sound is not on any page, but in my heart, churning out beats—slow, fast, faster, slower—dancing with wild abandon. I hear the music, even as the bows don’t touch the strings, the fingers never reach the keys, the cymbals never meet the drums, air never pierces the trumpet. It is a music based on no written notes, no instruments, no spoken chords—it just is the essence, the vital being, the surreal understanding, the mutual bond between us. What we both want but cannot have and the pain in those chords, the torment in that melody can devastate our soul. But we must live our lives knowing the magical spell that binds us to each other, seek comfort in the torment of the silence that cannot threaten for the symphony will falter, creating dissonance, taint our pure, undying love and devotion. Tina watched on silently, the silence piercing her heart and soul even as the auditorium filled with symphonic repertory.

“And so I must do without him. Whatever it costs me, I would much rather he were absent and unharmed than present and I in constant expectation that some harm may befall him at my side. Whatever harm I reap from it, I desire to be Tristan’s friend without any hurt befalling him. If only his affairs run a happy course I do not care if I am always wretched. I will delight in forcing myself to forego myself and him, so that he may live on.”

Alas, Act II ends with Tristan mortally wounded by his best friend Merlot after he spends the night with his beloved Isolde, whom Merlot had grown to love. Tristan and Isolde curse the day and praise the night, the only condition under which they can unite—the night being a symbol of death to ensure the survival of their everlasting love. It was only in death that they could unite.

We are like the shoreline … the mutual existence of the crashing waves and the steady resilience of sand that meet continuously, only to part ways in the very next moment.

We are like night and day … one cannot exist without the other, but never can they exist together

We are like fire and ice … potent forces of nature when apart, impotent together.

We are like the land and skies … we meet at the promising horizon that keeps getting farther as we come closer.

‘We’ are ‘unattainable,’ ‘unobtainable’ … ‘We’ cannot exist as ONE for we must always be two to preserve the harmony, the natural order of things.

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Friday morning @ Eric and Tina’s Home

Tina sat on the kitchen tool gulping down an early breakfast. She had a lot planned for the day after school—get Bette a new phone and activate the service, drag Bette along to confirm dinner reservations and seats for Saturday at a five-star rooftop restaurant overlooking Manhattan, help Bette win Alice over with a romantic gesture, and then pick up Bette for their evening at the Met Opera. .

Eric walked up to her, interrupted her thoughts about Bette with a good morning kiss on her forehead before settling down with a cup of coffee and the newspaper.

Things had been a bit smoother between them since the huntress debacle. Eric had felt sympathetic towards Tina and yet taken by surprise with her bold and aggressive sexual move. It excited and turned him on and he eagerly anticipated a passionate night between them after Tina simmered down and opened up to him again. Her humiliating act had told him that she still wanted him so he was willing to wait for however long it took and give her the space and time she needed.

“Tina, do you know what day tomorrow is?” Eric asked as he read the newspaper.

“Yes, it is Saturday, unless you think it is some other day in which case we need to admit you to a mental sanitarium,” she said, grinning cheekily at him.

Eric smiled. “Since when did you develop a sense of humor?”

Since Bette came into my life again. She smiled to herself, her thoughts riveting back to the amazingly beautiful, complex, luminous and talented brunette.

Eric cleared his throat to get her attention again. “Are you free tomorrow? I would like us to do something.”

“Don’t worry about it—I have something planned for the both of us tomorrow night,” she replied. Tina was going to try again and take initiative to make this marriage work for the both of them. She planned to blow Eric away with what she had in store for him tomorrow night. Her humiliation and embarrassment was not forgotten but she could hardly place the blame on Eric—just miscommunication on their part that Tina planned to improve. For now, she was wiping the slate clean and planning to start afresh.

“You do? Wow, you have been full of surprises lately,” Eric said, grinning from ear to ear. His day was definitely going to go well if not his entire week.

“Well, prepare to be surprised,” Tina said as Eric got up, gave her a chaste kiss and headed for bedroom to get ready for work.

“By the way,” Tina called after him, “I’m going to the Opera with a friend tonight so I may be late coming back. Don’t wait up for me, just wait for tomorrow.”

“Cool, at least I am spared the torture of opera. Is that my anniversary gift? I will take it,” Eric called from the bedroom, as Tina rolled her eyes, finished breakfast and headed off to school with thoughts of Bette at the forefront of her mind again.

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Friday Night, the Met Opera

She sought desperately for harmonious concord within herself—an agreement of sound that would match the turbulence within her heart.

Alas, love is a symphony, a parallel of contradictions that never meet and yet somehow create proper diction – rude and graceful, brilliant and emotionally retarded, brash and gentle, loving and hating, angry and calm, passionate and uncaring, free and restrained. The vigor, movement, passion and incomplete sound of the symphony orchestrated in front of her matched the one in her soul.

A mortally wounded Tristan faced death for his transgression. Death for disturbing the harmony. The audience is silently captivated, as Tristan begs for just one moment more, one last look at his beloved and in return, he agrees to the pain of dying a thousand times over.

Tina breaks the silence, reaching out to Bette, the creamy light tone, meets the mocha dark complexion, melting together, “Bette,” her voice falters, full of emotion, discord, “Just imagine loving someone so much, so much that you agree to a thousand deaths, just to spend one more moment with her. Imagine how great a love that would be…”

“Close your eyes Bette, Close your eyes and feel the music. Tear down those protective walls around your heart, let it permeate your soul. Think about that person Bette, that one person for whom you would readily accept a thousand deaths just for one moment more in her presence.”

She ran her hand down Bette’s face, closing her eyes softly as she closed her own.

Her voice enters me, makes me a subject by virtue of the fact that I have been entered. Her touch brings forth vibrations on my skin, moving inside my body. The mellifluous notes of her voice passes through the porous membrane, discrediting the fiction that bodies are separate and apart packages from their environment. I take her in further, swallow and memorize her, processing the beats of her chords with my own.

I find myself lifted, roused from my seat and carried through time in spirit. Faces—some known, some unknown—flitter past me. I see Mom, Dad, Kit, childhood friends, college friends, colleagues, famous artists and intellectuals and then Alice. But the spirit carries me past here, still looking, still searching. And there she is, standing with her back to me, bathed in the light of rays, so pure, so innocent, with wings of an angel. I know before she turns around that one moment in her presence would be enough for me to submit myself to the mercy of not thousand, not million, but an eternal punishment much like that of Tantalus, who has to stand in water but never be able to drink it or that of Sisyphus, condemned to forever rolling a boulder up a hill only to have it roll down again and start over. She turns around…Tina.

Bette’s eyes flew open, disbelieving what she had just seen. She gaped in shock as the curtains fell and audience cheered. She turned to Tina, who was staring straight ahead, with tears streaming down her face. She closed her eyes in rapture. She remembered the matching pounding of their heartbeats as they lay together so many times; the euphonious trill of her laughter and the harmonious chord created when joined together with her own; the steady unique staccato of her heels as they approached her; the tit-for-tat continuous rhythm of their banter; the subtle teasing and titillating of her nerves; the trumpets of victory when she would smile after winning an argument; the onslaught of vibrations that tingled her skin right down to her cores with every touch, every tiny whisper, every breathe. Together they created a symphony, their love—roused by the most varied agencies and instruments—the most harmonious union of all.

There was no fighting it. Bette Porter realized that she was utterly, irrevocably, and eternally in love with her Tee.