incognito4321

Chapter 4

 

      Less than a minute later, Audrey was back, this time with two cute bikinis in hand. One was baby blue, and strapless. It looked cute and simple. The other was neon purple and had blue streaks throughout. She handed that one to me. 

      “This one will look best on you. Although, with your colorings, anything would look good on you. I love my blonde hair, but it doesn’t like purple,” She said to me as she walked back into her closet to change.

      I changed quickly, and she came back out. “You ready for the water slide?!” She grinned at me. I smiled back.

       “How far do we have to walk?” I asked.

      She shook her hand through her hair, and said, “Just down the hall…” and ran through the doors and out down the hall. I chased after her and noticed at the end of the hall, was a set of doors. She barreled through them, as did I.

      Through the door was the entrance of the water slide! “Do you want to go down together?” She asked me. I nodded and we swung down the roaring water filled tube together, screaming. My eyes were closed as tight as they could be and I was shocked when we were suddenly dumped into her pool. 

      We convulsed in laughter and she said, “I love that slide. It’s too much of a walk to go back up though…do you want to just tan?” 

      “Sure, sounds good,” I replied. We laid on our backs and I undid the strings of my bathing suit, so I was covered but wouldn’t get those awful lines.

      “I know exactly what dress I want to put you in. It’s light pink and falls just above the knee, and it has lace embroidery and little gems and pearls. It’ll fit your shape too. Of course, you’ll have to wear one of my pearl collars with it, and the matching earrings. What do you think?” She asked me.

      “It sounds absolutely gorgeous. I’m excited for the makeup and hair too,” I told her. “It’s like a giant makeover!”

      “Makeovers are my favorite, however cheesy that sounds…I watched that show once…um…What Not To Wear! That’d be my dream job,” She said dreamily. 

      “I might fall asleep- jet lag, you know. Do you want me to set the alarm on my watch?” I asked, yawning.

      “Hmm, maybe. Set it for 4:15, so we can switch and tan our backs equal to our fronts,” She said smartly. I set my watch quick, and rested my head on the ground. 

      ANT, ANT, ANT! My alarm went off. I jolted awake and quickly pressed the disable button on my watch. I shook Audrey’s arm gently, and she woke up immediately.

      “Hmm?” she murmured.

      “Time to roll over!” I announced. She rolled over onto her stomach with a little groan and unhooked the back of her bikini top. I got on my stomach, reset my watch. And just relaxed.

       ANT,  ANT, ANT! I again disabled my watch, and woke up Audrey. She mumbled something and hooked the back of her bathing suit.

      “Do you want me to tie you back up?” She asked. 

      “Thanks,” I nodded. Once we were all up and ready, she lead me to a door on the side of the house by the pool. We stumbled up the stairs, still in a daze from the afternoon nap. 

      She lead me to her bedroom and as we entered, she said “You can come in my closet, now. I’ll show you your dress!”        
       We walked over to her closet and the minute I went in, I knew I wasn’t leaving until the very last minute. Gorgeous dresses lined the walls, and jeans lined the other. Literal racks of jean shorts and pretty shirts were hanging around and there was a door labeled shoe closet.

 

 

Chapter 3

 

      “You live here?!” I shrieked. Charlie and Audrey just laughed.

      “Uh, yeah. I know it’s bigger than most, but you’ll end up loving it,” Charlie answered.

      “Who are you kidding? I love it already!” I said. Audrey laughed again and started to pull me inside.

      She turned to her parents and said “Je vais lui montrer la maison, nous serons prêts pour le dîner à 7. Peut-être formuler des réserves à ce nouveau lieu!” I’m pretty sure she told her she was going to show me the mansion, and that we’d be ready for dinner at 7. I think she asked them to make reservations at the new restaurant.

      I looked at her as we walked through the beautiful robin’s egg blue doors. “Wait, so what language do you think in?” She shrugged.

      “A mixture of both I guess. More French, since I hear it more, but I think in both languages. Everyone asks me that question and it’s sort of hard to answer,” she tried to explain. I nodded.

      “So, this is the main hall. We really only enter in here, but it leads to a lot of different rooms. First, the kitchen!” She said as she pulled me into a huge room with the kitchen basics, and a long counter with swinging seats.  “We would have a chef but my mom loves to cook. And she’s pretty good at it too. She won’t make you try anything too bad,” She told me.

      We walked through the room, into the next. “This is the dining room. We only really use it for Thanksgiving and Christmas, because it’s really fancy and everything in it is expensive and delicate. Yeah, we should probably get out of here…” She laughed. I examined the beautiful gold china dishes, set at the 12 seats. The chairs were sleek mahogany with blue satin cushioning. A giant twisting blue and gold glass centerpiece was just below a small golden chandelier. The entire room was extravagant.

      We moved on. “This is the family TV room. We mostly only come down here when my parents call some family time. So maybe once a week? We have a better room off of our room upstairs,” She explained. There were large beige leather couches lining a wall of the room, with plenty of soft and pretty pillows thrown about. A huge flat screen sat on the wall opposite, and there was a shiny glass coffee table in the middle. What could be better than this?

      “So, those are a few of the basic rooms. There’s three floors in this house, the basement, and the attic, and most of it is pointless pretty crap. Of course, there’s a ton of guest bedrooms. We have an indoor pool for the winter, a game room near Charlie’s room I’ll show you, and a movie theater. Oh and some hot tubs scattered around,” She said nonchalantly. I squinted my eyes at her.

      “Don’t you realize how much stuff you have?!” I asked her. She shrugged again.

      “Well, you get used to it after living in it your entire life. It’s sort of like reading I think. When you don’t have it, it’s a huge deal, and you freak out and ask everyone to give it to you. Then once you get it, it’s awesome. It’s a great novelty! But, of course, then you realize it’s really just a chore,”  She compared.

      “This house is a chore?!” I said. She laughed at me.

      “Not really. It’s just not as amazing as you would think,” she explained.

      “Yeah…mhm,” I said. She lead me through the next door and to the right were stairs. Sort of. Next to the stairs was a legit slide. Audrey grinned.

      “That side’s for coming down. The people looked at my parents crazy when they asked for it,” She giggled. We climbed up. “I would show you the indoor pool and arcade and everything else but it’s already 2:30, and we only really have till 5:30 until we have to start getting ready. So I’ll show you those later.” She glanced down at her watch. “It’ll take at least a half hour to show you our room and get ready.”

      We ran up the stairs, and she held one hand over my eyes, and lead me with the other hand towards her room. I giggled, “Why can’t I just see it immediately?”

      “You need to get the full effect! Just one more second…and vuala!” She said as she pulled back her hand. The room was absolutely gorgeous. The walls were a soft sea foam green, my favorite color,  and had scattered beach paintings. The floor was covered in sand colored plush rug that my feet begged to swim in. A mini fridge sat next to the bed, I presume stocked with diet coke, and snacks. On top of it was a microwave for in bed snacks. A huge flat screen sat across from her deluxe bed. 

      Her bed was magnificent. Humongous, definitely bigger than a king, with light mahogany wood, and sky blue sheets. It was a big circle, actually. It wanted me to jump into, I promise you. Then I noticed the kitchen, an actual kitchen to the right of the door. Probably with more things to eat and sip when she actually got out of bed. There was a door just beyond it and another door to the left. 

     “So for right now can we just put your bags down, and go through them later? We have practically the same bodies so I’ll go grab two bikinis from my closet. No, no don’t come in with me, we’ll be sidetracked a half hour. I’ll be right back,” she babbled as she walked through the door next to the kitchen.

      I set my suitcase and bag down, and took a deep breath. They had not told me they were filthy rich when they had asked me to come stay with them. Audrey seemed so cool, and we were going to have so much fun. 

Chapter 2

      They looked at me blankly, except for Audrey. She squealed and gave me a big hug, then turned to her family. “C’est Jane Mitchell, notre invite!” I translated in my head: This is Jane Mitchell, our guest. I realized the rest of the family must not speak English.

      “Désolé, je ne réalisais pas que vous ne parlez paz anglais!” I apologized for speaking English. Charles smiled at me.

      “I speak fluent English, I just wasn’t paying attention, sorry! Our parents, however, are clueless…” He said with the cutest accent and a glance at the still blank parents. “Should we go collect your bags?”

      “Ouais, ouais, Charles, laissez-moi lui parler!” She scolded him and then grabbed my hand and dragged me away from him.

      “We are going to have the best time this summer! It’s like a month long slumber party, I’m so excited! And I get to speak my English! Do you want to just sleep tomorrow or you do you want to go out?” She said with a strong accent, but fluency.

      “We should go out tomorrow! I want to see the Eiffel Tower, even though it’s really touristy…is that okay?” I told her. She smiled and nodded.

      “We can meet tourist boys…my favorite…” She said with  a devilish smile as walked towards my baggage claim. Charles rolled his eyes behind her back, and I giggled. “By the way, that dress is adorable! And I am just jumping to do your hair! I want my hair dresser to do it…he’ll make you look amazing!” I smiled wide.

      “You speak really fluent English. And that’d be awesome! Judging by your hair, he’s a really good hairdresser!” I said. She turned to me as I grabbed my bag off the claim.

      “When I was really little I had an American babysitter, and so I learned English and French basically together. I know English as well as I know French!” She told me. This was definitely going to be fun.

Then I saw a sign that said “Belles” I cast a confused glance Charles way and once again rolled his eyes and then pointed at his sister.

      “She said we had to give you the perfect experience of Paris, and to do that we needed to drive home in a limo,” He said. Then he whispered, “She’s crazy…”

      “I heard that! And no, I am not. Limos are the best type of transportation!” She said with a silly smirk, then punched him gently on the shoulder. 

      “Wait, so you got a limo?” I asked, a tad confused. Charles took my bag from me as we approached the sign.

      “Yup. Because my sister’s crazy,” He explained. I laughed with Audrey. The man lead us to a huge white stretch limo. My mouth sort of fell open. 

      “It’s about a half hour ride to our house. I would change your clock, by the way. It’s 1:30 now,” Audrey said to me. I clicked it into my little watch, as we all climbed in. 

      “This thing is huge! Is that a TV?! And there’s diet coke?!” I almost shrieked. Audrey smiled sleekly.

      “Told you she would love it, Charles. And yes, Jane, how would I live without diet coke? And by the way, we need to think of a nickname for you. You don’t look like a Jane,” She said. 

      I nodded and said, “You love diet coke too?! I love it because it tastes good and it always settles my stomach."

      “I think we’re going to get along great…haha! So what would you like for a nickname? Jane doesn’t allow much options so let’s just pick a different name!” She told me.

      “I like the name Raine, and it sort of sounds like Jane?” I asked her. She grinned and twirled her hair.

      “Absolutely perfect. Raine. It’s so earthy and pretty. You’ll sound like an exotic princess!” She babbled happily.

      Charles nodded. “Raine fits you, I think. So what are you going to do when we get home?” He asked.

      “Well, I’ll unpack, first. Then, uh, you said you guys had a pool?” I asked. 

      “Yup! Do you want to tan? You and me have the perfect tanning skin, so we won’t burn. And since we have basically, the perfect skin, I’ll show you my little makeup station, and we can share it all!” she said.

      “I think we were meant to be best friends…haha! That’d be great,” I said smiling sweetly.

      “We’ll go out somewhere special for dinner. Maybe, that new really fancy place down the block from our house…do you have a really fancy dress, or do you want to borrow one?” She asked.

      “I might need to borrow, I only have one sort of fancy dress, and I don’t know if it’s enough,” I told her.

Charles looked over, as the limousine came to a stop. “Okay, sounds like a plan. Hurry up and get out Audrey!” We hustled out of the limo, and then I saw they’re house, if you can call it that.

       In front loomed a giant virgin white mansion. There was a gardener hard at work in the front yard, doing his thing with the gorgeous gardens, that I didn’t see any problem with. A pool in the shape of a huge B was to the left of the house and a water slide twisted it’s way around the back of the house. I gaped.