The next morning I woke extra early for some reason, and, in that brief moment before you're fully awake, I thought I was back in the Opera Populare before Raoul had come along, and I was best friends with Meg and Christine and without a care in the world.
Then I remembered my 'dream'.
I rolled off the bed and did a sort of matrix save, involving me cracking my spine in a few places. "Ok, that feels a little better…" I said, rubbing my back. I sighed, and bent back over, making up my bed, before I looked out the window to see the fiery red sun burning the Atmosphere pink and orange, then fading into various shades of indigo and blue.
"Alright, everything may be bigger and better in Texas, but I've never seen a sun come up as pretty as this one." I thought, remembering a bumper sticker I had seen.
As I went about my morning routine around me the girls slowly rose, yawning and stretching and some trying to burrow their heads further into their pillows.
"Rise and Shine Sleeping Beauties!" I called loudly, shaking the blankets off some. "First dress rehearsal this morning! Up and at 'em!"
"Why on earth are you so ha-ha-happy?" Asked Brigit, a fellow dancer, failing to stifle a yawn.
"Because, sleepy head, only a few more days, and we'll be behind the foot lights, and that's what I'm exited about." I said cheerfully throwing open the windows to let in the nice late-summer breeze.
As I gazed out, I expected to see the Eiffel Tower gracefully arch into the sky as the proud symbol of Paris, but I suddenly remembered that it hadn't been built yet.
Behind me the girls rose, grumbling about how unfair it was that they had to wake up just because I was exited and trying to shield themselves of the stunningly bright morning light.
An hour later we were getting ready for practice, those of us not in the main act, but just in the ballet were eating breakfast leisurely and slowly, while us who were singing or being the silent roles (i.e. Meg and Christine) were trying to shovel down food and make a break for the stage dressing rooms to get on all the makeup and costumes.
I grabbed only my customary croissant with jam, shoved it in my mouth, took a swig of hot chocolate, headed out the door with my mouth still crammed with food and I prayed I wouldn't choke and die or see Raoul.
Christine giggled at me after she swallowed her mouthful and said "You look like a squirrel."
I laughed, and, swallowing hard, (all the while hoping not to choke) I said, "At least I'm not furry and have a tail."
The three of us laughed as we went backstage, and they laughed even harder after I had put on all my stage makeup. I looked like a clown, not a confidant.
"Good lord, I look like belong at the Cirque De Soleil in Las Vegas." I thought, examining the mounds of powder on my face. Although the ballets usually required us to wear makeup, it never was this much, and my face felt weighed down. When commented on this to the girls, Meg said, still giggling, "At least you don't have to wear that hideous wig that Carlotta has to wear, it must weigh 20 kilograms!"
I laughed, but only after she and Christine laughed, because I had never mastered weight conversion.
"Girls! You should be onstage! Now!" Mme Giry had thrown open the door, letting in the light from the corridor backstage into the room. Meg, Christine and I followed her meekly, and I tried my best to resist sneezing at the powder which had settled in my nose. Instead I settled for wrinkling my nose like Samantha on 'Bewitched'.
Places please, Ladies and Gentlemen, places…" M Reyer called from his podium, and Richarde and Fredrikk moved to their positions on either side of me. The music began, and at my appropriate measure I belted out the first line. "They say that this youth has set my lady's heart aflame!" and we took off, singing the entire performance with virtually no hitches. I was surprised; never had we done so well in the first dress rehearsal!
We were sent on break after we had done the entire program, including the ballet, which was tiring on its own.
I longingly wished that I could change back into my normal skirts, or better yet, a pair of jeans and a tee shirt, but I would have to wait until Reyer was convinced we were all cool with our parts, and that we knew all the lines without having to look at the script (which should have been mastered last week. CoughPiangicough).
We weren't aloud to take off the make up or the clothes, because after the break we were going to go over the parts we messed up on, so there were various cast members milling about in full costume, sticking apart from the people who weren't in the production like a bunch of sore thumbs.
Meg, Christine and I retreated to the stable area; partly because there were hardly any people over there, and it was much cooler there than in the baking heat of the stage.
We found a nice shady area in the trees that are huddled close to the door which leads to the stage, so we could hear when Reyer called the cast back.
It was shady enough to where if someone pulled up to the stables, they couldn't see us, but we could see them, and we were free to yank off the uncomfortable shoes and pull our skirts shockingly high, up to our knees.
I managed to keep myself from laughing openly when Meg had drawn her skirts up high on her thighs, and Christine, scandalized, whispered "Meg! Pull your skirts down! What if someone saw us?"
Meg only laughed and said, "Don't worry; they won't see us unless they come round those trees…" She indicated toward the sorbus torminalis trees that grew thick about where we were sitting.
Christine pursed her lips and said, "Well, I suppose you're right…" and pulled her skirts up to mid shin.
Meg then turned to me and said, well, are you a goose like Christine?"
I laughed, and, pulling my skirt up to my knees, feeling embarrassed to show even that much.
"I've really been here too long if I feel like a 'fancy lady' just by showing my lower legs…" I thought, mocking myself in thinking about how short my shorts were in the summer, and about my bikini's that would make Christine positively faint.
Suddenly the trees rustled, and Christine gave Meg and I helpless looks. We sat there frozen in shock before we madly shoved our skirts down, with Meg tearing her striped apron in her hurry.
We got our skirts down in time to see a dirty man who I had a vague memory of seeing before came around the corner.
"Oh Misses… I thought 'twas someone else… I 'eard voices and I thought 'twas someone else. Please be forgivin' me fer startlin' yew." He twanged. He had what sounded like a Tex/Irish accent, but I needed to hear him speak again.
"It's quite alright, but you did give us quite a scare there!" I said, and the girls and I tittered, not comfortable being around a man as rugged as he. He was wearing dirty trousers with suspenders over his sweaty cotton shirt that was open to mid-chest. His face was smeared with dirt and sweat, as if he had been running a marathon and fallen into several piles of soil along the way. But there was something about him… as if I had seen him before….
But before he could speak again we heard Reyer call the cast together on the stage to begin rehearsal again. The three of us turned and hurried back inside, unsure what more to say to the stable man.
Even while we were practicing my mind was miles away. I couldn't stop thinking about who the heck that stable man was! I knew that I had seen him before, but was it just because he worked here at the Opera Populare? No… It seemed to me like I had seen him back in 2006… but where…. And how?
"Alright, we'll see you tomorrow for more rehearsals! Dismissed!" I dimly heard M Reyer say. There was a stampede as we all started for the dressing rooms, and Meg, Christine and I had to fight our way to the water basins to wash our faces and to get to the closets to put up our costumes. Then of course, there was the mad search to find out where our clothes were.
It was pure pandemonium.
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Tee Hee.
Thought I'd leave off the chapter at just some random point. Hope you aren't too disappointed at me for making these chapters so darned short!
Also, a sorbus torminalis is a tree native to France.
I did my homework.
So anyway, curious about whom this mysterious stable man is? So am I.
Review nicely and I'll post a pretty new chapter!