“How do I look?” I ask Stella on Monday morning.
She laughs. “You look very professional. Why do you look so professional?”
I look in the mirror on the back of the door. I’m wearing a black and crème dress that goes to just below my shins and the top is chiffon and blouse-like. My hair is up in a tight pony tail that screams ‘I have wrinkles that I’m trying to hide’ even though I obviously don’t actually have wrinkles. “I’m going for brunch with Penn’s parents,” I explain.
“Isn’t Penn doing one-on-one all day today though?” She wonders.
I nod in confirmation. “Yeah, he’s not going. He actually doesn’t even know that I’m going. It’s… complicated, but I’m trying to surprise him with something.”
“Oh,” She sighs. “Okay, well when you get back, we can catch a movie or something?”
I nod. “Sure, that sounds good. I won’t be gone for too long hopefully. Are you okay?” I ask her curiously as I notice that she doesn’t seem very Stella-like today.
She nods and forces a smile that isn’t very convincing. “Yeah, I’m totally fine. Just… you know, thinking and stuff.”
“Well, I’m here if you want to talk about anything you know,” I remind her, pushing black earrings into my ears. I’m going to brunch today to try and convince Penn’s parents to get Ana home early. I don’t know if that’s possible or what really is going on with Penn’s little sister, but I know that he really misses her. After what he did with bringing my family here and everything, I feel like I need to do something special for him and this is the only thing I can think of that seems big enough. Even though his parents terrify me, I know that they like me due to my status as Chase Vaughn’s niece, so I’m hoping that gets me some points.
“Yeah, I know,” She assures me. “Now, go and have a fancy brunch with fancy people. Please don’t come back with an English accent.”
“Penn’s parents don’t have English accents,” I laugh, grabbing my car keys after slipping on my shiny black heels.
“You don’t understand my humor,” She informs me with a sad sigh.
I sing her a goodbye as I leave the dorm room and go downstairs, walking through campus to get to the parking lot where my car is parked. My mom used it to visit Chase on Saturday, but I have it back now and she’s spending the day job hunting and Jo is with Chace or maybe with a babysitter that he’s hired.
I’m meeting Mr. and Mrs. Shaw at some fancy brunch place that I’ve never heard of but after speaking to Mr. Shaw on the phone, I looked it up and got the address. It’s in the heart of LA, so I’m thinking that maybe I’ll see some celebrities, which would be really cool and an added bonus to doing this for Penn. It’s easy to find even though traffic in LA is terrible, I get through it with a minimal amount of road rage and I’m right on time showing up at the restaurant.
Even though I’m right on time, the old rich couple that I came to meet are already there in a table near the center of the room. I spot them and walk in their direction as I look around- no celebrities. It’s a cute, calm little place but I’ve never had brunch before so I’m not so sure what’s socially acceptable to order at all.
I smile at them both and hope that they can’t smell fear. I’d spent a lot of yesterday practicing my handshakes and smiles and everything, so I’m sure that I’m ready as long as Mrs. Shaw doesn’t say anything too terrible, I should be good to go hopefully.
“How have you been, dear?” Mrs. Shaw asks me as I approach them with one of my rehearsed polite smiles.
“I’m okay, thank you. Yourself?” I wonder, hoping that I sound sophisticated. I feel sophisticated in my dress and heels but I have to act the part as well and it’s kind of hard considering I’ve only met these people once before and from what I remember, they’re not the most tolerable people out there.
“I’m doing wonderful,” She grins at me, pulling me into a soft hug before letting me go and sitting back down.
Penn’s dad, who is much taller and scarier-looking than myself or Mrs. Shaw, shakes my hand and smiles politely at me. From what I remember though, Mrs. Shaw is the one that’s scarier on the inside, so I shouldn’t let his looks deceive me. “It’s nice to see you again, Mr. Shaw,” I greet him, proud of myself for being so put-together.
“The same for you, Sienna,” He smiles. The table that we’re sitting at is round and small but it only has to fit three people, so being small isn’t really an issue at all. There are three waters already on the table for us but Mrs. Shaw orders a glass of wine when the waitress comes by for a drink order. Mr. Shaw gets a different type of wine but I stick with just my water. I won’t get a fancy glass, but I don’t want to spend a lot of money while I’m here and I assume that the prices for food are pretty heart breaking so I’ll have to save my money for that.
“So, what can we do for you, dear?” Mrs. Shaw asks me once the waitress returns with their wine and scampers off again. “I believe you were the one who scheduled this meal.”
I nod in confirmation, remembering the phone call I made on Saturday night when this spontaneous idea came to me. I stole Penn’s father’s number from Penn’s phone when he was in the bathroom (I only went through his phone to get the number, I didn’t snoop through anything else though) so I called him when I got back to my room that night and he agreed to have brunch with me today. “My apologies for sounding nosy and I don’t want to impose on family matters, but I wanted to talk about Ana.”
“Oh?” She says, seemingly interested but not offended in what I said. That’s good, I suppose, that she’s not mad yet because I was almost expecting her to scream at me that it’s none of my business. “What about Ana do you need to discuss?”
“Um, well I was wondering if there’s any way that she can return home any sooner than she’s scheduled to come home?” I say softly, getting more nervous by the second. I was braver before I actually opened my mouth about Ana and now I’m kind of freaking out again. “I know that she’s at a boarding school in Alaska, but it would really mean a lot to Penn if she came home early.”
“You’re here on behalf of Penn then?” Mr. Shaw asks me with raised eyebrows as he sips slowly from his wine glass.
I shake my head. “Well, he doesn’t know that I’m here. I sort of want to surprise him.”
“Ana is in Alaska for a reason, sweetie,” Mrs. Shaw tells me with an apologetic frown. “She needs to feel the consequences of what she did.”
“But what she did was get attacked,” I remind the lady, trying not to seem irritated, although I really am but this conversation is just getting started and I need it to go well if they’re ever going to agree to this. “It wasn’t her fault. What she went through was terrible and she was at the wrong place at the wrong time, but it wasn’t her fault.”
“There were a lot of factors that went into why she got attacked,” Mrs. Shaw politely argued. She doesn’t seem upset, which is still a miracle to me, she’s just stating what she thinks are facts. “The way she was dressed, where she was walking and at what time of night. She should have been more cautious and she shouldn’t have sneaked out of the house that night. What happened to my poor Ana is absolutely terrible, I agree, but she’s not completely innocent in this ordeal.”
I don’t know why I thought this was ever going to work. This lady is a vapid bitch with no empathy skills what so ever, but I still have to at least try. For Penn and for Ana, even though I’ve never even met her, I feel so incredibly bad for her. I mean, after she went through what she went through, she also had to deal with her mother who was telling her that it was her fault. “I have studies and research that say that it is never the victim’s fault.”
I hand her a manila folder that has a lot of printed out pages of research done from a lot of different websites about this sort of stuff that I’d printed out yesterday while doing some research on the topic. I don’t know if it will help at all, but it’s worth a try, I figure. She takes the folder, but she doesn’t look through it at all, she just puts it in her purse.
“I think it would be nice to have Ana home again,” Mr. Shaw speaks up. “I think it’s something to consider, having Ana come home early instead of waiting until the summer is over. Especially if it will help Penn.”
“But what about the press? How will we deal with them?” Mrs. Shaw wonders, looking at her husband for an answer.
“This is our family, Denise, it doesn’t really matter what the press will say. And even if the press finds out that Ana is home, they won’t really care too much. It’s not like she was going to be gone forever anyway so the press is inevitable,” Mr. Shaw reminds his wife before looking at me. “She has doctors there in Alaska that are helping her cope with her tragic experience. I will call them and see if they think it will be good for her to return early, but that is the best that I can do.”
I smile at him. “That’s amazing, Mr. Shaw. Thank you.”
“Maybe we should think about this some more, Tom,” Mrs. Shaw speaks up, seemingly surprised at Mr. Shaw’s decision. “Bringing Ana back early could stir up a lot of problems. Rumors at the club, unwanted attention at the firm. The list goes on.”
“She is our daughter, Denise,” Mr. Shaw tells his wife as if she doesn’t know that already. “She should be home with us no matter what they say about it.”
She purses her lips and then looks at me with an undecided look before she finally speaks. “Okay. We will consider it and let you know.”
“Thank you,” I say again, actually surprised that this last minute plan actually might work out. I didn’t actually think that it might work, I just knew that I had to try. “Can you call my cell phone when you make your decision? Like I said, I want to surprise Penn.”
“Sure, I’ll be sure to do that,” Mr. Shaw assures me with a nod of his head.
“Great. Thank you again,” I smile at both of them politely as I stand up from the table. It happened pretty quickly so I don’t see a reason for staying and actually eating with them. “I should get back and start practicing.”
“Of course, the competition is coming up in a month,” Mrs. Shaw says, standing up to politely give me a goodbye hug. It’s an awkward hug, like all of her hugs are, but at least she tries, I guess. “Good luck, dear. And tell Chace that we say hello.”
“Sure, I’ll tell him,” I assure her although I’m sure that I probably won’t do that. “And thank you for listening. Have a nice day.”
Mr. Shaw stands up and shakes my hand like he did when I arrived and then I say my last goodbye before I’m leaving the restaurant. I think that it went well but I guess I won’t know if it was successful until Mr. Shaw calls me with the verdict later.
When I get back to campus, it’s only one in the afternoon. I didn’t have brunch at the restaurant, so I decide to go get Stella and see if she wants to eat too before we go see whatever movie she wants to see. I use my room key thing and open the door to our room just to see Stella laying on her bed. That would be totally normal if Andrew wasn’t there too, on top of her with his lips stuck to hers in a very- very- heated make out session.
They both hear the door open and stop kissing to sit up and look at me.
“Sienna!” Stella shrieks, using the sheet on her bed to cover up her bra clad chest because she didn’t have a shirt on at all. “I-I thought you’d be gone longer.”
“No worries,” I say, trying to conceal my shock at the fact that Stella is hooking up with Andrew right now and that confuses me a lot. Just when I thought I was getting the hang of this teenage drama stuff, I get lost in it again. “I’ll go and leave you guys alone.”
“No, I-“ She starts to say something else, but I just shut the door behind me and leave down the hallway, pretty embarrassed about what I just saw. Maybe I should knock on the door before I open it next time. In my defense though, I thought she was still hooking up with Drew and she always goes to his house to do that, so I figured that I was safe just walking into our room but apparently, thinks have changed.
I go to the food court in my fancy business-like dress and get some pizza. It’s pretty crowded, the food court is, because it’s lunch time now, and it’s pretty noisy, but I don’t see anybody that I talk to. However, even though the crowd, Penn seems to find me just fine. I’m sitting there for about ten minutes alone before his tray plops down across from me and when I see that it’s my wonderful boyfriend, I offer him a broad smile even though I realize that I’m all dressed up and I don’t know how I’ll be able to explain that to him.
“Hey,” I chirp.
“Hey,” He mimics. “What’s up with the dress?”
“I have a hot date,” I joke as I bite into my pizza. “How’s rehearsals going?”
“Boring,” He mutters. “But I get a twenty minute lunch break before my next session is scheduled. Seriously though, are you going for the hot secretary look? You are definitely pulling it off if you are.”
“It’s a long story,” I say, trying to be as vague as I can so that I don’t give away why I’m actually dressed up because if this Ana thing really does work, I want to surprise him with it.
“You’re being weird,” He tells me with a small laugh.
“But it’s a good weird,” I assure him. “I promise. I may also be acting a little weird because I just saw… well, it doesn’t matter what I saw, but it was very disturbing.”
“Okay then,” Penn laughs. “So my last session ends at 9:20 tonight. Do you want to do something?”
“Depending on how Stella is,” I tell him. “I don’t know, I think she’s going through something and I don’t want to just leave her out to dry, you know? But I’ll text you and let you know how she’s doing at 9:20.”
“AJ said that she blew up on Anthony on Saturday,” Penn says. “He was working in the kitchen when it happened, I guess.”
“She blows up on her brother on a regular basis,” I explain. “But yeah, that’s my point. She’s been acting kind of weird lately.”
“Well then you go be a good friend and I’ll just see you tomorrow,” He suggest. “If you’re done with your pizza though, I think we can go hang out behind the building for a little bit before I have to be back in the studio.”
I think him saying ‘hang out’ is his subtle way of saying ‘make out’ and I am totally okay with that, so I nod and lean over to the trash can that we’re sitting by, throwing away my now-empty plate. “Let’s go do that then.”
He laughs and stands up too, throwing his left overs in the trash can as we walk out of the food court. “So am I really not allowed to know why you look so hot today?” Penn wonders.
I shake my head. “It’s a surprise and I’ll tell you about it later.”
“I remember when you were always this mysterious,” He tells me as we walk around to the back of the building together.
“No mystery,” I say innocently.
Penn wraps his arm around my waist before unexpectedly turning and gently pressing my back into the brick building behind me. Looking around, I could see that there was nobody around so nobody could see us standing here in a very compromising position. “Whatever you say, Sienna,” He sings before pressing his lips to mine.
We’re making out for a while and it gets pretty intense- one of his hands is on my hip and his other one is holding my cheek. I have my hands sneaking up his t-shirt when he breaks away. “Your hot secretary look isn’t helping my self-control,” He mumbles.
“I told you that I’m ready,” I remind him, proud of myself for not being so shy talking about my virginity and stuff like that.
“I know, but I want it to be special for you,” He reminds me with a small smile against my lips. “And it’ll take way more than 10 minutes. Let me at least take you out this weekend or something.”
“I don’t want to plan it,” I decide. “I think that’d make it weird.”
“We’ll talk about it later, yes? I should get back to the studio.”
“Okay,” I sigh, still slightly out of breath from making out with Penn. “I’ll see you tonight.”
He kisses me one last time before starting to back away and go towards the studio for his afternoon sessions to prepare people for the competition at the end of the month. “I’ll see you tonight.”
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WE REACHED ONE MILLION READS!!
With that said, I have a few things to say:
1. I told you guys that I'd do something special if this story got one million reads and it did (because you guys are so perf) so I will update once a day for three chapters starting at the next update on Thursday. So I'll update on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I would start it now but I'm sick and I don't wanna do anything that requres more work right now. If I'm still sick on Thursday (hopefully, that's not the case) I'll postpone it until Sunday.
2. I'm updating this a bit early because I'll be gone all day tomorrow with partying and whatnot so here ya go :P
3. I know I've said this before but I'm going to say it again because I get so many amazing comments on this story and I just want you to know that I am incredibly grateful for all of them. They are so nice and I love you all. I try to respond to them but I just don't have the time right now and I always get so easily distracted. I do read every single one of them though so you are not going ignored, I promise! <3
Okay, well that's it so I'll see you guys on Thursday. I love you and you're beautiful! :D