by Selena Kitt
“Nothing could be better than the dress Hans got me.” Gretel winked, knowing who had picked it out, playing the game, appeasing their stepmother. It didn’t matter what was in the boxes up on the table and they all knew it—if they contained something her stepmother liked and wanted to keep, she would do so— the rest would be returned for cash.
Vivian brightened at Gretel’s comment, stage-whispering, “I picked it out for him.”
“Really?” Gretel acted surprised. “Well I love it!” That was the first true thing she’d spoken to the woman all night. The dress really was something, and she was thrilled to be wearing it, even though she knew it would be going back to the dress shop tomorrow. She still couldn’t figure out why her stepmother had chosen something so stylish, so adult. She was usually stuck in pink little-girl dresses. Maybe it’s preparation for finishing school. Gretel blanched at that thought.
“It will make a wonderful first impression.” Vivian nodded her approval, taking their father by the elbow. “Come along, Ralph, I have someone I want you to meet.”
Gretel watched them go, making a face behind their backs that made Hans laugh. She turned to her brother and asked, “First impression?”
Hans shrugged. “I have no idea.”
“Here.” Gretel handed him her untouched cup of punch. “After that, I need some air.”
He gulped down the drink before calling after her, “Don’t go far. Jack Attack said she had an announcement to make around nine and she wants us both here.”
“Oh joy,” she mumbled under her breath, waving her brother’s reminder away as she made her way through the crowd. It was her own birthday and she didn’t even want to be here. No one stopped her or said “happy birthday” or even “hello” as she made her way toward the exit. Vivian had rented a hall and had it all catered—on credit, of course. Everything she bought was on credit.
The hallway was five degrees cooler than inside and she took a deep breath, but it wasn’t quite enough. She found her way down the hall and around the corner, following the corridors. The rooms back here were dark, unused. They were the only party going on in the place. She came across a metal door with a steel opening bar under a red “exit” sign. It was February and bitter cold outside, but she didn’t care, hitting the bar with both hands and flinging the door wide.
She inhaled deeply, standing in her heels on a lighted pathway—someone had shoveled the snow—closing her eyes in relief. It was cold, the wind stinging her bare back, but it felt strangely good, at least for a moment.
“Hey! Wait! The door!”
She heard it swing shut behind her but it was too late. The man who bolted past her to reach for the handle swore, yanking hard, but it was no use. It had closed and locked.
“Oops.” Gretel turned to face both the man and the now-locked door, the cold suddenly far more biting than it had just a moment before. “Sorry.”
“Me too.” He sighed, slipping a cell phone into his suit coat pocket and gazing longingly at the door. “Locked out twice. What are the odds?”
“You came out to make a phone call?” she asked, although that was obvious.
He nodded, giving her the once-over. “You?”
“Just to get some air.” Although now she thoroughly regretted the decision, even if the guy she’d ended up stranded with was rather attractive. She turned and pounded her fists on the door. “Hello! Help!”
She waited a moment for a response and started pounding again, yelling louder. Then she waited again—still nothing. She stood there, panting, realizing that even if she wasn’t getting an answer, at least the motion had made her feel a little warmer.
“I tried that.” The guy leaned against the door, crossing his arms and looking at her. “Until you came along, no luck.”
“Still no luck, apparently.” She snorted. “Well where are we? There have to be other doors.”
He nodded, gesturing to the enclosed space they were in, a patio area they obviously used for gatherings in warmer weather. There were a few doors with that red “exit” sign illuminated from the inside. “Yep. And they’re all locked.”
“You have a cell phone.” Gretel sighed in frustration, her teeth beginning to chatter. She didn’t have one of course—neither of them were allowed. Too expensive. “Can’t you call someone?”
“It’s a great idea,” he agreed, patting his jacket pocket. “But unfortunately, I can’t get a signal. That’s why I came out here in the first place—I was hoping I could get a signal outside. Still no luck.”
She didn’t doubt it. They were in a sort of cell phone dead-zone. Her father complained about it all the time. “Maybe a window?” She hugged herself, really shivering now.
“That was my next plan.” The man frowned, slipping his jacket off and draping it around her shoulders. “Here. Better?”
“Th-th-thanks.”
“I’m Drew. Andrew Hess.” He was still standing close, his arm around her shoulders, but he was warm and blocking the wind, so she didn’t protest.
“Gretel Anderson”
“I know.” He smiled at her look of surprise. “Happy birthday.”
“Thanks.” Of course. It was her party, and everyone knew her—but she knew no one. She wondered who Andrew Hess was. Some business associate of her father’s maybe? He had that smart, professor look about the face, but he was a big man—far bigger than her father or her brother.
He guided her down the shoveled, stone path. “Come on. I can’t be responsible for the birthday girl turning into a Popsicle.”
Gretel watched, acting the part of the damsel in distress, as Andrew tried the first window and found it locked. He systematically went around the patio, trying every window, while her hopes dropped with every failure. Aside from being cold, she was imagining what Vivian’s reaction would be when she wasn’t there for the grand “announcement.” Probably just something about finishing school. She didn’t really care if she missed it, but she did care about the repercussions afterward. Vivian would find some way to make her life miserable—more miserable.
“Success!” Andrew called over his shoulder. “Come on, princess, let’s get you back to the ball!”
Thank God. She hated living her life worried about how Vivian would react to everything she said and did, but it was the path of least resistance. At least she and Hans were in it together.
“Ladies first.” Andrew smiled and bowed, waving toward the now open window. The lights were off inside but in the moonlight she could see the reflection of a surface that looked as if it might be a desk.
“Um…” Gretel eyed the window as she approached, frowning down at her dress. “This isn’t gonna be easy.”
“Want a boost?” He locked his hands together and bent low.
“Um…” She looked from him to the window, debating. “Oh fuck it.”
He laughed as she slipped off her shoes and tossed them through the window, hiking her dress high up on her thighs and slipping a leg over the edge. She found herself straddling the window ledge, wincing as she felt a run starting in her pantyhose as she scraped her flesh over the edge of the metal, giving Andrew far more of a view than she’d intended.
“You okay?” he called as she slid to the floor with a muffled “oof,” her dress pooled around her in a satin puddle.
“Fine,” she assured him, getting quickly to her feet and looking around the dim room. Definitely someone’s office, she could tell that even in the dark.
“Good.” Andrew swung both legs gracefully through the window and slipped inside. “I wouldn’t want to be accused of breaking the birthday girl.” He slid the window closed, shutting out the cold, and turned to face her. “Is there a light in here?”
“On the desk maybe?” Gretel felt her way across the surface, trying to see in the silvery moonlight, and found what she was looking for, flicking the lamp’s switch and illuminating the room.
“That’s better.” Andrew bent to pick up her heels. “Yours?”
�
�Thanks.” Gretel took them, using the desk to lean against to slip them back on. “Well, that was quite an adventure.”
“Every girl should have an adventure on her birthday.” He smiled and she couldn’t help notice the dimple that appeared in his left cheek, like a sly wink. She wondered how old he was. Older than her brother, certainly older than she was. An older man, but not old. No, not very old.
“I must be a mess.” Gretel touched her hair, a mass of red curls on the top of her head, feeling several stray strands falling around her face. Her gorgeous dress was damp on the bottom from the snow and it stuck to her legs. Probably dirty too, she reasoned, not looking down to check but thinking of the tag tucked into the bodice, realizing she wasn’t going to be able to return it. Her stepmother was going to be angry, and although she wasn’t looking forward to the lecture, she was rather glad she would get to keep the dress. Especially the way Andrew was admiring her in it in the lamp light, in spite of her disheveled appearance.
“Actually, you look…great.” There was that dimple again, just a brief appearance, a flash of a smile. The pause that followed was a little awkward and full of so much heat that Gretel thought she might actually faint. From far away, she heard the faint strains of music, but the look in Andrew’s eyes had captured her attention almost completely. He straightened suddenly, taking her by the elbow. “Whoops, I think that’s your cue.”
“It is?” She looked up at him quizzically as he steered her toward the door and opened it, letting the still-faint sound of “Happy Birthday” seep into the room.
“They’re playing your song.” He grinned and that dimple deepened. “Come on, don’t want you turning into a pumpkin or something.”
They followed the sound of the music back to the hall, arriving breathless at the doors just as an enormous cake with a large silver wax “18” candle lit on top was being wheeled up to the front of the room. Drew steered her by her elbow behind the cake as the whole crowd began to sing “Happy Birthday” on cue from the DJ.
Gretel couldn’t help the flush creeping into her cheeks as she used the stairs to join her brother and father on stage. Her stepmother was there, furious under her plastered-on smile, as the cake cart came up the ramp to the middle of the platform.
“There’s our birthday girl!” The DJ—a master of ceremony of sorts—announced as the birthday song ended. “Make a wish, Gretel!”
She felt Hans slip his hand into hers, giving it a big squeeze. She knew what he was thinking—that she would wish for freedom, for opportunity, not just for herself, but for them both. Glancing over at her father, his tired eyes and faint smile, she would have given that wish away for him in a heartbeat if she thought it might do him any good.
“Psst.” The sound was soft but she heard anyway, seeing Andrew standing down in front, just part of the crowd now. She met his eyes as he mouthed the word ‘adventure,’ waggling his eyebrows, and she nearly laughed out loud.
Closing her eyes, she made her wish—please let me have an adventure—and blew out the candles, leaving whiffs of blue smoke hovering above the pink and white cake. The crowd clapped and the cake was wheeled away again, guests already lining up to taste the three-foot high concoction.
“The family has one more announcement before Gretel opens her gifts.” The DJ was a short, balding man and Gretel saw the faint look of fear in the man’s eyes as he handed the microphone over to Vivian in her heels. She made him look even more diminutive as she snatched it from him, and Gretel almost wanted to apologize and tell him, it’s not you she’s mad at, it’s me.
“We have a very special guest here tonight.” Vivian was so mad she was practically purring as she handed the microphone over to a woman Gretel had hardly noticed standing behind her brother and her father. The two of them parted so the old woman could come forward and take the microphone, and although Gretel had never seen her before, she looked oddly familiar.
“Thank you so much.” The old woman’s voice was clear and steady, and so were her eyes. “I’d like to introduce myself to you—and to my lovely granddaughter.”
Gretel straightened, looking wide-eyed at her family, seeing her father mouthing the words, “Your mother’s mother.” As if she wouldn’t know. His parents had died before both she and Hans were born. This was the grandmother she had never met, the one her mother had insisted they never have anything to do with.
Gretel stepped a little closer to her brother, whispering, “What is this?”
“An ambush.” He shrugged, watching as their grandmother spoke.
“I have been estranged from my grandchildren for many years, but thanks to the reunification efforts of their stepmother…” The old woman nodded at Vivian, smiling warmly, and Gretel felt her stomach clench at the way the two women looked at each other. “Now that both of them are of-age, I am being given the opportunity to be in their lives once more.”
She and Hans exchanged glances, his eyebrows rising in surprise. To their knowledge, it had been their grandmother who had disinherited their mother for marrying their father. It has been their grandmother who had told her daughter to get out and never come back. Although their father had assured his wife before she died that he would never allow their grandmother into their lives. He promised, Gretel remembered. She’d been young when her mother died—barely in kindergarten—but she remembered that conversation very vividly. Their mother hadn’t wanted them to have anything to do with the woman who had given birth to her—although neither she nor Hans had ever found out why. Their father wouldn’t talk about it.
The old woman smiled at her and Gretel feigned a smile back, her whole body tensing at her grandmother’s words. “My gift to this beautiful young lady—and her handsome brother—is a two-week cruise on my private yacht in Australia so we can all get acquainted.”
The crowd gave a collective gasp and began applauding and of course Gretel didn’t have to act surprised—she was. She looked over at her brother and saw he had stars in his eyes, probably already planning what he was going to do on this sudden, luxurious vacation. Both she and Hans had a two week mid-winter break starting on Monday. Clearly this had been planned. The smug, greedy look on her stepmother’s face told her that much. Something was up, she just knew it. Her grandmother and stepmother had hatched some sort of plan, although she couldn’t fathom would it might be.
“What do you say, Gretel?” Vivian nudged her a little too sharply and Gretel smiled, leaning over so her voice would be heard through the microphone.
“Thank you.”
What else could she say? Looking down at the crowd, she saw the man who had rescued her from the cold—he saw her too and smiled, showing her that dimple again—and she found herself thinking it might have been better if she’d stayed locked outside. Although, glancing between her grandmother and stepmother, two clearly very powerful women, Gretel knew she was outmatched.
And she had wished for an adventure, hadn’t she?
* * * *
Hans felt his jaw clenching as Andrew stepped in front of him, holding out a hand to Gretel to help her off the ladder. Water sheeted off her body, clad in only a black bikini, onto the deck as she pulled her mask and snorkel off, her red hair sticking in dark curls to the sides of her face. Hans stepped back, taking off his own mask and snorkel as his sister looked up at Andrew with big eyes.
“Oh my god you should have seen it!” Gretel exclaimed, shaking her wet head like a dog, spraying a fully-dressed Andrew with water, but he didn’t seem to mind. Normally, Hans would have liked Andrew—his grandmother’s personal assistant and bodyguard seemed like an all around great guy—but he didn’t like the way the man hung around his sister, the way he looked at her.
“Did you see the stingray?” Gretel turned those familiar, worshipful eyes toward him and Hans smiled, about to respond, when her attention shifted back to Andrew again. “There were jellyfish, Drew! And stingrays and turtles! And the coral was magical! And these gorgeous blue and yellow fish—”
> “Sweetlips.” Andrew nodded, smiling indulgently, that fat dimple on his cheek deepening as he handed Gretel a towel.
“What did you call me?” His sister flushed prettily, using the towel to dry off. He wished she would cover up with it.
“That’s the name of the fish.” Andrew laughed. “But it would be the perfect nickname for you.”
“Oh you! Stop!” Gretel sounded very much like she didn’t want Andrew to stop at all.
Hans ignored them and grabbed his own towel from a stack, using it to dry his wet, salty hair. He never in his life would have imagined he would be snorkeling in the Coral Sea—at least not while he was still under his stepmother’s thumb. The woman had made their lives hell for years, keeping up the appearance of wealth on credit while denying her stepchildren every possibly convenience. He had blamed his father when he was an adolescent, but the older he got, the more he realized how much his father was just trying to escape the grief of losing his first wife any way he could.
And in some weird way, he knew Vivian had been his father’s answer to taking care of two children he had no idea how to raise on his own. His father, like him, was a scientist, a professor, a man of logic and reason who got lost when the world upending in emotional upheaval. Vivian had been the perfect, logical answer—a woman who claimed to love and want him, who would care for his two young children while he did research on one of the world’s most important discoveries—the Genome project.
Of course, that was back before the university had lost its funding, back when his father was on track to becoming one of the most well-renowned—and well-paid—scientists in the country. Vivian had hitched herself to his father’s rising star, only to see it plummet to earth like a stone. He supposed he couldn’t blame the woman for feeling a little bitter, but he knew in his heart, had his mother been alive, she would have been proud of her husband regardless.
Hans draped the towel around his shoulders and walked to the railing of the yacht, looking down at the impossibly clear, deep blue water below, thinking about his mother. Gretel had been so little when she died, she didn’t remember too much, but he remembered everything—his mother’s pain, the cancer spreading from the tumor on her arm to her bones and finally to her liver and her brain. Redheads were so susceptible to skin cancer, and his mother had been such an outdoor lover, the combination had proved deadly.
