EVERY GIRL'S DREAM
1189 Words
The week before the gala moved fast in the way weeks do when you're dreading the end of them.
Her mother took her dress shopping on Tuesday, dragging her through three boutiques before she found something she approved of — deep green, fitted, the kind of dress that made saleswomen use words like *stunning* and *elegant* while Maya stood in front of the mirror feeling like she was trying on a costume for someone else's life.
"You'll have to smile more than you usually do," her mother said in the car afterward, checking her own reflection in the visor mirror. "Noah's family notices things like that. Warmth. It matters."
"I smile plenty."
"Not the kind that reaches people, sweetheart." Her mother said it lightly, like a beauty tip, not an accusation, which somehow made it worse.
By Thursday there'd been a manicure appointment, a lecture from her father about which topics were appropriate for gala conversation — nothing political, nothing about her music, *definitely* nothing about anyone she might be seeing — and a running commentary from her mother about how lucky she was, delivered so often it had started to sound like something her mother needed to believe more than something she actually thought Maya needed to hear.
---
She told Jordan about all of it on Wednesday night, sitting cross-legged on her bed with the phone propped against her pillow.
"They picked out my dress like I'm a doll," Maya said. "My mom keeps talking about how I should smile more."
Jordan was quiet for a second too long. "You don't have to go, you know. There's always an option that isn't the one they've already decided on."
"It's not that simple."
“I know." Jordan's voice softened, but there was a sharp edge underneath it Maya hadn't heard before. "I just don't love the idea of you getting dressed up to be paraded around. Trust me, I know their type. Guys like him—with that kind of family money—they don't see a partner. They see an acquisition. They think the rest of the world exists just to cater to them.”
"It's one dinner."
"Sure." A pause. "Just — call me after. Whatever happens."
Maya promised she would, and meant it, and still felt the weight of the promise sitting oddly in her chest for the rest of the night, like she'd agreed to something bigger than a phone call.
---
The gala was held in a hotel ballroom with ceilings too high for the room to ever feel warm, chandeliers throwing soft gold light over round tables dressed in white. Her mother had done her hair herself that afternoon, pinning it back with a kind of focused pride that made Maya feel, for a moment, like maybe this really did matter to her — not just as a deal for her husband's business, but as something she wanted for her daughter, however wrong the shape of it.
Noah found them within the first twenty minutes.
He was tall, put together in the effortless way expensive things always seemed to be, dark suit fitted just right, an easy smile that reached his eyes when he shook her father's hand and then, more gently, when he turned to her.
"You must be Maya," he said. "Your dad talks about you like you hung the moon."
"He's exaggerating."
"I doubt it." He said it warmly, almost self-deprecating, and for a second Maya felt something loosen in her chest that she hadn't expected to loosen at all. He asked about the piano — her father must have mentioned it, nodding along, asking a decent follow-up question instead of just waiting for his turn to talk. He complimented her dress without making it feel like a transaction. He held out a chair for her at their table like it was nothing, easy, practiced but not performative.
For a little while, Maya let herself think maybe this wouldn't be the disaster she'd braced for. Maybe he really was just a normal, decent person her father happened to know, caught in the same arrangement she was, doing his best with it too.
Then the waitress came by.
She was young, maybe not much older than Maya, balancing a tray with practiced care, and she leaned in with a polite smile to take their order. "Good evening — can I get you started with drinks, or—"
"You're interrupting," Noah said, before she'd even finished the sentence.
The waitress blinked. "I'm sorry, sir, I just wanted to—"
"I know what you wanted. I didn't ask for you yet." His voice hadn't gotten louder, but something in it had gone flat and hard, the warmth from thirty seconds earlier switched off like a light. "This is why they don't send new people to these tables. Get someone who actually knows how service works."
The waitress's face went carefully blank, the way people's faces do when they've had a lot of practice absorbing things like that without visibly flinching. "Of course. My apologies." She backed away quickly, tray still perfectly balanced, and disappeared toward the kitchen.
Maya sat there for a second, the good feeling from earlier curdling fast in her stomach.
"Sorry about that," Noah said, turning back to her, already reaching for his water like nothing had happened. "They really need to train people better before putting them out on a floor like this."
"She didn't do anything wrong."
He looked mildly surprised, like it hadn't occurred to him that Maya might disagree. "She interrupted a conversation. It's that deep, Maya."
"It's not that deep, actually." Maya heard her own voice come out sharper than she meant it to, but she didn't try to soften it. "She was doing her job. You didn't have to talk to her like that."
Noah gave a short, almost amused laugh, like she'd said something charmingly naive. "You'll understand eventually. People act different once you've got money like this behind you — everyone wants something. You have to keep them in line or they walk all over you."
"That's not — " Maya stopped, shook her head, and stood up before she could finish the sentence in a way she'd regret. "I need some air."
"Maya—"
She didn't look back. She walked past the round tables and the chandeliers and her mother's questioning glance from across the room, out through the tall glass doors into the cooler air of the hotel courtyard, her heart going fast, her hands curled into fists at her sides.
She thought about the waitress's carefully blank face. She thought about Jordan's voice on the phone two nights ago — *you don't have to go* — and how easy it had been to dismiss, how much less easy it felt now.
She pulled out her phone before she'd even decided to, thumb finding Jordan's name without having to look.
*Call me when you can,* she typed. *You were right about him.*
She hit send, and stood there under the courtyard l
ights, waiting for her pulse to slow down, already dreading the walk back inside.
- Writer
