(I might start just doing actual sentences after this, we’ll see :) (me doing burns on my own near-age demographic except that I maintain it is distracting in a play about The Youth)
“You were not focused on--Romeo and Juliet,” said Erik, who must be looking at the balcony scene, which she had found prettily staged and simple enough to draw from memory. The performers had not moved much in it.
“No,” she said and took a drink. “...for one thing, I know what happens.”
She heard an odd, amused noise in response to this.
“For another,” she said. “Everyone was forty years old.”
“They have to be forty years old.”
“Almost no one under that age has the necessary vocal training. There is such a thing as suspension of disbelief.”
“I was unable to suspend my disbelief.”
“I am not sure what you mean.”
“There are four adaptations in opera form. That I am aware of. At this time.”
...how do you keep track of this, she wondered.
“I can think of no way to recall which one we saw.”
“You cannot remember the name of the composer? Nor did you keep the programme.”
“No, why would I? I did not care for it.”
Erik sighed and closed the sketchbook. This was apparently now a project.
“Did they die at the end,” he began patiently.
“Then it was not Benda--”
“There is one where they don’t die?!”
“Yes, in accordance with the tradition of the time in which it was composed.”
“A dark time. Was--were their names in the title or was it Capuleti e-”
“So it was not Bellini, it was either Zingarelli or Vaccai.”
“How can you know all this?!”
“As you have often reminded me that I have apparently said...I’m different.”
Luciana, who was at that precise moment tilting the glass to take drink, laughed, narrowly avoided getting wine up her nose and could not avoid a coughing fit.
“You did that purposely and it is rude,” she managed.
Erik had risen, fetched a glass of water, set it in front of her, and returned to his place at the far end of the table before she had regained control of all her faculties.
“I cannot imagine what you are speaking of.”
He flipped to the next page of her sketchbook.