The Fortunate Ones
Page 3
There are 10 rooms total, full of creative types, mostly artists and musicians in their 20s. We each have our own bedroom, but the communal spaces are shared, one big hippie family. It has its drawbacks—like how my expensive toilet paper always seems to get shared when the others’ scratchy one-ply hemp runs out—but the rent is cheap and I like the people that live here. They are the polar opposite of the people I wait on at the country club. My neighbor on the left, Jackie, is a performance artist who moonlights at a bakery, and my neighbor on the right, Ethan, is a documentarian. They hook up every so often, and in exchange for enduring the noise (the co-op has very thin walls), Jackie brings me day-old croissants from the bakery. It’s an arrangement I’m pretty happy with.
I’m there now, in my room with Ellie. She’s going on about something important, I’m sure, and I’m posed in front of my mirror, trying out different hairstyles.
“Just…no. No to the bangs. You’d look like an anime character.”
I drop the hair I tucked under to mimic front bangs. I thought it looked good; Ellie clearly thinks differently.
“I want to change up my look.”
She shrugs. “So cut your hair.”
“No!”
I’m like Samson. If my hair goes, my power goes with it. It’s jet-black, halfway down my back, and the singular feature of mine I truly treasure. Combined with my light blue eyes, it packs quite a punch—or so I’ve been told. Throughout high school, my gangly legs and saucer eyes were out of place among a sea of short, perky blondes. The only guys who were into my Hot Topic look were emo vampires themselves, more interested in making me the subject of their tortured teenage fantasies than actually getting to know me. I wasn’t looking to be anyone’s grunge-pop princess.
Through the tail end of puberty, my body’s hormones acted like little general contractors that had fallen behind on a fixer-upper. I started noticing the effects freshman year of college, when my French TA asked me to meet him for coffee. I assumed he wanted to discuss my interpretation of Amélie, but when his hand hit my knee beneath the table, the truth set in quicker than my double espresso. It was new territory for me, being broadly desired, and I wasn’t sure if I liked it. I always thought people that complained about their good looks were buffoons, but attractiveness does come with a unique set of challenges. For one, people have constantly underestimated me. Like in college, many of my classmates assumed I was seducing my professors (even the gay ones) in exchange for As. Eventually, I stopped minding the whispers. I liked being underestimated. In fact, I still do.
After finishing my double major in French and Spanish, I spent a year traveling trying to “find myself”. In reality, I was trying to find a job. Through a tutoring agency, I eventually found a position as an au pair with an American diplomat named Nicole and her young daughter Sophie. For a year and a half, we became a happy little family in the heart of Paris. During the day, Nicole worked at the embassy while I tutored Sophie in Spanish and French. We turned coffee houses, museums, and grassy parks into our classroom. I’d started to feel like a true Parisien. Life was grand.
That is, until Nicole joined Tinder.
Yeah, that’s right. Even old, Ivy league-educated diplomats with bouffant hair are swiping right. It took Nicole two weeks to fall head over heels for some baguette-toting man named George, and another two weeks to promptly fire my ass. I was shocked, but I couldn’t help but admire her honesty.
“You understand, don’t you?” she prodded.
I didn’t. “Do you need more room? I can get my own place.”
Her smile fell, and I knew I’d missed the mark.
“I’ve just noticed that…well, when George is around, and you…I just don’t think it would be wise to keep you around. Haven’t you seen Pretty Woman?”
My mouth dropped. “What? Pretty Woman is about a prostitute!”
“Hmm…perhaps I’m thinking about a different movie,” she muttered, confused. “Well nevertheless, I think it is time to part ways.”
It made no sense.
“Do you seriously think I’m going to try to seduce George? His breath smells like sardines!”
She had the decency to blush. “No, not at all. It’s just…George and I are ready to take our relationship to the next level, and no one keeps a pretty, young nanny around if they want their fledging relationship to succeed.”
I lost all respect for Nicole that day, and though I would have loved to steal Sophie away in my suitcase, I wasn’t ready to add kidnapping to my record just yet. A few days later, I moved back to Austin and Ellie put in a good word for me at Twin Oaks—a.k.a. where dreams go to die.
“When do you work again?” Ellie asks, drawing my attention away from the mirror.
“Tomorrow.”
“What about Thursday?”
“I’m off.”
She looks up from her magazine and grins. For a second, I’m taken aback by how similar we look nowadays. The two-year age gap between us used to be a big deal. Now, we could almost be twins—that is, if she stopped blowing $500 every few weeks to turn her light brown tresses platinum blonde. After all these years of hair dye, she should be walking around with frizzed-out straw for hair, but the trendy downtown salon she goes to must be filled with miracle workers, because even I sometimes forget Barbie blonde isn’t her natural color.
“Perfect. I need you to cover my shift.”
I scrunch my nose. “Yeah, no thanks. I’m not really looking to spend any more time at Twin Oaks than I have to.”
She claps her hands together and juts her lower lip out pleadingly. In turn, I clap my hands together and flip her the double bird.
“Please Brooke! Tyler’s band has a gig at Stubb’s. They’re opening for Vance Joy and I can’t miss it.”
I don’t want to concede, not necessarily because I want Thursday off, but because Ellie works the dinner service at the club. I’ve only ever taken on lunchtime duties, and staff normally trains for at least a week before taking dinner service. No, I’m not worried about where the salad forks and dessert spoons go; I’m talking about the politics. You don’t want to sit an Edwards next to a Daniels and provoke a food fight.
“Seriously, PLEASE. I’ll owe you big time!” she says before pausing and tapping her chin, mulling it over. “Wait, actually, I won’t owe you because I got you this job in the first place.”
She’s played the trump card.
“Fine. I’ll do it. Text me any random things I need to know to cover my ass. I don’t want to disappoint Brian.”
She wags her eyebrows. “I thought you didn’t care about the job.”
“I don’t, but that doesn’t mean I want to be a shitty employee. Dad raised us better than that.”
She nods, seemingly impressed with my wisdom. Little does she know, I’m just saying that to segue into the conversation I actually care about. “Speaking of Dad…does he know you’re going to Tyler’s gig on Thursday?”
She levels her blue eyes on me. They’re ice cold. Huh. I need to remember that trick.
“No, he doesn’t, and I’m not going to tell him.”
“Smart. If we learned anything from binge-watching sitcoms as kids, it’s that lying to your parents and sneaking out always goes off without a hitch.”
She throws her magazine at me and I narrowly avoid a paper cut to the cornea.
“He’s not going to find out.”
She’s being naive. Ellie still lives at home with our dad and shiny new stepmother. If she comes home on Thursday (or early Friday morning) reeking of smoke and excuses, Dad will definitely do some sleuthing to figure out where she’s been. He hates Tyler, and for good reason. Tyler has been arrested like 45 times for all sorts of fancy-sounding crimes, like possession of an illegal substance (weed) and driving while intoxicated (stupid), but Ellie is blind to his flaws. I blame the full-sleeve tattoos and hot, hot British accent.
Before Tyler tempted her with his bad-boy persona, Ellie had a clear type: hot, preppy rich kids, the type of guys she and I went to high school with. (Yup. Shocking, isn’t it? Ellie and I are from old money.) We went to an expensive prep school in Austin and spent our childhood in the nice part of Westlake, where the houses are spaced acres apart and the views give you a glimpse of the entire cityscape. My experience growing up there is the exact reason I can’t stand most members of the country club. I’ll take my neighbors at the co-op any day.
I’m there now, in my room with Ellie. She’s going on about something important, I’m sure, and I’m posed in front of my mirror, trying out different hairstyles.
“Just…no. No to the bangs. You’d look like an anime character.”
I drop the hair I tucked under to mimic front bangs. I thought it looked good; Ellie clearly thinks differently.
“I want to change up my look.”
She shrugs. “So cut your hair.”
“No!”
I’m like Samson. If my hair goes, my power goes with it. It’s jet-black, halfway down my back, and the singular feature of mine I truly treasure. Combined with my light blue eyes, it packs quite a punch—or so I’ve been told. Throughout high school, my gangly legs and saucer eyes were out of place among a sea of short, perky blondes. The only guys who were into my Hot Topic look were emo vampires themselves, more interested in making me the subject of their tortured teenage fantasies than actually getting to know me. I wasn’t looking to be anyone’s grunge-pop princess.
Through the tail end of puberty, my body’s hormones acted like little general contractors that had fallen behind on a fixer-upper. I started noticing the effects freshman year of college, when my French TA asked me to meet him for coffee. I assumed he wanted to discuss my interpretation of Amélie, but when his hand hit my knee beneath the table, the truth set in quicker than my double espresso. It was new territory for me, being broadly desired, and I wasn’t sure if I liked it. I always thought people that complained about their good looks were buffoons, but attractiveness does come with a unique set of challenges. For one, people have constantly underestimated me. Like in college, many of my classmates assumed I was seducing my professors (even the gay ones) in exchange for As. Eventually, I stopped minding the whispers. I liked being underestimated. In fact, I still do.
After finishing my double major in French and Spanish, I spent a year traveling trying to “find myself”. In reality, I was trying to find a job. Through a tutoring agency, I eventually found a position as an au pair with an American diplomat named Nicole and her young daughter Sophie. For a year and a half, we became a happy little family in the heart of Paris. During the day, Nicole worked at the embassy while I tutored Sophie in Spanish and French. We turned coffee houses, museums, and grassy parks into our classroom. I’d started to feel like a true Parisien. Life was grand.
That is, until Nicole joined Tinder.
Yeah, that’s right. Even old, Ivy league-educated diplomats with bouffant hair are swiping right. It took Nicole two weeks to fall head over heels for some baguette-toting man named George, and another two weeks to promptly fire my ass. I was shocked, but I couldn’t help but admire her honesty.
“You understand, don’t you?” she prodded.
I didn’t. “Do you need more room? I can get my own place.”
Her smile fell, and I knew I’d missed the mark.
“I’ve just noticed that…well, when George is around, and you…I just don’t think it would be wise to keep you around. Haven’t you seen Pretty Woman?”
My mouth dropped. “What? Pretty Woman is about a prostitute!”
“Hmm…perhaps I’m thinking about a different movie,” she muttered, confused. “Well nevertheless, I think it is time to part ways.”
It made no sense.
“Do you seriously think I’m going to try to seduce George? His breath smells like sardines!”
She had the decency to blush. “No, not at all. It’s just…George and I are ready to take our relationship to the next level, and no one keeps a pretty, young nanny around if they want their fledging relationship to succeed.”
I lost all respect for Nicole that day, and though I would have loved to steal Sophie away in my suitcase, I wasn’t ready to add kidnapping to my record just yet. A few days later, I moved back to Austin and Ellie put in a good word for me at Twin Oaks—a.k.a. where dreams go to die.
“When do you work again?” Ellie asks, drawing my attention away from the mirror.
“Tomorrow.”
“What about Thursday?”
“I’m off.”
She looks up from her magazine and grins. For a second, I’m taken aback by how similar we look nowadays. The two-year age gap between us used to be a big deal. Now, we could almost be twins—that is, if she stopped blowing $500 every few weeks to turn her light brown tresses platinum blonde. After all these years of hair dye, she should be walking around with frizzed-out straw for hair, but the trendy downtown salon she goes to must be filled with miracle workers, because even I sometimes forget Barbie blonde isn’t her natural color.
“Perfect. I need you to cover my shift.”
I scrunch my nose. “Yeah, no thanks. I’m not really looking to spend any more time at Twin Oaks than I have to.”
She claps her hands together and juts her lower lip out pleadingly. In turn, I clap my hands together and flip her the double bird.
“Please Brooke! Tyler’s band has a gig at Stubb’s. They’re opening for Vance Joy and I can’t miss it.”
I don’t want to concede, not necessarily because I want Thursday off, but because Ellie works the dinner service at the club. I’ve only ever taken on lunchtime duties, and staff normally trains for at least a week before taking dinner service. No, I’m not worried about where the salad forks and dessert spoons go; I’m talking about the politics. You don’t want to sit an Edwards next to a Daniels and provoke a food fight.
“Seriously, PLEASE. I’ll owe you big time!” she says before pausing and tapping her chin, mulling it over. “Wait, actually, I won’t owe you because I got you this job in the first place.”
She’s played the trump card.
“Fine. I’ll do it. Text me any random things I need to know to cover my ass. I don’t want to disappoint Brian.”
She wags her eyebrows. “I thought you didn’t care about the job.”
“I don’t, but that doesn’t mean I want to be a shitty employee. Dad raised us better than that.”
She nods, seemingly impressed with my wisdom. Little does she know, I’m just saying that to segue into the conversation I actually care about. “Speaking of Dad…does he know you’re going to Tyler’s gig on Thursday?”
She levels her blue eyes on me. They’re ice cold. Huh. I need to remember that trick.
“No, he doesn’t, and I’m not going to tell him.”
“Smart. If we learned anything from binge-watching sitcoms as kids, it’s that lying to your parents and sneaking out always goes off without a hitch.”
She throws her magazine at me and I narrowly avoid a paper cut to the cornea.
“He’s not going to find out.”
She’s being naive. Ellie still lives at home with our dad and shiny new stepmother. If she comes home on Thursday (or early Friday morning) reeking of smoke and excuses, Dad will definitely do some sleuthing to figure out where she’s been. He hates Tyler, and for good reason. Tyler has been arrested like 45 times for all sorts of fancy-sounding crimes, like possession of an illegal substance (weed) and driving while intoxicated (stupid), but Ellie is blind to his flaws. I blame the full-sleeve tattoos and hot, hot British accent.
Before Tyler tempted her with his bad-boy persona, Ellie had a clear type: hot, preppy rich kids, the type of guys she and I went to high school with. (Yup. Shocking, isn’t it? Ellie and I are from old money.) We went to an expensive prep school in Austin and spent our childhood in the nice part of Westlake, where the houses are spaced acres apart and the views give you a glimpse of the entire cityscape. My experience growing up there is the exact reason I can’t stand most members of the country club. I’ll take my neighbors at the co-op any day.
