Page 13 of The Price of Protection

Rose knew that this was it, that these were the parties where the real money circulated. She went to Janice to assess the dresses she had in a closet near the office. The dresses were all black, with short skirts and a variety of necklines. Rose chose a cute Peter Pan collar, a short-short skirt, and a pair of black heels. She looked at herself in the mirror and liked what she saw. Janice said, “That’ll do, I guess,” which took Rose down a peg.

Saturday night before she left for the party, Rhett appeared on her porch with a bouquet. He looked so small and frightened, entirely unlike the guy she’d fallen for last year. She hadn’t seen him since the night before she started work at the resort, so Rose felt as if he were a stranger. She walked out, gave him a side hug, and accepted the flowers. “What are these for?” she asked. She was already wearing the short black dress.

“I don’t want you to drift away from me,” Rhett said. “I love you. I want to fix whatever’s wrong with us.”

Rose blinked back tears, then set the bouquet aside and folded her hands over her stomach. “I have to go to work. Can we talk about this later?”

Rhett shrugged. “Okay. But…”

“But what?”

“I don’t know. I’m worried you’re going to forget about me.”

“I could never,” Rose said, but even as she said it, she wondered if that was entirely true. Didn’t most high school sweethearts break up? Didn’t most high school sweethearts move on, make different decisions, and eventually marry and have children with other people? Before, she’d been frightened by that idea because she’d wanted Rhett in her life forever. But now that she was faced with party guests like the ones she would meet tonight, people who could open her world, she wasn’t sure she’d been right about Rhett.

Maybe it was time for them both to move on.

Perhaps it was time to face what it meant to grow up.

“Let’s meet tomorrow,” she suggested. “I’m sure we both have a lot to say.”

Her flat tone was uninspired. It seemed clear, probably to Rhett as well, that she was done.

Steve’s party was held in a different wing of the resort, a place where resort workers ordinarily weren’t allowed to go. As per Janice's instructions, Rose headed straight there, where she was given a thin wristband so other employees would know she was allowed to move through the space, enter the three different kitchens, and speak to guests. She recognized only one other girl from her typical resort crew. The others were all blond and at least five-ten.

While Steve schmoozed with his friends, Janice seemed in charge. She told Rose, “Handle it the way you handle everything on a day-to-day basis, but up the ante on everything. If you mess up, these people can ruin the resort. Remember that Steve can make or break your career.”

Rose’s throat swelled with panic, but she smiled at Janice and said she was ready.

Orange lamps softly illuminated the rooms in this wing of the resort, and plants were draped everywhere. The furniture was soft and elegant. Outside, the beach sprawled on either side, and a jewel-lit pool sat in the center, around which Rose found some of the most beautiful models and actresses she had ever seen up close. Drawn to them, she walked with a tray of champagne, then bent down and gestured for them to take what they wanted. Often, the models and actresses didn’t even glance at her, as though people like Rose walked up to them all the time. It was as though she were like a fly or a bee. Twice, men who were with the models laughed in her face and said, “Well, look what we have here. I’ve never seen this one before.”

“Do you think Steve got a new batch of servers this year?”

“I think we’ll see some of them on the big screen before next year’s through,” another said.

“Not this one,” the other said. “What do you think?”

They laughed. Rose couldn’t tell if they were trying to make her angry or actually call her ugly. She decided it didn’t matter. Her cheeks inflamed, and she walked along, heading for the opposite side of the pool. She had to remain powerful. She reminded herself that she could be discovered at any time. More than that, she had to be discovered before the night was through so when she and Rhett officially broke up, she’d have a backup plan. That was the perfect way to “win” the breakup.

But as the night wore on, Rose found herself up against more and more people who seemed to think they could make fun of her to her face, belittle her sense of self, and mock the way she looked in her dress. Apparently, the Peter Pan collar had been a mistake, which she found out when she heard people mocking her with lines from the Disney film. Why hadn’t Janice suggested that was the wrong choice? Or was Rose supposed to make those mistakes herself? Was Rose’s embarrassment maybe part of the show Steve and Janice wanted her to put on? Oh, it was all too much to consider.

But Rose continued. She fetched hors d’oeuvres, she laughed at bad jokes, and she flipped her hair in the way the five-ten servers did, praying that people didn’t think of her as the ugly one.

Slowly but surely, midnight drifted into one in the morning, then two. Rose realized that nobody had told her how long she’d be needed. Maybe this was an all-night party? Her stomach bubbled with apprehension. She hadn’t told her mother to expect her so late.

A few minutes past two thirty, a woman in a dark green velvet armchair beckoned for Rose to approach. “You there. Come here.” The woman had a blond bob, a short skirt, and knee-high leather boots. She was maybe in her mid-twenties, Rose guessed, though she had the arrogance and swagger of a much older, wealthier woman.

“Do you know how to make a good margarita?” the woman asked.

Rose raised her eyebrows. She’d never mixed a margarita in her life. It had tequila, she knew that much, but her mind couldn’t fill in the rest.

“Well?” the woman demanded.

Rose felt at least five pairs of drunken eyes on her, waiting for her next move. She remembered that Janice had told her she needed to do whatever these people wanted. She needed to perform.

“You know, that isn’t really my place. Maybe I can ask the bartender,” Rose said, smiling.

“I’ve already asked the bartender,” the woman said. “His margarita was staggeringly awful. You can’t begin to imagine how bad it was. I already poured it in the pool.”