Who Was I Fooling?

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Author's Note

This is part six of an eight-part story. You should read the parts in order, or the story won't make sense.

Part 1 is

here

.

Part 2 is

here

.

Part 3 is

here

.

Part 4 is

here

.

Part 5 is

here

.

This story contains content which may not be suitable for everyone. Please read the author's note for details.

I'm not getting many comments or feedback for this story. If you liked it, I would appreciate it if you'd drop me an email. Thanks!

***

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Who Was I Fooling? - Part 6

The year was 2009

***

That night I spent nearly an hour with Landry talking him down. After he heard about my meltdown at lunch, he'd gone to Principal Smith and demanded that his lunch period be switched so that we would eat together. His demand had been firmly rebuffed and he'd narrowly avoided getting an in-school suspension for belligerence. I had to console him for being helpless to stand by me.

Getting dressed and going into school the next day was one of the hardest things I'd ever done. I decided that if the school collectively decided to treat me like I was different, I'd deliberately set myself apart.

I decided to go to school dressed to the nines. I got up early, took my time doing my hair just right, and I gave myself the kind of makeup job you use when you want to look your absolute best. I wore the designer cocktail dress that Arden got for me, which I'd never worn before.

I accessorized my dress with a long-strand pearl necklace that had been my paternal grandmother's. As I checked myself out in the mirror, I fantasized about mock clutching at my pearls in response to any catty comment that might come my way.

I was shocked at how much older I looked. My dress made me look like I was in my mid-twenties and was very sexy and mature. It was tasteful, but it did show off my figure and the amount of neckline and skirt length were right on the border of the school's dress code guidelines.

As I stepped into the kitchen, Arden looked up, took in my outfit, and smiled. "You've decided to put your best foot forward, then?" she asked.

"Yes," I replied.

"I have the perfect purse to go with that outfit," she said. "Let me go get it."

She returned with her Hermès feather mosaic handbag. Not only was it cool as hell, it was worth a fortune. She helped me transfer my wallet and makeup into the handbag.

"It is a pity that Stafford isn't here to see this. He loves it when the two of you make power moves," she said.

"This is a power move?" I asked, gesturing to my own outfit.

"Yes," she replied. "The fact that you don't know that yet is still a continual source of amazement to me."

"Where is Stafford?" I asked.

"Last minute trip to DC," she replied. "He's going to meet with Senator Barrefort."

"Shit," I said.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"I wanted to talk with him about Senator Barrefort and I forgot about it completely."

"What did you want to say to Stafford about the Senator?" she asked.

"Landry and I met with Senator Barrefort to help Landry secure his appointment to the Air Force academy," I replied.

"That was your college trip to DC a couple of months back?" she asked. She sounded impressed.

When I nodded, she said, "You arranged to meet the Senator on your own? Stafford will love that!"

As I went over to look in the fridge for some yogurt, she asked, "Don't you have PE today?" she asked.

"Second period," I said.

"And you're going dressed like that?"

"I was going to cut," I responded.

Arden laughed, "Then you might as well do it in style. Let's go out for breakfast together. You and me. I'll call you in tardy. Let me go get dressed."

***

I walked into the school halfway through second period.

My locker looked tampered with. There were slips of paper sticking out of the seams. I was loathe to open it up to see what I would find. When I got it open, there were dozens and dozens of hand written notes in it.

I looked at the one on the top. It was from Charlotte, she was a classmate who was one of the girls in Belle's in-crowd clique. I didn't know her very well and like Andrew, I don't think we'd said two dozen sentences to each other in twelve years of school together.

The read, "I know that we aren't really friends and that we don't really talk, but I wanted you to know that I like you a lot and that I admire you deeply for being brave enough to come out. If you ever need someone to sit with at lunch, please consider me your friend. You can sit with me any time."

I quickly scanned half a dozen other notes, and they were all the same: they wished me well, said they admired me, and supported me for the choices that I made. Every single one of them invited me to sit at their table for lunch.

I was desperately trying not to lose my shit when I was approached by Principal Smith and Mrs. Inman. Mrs. Inman was the school's psychologist and guidance counselor.

Mrs. Inman took the lead. "Can you come with us, Ellie?"

"No, Deloris," I replied. "I don't think I will."

Principal Smith said, "Please Ellie, there's no need for that kind of disrespect."

"You two are the adults in charge of this shit show of a school, and frankly I don't think you deserve any respect," I said. "I played your games and followed your bullshit rules for years, Melvin. Look what it got me: you allow the inmates at your institution to treat me like shit, and then you reprimand me and blame me for the disturbances when they do."

I looked at the two of them. "That is what this is about, right? You aren't happy about the scene in the cafeteria yesterday. Just like you weren't happy about how I was bullied and hazed after I admitted I was bisexual. Now, you've come out to the hallway to greet me as I come into school so that you can 'encourage' me to stay home for 'my benefit'. Am I right?"

I made the air quotes with my fingers to punctuate my cold hard statement. Deloris Inman was visibly shamed.

"Well, I'm not going anywhere, except to class," I replied. "And since you two don't act like the adults you are supposed to be, I will call you by your first names, because frankly, you aren't worthy of my respect. If you don't like it, you can take it up with my father."

"Ellie, please don't make me call your father again," said Principal Smith. His face was red with anger.

"Melvin," I responded, making him flinch. "You are free to call my father whenever you want. You may have to leave a message with him today. He's in DC having lunch with Senator Barrefort. Coop is an old family friend."

This made Principal Smith flinch again.

"By the way, Melvin, my father's first name is Stafford. I haven't heard you use his first name once in the last twelve years, so I'm not sure you even know it. When he disrespected and divorced my mother I started calling him Stafford myself. I've used his first name since I was twelve years old. He doesn't mind when I do it."

At this point, Deloris Inman grabbed Principal Smith's arm and dragged him away. I pulled all of the notes out of my locker and carried them to the cafeteria. I had a half hour left in period two to read them.

***

At the dinner table that night, my father was in as high spirits as I'd ever seen him, but he was very quiet. As we tucked in, he said, "I had an interesting conversation with Senator Barrefort today, Noise."

"Really? About what?" I asked.

"Senator Barrefort bemoaned the difficulty of hiring competent staff these days," my father replied. "He said that he's recently had to replace his Chief of Staff. An untrustworthy guy named Nelson Cecil was recently let go."

"Cecil?" I asked. "Was that Nelson's last name?"

Dad smirked. "Yes. I take it you met him?"

"I had that misfortune," I replied.

"Senator Barrefort said that he suspected that Cecil was skimming from him, so he had several pinhole cameras installed in Cecil's office earlier this year." Dad was smiling as he said that.

"Oh, fuck!" I said. This caused dad to give me a beaming smile.

"What's going on?" asked Landry. "Did the guy make a pass at you or something?"

"Or something," I mumbled.

Dad pulled a laptop out of the chair next to him and placed it on the table. Since he sat at the end of our dining room table, everyone could see the screen.

He rolled the video, which showed me being propositioned by Nelson with me eventually turning the tables and making him beg on his knees. When the video was done, both dad and Arden were laughing. Landry was delighted. "Holy shit, Noise! I didn't know you had that in you."

Dad said, "Noise, I got to say, I'm fiercely proud of you. You handled that whole situation with aplomb. What you said and how you said it was absolutely perfect. I do want to make something clear, however, in my own defense."

"What's that?" I asked.

"When I was a young man, I inherited my father's little fiefdom here in Craven county and I had to fend off a dozen enemies and factions who were trying to wrest control of the organization from me. I had to be ruthless, Noise. I was in a war with ruthless people and I had no choice. If I didn't do it to them, they would have done it to me."

"Like Sheriff Conway?" I asked.

Dad looked shocked. "Exactly. How did you know about Sheriff Conway?" he asked.

"I met Connie Turnbull in Bellhaven on my boat trip. When she figured out who I was, we had a chat about you."

"You did?" he asked.

"Yes," I replied. "She's still thinks the world of you, by the way."

"You talked to Delwood too?" he asked.

"We greeted each other, but I didn't talk to him like I talked with Connie," I replied.

"What did she have to say?" he asked.

"She said she had nothing to do with what Kimberly did," I replied. "She said that she had no earthly idea she was having the affair and that if she did, she would have intervened on your behalf. For what it's worth, I believed her. She wasn't lying."

Complicated emotions crossed Dad's face. "I wasn't in my right mind when Kimberly left," he confessed. "I have a lot of regrets about how I handled that."

"Maybe you should let Connie know you have no hard feelings?" I asked. "She's been walking on eggshells for twenty years now."

Dad nodded, but took control of the conversation. "We're getting off track here. We were discussing my reputation for ruthlessness. I was at war. It was not my doing, but when I was forced into it, I was determined to win. I did a lot of things that I'm not proud of. That's how I got the reputation for ruthlessness. It hasn't been like that for years, however. I cleaned the drug trade, the prostitution, and the government corruption out of the operation years ago. Now, we aren't anything more than a real estate development corporation. Everything we do, and I mean everything, is completely legal and legitimate."

Landry and I shared a look. Neither one of us had known.

"Arden can back me up on this," he continued. "She's familiar with everything we do and she knows a lot about what my father did before I took over. We've been clean since before I met your mother. I don't correct people in general on the perception of my ruthlessness because it works in my favor. Truth be told, however, I haven't made anyone disappear in twenty-five years. I think you should know that."

He looked at Arden and she nodded.

"I also think that you should know that I've set it up so that when I die or become incapacitated, the organization will convert into an environmental trust. The land that we've accumulated will be held in public trust as park land. I know that both of you are as eager to escape from the Aldridge curse as I was. When I am no longer able to run the organization, there won't be any legacy or obligation to suck you back into Eastern North Carolina. I want you two to be free to determine for yourselves what is the best life for you. I want you to go out and conquer the world and be free of the Aldridge curse."

Landry and I were stunned.

"Because of that, you might want to be careful in the future about how you handle incidents like the one you have in the Senator's office," said Dad with a smile. "In general, it doesn't pay to create enemies and you won't have my organization or my reputation to protect you in the future."

"I have a question for you, Noise. You won't be in trouble no matter what the answer is, but I need to know the absolute truth. Did you tell anyone that incident with Nelson Cecil happened?" he asked. "Did you tell your mother? Dr. Fee? Anyone?"

"No," I replied. "Why, was the Senator angry?"

Dad laughed. "The opposite. He thought it was the funniest thing he'd ever seen. He said he laughed so hard when he saw the footage that he damn near pissed himself. He thinks the world of you two, by the way. He was amazed at your poise, ambition, and how organized and together you both were. I've got to say that I'm fiercely proud of both of you for how you handled yourself in Washington. Hearing a man like Senator Barrefort give you such a rave review was one of my proudest moments as a parent. I'm very pleased with you two."

Both Landry and I blushed. Dad gave out praise like that sparingly.

"Why did you need to know if I told anyone?" I asked.

Dad smiled and said, "Coop is a powerful man who's owed a lot of favors. He called in a chit and had Nelson Cecil...removed from the board. There's a missing-persons report out on him. The less people who know about your contretemps with him, the better."

"I told no one," I told my father.

"Is there anything else I need to know about your trip to DC?" He asked.

"Miranda Delgado confided in me she's only going to do one more term, then she's going to return to her practice," I said. "She said that she's the one who committed to sponsoring Laundry to go to the AFA."

"Did she ask for something in return?" Dad asked.

"She does transplants out of the hospital in Greenville and solicited a donation for her clinic. She insisted any generosity on your behalf was strictly voluntary. She spoke of how much good they did here in Eastern North Carolina and made the case that donations given to them would have a beneficial impact at all levels of society. She asked you to consider it."

***

On the Saturday morning a week before prom, Arden and I checked out of the Cochère hotel in the garment district in New York City and took a taxi over to the Cosette Escarrat studio.

We were ushered into a room that had two dress forms in it. They were both covered with a canvass liner. There was a couch with a coffee table a platform for taking measurements and one of those fancy 180 mirrors, so you could see the whole garment at once.

There was a couch in the room and I saw both Cosette and my mother sitting there drinking coffee and chatting away in French. Mom's French wasn't great-- especially her accent. Nonetheless, she could understand almost everything that Cosette was saying and could communicate back effectively, if not eloquently. It was a shock because I had never known she spoke French. I had taken seven years of it at my school. I'd started the year that Mom left.

I dropped into their conversation, which was about Mom's bakery. When I sensed a place where I could drop in, I said in French. "Lahela's bakery makes many exquisite pastries, but what she does best is ice cream. Her ice cream is magnificent."

They both looked up and smiled. Mom instantly popped up, ran over, and pulled me into a hug.

She let me go and Cosette, excitedly bustled over and embraced me too. She then gave me the classic French, two-cheek air kiss.

As Cosette greeted me, Mom walked over to Arden. They shook hands without any warmth. There obviously was no love lost between the two.

After Cosette gave Arden the same two-cheek kiss greeting, she instantly took charge of the conversation.

"My team have been working on the two dresses and we are very excited that we have created something amazing and very unique for you Eloise," she gushed.

She pulled me over to the dress forms. "First, we will show the traditional gown. This is not so exciting, but even so, I think it came out quite well."

She pulled the canvass cover off of the form on the right to reveal a traditional gown. It was utterly gorgeous. The fitted bodice was made out of a luxurious deep violet silk with periwinkle and plum accents and piping. The sweetheart neckline offered good coverage with just a bit of a plunge. The dress straps were sturdy for support and to prevent coverage slips. The bodice had boning and an underwire and was closed with a hidden zipper in the back.

The skirt was multilayered with silk, nylon, and chiffon in the same shade of Violet, again with periwinkle and plum accents. There was a long slit in the skirt, which Colette described as a 'peek-a-boo' slit. It was carefully hidden by pleats, and would drape closed naturally, unless I tilted my hip just so, which would cause my leg to suddenly emerge.

"When you dance, your leg will peek out and it will draw all the eyes in the room to your movement," she said with obvious delight "We will try this dress on first so that we can get started on alterations right away, if need be."

At a gesture from Cosette, an assistant stepped forward and handed me two boxes. I opened the first box. Inside of the tissue paper was lingerie. I pulled it out and it was a thong panty and a strapless wireless bandeau bra. The material looked thick and sumptuous like a heavy-thread-count luxury cotton, but it shimmered like silk in the sun.

I reached down and touched it and the material was unlike anything I'd ever felt before. "Oh, wow!" I exclaimed. "That feels amazing! What is the material?"

"I have a supplier who produces this material in small batches. The material is so expensive to make, he's not sure there will be a commercial market for it. He hasn't bothered to develop a commercial name. He calls it 'Composition 135'. It is about 90% natural fibers, is light, has a good stretch, a luxurious feel, and the material is durable and breathable.

"My supplier thought it might be suitable for underwear. He gave me several bolts of cloth and asked me if I could test it," she said with delight.

I looked at the thong and realized this was not an off-the-shelf item. The material had an amazing natural stretchiness to it

It had been sewn exactly to my dimensions from patterns that were developed using the 3-D scan of my body. The gusset was lined with silk, and the part of the thong which would ride in my butt crack was nothing but silk.

I then looked at the bandeau. It was made the same way, and was silk lined. It was a solid loop of material and had no clasps or closures, so I tested its stretch and found that it would pull out enough for me to pull it on over my head. I was dubious however that it would give me any support.

As if reading my thoughts, Cosette said, "The bandeau is to act as a liner for the bodice of your dress. The structure and support you need are in the dress. The top seam on the cups of the bandeau were made to nest into the top of the cup of your bodice. This joint will be surprisingly strong and will prevent your breasts from popping out."