Summary: Present Day Setting: All of the Phantom Characters work in an extremely ritzy hotel in New York City, except for Erik, the mysterious guest that lives at the grand suite on the top floor. What do they work as? Read to find out.
Warning: Since it is present day settings, the characters are made to have slight differences in their slang usage and accents.
Warning#2: Carlotta is definitely a bit OOC here.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the named brands and characters. I only own this storyline.
"Order up, Meg!" Raoul's tenor voice alerted the blonde, snapping her back to reality, as he slid a hot plate of delectable food toward her dazing form.
"Ugh, Chef, must I?" She grimaced at the plate of steaming Eggs Benedict. "I'm the fricken manager of this place, as well as the Banquet manager!" she moaned as Raoul simply shook his head at her, continuously jiggling the plate of eggs at her direction.
"Yes, Sir!" Meg gave a false salute towards the head chef, earning herself the fifth laugh from him that day, and then with expert grace, she brought the table its desired food.
--
"Hello, how may I help you?" Antoinette Giry cooed to the bunch of tourists who had just entered through the two, golden doors into the Hotel, the perfect concierge.
"Yes, ma'am, we'd like two rooms with two twin beds each." The seemingly oldest male from the group, presumably the father, uttered, somewhat flustered. The male was wearing a luxurious suit and tie, with matching shoes. The mother as well, was donning a very large Hermes© bag, as well as numerous Louis Vuitton© suitcases. There were three toddlers, that were dressed quite smartly, I might add, running around and jumping everywhere (and to Anne's disturbance, they were touching the things in the lobby. Take the big, tall potted plant, for example. It was on the verge of toppling over.) But thankfully, they did not start the panicky-screaming part yet.
Mrs. Giry saw to it that they had been booked a room before they could do any more damage to the beautiful, and radiant, lobby of the Hotel Populaire.
She sighed as she glanced at the clock, several hours later after the little savages had run amok throughout her lobby, and realized it was a Tuesday. The slowest day in any business, for sure. And, it was only eleven in the morning!
--
"Mr. Firmin, I believe it is your turn?" Mr. Andre had given his long friend a wave of his hand, toward the limousine that was pulling up toward the Hotel's main entrance.
Mr. Firmin could only offer his friend a smile as he opened the car door and was handed the suitcases, which he promptly put upon his cart.
The only guest this time was an old lady, far older than Firmin, however, who was quite snappy and annoying.
("Move faster, Bell-Grandpapy!" she had bickered at the poor Mr. Firmin, her southern accent was strong. Mr. Firmin had only grunted in response, and then dared enough to glare at her backside.)
She was wearing many, many large jewels around her neck, fingers, ears and wrist, which jangled as she bustled around.
As the old lady, who had introduced herself as 'Eloise' (but due to her bitter attitude toward the bell-boys, they gave her the rightful nickname of 'Old Lady') was ushered into the lobby, Mr. Andre and Firmin both waved to Mrs. Giry, and sent her a silent message, pointing out that the Old Lady was rather difficult to get along with. And Mrs. Giry, clearly understanding, gave the Old Lady the worst room, and told the maids to not change her bed sheets, -as well as leave out the used soap, instead of the new ones-, whom happily obliged.
--
"Carlotta!" Christine piped up, causing the young woman to jerk awake.
"What is matter, Christine?" Carlotta asked, alarmed as she shook her fiery red curls away from blocking her face, her Italian accent overpowering.
"You have a customer." Christine did her little innocent smile at Carlotta, who turned to the lady sitting in the corner of the bar by herself, apparently crying heavily over a breakup.
"You the bartender, miss?" the woman looked up at Carlotta with grey eyes, her eyeliner and mascara running down her face, causing her to look piteous.
"Ya, I'm da bartender. What you like?" Carlotta's face softened as she took in the sight of the woman. She hoped that she wouldn't end up like this woman someday. She could offer her a drink, it was past twelve now.
"A vanilla vodka on the rocks, please…" she sniffled out, then resumed to sobbing loudly into a white handkerchief, which had partially turned as grey as her eyes, due to the black makeup.
Carlotta was fast with her task, and within seconds, slid the drink towards the crying form of the woman. "Drink, This one's on the house, eh?" she muttered, waving away the thanks that the latter sputtered at her.
"You want to talk, yeah?" Carlotta folded her arms upon the counter, looking at the woman.
"I can't believe that he did this to me! Cheated! After all of these eight long years!" the woman sobbed again.
Christine smiled at the sight of Carlotta doing her job, well actually, it was definitely more than her job, and Carlotta was a bit of a psychologist nowadays. Her customers became her patients. It was a lovely sight to behold.
She herself had been humming a light tune to herself. She was the bar's part-time singer, and owned a Gift Boutique, as well as a Cosmetics Store that was only run in the Hotel.
She was happy and humbled, but would honestly rather go for a job as a full time singer, and sell her stores to the man upstairs.
Now, reader, the 'man upstairs' is not God. The 'man upstairs' is not even remotely connected to God.
The 'man upstairs' was only known as just that title: The Man Upstairs. All of the employees at the Hotel knew that this man did have a name, he just never gave it.
("I will be renting out the entire top floor, under the name of Monsieur.", he had muttered to Mrs. Giry, after coming in from the wretched downpour of rain, many many years ago.) Even if he wished to be called Monsieur, nobody ever called him so. The employees referred to him as 'The Man Upstairs'.
Mrs. Giry was the only person to have actually seen his face, being the concierge. This mysterious man had avoided Firmin and Andre's curious gazes as he strode in without even a suitcase. Anne remembered how her breath had caught in her throat after seeing his face. He had a severe facial deformity, to say the least, and odd enough, the marred part of his face was paler than the other, seeming as if he had worn a mask of some sort previously over the spot.
Oh how she wished that he had it on right now!
The horrid gaping holes for a nose, the complete half of his face was twisted and scarred in every horrible way possible! Those penetrating yellow eyes were something that the Mrs. would never ever forget.
Anne had nodded, repeated the number that had popped up upon the screen for the room, and gulped. The man paused for a moment, then spoke, "I will be giving regular rental payments, as I will be staying here much longer than an ordinary guest." He handed her a thick wad of the US Currency known as Dollar Bills.
She quickly calculated the money and pronounced that he had just secured himself a month at the expensive hotel, upon the top suite.
He left without a sound; the soft dinging sound of the elevator was the only thing that made acknowledgement of his presence.
A/N: To Be Continued...if you review.