Call Me Anna

Chapter 1-Perfect

"Anna! Please come downstairs, we have company!" Mamma called to me. I knew despite her tone that it was an order, but I didn't immediatly respond, instead finished the story I was working on:

"No," Jessie says to me. "We can't."

"Why?" I respond.

"Anna!" Mamma repeated. I pushed my chair away from my desk, and tripped lightly down the wide marble stairs, to the foyer.

"-and this is my daughter," Mamma was saying to our two guests, a man of about fifty and a boy who was probably twenty, like me. I smiled graciously, pulling a blonde curl from my face.

"Hello. How are you today?" I said unwillingly. But of course I didn't show it.

"I'm well, thank you. I'm Elliot Williams, and this is my son Harrison," the older man introduced himself. He held out his hand and I shook it. The boy smiled a big nerdy smile at me. I probably looked creeped out.

"They're the owners of the country club down the street," Mamma told me. She had been trying to get our family membership for months now, but no amount of money would budge these two. And now she had them over to influence them to accept us. Wonderful.

"Yes," Mr. Williams said, also to me.

"Gentlemen, please come sit down and I'll have the maid get us something to eat," Mamma invited. "Anna, please show them to the sitting room."

I nodded obediently, and said, "Follow me." The three of us started down the long hall to the formal sitting room. When we were inside, I continued speaking 'properly'. "Have a seat," I said.

"So, Anna." It was Mr. Williams speaking again. "What do you do for a living?"

"Nothing, yet," I explained. "Right now I go to Yale, but I'm on break right now. I go back at the end of the summer." Which couldn't come soon enough. I hated my family's rich lifestyle, I didn't even know how to cook.

"How interesting!" Mr. Harrison exclaimed.

"Not really," I thought to myself.

"What is it that you're studying? Physics? Business? Law?"

"Writing," I said quietly.

"Oh..." he said, a little taken aback. "But such an unpredictable profession..."

At that moment, Mamma came in, saving me from speaking any longer. I withdrew to my own thoughts, only listening enough to be sure that someone wasn't talking to me.

Eventually, the maid was there with sandwiches and tea, that Mr. Williams declared "absolutely delightful!" and I barely touched, and then they left.

"Wonderful, Melanie," Mr. Williams said to Mamma when they were about to leave. "I enjoyed myself immensely."

"Thank you," Mamma said. "Please, come again anytime. I enjoyed having you."

A/N: Yeah, I know this part is a little slow, but it kind of shows you Anna's life, always having to be the perfect daughter... anyways, more to come later. Enjoy!