I went to an online translator to get the French in this chapter…it's probably not the most accurate of translations, though.
Chapter 7
Thinking it would be best to take one car, than to waste gas, the three friends hopped into Raphael's car and drove out of the parking lot.
"So, where is the Opera House?" Raphael asked, trying to keep his eyes on the road. Christina, who was in the front seat, pulled up the tracking computer in his car. He looked down at it for a moment, and looked back up to the road. "Apparently it wasn't that far." He pointed to the left. Christina and Melody's eyes followed his finger to see a large, old-looking building.
"Guess not," Mel said. The drove up to it and parked. There looked as if there was no one else there. "Come on, let's go!" she exclaimed after the three had been ogling the large building for a minute. They went up the steps and got blasted with cool air.
"At least the air conditioning works," Christina said and looked around at the lobby. It was large, and very fancy. There was no one around to tell them where they could and couldn't go, so they just wandered. With Christina leading, and holding Raphael's hand, she found her way into the magnificent room that had gold statues everywhere and red velvet seats. She let go of Raphael's hand and went down in front of the pit. Looking down into it, she noticed that it was bigger than her old high school's pit, but rather messier. To her right, there was a door that said, "Backstage." So, Christina took it and found her way up to the stage.
"Sing something, Chris!" Mel exclaimed from one of the seats before Christina, who was now standing in the middle of the stage. Christina smiled and agreed to. She saw Raphael take a seat in the front row. "Sing 'Think of Me!'" To her friend's bidding, Christina cleared her throat and started to sing the song.
"Think of me
Think of me fondly
When we've said 'Goodbye'
Remember me
Once in a while
Please promise me you'll -"
"I would highly recommend not singing that song alone, here, miss," a voice coming from the left said. She stopped in mid-song and looked over. There, a tall man stood with dark skin. He looked as though he was Middle-Eastern. Raphael and Melody had gotten up and were leaning over the pit to see who was there.
"Why not?" Christina asked. "It's a really old song. I doubt anyone here has heard it." The man looked up and around the fly.
"You would be quite surprised," he said, in a rather mysterious way. "That song is the -" There was a noise on the right on the stage that made everyone turn to see what it was. When they looked, there was nothing there. Christina turned back to ask the older man what he was going to say, but he had vanished.
"Well, that was weird," Melody said. "I wonder what that was all about." Christina shrugged.
"I don't know," she said. "Let's go. This place seems a bit creepy. And, I don't know about you, but I'm starving." The other two nodded and Christina rejoined them down on the floor. As they walked out to Raphael's car, Christina thought about the man they just saw, and that unidentifiable sound. For a split second, it sounded like singing, but that had been taken over by something louder. And that man- how is it that he was somehow familiar to her? He wasn't cute, nor young, so how would she know him?
"Chris?" Raphael's voice brought her out of her thoughts.
"Yes?" she mumbled.
"I asked you if this restaurant sounded good to you," he said. He showed her his travel book and it had a list of many different restaurants in that area. "It's got steak, ribs, chicken, and other things that you like, hon." Christina shrugged.
"If that's alright with you guys," she answered and got into the car with the other two. She sat back in her seat. Raphael put in a CD of Opera music, which they all enjoyed, and drove to this restaurant. When they got there, they realized just how fancy it was. The building itself was pretty tall, not really in comparison to the Opera House, but for a restaurant. Other people who were walking in around them were dressed up, and they were lucky that they were wearing pretty nice clothes. They didn't feel so out place.
Inside, it looked bigger than it had looked outside, and it looked like almost every place was filled. They had to wait for about 15 minutes before they were seated. The menu, of course, was all in French, so it was good that the three knew French like a second language. The waiter came up to them, dressed in a tuxedo shirt, black bow-tie, black pants, and black shoes.
"Qu'est-ce qui vous aimer ?" he asked them. Christina was the first to answer. To any restaurant she went to it was always some for of chicken.
"Le Cordon de Poulet Bleu, s'il vous plait," she said. Her two friends ordered other things, and the waiter took their menus.
"Le fait d'attendre est environ trente minutes," he said, concerning their food.
"Merci," Mel said. They waited for around thirty minutes, just as the waiter said, and they ate their food silently. All three were, no doubt, thinking about the events that occurred at the Opera House. When they finished, which was quickly, since they were so quiet, Raphael got the bill and they left. "Well, that was good," she commented upon leaving.
"Yeah, it was," Christina agreed. Raphael nodded his head and checked his watch.
"Well, it's almost 6. Maybe we should just go back to the dorms and hang out," he said.
"I'm going with Mel to help her unpack. Would you like to come?" Christina asked Raphael, who shook his head.
"I'm pretty tired."
"Alright then. Just drive us back to the University and the two of us will just got back to my dorm," Mel said. Raphael agreed, and when they got back to the large building, they split.
Translations:
"Qu'est-ce qui vous aimer ?"- "What would you like?"
"Le Cordon de Poulet Bleu, s'il vous plait"- "Chicken Cordon Bleu, please"
"Le fait d'attendre est environ trente minutes"- "The wait is about thirty minutes."
"Merci"- "Thank you."