Jewel

Chapter 9

*10 years old*

Isla has taken over a lot of dad’s old publishing business.  It’s not doing so well now.  But she still holds dad’s dessert parties.  Actually, she holds about one every month and sometimes it’s even a dinner party too, which just means more work for me.  

Tonight is one of the dinner parties.  Isla has been out with Savanna most of the day getting her pageant dresses altered while I’ve been here cleaning by myself.  I’ve started to listen to music now which makes the work more interesting.  I almost feel like calling Blake to come over and help me, but I decide against it, just incase Ursula gets back sooner than expected.  

I have the whole downstairs cleaned to the best of my ability by the time the devil and her daughter come home.  I am in my bathroom upstairs pining my strawberry blonde hair into a vintage twist based on a tutorial I watched on the Internet the other day.  I am wearing my tee length, light blue dress with a white band about six inches up from the bottom.  The straps are thick enough to cover my shoulders, but I put on a little white sweater with it just to be on the safe side.

“Meredith!” Ursula calls from downstairs.  

“One second.” I call back with a bobby pin in between my teeth.

“No, now” she commands.

I grunt and roll my eyes as I push the last pin into place and take one last look before leaving the bathroom.  I don’t even make it down the stairs before she scoffs at me, “What in the world do you think you’re doing?”

“Getting ready for the dinner party tonight?  I dressed up nice like I knew you would want me to.” I think out loud.

“Oh, no no honey, you’re not going to be having dinner with us.  No kids allowed.”  That was never my dad’s rule.  He was always proud for me to be there, even if no one paid too much attention to me.

“But Savanna is allowed to stay” I try to reason.

“That’s because her coach is also going to be here.  That’s different.  There’s nothing for you. Go take off that awful dress.” She waves me off.  

My lips part in disbelief and disgust and I am frozen on the steps for a minute, before I finally turn on my heel and run up the stairs.  “Oh and Meredith darling, I thought I told you to clean the kitchen?”  I scream back at her.  No words, just an awful scream that could be heard around the block… if we even had any close neighbors.  Our house is set so far back from the street, our driveway feels like it goes on for a mile.  

I run into my room and slam and lock the door shut behind me.  I can’t help but burst out crying again.  I rip all the bobby pins out of my hair, and I might as well just rip out all my hair anyways because it seems I’ll never have any use for it.  I sink into a ball on the side of my bed and curl myself into the all too familiar fetal position as I let out my tears.  

I was so excited to be a part of the dinner party and get all dressed up like I used to.  I haven’t been able to do that for a long time though.  Every time Ursula host one of these parties, she locks me up in my room the whole night.  I thought because this was the first dinner party in a while, that maybe I’d be able to stay for this one.  Guess not.  

I don’t see anyone else for the rest of the night because Ursula comes by to lock my door from the outside too.  She doesn’t bring me anything either before she locks me in.  I can hear the TV playing in the other room where Jackson is usually locked in.  I don’t have a TV in my room.  But I have my art.  

I finally get up from the floor and shuffle over to my desk by the window.  I pull out my sketchbook and a pencil and begin a new drawing.  It’s of my window and how even though there are blooming flowers on the other side, they are distorted from the reflection of the black bars from the balcony and are always quite out of reach.