Jewel

Chapter 24

Yesterday I had another busy day down in design so I am excited to take a break from it today and work upstairs for the next couple of days. Lauren and I get ready together as usual with me on time and her rushing around late. I dress in my black cotton knit pants and flowy electric blue halter top with a built in wood pendant necklace. I finish the look with a thick wood bracelet and black ankle boots.

I didn't make my coffee this morning so we stop by the Starbucks down the street from Elite to grab a cup. The guy behind the counter gives us both a size larger than we paid for on purpose and we thank him cryptically before continuing on our way to work.

We are almost to the entrance of the building when someone knocks into my back. I've gotten used to this in the city and I ignore it. Then the person darts in front of me and smacks my hand to make my coffee spill all over my shirt. "Oops" she giggles. Fucking Savannah.

In an instant, I rip off the lid of my coffee and splash the rest of it on her white dress. "Oops" I mock her and jog up the stairs to the building hopefully before she times to react.

"You bitch!" she screams and chases me up the stairs.

I barely make it inside before she yanks my back by my hair. "Ow ow ow! Let go!" I grab a fist full of her hair too.

"I hate you!" she seethes and starts smacking me.

"Feeling is mutual." I try punching her stomach to make her let go. Before I know it, I am in my first real physical fight in public and it's with my step-sister. I have been wearing heels for some time now and have gotten very used to it, but somehow I manage to chip off a part of the heel to my boot.

We bump into the reception desk during our brawl and Lauren is trying to pull us away from each other, but we don't let go. I have been dreaming of this day my whole life. The only person who can break up our fight is Randy when he says, "Ladies, ladies."

We both stop immediately and throw each other off of us. "She started it." We both say at the same time and point to each other.

I straighten out my shirt and Savannah smoothes out her dress.

"My office now." Randy orders in a firm but not yet angry voice. We both huff and follow him to the elevator to go upstairs. We stand on opposite sides of the elevator with Randy as our mediator in the middle. I have my arms angrily crossed across my chest, but Savannah looks sadistically pleased.

We follow him to the office and try to push past each other as to who gets into the room first. We both take a seat in front the desk and Randy sits in his chair. "Okay, so what is going on? Meredith first." He points to me. Savannah tries to object to the order of how we can tell the story, but Randy silences her.

"As you may have figured out by now, Savannah and I have some history. We're step sisters actually. My mom died of cancer when I was five and then my dad remarried her mom. A few years after that, my dad was killed in a drunk driving accident. That left me and my brother with her and her mom. My spent my whole life cooking and cleaning for those two. They treated me like a slave and Savannah was the princess." I begin my story.

"I had to drive her everywhere even though she was the one with the car and I made sure everything was in perfect order for all of her pageants and stuff. She won title after title after title, but she never could land a real job. I was scouted at one of her shows on accident for the L.A. firm and I took it if it meant I could get away from that hell house. My brother had already left for the military to get away and I haven't heard from him in almost eight years. I only had one friend back then and now we don't even talk that much." Savannah fidgets in her seat as I recount my early days in hell.