She had no choice. As with all things in her life, Dawn was without choices.
Not realizing how angry that made her until her teeth grated under the force of her jaw clenching, she sighed. Standing in the shower all day wasn't going to solve anything, just as laying in bed wouldn't have.
If it was a show of effort that Mallory wanted, then Dawn would at least grant her that. During the summer, Mallory had showered at the very least, and begrudgingly ate what was put in front of her.
Blow drying her hair and applying minimal makeup didn't take too much time, and picking out a pretty but comfortable cotton dress took even less. Dawn was still surprised to see that her mobile blinked 11:41 AM when she picked it up to clean out any junk email.
"Dawn?" Mallory's voice called out from downstairs, and startled her. "Dawn, you have a guest!"
She sounded pleased. That sparked Dawn's curiosity, and she glared at the doorway.
Dawn wondered who in the world wanted to see her; and furthermore, who in the world would Mallory allow into the house that she even remotely wanted to see. Swallowing a groan, she slunk down the stairs with about as much grace as a sloth.
'See? I'm doing as I'm told,' she sang in her mind, and dragged her foot on the landing with a thunk for good measure.
Mallory sat at the kitchen table in one of the mismatched chairs she had dragged up from the cellar. Her reading glasses perched on the end of her nose as she stared down at a pile of paperwork a mile high, and she scribbled on the first page while tsking. Seated next to her, looking every bit as uncomfortable as Dawn imagined the former classmate would be, was Serena Windsor.
Without looking up from her strangely business-like papers, Mallory motioned towards Serena with a pen-laden hand. "Miss Windsor to see you, dear."
The mere mention of her name had Serena's hazel eyes darting between Mallory and Dawn in nervousness, and she bit at her dark brown lip. "Y-Yes. Hi, Dawn!" she chirped.
"Mallory...!" Dawn groaned. Whatever the woman had cooked up in bringing Serena Windsor here to chatter on like old friends, she wanted no part of it. "Why did you – "
" – I didn't," Mallory interrupted sharply, and frowned at a long list of transactions, before checking off every third one. "As you know, Miss Windsor's father is a well known barrister for the borough, and knows the case well. So, when Serena here said she was worried about you, he figured it was now appropriate to send her on over."
"That's right, Mal... Miss... ma'am!" Serena stuttered, and nodded vigorously. Standing up, she looked relieved at being able to get away from Mallory in the guise of greeting Dawn properly. After scrambling towards her, she reached out to take Dawn's hand.
Looking at her former classmate with a sad expression, Serena squeezed their hands together gently. "I'm so sorry about... Well, never mind all that. I thought we might go get some lunch? Maybe do some shopping at this fabulous little boutique that's just opened up?"
Ignoring her would-be friend, Dawn stared hard at Mallory until the woman met her eye. It didn't take but a few breaths, for they were so in tuned, but the anticipatory raised eyebrow and slight curl to Mallory's lips told Dawn that she was ready for whatever protest was coming.
"I don't have any money for shopping," Dawn declared triumphantly, and shrugged.
"Nonsense!" Mallory retorted, waving one hand again, and digging into her purse with the other. It had been waiting beside her chair for just this moment. Mumbling to herself as if she hadn't planned it all in advance, she revealed a credit card with an exclamation of delight. "Ah ha! Here it is. Just what I was looking for."
Serena's eyes grew to the size of dinner plates at the sight of the card, especially as Mallory moved it lazily through the air between the two young women, like a red flag weaving between bulls.
Serena stood stock still at the sight of the platinum credit card, and it's mythological million dollar limit.
"Really?" Dawn sassed. “Frickin' really?”
Her love hummed, and narrowed her eyes at Serena. "Miss Windsor, if I'd wanted to examine your teeth like one does a horse at market, I might have asked. Suffice it to say, I have not."
Snapping her mouth shut, Serena was embarrassed. "So sorry, Miss Moore. Of course."
With a dramatic sigh, Mallory thrust the card at Dawn. "Do I have to go upstairs to get cash, then? I'd much rather earn the airfare miles with this."
Much as she had with the soap and loofah in the bathroom, Dawn snatched the proffered card from Mallory's long fingers. "I'm going to buy everything I see, in the most horrible colors I can find. Maybe I'll purchase you a pink... flowery... hat!"
"You do that, amare," Mallory chuckled, no longer able to keep her amusement at Dawn's temper inside.
Turning back to her work with one last laugh, she shook her head.
_____________________________________
After eating a double order of mozzarella sticks and a chocolate milkshake for lunch (much to Serena's horror,) Dawn ambled her way down the little side roads of Middlesbrough's boutique district. She probably shouldn't have eaten so much greasy food in one sitting, and her stomach agreed. It rolled and bubbled, so she belched.
Dawn felt wicked. She belched again.
Serena chattered on like no time had passed since the last day they'd seen one another – their advanced placement testing – and skillfully avoided any mention of the court case, Dawn's father, and unsurprisingly, Mallory.
"Oh! Look at this shoppe!" she exclaimed, and pointed to a newer installment of bespoke dresses, decorated in tiny gems and bits of frothy lace here and there. "Victorian inspired things are so in this season, Dawn. We should go in."
Stopping by the window, Dawn spied a frothy confection of a fascinator – a pillbox type hat in ballet pink, replete with pink Russian tulle veil tucked beneath marabou. By far the most atrocious thing she'd ever seen, the little hat was somehow beautiful in it's own unique way. It just needed the right wearer, and she had just the idea.
"Oh yes!" she trilled back to Serena, and linked arms with her to head inside.
The day continued on in this fashion – the vogue Serena catching something adorable or avant garde in each window they passed, and Dawn didn't have the heart to tell her no. Just as she had told Mallory, she purchased everything she wanted – and some things she didn't want. If her girlfriend didn't like them, then the clothing and accessories could go to someone who did.
Five hours and countless stores later, both schlepped their way back to Serena's Jetta. Their feet hurt, but smiles of solidarity were exchanged over the fact that they had marathoned through the entire district without stopping.
Once inside the car, Dawn slipped off her flats and wiggled her toes with a moan of relief.
Serena giggled and tilted her head, tightly twisted locks bobbing with the force of her laughter. "Feels good, huh?"
Though Dawn knew that the girl meant her aching feet, she couldn't rule out the undercurrent of concern that seemed to lace the words. "My feet, sure. Spending that much of Mallory's money? Not really."
"Why not?" Serena teased, and batted Dawn's shoulder. Then she got a little more serious, and rested her head back against the seat. "It's not like helping Miss Moore didn't like, ruin your life."
Dawn frowned at the insinuation behind Serena's words. "She didn't ruin my life. That's all wrong – I was the one who ruined her life."
"Hey, hey... Dawn. It's cool," Serena stage whispered. "I didn't mean to say like, your life is over, or that it's her fault completely. But she did use you, yanno?"
"How much do you even know? What the telly says, or what your father says? She almost died for me." Dawn crossed her arms defensively.
“Jeeeeesus H, you're wound up.” Serena smacked her palm lightly across Dawn's forehead. “You need a beer. Come on, I know a place.”
They walked in companionable silence to a pub across the street.
“How fortuitous,” Dawn laughed. “We're already here.”
The fourth ping in an hour alerted them to Dawn's phone, and she stuffed it even deeper into her purse. Right now, the last thing she needed was Mallory seeming like an overbearing warden.
She sidled into the bar, ordering a few pints of pale ale for them. They each took a sip, and sighed dreamily.
Serena looked at the bag with a sheepish grin when the mobile beeped at Dawn again, but her expression became worried when Dawn ignored it a fifth time. "That was her, wasn't it? Gawd, Dawn – you know you don't have to stay, right? She scares the crap out of me, and Daddy. Do you know what she did to that bloke's face... with her bare fookin' hands?"
Dawn was oddly touched by the turnaround of Serena's attitude towards her since the school year ended, and by association any involvement with the meaner girls in their class. She reached out, and placed her hand atop Serena's. "Stop worrying, please? I just need some space, and she knows that. She understands me, just like I understand her. We love each other."
She didn't dissuade Serena's natural fear of Mallory, and the strange flavor of jealousy danced across her tongue with unsaid words about how her love really just appeared intimidating, and how she'd beaten Lenny's face in with a pistol – not her bare hands. It might be better at this juncture to leave those kind of explanations well alone.
"Right..." Serena replied dryly, as if asking for such things as space, understanding, and love from her former teacher was like asking to ice skate in Hell. "Are we talking about the same Miss Moore?"
Grinning brightly, Dawn took another sip of her beer. "Yeah. If she's going to shove me out the door for a play date with you," she stuck her tongue out at the failed tactical maneuver by Mr. Windsor, Esq. and Mallory, "then we're going to do it properly. Where else do you want to go?"
Serena looked thoughtfully out the window for a minute. Struck with sudden genius, she turned around and clapped her hands together. "Oh, I know!"
"What?" Dawn flinched at the loud gesture.
"Let's go clubbing tonight! Oh, we're going to be the best friends!" Serena squealed, and threw her arms around a shocked Dawn beside her.
"We can go back to my house, and you can try on all my good dresses. We'll have to do something about your hair, and Daddy will want to see you're alright," she rambled on, ticking the to-do list off on her fingertips once she pulled away. "Oh, muh' gawd! Do you think they'll let us open a tab with that card?"
Her grin fading into a forced smile, Dawn shoved her mobile phone even deeper into her purse.
_____________________________________
Elisabeth poured over paperwork with Mallory, though it all looked like Greek to her. Some of it was, actually – and Afrikaans, Dutch, and so forth.
"What am I looking for exactly?" she groaned, and tapped her highlighter on the stack in front of her. "I'll have you know I'm missing a warm couch with my fianceé atop it, and a re-run of Practical Magicking on the telly."
"I like how the warm couch comes first," Mallory muttered under her breath, and plunked another book of papers on top of another she'd finished. "Just... highlight anything with my name."
"Just your name - your two different names - among five different languages. It'll be easy, you said," Elisabeth griped, and highlighted another line of something that belonged to Lilith M. LaFey. "But, I still don't understand why?"
She pushed a booklet full of foreign alphabetized notations at Mallory. How her friend could make heads or tails of any of this was beyond her, but Elisabeth had agreed to keep Mallory company during the evening while Dawn was out gallivanting with Serena Windsor, of all people. She recalled the young woman being a snobbish git, but perhaps that was more for show while in the midst of a pack of wild schoolgirls.
Mallory would never admit it, but Elisabeth suspected that she was frightened of being alone – even though a police cruiser still sat outside from dusk until dawn, and made regular rounds to check on the cottage and it's inhabitants. Therefore, here she sat – up to her ears in dusty books that made no sense.
"Do you have any idea how weird it is to see your name spelled with a weird U on a stick?" she joked, and pointed at the μ on a line. This time, it was Mallory's current name: μεγάλο μοορε.
"Mu." Mallory squinted her eyes at the book. "Give me that, if you're going to complain so much."
Confounded by the name for the Greek M, Elisabeth stared at it as the book slid towards Mallory's stacks.
"Moo? Like..." she put two fingers on the top of her head to symbolize horns, and made a silly face. "Mooooo?"
Her best friend of nine years grit her teeth audibly, and threw the bird. "The name Mallory also translates into Greek as 'megalo,' or 'large.' So yeah, moo."
Thrusting her two middle fingers up against each cheek, Elisabeth grinned at the ornery woman across the table. "Moooooo?"
Giving Elisabeth her best blasé expression, typically reserved for people with ignorant opinions or tiny minds, Mallory then leaned over to poke at her iPhone. It hadn't gone off all evening – not a single text, or a phone call in response to the many she'd sent and made. It was just after midnight, and the later it became, the more difficult it was to keep her irrational fears at bay.
Elisabeth placed her hand atop Mallory's shaking grasp on the phone, and petted the thin, soft skin just inside her friend's wrist. It used to be one of the things that would calm her down during night terrors, a very long time ago.
Pulling her wrist away, Mallory gave Elisabeth a tight lipped smile, and put the phone down. "To answer your questions, we're highlighting all of my shares in the mines owned by Christopoulos Trading. I want an easy way to go through and add up the net worth, without wasting my time on an untrustworthy accountant from the London office.”
Smoothly picking up her cup of coffee to take a sip, Elisabeth tried to ease the tense moments between them. If Mallory was more comfortable changing the subject, then she would play along, anything to keep the her friend from hobbling her way through the entire borough looking for Dawn. Again.
"That seems smart. Are you going to sell some like you did when we came back from America?"
Elisabeth vaguely remembered a sudden influx of wealth just before they departed Washington D.C., and questioning Mallory about it. At the time, the story was that she sold some of the shares from her grandparents' company, and left at that. Looking at the thick tomes on the kitchen table made Elisabeth realize that there was far more than she ever imagined.
"I'm liquidating, if they'll let me. Even the loft." Mallory's whisper could have been a scream, for the tortured way she said it. "They know I'm unemployed now, and they want my time. I don't want to give them a minute of it, so I'm selling."
That explanation left so many more questions in Elisabeth's mind, but all she could do was grimace. Voicing them when Mallory was acting so guarded was a bad idea.
It wasn't fair of the firm to ask such a thing of Mallory, and while she knew they couldn't force her friend to work for them, Elisabeth was sure that a Board of Directors of crotchety old men probably wanted to distance themselves as much as possible from the entire Steven Rose mess. So then, why would they ask for her time?
What did Mallory have that they still wanted her so badly?
"That doesn't make any sense, but I'll take your word for it," Elisabeth reassured, and tapped at a book. "Gud, how much are you trying to fleece out of them?"
Just as Mallory drew breath to reply, there was a sharp knock at the front door.
Both women popped up from their seats, but Elisabeth was faster. Mallory was using her cane today, though she proudly refused to tell why other than that she'd overexerted herself.
"I'll get it, Mallie!" Elisabeth argued, and tried to shoo her back to the kitchen.
As soon as she turned the doorknob, Serena Windsor burst through the door. Dawn laid across the girl's back in a sort of fireman's drag.
It was quite a display. The book-smart and cliquish Serena looked at Mallory in fear of bringing the an inebriated Dawn home.
<
br /> "Miss Sørensen!" she yelped, clearly shocked to see Elisabeth here, but focused on the friend she'd dragged home. "She's heavy!"
At the mention of her presence, Dawn perked up to sing some nonsensical, garbled tune. She rolled right off Serena's back, and into Mallory's waiting arms.
"Hullooo," Dawn smiled dreamily at Mallory, and wrapped her arms around the taller woman's neck. "I had – " hiccup. " – soooooo much fun."
Serena had ducked back outside to drag in an ungodly amount of shopping bags into the foyer, and wrung her hands at the sight of Mallory swaying Dawn in gentle circles.
Peccatum in Carne: Sins of the Flesh (The Three Sins of Mallory Moore Book 1) Page 40