The Fundamentals of the Wealthy

Macarons, not Macaroons

I quickly found that when Mrs. Raleigh meant 'us', she really meant that 90% of the time I would bake, while the other 10% of the time was spent by her crying into a full wine glass nearby, sobbing about her husband.

After five trials of exploded, cracked, crumbled, excessively tall, and excessively short macarons, I finally pulled out a tray of perfect, puffy, red velvet macaron shells.

Mrs. Raleigh's green eyes grew to the size of dinner plates and she jumped to my side, knocking her glass into the sink.

"Perfect!" She squeaked, "And now the frosting!"

"Just slather some cream cheese between them and it'll be fine."

Her eyes slitted into a cat-like glare, hot enough to singe my hair, "Piper, this is serious! My entire reputation is at stake!"

I sighed, "I would love to frost them, but it really is getting late -"

"I'll double your pay for this week if you do this, and come to the party with me."

"So do you want cream cheese frosting or chocolate?"

We got to work on the chocolate ganache. I had to prevent Mrs. Raleigh from pouring in some of her wine to make it 'flavorful' several times, but we got it done.

Just as the macarons were frosted, her butler came skidding in, right behind a tiny bundle of orange fur, the latter howling and yelping like its life depended on it.

It ran between my legs and stayed huddled there like a pale orange cotton ball, glaring at the butler. Before I could move, Mrs. Raleigh snatched it off the ground and held close to her face to inspect it.

It whined and squirmed fervently from her grasp. The woman was dangling the poor thing in the air like it was a plucked chicken.

"Mrs...Mrs- Raleigh..." The butler gasped for air, "I'm sorry..I looked away...and the little demon..."

He wheezed and fell onto a stool.

"...and the little demon escaped through the crack in the door."

My employer nodded slowly, "Leave us, Robert. We will keep the dog."

Like a queen's servant, he obeyed straightaway and hurried out the door, almost smashing his head on the doorframe in the process.

Once he was gone, Mrs. Raleigh shook the dog excitedly, "Yes! This is perfect!"

I quickly took the dog from her before she could shake its brains out.

"I'm not quite sure what you're getting at."

The way she stared at the dog made me fear for my own life.

"If I just put a ribbon on this dog and bring it to the party, she'll be the belle of the ball! They'll have to keep me then!"

I plotted both points on a graph in my mind and tried to find any possible way to connect them. No matter how hard I tried, the results were the same:

No Correlation. None.

Of course, the bonus and the very prospect of angering my landlord kept my mouth shut.

Mrs. Raleigh snagged a red ribbon from a nearby gift basket and tied it around the corgi's neck.

"Perfect," She whispered. Goosebumps rose on my skin.

The elder woman surely was kind, but over the years of being rejected from the housewives' group over and over again, I guessed she was just getting tired of the loneliness. That, in addition to her husband always gone on business trips.