The Escort

“Sorry Ellie,” he said to her. “It just isn’t going to work out.”

“Why not?!” Gabrielle shouted out. Heads began to turn to her and her long-time boyfriend, Kurt, but she hardly cared. She was fuming. He was not about to break up with her. That just didn’t happen in Ellie’s world. And especially not at her parents’ own banquet. In her own house. He could not have made it more public, or have picked a more embarrassing place to do this.

Kurt looked around, embarrassed at the sudden attention, of which he brought upon himself. He wiped his mouth with his napkin, folded it once, and then wiped the small bit of sweat on his forehead. “Ellie… it’s just not the same as before...”

“What could possibly be different?” Ellie asked with her eyes narrowed.

His eyes begged her not to make such a scene over this, but Ellie was going to make it as big a scene as she wanted to. What did she care? “Quite frankly,” he said. “You.”

Ellie stood up abruptly. “Excuse me?”

“Ellie, settle down. You’re causing a scene…” Kurt said, not moving from his spot.

Ellie could feel the vein in her head pounding. This guy had some nerve. “Get out!” she shouted, much too loud. The entire room fell silent.

“Gabrielle, it’s a party. You can’t kick me out,” Kurt said, keeping is cool in a way that aggravated Ellie so much.

“I very well can,” she said.

Kurt shook his head. “Ellie… I think it would be up to your parents whether I left or not.”

“Kurt, if you don’t get out, so help me God, I’ll—“

Suddenly, there was a hand on her shoulder. She looked over and saw her brother, Henry, a year older than herself, with a grim look on his face. “Ellie, don’t.” Ellie opened her mouth to retort something, but he interrupted her again. “Stop,” he said. She could see the distaste in his eyes towards Kurt, but he was the perfect example of modeled behavior. Chivalrous, calm, collected, intelligent, and in charge. Acting out was not something he knew how to do.

Ellie let him guide her away from Kurt, out of the dining hall. She could feel the eyes staring at her, and her face burned with embarrassment as she tried not to cry. She regretted making a scene, but she also regretted not slapping Kurt across the face.

When the two entered into an abandoned hallway, one she hardly remembered though this was her own insanely large house, she could stand it no longer and let herself cry. She leaned against the wall behind her and slid to the floor, huddling herself in a ball with her knees against her chest in a very unladylike manner.

Her brother knelt beside her, trying to calm her with murmured assurances that everything would be alright. He wasn’t the type of brother who would go and fix his little sister’s problems with his fists, although he probably could. His reputation did not allow for outbursts like that. He was expected to be the perfect son, expected to one day either take over their father’s business or become the next politician in the family—an enormous weight on his shoulder for a boy to grow up with.

“It’s alright,” he murmured, wiping Ellie’s tears with his thumb. “You’re alright.”

“No, I’m not, Henry,” Ellie said harshly, pushing his hand way and resting her head on her knees. She was still crying. “He broke up with me! In front of all those people! He made me look like a fool in front of all of them. He didn’t even act like it was that big a deal to him!”

“He’s only one guy, Elle,” Henry said. “One insensitive jerk of a guy. There’s—“

“Plenty more guys out there, I know,” she finished. “But this was Kurt, Henry! Just yesterday he was telling me how wonderful I was! How much he loved me!”

Henry sighed. “I’m sorry, but it’s not something you can change, now is it? What happens, happens. Now, you just need to pick yourself up.” He stood, giving his sister soft sad eyes. Then, he extended his hand to help her up. “Now, won’t you come back into the hall and show him that you don’t care?”

“But I do care,” Elle said, wiping her mascara and eyeliner stained cheeks with the back of her hand as she stood up without her brother’s help. “And I’m not going back in there.”

“Ellie…”

“You can tell mother that I went to my room,” she said as she began to walk down the hallway, her stilettos making an angry click with each step. “And not to disturb me.”

***

Ellie tugged the fancy clips from her hair and her soft amber brown curls came tumbling to her shoulders. With each tug, tears welled up in her eyes—from the sting of the pull or from the sting of the sudden break up, she didn’t know. She watched herself in the mirror, recalling a few hours ago thinking how pretty she looked and what Kurt would say as compliment to her appearance. Now, her hair was in knots, her eye makeup ran down her cheeks, and she was missing an earring, which was probably in the hallway where she had left Henry. She pulled off the necklace and other earring that matched it and chucked it onto her dresser.

Why even bother getting pretty? she thought as she furiously tried to reach the zipper that unzipped the back of her floor-length gown. When she got it, the dress fell to her ankles, and she left it there on the floor and collapsed on her bed, not caring that she now only was wearing undergarments. She landed with her head face down on her pillow and screamed—then, cried. She was upset. Furious. Confused. Frustrated. She finally understood what it meant when people said ‘a whirlwind of emotion’.

For the next few hours, every so often, she heard a knock at her door and someone call her name. Glad for the lock on her door, she just laid on her bed. Eventually, she turned on her radio so that she didn’t have to hear her brother and her parents constant bothering. Once or twice, she thought she had heard Kurt’s voice on the other side of the door, and she would shut off her music to listen. However, it would only be her dad and brother, who sounded nothing like him, which only proved how much she wished he’d come and apologize. But he never came. Not once.

Eventually, she slipped on her pajamas and watched the clock until the party ended. Kurt still never showed up. The more time went by, the more reality set in for her. It wasn’t just like she could say “I’ll never see him again,” because she would. In reality, his parents were the ones who managed her mother’s political campaigns. Not even a nasty break-up with their son could make Ellie’s mother let go of Kurt’s parents’ awesome management. It had already won her senator once, and now she was trying for twice. Ellie fully expected her to get it. Everyone here in Virginia loved her.

Love. Ellie wasn’t in the mood to think of that word…

“Gabrielle?” Her father, Mr. Pembroke’s, voice said from the other side of the door for the third time. “Gabrielle, open the door.”

She turned her music up.

“Gabrielle!”

She pretended she couldn’t hear him over the roar of her music. His voice disappeared, and Ellie thought she had gotten rid of him. But a little while later, there was a click and the door opened. She sat up and quickly wiped her tears with her arm. “Dad!” she shrieked. She turned off her music.

One of the three butlers, John Jinx, opened the door, Ellie’s father behind him, with the key to her door in his hand. “I found the key,” he said, rather plainly.

Out of all her butlers and one maid, Old Man Jinx was the one she considered closest to family. He was the grandfather she never had, and had similar opinions as her father, which made him her second father. But today, Ellie didn’t want to see him.

She rolled her eyes. “Gee, thanks, Jinxers.”

“I’m here to serve, Princess Gabby,” was his reply. Ellie could have sworn she saw a small smirk on the old man’s wrinkly white face. He exited the room, and Mr. Pembroke came up to her near the bed.

“Gabrielle,” he said. He was one of the select few who never called her by one of her numerous nicknames. Ellie was named after his grandmother, whom she heard was a strong independent woman of whom Mr. Pembroke respected greatly. Ellie sometimes thought that she would have liked to meet her namesake, but the thought didn’t cross her mind today. She turned away from her dad.

“Gabrielle,” her father said again, sitting next to her on the bed. “Darling, I’m sorry about what happened, but perhaps it wasn’t meant to be…”

Ellie knew how much her parents had liked Kurt. They had told her a million times how much they thought that the two of them were the perfect match. Prestigious backgrounds. High class. Bright futures. Kurt was going to study law and go into Congress, like his father and grandfather. Ellie’s mother once mentioned how lovely it would be if they got married one day (in the distant future, her father would add), and how Ellie would never have to worry about anything in her entire life. Ellie could grow up to be the model housewife and take care of kids, which was ironic considering her mother was the one out of the house the most and hired a nanny to raise Ellie. Ellie wanted to be a painter, but she didn’t think her mother even knew that.

Despite all that, she still loved Kurt just as much as her parents seemed to.

“Dad, I don’t really want to hear the ‘It wasn’t meant to be’ speech right now,” she said.

But Mr. Pembroke smiled. “It’s true, though! Did I ever tell you that I dated your Aunt Lillian before your mother?”

She scowled. “Gross, Dad.”

He laughed. “But it’s true,” he said. “And she broke up with me. Crushed my heart.” Ellie’s scowl deepened. Hearing about her dad’s relationship with her aunt wasn’t something she wanted to hear. “But you know what? I went over a week later to try to talk to her, and that’s when I met your mother and fell in love. Now look at us now. Your aunt lives in a house we provided her with six kids, and her husband is a teacher. Meanwhile, your mother is a beautiful, successful woman who I could not be any more in love with. And I have a daughter I adore.”

Ellie stayed quiet, staring at her shoes. Sure, that made her feel a little better, but really, that was something he didn’t have to share. Ellie wouldn’t be able to look at her Aunt Lillian the same way—not that she saw her much anyway. “Dad,” she mumbled to the ground, “I really don’t want to talk about this, okay? I want to be alone…”

Her dad sighed. “Alright.” He stood and kissed her forehead. “Just remember that everything happens for a reason.”

So there was a reason Kurt publicly embarrassed her when he dumped her, giving no real reason besides “you’ve changed”? Yeah. Everything happens for a reason, she thought. Yeah, right. “Okay, Dad,” she murmured.

And Mr. Pembroke walked out, leaving her in the quiet.

***

Almost a week went by where Ellie kept to herself in the house. Her mother was constantly out, scheduling things for her next campaign. Dad was out managing hotels—he owned a chain of them. Henry was out with friends or taking college courses at the local college way above his age level in business. Jinx and the others were around working and cleaning, but Ellie was hardly in the mood to chat with them, so really, it felt like she had the huge house to herself.

When the family was home, she kept to her room with the door locked, even though she now knew Jinx had the keys. No one disturbed her. Not for five days. She read some books that she was required to read over the summer for her prestigious all-girls school that she hated. She painted her nails and toes. She braided her hair into a French braid that looped around her head. She cleaned out her closet. She did everything she could, until she became completely bored. At that point, she just lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling.

That’s when Henry came in, armed with the key to the door, as well as the keys to his car. “Come on,” he said. “That’s quite enough moping. We’re going out.”

Ellie sat up with a frown. “Where?” she asked.

“A walk in the park. Some air could do you some good, don’t you think?”

Honestly, Ellie didn’t think that would help at all, but she was bored. And really, she wanted someone to talk to. Someone who wouldn’t tell her stories about dating her aunt and lovey-dovey mushy stuff like that about her mother and father.

And so, she ended up going with her brother to the park.

On the ride there, nothing really was said, which Ellie preferred, actually. Everyone had been trying to comfort her, so silent company was a nice change. The radio was playing music similar to Ellie’s own taste. For someone as intelligent and prestigious as Ellie’s brother, his tastes were rather normal for a teenaged guy. He even sang along to the lyrics. It was always good to see the normal side, comfortable side of her brother. Ellie smiled. Henry looked over and smiled to, laughing when he realized how goofy he was acting.

Ellie enjoyed these small moments.

The park was in the center of town, ringed by the tall buildings, one of which Ellie’s father worked. And not too far away was her mother’s office, too. When Ellie was littler, the family would come here as a family just for a little fun before her mother and father had to work. It was always nice. But now, it was just her and Henry. Ellie didn’t mind though. The two walked down the paved road that wound around the park, chatting about small things—Kurt was not mentioned.

“Hey look over there,” Henry said, slowing a bit, looking down the path that wound in the opposite direction that they were taking. “That’s Senator Kingsley.”

Ellie looked where his eyes were directed and saw a greying hair man that looked familiar from television. He was the other senator of Virginia that worked with their mother. Of course, considering she was a Republican and Senator Kingsley was a Democrat, there were more disagreements between them than friendship. Needless to say, he wasn’t at many of Ellie’s mother’s parties.

Next to the senator, a young man stood talking with him. They looked similar, except the young man was much more handsome. He had a sort of posture that was similar to Henry and Kurt’s. A sort of posture learned with experience. His broad shoulders and back was straight and his walk was elegant. And he was very handsome.

“Who’s that next to him?” Ellie found herself asking.

“His son, Everett, I think.”

Everett, as if he heard his name from such a distance away, looked over his shoulder at Henry and Ellie. Ellie almost gasped at his gorgeous bright blue eyes that were such a contrast from his short black hair. He only nodded acknowledgement, as if he recognized the two, and his eyes lingered on Ellie. The two stared for only a moment, and then he looked away, continuing to talk to his father.

Ellie didn’t know it then, but she would be seeing much more of Everett Kingsley.