Chapter Two
As the noise of the airport terminal increased, Jessalyn turned up the sound of her CD player. She waited until the song ended, then fished through her carry on bag to look for something else to put in her player. She had remembered to pack plenty of things to entertain her. She picked out another CD and slipped it in, then she grabbed a Paris tour book and started to read, until another passenger across the seating area caught her attention.
He was a young African American man, about her age. He wore sharp looking dress clothes and sat cross legged disengaged from the rest of the crowd. Across his lap was a large black book, with some distinctive lettering of the cover. Daringly she decided to gather her things and walk across to take a seat next to him. He didn't seemed to notice her at first, until she leaned over to address him.
"Interesting reading" She said, taking off her headphone.
"Well I do need to get up on the subject as it were. I'm going to Paris for a very special reason." He explained turning to face her.
"Might I ask if you are traveling with a Mr. Daniel Payne to the Paris Opera House?" she inquired on her hunch.
The man smiled. "Lady, you would be right. I'm on his expedition team to go to the opera house." He paused pointing to the cover of his book. "And seek out it's Phantom."
"Me too. Jessalyn Greene, theater major." She introduced herself offering a hand shake. He accepted
"Tony Candom, architecture major. Are you a friend of Daniel's?" She nodded in response. "I might have met you at a party, but I guess I didn't recognize you right away." He closed his book. "So are you excited about this trip?" He asked. Jess put away her player.
"I guess so. It will be nice to visit Paris. But you know Daniel." She interjected. Daniel was one of her best friends, but when it came to Phantom and his research he could get a little eccentric.
Tony laughed at the comment. "Yes I know. But I have also a little personal pleasure from trip. I have been fascinated with the architectures of Charles Garnier even since I was in high school. It's going to be a real honor to get to see it up close. And I intend to take a lot of pictures." He leaned over closer to her. "It is really a beautiful building, one of the most breath taking in the world in my opinion."
An announcement came over the louder speaker. "Attention Passengers Flight 881 to New York and then Paris will be begin boarding." Tony and Jess both glanced around for Dan but he was no where to be found.
"I wonder where he could be." Tony asked. Jess picked up her bag and walked a little out of the sitting area to look around the terminal.
"It's not like Dan to be late." She told Tony. She waited till the announcement came for the last seats to be boarded. Jess was getting worried until she saw Dan come running around the corner towards them. He reached the gate out of breath, his shoes untied, and his shirt buttoned wrong. Jess crossed her arms and gave him a hard look. "Nice of you to show up on time."
Still panting he held up a hand in protest. "I can explain. I had a lot of luggage. It is a two month trip." Tony moved to stand beside Jess.
"So did we, but we managed to get here on time." He chimed in. Daniel stood up to his full height.
"Well you two just had clothes to take. I had my clothes, but I also had to make sure my TV got shipped, and my VCR, and DVD player. Plus all my books and binders. Then there where some maps I wanted to take along. And the woman at the counter was so slow and get bugging me about why I had so many things."
Jess and Tony simply looked at each other and rolled their eyes.
She couldn't tell what time it was back in the States, or what time it would be in Paris. She only knew the time in the airplane which was simply late. Her, Daniel and Tony had to share a cramped row of seats in coach the whole trip. Tony had nodded off hours ago. Daniel had a disagreement with the flight attendant about using his laptop at the first of the trip, but finally got the chance to have things his was. He was busy typing or something like that on it. Jess had nearly exhausted her supplies of CDs and batteries, and had read through the Paris travel book more times than she had cared to. Looking out the little window and seeing nothing but blackness, she decided sleep might be a good thing now.
"Hey" Daniel whispered in her ear. "You weren't thinking of nodding off yet?" he asked. She turned to him.
"Actually I was. I'm I not allowed too?"
He smiled. "No I just wanted to give you something before we landed. We'll be in Paris by morning." He reached into his laptop bag and shuffled around for something. Finally he withdrew a small package from the back, something small and squared shaped wrapped in blue paper. He handed it to her.
"A present for me?" Jess was a little surprised, as she took it from him. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah, just open it." He said nodding. She slipped her thumbnail under the paper breaking the tape, and peeling the rest away. A two CD set of the Andrew Lloyd Webber's "The Phantom of the Opera" fell into her lap. "You always said you like the musical." Part of her expected a gift like this from her friend, but another was overcome with honor that he had thought to give it to her.
"Ah Daniel you didn't have to do this." She said smiling and opening the package, looking through the CD booklet. "I'll remember this as a thoughtful present."
Dan sighed, folding down his laptop. "It was nothing. Besides you gave me an important present once." He went again to his bag and pulled out a small leather journal with yellow pages. "Remember this?"
"Yeah I bought that for you at Barnes and Noble. Like a year ago wasn't it?" she pointed out recalling. He opened the journal and then placed it in her hands. It was covered with pencil notes and tiny drawing. She skimmed through the book, every page covered in words, except for a couple pages towards the back.
"I filled that journal with every new finding and discovery I found over the years. It has all the clues and little things that can help us." He explained.
"Impressive.So Dan do you think we'll find anything there? In Paris I mean?" she asked leaning back in her seat.
Daniel simply laughed warmly. "The question is what won't we find!" He took up his can of Sprite and downed the last of it. "But the last two week were certainly a nightmare, all the calls and arrangements I had to make, and French is certainly not my second language."
"Didn't the college have to do that for you?" Jess asked
"You would think that, but the most they did was get the plane tickets and gave me a credit card for all our expenses. Thankfully I got the opera house to let us in. They are real strict about rules since they don't do many performance and the rest of the time they are giving limited access tours. But not for us, they were really kind. In fact we almost get free run of the place, and can record everything we find as long as we don't damage anything. We even get to stay in the opera house, they arranged up some old dressing rooms instead of paying for hotels so we can stay closer to the site." He paused chuckling. "The site, listen to me. I sound like Indiana Jones or something. But it was worth it all, we'd here. We'd made it."
"You made it Dan. You made this happen all of it." She gave his forearm a friendly squeeze. "This is really your shining moment, we just extra luggage along for the ride."
"Nonsense. If I didn't think you and Tony would be any help on the trip, I wouldn't have asked you to come." Jess laughed knowing was he said was a lie.
"Yes you would. You're stuck with us!"
He nodded. "I guess you're right about that." He waited looking down as his present still sitting in her lap. "Aren't you going to listen to that now?"
Jess adjusted her seat. "Well I would but I'mtired and I'm afraid I would fall asleep. So I wouldn't want to a offend your thoughtfulness." Daniel pulled off his jacket and folded it into a square, offering it to her as a pillow.
"It's been a long flight. I don't think I or the Phantom would be too upset if you dozed off to that music."
A/N: Sorry no Phantom yet, but there will be lots of him very soon. Thanks for the reviews so far. Please feel free to review more and tell me what you think.