Show off more leg, sis. Your tips will be higher.
The note wasn’t signed. It didn’t need to be.
I held the black material to my chest as tears overflowed my eyes, cascading down my cheeks. Blinking them away, I looked at my watch. The last room on my schedule took longer to clean than I planned. I was due at the airport in less than an hour. I didn’t have time to go back to my apartment and grab any of the stashed money. If I could, maybe I could buy a dress in New York.
“Right. You can’t afford a dress from New York,” I spoke to the empty room.
As it was, I wouldn’t arrive in New York until nearly midnight. The party began early Saturday evening. This dress was ruined. At least I still had a plain black cocktail-length dress in my carry-on.
“Mace, I’m sorry,” I said with a sigh.
Fifty-eight minutes later, as I fought traffic on I-90, my nerves were as tattered as the dress. The plane ticket Mason sent instructed me to be at the airport two hours before flight time. I was still a ways away.
Once at O’Hare, I searched for a parking place in long-term parking, and caught a bus. By the time I made it to the airport, I was a hot, sweaty mess. My normally wild hair was a mass of curls, many sticking to my neck. Thankfully, with no checked bags, I could go straight to security.
Shit.
The digital sign warned of a forty-minute delay before accessing the terminal.
Mason’s declaration came back to me, urging me to keep trying. “There isn’t a woman alive I trust more than you.”
Finally, with TSA behind me, I grabbed my bag and ran to the terminal and gate. When I arrived—out of breath—two women stood at a tall desk. An elderly man appeared to be the last passenger as he showed his ticket.
“Hello,” I called. “Please, I’m supposed to be on that flight.”
“To LaGuardia?” one woman asked.
“Yes.” I fumbled for the ticket I’d printed.
After scanning it, the woman smiled. “Relax. You made it.”
“I was afraid you’d give away my seat.”
She looked at my ticket, her screen, and back to me. “No, Ms. Pierce. Your seat is waiting for you in first class.”
“What? My ticket didn’t say that.”
She shrugged. “It appears you’ve been upgraded.” She winked. “Take it as a good omen.”
“I could use one of those.”
“Have a good flight.”
Making my way down the long walkway, I finally arrived at the airplane’s entrance.
“Ticket, please,” a man in blue pants and matching shirt with the airline emblem asked.
I handed it his way.
“Miss, we’re about to take off, but since you’re first class, I can get you something to drink, if you’d like.”
I considered the amount of cash I had on hand. “Do you take credit cards or only cash?”
He grinned. “You’re in first class. Drinks are free.” He leaned closer and whispered, “That’s a misconception. You paid for them with the ticket.”
“I was upgraded.”
“Well, you must have a good fairy godmother.”
I sighed. “I wish.”
“How about a celebratory drink? We have wine, beer, and mixed drinks.”
“After the day I’ve had,” I said, “I’ll say yes to that drink. White wine, please.”
“Coming right up.”
5
As soon as I met Mason’s green stare on the sidewalk outside arrivals at LaGuardia, I gave my brother the bad news. “Mason, I tried, but I don’t think I’m prepared for this ball thing.”
Under the overhead lighting his smile glistened, a one-thousand-watt grin. I eyed him up and down. He was a far ways from the poor boy growing up on the South Side. In brown leather loafers, fitted pants with a trim waist and crisp pleat, and a button-down shirt tucked into his pants and unbuttoned at the neck, he looked downright dapper.
In contrast, I was a rumpled mess after nearly nine hours of cleaning, fighting traffic, and a few glasses of wine on the flight. Thankfully, they also had food. I fidgeted with my messy hair as Mason lifted my carry-on. “You’re definitely not prepared,” he said, “if this is all you brought. Fuck, Lorna, don’t you know how to girl?”
My neck straightened as I sucked in a haggard breath and pushed my breasts forward. “I don’t know, Mace. I’ve been doing it my whole life.”
“Whoa, tiger.” He laughed as a big black SUV stopped at the curb. “Our ride, sis.” We both climbed into the back seat. The driver barely acknowledged me as Mason told him the name of our hotel.
“Shit, Lorna,” Mason said as we drove the streets of New York. “I screwed up by not giving you more details. I’ve been too fucking busy. There’s some serious shit happening here and back in Chicago, too.”
My eyes went from him to the driver and back. Granted, the interior of the SUV was only lit by some weird blue ambient lighting and the occasional illumination of outside streetlights, but I was pretty sure he could see my concern.
“He’s a Sparrow. No one gets near any of us who isn’t.”
“I don’t even know what that means.” I turned toward the window as the SUV entered a highway.
Mason reached for my hand. “It means, I’m sorry if you’ve been worried about what you’d wear. I asked you here to save me from having a date. Now, get a good night’s sleep, and in the morning, you’ll find out what the Sparrow connection means.”
“What does it mean?”
My brother smiled. “It means, after tomorrow, I might have a better chance of convincing you to move to my new place.”
“I have to be back to work Sunday morning to cover for Jane.”
“Yeah, I know.” Mace handed me a paper ticket. “I booked you a three a.m. Sunday red-eye to O’Hare. There’ll be a car to take you from the masquerade ball straight to the airport. You’ll need to leave by midnight.”
I turned to him with my tired eyes widening. “Wait, what? You didn’t mention masquerade.”
“Hmm. I didn’t?”
“Shit, Mace.”
“So, tomorrow morning,” he continued, “I’m sorry if you wanted to sightsee, maybe another trip. Your day is full. I have work I need to do with the Sparrows, so I probably won’t be around until closer to our departure for the party.”
I was trying to make sense of what he was saying. Maybe my brother was a linguistics expert, and instead of English, he was speaking another language.
He rattled off my schedule. “Your wake-up call will be at eight-thirty, breakfast will be delivered at nine. Then there is a fitting for your dress. Next, a masseuse and lunch. Oh” —his green eyes smiled my way— “I ordered your breakfast—standard fare—but just tell the server at breakfast what you want for lunch and snack. Lunch will be at twelve-thirty and the snack about an hour before we leave. Never attend one of these parties on an empty stomach. The champagne flows like water.”
“I-I can’t pay for any of this.”
“No one asked you to. You’re helping the Sparrows. The Sparrows help you.”