“We come bearing bags,” Sharon says, holding up a large fabric tote, which is empty.
Her dark curly hair bounces up and down, matching her level of excitement.
“We’re taking you shopping and then to the ball tonight,” she continues. “Have you heard?”
I just look at them, surprised that they would even bring this up. I’ve heard about the ball. Everybody’s heard of it. It’s some kind of post-wedding rehearsal dinner, pre-wedding shindig being put on by some prince of some foreign land.
Apparently, his princess bride is from Denver, which makes no sense to me, but of course the news has been all over town and everyone’s been buzzing about it. The royal couple is getting married in a smaller ceremony tomorrow and having a large ball tonight, since it’s Halloween, after their rehearsal dinner, for anyone who wants to attend and celebrate with them.
The main reason I know about this— other than somehow hearing about it everywhere— is, of course, through my step sisters. They’ve been going on and on about how this prince is so hot and how he’s not really in love with the girl he’s marrying or she’s not in love with him or something.
Scandalous rumor has it that she’s never once visited him in his country and that she flaunts around town with other men, but is marrying him for the money and prestige and all that stuff. Which reminds me of someone else I know.
Again, as if her ears are ringing, my step mother butts in.
“No, you cannot go to the ball,” she says, as if I’m twelve years old. “I already told you— you have to work. These invoices and spreadsheets are not going to get done by themselves, you know.”
“That’s right, they’re not,” Sharon says, and I can tell she’s going to add something snarky. Unlike me, she has no duty to her deceased father’s memory to be loving or polite to my step mother. “But I don’t see what prevents you from being able to do them.”
“Young lady, we will not have any of that in my office,” my step mother snaps back, even though this is not her office. “And just so you know, I would do these spreadsheets and invoices myself but I have plans tonight.”
“Oh,” Nikki says, sounding almost as flippant as Sharon just was. “You’re planning to go to the Ball as well. Aren’t you a little mature for such things?”
“Nikki,” I hiss at her, not wanting any more conflict.
But my step mother just laughs.
“What I have planned is none of your business,” she says.
She’s right and I’m sure it involves that boyfriend she’s been seeing, so I don’t even want to know about it.
“Now I’m going to get out of here and let you guys talk about whatever silly things you were talking about, for a while,” she continues. “But I mean it when I say that these invoices have to be sent by eight p.m. or else.”
She leaves and I look at my best friends, resigned to my fate, as usual.
“Oh, my God,” I exclaim. “I can’t believe I have to stay here and do this shitty office work at the last minute. I thought she had done this ages ago and that all I’d have to do was look over them and then submit them. That was the plan, but of course she never does any work.”
“You really should come to the Ball with us,” Nikki says. “It’s going to be so fun. We’re going shopping for costumes first. Word is that everyone’s supposed to wear really dressy princess type dresses but with some kind of a Halloween theme.”
I look at her with a raised eyebrow. What is this, Middle School?
“You know,” Nikki continues, sensing my skepticism. “You could be like Zombie Sleeping Beauty— oops, she never woke up! Or Vampire Ursula, still haunting poor Ariel for all eternity and trying to suck her blood after she’s taken away her vocal cords…”
“Now that’s some seriously twisted shit,” Sharon interrupts.
Damn. I want to hear more of Nikki’s imaginative costume ideas. She’s actually selling me on this crazy Ball.
“How do you even come up with that?” Sharon asks. “I’m pretty sure that’s not what this prince and his bride had in mind.”
“Why not?” Nikki says, shrugging innocently. “It is a Halloween party and those are my interpretations of Halloween Princess costumes. What’s yours? Because so far the only ideas have come from me…”
“For one thing, Ursula was not a princess,” Sharon protests. “And I don’t even know why you would want to go like that. It’s not like she wore pretty dresses. She was purple and had all those bulging octopus legs. How would you even fit that under a dress or find a costume like that?”
“You’re taking me a little too literally,” Nikki replies. “I was just throwing out some hypothetical ideas.”
“Your hypothetical ideas are like something out of the Twilight Zone,” Sharon says.
I love it when these two banter like this. It’s so hilarious.
“Well then, they’re perfect for Halloween,” Nikki insists, as there is yet another knock at the door.
Although I was surprised by Nikki and Sharon showing up— and suggesting I go to some twisted Halloween wedding Ball for some Prince from some far-away land, no less— I’m pretty sure I know who this visitor is.
“Aunt Ashley!” I exclaim, giving her a hug as she holds a pizza box precariously in her other hand. “How nice of you to stop by.”
“I told you I was going to bring you a pizza since you had to slave away in the Dungeon,” she says, as Nikki takes the pizza box from her and sets it on the desk. “I just didn’t know you would already have company. Hi ladies. Hope I brought enough slices.”
Looking back and forth from Sharon and Nikki’s face to the empty bag that Nikki is holding in her in her hand, Aunt Ashley asks, “Oh sorry, am I interrupting something?”
“Oh no,” Nikki says. “We were just discussing what Halloween princesses we’re going to dress as tonight, after we can convince Ella to come shopping with us and to this fantastical Ball that’s going on.”
“Oh, I heard about that Ball,” Aunt Ashley says. “But, I guess, who hasn’t, right? Everyone around town has been talking about it.”
“It’s not every day something like this happens in this cow town,” I laugh, since Denver used to be a cow town but certainly isn’t any more.
Still, nothing like this ever happens here. Or anywhere, probably.
“Yeah, well, Ella’s is not allowed to go,” Sharon says, with a pout. “It’s as if she’s still a kid or something.”
“Not allowed to go?” Aunt Ashley repeats, perplexed. “Says who?”
“I know, right!” Sharon snorts.
“Who do you think?” I ask her, trying hard to keep my eye rolling to a minimum.
Aunt Ashley, my father’s sister, has been my closest support since he passed away. I don’t know what I would do without her. And I opened up to her a little bit about my feelings for my step mother and step sisters. Even though I don’t say that much, she understands.
“What could possibly be so important that you can’t miss in order to go out on Halloween night? Seriously,” she says, fuming.
“I know,” I tell her. “But it doesn’t surprise me. I think the real reason she’s making me do all these spreadsheets and invoices – I gesture to the pile of papers on the desk – is to ensure that I won’t be competition for her daughters at this Ball where they seem to think they’ll be able to snag a Prince.”
“That makes no sense,” my aunt says. “He’s getting married.”
“Oh, you know that doesn’t stop them,” I say, not even trying to refrain from rolling my eyes as noticeably as possible this time.
I had already told my friends and Aunt Ashley what had happened when I walked in on Sheila and Paul, which had won me the pizza my Aunt Ashley just brought, in condolence. They had said that that was seriously fucked up.
But, just like my step mother making me stay in tonight, Paul cheating on me with Sheila didn’t really surprise me. I guess I’m still numb regarding the whole experience but part of me is really glad it happened and that it’s over. I needed to know sooner rather than later what a complete douchebag Paul was.
“Ella, your step mother does not have the power over you that you think she does,” Sharon says, like she’s told me many times in the past.
“Yeah,” Aunt Ashley chimes in. “What right does she have to tell you that you have to do these invoices and those spreadsheets?”
“Well, they need to go out today since it’s the end of the month,” I reply. “And she told me she was either going to do them or have the assistant do them but that was obviously a lie. So even though she can’t technically make me do them, if I don’t do them, they won’t get done and Dad’s business— his whole legacy— will fall apart.”
Aunt Ashley crinkles her forehead as she looks at me, her blue eyes glinting as her eyebrows get closer together and she ponders what I just said.
“How do you know that all the stuff she’s been telling you is even true?” she asks. “I can’t imagine your dad wanting to give half of the company to her and her daughters when he knew you’re one smart cookie who knows how to take care of the family business.”
“Well, she was his wife,” I say. “I guess people do crazy things for love. Plus, I saw his Will.”
I can’t help but let a flashback into my mind even though I try to block it out. When my step mother sat me down at the kitchen table to tell me that my dad had died, it was just like what had happened with my mom except even worse. Because I didn’t have anyone there who truly loved and comforted me, like my dad did when my mom died.
I still remember my step mom drumming her red manicured fingernails on the kitchen table. As if this news was just an inconvenience she had to tell me, a bother she had to get over with quickly, in between her manicure and her massage appointments.
“Ella, I really hate to tell you this but I just got a call from the hospital and your father has suffered a heart attack and passed away,” she said, in a string of words strung together so quickly I could barely make them out.
“What?” I had exploded, standing up out of the chair and wanting to run away from this house forever.
But she produced a Will that my father had signed, giving us equal share interest in the company and saying it would be both of ours for as long as we could get along and work together. So, if I wanted to save my dad’s business, I had to put up with the three people I dislike the most in the world. It’s pretty obvious that the feeling is mutual. That’s why things have not been going well so far, to say the least.
“Look,” my aunt says, patting my hand. “Why don’t I call up your assistant and offer to pay overtime if she can do these invoices for you? And I’ll stay and supervise to make sure they get done,” she adds, knowing that there’s no way I would leave all of this up to an assistant. My aunt knows me better than anybody else now.
“No way, Aunt Ashley,” I tell her. “There’s no way I’d let you do this for me. That’s very sweet of you to offer but I have responsibilities and I’ll stay here and do them.”
“No,” says my aunt, putting her foot down literally as well as figuratively, stomping it on the cement floor of the basement. “You are going to go to this Ball with your friends and have a fun time. You deserve it. You just got rid of that total asshole boyfriend you had, and you need to celebrate that fact.”
“Really?” I ask her, rushing to her arms and hugging her.
She hugs me back and I’ve never been so happy to have my father’s sister still in my life, even though I can’t have him or my mother in it.
“Really,” she says with a smile. “Really, really, really. And don’t make me say ‘really’ again because I’m really sick of saying it.”
Laughing, I say, “Well, I have to be back by midnight because the software I use to send out the invoices is password encrypted and I don’t give the password to anyone, not even the assistant. One time my dad did that and found out that the assistant at the time was trying to commit Medicaid fraud by billing for fraudulent things and pocketing the money. So, lesson learned— never trust anyone but myself to do it. Plus, I have to check over what she does just to be super sure. And my step mother said she was going to be back to make sure that I did it, which I’m sure means coming back to make sure that I stay here all night, so I’m just going to have to pretend as if I did…”
“Ella, relax,” my aunt says, and only then do I realize I’ve been talking non-stop like a madwoman.
“Okay,” I say, and I’m really trying, but I can’t. “If she comes to check on me any earlier than that, just tell her that you’re helping me do this and I ran out for some food, then text me and I’ll come back, okay?”
“No way,” Nikki says. “You’ll be way too drunk for that.”
Looking at my aunt, she says, “She does not know what she’s talking about. She’s too sober. Do not hold her to this later. I repeat: She’s going to be too drunk to work later.”
“That’s exactly how I hope and expect the night will go,” my aunt says, with a smile.
“You really did arrange for them to make it possible for me to go,” I tell my aunt. “Thank you so much.”
Then, turning to my friends, I joke, “Thanks to my fairy Godmother here, it looks like I’ll be going to this friggin’ Ball after all.”
“Too bad the prince is already spoken for,” Sharon jokes back.
“Not if my step sisters have anything to do with it,” I say.
Then, getting very serious all of a sudden, I say, “Oh no. I’d forgotten that Sheila and Gloria are going to be at the Ball. They’ll see me there and tell their mom.”
“Well, who cares?” asks Aunt Ashley. “I’ll just tell her I’m helping you out so you could go. We don’t even need to be so surreptitious about this. I really think you’re over-thinking things…”
…as usual, I know she wants to add, but doesn’t.
“Yes we do need to be like that,” I tell her sadly. “She holds everything over my head. If I don’t do what she wants she makes my life a living hell, and I feel that I need to get along with her for my dad’s sake. He clearly wanted it. It’s even in his Will. Plus, he married her.”
“Well, that’s very nice of you to do what your father would want,” my aunt says. “But sometimes you just might have to do what you want.”
“I know,” I tell her, shaking my head. “And I want to go to this Ball with my two best friends.”
“Well, I have a little solution for that problem of your step sisters being there,” Nikki says. “And it’s called a costume party. You’ll be in disguise so they won’t even know it’s you.”
I’m left feeling like an idiot for forgetting this fact.
“Oh yeah,” I tell them. “That’s definitely a solution. So let’s go shopping for our crazy costumes for this Ball.”
They take my arms and walked me to the door as if I’m in danger of changing my mind. And they’re probably not wrong. I guess they know me nearly as well as my aunt does.
“Have a good night,” Aunt Ashley says, as she sits down and picks up her cell phone to call the assistant to come do the spreadsheets.
“I definitely think it’ll be a good night thanks to you guys,” I say, genuinely smiling for the first time in a very long time.
See? I told you things would be starting to look up soon enough. I just don’t know why I can never believe that myself.