Page 16 of The Heiress
You see, I didn’t really need a pen and I wasn’t thinking about pens. Phoenix Carter had popped into my head. Foolish of me, really, because Phoenix couldn’t even look me in the eye.
With the sales clerk hovering, I grabbed a bunch of pens and paid for them, rueing how I’d made a total mess of the day.
In no rush to get back to the bake-off, I allowed myself to be enticed by the bright yellow flapping flag of the Covington Kitchen cafe, the aroma of coffee beans guiding me to the counter. And only after ordering a pumpkin spice latte did I see Bianca, Siri and Addison sitting at a table staring at me.
“Elisha!” Bianca called to me like I was her best friend, her fingers fluttering in a royal wave. The girl had barely spoken to me since the first day of school and suddenly she was inviting me over to her table. “Sit with us.”
My bad for not ordering my coffee to go.
“We haven’t seen you here before,” Siri said. She was co-captain of the cheer team, pretty and naturally blond.
I sat on the spare chair, opposite Bianca. “I’ve been meaning to catch up with you for the student ambassador program,” she said, “but I’ve been swamped. Especially after winning the tennis state championships.”
I flashed her a congratulatory smile because she seemed to want it, though I detected a frosty huff from Addison who picked up her coffee cup aggressively. I’d heard about the success of the girls tennis team the week before, Bianca and Taylor had won the girls doubles together and Taylor had won the singles. Their glory had been short-lived though, overshadowed by the football team’s victorious championship win.
“What do you think of these, Elisha?” Bianca reached into one of the many shopping bags sitting on the table, pulling out a blue jewelery box. “Earrings for Thanksgiving.” She opened the lid and thrust a pair of diamond encrusted earrings into my sight. “Sixteen hundred dollars,” she said smoothly, her eyebrows lifting.
They were extremely similar to a pair I had at home, though mine were less ostentatious in 18k rose gold. I called them my smile earrings—angled in the shape of a smile, cute and fun. I hadn’t brought them to Covington Prep.
“They’re lovely,” I said.
“Aren’t they?” Bianca smiled, her eyes watching me intently. “Just a small gift to myself.”
“Good for you,” I said, trying to keep the irony from my voice. I could tell that she wanted me to be impressed, but mentioning a price tag was the epitome of crass.
I’d been brought up never to speak about the cost of things and certainly never to blab about how much you paid for something. Dad’s empire had been self-made, started when he went into partnership with his brother’s construction business. Together they’d grown it, and then expanded into property investment. They owned prime real estate all over the country, leasing to some of the biggest franchises. Since then, he and Mom had diversified to other sectors, growing their fortune by hard work, smart decisions and following their passions. It was Mom’s degree in environmental science that had steered them into their newest venture of researching plant-based meat alternatives.
And though I lived in a world where people lived in multi-million dollar homes, traveled on private jets and owned more cars than they could possibly need, Mom and Dad never paraded or exposed their wealth.
Mom had once told me, “If you’re wearing diamonds or gold, you don’t need to tell anyone how many carats—if they know, they know, and if they don’t, it won’t mean anything to them.” She’d used the same analogy with designer clothes and shoes.
I now understood what she meant by that. Bianca didn’t need to tell me how expensive her earrings were—I could see. But perhaps a lot of kids wouldn’t know the difference between a twenty dollar pair and a sixteen hundred dollar pair.
“How have you been fitting in at Whitney Hall?” Bianca asked. If I hadn’t just been acquainted with her openly pretentious ways, I might have thought it was a genuine question. More likely she had to do a student ambassador report, put it on her college application or something.
“It’s fine,” I said, thankful for the distraction from the waitress with my coffee. “Thank you,” I nodded to the woman.
“Could we have some more water here?” Addison demanded, adding in a haughty toss of her hair.
The woman’s lips pressed, and even though there was a table where customers could help themselves to water, she scuttled to retrieve a fresh jug.
“I heard there was an issue with Beth Van der Wal,” Addison said. I hadn’t liked Addison from the day she’d cast her eyes disapprovingly over me when I’d been introduced as the new girl in the English class we shared. I couldn’t understand it considering I was dressed in an identical uniform to her and every other girl. Oh, she was stunning with her long brown hair, but there was a hardness to her, eyes nearly always at half-squint, nose tilted in the air like everyone was beneath her.
I sipped on my latte, giving myself a reprieve from having to answer.
However, Addison wasn’t letting me off that easily. “Yeah, I heard youupsetBeth’s plate of chocolate mints.” She pursed her lips and her tone was mocking, “What did Beth do to deserve that? Knit you a scarf?”
“Or write you a poem?” Siri chimed in. All three of them erupted in laughter.
A surge of heat flooded my cheeks as I wondered how that incident had made it to the school gossip.
“It was a miscommunication,” I mumbled, holding my cup to my lips.
“I’m sure it was,” Addison said with a condescending smile, her eyes searing me with the intensity of laser beams. “Beth Van der Wal hasn’t quite made it to this century, has she?”
All three sniggered again, and I assumed it was a reference to Beth’s lack of fashion, her unruly curls, hand-knitted cardigans and preference for wearing her skirt at mid-calf length. Okay, sure, full disclosure—I’d thought those things too, but to hear Addison be vocal about it grated on me.
“So, I guess you can’t wait to go home for Thanksgiving?” Bianca turned her attention back to me after putting her earrings back into the bag.
