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girls & growth

—

THE DAY SOON came. Not the day of the art show, but a day for myself of peace and quiet in the Gates household. In a swift — but just not swift enough — manner, I had allowed time to run its course without putting up a fight until finally, everyone was out of the house. George had stayed behind for a bit longer than he should've, in the sense that he was married and yet his wife was not the person who had to witness his towel slipping from off of his waist to the floor around his feet, but also because he had to go to work if he wanted his company to run well.

So all the kids were rushed on out of there, the maids were running errands for Selena's party — which was a week from today — and leaving me out of it for the hell of it, and Selena was busy with a hair and nail appointment for a gala she was going to later on this evening. Which meant that this was the perfect time to see if I could find out anything more for Teddy's case, and if not, then I could have a little fun around here. Either way, it was a win-win situation.

Of course, to win some, you had to lose some. And the 'some' in this case was my alone time because a distinctly shrill calling of my name from upstairs reminded me that I was definitely not here alone. No, Sadie was here in the house and not at school like she should've been headed to right now.

I groaned, making my way for the staircase. I didn't have the jurisdiction to discipline these children beyond talking to them, so if I had any offensive move for this occasion then it was a stern talking-to. Of course, that wasn't going to be easy when listening wasn't really her strong suit.

When I reached the top of the staircase, I was turning the corner when another girl slammed right into me knocking me off of my feet. Thankfully, I was some distance away from the first step or else I would've tumbled backwards down the stairs, while the other girl fell flat on her butt a few inches away. We were both clutching our heads in searing pain and I knew now how Teddy must've felt after I threw that rock at him.

"Ouch," I heard the other girl say, rubbing the affected area as if that would help subside the pain. I knew the only thing taking care of this was time or an ice pack. "What was that for? Not to mention who the hell are you?"

I frowned, which of course, only made the pain swell a little more by flexing those areas of my face. "I'm the maid around here," I said with as much authority as I could muster. "Who are you?"

Of course, I knew who she was, she was one of Sadie's best friends who came over to the house on occasion and gave everyone hell while Jacob stared at her in admiration — and a whole barrel full of lust — from afar. I had dealt with her maybe two or three times during the course of the seven months since I had worked here, but usually the other maids had to suffer with working for her. After all, she was the daughter of some kind of movie star, something which she threw around like a baseball.

"I'm Erica Watson, you big freak," she said as she managed to get herself up from off of the floor. "And I shouldn't have to be bothered by you or the chance that you and I could bump heads in this tiny house because my dad has starred in too many movies for me to be doing this. So if you're expecting an apology, look forward to giving me your own."

I furrowed my brow, trying to keep up with everything she said because she had done it so quickly in such a nasally voice, but what I got from that was rather unpleasant. Especially when she was standing in the way of me doing my job which was to get Sadie to school before I got my head planted on the wall like one of those deer in what George called his "man cave." I had actually pressing matters to attend to. "How about I don't do any of that," I said, patting her on the shoulder. "Because instead, I could be asking you where Sadie Gates is. You know, the girl who I actually work for around here."

Erica rolled her eyes and while I knew she had something up her sleeve to use against me and she definitely wasn't feeling defeated, she was also not going to waste her time belittling a maid.

"Whatever," she huffed, "Sadie's in her room right now. Probably PMSing if you know what I mean."

"The point is that we all know," I said under my breath, but even if she did hear me, she still walked around me to go down the steps and I watched her as she left, surprised that anyone — even Sadie Eleanor Gates — could be friends with a girl like that.

Pushing the thought of it out of my mind, I made my way to Sadie's bedroom which was further down the hall. The last time I was here, I had to touch one of her used bras, which was definitely not a pleasant experience. So I had pretty low expectations for what I would be doing today when I found her. The door was propped slightly open, but not enough for me to try and peek through it without making myself look like a complete idiot, so I lightly tapped on it instead.

"Come in," Sadie said in a low grumble. When I did, I found her still under the covers besides her head which peeked up from out of them as she watched me approach her with a wary look in her eyes. "I'm not going to school, Marilyn. You can't make me."

I sighed. "You know it's my head on a platter if I don't. So you better have a good reason why you're still in the bed."

"I'm just not feeling good," she answered too quickly. Thankfully, I just had to give her that look to let her know that I didn't buy it and I was waiting for the full truth. "Okay, it's about my friend, Erica. You met her, right?"

"I wish I never had," I said before sitting down at the foot of the bed. "What happened between you guys?"

"I broke up with my boyfriend a few days ago and she's already pounced on him," she said, "so she decided that just coming here and telling me about it would make everything better, but it doesn't. What kind of friend would do that to someone?"

"Wow," I was shocked. "Are you okay? Why did you have to break up with him? I thought things were going okay with you two."

"He still uses Facebook," she said before bursting into tears, raising the covers up a little higher so that now, all I could see was her raven-black hair and perfectly sculpted eyebrows. "I just had to dump him because I didn't need that kind of person in my life."

Wow, remind me to delete my old Facebook account.

"I trusted him so much, but he just had to betray me like that," she continued. "But that's not even the worst part. Erica got with him at Kyle Glasgow's — you know that guy who I was telling you about a few months ago — birthday bash and had the nerve to tell me she wanted to take things to the next level. I hadn't even gotten over the fact that he said he wishes I joined Facebook he could poke me and not in the dirty way."

I had no idea who Kyle Glasgow was, nor what the dirty way to poke someone was, but I kept my mouth shut because it was better than nothing when it came to Sadie Gates. Maybe this could turn into some kind of teaching moment.

"Well, maybe think of it as a Cinderella story deep down in disguise," I said to comfort her. "That if you take the Cinderella approach to this situation, then you'll come out on top in the end."

"And rely on affirmative action?" At my questioning look, she added, "oh please, the whole point of that story was that she was poor. How else would she get all of those hand outs?"

"Hand outs? Your whole life is a hand out, Sadie," I said, rolling my eyes. "And I meant to be humble and keep your head down, like Cinderella was, and wait for your shining moment to come."

Sadie fully dropped the covers from her face this time, showing her in all of her tear-ruined mascara glory. "You're right. Besides not being poor, no offense, I have what it takes to be Cinderella. I'm hot, my siblings are the worst, and I have an evil stepmother. Too bad we're too rich to have mice in the house."

I tapped her knee affectionately. "Oh trust me, they're there. You're just rich enough to have maids who take care of them before you have to."

"Well regardless, I still have what it takes to be a new and improved Cinderella. And when my big moment comes, I'm really going to show her what happens to people who poach their best friends' exes." Sadie looked pretty darn satisfied with herself, so I didn't want to stop her and tell her what I really meant, even though I really should have done so. That was just another bridge to cross when I come to it.

"Okay, how about this," I offered, getting up from the bed. "You take some time and maybe redo your makeup and stuff, while I call the headmaster and tell her you're going to be in no later than third period? Does that sound like a plan?"

Sadie nodded, getting up from the bed and shooting me a thankful smile and I could swear it was the most I had gotten from out of her in forever. I wish that my eyes were like a camera, that I could take pictures of my memories and hold onto them forever, but such luxury wasn't afforded to anyone. I just had to make do with what I got from her and smile back.

"Alright," Sadie said, making me realize that I'd been standing there for a bit longer than I meant to. "Get on out of here, Marilyn. I need to get ready for school. Remember?"

"Right," I said, making my way for the door. When I reached the frame of it, I turned back around to find that she was still watching me. "And just so you know, if you ever want to talk to me about stuff like this, give me a shout. I'm usually always here."

Sadie ran a hand through her hair, as if something to keep her physically busy as she mulled the thought of that over. I knew I was pushing it, but I had made it this far already and to give up while the iron was hot would ruin what I was crafting.

"I'll think about it," she said with a huff of finality that told me my work here was done, at least for the day. "You'll be ready with the car, right?"

I nodded. "I'll be on it."

—

I FELT EXTREMELY self-conscious about plenty of things in my life. For one, I was always concerned about how little money I had or how I hadn't achieved my personal goals in life yet. I was twenty-four years old, so I only had six years until I was thirty. My original plan at the end of high school was to be well-set with an actual career and a husband by at least twenty-seven so that I had time to be a hot working mom and I always had a fantasy of being the parent at my child's school that everyone respected and adored. It was terribly silly, but it wasn't hard to get swept away in the idea of achieving something so basic. Now, however, I was beginning to evaluate more.

So I was very glad to hear that Teddy had some interviews lined up for me as a thank you for helping him with this case. I really needed the extra financial support going forward if I wanted to go forward with working on my art while working on having a job as well.

Another thing that made me self-conscious was to do things for others. It gave me the fear of failing them, even if it's something that was terribly simple. So when I got a text from an unknown number asking for a favor, I almost deleted and blocked it immediately until they revealed themselves to be Violet. I already had enough trouble dealing with Sadie's ex-boyfriend, so to be talking one on one with my friend and boss' ex-wife — that was just a bit too much for one day.

ME: what do you want, Violet? I'm a bit busy right now.

VIOLET: please just talk to Teddy for me.

ME: how did you even get my number?

VIOLET: arm wrestled the assistant for it. it's a long story.

I sighed, staring at my phone in disbelief. If Teddy knew I was talking to Violet, he would probably try to kill me. But whatever message she had for me to relay to Teddy seemed like it was very important. Teddy could try to murder me if he wanted to, I could throw another rock at him anytime.

ME: alright, so what do you have for me?

I had a bad feeling about this, but at this point, there's no point in going back. Just going forward.