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I can imagine her pretty eyes narrowing as she says, “I hate the way rich people dangle money in front of poor people like that to get what they want.”
And I let out a chuckle. “I don’t think anyone would get you to do anything you didn’t want to do just for money.” I don’t remember the last time someone made me laugh spontaneously like that.
“No?” She says, “I go to work every day, don’t I?”
She shouldn’t have to. I could fix that. I drag my head back to the preparations for tonight.
“Anyway. You’ll come.”
“Now, that sounds like a promise,” she almost purrs.
I wonder what she meant by that?
“I don’t suppose you brought a ball gown to work with you?”
“Er… no. I…”
“I’ll send a stylist and a designer with some dresses.”
“Wha—”
I didn’t mean to hang up on her. But I was finished.
It will be good to have her on hand. I hope she can be trusted to behave herself, though.
She seems like she could be frivolous.
Chapter Three
India
Her
How dare he just call up like that and tell me that I’m to spend tonight at a formal ball. No, ‘would you like to,’ or, ‘did you have plans?’
“Ben, you can put your eyeballs back in their sockets.”
“The Governor’s Ball?”
“It’s a ball. Apparently. And it’s at the Governor’s Mansion.”
“Well, unless there are two balls in the same place,” he swivels his hips, “they tend to be massive balls, from what one reads. So that would be the annual high point of the social calendar, the most high-toned and prestigious event…”
“Yeah,” I cut in. “I’m the help, Ben. It seems I have to go an extra mile to get my payoff, for this job from Hell that I am never going to finish in time. Especially not with you flitting about and squeaking like a bike that needs oiling.”
“Indi, that hurts.” He puts on pouty-face. It always makes me laugh. “I am a bike that needs oiling, and you know it all too well.” He flounces, “But I don’t care to have it dragged around town that I am.” He flicks his hair. “Especially not by high-toned socialites at the governor’s massive balls!”
I need to get my concentration back. I start to crack the next half-page paragraph down into grammatical sentences. Then I rearrange them into an order that has meaning. Then I slowly read back the original paragraph to check the meaning it intended to give. And re-read my tidied and straightened result, to see if that’s still the meaning I have given it.
I’ve completed four of my seven modules of law studies, so I’m used to editing legal and contractual documents. Not that I’m ever likely to finish the other three. Not in this lifetime.
I’ve never seen a mess like this, though. Every paragraph is a bramble thicket of knotted subjects, objects and intentions. I have to read everything four times just to untangle what it’s meant to say.
The hardest part of it is, I know that he wrote this himself. I can hear the alarming buzz of his voice in the rhythm of the words. It does help me to understand the text. But it doesn’t help me keep my mind on the task in hand.
“They’re here!”
Ben’s voice at the counter knocks me out of my thoughts like a stray elbow. It makes me turn.
