"How long until you think they realize?" A petite blond sat in a dusty backstage area of a famed, yet somehow long-forgotten theater in Paris, France.
Her companion, a taller, brunette girl, scoffed. "They already have. They're not that stupid." She was leaning against an old backdrop that probably hadn't been used in several decades. Their wardrobes consisted mainly of comfortable sweats, and they both had a tired, over-strained-over-worked-college-student look about them.
After a moment, the first girl spoke again. "I have a cramp."
"Where?" The other asked.
"Several places, actually. I don't suppose we can go? Somewhere else?"
She shook her head. "No, silly. They'll find us and we'll be flayed alive." Her otherwise flawless French was tainted by a slight English accent.
"By who?" The first asked. "You're bigger than the average crew member. Even if you're a pacifist."
"There's nothing wrong with being a pacifist. You'd all die if it weren't for level-headed people like me."
"Sure." The first shook her head and sighed, playing with her fine, loose hair. She looked at her friend slyly. "You know, it's not entirely safe back here."
The second raised an eyebrow and giggled. "Oh, you're not in danger. He's tired of blonds, I'm sure."
"Yeah, well you're not even French." The other sniffed. "Nor are you a soprano. He only likes sopranos."
"You're not French, either! You're a bloody American!"
"How dare you? Americans are lovers, not fighters, and dem's fightin' words!" She said a little ironically. Both foreign girls had been in France most of their lives and had little loyalty to their previous residences.
Her friend snorted. "Yes, well... You can go shove your soprano voice up your rear and accept that you'll never have any phantom, fictional or no."
The ambitious, non-pacifist of the two opened her mouth to retort, but was interrupted by a woman who towered over even the Brit.
"You rogues! You fiends! You rehearsal-ruining toads!" She wailed in an over-dramatic voice. She was several years older than the two hideaways, and was a formidable sight with her eyes blazing in almost amusing anger. "I know it's a little early to have to do this, but you didn't have to stuff the bassoon with cheese!"
The first of the two smiled innocently at the furious woman. "How do you know it wasn't the phantom?"
The eccentric woman with frizzy, wild hair cackled. "Oh, the phantom doesn't use cheese, darling. He kidnaps sopranos. And your next, my pretty! He'll get you, and your little dog, too!" It was a wide belief among those involved with this particular theater that this woman, talented as she was, was a little, if not very much so, crazy.
The second stiffened, insulted by the way Jess gestured toward her at the word 'dog'.
The first hugged her companion tightly. "Oh, we wouldn't mind being kidnapped by a mysterious genius, would we, Boston?"
Boston considered this, then smiled wryly. "I, personally, wouldn't mind spending my entire life eating, sleeping, singing, and being worshipped, would you?"
"Ah, that's all I do, anyway." The newcomer said lazily. "Now come back, lest I punish you on Erik's behalf!"
"Which Erik? Erik or Eric?" Boston's accomplice mused. The second Eric she mentioned was the one she was paired with in the theater's current production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera. They weren't on the best of terms.
"Why would Eric want you punished?" The tall woman asked.
"Why would Erik want us punished?" Boston interrupted. "He was quite the mischievous fellow, was he not?"
"That's not word I would use." She said darkly.
The first girl stood up. "I suppose you came to drag us back?"
"Yes, Rio my dearest." The actress took the girls' hands and turned them around, gently but forcefully steered towards the stage area.
Rio struggled only a little. "Ah well. Punishment was inevitable, wasn't it?"
Her captor nodded. "You have been being a little immature, dears. You're what, twenty-something?"
"Nineteen." Rio corrected her. "You have a horrible memory, Jess. Boston's the twenty-three-year-old."
"No one cares about my horrible memory." Jess assured her. "Just as long as I keep singing for their La Carlotta."
The captor and captives emerged on the stage, momentarily blinded by the lights shining from the restored chandelier at the ceiling.
Boston stared at it. It was lovely, but she knew its history as well as any other frequent of the Opera Populaire. She could see, in her mind, angry images of it shattering, causing the fire that had scarred and nearly destroyed much of the original Opera.
Interrupting her reveries came the voice of the genius that ran the theater, a petite but strong woman by the name of Brianne. She had directed and produced production after production for the theaters almost since its restoration a few decades before. She also often played roles; this time she was portraying Madame Giry.
"Ah... There are my little cheese-rats." Madame Brianne said rather menacingly. The statement would have been funny if her expression wasn't so frightening.
"I love you, mommy." Boston beamed at the director, trying her best to look like her much more charming character, Meg Giry, instead of the foster actress of a brilliant director.
"Ha! Hahahaha! HA!" Jess cackled as she passed by, enjoying the fact that she herself wasn't yet in trouble that day.
The director glared ferociously at the slightly tipsy soprano, then turned to her star soprano and her star alto. "Look, kids, I know the schedule's a little hectic this time, but this is just the first rehearsal! No reason to break out the cheese this early!"
"Hey, I have an idea!" A tall, dark-haired, handsome fellow swaggered up with a crooked smile. He was a good friend of the young actresses, and had known Jess since the two had gone to secondary school together years ago. His name was Aaron, and he was Brianne's talented tenor, the Phantom himself. "Actually, two. One, we could feed these two to the real phantom. Or, we could have the orchestra practice somewhere else or not at the same time. Smart, no?"
"I say both." Boston murmured, looking at the commotion in the pit, mostly concentrated around the bassoon player. "Remove the mischief-makers and their temptation. Sneaky."
"No, you know what?" Brianne put a hand on her forehead and heaved an exasperated sigh. "You two will get off alright this time, and I'll talk to the maestro and see if we can do something about the scheduling problems. For now, I want you to join the rest of the nice, well-behaved cast in those seats where you belong."
She pointed towards the front section of the auditorium, where the entire, newly-incarnated cast of the Phantom of the Opera sat. They, in their weekend clothing, some holding CD players or chatting on cell phones, looked very out of place the 19th century-esque theater.
The two singers followed 'the phantom' around to end of the stage and down the stairs. Rio avoided the stares of the bassoon player as she clung to her friend's arm.
"That guy's out to get me." She hissed. Boston just chuckled and patted her hand.
"You're just paranoid. I'm sure he'll find it in his heart to forgive you."
"I dunno. Those musician people are pretty crazy about their instruments."
"So tell me." The 'Phantom' appeared in a strangely phantom-like way, popping up between the two effortlessly. Boston put it off to years of acting. "Did you two run away to escape the wrath of Madame Brio or for some other, more mysterious reason?"
'Madame Brio' was the nickname Brianne had earned from her various casts over the years. Few knew the origin of the odd name, although most believed it was a reflection of her stereotypically male way of taking charge of quite nearly everything.
"Whatever you're suggesting, Monsieur Airo, you're most likely wrong." Rio sniffed haughtily and slid into the aisle where Jess had settled herself earlier.
"Since you're not really the genius you play by a long shot." Boston added, ignoring Rio's odd twist on Brianne's nickname.
Aaron, however, couldn't. After a moment he snorted, "Airo?"
The three burst into hysterics. Despite their age differences the four actors, Boston, Rio, Jess, and Aaron had hit it off almost as soon as they met. Jess and Aaron had both been in the first production the modern Opera Populaire had put on about twenty years ago, whereas Boston and Rio had only joined the company a few years ago. Regardless, their common love of theater had joined them as fast friends from the beginning.
"Well, kids." The director said, addressing them in the way she always did to those she felt inferior to herself. She stood on the stage, arms crossed, facing her 'Phantom' cast. "'The cheese incident' is past. We can now move on with our lives."
Various exaggerated gasps came from the crowd, and several twisted around to see Rio staring at Brianne with a fake smile fixed on her face.
"Now, I hope you've all got a copy of the schedule... although it may not be final..." She continued, ignoring whatever sarcasm her audience indulged in. "And right now most of you know what you should be doing. I know there are a lot of you who didn't find it in your lazy hearts to sign up to help build the sets, although I'm not naming names." With that she glared specifically at several people, including Aaron.
"Some of us do have families..." He muttered. Attractive as he was with his dark eyes and hair, he was, sadly, married and the father of two. Jess had once lamented this enthusiastically, but was over it eventually.
The queen bee moved on. "So I've decided to keep you here anyway as a punishment. Either you help the others with the sets, or you help myself and Angie," Boston glanced at the chorus girl who had volunteered to head the 'costume effort', as it had been dubbed, "find the material that is still missing from the back room."
Angie and Rio weren't currently talking. Angie sincerely believed that Rio had hidden the material out of spite. Both Boston and Rio knew it wasn't Rio, but Angie refused to back down. Angie was one of those girls who believed herself better than all the others, though she hadn't landed any major part in a production for some time. This served to cause a rift between the girls and Angie and her small posse.
Well, Rio's record is against her, Boston thought. Rude as those girls are, she has been known to do such things.
Aaron and Jess, however, as well as several of the other cast members, had awarded the blame to the 'Opera Ghost'. As lovely as the thought was, Boston highly doubted it. Even if this man Erik had once existed he would have only been a man and would be long dead over one hundred years after the famed disasters he caused. Besides, didn't Gaston Leroux insist that Erik's body had been found beneath the Opera?
"I wish it really was the phantom." Rio murmured to her friend. "That would add a little bit of color to this boring little production, don't you think?"
"A little color?" Boston chuckled. "Maybe. But I don't think we'd enjoy that kind of color, Rio."
"Why?" The girl nudged her friend playfully. "Don't be such a spoilsport. It's just a myth, anyway. Might as well indulge."
"Yeah," she shrugged. "Might as well."