wild life | l.p

Chapter One.

“Your Father is going to be here any minute, are you ready yet?” Arianne’s mom hollers from the bottom of the staircase. She rolls her eyes, pushing a couple of silver strands of hair back over her shoulder to slip in her jewelry. The rose design carved into the wooden tunnel in her ear compliments the rest of her outfit, she decides. She had been planning out this outfit for the last couple of weeks, the dark blue dress, black tights, how she would do her makeup-- everything. This dinner was important to her Dad, she knew that. She knew that her mom would not be going, so she was the only option available if their family wanted to keep their reputation as a well rounded, happy family.

She hears the horn honking outside as she’s reaching in the back of her closet for the pair of black velvet heels. Her mom is yelling again when she’s slipping a foot into the second shoe. By the time she’s down the stairs, her mom is mumbling about “If you’d taken any longer, Ari, he might actually want to come to the door.”

And, it’s not like Ari is really that eager about going to this business work party anyways, so really her mom should be thanking her that she’s going in the first place.

“It would look bad if he showed up without either one of us, Arianne.” She explained during the lecture earlier in the week. Arianne couldn’t really figure out how her parents thought that using her as a buffer at this party would keep people from finding out about their separation in the first place. They lived in entirely separate houses, to start. That was enough, Ari thought, to get people talking. But, she kept her thoughts all to herself. It was better than getting the ever popular, “This is adult stuff” line. ‘Adult stuff’, as if she had no idea about her Dad’s affair, or the lawyers, or the fact that both her parents were entirely lying to her to keep their reputations in tact.

She has her headphones in once she slips into the passenger seat of the SUV, ignoring the monotone lecture explaining to Just stay out of the way, smile a lot, you’ll recognize some faces. Thanks for doing this, sweetie, I really appreciate it. You should have worn that black dress you wore to your homecoming last year, that one was really nice. But, at least you’re here, right?

In which case Arianne nods, smiles, pretends to listen until they pull up to what basically looks like the White House, big fountain and eight foot tall hedges included, in the middle of Eastwood. There are many adults arm in arm, making their way up the stairs into the building. There’s valet parking, which Arianne has never seen before, and is sort of intrigued to be escorted out of the passenger side of the SUV by a handsome man in a vest and tie. Immediately her Father is by her side, holding his arm out for her to hold. She does what she sees all the other women doing, and holds onto his elbow, letting him lead her into the building as well.

She’s glad she scuffed the bottoms of her heels with a key when she first bought them, she thinks to herself when she walks in. The floors are marble, and there are pillars and old 18th century style paintings hanging all along the walls. It’s more like a museum than a building to host a party. Everyone is dressed in pearls and fur and fancy dresses. It’s the kind of place that you would expect the Queen to be visiting at any moment. If Arianne hadn’t found her curling iron tonight, she’d absolutely feel out of place. Even then, she still feels like she has maybe too much makeup on, or maybe she’s just a bit ‘young’ to fit in in the first place. It’s the kind of building where you would never find one spec of dust anywhere remotely near it, and during the day, there would absolutely be a team of guys trimming the hedges and mowing the lawn to make it look 100% perfect every day.

Her dad leads her in, “Hello, Mr. Stanton, this is my daughter, Arianne.”, “Hello, good to see you, Richard! This is my daughter, Arianne!”, “Mrs. Torres, you look lovely. This is my daughter, Arianne!”, and a few more greetings later, Ari finds herself grabbing a glass of wine off of one of the server’s trays.