I wasn’t sure I had the attention span for it, either. Not to mention the last time I went to some prissy, white-tableclothed restaurant with Elsbeth, I made a blatant fool of myself:
“Where did that sommelier go?” Elsbeth had inquired aloud.
And then, I had stupidly asked: “How do you know that guy’s from Somalia?”
I still recoiled thinking about it. Even Mr. Darling let out a yap of a laugh, and he never laughed.
I smoothed my hair in the Venetian smoked-glass mirror and inspected the boring black dress one final time, seriously tempted to defy Elsbeth and change into a different one.
“Hey, Gwendy? Did you hear me?”
When she still didn’t respond, a flurry of motion behind my back caught my attention, and I turned around to find her half buried in my wooden wardrobe between the hanging clothing.
“Whatcha doing in there?” I asked, burying my head into the closet beside her.
She knocked against the back of the wardrobe: clack, clack, clack, then put her ear to the wood to listen intently.
After an inpatient pause, she said, “Oh, you know, I’m just making sure you didn’t get the wardrobe with Narnia in it. If you did, I’d be super jealous.”
I nibbled into my bottom lip to keep from smiling.
“Should we get this show on the road?” I asked, passing over her velvet coat.
We both shrugged into our coats and made our way outside to wait for Clive with the car. He was supposed to pick us up after he dropped off the rest of the Darling clan at the party.
I gingerly steered Gwen down the icy front steps.
Just then, a voice from the street yanked my attention up: “You look, erm . . . clean.”
It was Aston, lurking right in front of our stoop. I sighed. Fuck off, Aston Hyde Bettencourt.
I was about to say something in response when I noticed the same thing about him: He was cleaned up, too. His mop of dirty blond hair had been slicked back, and he appeared to be wearing a tuxedo under his overcoat. Maybe this is what South Kensington boys wore to the bar on a Saturday night, for all I knew.
“Excuse me?” Aston said.
Oh shit, did I really tell him to “fuck off” out loud?
“Hello!” Gwen said cheerfully. “Fuck off, Aston Hyde Bettencourt!”
My face went crimson, but Aston laughed. It was the first time I had ever heard him laugh, and it sounded genuine, not at all hollow or pretentious. But then he ruined the unassuming laughter by speaking.
“Fine job you’re doing there. Really making her into a model citizen,” he said to me snarkily.
I ignored him and crouched down next to Gwen. “Listen, Gwendy. I’m a total potty mouth.” I heard Aston snigger again, and I exhaled loudly through my nose. “But you cannot repeat what I say. Even I’m not supposed to talk like that. Got it? You have to swear to be on your best behavior tonight.”
Gwen offered her little finger for a pinky swear. After we had linked pinkies, we pounded fists.
I stood back upright and met Aston’s gaze again. His glacial blue eyes were so forceful that I had trouble meeting his stare head-on. I looked out into the night for any signs of Clive with the car.
“Right then. I just meant you look different. You don’t often dress like this,” he said a bit softer.
I looked down at the plain black dress and tugged my coat around me, ashamed. For the first time, I felt like hired help meant to be unnoticed—unlike in daily life when the Darlings treated me like part of the family. At least I managed to keep my hair wavy and wild, even though Elsbeth practically chased me around the house with a flatiron earlier today.
“Yeah, well, this is what working people have to do,” I lamented into the night.
“So because I live in South Kensington, I’ve not worked?”
I stopped for a moment. Before I could come up with a snapping retort, I remembered him playing folk guitar the other day, and it dawned on me that all I’d been doing since I’d met him was making assumptions.
“Um, Aston, the guitar the other day—” I began, realizing that I never told him that it didn’t bother me, and I actually liked his playing.
“Yes. Point made. No more guitar.” He about-faced.
“No!” I said more fiercely than I meant to just to get his attention back. “It’s that—”
“Kika, I need to pee like an effin’ racehorse”—Gwen yanked at my coat—“but I’m trapped in my party dress!”
I took her hand in mine. I knew she was copying my language again, and Aston deliberately laughed in my face once more. Why do I have to have the mouth of a pirate hooker?
“Don’t worry, Gwendy, I’ll help.” I turned back to Aston to finish my thought, but he had walked into the street to hail a passing black cab.
Gwen started doing what she called “The Wee Dance,” so I shuffled her back up the steps and unlocked the front door, so that there would be no accidents in overpriced party dresses.
By the time we finished and got back downstairs, Clive was waiting with the car, and Aston was long gone.
23
THE PARTY WAS at this glamorous place called the Wolseley in Green Park. Gwendy and I craned our heads to check out the soaring ceiling veiled in fairy lights and tinsel, making it look wintry and festive. Men with unflinching faces, like those of the Buckingham Palace guards, wielded gleaming silver trays of bubbling champagne.
When the string quartet picked up their bows, Gwen swirled her hips. “Come on, Kika, shake your moneymaker like the rent is due!”
But Elsbeth had warned me “to keep the Kika to a minimum tonight.”
“I don’t think we can dance here,” I told Gwendy as I admired the clusters of ladies in serenely graceful floor-length gowns and the men in freshly pressed suits.
“But why not?” she whined, already bored.
“Because our dance moves are so much cooler than everyone else’s, we’re going to make them jealous for having all the fun. These people are far too sensitive,” I said with some truth to it.
Gwen nodded soberly. “I understand, Kika. I am a fabulous dancer, after all.”
“Let’s get you a Shirley Temple.”
Mina stayed close to Elsbeth’s side, and Mr. Darling worked the crowd of strangers while cradling a Cuban in his mouth like a cartoon villain.
On the way to the bar, out of the corner of my eye I spied someone I knew. I did a double take. But, no, it couldn’t be him.
Actually, it could be him. Mr. Darling was working for the Richmond Group in London, so it very well could be him. It was Richie Rich! More commonly known as Ronald Richmond, as in the Ronald Richmond who passed on my résumé to VoyageCorp, the company I had been fired from.
I ducked behind a granite pillar, and Gwen followed me without having to be told to, clever, intrigue-loving girl that she was.
“Who are we hiding from?” she stage-whispered while flipping her eyes from side to side like a spy.
“The enemy.” For right next to Richie Rich stood none other than Miss Bae Yoon, aka the Bitch Who Cost Me My Last Job.
24
I CURSED MYSELF for not telling Elsbeth that I had been fired from VoyageCorp. Then I remembered I had made it worse and smacked my head with my palm; I’d had the sex toys delivered to Bae’s office after I was fired. After that little stunt, Bae would never miss the opportunity to retaliate by blabbing the details of my firing to the Darlings. If she said anything about me losing my job because I showed up at the office with sex toys, I was done. Elsbeth would fire me on the spot at the mere waft of scandal. You can’t talk yourself out of something like that.
Gwen started getting restless, and gluing myself flat against the pillar was making the people around me uncomfortable.
“Can I have my Shirley Temple now?” she moaned.
“Yes.
Yes, you can.” I clasped her hand in mine, and we stalked across the room in a half crouch.
Why didn’t I let Elsbeth straighten my hair and cake me with makeup? The dull black dress, although a good start, was not enough of a disguise.
“Look!” Gwen indicated across the room directly where Richie Rich and the vile Bae Yoon were looming. (I decided that she needed an epithet and “the vile Bae Yoon” just had the perfect menacing ring to it.)
“What is it, Gwen?” I questioned.
“It’s Aston.”
I craned my head through the crowd. It is Aston.
Rich people really did live in a small world after all. Questions floated into my head like comic strip thought bubbles: Why is he at this party? And why in God’s name is he talking to none other than the vile Bae Yoon, whose hand—no, it couldn’t be—is resting on his shoulder. Why is Bae touching him?
The vile Bae Yoon lobbed her head back in laughter, as if Aston had just said the funniest thing in the whole world, which, to be honest, was highly unlikely. The boy did not have a sense of humor.
“What the hell is she doing?” I swung behind the next granite pillar, and Gwen followed suit.
“Whooooo?”
“The vile Bae Yoon,” I said distractedly. Could Bae’s dress be any shorter? I could almost see her—
“Is she your archnemesis?” Gwen asked, saucer eyed.
I blurted out a laugh. “Yes, actually. She tried to sabotage me.”
“Which one is she?”
The one who’s dressed with her bits hanging out, I wanted to say.
“The girl Aston’s talking to.”
“Is she his girlfriend?”
“Ew, don’t be disgusting.” I felt my fingers compress into fists. “I mean, no, she’s not. But they do look like they know each other, don’t they?”
I was a bit shocked by my outburst, but I chalked it up to nerves. I was obviously stressed. But why is Bae all over him like that?
I thought it out: She usually only came on to moguls, but perhaps Oxford brats were her type, too. Surely Aston was some trust fund baby. He looked at home among the glitterati. Of course he’d be talking to ego-stroking and eyelash-fluttering Bae Yoon.
“Come on, let’s go to the bar. You can be my spy.” I plopped Gwen atop a too-tall barstool and took a seat next to her, finger-brushing my hair onto my face so I looked less recognizable—and more like a bush child.
“Good evening, madam. May I—”
I cut him off. “Two Shirley Temples!” I positioned myself away from Aston and Bae. What could they possibly be talking about?
“Make mine a double,” insisted Gwen, and the bartender nodded gamely.
The bar was backlit and glowed like a cathedral window. I swiveled Gwen’s barstool toward Aston and Bae. “Ok, my little secret agent. Tell me what they’re doing. I can’t stare at them. They may recognize me.”
Gwen waggled her head, taking the task very seriously.
“Aston just put his hand in his pocket,” she said excitedly. “And now—what’s her name again?”
“The vile Bae Yoon.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s just her name. It’s a mean name, actually. Just call her Bae.” I felt slightly remorseful about being a bad influence on Gwendy. “What’s Bae doing now?”
“Um, she’s just talking. A lot. And laughing.”
“How about Aston?” My head was down, and I dug through my clutch (Elsbeth’s) as if it were an unexplored archaeological site.
When Gwen didn’t answer me, I looked up just in time to see her lift a martini glass in both hands and bring the pink liquid (a cosmo?) to her lips.
“No!” I moved to snatch it away. “Don’t drink that!” My hand clipped the martini stem, and the pink drink splashed right into my face.
“Oh, balls!” yelped Gwen, which I have to admit was a little better than, “Oh, shit!” which was what I barked.
I ducked under the bar and pulled Gwen off the stool. The whole party seemed to be looking at us. My dress was drenched in—I licked my lips—yup, definitely a cosmo. People still drink those?
I crouched with my finger on my lips. Gwen and I swapped severe, horror-filled glances.
“Sorry, Kika,” she said.
I swatted the apology away and pretended to be tying my shoe . . . except I was wearing high heels. So I pretended to be tying my high heels. Good one, Kika. Very believable.
Luckily, Gwen was unscathed, and I was wearing black, so the stains weren’t immediately visible on me—but I was soaking wet.
“That wasn’t my Shirley Temple, was it?” Gwen asked sheepishly.
“No, baby. It wasn’t,” I confirmed. “It’s okay, though. We’re going to make a run for it—to the bathroom.”
Gwen’s eyes sparkled.
“Not really a run, just a very fast walk. But look normal, okay?” I was talking to both her and myself.
We emerged from under the lip of the bar and began power walking across the room. I saw Mina and mouthed for her to take Gwen. Without missing a beat, she was by my side ushering Gwen away. An undercurrent of being hunted loomed. I walked toward the bathroom corridor as fast as I could. Then, like a shot ringing out from across the room, I heard it: that unmistakable, tetchy voice calling me out like the damn tattletale she always was. “Kika? Kika Shores?”
The vile Bae Yoon had found me.
25
MOMENTS AFTER I reached the safety of the bathroom, the door pitched open with a gust. Posted in the doorway was Bae Yoon with her hands on her hips looking like Kim Jong-un in Louboutins.
I willed myself not to speak first. Instead, I blotted the drink from my dress. I felt glaringly unglamorous and not at all impossibly aloof, which was the look I was going for.
“So it is you,” said Bae.
“What are you doing here?” I asked her in monotone, studying the Australia-shaped stain on my bodice.
“I could ask you the same question. I’m here on business,” she said with an intonation of pride, the subtext being: “because I’m sooo important.”
“It is, after all, a party hosted by the Richmond Group. Remember them?”
“I guess it was too much to ask to never see you again,” I remarked dryly. I pushed by Bae and moved out of the bathroom. But then, thinking better of it, I stopped short just outside the ladies’ room door. Leaving the secluded bathroom corridor was a bad idea; I didn’t want to expose Bae to more ears.
I made a move to go back into the ladies’ room, but Bae was one step ahead of me and blocked my way.
“Oh, I see,” crooned Bae. “You’re working, aren’t you? You’re the girl who hands out the towels in the bathroom.”
I frowned at her. “Bae, you cost me my job.” I finally looked in her eyes, black and bitter as espresso.
Bae intersected her twiggy arms. “You cost yourself that job. And you know it.”
I stayed quiet and hateful. I silently begged her just to go away. But because of my lack of protest, Bae knew she had me.
She continued, a shark who had scented blood: “I’m on to you, Kika Shores. I saw the way you treated that job; the way you treated everyone else’s time like it was less important than yours; the way you ran around major corporate headquarters in your cheap granola outfits, flaking out on meetings, taking nothing seriously. I just made sure you got what you deserved. And you did not deserve that job.”
She held up her hand to block my way. “Basic bitches like you don’t get to be in my world.”
I was both seething and charred by her words, but deep down I knew she was right. I had been an awful employee. She was right about it all: I’d called out sick just so I could go to Florida with my mom for a yoga conference; I’d leave early even though I knew others would have to pick up the slack for me; I’d spe
nd weekends away only to show up Monday morning straight off a red-eye and completely useless with exhaustion. I had nothing to say.
“I went to Wharton, you know. I sweat high-level excellence,” she spat. “To think you even applied for my job!”
The horrible visual of Bae sweating excellence interrupted my personal shame spiral and made me crumple up my mouth. Does she not hear what comes out of her mouth? I bit my lip white. She may have been right about who I was in my past job, but I was changing—wasn’t I? I deposited my first check instead of spending it! This private act, though meager and long overdue, made me stand a little straighter.
Even though she was right about me in the past, she still had no right to treat me so poorly. Not here and not now—when I was trying. Suddenly, I snapped.
“Oh, enough criticism, Bae. You may have your MBA, but everyone knows that all you want is an MRS. Looks like I’m not the only one who’s unprofessional.” I savagely baited her.
She sputtered for a moment like a car trying to start. “I mean, where did you even go to school?” she spat. “What did you even major in? Recreational Studies? You may as well have majored in ‘fun.’”
She regained her stride, all viperlike and furious: “Listen to me. I don’t know how you got into this party”—she leaned into me, her finger daggering my face—“but mark my words, Kika Shores, I will find out why you’re here and I will destroy—”
“There you are!” A booming bass voice reverberated through the bathroom corridor, cutting Bae off mid-threat. We both swerved our heads toward the full-throated call.
Oh shit, it’s Aston. My face blushed hotly when I thought about how much he had overheard before announcing himself. Please don’t let him have heard Bae telling me off, I begged to whichever deity would listen.
“I’ve been scouring the whole room for you.” Aston hushed us with his authoritative voice and paraded down the corridor toward Bae.
“And may I say, aren’t you a vision?” he said when he got close enough.
Bae visibly melted and let out an inhuman giggle that sounded more like she was gargling on the blood of virgins. I made the slightest of gag faces, which Aston may have seen.
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