Chapter 4: Training Costs

My father didn't let me finish the glasses.

He called hotel security, then a man he called "the gate company," then my mother.

He talked to all of them in a low voice I couldn't hear.

Then he drove me home himself, with the doors locked, and walked me up to the third floor.

I waited until his footsteps went downstairs.

Then I took the pillow off the princess bed and slept under it, on the rug.

Under a bed is good. Nobody steps on you.

By ten the next morning the back lawn was full of round tables and ladies in sun hats.

My mother's welcome brunch.

She'd planned it a week ago, she told me, before she even knew for sure.

The housekeeper had laid out a yellow dress on my bed with a note: For Minnie, from Mom.

It had no price tag.

I checked twice.

I wore it, because a uniform is a uniform.

My mother took me by the hand and walked me down the lawn.

At the first table she stopped and put her other arm around Odette.

"Ladies, you know our Odette," she said, glowing. "And this is Minnie."

Our Odette.

And Minnie.

The ladies cooed at Odette's dress.

Then they looked at me.

One of them leaned to her neighbor.

"Seven years with God knows who. Do you think she's even house-trained?"

Odette laughed behind her hand.

My mother didn't hear it, or she pretended not to.

I went to check the coffee urns, because one was dripping.

That was when the shouting started at the side gate.

A woman in a purple fleece was pushing past a caterer's cart, waving a folder.

I knew that fleece.

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