Something Like Romeo and Juliet

Chapter 6

My mother looked at me with narrowed, evaluating eyes.

"Zara, honey, would you mind changing your hair? It doesn't quite go with your dress styled like that."

My hand travelled to my carefully brushed back high ponytail, free of the usual bumps and loose strands. I felt a twinge of annoyance at the thought of having to take it out after all my effort, but I masked the emotion for respectfulness' sake.

"Sure thing," I said calmly, determinedly keeping my eyes focused at a fixed point ahead of me.

I ran back up to my bathroom, shutting the door quietly behind myself. I stood looking regretfully at my pristine ponytail for a moment before reaching up my arm to pull out the hair tie and brush out my suddenly poofy hair. I decided to keep it down, and stepped back to inspect my outfit of the night.

My eyes travelled bemusedly over the black dress and pale pink cardigan, completed with a thin golden necklace. All elements of the outfit were quite expensive and completely not my style. Funnily enough though, this was how I used to always dress, back when I was in elementary school and let my mom shop for me. The relationship between me and mom was never super close, but she wanted me to be happy, and from what I can guess she just assumed that the best way to make a little girl happy was to give her nice, designer clothes. I always had my share of baby size Levi Strauss jeans, Dior dresses, and Ralph Lauren polos back then.
Nowadays, I tend to lean more towards the jeans and big sweaters type of look than $200 skirt-and-sweater sets. I love to wear thick, bulky, turtleneck sweaters that are amazingly comfortable and can keep a person warm in 30 degree classrooms. But on nights like tonight, I would put all personal tastes aside and wear whatever nice dress was set out for me.
The party tonight was for my father's biggest donors, a way to keep them happy and giving money. My father was Mayor Nicholas Strasburg, Seattle's mayor for the last six years. As mayor of one of America's major cities, he was a powerful and influential man, and even went to Washington, D.C once a year for the United States Conference of Mayors. He had worked his way up to his current position, going from mayor of the small town of Kirkland, then county commissioner of King County, and finally getting elected on his first time running for mayor of Seattle. His dream was to one day be a senator of Washington. He was hardworking and surprisingly popular, and even if he was a workaholic and maybe a bit of an elitist, I admired him for his commitment.

My parents put on these types of parties about once a month. They always had fancy appetizers on trays, elevator music playing in the background, and a bunch of wealthy, influential men in suits. I was expected to go to about half of them and try to be social. Putting on a formal dress and making conversation with the superintendent of the Seattle Public School district wasn't my idea of an ideal weekend, but it was important to my parents that I take part.

Through my thoughts, I adjusted my necklace and yanked on my skirt awkwardly. I didn't love it, but if wearing an uncomfortable dress was really essential to my father's success and reputation, I was willing to make the sacrifice.

***

One of the things that made parties like these a little better was Robbie. Robbie's dad was Harrison Koestler, the head of the biggest law firm in Seattle. Mr. Koestler and my dad were friends, and Robbie came to a lot of these things, sometimes because his parents made him and sometimes because I forced him to. Robbie was one of many kids of important people my parents had tried to introduce me to as a new friend, and out of all of them Robbie was the only one who lasted. To this day I'm not sure why, since he was just as stuffy and boring as the rest of them, but somehow we stuck together as some weird version of friends all throughout the course of third grade to now. And despite driving me crazy half the time, he was one of the few sources of light at the fancy social events.