"One Man in his Time Plays Many Parts"
The next few weeks passed quietly, or at least what now passed for our kind of quiet. Production for The Phantoms of Manhattan was in full swing; I dropped another novel; Luna was her fabulous self as a first time director and her usual professor mode; and my publicist went mad with the advertising—what was just supposed to be a two week run of our satirical musical turned into an eighteen month production with a massively supped up timeline.
***
We'd almost finishing up casting when my publicist called. This woman was genius with a tendency to go ‘bigger is better’—and this was no exception! The news about us putting on this production was barely a week old and she called me up, babbling out the wazoo. I was so glad to be on a chai run when I got the news—we, as the Phantom Twins had gotten so popular and the news of my turning producer and playwright—well, we sorta, kinda, maybe, broke the Internet? I, like a mature adult who can handle anything, dropped both our teas, nearly had a rom-com moment where I spilled all over a really cute stranger, and then had to buy more tea.
The demand for our production had skyrocketed, so that little two week run in June wasn’t going to cut it anymore, and were we capable of making a the show happen by October? A quick mental conversation with Luna and well, it looked like we were going to have a full schedule in the next upcoming months. I don’t even want to know who they had to drop in order to get us the stage space, but onward into the breach! Opening night for The Phantoms of Manhattan was now on Halloween, which made Luna and I giggle. The whole thing could be a complete flop, and as it stood, it looked like we were going profit from this venture inside of six months.
There was a bit of a snafu with Stark Industries legal team because Tony Stark had done something smart when he’d acquired full rights to the Avengers and their likenesses—so that was a bit of a hassle, but not as bad as I thought. The legal team my publicist hired seemed oddly confused at how little it took for them to allow the production, but I guess somebody had the brilliant idea to offer as compensation half the profits to the Maria Stark Foundation as a gesture of goodwill, and that seemed to be the tipping point that allowed us to continue.
(Something about that whole exchange bugged me. Considering who Stark currently worked with, that could have been indicative of somebody figuring things out. But between my distractions over the play, my latest novel, and Heimdallr’s words still niggling at me, I didn’t dedicate as much time as I could have to that issue.)
I originally spent a lot of time hanging around the theater, usually up in second tier so I could see everything without being seen and relay my comments via Luna via her Bluetooth. As it turned out though, I had a surprising number of fans among our actors, and the idea that I was somewhere about, watching them, well, it led to some rather ridiculous mistakes as students tried to impress me. Which as one could imagine, led to more frustration than Luna should have had had to deal with, but it also meant that there was a great deal of hard work put in to make up for the aforementioned. That was probably the only reason she didn’t kick me out of her rehearsals—which she technically should have done, regardless of this being our little love-child project; a frustrated best friend and director, a ruined stage (twice), actors who stuttered, and a paintball/shaving cream explosion (don’t ask) later, and it almost wasn’t worth me sticking around.
And so I didn’t . . . for about three days. After that, I just stopped advertising I was around and hid better. And things did improve as time went by, so Luna was able to smile again. She'd spent the previous two weeks glaring at me across the penthouse. And while normally, this wouldn’t cause any (well, too many) issues between roommates, nobody else I know lives with a dragon. She glares, and smoke starts to escape her nostrils. Needless to say, I made myself scarce during that time . . . well, aside from lots of tea (Earl Grey milk tea made with sweetened vanilla almond milk with one lump of sugar, oh yeah, I know what she likes) and you don’t even want to know how much Crème brûlée I had delivered to the penthouse. Eventually she stopped glaring at me and when she dropped into my lap for scritches again, I knew I was forgiven.
And so the show went on. Then we hit upon a positively brilliant (and somewhat evil) idea for a publicity stunt. We offered two free tickets to the ‘Phantoms of Manhattan’ themselves. We’d leave them Box Number Five for their exclusive use and we hoped to see them at the show. And then we sat back and cackled at the irony. And then laughed more when we broke the internet . . . again.
***
One of the other things we had to do in preparation for opening night was something just for us. Opening night of our first big production on Halloween of all nights? We were going full masquerade on this bitch, gowns and Venetian masks all the way. Except . . . well . . .
“Here, I’ve found it. I’m going in this one!” Luna exclaimed, pointing a finger at one of the floating screens. Luna was pointing at a dark red, strapless ball gown, with black beaded embroidery, fitted to waist where it then flared out over seemingly miles of black tulle.
“And then this mask, simple, plain black with a little bit of rhinestones and some understated wine-red glitter—but that peacock decal next to the feather? That’ll never do—they’ll have to replace it with a dragon—Rin are you listening to me?”
Luna rolled slightly from where we were sprawled out on her bed, staring at my array of floating tablets, and poked me in the shoulder—hard.
“Hey, you, I’m talking to you! Earth to Gimli? I’ve only been planning for events like this my entire life! Now what—“
I interrupted Luna’s tirade by mumbling something incomprehensible when I should have spoken aloud. She responded by poking me again. And then I kicked her—because we are responsible functioning adults, I swear!
“Come on, just spit it out!”
“. . . the fuck do I wear?”
“Seriously?! That’s your problem?”
I hit her with a pillow.
Sputtering, Luna tried again, “Honestly, just let me—we could do sort of a "you complete me" outfits... like when the petticoats or accents are the opposite of my colors or something. Does that help?”
“Sort of? I like dressing up, you know this, but this kind of a big deal and well—”
Luna interrupted me, again, “Also, as a recluse, are you gonna pull a Sia?”
“What?!”
“Oh don’t you start! I meant the whole not revealing your identity sort of thing?”
“Yes?”
“Well, then look at this mask, I saw it earlier and was kinda partial to it, but you know me and hats, just no bueno.” Luna grabbed one of the other tablets out of the air and pointed. A black mask trimmed in gold with a miniature pirate hat and a pair of roses, dark blue and gold respectively, filled the screen.
“I like that.”
“I figured you would. Don’t forget, I know what you like.”
“Isn’t that my line?”
Luna shook her head at me and then went back to the screens. “Oh, look at that!” She pointed to a dark blue gown in a similar style to hers, strapless with silver embroidery and belt and long, puffy, watered skirt. It even had a little cropped jacket to go with it. It was pretty, not going to lie, but it was a little too similar. I shook my head a little regretfully and went back to looking.
I countered with a fitted dress in royal blue, halter top with a lapel, vest looking front and a mermaid flare at the knee. My draconic best friend gave me a side-eyed glance, “You like the slinky style, don't you?”
I shrugged; a little awkwardly given I was lying flat on my back, “Sometimes. It just sort of depends. Also because of the way I'm shaped, too much extra fabric and then any shape I've got vanishes, so that may have a little to do with it.”
Luna showed me a few more ball gown style dresses, and while pretty, none of them quite did it for me. And then I found it! A long dark blue dress with a high collar and long sleeves, and a touch of dark beaded stitching along both. It was a little simple and almost vintage, but two things did it for me: a). it had pockets! And b). it split right between the collarbones into a slit that came down past the rib cage, making it a dress cut down to Venezuela!
Luna expressed a similar sentiment when I showed it to her, telling me that the cleavage in that one would be ‘epic’.
I retorted that anything on me would be given that I was the only one of us with actual boobs. Luna stared at me, and then she hit me with a pillow. And thus the Pillow Fight Wars of the Queer Penthouse were begun!