Crown of York Read online

  Before I got to York, I’d never had the opportunity to wear anything like this. You know what I mean; anything really nice.

  I’ve been to Saks Fifth Avenue a few times, just out of curiosity, but I’ve never tried anything on.

  What would be the point? I couldn’t afford any of those dresses anyway and I didn’t want to waste the sales assistant’s time.

  Looking back, the reason I never enjoyed shopping for clothes much is that I’ve always been uncomfortable in my skin. The clothes I did try on at discount stores never fit quite right and I always assumed that it was because my body was so… misshapen.

  But the thing is that I now realize that it wasn’t my body at all.

  It was the wrapping I was trying to adorn it with.

  When Mirabelle came with the stylist and the array of outfits for me to try on, I suddenly realized that it was the duty of the clothes to fit me, not for me to fit the clothes.

  Of course, I still wish some parts of me were smaller or tighter or had less cellulite, but all in all, higher-end clothes had a much better fit. And if they didn’t have a good fit right from the beginning, the seamstress fixed it right away.

  Do you want it tighter here?

  Looser there? My wish was her command.

  And the final result?

  I glance at myself in the hallway mirror.

  The black dress with delicate beading complements my body in every possible way. It shapes it into having a small waist and plumper butt. The heart-shaped neckline brings my breasts up to the heavens without cutting off my breathing or making any other part of me, especially in the back, bulge out.

  I have no idea how much this dress costs out there in the real world, but right now it makes me feel like a million bucks. And I appreciate that.

  The mirrored hallway is distracting since it serves as a reminder that I’ve never looked this good before.

  But I try to focus my attention on the task at hand; Jamie.

  Where did he go?

  How can I find him?

  After making sure that he is not hiding in this area of the house, I head back toward the main dining hall. I check the kitchen again, and then the area just outside where other servers are gathering. He’s nowhere to be found.

  Suddenly, I see someone sneaking into the bathroom across the hallway, near the rear entrance. From the back, it could very well be him, but I have to get closer to make sure.

  I knock on the door and the man’s voice says, “Occupied.”

  Just with that one word, I know that it’s him.

  I haven’t heard it in I don’t know how long and yet it’s timbre and tone is etched into my mind.

  It belongs to a man I thought would change my life. He did, just not in the way I imagined.

  I wait patiently outside without another word until he comes out. He emerges, wiping his hands on the back of his pants.

  “Hello, Jamie,” I say, stopping him dead in his tracks.

  I wait for him to say something, but he doesn’t. Does he think he can make me disappear by ignoring me?

  “Well, I’m here,” I say, crossing my arms across my chest. He runs his fingers across his hair and looks down at the floor.

  “How’s your grandmother doing?” I ask.

  Again, he says nothing.

  At first, I liked the power that I had over him. I liked that I could make him squirm. But then it starts to get irritating.

  I have questions.

  I deserve answers.

  “Aren’t you going to say anything?” I demand to know.

  “I need to get back to work,” Jamie says, walking around me and heading straight into the kitchen.

  “Are you just going to pretend I’m not here?” I yell after him.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he mumbles.

  I follow him closely, unsure as to what to do next.

  I want to punch him.

  I want to pull his hair and kick him as hard as I can. But something is holding me back.

  Chapter 7 - Everly

  When there’s another test…

  As Jamie disappears into the kitchen, I try one last time.

  “It’s you, Jamie, I know it’s you!” I yell after him.

  I resist every urge in my body and do not attack him.

  I have to play this smart.

  They know that he was the one who got me here.

  Is that why he’s the one serving us dinner? Is this a test? Are they doing this to find out how I’d react?

  Instead of following him, I go back to my seat and see that Paige has already started in on my dessert, despite Olivia’s best efforts.

  “It’s okay,” I joke. “You can have all of it.”

  “No, she cannot,” Savannah pipes in. “This is the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted and it would be a travesty if you didn’t have a bite.”

  I nod and plunge my fork into the toppled-over tower of chocolate. Despite the fact that my mouth is quickly conquered by a confectionary masterpiece, I try to focus on the task at hand.

  “Wow, this is delicious,” I mumble and nod through the bites.

  “Told you.” Savannah laughs. “Now, you owe me.”

  The girls start to chat about the dinner and the contest to come. Everyone seems genuinely excited to find out about the next stage in the process, probably not knowing that we are already smack in the middle of one.

  I’m sure that they are watching. Passing judgement. But what is there to gauge from a dinner?

  Our table manners? How well we interact with others?

  A few moments later, the servers emerge. Dressed in black and white tuxedos and with tails, they resemble a line of penguins. Their hair and facial expressions are identical. None of them are meant to stand out from the pack.

  Yet, I spot Jamie immediately.

  Third from the back.

  He is cowering a bit, not walking with his head held high like the rest.

  Is he expecting a reaction from me? An attack? An assault?

  “Jamie?!” A shriek emanates from somewhere near me.

  It’s so high and shrill that it takes me a moment to realize that it’s coming from Paige. Another moment later, she’s on her feet and waving her arms.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” she yells, throwing herself at him.

  When they collide, the bottle that Jamie is holding falls to the floor and shatters. Red liquid mixes with glass and spreads along the tiles, quickly filling in the grout.

  When I reach her, Paige is slapping Jamie across the face over and over. He is pushing her away from him without much success.

  “Paige, stop, stop, please,” I whisper in her ear and grab one of her arms. She manages to break free and clock him right in the face. When her fist collides with his chin, his legs let go from under him. No longer in any control, his feet swing up into the air and he lands on his back onto the glass.

  “Aghh!” he yells out in pain.

  “Serves you right, you asshole!” Paige yells and kicks him in his ribs. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  Tears stream down her cheeks and mix with the mascara and foundation running down her face.

  Her anguish produces thick, all consuming sobs which echo around the dining room.

  Silence falls as everyone listens and waits, unsure as to what to do next.

  Despite how much pleasure it gives me to watch her heels kick Jamie in the ribs, I pull Paige away from him.

  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” I apologize to the other girls and the waiters.

  I don’t need to, of course. I’ve done nothing wrong, but the apology is really for those people whom I can’t see.

  I can feel them judging Paige and I don’t want them to judge her too harshly.

  “You don’t know who this is, Everly,” Paige whispers. “He’s…”

  “Shh,” I say, putting my hand over her lips.

  “He’s—“

  “Shhh,” I whisper. �
�Please don’t say anything else. Please.”

  As I plead, Paige’s eyebrows furrow and she looks at me with devilish eyes.

  “Wait a second! What’s going on here?” she demands. “Why are you trying to calm me down? Why aren’t you on my side?”

  I don’t have an answer. When she told me about Jamie before and that he was her way in, I didn’t tell her my own story. I didn’t know if she had experienced the horrors of this place and I’d made that mistake already with Alessandra, so I didn’t want to make the same one with Paige.

  “Why are you protecting him?” Paige asks, pushing my hands away from her.

  “Paige, please, calm down,” I say. “Let’s just try to clean this place up and continue with dinner.”

  “How could you be such a fake? I thought you were my friend!”

  “I am.”

  “So… why? Why aren’t you asking me why I did that?” Her shock is making her stutter and trip over her words. There are so many things I want to say to her, but I can’t. Not if I want both of us to make it past this round.

  “He’s the guy you met earlier, right?” I ask, carefully picking my words. “The one who didn’t call you for a while?”

  I’m grasping at straws. I can’t remember if this was actually what she told me, but I need to give her a good excuse for attacking him. Maybe she was just a jilted ex? Not really a girlfriend but someone who expected a call or a text if they were going to stop seeing each other.

  This seems to calm her down and the anger I see in her eyes starts to subside.

  Chapter 8 - Everly

  When there’s another test…

  I kneel down to help clean up some of the mess. In the fight, two other servers went down along with the bottles that they were holding. Red wine mixed with white wine and broken glass makes for a mosaic of destruction.

  As I pick up pieces of the broken glass, the servers soak up wine with paper towels. Jamie stands up and glares at Paige. She stands on the other side of me, cradling her hand.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  “My hand hurts,” she says.

  “You hit him pretty hard,” I whisper and can’t help but snicker. She shouldn’t have punched him, but I’m glad he got punched.

  He deserved it.

  He deserves a lot more than that.

  “You really don’t have to clean,” one of the servers says when I hand him two handfuls of glass.

  “It’s okay, really.”

  “I wouldn’t want you to get hurt,” he adds.

  I glance up at him.

  Is this a joke?

  Is he mocking me?

  Cutting my hands on some glass is the least of my worries. I scrutinize his face for a tinge of mockery, but I don’t find any.

  You’re just being paranoid, Everly. Stop it. This guy didn’t mean anything.

  I know that I don’t need to clean, but I have to do something. I need to keep my hands busy so that I can have a few minutes to think about what to say next. And that’s exactly why I wish that Paige would help me.

  “Here, Paige, why don’t you soak up some of this wine,” I say, handing her the roll of paper towels.

  “No,” she says, shaking her head.

  Another server runs over, grabs it, and quickly does the job for her. I look up at her. It’s as if she’s in a trance, staring at the wine spread from one paper towel square to the next. I touch her to snap her out of it.

  “What the hell, Everly?” Paige jumps away from me.

  I get up and walk over to her. I get really close so that hopefully only she can hear me.

  “What are you doing?” I whisper.

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about, Everly. You don’t know who that guy is!”

  I clench my jaw and collect my thoughts.

  “He’s the guy who never wanted to sleep over at your place? The one who is living with his grandmother, right?”

  She looks at me with surprise.

  “He’s the one who took you to that exclusive party at the Elliott Hotel in New Haven?”

  She nods again. I think I have said enough.

  “The thing is that I didn’t tell you the whole story,” she whispers.

  “Don’t start now,” I say, barely under my breath. She looks surprised.

  Glancing back, I see them sitting at the table, pretending to mind their own business. Some are picking at their desserts, others are sipping their drinks.

  It’s all a facade, a game of pretend.

  In reality, everyone in this room, all the contestants and the servers, are listening and waiting.

  I can’t tell her not to say another incriminating word.

  “The thing is that you are just mad at the fact that he never called you again,” I say in the most lighthearted way possible.

  “Right?” I nudge her.

  She shrugs.

  “Right, Paige?” I ask, taking her by the elbow and actually shaking her a little bit.

  She continues to glare in Jamie’s direction.

  “Don’t look at me like that!” he yells. “I was just doing my job!”

  This breaks whatever tension I was managing to keep at bay and sends Paige into overdrive.

  “Your job! You were just doing your job! What the hell are you talking about?” she roars across the room.

  “I was supposed to bring you there, okay? They told me to.”

  “So, what are you doing here?” she asks. “Working as a server?”

  “This is my job, too. I’m a paid intern. I do what they tell me to do.”

  His job?

  A paid internship?

  He was actually hired to trick me into going to that event? But why?

  I look at the women around me and I see them thinking as well. How many of them did he lure here as well? I wonder.

  When I see two men in dark suits and radios in their ears appear in the hallway, I know that Jamie said too much. They block the entire entrance with their massive bodies and slowly make their way toward us.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that,” Jamie says when they crowd around him.

  Paige takes a step back.

  And then another step.

  And another.

  When I turn back toward Jamie, I see one of the security guards pulling him out of the room.

  “I’ll get her!” the other one yells and takes off after Paige, who already disappeared.

  I follow Olivia out of the dining room into the foyer.

  “No, let me go,” Paige mumbles into the floor with the guard sitting on her back, holding her arms behind her back. He reaches into his back pocket and places a pair of handcuffs on her.

  “If you’re not going to come nicely, I’m not going to do this nicely,” he hisses.

  I shake my head in disbelief.

  “Where is he taking her? Why?” I ask.

  Olivia looks as dumbfounded as I feel.

  “They’re not going to hurt her, are they?” Savannah asks.

  We exchange looks.

  I peer into her eyes to get a glimpse of what she actually knows. But I don’t see anything except terror.

  “Let me go!” Paige yells at the top of her lungs as she struggles to get away. The guard holds her tightly to his body and pushes her down the stairs with his knee.

  “Everly! I’m sorry, Everly!”

  It takes everything within me to not run after her or try to pry that guard from her.

  “I’m sorry, too,” I say. Tears start to stream down her face.

  “It’s going to be okay, Paige,” I say. She shakes her head.

  “This place…” she mumbles through her sobs. “This place isn’t what you think it is, Everly. You have to get out of here!”

  The guard walks her out of the room and one of the servers shuts the doors behind them.

  Chapter 9 - Everly

  When we wait…

  My mind runs in circles as we stand around the room waiting. Someone tries the double do
ors, but they are locked.

  Dinner is officially over.

  The other contestants talk among themselves, rehashing the events of the day, but I can’t bear to utter a word.

  What just happened?

  It seemed to have happened in slow motion, yet in an instant.

  One moment, I was running after Jamie and the next, Paige is punching him and knocking him to the floor.

  But what about after that? The guards. One pulling him away, the other putting handcuffs on her.

  She knew.

  She knew more about this place all along.

  Why didn’t she tell me? For the same reason I didn’t tell her.

  I couldn’t.

  I couldn’t risk it.

  I couldn’t risk being eliminated or being thrown into the dungeon again.

  Could she?

  Was that why she attacked him?

  Did she go through what I went through?

  My thoughts continue to run on overdrive in my head. Questions appear and collide with one another. There’s no time to think up suitable answers.

  “I can’t believe they arrested her,” Savannah whispers in my ear. I nod, still unable to speak.

  “I mean, I know that she hit him hard, but did they really need to take her down like that?”

  I shrug.

  “It’s almost as if she were a terrorist.”

  “Well, a terrorist would probably get shot,” Olivia adds.

  No, a terrorist sits on the throne of York, I want to say, but I bite my tongue.

  “What do you think is going to happen to her?” I ask.

  Olivia and Savannah exchange looks. I don’t know them well enough to read them.

  Do they know something I don’t?

  Or is it just a regular look of shock on their faces?

  I want to ask them directly.

  What was it like for them?

  Had they also met Jamie before they ended up here?

  But I know that I can’t.

  “What do you think Paige meant by what she said?” I ask. I know that they heard her. They all did.