Well, fuck.
A week passed since I accepted Madame Usher’s offer. During that time I walked out of my hotel receptionist’s job and worked my last shift at the dive bar. I packed Mom’s things and filled in the paperwork to have her transferred to a first-class suite at a private hospital an hour’s drive from Manderley.
I balanced my laptop on my knees as I leaned against the bare wall of my apartment – refreshing the school’s website a million times, poring over the images of the opulent Victorian bedrooms, grand rehearsal spaces, and sprawling gardens.
Butnothingprepared me for seeing Manderley Academy up close for the first time.
I shouldn’t start there. I should start with the limo.
The motherfuckinglimothey sent to pick me up.
Madame Usher told me to wait on the curb with my bags at 7AM sharp. She had no idea women my age shouldn’t chill out alone on street corners in my neighborhood. Or maybe she did. I wouldn’t put anything past that witch.
I fingered the knife in my pocket as I peered both ways down the street.Please, get here soon.
A gang of guys with huge shoulders and mean expressions loitered on the corner opposite, eyeing up the white girl with the violin case and all her possessions in a duffel bag nervously jumping from foot to foot. The skin on my neck started to prickle. I stared the guys down with my best ‘don’t fuck with me’ glare – a look I’d perfected long before our move to Bushwick. That look was all that stood between me and certain destruction at my old prep school.
One of the guys jumped off the curb and made his way toward me, his swagger all business, his smirk unmistakable.Fucktrumpets. This is just what I need.
My mind whipped through my options and was just choosing an optimum escape route when a black limo tore around the corner. The guy leaped back as the tires bumped over the curb. The side mirror scraped along the side of a parked car, and the insane vehicle jerked to a stop in front of my building.
“What the fuck?” the guy across the street cried out as he fell on his ass in the ditch. His friends guffawed, all four of them staring at the tinted windows like they were sure some famous rapper was about to emerge.
I agreed with the guy’s sentiment.Who the fuck drives a limo into Bushwick? This dick is blocking the street, so the car Madame Usher sent won’t be able to park—
The driver’s door swung open. A stout old man with white hair and a neatly-pressed waistcoat hopped out and slid open the passenger door. “Can I take your bags, ma’am?” he asked me.
I hugged my violin case to my chest and shook my head before I realized he was here forme.
“Um… yeah. Sure.” I handed him my bag, and he whisked it away. I settled into a plush leather seat, rested my violin case against my legs, and surveyed the minibar. Tiny bottles of hooch crowded the shelves beneath the touchscreen. There were even snacks. My stomach rumbled with desperation – feeding myself hadn’t been a priority lately. While most kids my age were dealing with the Freshman Fifteen, I’d lost at least sixteen pounds since Mom got sick – not that it had made much dent in my amplederriere. I usually ate a plate of fries or nachos at the bar, but that would be my only meal for the day. I grabbed a candy bar and bit into it, letting the gooey caramel pool on my tongue.
I could get used to this.
“Did you want to say goodbye to your friends?” the driver asked as he slid into his seat, indicating the guys on the corner.
I wound down the window and flashed the one who’d approached me my middle finger. “They know I’ll miss them.”
Not.
The driver stomped on the gas. We flew off.Goodbye, Bushwick.I didn’t even look back. I was happy to forget this part of my life.
The driver pressed a button on the dash, and his friendly voice boomed over the intercom. “My name is Harrison. Madame wanted to be here herself, but she has a lot to do now that classes are in session, so I have the honor of escorting you to Manderley. I’m the driver, groundskeeper and general dogsbody for the estate.”
I finished my candy bar and picked up a bag of potato chips. Leaning over, I rapped on the glass divider. “Roll this down.”
“I’m not supposed to—”
“It’s a long drive, and I’m not having a conversation through the intercom like I’m the Duchess of York. We’re the hired help, Harrison – we gotta stick together.”
Harrison flashed me a toothy grin as he pressed another button and the glass rolled down.
“That’s better. So, Harrison…” I leaned over through the window and offered him a potato chip. He looked like he was going to say no, but then his eyes twinkled and he reached into the bag. “How long have you worked at Manderley?”
“Forty-three years I’ve worked for the Usher family.” Harrison puffed out his chest with pride. “Just like my Pappy before me. I grew up at the house, running around in the forest with Victor Usher. We were boyhood friends before he became master of the house, but he was always good to me. He said I’d have a job with the family for as long as I wanted it.”
I couldn’t imagine living and working at the same house, year in and year out, for your entire life. I was like my mother, whose Mexican blood bubbled to life when she traveled. Music was supposed to be my ticket to seeing the world. Now, it would be the noose around my neck. And Madame Usher was my executioner. “What about Madame Usher?”
“I still remember when he first brought her to the house,” Harrison tapped the wheel as he sped through a set of lights, completely oblivious to the drivers honking on either side of us. “Back then, Manderley was just the family home, although it was always filled with music. Victor Senior was quite the fiddler, and Mary taught her son the piano. Victor met Gizella while touring Europe – she was first violin for the Hungarian National Philharmonic when he premiered hisNocturne, and it was love at first sight. They eloped to Spain, and he brought her home – his new bride, but she was anything but blushing. She walked through the door like she owned the place, and before long she ruled the house with an iron fist. They’d been married less than a year when she convinced Victor to shuffle his parents off to a retirement home and open the music school.”
