Chapter Two: Estella
1898 Words
The sound of the doorbell bounced around the apartment.
“Danny! Could you get the door?” I was bent over the kitchen island, in the middle of icing the tenth cupcake out of the twelve I’d baked, and I didn’t want to drop it.
“Yeah, I got it,” I heard Danny drawl, followed by the thud of her footsteps on the wooden floor.
The doorbell rang again, then again and again in quick succession.
“I’m coming! Damn it!” Danny growled.
The sound of the door clicking was followed by the muffled sound of a mini argument that became louder as two sets of footsteps reached the kitchen.
“I did that to urge you to walk faster. What if, one day, I’m at your door bleeding to death?” Hannah dropped bags of beer and snacks on the kitchen island beside my cupcakes. “But you’re too busy taking your sweet time to answer the door, and I end up dead.”
“First of all, gross.” Danny sat on a stool, opening a bag of chips that she’d probably swiped from Hannah’s bag. “Second, don’t come to my house if you’re bleeding. Go to a freakin’ hospital. And third, if you die in front of my apartment, I’ll f*****g curse your ghost.”
“Then I’ll haunt you for the rest of your life.” Hannah glared at a nonchalant Danny, who was biting down on a handful of chips.
“Give me that.” Hannah swiped the bag of chips.
“Hey,” Danny whined.
“Only friends who care if I die get to eat chips.”
“Can you guys be careful with those chips?” I was on the twelfth cupcake now. “I just cleaned the island.”
“Oh hey, Es, didn’t see you there,” Hannah chirped.
“Of course you didn’t.” I straightened as I finished. “You were too busy arguing about doorbells and death.”
“I wasn’t arguing. I was making a point.” Hannah dropped onto a stool.
Danny reached for the bag in Hannah’s hand and plucked a stolen chip into her mouth. “Aren’t those the same thing?”
“No. They’re totally different,” Hannah replied as I tossed the icing bag in the bin and turned to wash my hands in the sink.
I didn’t need to look to know what was happening. Danny was probably stealing Hannah’s chips while Hannah tried to steal my cupcakes.
“Get your hands away from the cupcakes, Hannah,” I said while scrubbing my nails under running water.
“I wasn’t gonna touch them,” she said defensively.
I grabbed a kitchen towel and dried my hands before returning to the island. “Remember the rules—no eating movie snacks before watching the actual movie.”
“Okay, okay, fine… I won’t touch them. Gosh, it’s like you’ve entered full mum mode.” Hannah turned to Danny, who was idly scrolling through her phone while munching on some chips. “How do you deal with her?”
She didn’t look up from her phone. “She’s great, actually. I mean, she cooks and cleans. If you remove the occasional bossiness, she’s like the perfect unpaid housekeeper.”
“How do you sleep at night, taking advantage of your friend’s coping mechanism like that?” Hannah replied in mock disgust.
“It’s not a coping mechanism.” I glared at Hannah as I picked up my tray of baked goods and made my way to the living room. “I enjoy doing simple house chores. It’s fun.”
“Definitely. Doing chores is so fun.” She followed me with the bag she brought, sarcasm heavy in her tone. “Just as fun as watching history documentaries.”
“History documentaries are fun,” Danny stated in a matter-of-fact tone as she set a bowl of popcorn on the center table in the living room.
Hannah sighed. “How are we friends?” She gave her head a little shake before speaking again. “The point is, you haven’t done anything fun since the night of the anniversary gala. All you’ve been doing is ‘fun cleaning’ and occasionally movie watching with us.”
“Nope. That’s not all she’s been doing,” Danny drawled from her position beside the TV as she set up the movie.
I glared at her, but she ignored me and tattled on. “She’s been sending out job applications, but nobody replied, though, because her grandfather actually blacklisted her so no company in New York would hire her.”
Hannah’s eyes widened, surprise evident in her voice. “For real?” Danny silently nodded as Hannah continued. “Can he really do that? That’s… that’s terrible.” Her fake sympathy was so obvious.
“Then why are you smiling?” She smoothed over the corners of her mouth into a straight line at my accusation.
“No, I’m not.” Hannah denied quickly, but her smile broke free a second later. “Fine. But I’m only smiling because now you can’t go back to your boring office life no matter how much you want to.”
“Hannah, you don’t understand. I need to work.” That was an understatement- I desperately needed to work. I needed it like I needed to breath. These past few weeks have been torturously boring. The girls don't know this, but I actually tried to engage in some few fun activities like scuba diving. Unfortunately, it was like the after effect of getting stoned- empty after the initial high.
“No, you don’t!” Exasperation was creeping into her words as she glared at me. “You co-own a million-dollar interior design company with me. You’re not exactly broke.”
“It’s not about the money, Han. You wouldn’t get it, even if I explained it to you.” I didn’t yell, but the annoyance in my tone matched hers.
“Try me.” Her tone edged into a challenge as we glared at each other.
“Do you guys want to watch rom-com or action?” Danny’s sudden interruption cut through our tension like a knife through butter. It’s either she was oblivious to our mini fight (which I doubt), or she just didn’t care.
“Action.” We chorused without breaking eye contact. For some odd reason, the interruption sort of put a damper on the atmosphere, converting the previous tension into something more awkward.
Hannah sighed, tearing her eyes away from mine. “After the fight with your grandfather, you told me that you wanted to start over… start living your own life. We went partying that night, and I thought—This is it. This is the new, free Estella Levaine living her life the way she wants to. Only for you to go back on your word and start submitting job applications.”
“I’m not going back on my word. I meant what I said about living my own life. But this idle life isn’t for me. Working behind a desk, office meetings, contract negotiations—now that’s me.”
Hannah pressed on. “What happened to the badass Estella that I partied with that night?”
“She’s gone. After getting recklessly drunk in that bar, she ran away, leaving me, the sensible Estella, with a horrible hangover,” I replied dryly, wishing I hadn’t made up that no-eating-movie-snacks rule so I could distract Hannah from this topic with some beer. “Too much action was crammed into one night.”
“And that’s not the worst part,” Danny said dryly as she took a seat on the couch beside Hannah. “You made headlines in the worst way possible.”
My blood boiled just thinking about those ridiculous articles—Powerful Business Woman Is Actually a Spoilt Heiress, True Face of Levaine’s Former Heiress Is an Entitled Drama Queen.
“I bet your grandfather paid those guys to write that bullshit,” Danny commented as the movie intro started.
“You don’t need to pay media companies to write stuff like that.” Hannah was talking to us, but her eyes were glued to the TV as she tossed popcorn into her mouth. “Trust me, I know.” Her expression soured, but it went back to a blank stare so quickly that I thought I imagined it.
Hannah picked up the remote and paused the movie just as it was about to actually start.
“Ugh, what?!” Danny tossed Hannah an exasperated look, but she ignored it.
“How about this,” Hannah turned to look at me, fiddling with her fingers.“Let’s publicly introduce you as the second CEO of Ethereal Designs.” The words came out so quickly, they almost tumbled into each other.
“Wow!” Danny exclaimed, her previous annoyance disappearing.
“What!” My exclamation came a second later. “Umm...I was thinking of taking up tennis again. I’ll look for stuff to keep me busy. You don’t have to—”
“I want to.” Hannah’s interruption came out quiet but sharp, very unlike her. “You need something to keep you going, don’t you? So why not?”
“Because of your parents would think.” Danny went straight to the heart of our worries. “What’s going on, Hannah?”
Damn it..Hannah was always like this- looking out for others even when she had things bothering her.
Hannah smiled. “You guys are getting all worried for nothing.” She let out a sigh before continuing. “After seeing you stand up to your grandfather, I realized that, in a way... I’m still trying to prove to my parents that I’m capable. It’s been five years. If they haven’t realized my competence by now, then that’s their problem.
“I thought about this guys. I’m okay with my parents knowing that Es helped me out in this business. That fact doesn’t make me any less capable—I understand that now,” she added when the worried look in our eyes didn’t go away.
“Okay. If it’s okay with you, I’ll make my position known,” I replied calmly as I assessed my Hannah for any telltale signs. There were none.
“But.” Hannah smirked, her previous sober countenance gone like it never existed. That was Hannah for you—her emotions changed faster than I could blink.
“But?” I echoed, my features molded into a frown.
“You have to come to a club with me and Danny this Friday night.”
“Ugh, this again?” I rolled my eyes. “I wish you’d let this go already. I’m not into clubbing. End of story.”
“If you don’t come clubbing with us tonight, you can’t come to work on Monday. Your choice.”
I fell back into the sofa, groaning.
“Just say yes so we can watch the movie,” Danny complained.
I took a deep breath before replying. “Fine. Just for tonight.”
Hannah’s smirk stretched into an unnerving Cheshire cat smile as she echoed my words. “Just for tonight.”
I had just agreed, but I was already wishing I hadn’t. I couldn't blame myself though, I was desperate.
- Writer
