8 Chapter 4
'Where in the world have you been hiding?'
Helen woke the next morning to find that Gen sat at the foot of her bed and the clock yelling eight-thirty.
"OH. MY. GOD!" Gen screamed as Helen sat up, sleepily.
"What?" Helen stated, windswept.
"Your face! Your face! Look in the mirror!" Gen pointed to the mirror hanging above the dresser in the corner. Helen slipped out of bed, extremely jag legged, and stumbled to the mirror. She gasped, dramatically,
"Oh my God! You're right! It's a mask, Gen!" Helen slipped off the mask and laughed at her friend. The white mask fit perfectly around the left side of her face, cutting off above the lips. She looked in the back of the mask: there was a note. She pulled it out and read it to herself,
' Dear Helen,
A Masquerade ball you say? Wear this if you trust me by then…
OG'
Helen set the mask in her top drawer and silently sat on her bed looking at Gen, whom was blushing madly,
"Don't be ashamed! I know this is all a lot for you to take in when you've heard of how he was "ghastly and treacherous" around my mother's rein. Please understand that he means no harm to me."
"Where in the World have you been hiding?
Helen I judge your thoughts!
I only wish I knew your secret!
Who is this white-masked man?" Gen sang, rickety.
"Gen, please don't be frightened!
I know his motives!
He only wishes for a companion!" Helen soothed her friend.
"I'm still not sure you're feeling sound…" Gen stood and put a blanket around Helen's shoulders.
"I'm fit as a whistle! Don't look at me like a child!" Helen stood, the blanket falling to the floor.
"Helen? Are you certain you can go to the Opera and not have an "phantom attack" again?" Gen quizzed, looking at Helen confused, loving, and a little sacred all at the same time.
"I can. I promise! If not… you can keep me here for two days!" Helen walked behind her privacy wall and began to change.
"All right… if you state so!" Gen smiled and turned her back.
About an hour later, they arrived at the opera house, greeted angrily by Rich,
"Hello, Rich!"
"These workers are worthless! It's going to take two years before we're done! I'm hiring more!" Rich was about to stomp out the door when a man walked in.
It was the man that Helen had saved from being beaten!
"Hello again," he tipped his hat at Helen and Gen, "Good day sir. I was just coming to say, that…as an appreciative gift, I'd like to refurnish the chairs in the Auditorium," he directed to Helen. Helen smiled,
"Why is everyone doing these jobs for free? Still, I cannot argue! Thank you!"
"No…thank you, Madam!" he tipped his hat once more and left.
"How do you know him?" Gen criticized.
"So, what was it about the workers, Rich?" Helen said, ignorant to Gen's comments.
"We need more! There were over 2,500 doors in this place! 600 rooms! What are we to do?" Rich said hurriedly.
" Rich… I'm not making all this place a maze! The back half and the basement were not burnt! That saves us three months and three million franks!" Helen rolled her eyes.
"What?" Rich hissed in the direction to the workers who were laughing cheerfully at him.
"Hmm… they seem fine. Pay no heed to them! So…" Helen was cut off.
"Three million!" Gen laughed, "That's only seven percent of what it cost to build the first time! Try more like… seven or eight million franks!"
"Madam?" a worker walked up to her. He looked like he had been up most of the night, "I figured out the final amount for you…" he pulled out a pencil.
"Subtract the cost of the chandelier and auditorium seats. I'm getting those done for free…" Helen smiled. He nodded, sat, and fixed the numbers on his paper,
"Well! That saved you!" he stood.
"How much will the final be?" Helen questioned.
"Twenty-seven million franks…possibly twenty-eight million…" he yawned, handing her the slip. Helen nodded and excepted the final,
"Thank you. Were you up late figuring this?"
"Yeah, Madam…"
"Well! My Mr. Arithmetic, can go home, and have today off! Feel free to come back any time tomorrow! Oh. Please don't mention this to the others!" she patted him on the shoulder.
"Yes Madam! Thank you! Thank you!" he shook her hand and then scuffled off to his home.
"Uh…Helen?" Gen asked, past a minute.
"What?" Helen replied.
"You just sent home the carver…" Gen stated pointing a thumb over her shoulder at the man a block away.
"Oh…. Oh well! I have ten more – from what I hear…" Helen looked around and walked up the stairs and into the Auditorium. She walked up onto the stage. Gen and Rich followed. Helen smiled widely and remembered that she had practiced the same play with them both and that they would have to perform it for the one-month-of-work party.
"Where have you been, you freakish little bird?" Helen acted out.
"I've been hiding in the attic along with the falcon! Where has the dog been hiding?" Gen replied walking towards Helen.
"In the basement with the mice! God do help me, that once again I see the light!" Rich smiled, playing along
"Life's light can spread to the darkest corner of hell!
Don't hesitate and purpose it back there for you're well!" Helen sang, powerfully.
"The attic needs no light for the windows let in enough!
It's the basement that passes my mind all though…
Light is not the cure for more then a few!
Light can penetrate the thought and –," Gen sneezed.
"Bless you!" Helen and Rich sang together holding out the 'you'.
Claps and cheers went up from the workers around the Auditorium.
Helen smiled at her friends, and they bowed, excepting the praise. Helen was glad that they remembered their parts from so long ago! They exited the stage, walking to the floor; Helen glanced at the ceiling,
"Ah. That's splendid! Look!" she pointed to the ceiling. Most of the paintings were still there, looking down.
"Very much so!" Gen hugged her friend's shoulders from the side.
The man, that Helen had saved, walked in with about twenty women carrying red velvet and trimming. He smiled at Helen and nodded, walking towards her.
"We are ready to work for the O.G." The man stated, surprisingly enough, comfortably.
"I would like to know your name, kind sir." Helen stated with a smile.
"William Johns," He stated turning to the women behind him, "Set to work! Start in the front and we'll work our way to the back!"
The women, with no wiles, walked to the first row and began to take measurements and cut fabric to sew it on. William turned and looked at them.
"Are you sure you want no payment?" Helen quizzed.
"You salaried me, I'm paying back…" William walked over to the women and knelt on the floor to assist them.
"What does he mean?" Gen asked in total puzzlement.
"I'll tell you two at dinner…Oh! Miser! How is the chandelier coming along?" Helen recognized the same man that came to her a week and a half ago.
"Complete," he stated with a smile. Helen couldn't control herself. She hugged the man,
"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" she let go, "You have no idea how much this means to me!"
"I have a small hint…" he fixed his peach collar. Gen laughed, vigorously.
"You can bring it in when ever you're ready!" Helen blissfully stated.
"We were thinking tomorrow at noon?" he asked.
"Perfect!" Helen stated.
"Right…. Well. I must be going! See you tomorrow!" he left, hurriedly.
A small amount of hours went by quickly, and Helen was sure that the seats would be completed in two days. The women workers worked silently and swiftly, but with care for each stitch. Gen walked, at her own ballet pace, to Helen and rested an arm on her shoulder,
"Ready to call it a day? Rich made reservations at restaurant on the other side of town."
"Hmm… How about another half an hour?" Helen stated, "They're almost done with the balcony seats!" she pointed at the balconies where four or five women stitching the seats in box four.
"Are you going to do box five?" Gen nudged her friend with a wink.
"Why not? I feel vulnerable! Excuse me! Gad! What's her name…ah yes! Christina!" Helen called to the blonde worker. She looked down at Helen,
"Yes madam?" she replied loudly so Helen could hear her from up there.
"Leave Box five undone! I'm doing that one! Please just leave me some fabric and trimming in there!" Helen shouted back. Gen was ignoring her with a roll of her eyes and stretching her legs on the back of chairs.
"That I'll do, Madam!" Christina smiled with a nod. She disappeared for a second, and then reappeared in box five, setting down some red velvet, and trimming for Helen. She then returned to her work in box four.
"Is that what you wanted a half an hour for?" Gen sighed. She looked at the pleading expression on Helen's face, "All right, all right, all right! I'll tell Rich we need an hour longer! Do you want some help?"
"Gen…? It's one chair and cleaning it up… I think that I can handle it…" Helen walked out the auditorium doors, up some stairs to the left, and made her way into box five. Helen kneeled in the, unexpectedly, almost clean floor, and began to pull away the old fabric from the semi-burnt chair.
"Helen?" Are you ready?" Gen asked through Helen's room's door.
"Hold on! I need…ah!" Gen heard a thunk and laughed as she pictured Helen falling over while putting shoes on,
"Do you need some help?" Gen chuckled.
"Uh…yes." Helen's voice came. Gen opened the door to see her friend still trying to tie her corset,
"Corset first…" Gen rolled her eyes shutting the door, walking over to her friend, and pulling the strings tight.
"Uh!" Helen gasped.
"Well! If you weren't so skinny all ready!" Gen tied the rest of it up.
"Finished?" Helen asked not long afterward.
"Yes. And you look stunning!" Gen smoothed out her giant dress and walked over to the door, "Come. The carriage waits by the front door!" Gen bowed.
As they climbed into the carriage, Rich came out and stared at Helen as he climbed in and sat on the opposite side of them. Helen was in a white dress her mother had worn over twenty years ago.
"Ready?" Gen asked. She waved a hand in-between their stares.
"Huh? Oh. Yes!"
The carriage began to roll along the road to their long awaited dinner.