Story takes place in the 1920s
This is the story Zorell Dupree, a young twenty year old nurse who moves to the city working for a prestigious hospital. She is a small time girl thrown into the fast-paced world of the city.
Her childhood friend Lel...
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She walked down the hallway to the last door and saw that it was halfway opened. She stepped inside and saw that the room was nearly empty. All there was inside was a small bed not much bigger than child size and a small dresser chest with three drawers. The walls were devoid of any pictures or other decorations, except for a full-length mirror on the wall.
Zorell looked over towards the closet to see it standing open with the dreaded pink lace dress hanging on the door. She took it down off the padded hanger and hesitated for a few minutes until she reached the inevitable. She had no choice but to put on the dress. Only Eloise could ever get her to wear pink.
After she had put on the dress, she looked at herself in the mirror and thought that it didn't look too bad, although the delicacy of the fabric made her feel a little funny. She wasn't used to wearing anything fancy. Her father only allowed her to wear plain dresses, and even when she was away at nursing school she didn't go out much and only owned one evening gown that her father didn't know about. It was blue flapper with multilayers of fringe that barely went to the knee. If her father had known she had bought such a thing with the meager allowance he gave her that she had saved over months, he would have had it burned. It was one of the reasons she kept it locked in the bottom of her hope chest in a dress bag.
She had just put in her pearled hair piece when she heard voices in the hallway. She saw the door knob turn, and one of the voices she realized belonged to her father. She didn't want to be confronted by him, so on instinct she ducked into the closet so she wouldn't be seen.
The voice of her father became much louder, so she peeked through the crack in the door and saw that Eloise's father was standing next to him with an envelope in his hand. "This came in the post a few days ago," the man said, holding up an envelope.
"What is it about?" Damon Dupree asked. He had his normal sour expression that could be quite intimidating.
"It's about a matter I thought I had handled months ago concerning my son," Mister Freeman said and slightly crumpled up the envelope he was holding in his hand. Zorell could see his knuckles turning white. It was odd to see him in this state, because Mister Freeman was usually so even tempered. To her surprise it looked like he was ready to explode.
"What has Leland done now?" her father asked looking annoyed. Zorell tried not to laugh, but that boy was always getting in trouble over something. It was one of the reasons she liked being around him. It was nice to see someone besides her being caught doing something they shouldn't be. She was curious to find out what his father was so perturbed about.
"Nothing yet, and he's not going to," Mister Freeman said and ripped up the envelope in half and threw it in the waste basket by the night stand. "I'll see to it that he doesn't go running after that woman."
"What does the letter say?" Damon asked. Zorell looked on in curiosity but still careful not to be seen.
Mister Freeman's face looked flushed. "Only that she was in some sort of accident, but the idea of her dying is preposterous. She tried to plead that argument when I confronted her months ago, but I got that whore out of my son's life. So, there is no way I'll let her suck him back in."
"That's a relief," Damon said but didn't look convinced. He had a suspicious nature and believed that everyone was deceitful, even if they had not meant to be. "You know I desire to have Leland marry Zorell. I thought perhaps he could be the one to calm her down, and she would give up this silly notion of having a career."
"Leland is not all that calming of an influence, especially for a girl like Zorell," Mister Freeman said, and he was right. "He's always going off on some fool idea. Remember last year when he decided to take a trip to see the world. I happily gave him the money, and what do I find? He's in some love nest with a woman of questionable morality."
"So why don't the two of us encourage a love match between Leland and Zorell. I do believe they would make a handsome couple," Damon said, which made Zorell roll her eyes. "Women belong in the home raising children, and if Leland were to become a father sensibility would kick in. Then he would get himself a proper career, and their wild spirits would settle down, only then could they both could live proper lives."
"I doubt that will ever happen," Mister Freeman said with a small chuckle. "My son had never shown any romantic interest in your daughter, so it's best you give up this hope that a marriage would transpire between the two of them."
"He would if you persuaded him to do so," Damon remarked, which infuriated her. She didn't want her father playing matchmaker for her.
"I will not," Mister Freeman said with a determined look in his eye. "I may have stopped my son from marrying that Lavine woman, but I will not force him to marry your daughter."
"Even if it's for his own good?" Zorell's father asked. She didn't understand why her father would want to her to marry Leland anyway. He was the Freeman's wild child, going off and do whatever he pleased, while getting himself into all sorts of trouble. Knowing all this, Zorell was sure that he had to have an ulterior motive. "He needs a wife to settle him down, and Zorell needs a husband to do the same for her. She's already twenty years old. She should be married already. It doesn't look good for me to have a spinster daughter."
"She's hardly a spinster, and there's nothing shocking about having an unmarried daughter her age." Mister Freeman gave a short pause and then looked over at Zorell's father. "I know why you want Zorell to marry Leland... his inheritance."
Damon Dupree looked shocked that Mister Freeman would say such a thing, but something told Zorell that it was the truth. "Well, our families have been friends for generations, like family," Damon said in a persuasive tone. It was a tactic he used in making his business deals, but Zorell refused to have her life become another one of his acquisitions. "Isn't it better to keep all that money in the family?"
She was about to lose her temper and wanted to burst out of the closet and give him a piece of her mind, but she remembered that she was a mere eavesdropper and couldn't make her presence known.
"I want Leland to marry a proper girl but for love. Shanee Lavine wasn't that girl, but neither is Zorell," Mister Freeman said and walked out of the room. She saw her father look into the trashcan where Mister Freeman dropped the letter and then turned and walked out.
One name stuck in Zorell's mind. Shanee. That was the girl that Leland mentioned, the one that made him so miserable. If he only knew that she hadn't left him by choice. That it was his father that orchestrated it all. She stood there for a long while, not knowing what to do. When she finally stepped out into the room once again, she still didn't know what she should do... if anything.
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That's the end of chapter one, but there is more to come. What will Zorell find out in that discarded letter, and what will she do about it? Find out next time. The plot is really heating up.
