A Royal Pain (The Royals Trilogy Book 1)

by Brown, Tara

  My father had been so excited that Sheila had daughters close to my age. But it was us and them, and I was on the side with the workaholic which meant I was alone. He just never knew.

  Jessica was the only one who liked me. We had played together for a while, but then she started reading and I got boobs, and we stopped having things in common. I had never been fond of Suzzy. She was her mother, a slut from hell.

  I caught her having sex tons, smoking pot every chance she had, and once even doing lines of something. She was the extreme version of my friends, and yet I was the bad kid. I was a liar who made up things about Suzzy when I tattled on her. I was a fibber who told stories about Sheila when I caught her doing bad things. And I was a whiner when my dad was on trips, and I was locked in my room for three days straight, with only Jess bringing me food.

  Sheila had never wanted another kid. She had her hands full, trying to raise the ones she already had. I got a glimpse of myself in the window and sighed as an old man in red shorts jogged past.

  “Look at that ass.”

  I spun sharply to find a group of six ladies playing cards at a table. They were all old, old as dirt, so naturally I assumed I had misheard.

  “He has a fine ass on him. Did you ever bite that butt, Martha?” An old lady with dyed dark hair laughed. Dirty old ladies? Was this my job, serving dinner to dirty old ladies?

  One of them laughed, but it sounded off and when she spoke, her words were like that movie my dad always watched about the mob. It made me think she had a mouthful of marbles. “I would lose my teeth if I bit it now.”

  I laughed and they turned their heads, all but the lady with the marbles.

  A hawk-faced lady gave me a steely-eyed look. “What are you laughing at? Who are you?”

  I shrugged. “Finley Roze.” I turned and looked for Hattie, but she hadn’t emerged from the door.

  “And what are you doing here, Finley Roze?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What’s with the bandage?” They all eyed me up, all except Marbles. She didn’t move. I was sweating. I didn’t know what to say or do.

  “I don’t know.”

  “FINLEY!”

  I turned sharply to see an angry Hattie. “Move your ass.” She turned and went back in the door. I scowled but the ladies started laughing at me.

  “You better move it, Finley Roze.”

  “Hattie is a mean old bat. You don’t want to get on the wrong side of her.”

  “Yes, move your ass and get us a drink!”

  I ran. Mean old ladies might be an issue for me. I didn’t have a grandmother or a mother. All I had was Sheila and she didn’t scare me. She was ridiculous.

  Through the door, I found Hattie talking to a fat man in a chef’s uniform. He glared at me and nodded his head.

  “Fin, this is Mike. He’s the chef here. He’s in charge. You will be a server, you will work hard, and you will not sass him. Understood?” She turned and left the steamy kitchen.

  Mike smiled the minute Hattie was gone. “She’s a savage. Your dad must hate you.”

  “I think so.” I was playing it cool, but he was right. My dad did hate me.

  Mike saw the reaction and put a hand up, with a huge knife in it. “I just meant she is so mean. He must be pissed at you to send you here. Where are you from?”

  My eyes never left the knife. “Spokane.”

  “Cool. I was there once. Nice place. It’s like a desert or something, right? Really dry? I’ve been to Washington a couple of times. Once to go to Whidbey Island. I caught the ferry from Victoria. Intense security to get on and off that ferry. I’m actually from Vancouver Island, on the West Coast.” He didn’t look as scary or old as he did a moment ago. I imagined he wasn’t much older than I was. But being fat made him look older.

  He had thinning sandy-brown hair and dark-brown eyes. His lips were very plump, of course. Guys always had great lips, but fat guys always had fat lips. It was us skinny girls who were always lacking in the collagen. “Wanna go see if anyone wants a bit of tea or coffee or a cookie? You could take a plate around, but if you see a thin purple bracelet, that means they’re diabetic. You have to give them sugarless cookies.”

  I was lost.

  “You know how to serve, right?” He laughed. “Oh shit. Hattie’s a liar. You’ve never had a job before, have you?”

  I swallowed hard and shook my head.

  “Great.” When he laughed, everything sort of jiggled about like it would on Santa. “Find Mae. She’s out there. She’s a Newf so she sounds Irish and is sort of like Hattie. Tell her you’re new and are to follow her for your first shift. She will get you a uniform and everything else.” He nodded his head at the door I had come through and then went back to cutting vegetables. “It was nice meeting you, Finley.” I was being dismissed.

  Scared, I walked back out to the room with the mean old ladies. They were still playing cards at the table in the corner, but there was a new addition to their game. A hot new addition. It was like stumbling through the desert, starved for water and seeing an oasis. He was young, my age maybe, and laughing and smiling.

  I wanted to laugh too, seeing him, but the sunlight sparkling off him made me wonder if he was real. The glow almost shimmered off his dark head. He wasn’t perfection in the way Aaron was. He was something else. Genuine maybe.

  He finished laughing and slapping cards down on the table. When his blue eyes flashed on me, my heart stopped. He gave me a smile that made my face instantly flush, as if he knew all my secrets. He was the male version of the Mona Lisa. Seeing me made him stop smiling. He paused, tilted his head, and spoke in a low tone. The ladies all turned their heads, except Marbles.

  I was under a spotlight. I panicked and turned, walking very quickly back to the living room to find Hattie to tell her I needed to find Mae. She beat me to it, pointing at a lady in the corner. “This is Mae. She’s going to show you around.” Hattie turned and left, just like the white rabbit would.

  The lady walked over with a silver teapot in her hand. “Name’s Mae. Now let’s walk and talk.” Her eyes caught my bandage. “Is that a problem for me or you?”

  I shook my head, almost scared we might need to have a chat about it.

  “Okay, then.” Mae was old like Hattie and just as busy. She speed walked everywhere she went, speaking very quickly in a dialect of English I didn’t entirely understand. At one point, I was certain there had been a talk of salt cod doing a jig. I didn't know what any of that was.

  Regardless of not understanding why Jesus kept picking blueberries in a garden, I got the gist of my job.

  Firstly, smile. Not going to happen.

  Secondly, chat it up with the old people. Also, not going to happen.

  Thirdly, pour tea and hand out cookies they called biscuits. That I could do.

  Fourthly, don't kill the diabetics. That shouldn't be too hard.

  And finally, tidy. I was undecided about it.

  We did rounds, and at every chair or table, Mae did the same thing. She nodded at me. “New kid. Here wit Hattie. Name’s Fin, like a whale has, doesn’t it then?” The old people nodded and I wanted to run away. Some of the old people sounded like her and called me “my dear” for everything and referred to themselves as us, like the queen might.

  It couldn’t have gotten worse, but it did.

  We finally got around to the table of mean ladies. Mae said her spiel, and they all blushed introducing themselves, as if they hadn’t already given me a hard time. I was disappointed the hot guy was gone, but I suspected he was a mirage.

  I offered the cookies on the plate I held. Each took one except Marbles. I glanced down on her and discovered something I hadn’t expected.

  When she didn’t look at me before, I’d figured she was the queen bee of the mean girls, seniors’ addition. But she wasn’t. She actually couldn't move. Her face hung on the left side, like it had been squished that way. She smiled at me with the right side of her face only. I didn�
�t have a response for how it made me feel until she laughed. “It’s okay, have a look. Never seen a stroke before, have ya? I took it about four years ago. Hurt a lot. The left side abandoned me after that.” The way she talked was garbled.

  I opened my mouth to respond, but the very same man in the short red shorts and no shirt ran past the window. He was like Robert Redford, handsome, for an old dude, and he was running. He was fit as hell. He looked like a body builder.

  The ladies at the table laughed. “Even Fin can’t deny that ass. Look at the mug on her, Mae.”

  My face turned crimson.

  Marbles—gah—Martha, gave me a half-faced smile. “You shoulda seen him when we were younger. It was like winning the lottery, marrying him.”

  I had to stop mentally calling her Marbles. I was going to say that out loud and she was going to kick my ass, stroke or not.

  I didn’t know what to say to any of them, but thankfully Mae gently grabbed my arm. “We have dinner to preps for—you girls be good and stop letting Aiden gamble wit yas.” She pulled me away from the table. She was always adding an S to everything. It was weird.

  Mae leaned in and whispered, “Martha is married to Andrew. She always goes on about how handsome he is, but before the stroke she was a stunner. He was the lucky one.”

  I gave Mae a look. “He’s here with her? He’s one of the old people?”

  She nodded. “That’s true love, my dear. He knew he didn’t have the ability to care for her so he moved in here wit her. Couldn't part wit her. He’s a sweet man. He could have been living a normal life away from this and just visited her here, but he said no way. I mean, Lord thundering Jesus, they’re only seventy years old. He’s got twenty years left, at a minimum, and he’s spending them here. She’s the one who might have a couple years. So he spends them with her.”

  “He’s so fit. That's crazy and kinda cool.”

  “Aye, so fit. He runs nearly five days a week and lifts weights three times.”

  I scowled at her. “Where are you from? They said you’re a Newf—I don't know what that means.”

  She laughed. “My dear, I’s from Newfoundland. Can’t ya tell? You must be a Yank to not know that.”

  “What is Newfoundland? Is that in Ireland?”

  Her freckled face dropped. She stepped back. “Jesus picking blueberries in the garden, ya don’t know about God’s country then?” She grabbed me by the arm and dragged me to an office. “Ya needs a uniform anyway. Lord love a duck, I can’ts believe it. Aye, ya must see it.”

  She plunked herself into a leather chair and pressed a button on the laptop. It flashed on. She typed about as fast as she talked and suddenly the screen was filled with pictures of colorful houses, army bunkers, rocky fields with flowers, and streets full of poorly dressed people. She started to laugh. “My dear, getcha butt down and have a look. My mudder was from da Bay Roberts. She was sum tick wit her accent.” She thickened her already brutal accent to tell the story. “My fadder was from da city, St. Jans.” On the computer screen the place was called John’s, but she said Jans. “We was raised in the city. So my accent’s not so bad.” She started talking normal, for her. “See how grand ‘tis? Now sometime this summer, we’ll get ya on a plane and you can get screeched in on George Street. It’ll be grand.” She was up and grabbing a black-and-white uniform before I could get my eyes away from the pictures. She slapped it down and walked out of the office. “Be quick, eh?”

  The door closed and I quickly Googled Facebook. I signed on and scrolled my page. There was nothing. Not a single person had sent me a message. No PM’s or “Hey, where are you?” There was nothing. The last post on my wall was from Carter about his house party.

  My stomach sank.

  They didn’t even care. I was gone for three days and they had stopped caring. The only person who had cared since I left the hospital was the airline lady. I signed out and erased the history. I slumped into the leather chair and pulled off my shirt. No one cared. No one even knew I was in Canada. It might as well have been Iceland.

  I’d had the same friends since kindergarten. How was it possible that not one person gave a shit as to where I was?

  If the shoe were on the other foot, I would have—no, I would have continued partying and having fun.

  But not Linna.

  If Linna had left, I would’ve been devastated.

  I typed in “Twitter” and signed on. I checked Linna’s feed. It was rampant with invites to parties and pictures of her and our friends. But it wasn’t those tweets that caught my eye. It was the post about seven down from the top that said: “A summer without TROUBLE. I think we can all sigh in relief!” She had retweeted Sheila’s post.

  What the shit?

  Like a sucker for punishment, I clicked on it, seeing the seventy-five responses. All of Sheila’s friends had commented on Sheila’s tweet.

  On Linna’s retweet, Aaron was the only person not excited or laughing at me for throwing up in the rosebushes—Carter’s mom’s prize rosebushes. I was in the rosebushes? How was that possible?

  Aaron’s post of a sad face was the only sincere one. Everyone else had guesses of where I was, juvie being the top guess next to rehab. Did juvie even exist anymore? Either way, most of my “friends” assumed I was in rehab.

  I eyed the bandage on my arm and a flash of something attempted to surface in my brain. I remembered the rosebushes, I could swear it.

  The door opened as I erased the history, fighting back bile. I raised my head to see the hot guy. He smiled. “Playing on the computer or booking your flights home already?” He had an English accent to go with his dreamy smile. Gah.

  “No, I’m not allowed to go home.”

  “Why?” He sounded as though he genuinely cared.

  “I have to change.” Oh God, why did I say that?

  “That's a strange thing to say.” It was an odd thing to say, but he unnerved me. It was a peculiar feeling. He shrugged. “Most people are afraid of change. It is the unknown. We spend our lives watching everyone around us try and fail at change. But at the same time, if we indulge in those fears, we risk never becoming the person we were meant to be. Everyone is afraid. Conquering that fear is where personal growth comes from. Do you think you can change or are you afraid?”

  I didn't have an answer for that. I barely knew what he was talking about. It was Shakespeare or something. I decided to change the subject, “My mom used to come here to Hattie’s when she was my age so Dad sent me, hoping I’d be more like her.” Oh my God, was I becoming Rain Man? Why was I saying such stupid shit?

  His eyes lowered to my chest. “Also a curious thing to say, especially since you are in such an interesting top. I knew you would be fascinating. You have that look about you.”

  “What?” I looked down. “Oh my God.” My hands scrambled and I grabbed the white shirt to cover my bra. “Shit! Stop looking.”

  “I don't think I could if I wanted to. Regardless of how ungentlemanly that is.” He laughed and closed the door.

  “Oh my God.” I finished getting dressed, pondering why God was against me and why my brand-new manicure was peeling already. Maybe it was God. Maybe he did hate me.

  I hurried back out to find the cute guy there, leaning against the wall. He smiled up through his inky lashes. “Aiden Sor-Sorenson.” And put a hand out.

  “I don't think we need to shake hands. You just saw me half naked.” I giggled, maintaining my lack of coolness around him.

  He grinned. “Come on, I’ll introduce you to my favorites.” He held his hand in a direction down the hall. I pushed off and walked next to him. He nudged me. “Who have you met so far?”

  “Everyone, but I’ve only talked to the ladies who play cards at the table and the cook.”

  He laughed. “The ladies at the table are my favorites, hands down. But if you follow me this way, you will meet my second favorites, but you must swear never to tell them I said that.” He stopped at a door and knocked.

  I l
ooked up and down the hall. “Uh, are we supposed to go to their apartments?”

  Aiden gave me a mischievous smile as the door opened. “Jack, I would love for you to meet Finley Roze.” His eyes didn’t leave mine.

  “Hi.” I tore my gaze away and sized up the man in the doorway.

  He was probably the oldest man I’d ever seen in my life, but when he smiled and spoke with his soft English accent, he was possibly also the most charming. “Why hello, Finley Roze. It is lovely to meet you. Please come in.” His hands shook and his voice wavered, but he was dressed in a suit and vest. It was adorable. He was like an English gentleman. Unlike the other English dude standing next to me who happened to know my name randomly. I ignored him and looked past the doorway.

  Inside the small apartment there was a small lady. She was in a dress and looked even older than he did. “Millie, my dear, we have a guest. May I present Miss Finley Roze?” Her eyes landed on me. “Hello.” But when she turned to Aiden, her smile grew from pleasant to ecstatic. “Aiden, my dear boy. How are you? How is your grandfather?”

  Aiden shook his head. “He’s not looking so good, but you are. You look remarkable.” He then spoke to Jack, “I must say though, you’ve aged terribly.” She chuckled as Jack slapped him on the arm. Aiden gave me a sideways glance. “I brought her here to see it.”

  Jack held up an index finger. “Of course. Of course you did.” He winked at me. “He brings all the pretty girls to see it.”

  I laughed, almost scared of what “it” was.

  Jack turned his back and shuffled his feet over to the buffet near the small dining room table. He turned back around, carrying something to me. He held a hand out. “Have a seat.”

  Aiden took a seat and I sat next to him on the couch. Jack sat and held out a brown picture frame that folded. He opened it, revealing a black-and-white photo of two young people in an old-fashioned city. It was beautiful. They were standing next to a really old-fashioned bike with two seats.