Part 1
Basking in the sun was Carrie Austins, daughter of the big inventor Peter Austins. For her, and her friends life was good – Carrie’s father was usually absent, busy day and night in the Silicone Valley, developing various new pieces of software day and night, and Carrie, who was 24 years of age by now, had not had to work for herself for even one day.
Carrie was your rich young woman, resembling somewhat the actress Jessica Parker with her longish brownish wavy hair. Carrie too was of a slim, almost waspish, build, product of many spas and gyms, as well as too much free time on her hands. Carrie’s face, though, was more youthful than pretty – but with her current age she did not have to be that good-looking just yet – she had plenty of young men surrounding her, eager to win her hand and her father’s cash. They did not care about Carrie that much – and Carrie paid them back in kind. She was as shallow and callous as they were.
Charlotte Wallace sat on Carrie’s right. Charlotte, a scion of a wealthy building magnate from western Kansas, was just a little less spoilt than Carrie – and somewhat more “col-orful”. She had inherited her father’s robust stature and thick, black hair – but apparently, not his charismatic personality that made him the man he was. Rather, Charlotte had all the charm of a weasel – but since Carrie was pretty much a weasel herself, she and Charlotte got along fine.
Next to Charlotte sat Miranda Pucey-Jaya, daughter of an Irish businessman and his trophy wife from Indonesia. Now Miranda looked quite exotic with her ivory-like skin, slanted green eyes and dark red hair, and she knew it. Moreover, knowing this, she pretty much dedicated herself to snaring a rich husband who will support her financially, just as her parents did. The latter, being “old-fashioned” in a bad way, quite approved of Miranda’s lifestyle… though her father (for the sake of appearances) did give Miranda a job as a high-level secretary in an American office of his firm (he dealt in overseas goods). In return, Miranda began to “zero-in” on various high level executives, who certainly did not hesitate to suck-up to their boss by courting his daughter…
Finally, on Carrie’s left was Samantha Bjerg, your classical Nordic blonde beauty. On her mother’s side, Samantha could count generations practically down to the settlers of Mayflower – but that did not detain her from marrying Samantha’s father, the business partner of Miranda’s own dad. Needless to say, Miranda and Samantha knew each other quite well (better than Carrie, anyways), and just like Miranda, Samantha was dedicated to mostly securing herself a husband, figuring that with a gorgeous face and body of hers it will be easy…
Anyways, the story really begins when Samantha finished her ice tea and complained about that to Carrie. Carrie got out of her chair and yelled: “Paloma! Get Samantha new glass of ice tea!”
Now, Paloma Lopez was an unlucky woman, as opposed to the previous four. She was a Spaniard but had to leave her homeland because of politics and settle in the New England area of US, where poor Hispanic women with rather homely looks and stout figures were frowned upon, as a rule. Of course, Carrie’s father, who was a rather kind person in his own way, was by no means derogatory or condescending towards Paloma – but the thing was that he was absent from his house for most of the time, leaving it to his daughter and her friends – who were smug, snobbish brats, who treated Paloma about as nicely as an ugly piece of furniture, if not worse. For her part, Paloma kept quiet, knowing that at her age of late 60s she was unlikely to get another job, and that she was quite lucky, as compared to some… but still, her resentment grew and grew…
“Hey, maid!” Carrie suddenly snapped, as Paloma handed Samantha her new cold fruit punch. “We got good news for you!”
“Oh?” Paloma half turned around, suspecting that most likely this was a latest “joke” (in-sult, actually) of Carrie and her friends. “What is it?”
“You get the evening off! Congratulations!”
“Yay,” Paloma muttered, her heart sinking into her chest. She knew what that meant: Carrie and her friends were having a party tonight – a big, “fancy” party that would naturally turn into an all-nighter – and guess who would have to clean-up afterwards? What’s more, Mr. Austins was blissfully unaware of such events – and Paloma had learned that it was useless to explain it to him – between her still-accented English and his own lack of social understanding (Mr. Austins was somewhat of an old nerd, to tell the truth) – he would just not understand Paloma’s point. Therefore, instead Paloma said; “I’ll be off now?”
“Do go,” Carrie replied in her “gracious” voice, “you old dear.”
Paloma suppressed her lately increasing urges to do violence to the person of Carrie and her friends and walked out. As she did so, though, a breeze carried Samantha’s voice: “Why don’t you fire yet this old cow? She’s as fat as a pig and just as slow!” and Carrie’s reply: “When daddy’ll come back I’ll talk with him about this…”
Paloma’s heart sang. What Carrie wanted from her father, she usually got. Paloma had no reason to imagine that this will go any different… Was she doomed?