Sure enough, I don't see much of Eric once the morning really begins. Ana brings us up his favourite breakfast, meaning that I get my first taste of eggs Comtesse without having to go downstairs and 'bump into' Louisa – a win-win in my book.

Once Eric's gone, though, I'm a sitting duck – one that'll eventually have to waddle down those damn stairs. Naturally, I delay it as much as possible.

"Now," I mutter, "which of ye is opera worthy?"

I narrow my eyes Old Western-style between the two dresses laid out on my bed. The face-off: the spaghetti-strapped rose-coloured pouf dress vs. the emerald, floor-length strapless. My phone's got some wistful-sounding French song on loop – the one that's always playing from the brasserie by school – and I'm hoping that the spirit of Édith Piaf will descend, with sassy and liberated flair, to tell me which one to pick. I pass a minute of silence in desperate optimism.

Nothing, Édith? Really? Fine.

Spaghetti strap looks like something I'd wear to Year 11 prom. Or rather, something I'd wear to the Year 11 prom where my boyfriend of 3 years (who's only really with me because we're both the most popular people in our year) kisses the new girl who transferred from public school, and confesses that we both know this isn't going anywhere.

But emerald looks like what I'd wear to a charity gala if I was about £4 million richer and was in love with my married boss but couldn't tell anyone, so resorted to wearing his favourite colour in the hopes that if I look elegant enough, he'll leave his wife. Jesus, am I projecting lives onto these dresses?

I flop back onto the bed, defeated, with a heavy exhale. Maybe I'll just go like this, I think, straining my neck to look down at my dressing robe. This could pass, right?

A knock against the door pulls me from my thoughts before I can make any more dramatic decisions.

"Ms. Evangeline?" Comes Ana's demure voice. 

"Come in!" I call back, but she still opens the door cautiously, with timid eyes. "Is everything okay?" I ask, propping myself up on my elbows. 

She smiles comfortably upon hearing the soft sounds of Édith and seeing me slumped on the bed between Dumped at Prom and Hopeless Mistress – I meet her kind smile with a helpless laugh.

"Just come to see if your breakfast was alright," she glances at the clear plates stacked on the desk.

"Oh – yes! Yes, it was amazing, thank you!" I enthuse, heaving myself up to pick up the pile.

As sweet as she is, at first, I had found it hard to speak to Ana. Her unassuming fringe and cherubic face made me inclined to hug her, and to tell her not to be silly whenever she picked up my glass the moment I finished drinking, and to insist that she could just call me Angie – but around the others, around Kitty, it was clear that things didn't exactly work like that.

I didn't understand the likes of Kitty and Nelly, who'd known the sweet woman for years, decades, and never allowed themselves to see her as anything more than a means to the end of a tidy house and tasty meals. It had become plain to me that when it came to dealing with people, it was the Macklin men who had the hearts for it – I'd see Pip telling her jokes while she hung the washing, even if she'd never let him help; Jono always gave his effusive thanks when he could, and thankful beams when he couldn't.

I chose to follow Eric's lead, grinning my thank-yous and clearing the table in defiance of Kitty's glares or Nelly's scoffs. And though I didn't imagine Ana would be inviting me for a sleepover any time soon, to be met with a real smile rather than the perfunctory ones she gave the Macklin women, had become what I most looked forward to at breakfast.

Unsurprisingly, she shakes her head profusely, taking the stacked tray out of my hands,

"No, no, I've got it," she shrugs towards the bed, "you've got enough on your hands."

Choosing one dress over another for a trip to the opera hardly rivals a mountain of household chores, but, as ever, her kindly smile is brimming with sincerity.

"Let me get the door for you then," her hands are full, and I know that if I don't offer, she won't ask. She nods her gratitude as she leaves, but before she's gone, I blurt,

"Ana, can I ask something?"

Almost confused by my asking permission, her light laugh says of course you can,

"What is it?"

I don't move my hand from the doorknob, but I cast a look over at the bed, and lower my voice before asking,

"How... what kind of thing do they usually wear for the opera?" I don't bother to mask my clueless desperation – I need all the help I can get.

Thankfully, she has mercy on me, smiling knowingly before she asks with a slight raise of her brows if she can come back in - I step aside, sighing in relief as I close the door behind her, and beginning to babble before it's even entirely shut.

"I googled opera dress codes, but everywhere said something different, and I didn't know if I should go smart, or totally glitzy, I..." My rambling peters out because I don't know where I'm going with this, and her blank look makes me suspect I sound a little clueless.

She takes a small breath, her rich brown eyes rising to the left in thought,

"Um... smart," she says, with such hesitant reservation, "maybe a little bit of glitzy, um-" She makes each suggestion with as courteous a squint as she can muster, but her final words all run into one another, and she makes a final, honest proposition with a diplomatic tilt of her head to meet her raised shoulder,

"P-perhaps neither?"

I feel myself going red at poor Ana's attempt to tactfully say the plain truth – I don't know what I'm doing.

"I am ... hopeless." I laugh, shutting my eyes in embarrassment.

"No, no! Just," she encourages with a fervent shake of her head as she places the large tray back down on the desk, "are these the options?" She asks, jutting her chin at the dresses on the bed. I nod.

"These are lovely! I think." She qualifies her compliment quietly, with a shy smile and twiddle of her fingers. My glum smile is one-sided.

"They really are," Ana says, holding my gaze in good faith.

"I think," she repeats, clearing her throat and continuing just a little clearer than before, "I think that for an evening show, you want classy, and bold – the green." She looks captivated as she stretches her pale hand out and runs it over the satin.

Only a fraction of a moment passes before her hand snaps back to her lap, as though she's been caught doing something she shouldn't, and her gaze is low and reverent,

"I would say the green, Ms. Evangeline. Pop on a statement necklace and it's perfect." Her voice is getting lost in the tableware and teapots before she's finished speaking, and I really want to hug her, or ask her to come do my makeup with me, but I already know how that goes, and so I settle for,

"Thank you, Ana. You're an angel."

Her button nose wrinkles with her gracious good luck smile, before she adeptly closes the door behind her with one hand. I sigh, and the sound seems heavier in the fresh silence. Maybe it's just the way Ana's kind words and eyes lightened my mood, or the daylight playing peekaboo in the curtains, but I swear that little green gown starts to glow.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

"Gorgeous..." Eric murmurs. His arm is slung around my shoulder as he traces my cupid neckline with his index finger – I think he likes this dress too. Ana, you wonderful, wonderful woman.

"You really like it?"

He's already said so, at least 3 times since he got back from golf, and twice more since getting into the stretch, but I like the sound of it, and the way the corners of his lips turn up when his eyes scan the length of my body. Besides, the same raspy question is all I can manage when my breath hitches at his touch.

"Adore it," he pauses, making his final remark with a gentle smirk, "not half as much as I adore you, though."

"Cheesy," I tease, so in love as I turn my head and let our gazes align.

"Sue me," he says sotto voce before pressing a delicate kiss to the bridge of my nose.

Then, a sly thought slinks in through the gap between our shoulders.

It won't be like this forever, you know. The clock strikes 12 in two days, Cinderella. Don't be naïve.

Here, every touch is intimate, and every gaze is lingering and ours to cherish; in a few days' time, under watchful eyes, we'll keep our hands to ourselves and hope our quickly diverted glances go unseen, as we wait for the next Thursday.

The voice trickles like poison, and I don't know if I can stop the source, but I can wipe it away, and I do as I snake my hair to one side and lean against my gentleman, closing the gap and forcing myself to think of anything else.

Something about watching the quiet town through the tinted windows of the town car, and the way my gold heels flash silver every time we emerge from a tunnel, makes me feel... grown-up. I'm almost afraid to think it, like if I think it for a second too long, I'll be caught out, but the quiet revelation is astounding – this could be my life. A life by Eric's side, at operas and polo matches, a life where people introduce themselves to me and talk to me about things that matter, because they assume that I do.

"I feel so... I feel like I fit." I say aloud. I settle on that rather than 'grown-up'. Grown-ups don't say it out loud.

Eric looks down at me with soft confusion,

"Of course you fit, my love," he says. I smile to myself, leaning further into him. I don't think he understands, but it's alright. I don't think he's supposed to.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

The opera itself is so beautiful I can't stand it. You know the feeling? Like when you read a page so wonderful you have to close the book before you can go on?

The hall is flooded with champagne-coloured lights, and the balconies, full to the brim with people, are a sort of elegant I've never seen before. From up here, they look like golden icing along the walls, with colour so vivid that it seems to drip when the stage lights reflect on them, and the people sat in them look like shiny, adorned figurines. Our seats are in the grand tier, and Jono boasts that they're the best in the house.

I'd hoped the minimal vocab I'd picked up in Year 9 German would be my saving grace, but I didn't need a word of it (thankfully). The voices, the orchestra, the silences where I could feel the entire theatre's bated breath – it all spoke a language of its own, too elevated for words.

This opera's called Lulu, and Pip explained the plot to me as best he could before we left, so that I could "follow along without nodding off", but I couldn't have missed a moment if I'd tried.

He managed to condense it into 8 words of limited usefulness: "Crazy fit redhead – kills a ton of men." But oh my God, it was so much more.

Lulu's this bombshell seductress, with eternally red lips, cheeks and tresses, who can get any man she chooses. Granted, she ends up either killing them or driving them to suicide, but the allure! It's inimitable. The score's sumptuous and beautiful, with its rising violins and tense trumpets, and in all its elegance, everything Lulu does is pure grace – seduction and slaughter alike – and by the end, I'm left breathless, in awe of the sultry soprano.

"Oh my God. Amazing," I whisper to Eric as the stage goes dark and the heavy velvet curtains are drawn, without tearing my eyes from the final scene. I feel his endearing eyes on me, and I'm grateful for the low lights that hide my starstruck blush.

The atmosphere is almost holy at first, but once the shine of the champagne lights begins to rise again, steady and proper in their pace, the difference in the air is stark, although not wholly unexpected. Suddenly, the air is filled with gentle jazz sounds and tittering and blustering and 'oh, you simply must come down to the chateau'. Just like that, the wordless language evaporates.

Stood by the grand revolving door as we wait for the troops to reconvene, Eric tells me that my favourite bit in the middle where the music ran backwards note for note is called a 'palindrome'.

"I thought you could only have word palindromes?" I query, with a tilt of my head, which he meets with a shake of his,

"You get them in music too."

"Oh." I know he doesn't really, but it sometimes feels as though he knows everything about everything. Maybe he just happens to know most of the things I don't. I narrow my eyes at him.

"How'd you know that was my favourite bit?"

He chuckles, and I suddenly feel very naked,

"Because I know you, kitten." I roll my eyes and hide my smile, because he does know me, inside and out, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Post-Lulu in the fancy foyer feels like one of those movie moments meant for a perfect kiss, and so I tilt my head up to meet his, but his attention is grabbed by a booming voice from far behind me, calling his name.

"Auby!" It calls, and once I turn to face its source, it's clear that the caller is of some importance. His slicked hair and pinstripe suit seem a little old-fashioned to me, but he's stood amidst a group of men dressed just like him, all looking expectantly at Eric, with big phones and big watches and big gregarious grins.

"They look well important..." I note, "more big dogs?"

His grimace says as much, and I wonder if I could ever get used to this rhythm – if I'll ever have to.

"Some Fleet Street blokes... I'll only be a few minutes, my love," he promises, looking almost apologetic as he gives my hand a squeeze, but when the one voice becomes three and the group beckon him with increasingly boisterous vigour, he squeezes my hand a little tighter, and gives me playful eye roll.

"Go," I laugh, "have fun with your 'Fleet Street blokes' – I'll see you...?" I trail off, uncertain of what the night holds next.

He kisses my cheek with all the gratitude of a kid given playdate permission,

"At home. Or the restaurant. I'll text you, alright, love?" He's already backing away, but before he turns to face the smart-suited gaggle, he mouths the words I need to see:

Thursday. I love you.

"Thursday," I grin, a breathy whisper escaping when I mouth it back.

I watch him for a moment, my magnetic man met with friendly slaps and hollers as he joins the group. A few nosy eyes nod over to me, and I can't hear the questions but I feel them, and I fish my phone out of my clutch and scroll through my notifications for something to do other than stress.

Mum's sent me a picture message, and I can't help a little laugh when it opens up a photo of Erys asleep in my bed, one ear flopped against the white pillow. Mum's left a little caption too: She's missing you more than I am! (Only joking)

Mummy would love Lulu. If we'd seen it together, she'd understand what I mean when I say I want to be like her, and then she'd say something witty about how we don't have enough maneater redheads about these days. The thought of the laughs we'd have almost makes me text her and tell her all about it. But, of course, I don't.

"Angie!" Pip calls from outside. He's made it to his stretch and he's sticking out of the sunroof as he beckons me with whininess, at the top of his voice. "Come home with me?"

I cast a look back at Eric, guffawing amidst his 'big dog' friends, then another look forward at his little brother, now playfully pouting with puppy dog eyes.

"Why not," I laugh, slipping my phone back into my clutch. Note to self: text Mum before the end of the night.