Anna was the closest I’d come to having something resembling a relationship or steady(-ish) girlfriend. Everyone kept telling me what a great “match” she was, like I was a playing card in Go Fish: “she’s a part of your class”, “she’s attended the finest universities”, “she’s managed her family’s wealth spectacularly”, “she’s donated to all the major philanthropic organisations”, “she’s refined”.
I wasn’t sure how any of those things made Anna a perfect match since I was literally none of those things. But I tried it for a whole three months. Or at least my version of “try”.
“Well, I have to get going,” Kane said after a sigh.
He set his teacup down on the table and Shay stood along with him.
“You too?” I asked in the middle of again reaching for the bottle of whiskey.
Shay came around to pat me on the shoulder. “Wouldn’t want to interrupt your swim lessons, mate.”
I stared into the pale golden brown of my whiskey in my teacup as my friends headed toward the door to the greenhouse.
Just before they left, I looked up. “Hey, Kane,” I said, drawing his attention over his shoulder, “we’re good, right?”
Kane’s eyes found mine again. He nodded.
“Yeah, Ronan, we’re good,” he said, “but it all just makes you wonder, you know?”
My laughter was weak and quiet before I asked, “Wonder what?”
Kane shrugged. “If you don’t give a goddamn thing in your life any effort, wouldn’t I be pretty stupid to think our friendship was any different?”
I glanced at Shay but found his eyes ducked, head tilted forward, chin on his chest.
I forced a smile and a burst of laughter. “Maybe you’re the one who needs some swim lessons, eh, pal?”
Kane gave me a small smile as he grabbed again for the door handle. “See ya then, Ronan.”
Shay and Kane then left and I sat alone in the greenhouse, the late afternoon sunlight illuminating the waxy tropical leaves along the glass. I started to lift my whiskey-filled teacup to my lips, but then paused, Kane’s parting words echoing in the glass dome.
“Fuck,” I grumbled.
With an annoyed sigh, I pushed myself up and tossed the whiskey into the closest pot. I left the greenhouse and cupped my hands over my mouth.
“Benson,” I shouted. “Cancel the swim lessons, would you? I’m going out.”
Delaney
As I stomped down the long gravel lane of mansions, my pairing of fine silk pyjamas and black stilettos earned plenty of curious glances from the security guards outside of massive wrought-iron fences, gardeners bent under the sun in front of intricate flower beds, and maids leaning against the stone facades on a quick smoke break between loads of laundry.
They watched me pass with bored gazes and tired yawns, not a single one of them bothering to stand up straighter, nod in greeting, or put out their cigarette butt beneath their heel. The message was obvious: they knew I was one of them.
Maybe it was the bed head, maybe it was laptop tucked defensively under my arm as if it were a flat screen TV on Black Friday, maybe it was simply the fact that I was walking instead of being driven in a Rolls Royce or Mercedes or, heaven fucking forbid, a Lincoln. But they could see it, they could see that I was just as poor and downtrodden and unlucky as them.
Apparently everyone else in the world knew my place, everyone but me. I was the only one who thought that maybe, just maybe I could climb my way up that diamond-encrusted ladder with golden rungs. Any one of the gardeners I stalked past with angry, blister-inducing stomps could have been my father, any one of the maids could have been my mother.
They worked all their lives for rich people just like the ones sipping mimosas beside perfectly heated pools in the backyards of all these mansions. They did what they were told, quietly and without protest. They came home with sliced fingers, aching backs, and silent lips. And I never understood it.
We used to butt heads all the time when I insisted they needed to stick up for themselves, strike out on their path, give those rich assholes a massive middle finger where the sun didn’t shine. My parents would irritate the hell out of me because they would always reply with the same thing: know your place, Delaney. You’ll be happier if you just learn to know. your. place.
I tried to prove them wrong. I tried to show them that you decide your own place in life, that nothing was out of reach. I tried internships and business school and leadership summits and wealth accrual classes and yet…
And yet these gardeners and maids and minimum wage security guards, all ghosts of my parents, saw me for what I was and what I would always be: nothing.
“What the fuck are you looking at?” I snarled at a security guard whose eyes followed me as I walked on. “I didn’t steal this laptop, if that’s what you’re—”
I was cut off suddenly by the roar of a sports car hurtling down the gravel lane. I jumped back as a cherry-red coupe convertible whipped around with a squeal of tyres and a cloud of hot dust to block my path.
“What the hell?” I shouted, choking and coughing as I waved my arms in front of my face.
When I finally managed to blink the dust from my teary eyes, the cloud had settled enough for me to see the car stopped less than a foot from the pointy toes of my stilettoes.
Ronan nudged his sunglasses down to the bridge of his nose and eyed me over the frames with a toothy smile. “Get in.”
“You could have killed me, you goddamn maniac!”
Ronan made a dismissive noise with his lips and then said, “Don’t be a baby, Delaney. Get in.”
“A baby?” I practically shrieked, stepping up to point at the front tyre of the Maserati. “Do you see how close you got, asshole?”
Ronan’s head fell back with an exacerbated sigh.
“I have insurance,” he said, but then hesitated. “Or at least I’m pretty sure I have insurance.”
I gripped my hands into tight fists and let out a frustrated yell. I kicked up pebbles against the shiny paint job and grumbled a “fuck you”.
I moved to step around the car, only for Ronan to shift into gear and pull up to block me. I slapped my palms against the hood.
“Get the hell out of my way,” I shouted at him. “And get the hell out of my life.”
I tried the other direction to get around the car, but Ronan was just as quick to reverse. I groaned and stared up at the sky, sending a silent plea to whoever was up there.
“Why don’t you just get in?” Ronan said. “Just get in, Delaney.”
I crossed my arms over the laptop held against my chest. “Why don’t you just give me one reason why the fuck I should?” I asked.
Ronan drummed his fingers against his steering wheel. “Okay, okay,” he said finally. “I admit it’s been a bit of a bumpy start.”
Snorting, I raised an eyebrow and repeated incredulously, “A bit?”
“I’ve never been a teacher before!” Ronan protested. “I’m learning on the job here.”
“And you had to learn not to ask your student to strip?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him.
Ronan wasn’t fully successful in keeping his lips from curling up devilishly at the sides. I huffed before trying again to get around his convertible.