The Lowest Maintenance Sugar Baby novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Fourteen Ninety-Nine for Everyone

Millie confronts Margo in front of the sugar circle and learns Vera pays her rent.

The circle met every Tuesday at a rooftop restaurant in West Hollywood, and Margo always reserved the long table.

I knew because she'd reserved it for me twice.

This Tuesday I walked in with the Schwinn on my shoulder, up four flights, because the stairs were free.

Nine girls were at the table.

They were in silk and sunglasses, with phones face down next to their wine.

Margo sat in the middle in a fresh magenta suit, laughing at something.

She saw me and her laugh stopped halfway.

"Millie! Babe!" She stood up. "I was going to call you. I'm so sorry about Sunday, Auntie is a lot."

"She's your aunt."

"Right, yes. I should've said."

"You should've said a lot of things."

I leaned the Schwinn against a planter and took a chair at the end.

The girls watched me.

I took out my phone.

"I'd like to order lunch for everyone," I said. "Group order. My treat."

"You're buying?" a girl in a green dress asked.

"Fourteen ninety-nine each."

"Per person?" the girl in green asked.

"There's a group discount."

Somebody giggled.

I tapped my phone and held it up.

"It's already on the way."

Margo's smile got tight.

"Millie, what is this? We have a reservation."

"It's lunch," I said. "I'm just being friendly. Isn't that what we do here? We help each other."

I let that sit.

Then I turned my chair a little so I faced the girls and not her.

"Margo helped me when I joined. She taught me what to put in my profile. She told me which men to avoid and which restaurants to skip. She asked me the same question every week. How's the arrangement going? What are his terms? Is he generous?"

I looked around the table.

"Did she ask you that too?"

The girl in green slowly looked at her own phone.

A second girl said, "She asked me about my guy's family. Last month."

"She asked me if mine was married," said a third.

"She filmed me once," said a fourth. "At the spa. She said it was for her story."

Margo laughed, too high.

"You're all being ridiculous. I'm a people person."

"You're a niece," I said.

Nobody breathed.

"Sunday, at the Rainsford house. Vera Rainsford said thank you for the footage, darling. In front of a dozen people."

"That's," Margo said. "That's a coincidence."

"Whose rent is it, Margo?"

She opened her mouth.

I waited.

I had one thing going for me, and it was that I'm patient with prices.

The elevator dinged.

A delivery guy in a bright jacket came out holding three bags and a drink carrier.

"Order for Millie?"

"Over here," I said. "Thank you. Please don't tell anyone what it cost."

He started setting out foil containers at nine places.

Chicken tikka. Rice. A little tub of raita.

It smelled amazing, and the girls looked at it like it had been put there by God.

Margo stood very still.

"My aunt pays my rent," she said, finally, quiet. "Okay? She pays my rent and my car and my phone. I owe her more than I'll make in ten years. So when she says go be friends with the baby who's costing her stepson nothing, I go and I'm friends. What do you want me to do?"

"Tell the truth," I said.

"To who?"

"To them."

"I didn't use any of it," she said. "I didn't tell her anything real."

"You told her where I live," the girl in green said.

"I told her what bus line you took."

"That's where I live, Margo."

The girl in green picked up her fork.

She was crying a little, I think, but she was also eating.

Chairs scraped.

One by one, the girls took their containers and moved down to my end of the table.

They left Margo alone in the middle with a menu she'd already paid for.

"That's not fair," she said. "You're making it sound like I'm the bad one. She's the one who made me do it."

"You didn't have to say yes."

"You've never been poor!"

I stopped with a forkful of rice halfway to my mouth.

I almost said it.

I almost said a lot of things.

"I've had a few rough years," was what I said instead. "I don't do this to people."

Margo wiped her face quickly.

She picked up her handbag.

Then she looked at me with a mean little tilt of the head, the way she did when she was about to say something she'd been saving.

"You want to know about betrayal? You've been so busy being cute about fourteen dollars."

"What?"

"Ask Carlton," she said. "Ask him what he's pretending to be."

She walked to the elevator.

I watched the doors close on a pink suit.

Then I took out my phone.

I had four missed texts from Carlton, all about the same thing.

"Don't go see Margo without me."

I was already there, and I'd already won.

So why did my stomach feel like I'd lost?

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