Free Stronghold (Stronghold 1) by Golden Angel Page A

area so that she could watch. 
She’d have to leave before the scene finished to get into her place, but at
least she’d be able to get to watch some of it.
    ******
    Hanging up the last of her
costume pieces, Angel sighed.  Her face felt raw from scrubbing – stage-make up
was always harder to remove than regular make-up, but it was important to get
it all off or she’d have acne like none other.
    “Can you believe we open in just
one more day?” asked Karen softly, sounding rather awed. 
    The college sophomore had just
started doing theater outside of school, this was her first community theater
show and she acted almost as if it was professional.  Which Angel could
understand, it wasn’t the same as doing it through school that was for sure. 
For one, a lot more personal work and time on the part of the actors went into
community theater shows – they’d all helped to build the sets, pick out and sew
the costumes, paint, load-in… all things that were taken care of by the crew
students during school shows. 
    “Open in one more day and then it’s just two
weekends before it’s all over,” she said with a sigh. 
    Opening weekend always made her feel a little
melancholy, because after the months of work and rehearsals and memorization
and soul-searching, it was the beginning of the end.
    “But they’re going to be great weekends.”
    “They’re going to be amazing weekends,” Angel replied, grinning as she forced her spirits back up. 
There was no point in wallowing, especially since the actual shows hadn’t even
started yet.  And she did love doing the actual shows, although unlike
some actors she loved the rehearsal process just as much as she loved the
performances.  
    "I'll see you tomorrow!"
 Karen gave her a quick hug and a wave before heading out the door.
    Grabbing her purse, Angel opened up her
phone, she always checked her calls and texts before heading out to her car.
 She was usually the last one out of the dressing room because she
preferred to take off her make-up at rehearsal rather than driving home with
it.  Getting pulled over for speeding while in full stage make-up had only
happened to her once, but that had been enough.  Nothing as embarrassing
as talking to a police officer when you had giant freckles actually drawn on
your face. 
    Checking her missed calls, she frowned when
she saw she had one from Michael.  Leigh's Michael, not her Mike.
 Michael hadn't called her since before he and Leigh had
"separated."  A little wave of panic went through her as she hit
the call button - had something happened to Leigh? 
    "Hello, this is Michael."
    At the standard greeting Angel rolled her
eyes.  It was his cell phone number, he knew who was calling him, but he
pretended he didn't know as if that was somehow more polite than acknowledging
the Caller ID.  Still, her panic subsided.  He would have never
answered the phone that way if there was really something wrong.
 "Hey, it's Angel.  You called?"
    "Hey Angel," he said as she left
the dressing room and waved down the hallway at some of the crew members before
heading towards the parking lot.  "I ah... was hoping to ask you for
a favor."
    "Well you can always ask," she
retorted cheerfully.  It was her standard answer because far too many
people had realized over the years that she was a sucker for helping people
out.  She used to say "whatever you need" before she started
realizing that people were taking advantage of that.  Well, actually,
Leigh had pointed out that people were taking advantage of that and had told
her to stop being such a doormat.  Which was funny, considering how often Leigh
played the doormat for Michael.
    "I want to take Leigh away for our
anniversary in a couple of weeks and I was hoping that you could help me
surprise her with it... I found a B&B that has all sorts of activities and
spa treatments and I'd appreciate it if you could look over the choices I've
picked out and let me know if you