Chapter VIII

I put my cheek down on the nice polished wooden desk. Today had been so boring. I only had two reports all day, and I'd walked around the office so many times that I swear I could see the path worn into the carpet. I peeked up from my desk, through the blinds, at the office door of Mr. Gladstone. It had been two weeks since the accident, and we had barely said two words to each other. I couldn't go more than ten minutes without worrying he would just walk right in and fire me on the spot. I sunk further into my desk. Using the bathroom at work was so anxiety-inducing. I'd come back into the office and he would be sitting there, ready to let me go. But not using the bathroom would be worse. I shuddered at the memory. What if he saw me slouching like this? I had to look busy...

"Wow, Nattie, you keep pacing and you're going to end up in a pit!" Prin had come out of relatively nowhere, which was to say that she'd gotten off the elevator from an upper floor, walked down past a dozen cubicles and had even waved to Natalie to announce her presence, but the fraught girl must not have seen her because she damn near jumped out of her skin when Prin had talked!

I looked at Prin like she was a ghost. She had a bag of snacks in her hand and she passed me a cookie with all the grace of a seasoned secretary. "Th-thanks..." "You've been wound up all week. Doing alright?" "Y-yeah. Sorry. Sorry." I took a bite of the cookie to calm down. Every minute or so, I'd glance at Mr. Gladwell's office. Did I look busy enough? "Um. No calls, Prin? Nothing?" "Not since the last time you asked." "Right..."

"What's gotten you in such a tizzy anyway, Nattie? You're usually the very image of composed and cute and down to earth, and right now it's like you're a toy with the wind up spring wound just a bit too tight." It was a very 1950's way of phrasing things, but apt!

"Yeah, I'm just... bored. Antsy, you know?" Prin and I were nearly the same age, but she always talked to me like I was younger. Probably because she had her job here before me. Technically, she had seniority over me, though I was her boss. "Don't you have something I could do? Papers to file? Someone to yell at?"

"Oh you cutiepop, I don't think we'd get too far if you tried yelling at someone." Prin laughed kindly and booped Natalie right on the nose. Just like that. "Lighten up! There's nothing to do, so sit at your desk and do your nails or shop for cute clothes or forward emails about cats."

I pouted and looked down at my buckle-up shoes. My more childish clothes were second nature by now - everyone at the office was so nice to me, and I knew it had a lot to do with the way I dressed. And well, they were comfortable to say the least. "Send me an email about a cat, then. That's an order." Prin gave me a salute and I returned again to my office. This was the longest day of my life.

* * * * *

"What did you want to talk to me about, darling?" It had to have been nine at night by the time Cora came into the girl’s bedroom - Sam had already come in and done her best to persuade her best friend to let her change her clothes, failed, left, and came back with dinner. They'd fought some and Natalie had called for Cora. Cora had a pleasant smile, a diplomatic smile, even, like she knew that Natalie was still causing a fuss with the help, but wasn't going to bring it up.

"I don't want Sam to be bringing me food anymore," I said flatly. "And can you tell her she doesn't have to change my clothes?" My friendship with Sam was getting harder and harder. She was acting like a jerk, and I was always on edge. And I finally figured out what the problem was: she was basically my maid.

"You want a different maid, darling?" Cora was thoughtful about that and tapped her finger to her cheek, pretending to be in some deep level of thought before she continued. "I suppose we could let Samantha go, although she was coming along in her training so well - that girl has a passion for service, you know? Her pride is a struggle for her, but she is so fulfilled being here. I suppose I'll let her know her services aren't needed and she can leave."

Leave? Let her go? As Cora turned to leave my room, I leapt up from the bed in a panic. "Wait! No! I don't want you to fire her! I... I meant like. Let her do something else. Cleaning the foyer or doing the dishes or something. And I'll have a different maid?" If I got Sam fired, she'd hate me forever. We wouldn't be friends anymore. My chest started to hurt. Tears filled up my eyes. "Please don't fire her..."

"Well, if she's not your handmaiden, darling, she's superfluous to our needs; she's not classically trained and doesn't come from a servant family, so taking care of you is about all she can be trusted with. If you need another maid, we'll have to let her go I'm afraid. Oh she will be so distraught,” Cora mused out loud.

"N-no! No, no, no! I'm sorry! She... she's fine. She's great!" "She isn't following protocols anyhow," Cora sighed. "She hasn't helped you into your pajamas even once." "I... that's my fault. I don't need help with stuff like that."

"Well, the thing about having a servant, darling girl, is that she needs to serve. She has duties and protocols, and if she's not following them for any reason, she's not useful to us here. Don't worry your pretty head, I'm sure your new maid will follow the protocols much better!" How optimistic sounding, and with every word, Cora drove Natalie deeper into a corner of surrender.

"Please don't," I muttered wiping tears from my cheeks. My thoughts were spinning. Sam getting fired. Her hating me. A new maid. Being alone here. I didn't have any friends, not really. After I slept with my boss, all my friends from work stopped talking to me. I only had Sam... "I... I could use some help, I guess. With... um... with..."

"With being dressed in the mornings and the evenings?" Cora offered, smiling, waiting for Natalie to nod. "With having your baths drawn? And obviously with taking a bath, too; that's part of a handmaiden’s role. Splendid! Then I suppose I can give Samantha a second chance. For my Princess's sake."

"Princess...?" I looked up at Cora through tear-filled eyes with an ounce of confusion. And what I saw in Cora was... surprise. Had she meant to say that? What did she mean by princess? "I'm not special or anything" I told her. "I just work for your husband..."

"You do, yes, as does everybody at the business," Cora needed a moment to pause, to recompose, but whether her slip of the tongue was intentional or not was difficult to tell - either way, she landed on her feet with aplomb. "But not everybody gets to live here, not everybody gets a second chance to prove themselves. Pariah to Princess, isn't that a fairytale title worth having?"

I crossed my arms and looked down at my feet. "I thought I was living here so you could keep an eye on me... but you're always so nice. You take me shopping and you buy me things and you fix my mistakes... I just don't get it. I thought you were going to hate me..."

"You haven't given me a reason to hate you, Natalie, and I think that might be because your wayward actions before were a result of lack of supervision, lack of attention, and lack of love. You'll get all three of those things in abundance here in your new home, so I think neither of us have much to worry about, do we, darling?" Cora was always so ready with answers.

Cora reached out and touched my cheek, running her fingers down the side of my neck in an affectionate gesture. If I had literally any other relationship with this woman, I might have thought she was coming onto me. But it didn't feel like that. It felt intimate. It felt soft. It felt... safe.

The moment lingered tenderly, softly, and for just long enough. And then, just like that it was over. Back to business. "Samantha will draw you a bath in the morning and get you ready for work. Remember the boundaries between you and her, my darling; she needs to feel like a servant and you need to feel like a princess, so don't be shy about making use of her because her position here counts on it." And then, one last thing. "I'll send her up to change you for bed."

"Um... r-right. Sure..." Cora left my room and I sat down on the edge of my bed. Wow, that was weird. Not bad. Just... weird. A few minutes later, Sam showed up in my doorway with the same look of irritation from before. I remembered what Cora said. "Um. You can help me get ready, I guess."

"Oh, I can, huh?" Clearly, Sam had a bit of an attitude problem right now; the back and the forth, the getting in trouble over Natalie's resistance, the uncertainty. She acted like a friend in a fight, but she had duties to perform.

"Listen, do you wanna keep your job or not?" Sam looked at me harshly and I looked harshly right back. But in the end, we both knew the truth. Sam didn't want to have to go find another job. So she sighed and stepped into the room

"Yeah yeah..." Samatha sighed and came into the room, going about what she was supposed to have been doing for the past two weeks; getting out Natalie’s bedclothes, making light conversation, getting her ready for bed. It was humiliating, honestly, because Sam didn't see why Natalie deserved this kind of treatment, but at least she wouldn't get scolded again. “Oh, you should check the toilet for spiders."

"...what?" I looked down at Sam like I had misheard her. I did, right? "When Josceline was in the bathroom, like... four spiders just poured out from under the toilet seat. I know you don't like spiders, so I thought I'd warn you." Sam draped the nightgown over my head and a shudder ran up my spine. "Thanks for telling me," I muttered. But I wasn't thankful she told me at all.