First Meeting â Teenage Verse (13)
Margot hates these parties. She's never good enough at them no matter how hard she tries. Lately she's just stopped trying because it doesn't seem to make a difference. At the end of the party, Mother and Father will scold her and frown at her. Father might even hit her if she did something particularly wrong. The flaws that they thought she could be trained out of have persisted, she still falls behind at her ballet classes.
Instead of trying to please them anymore she's settled on trying to not be noticed. She follows Mason's lead, is introduced to people, barely says a word and they like her better for it.
She brushes her hands down her dress in the mirror, her fingers catching on the beads sewn into the full skirt. Mother picked it for her or rather her assistant did. It could be almost identical to her dresses when she was six, seven. She looks like a child, not someone to be taken seriously or to be talked with in a princess dress that comes down to her calves. At least it isn't pink but a light blue. She hates it like she has all the others.
She turns around to watch Mason put on the finishing touches. They have separate rooms now but they spend most of their time in Margot's. She scowls in jealousy at his back, Mason gets to wear a tuxedo. He smirks at her in the mirror before turning around to drape himself over her back. He tugs at her bun.
"Jealous, sis? We could always swap for tonight but you wouldn't like the attention you get. Not that this is much better. I wonder if any of the men there look at you with tight pants in this princess dress with you pink lips and your pink cheeks."
"Convince Father that it's to his advantage to have you look like an adult like I did. It'd help your case if you wiped that scowl of your face and talked with the guests tonight."
Margot purses her lips, angry at Mason because he's supposed to be on her side and disgusted at the men who think she can't seem them clutching at their pants. Some of them even stride towards her like that, will try to rub up against her as if she is a child and as if they don't fill their business speeches with bible quotations.
"I thought that's the reason why you're wearing this. Were you jealous of how much attention they're giving me?" Her response is sharper than it would have been last year but they've both grown up a bit. Last year they spent the party together, hand in hand because their mother liked the picture it made and in matching suits.
Mason smoothes down the labels of his new suit. "But when they try to make their moves on me, I get them to invest another a hundred million into the company and all you get from them is a smile."
He's still got his arms wrapped around her, playing his the pearls along the neckline. "We'll burn this tonight." He smiles into her hair and she smiles at last, relaxed by their banter.
She looks at them again, the picture they make. He looks a few years older than her. She looks like a little doll. It would be easier if she could be a doll, it was what they wanted from her but at some point she always snapped. It's the first party that they won't look like twins.
They walk down the stairs into the estate's ballroom, one after the other instead of hand in hand.
The ballroom is filled with dark suits, colourful and sparking dresses. She hates it. She hates much. All these people who work in ways that she doesn't understand. Mason's right though, something has to change. She can't be in this dress next year. She has to come up with a different method since Father's and Mason's and everyone else that they've sent her too haven't.
For tonight her only instructions have been to behave and to make nice with the Avery's daughter. Her name is Ophelia. She saw her at her thirteenth birthday, her big introduction to society. Her job then had been to talk with her but she'd barely come close to the girl. They were supposed to be around the same ages. The Averys were a family with money as old as dirt and about as dirty as it. Father had said that Ophelia had been kept at home, raised mostly by her grandparents. It's an honour that this party is one of the first that she's attended. Her father had hit her across the face after the last party. She can still feel the dull ache in her teeth.
Margot surveys the room, forcing a smile on her face when she has to greet a guest. At last she sees a dark head of long hair in a long pale blue dress. Whisps of fabric cling and drape around her slim body. She's beautiful. Just as graceful as she looked at the birthday party. The perfect daughter. The daughter she isn't.
She tries to walk smoothly towards her, tries to remember the movements they've tried to teach her in ballet. Tries to look like less of an idiot than she does in this child's dress. She doubts that she gets it. Doubts this perfect girl will even talk to her.
At last she reaches her. Makes eye contact. Tries to stretch her face into an imitation of Mason's "greeting face." "Hello, my name's Margot." Her voice is light and high not the deep crevices that it wants to reach.
