The Lowest Maintenance Sugar Baby novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Brunch With Vera

Vera humiliates Millie before her guests and offers fifty thousand dollars to leave. Millie refuses, and Margo walks in.

I rode the Schwinn to the Rainsford house in Bel Air, and the gate guard made me lock it to a tree.

"The bike stays outside, miss."

"Gary is a guest."

"Who is Gary?"

"The bike."

"The bike is a bike."

He took my name off a clipboard.

Carlton met me at the front steps in a gray suit.

"You don't have to do this," he said.

"She watched a video of me and decided who I am. I'm going to let her say it to my face."

"That's a terrible plan."

"It's free, though."

He almost smiled.

The dining room had a glass wall and a lawn that looked ironed.

A dozen people sat at a long table with little cards in front of their plates.

Mine was at the far end, next to a bowl of lemons.

The card said Millicent, in a font that looked like it had a lawyer.

At the head sat a white-haired man with big hands and a golf tan.

That was Harold, Carlton's father.

He lifted his coffee at me and said nothing.

The woman beside him stood up.

Vera Rainsford had a silver-blond bob, pearls and the kind of smile that makes a room check its posture.

"Millicent," she said, coming around the table with both hands out. "At last. We've all been dying to meet you."

"It's Millie."

"Of course it is."

She kissed the air next to both my cheeks.

Then she turned me to face the table.

"Everyone, this is the girl from the video."

A tablet lit up on a stand by the fruit.

My own voice came out of it, small and clear.

"Could you buy me a Schwinn?"

The table laughed.

It wasn't mean at first, only polite, the kind of laugh that tests the water.

Then Vera laughed, and the rest followed her.

"Isn't it precious?" she said. "A hundred and forty dollars. Carlton, darling, you've really outdone yourself."

"Vera," Carlton said.

"I'm only saying what everyone's thinking. It's a wonderful story. The poor thing, so modest."

She patted my arm.

"Of course, we all know modesty is just very patient greed."

I had a plate in front of me with a pastry on it.

I picked up the pastry.

"This is nice," I said. "Who made it?"

"The chef."

"What does he make an hour?"

Someone coughed.

It was a very good pastry, and I'd like that on the record.

Vera's smile held.

"Let's skip to the part where we're honest," she said. "You are twenty-seven years old. You have no family money and no real job. Carlton is thirty-two and soft about strays."

"I'm right here," Carlton said.

"I know, sweetheart, and that's the problem."

She took an envelope from her pocket and slid it down the table until it stopped against my lemon bowl.

"Fifty thousand dollars," she said. "A cashier's check. You walk out of this house, delete the bicycle, and the video comes down by tonight."

Nobody at the table moved.

I didn't open the envelope.

I looked at it.

"That's a lot of money for a girl who asks for a bike," I said.

"It's the going rate."

"It's a very bad rate. You'd pay that much to get rid of someone who costs fourteen ninety-nine a week?"

Her eyes narrowed a little.

"Everyone has a number, Millicent."

"Mine's pretty low. But it's not for sale."

I slid the envelope back up the table.

It crossed the whole length of the cloth and stopped at her plate.

"I'd like to keep my Thursdays," I said.

"Dad," Carlton said.

Harold put down his coffee.

"Let her talk, son."

"She's not talking. She's being hunted."

"Is that what you call it?" Vera turned on him, and for a second the polish slipped. "You've been spending money on her for eleven weeks. You've spent nothing. Do you know how that looks to the board?"

"It looks like I'm cheap."

"It looks like you're hiding something. Money that goes nowhere goes somewhere."

I did not understand that sentence.

I didn't have time to.

Vera's phone buzzed.

She looked down at it, and the cold smile came back.

"Ah," she said. "There she is."

The doors at the end of the room opened.

Margo Farragut walked in, in a magenta pantsuit, with a little wave.

"Sorry I'm late, Auntie," she said.

Vera took her hand and kissed her cheek.

"Thank you for the footage, darling," she said.

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