Maeve:I’m sorry. Hol’ up, Cressida?
Holly:You better not let her sink her claws into him.
Maeve:Yeah, if you haven’t done the deed with Beck yet, you better do it soon!
Holly:You don’t want his lonely dick wandering into Cressida.
Tess:Maybe Cressida would be a better option for him. At least she seems to care about women being independent, and she does come from a good family, unlike me.
Maeve:No way! Beck cannot be with Cressida. Work will be insufferable. I’ll have to find a new job, and I don’t want to spend time finding a new job when I could eat self-care pizzas and watch Netflix.
I laboriously dressed. The girls had helped me put on the heavy wool clothes at the condo, and it was difficult to put the outfit back on without their help.
I couldn’t even fasten the stay because I couldn’t twist my arms around enough to reach all the hooks. I wasn’t able to reach the buttons on the back of the dress either and only managed to fasten it halfway up my back.
I threw the shawl over my shoulders and inspected myself in the mirror. My outfit looked a little droopier and bag lady-esque, but hopefully people would be too focused on the food and Cressida to notice.
I almost ran into the HR director when I exited the powder room.
“What were you doing in there?” she asked sourly.
“Lots of layers on this historic garment,” I said, crossing my arms. I felt one of the buttons pull out and hastily clapped my arms to my sides, afraid the dress would fall down.
Cressida sneered at me. “No wonder those two little girls are out of control. Expelled from school, short haircuts, talking nonsense about building apps and companies. And now here you are, leading them in some sort of fantastical historical reenactment. No wonder they’re confused disasters.”
Two-faced bitch.
“Enola and Annie are great kids,” I snapped, trying to push past her to go back to the dining room.
“You’re so transparent.” She scoffed. “You don’t care about them. You’re just using them to use Beck.”
“No, that’s not what I’m doing,” I argued.
“I don’t know what bullshit you’re trying to pull,” Cressida hissed, blocking me in the hallway, “but if you think you’re just going to weasel in and steal Beck from me, you have another thing coming. Ethel doesn’t like you. She doesn’t want you to be the mother to Beck’s sisters. And after your little display tonight, I don’t think Beck’s going to want you either. In fact, I think he’s going to be looking for an upgrade.”
42
Tess
Islid into my seat. Beck was in an intense conversation with Bunny about Hamilton’s contribution to the American economic system. The next course had been served. It was a poached fish. I picked a piece off with my fork.
“We have fish knives, dear,” Ethel said, giving me a pointed look.
On the right-hand side of my plate were four different knives to choose from.
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. I grabbed a knife.
“The other one,” Beck said. I grabbed a different knife.
“No, the other, other one. Fish knives are broad and flat.”
A bit like Cressida’s ass.
What was the point of a fish knife? The utensil wasn’t sharp, though it did have this weird little triangular tip that did fuck all to help get the fish on my fork. I had to lean in to shovel the fish into my mouth.
I felt two more buttons slip out of their loops on the back of my dress. At this point, I wasn’t going to make it until dessert without my clothes falling off.
The next course was a stewed rabbit with fingerling potatoes.
