Sunset Rising (5 page)

She pushed
away from the wall where she’d been leaning and approached us. She looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t quite place her. She and I were about the same height, but that’s where any similarities ended. Her hair was blonde and her eyes looked blue, but all the makeup she was wearing made it hard to tell.

“Yes
, ma’am. I’m hungry. But I know I shouldn’t have taken the food. I apologize,” I said. Summer bowed her head and turned her eyes to the floor like any good urchin did in the presence of the bourge. I did the same.

“
You
took the food?” she asked. “I saw everything. Your friend took the food and you’re covering for her. I think that’s sweet. What’s your name?”

I risked glancing at her and saw she was staring at me.
“Sunny O’Donnell.”

“I didn’t mean to spy.
Well, not on you anyway.” She laughed. “I was peeking through the door to see if my fiancé is behaving himself tonight. Sometimes he drinks a little too much wine.”

Did she say fiancé?
I realized she must be Leisel Holt, the president’s daughter. My heart sank and panic rose up to take its place. Of all the people to catch us stealing food!

“He has behaved himself tonight, has
n’t he?”

“Yes
, ma’am,” I said.

“Really, there’s no need to be afraid of me.
I won’t hurt you. Please, call me Leisel.” She sounded overly friendly. Summer and I gave each other a nervous glance. We were confused. “I mean, it might even be nice to make some friends. I don’t have many… being the president’s daughter and all.” She studied me, but I didn’t know what to say to her, so I remained silent.

“Most people think it must be the most wonderful thing in t
he world to be the president’s daughter, but it isn’t. It’s absolutely horrible! I don’t have any friends. I have to live my life in the public eye—always behaving myself and looking my best. And as if constantly having people look at me weren’t enough, there are rumours that someone wants to kill me. Can you believe it? Someone actually wants to assassinate me.” Tears welled up in her eyes. She looked pathetic.

I surprised myself
by reaching out to take her hand. “That’s awful.” I wasn’t really sure what I was doing, but I thought if we showed her a little sympathy, she might return the favor and not tell on Summer for taking the food.

“I’m sorry
, I don’t mean to cry.” She grabbed my hand as if it were a lifeline and held it tight. “I’m really trying to be brave. But it’s so scary thinking someone could kill me at any time.”

“I can’t believ
e anyone would want to hurt you,” Summer said. I wasn’t sure if Summer knew what I was trying to do or if she was just being her genuine, loving self.

Leisel considered her for a moment, but turned her attention back to me.
“You’re both so very sweet.” She took a tissue out of her pocket and dabbed the corners of her eyes, careful not to smudge her makeup. “Oh, I must look awful. But I feel
so much better. Thank you for listening.”

Seeing that she had stopped crying
, I began to relax my hold on her hand, but she tightened her grip and refused to let me go. “We are friends, aren’t we?”

H
er eyes seared into mine, waiting for my answer. “Of course.” I was confused by her strange behaviour.

The last of the girls carrying trays walked past us into the
kitchen and gave us puzzled looks.

“I have an idea!
We should hang out tonight,” she said, clearly meaning only me. “I like talking to you, and I really do think it was very noble of you to cover up for her.” Leisel looked at Summer but with no kindness in her expression. I got the feeling we were being threatened.

“I have to work tonight,”
I said awkwardly.

“I thought you were almost done?”

“No, ma’am. There’s a party this evening.”

U
nderstanding came over her features. “Oh right, it’s a bachelor party.” She seemed to ponder the dilemma for a moment. “I know. I’ll get Jack to make a request for you. He can take you back to his apartment, and I’ll meet you there.”

She looked pleased with
her plan, but alarms were going off in my head. I had a really uneasy feeling about her, but I knew that if she wanted me to do something I would have to do it. There was no way I could refuse the president’s daughter.

“If you’re worried about your friend,
I’ll see what I can do about getting her off duty for the night.”

I looked at Summer.
She seemed worried.

“Okay,” I said.
I had little choice. I was grateful that Leisel offered to send Summer home. It made the situation a little more tolerable.

“It’s all settled then.
I’ll just go out and tell Jack, and he’ll come and get you when the time is right. We’re going to have so much fun!”

“Her name is Summer.
Summer Nazeem,” I said pointedly, wanting to be sure she excused the right girl from work.

“Summer.
I’m sure I’ll remember.”

She gave my hand a final squeeze before she walked out into the
dining room. I heard a volley of clapping from the guests as she entered, then laughter.

“Sunny, what are you doing?” Summer asked in a terrified voice.
“Why did you say you’d go with her? She’s a wackadoodle!”

“Ssshhh!
Someone might hear.” I looked around to see if anyone else was lurking in the shadows. “We just got caught stealing food. You know we could be beaten to death for that. And didn’t you hear her say she’d get you off duty tonight? Not only are you not going to be punished, but you get to go home!”

“And you get left behind with
her
.”

“Do you really think I ha
ve a choice?” Her look of resignation told me she knew I didn’t. “Look, I’d rather sit around holding her hand tonight than being entertainment for one of those old men out there.
And
you get to go home. So something good is coming from all of this, right?”

“I don’t know about that, Sunny
. I have a bad feeling.”

Summer
didn’t often have a bad feeling about anything. I took her seriously, even though there was nothing I could do about it. “I’ll be fine, I promise,” I said with more conviction than I felt. “We should get back before we get into any more trouble.”

As we entered the main part of the kitchen, we came face to face with our angry supervisor.

“It’s about time!”
she yelled. “Where have you been?”

“We were stopped by the
president’s daughter,” I said. An idea was forming in my mind. I could still hear the crowd shouting out comments to Leisel, asking why she was at a bachelor party. There could be no question that she was indeed here.

“Is that s
o? And why on earth would the president’s daughter want to talk to you two?”

“She asked about her fiancé and whether or not he was drinking a lot of wine.
She wanted to know if he was behaving himself. That’s all.”

She stared at us for a moment.

“You can
ask her yourself.”

“
Hurry up and get in line. You need to be back in that room in twenty minutes.”

Relieved, Summer and I hurried to join
the lineup of girls by the door. We were the last to arrive. Our supervisor led us to a room where the rest of the girls were in various states of dress. Some were getting their hair done up, others having makeup applied.

A young woman took me by the arm as soon as I walked in.
“I have just the dress for that hair.”

Someone else led
Summer away in the opposite direction.

The woman
with me picked up a floor-length emerald strapless dress. She motioned for me to get undressed. Once I had, she slipped the silky gown over my head. The bodice was too big for me, so she pinned it and then made a few quick alterations. I could tell it had been altered several times before.

She laughed.
“At least I won’t need to hem it.”

I looked down
. The hem of the dress hovered above my ankles.

S
he tapped her teeth with one fingernail as she stared at my feet. “With the right shoes…”

She left me for a few moments and then came back with a pair of
sparkly high heels.

“They’re not too
high—we don’t want you towering over all the men! But it will make the dress look like it’s been shortened deliberately to show off the shoes.”

I strapped the shoes on my feet and tried to stand up
. I had seen women in the movies wear heels, and I tried to walk like they did. Satisfied with my outfit, the woman told me to go to the hairdressing station. I practiced walking in my high heels on my way there and almost twisted my ankle.

“Your
hair is absolutely gorgeous!” the hairdresser said as she took the elastic out and let my hair fall down my back. “I’m tempted to leave it just the way is.” She pulled it this way and that. “Just a few curls to frame your face, I think.”

She took a hot curling ir
on from a holder and twirled locks of my hair around it. “There. You’re going to have a lot of suitors tonight.”

She sent
me on my way to makeup.

The makeup artist
examined my face carefully. “Let’s see.” She picked up a pair of tweezers and began plucking my eyebrows. It hurt. A lot.

“Sorry
, hon. Normally I’d do this with wax all at once, but it would leave welts that wouldn’t have time to heal.”

Once
she’d applied my makeup, I hardly recognized myself in the mirror.

Dressed an
d painted, I was ready to go back to the dining room. I didn’t see Summer anywhere, and I was relieved. I hoped she was on her way home.

I
joined a small group of girls gathered at the door. None of them looked very excited to be there, although I could easily tell the newbies from the girls who had been there before. I wondered if the fear I was feeling was written all over my face, too. Although Leisel frightened me, I held out hope that she hadn’t changed her mind. An evening with her seemed less frightening right now than what else might be in store for me.

Someone led us back to the dining room
, and it looked just as we’d left it. The tables were clear and the candles still flickering. A few girls, still in white uniforms, circulated with a bottle of wine in each hand. I looked around, wondering if Leisel was still there. Maybe she would come and get me herself.

But it wasn’t Leisel
I saw. All dressed up in pink with an old man falling all over her, was Summer. She looked absolutely terrified.

An old man stumbled toward me.
“Now you, my dear, are worth the cost of a drink.”

The little
hair he had left on his head had gone completely grey, and he had a big round tummy. This was the closest I had ever been to an old person since there were none in the Pit. His breath stank of food and wine. He handed me a glass of wine, and I accepted because I didn’t know what else to do. I was pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone I was waiting for Jack Kenner.

“Haven’t seen you here before.
Where’ve you been hiding? Down there in that Pit? No place for a beautiful woman.” He slurred his words.

He snaked one of his
flabby hands out toward me and unsteadily pulled me closer to him. It took all of my will power not to scream. I was taller than him, and he leaned his head against my neck. His hot, putrid breath tickled me. He slid his head lower, trying to lay his cheek on my breasts.

A young man
walked up to us. I prayed it was Jack Kenner, here to take me away from this. “Wilson, old man. What are you doing?” he asked jovially.

“Jack, you little devil
.” Wilson released his hold on me.

Relief flooded through me at the mention of his name.

Wilson grabbed onto Jack’s arm to steady himself. “Don’t worry, son. You’ll be married soon enough, and then you’ll know what I’m doing with this young lady.” He tried to wink at Jack, but it looked more like a blink.

“I think this young lady
might be too much woman for you, Wilson. You couldn’t kiss her if you stood on your tiptoes.” Jack laughed.

“It’s not kissing I’m hoping
for tonight!” Wilson said, elbowing Jack in the side.

Jack looked at me f
or the first time and appraised me from top to bottom and back up again. “You have good taste, old man, I’ll give you that. She’s the prettiest girl here. In fact, I think I’ll take her off your hands.”

“Wait a
minute!” Wilson waved an unsteady finger at Jack. “I found her first.”

“Yeah, but I’m the guest of ho
nor. So I get first pick.”

Wil
son tried to straighten himself up, but he was still unsteady on his feet. “‘Course you are, Jack. She’s all yours.”

Wil
son took back the glass of wine he had given me and stumbled away in search of another girl. Jack watched him go and then stepped so close to me that we were only a few inches apart. My high heels made us about the same height. His tilted his head toward mine, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. I thought he was here to save me from all of this.

“You’re Sunny O’Donnell?” he whispered
.

H
e stared at me with those intense blue eyes that I had seen so many times on television over the past few months. He was about to marry the president’s daughter. He would be president himself one day. That made him a very important person. I felt so intimidated, but I managed to nod.

“Leisel asked me to come find you. I’ll take you back to my apar
tment.”

I was relieved
and anxious all at the same time. Leisel was going through with her plan after all.

But I was still worried about Summer. I tried to look over Jack’s shoulder
discreetly to see where she was. I didn’t want to leave her alone.

“Unless you didn’t want to go back to
my apartment? Maybe there’s someone who caught your eye?”

“Your fiancée said my friend could go home for the night, but I saw her here,” I
said, risking the possibility of being punished. Would he think I was out of line?

“I forgot.
She told me to put in a request for… Spring, is it?”

“
Summer.”

“Yeah, Summer.
Leisel told me to put her with old Forbes. He’s drunk and harmless. He’ll fall asleep at a table, and she’ll be sent home. Until then, she can stay and enjoy the party.”

I
finally spotted Summer. Wilson was competing for her now. By the look on her face, she wasn’t enjoying the party at all.

“The p
resident has already left and everyone is waiting for me to clear out,” Jack said as he extended his elbow toward me. “Come on. No one can leave until the guest of honor does.”

“Okay.
”

What choice did I have?
I wanted to catch Summer’s eye before I left, but Wilson was blocking my view. Jack was still holding his elbow out toward me, and I wasn’t sure why. Finally he picked up my hand and tucked it under his elbow. I was surprised he had expected me to do that—to touch him. My shock must have shown on my face because he gave me a questioning look. I realized my mouth was hanging open, and I closed it.

I could feel his muscles
under my hand, caught where it was in the crook of his arm. He stood up straighter as he walked across the room and steered me toward the main doors. He had the confident swagger of someone who knew he was the most important person in the room. I heard a few men shouting out “Good for you Jack!” and “She’s a looker!” They all clapped as we left the room. I had never felt so humiliated in all my life.

Jack remained silent as he escorted me to the elevator and pressed the
“Up” button. The doors opened, and we stepped in. He pressed the button for the eighth floor. The small elevator seemed awkwardly quiet and intimate after the bustle of the party. I was very aware that my hand was still trapped in the crook of his arm. I stared at the floor. Although I wanted to break the contact, he hadn’t given me permission.

The elevator doors opened
, and we stepped out into an opulent hall. The floor was covered with a plush carpet, which I found difficult to walk on in high heels. The walls were off-white except for one long wall that was painted deep red. A few large flowering plants stood against the red wall with a long mirror in between. My reflection shocked me, dressed as I was in a silk gown and on the arm of Jack Kenner.

He noticed me looking
in the mirror. “You’re really pretty.” He didn’t say it like a compliment, more like a fact.

I looked away from
my reflection when Jack straightened his arm and pressed his hand against the small of my back, urging me to keep walking. I was grateful not to have to hold his arm anymore.

As we left the elevator lobby
, we passed a picture hanging on the wall. Bold strokes of red and yellow sometimes blended together to make gold. The colors were set against a dark background, making them appear even more striking.

“What is it?” I asked, staring
, fascinated.

“It’s an
abstract of a sunset.”

I
looked at a lock of my own hair and compared its color to the painting. Where the red and yellow mixed, I could see the resemblance to my hair. Reyes’s words came back to me:
Did you ever wonder how she knew what a sunset looked like?
Was this the picture my mother was thinking of when she named me? Had she been here on this same floor, chosen by some drunken bourge to entertain him? It was a sickening thought.

“Was it something I said?” Jack asked.

I shook my head. “No. Not you. Something someone else said.”

Jack looked around.
“There’s no one else here.”

“Sorry
. I meant a different conversation.” My cheeks flushed red.

“Well
, don’t let me interrupt.”

I felt so stupid.

Four different hallways led away from the elevator lobby, and he turned right. We walked for quite a distance before he stopped in front of a door at the end of the hall and passed his hand over the scanner. I heard a click, and he opened the door.

“Oh
, Jack! You did it!” Leisel said. She threw her arms around him and hugged him close. I felt awkward and out of place standing there witnessing their intimacy.

“You know I’d do anything for you
, darling,” he said.

I turned my head away when I realized he was going to kiss her, but not before I saw
some of the kiss. Something about the way he was holding her, about the way he kissed her, didn’t seem right. They were almost stiff and polite with each other, but maybe that was just the way of the bourge.

After a moment, Leisel turned to me.
“Look at you, Sunny! You are positively breathtaking! Isn’t she, Jack?”

“Not
as breathtaking as you, my love.” He kissed her again. “I’m going to go read. You girls have a nice evening.” Jack headed toward another room and closed the door behind him.

“He’s probably had too much w
ine. He’ll go and sleep it off. I ordered us some food. I assumed you would be starving after working all night.”

I was starving.
My last meal had been over twenty-four hours ago.

“Can I take off my shoes?” I asked.
I really didn’t think I could take another step in them.

“Yes, of course
. You poor thing, working in those all night, your feet must be killing you.”

They were.
I gladly slipped them off. The carpet was thick and cushiony against my aching feet.

I followed Leisel into the
living room. A large sofa and two smaller chairs were grouped around a low table. Plates of food sat out, and my mouth watered at the sight and smell. I prayed my stomach wouldn’t start making noises again. It was so quiet in there.

Leisel picked up a small remote and pointed it
at a television hanging on the wall. Soft music began to play. I hadn’t seen the television at first, and I was surprised by it. No one in the Pit owned a television. They were only in the common rooms. But I guessed I shouldn’t have been surprised. Jack and Leisel were privileged.

“Please make yourself comfortable,” she said, waving me toward the sofa.
She walked over to a small table and poured two drinks. She sniffed the contents of one glass while handing me the other. “Blackberry wine—my favourite! Why should the men get to have all the fun tonight? No one threw me a big party, and I’m getting married, too. Cheers!” She clinked her glass against mine and then raised it to her lips, so I did the same. I had never tasted wine before, and it burned going down my throat. I almost choked.

Leisel made an appreciative noise as she savoured the taste of the wine.
“Blackberries grow best in the Dome. They respond well to our artificial light. There are other berries too, but blackberries grow big and juicy and make the best wine.”

I nodded
. I had no idea what to say or even why I was there for that matter.

The food looked so good
, and my stomach was so empty.

“Oh, I’m being rude.
Please help yourself.” Leisel gestured toward the food. She’d either read my mind, or my hunger was obvious.

There was
no fork, so I assumed it was okay to pick it up with my fingers. I had never eaten food like this before. The only things on the plate I recognized were the vegetables because I’ve peeled so many working in the kitchen. I chose an orange wedge of something and popped it in my mouth. It was delicious.

“I wasn’t sure what you like to eat so I just ordered some things that pair well with
the wine.”

“Thank you.
It’s delicious.” I wasn’t sure what she meant about pairing food with wine. Food was food.

I followed the orange wedge with a bite of bread and then picked up something that looked like meat.
I didn’t like it as much. Leisel clinked my glass again, and I took another sip of the wine. It didn’t burn as much this time, and a warm relaxing sensation came over me. I set my glass back down on the table to free both hands to eat.

Lei
sel watched me for a moment. “Thanks for hanging out with me tonight. I know it’s not much of a party with just the two of us, but I really don’t have good friends to share my special day with. Isn’t that pathetic?”

Tears formed in h
er eyes, and she quickly brushed them away. I was still wondering what role I was supposed to play tonight. Did she want me to hold her hand? I was relieved when she reached for a decadent-looking cake instead.

“Lik
e you said before—you’re the president’s daughter. You’re a very important person and it’s difficult for people to get past that.” I hoped this was what she wanted to hear.

“Do you really think that’s why no one want
s to be my friend?” Her self-deprecating look told me the conversation was going in the right direction.

“I’m positive
. You’re very kind and generous.” I tried not to choke on the words. The Holts had been anything but kind and generous to the Pit. “Letting my friend Summer go home tonight proves it.”

“You know the boys mean well
—they think they’re doing you girls a favour by letting you into their little parties. But I think most of you don’t want to be there, do you?”