Waking Rory

by Elizabeth Jeannel

  With no one awake, I slipped into the kitchen and got to work. I was fixing breakfast and coffee for me and Aurora, completely zoned out, unfazed as I hummed along. Why was I humming that song from Sleeping Beauty?

  “What are you doing?” Nash asked, and I nearly jumped out of my skin.

  “Just breakfasting—making breakfast,” I sputtered, whirling around.

  “You’re cooking?”

  “Yeah… This one’s for… you.”

  “You made me breakfast?” He raised an eyebrow.

  “Mhmm.” I smiled.

  “That’s… sweetly out of character.”

  “You’ve just been so understanding about my behavior this summer, so I wanted to thank you.” I smiled. “With breakfast.”

  “I don’t know what you want, Ev, but if it’s reasonable,” he said, taking a bite of one of the tarts I’d found in the pantry. “I’m sure I would have considered it without a breakfast bribe.”

  “I don’t want anything.” Besides you leaving. “Honest.”

  He nodded slowly, took the tart with him and backed out of the kitchen. I let out a breath.

  “Don’t be late for work!” he called from the door, then he was gone.

  Once the front door shut, Aurora poked her head in the kitchen. Her hair was sticking out in all directions. It was naturally that curly. Shit, she looked cute in my clothes.

  No, Even. You are not allowed to think that.

  “Did he leave?” she asked, tentatively.

  I nodded.

  “You look… fancy.”

  I let out a laugh. I assumed business slacks were much better than the dirty ripped jeans I’d been wearing the day before. “It’s for work.”

  “Work?” She frowned.

  “Yeah, these days people have these things called jobs where they trade labor for money.”

  She nodded slowly. “Do I have work?”

  “No.” I smiled. “At least not for now. You can just stay here, watch some TV… or something.”

  She blinked at me. I was going to have to explain television. How was this girl supposed to survive the 21st century?

  “Here, have some breakfast.” I smiled, handing her what would have been my plate. I turned back toward the cabinet and started more.

  “How long will you be gone?”

  “A few hours.” I shrugged. “Don’t worry, I’ll turn on the history channel, and maybe you’ll get caught up.”

  She stared blankly at me for a moment before I led her to the living room and turned on the TV. Her eyes widened in the same way they had when I’d turned on the shower. She had that ‘first time seeing a magician’ look in her eye.

  “Here,” I sighed, smiling as I put the remote in her hands. “These two buttons change the channels, so you can figure out what you like, I guess.”

  Aurora stared at the remote for a second before pushing one of the buttons. She jumped when the screen changed, but pushed the button again rather quickly, giggling to herself.

  “You have fun with that,” I laughed, grabbing my cup of coffee and chugging what was left as I headed back to the kitchen. “I gotta go. Stay away from the windows please!”

  She didn’t respond. Instead, she kept giggling as she changed the channel some more.

  “Aurora!” I laughed as she jumped, turning to face me. “Stay away from the windows. Don’t go outside. You might get lost.”

  “I wouldn’t—”

  “It’s different than how you remember it, okay?”

  She let out a sigh and nodded before taking a tentative seat on the sofa.

  That was how I left her.

  I slipped out of the house and out to the front entrance where my new driver was waiting. That was awfully fast.

  “Good morning, Miss McCoy.” He nodded. “I’m Henry, I’ll be your driver.”

  I sighed, offering my best smile. “Can you call me Even?”

  “Whatever you’d like, Even.” He smiled back, opening the back door for me.

  I wish I’d been focused enough to smile back, be a considerate human. But I couldn’t stop thinking about Aurora being all alone in the house all day. It ate away at me the entire ride to work, but I didn’t know why. Why was I worried about Aurora? I was just letting her stay until we found somewhere else for her. Why did I care?

  I let out a sigh as we pulled in front of McCoy Enterprises. No more time to think about it.

  Like the day before, my boss was in the center of the room, constantly reading this or that, barking orders, talking through a wireless phone, or on occasion, going to someone’s desk to view their work. I headed straight to the desk where she’d sat me the day before, but I was caught halfway there by a woman Autumn’s age.

  “It’s Even, right?” she asked, flashing a straight, white-toothed smile. “I’m Elaine.”

  Elaine was perfect in that high-profile sort of way. Solid cheekbones, flawless skin, an hourglass figure that she showed off in her high-waisted pencil skirt. And since she was the first person at the Lyon branch to seem happy to see me, she had kindness going for her, too.

  “Nice to meet you.” I smiled, taking the hand she outstretched. I hated handshakes, touching other people’s hands, no thank you. “What can I do for you?”

  “Well, I’m the head of the committee overseeing this summer’s gala, and I was hoping—”

  “The gala?” Madame Caron let out a hearty but icy laugh. “Miss McCoy can’t even edit a simple document. You’d have better help if you passed flyers out on the street.”

  My cheeks burned, and I felt my eyes begin to swell, but I blinked it back. I would not give her the satisfaction of seeing me cry.

  “Sorry,” I smiled to Elaine. “She’s right, I’m really not qualified. I’m sure there are plenty of interns here who could be of more help.”

  “But Mr. McCoy said—” Elaine began.

  “I’m sure Mr. McCoy was only talking her up.” Madam Caron waved Elaine off. “After all, that is why she is here in the first place.”

  I sucked in a pained breath and headed toward my desk again only to find all the documents were gone. The desk was empty. Shit.

  “Mademoiselle McCoy.” I heard her sharp voice sing behind me. I was suddenly terrified of what she’d be having me to that day.

  “Madame.” I said, turning with a forced smile.

  “I have found something more suited to your skillset.” She said, taking a slip of paper from her assistant, who I then realized was standing behind her. “We have a… board meeting at ten. I trust you can manage getting coffee?”

  “Of course.” Finally, something an intern is supposed to do. How I was supposed to find a coffee shop, I didn’t know. But, with all the English speaking business people around here, there was at least a chance I could get the order right.

  Wrong.

  The page she handed me was handwritten in French. I could read a total of six words. I looked up at her and forced a smile. She was sneering. Why did she want me to fail so badly?

  “I’ll have them hot and ready at ten.” I smiled. “Anything else I can do in the meantime?”

  “Stay out of my way.”

  I let out a breath as she turned away from me. It was exactly 8:15. I had an hour and forty-five minutes to get coffee. That was literally my only job for the entire day. Maybe. I’m sure if I got it right, she’d find something ridiculous for me to do. But she was counting on me getting it wrong, which is why I left immediately, and found my driver still outside.

  “Miss McCoy,” he said with a polite smile. His accent was thick, I now noticed. He hadn’t said much since I’d met him that morning. I missed Gordon. “Mr. McCoy insisted you stay at work until lunch.”

  “Leaving is part of work,” I said, holding up the piece of paper my boss had given me. “I’m an intern. Gotta get coffee. Know anywhere good?”

  “I might know a place.” He nodded, handing the page back to me.

  “Can we stop by a shop while we’re at it?”
/>
  “I’m sure Mr. McCoy would be happy to get you whatever you need on his own time.”

  “I need a translation book,” I said as I slid into the back seat, knowing full well Nash had told him not to take me anywhere that wasn’t pre-approved. “Also for work.”

  He nodded, putting the car into drive and heading down the road.

  I didn’t always care. In fact, there wasn’t a lot I cared about, but I’m a prideful little shit, and I know it. Not knowing how to read my boss’s notes ground my gears. Having her talk down to me was even worse. I didn’t think highly of myself. I didn’t think because Nash was my uncle that somehow made me better than everyone else. But I was deserving of being treated with the same dignity as the rest of her employees.

  I made it to the meeting at 9:58, slipped inside as they were about to start, passed around coffee, offering a caution in French, and slipped back out. I ignored the raised eyebrows from Madame Caron and Nash, who was at the head of the table. I ignored my inability to understand the responses, and I ignored the other interns and assistants as I returned to my desk to do a whole lot of nothing the rest of the day.

  Not only had I found a book to translate French, but I was able to find one of those computer programs that teaches it to you word by word, which I found very odd for a city in France to have, but I was stoked regardless. I’m sure learning French at my place of work, in France, wasn’t the best timing, but it was all I had.

  The thing was, I knew basic French. I could ask where the bathroom was, tell them I had an emergency, give my name, that sort of thing. I knew a lot more French than I’d realized when we arrived, but these were native French people. French was their first language, which meant, they spoke it ridiculously fast. It was the speed that I had trouble with.

  I was going to use every minute I had in this stupid office building to not make a fool of myself.

  I decided that while I was doing that, it was worth checking to see if Molly had finally gotten back to me. She hadn’t. From what I could see on her account, she wasn’t really all that active. Hell, maybe she’d finally gotten arrested, since she didn’t have me getting caught for her.

  I wrote another message, telling her about how awful the job was and how I wished I was home. I left out the part about Aurora. Left out the part about learning French. I left out a lot actually. I realized just after sending it that I had to censor the things I told my best friend. And that was sad.

  “Aurora?” I called as I stepped into the house just after 5 PM.

  The TV was still running something on the Discovery Channel. By some miracle there wasn’t a fire or worse. But apart from the noise coming from the TV, the house was completely quiet.

  My heart began to pound as I shut off the TV and headed down the hall to the spare bedroom. It was empty. Fuck.

  For a moment my mind was racing, trying to think of all the places she could have gone. I slipped out of the room as I unbuttoned my silk button-down. No way was I searching this city in this outfit.

  I had my shirt halfway off when I opened my door to find Aurora sitting on my bed. I’d never turned around so fast in my life.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quickly, looking down. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “What are you doing in here?” I asked as I reached into my suitcase for a t-shirt.

  “I wish I knew,” she mumbled. “The TV was so overwhelming, and I didn’t know how to turn it off.”

  I wanted to be mad, but she looked scared when I turned back around. I let out a sigh and sat down on the bed next to her.

  “Have you eaten anything?” I asked.

  She shook her head. She still hadn’t met my gaze. I felt my eyes narrow.

  “Did something happen?”

  “I—I might have looked in your book. I didn’t know it was—I’m sorry.”

  I let out a laugh. “My sketchbook? I mean, it’s okay, I guess.” It wasn’t. It felt like a major invasion of privacy, but I knew she hadn’t meant for it to be.

  “I closed it quickly,” she mumbled. “Once I knew what it was. I was just…curious.”

  “What? About me?”

  She nodded.

  “Why?” I smiled. “I thought you just wanted to find some place—”

  I heard the front door open and jumped to my feet.

  “Ev, you here?” Nash called.

  “Shit.” I whispered. “Get in the closet!”

  “What?” she asked, jerking away as I tried to pull her to her feet. “No!”

  “Aurora, get in the damn closet, or we are both toast!”

  “But—”

  I could hear Nash’s steps getting closer, so I grabbed her by the shoulders and began shoving. She wasn’t fighting much, and I wasn’t being rough, but she was very clear that this was not okay. I’d only just slammed the closet shut when Nash opened the door.

  “Hey, didn’t you hear me?” he asked. “Were you talking to someone?”

  “Who, me?” I laughed, picking up a shirt out of my suitcase to busy myself. “Just to myself.”

  “Autumn wanted to know if you felt like joining us for dinner. There’s apparently some place near the river she wants to try.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I grinned. “You two sure are spending a lot of time together outside of work.”

  He rolled his eyes. “I don’t know how it’s escaped you, but we spend a lot of time together regardless. Autumn doesn’t have any friends here, Even. I do.”

  I nodded, but I was still smiling. He had no idea how badly Autumn had the hots for him. Completely oblivious. And it wasn’t like she was a bad person. She was pretty great, actually.

  “So, dinner?” he asked.

  “I’m actually really tired.” I sighed. “I kind of want to get unpacked since we’ll be here a while. Maybe watch a movie or something.”

  “Okay,” He forced a smile as he scanned the room. “Do you want me to bring anything back for you?”

  “Umm. Surprise me.”

  “That’s not dangerous at all.”

  I laughed as he stepped out.

  “Behave!” he called behind him.

  I let out a deep sigh, and Aurora threw open the closet door. There was fire in her eyes. Her hand flew at me, and I only had a split second to avoid a nice slap to the face.

  “Whoa!” I said as she went for another one. I caught both her wrists. “Stop it!”

  “How dare you! Just who do you think you are?” She was practically shrieking. “Let me go.”

  “Are you going to slap me?” I asked, still holding tight to her wrists.

  She let out a huff, looking away, but she shook her head.

  “Okay, then.”

  I let her wrists go, and she stomped toward the door, stopping before she stepped out.

  “I’d like for you to find somewhere else for me to stay. This simply will not do.”

  Then she stormed off into the spare room, slamming the door behind her. I let out a sigh and fell onto my bed. I was in way over my head.

  Aurora didn’t come out for the rest of the night. She refused to join me for dinner, so I left a plate in front of the door. It was gone when I came back down the hallway after I was done.

  I spent the rest of the night trying to find some place I could take her. Nash had left his laptop on the table. It wasn’t like the man ever changed his password. The more he went out to dinner with Autumn, the later he came home, so I wasn’t exactly worried about getting caught.

  There weren’t a lot of shelters in Lyon. Then again, I didn’t want to drop her off at the doorstep of a homeless shelter. Not only was that dangerous, but it was counterintuitive. What was worse, most of them were full, anyway.

  I started looking into a halfway house, which was probably her best bet. It wasn’t like she was recovering from anything, not really. But she definitely needed help getting adjusted to the modern world.

  By some miracle, I found one. I wrote down the address and took a crappy photo of the map with my phone
before I headed to the spare room. I knocked.

  “Hey.”

  “Go away,” she called from inside.

  “I found a place.” I sighed. “I can take you tomorrow after work.”

  She was quiet for a moment. I let out a sigh and was about to head to my room when she opened the door.

  “Tomorrow?” she asked.

  I nodded. “We can go as soon as I get home, but we will have to walk because the driver Nash hired will one hundred percent rat me out.”

  “Alright.” She nodded. “Here.”

  She grabbed the plate I’d left and handed it to me.

  “Thanks.” I smiled. “Aurora, I’m…I’m sorry about the whole closet thing. It’s just—I can’t get in trouble with Nash any more.”

  “Well, after tomorrow, you won’t have to worry.”

  Her eyes met mine, and all the fear and pain in them made my chest ache.

  Aurora was beautiful. The more I saw her face, the more I was certain she was that girl from my dream. She was the literal girl of my dreams. I’d woken her after who knows how long. I knew that meant something. It meant something more than I might ever comprehend. But it wasn’t the right time. I was too young for soulmates and true love.

  And I had a feeling no matter how much a part of me wanted to kiss her again, the feeling wasn’t mutual.

  “I’m sorry,” I breathed, breaking the silence that had passed over us.

  She nodded. “Me too.”

  There was a knock at my door that didn’t wait for a response. Nash.

  I looked up, and he let out a sigh. “Sorry, long meeting. Did you eat?”

  “Yeah, I ate a while ago.” I shrugged. There was a small box in his hands.

  Nash nodded slowly, eyeing my bed, which was now strewn with notebooks, my sketchbook, and just outside my guitar case, a pack of cigarettes. Shit. Oh, shit, I was dead. Done for. Finished. I can come out now.

  He took a breath like he might say something about it, then smiled at me. “I’ll put this in the fridge. It should still be good tomorrow.”

  “Okay.” I nodded as he slipped out the door. I fell back against my bed and let out a sigh of relief.