Had been counting down all week to this moment. So with a deep sigh of relief, I stepped, luggage in hand, toward the thick reinforced doors strong enough to survive a bomb blast. The inconspicuous school in this town, not far from the border of France, was on a lake bearing the same name. Until my parents sent me here to Neuchatel, I only knew of this town for the Swiss chocolates they sold in America.
But my school was no Willy Wonka experience. No Oompa-Loompas around here. And creepy men in top hats and coats would get got.
Place was originally a hospital until, back in the late 1800s, it was converted into a school for the betterment and civility of young ladies like me, whose parents had the money and desire to have them molded into so much more.
Leaving the toasty confines, I pulled my fur close to shield me from the cold rush of air on a sunny day. Just as the text said, a car horn to my right alerted me to the all-black Citro?n C6 rolling in my direction down the slightly uneven Rue du Pommier. If I knew my daddy, he probably had it armored. I couldn’t contain myself and waved frantically, dropping the poise and polish drummed into my head twenty-four seven over the past year. I hoped LC had made the trip across the ocean to surprise me. I couldn’t wait to show him the new me I’d become and what I’d learned from my instructors.
Standing in the cold air I spotted Jae Kim being comforted by her fine-ass British hottie, who attended the male equivalent to our school in the next town. We exchanged bitter, hostile glares when I noticed him checking me out. Instead of continuing down the steps, I stopped for a moment and a smile spread across my lips. When I finally approached them on the first landing of the steps I saw a look of confusion flutter across her face.
“Bye, Jae. Have a great spring break,” I offered in my most conciliatory voice. “You heading back to Korea?”
“Don’t you speak to me, you fucking bitch!” She glared then turned her back to me to punctuate her seriousness. But he shot me an apologetic smile. I stepped to him.
“If you didn’t have such shitty taste in women I’d consider giving you some.” I reached into my pocket and handed him a card with my phone number on it. “Just in case your taste improves,” I finished, the sounds of them arguing followed me down the stairs.
When the sedan rolled to a stop in front of the school, I didn’t wait for the driver to exit. Instead, I scrambled down the remaining brick steps and up to the car window where I tapped on it with my fingernails. Through the tint, I could make out a silhouette that had to be my daddy’s.
As the passenger lowered the window, the driver exited and went about gathering my bags to place in the trunk.
“Hello, Paris,” the voice said, taking me aback that it wasn’t my daddy’s.
“Orlando,” I muttered dryly at the recognition of my brother, clad in a navy blue suit with shiny O.D. cufflinks that adorned his crisp white cuffs. “Where’s Daddy?” I asked as he discarded a cigarette out the window while blowing smoke out his nose. Orlando was trying too hard to fit in with the cool and the chic out here. He had a woman seated on the side of him who looked to be Italian and probably didn’t speak a lick of English. I guessed it was a high-priced whore whom he’d arranged to spend time with. I paid her no mind.
“Well, hello to you too,” he replied with a grin certainly meant to piss me off.
“What do you want?” I asked my brother as the driver slammed the Citro?n’s trunk shut then opened Orlando’s door for him. Bitch was getting cold and they wanted to play games. As Orlando exited, he allowed the driver to place his wool overcoat on him like he was a stone-cold pimp. The brunette stayed inside the car, never daring to look at me.
“C’mon, take a walk with me,” Orlando said with a motion of his head.
The Citro?n slowly trailed us in the distance as me and my brother strode along the lake on Quai Phillippe-Gaudet. As a little Smart car buzzed by, even I had to admire the postcard beauty of this town. But this was cutting into my free, time and Orlando wouldn’t come all the way here just to take a stroll with me.
“Why aren’t we on a G5 by now?” I pressed Orlando, who’d been much too quiet.