“Well, it seems she ate something on her break that she mistakenly thought was gluten-free. She has celiac disease, so she’s just dashed off to the bathroom, and I can only assume she’ll be in there for quite some time.”
“Oh, no. Do you want me to go and take care of her?” I asked, brows shooting up with concern. A girl at Silvercreek High had celiac, and she once vomited blood in our dingy cafeteria after a guy forcibly kissed her as part of a twisted ‘joke’. He’d eaten a sandwich for lunch, and just a few tiny crumbs from his lips was enough to make the girl horribly ill.
Charles waved a hand. “No, no, she’s a big girl. She can take care of herself. I was actually wondering if I could trust you to take over her position tonight.”
My forehead creased. “Her position? Isn’t she just serving drinks and food like me?”
“In a manner of speaking. She’s been serving the upstairs guests.”
My frown deepened. “Upstairs guests?”
I’d noticed Jean walking up and down the stairs a few times, but it had never occurred to me that she was serving guests on the upper levels. I’d simply observed her movements and never given them a second thought. She was just like me—the deferential help, making her way around the party like a polite little elf, only noticed if she screwed up.
Charles moved a little closer and lowered his voice. “Some of the guests at my parties prefer something a little quieter. More intimate. They take the rooms in the south wing of the house, on both the second and third levels. Occasionally, they want things like champagne and food brought to them, and that’s where Jean usually comes in.”
“Oh, I see.”So I was wrong earlier,I thought. Therewasa wild side to Royal Falls parties.
He held out a phone. “They send orders via text to this phone, along with their location, and you get what they want from the kitchen and deliver it to them. You can reach the south wing from here by going up the stairs and taking a left on the landing. Another staircase at the end of the second-floor hall will take you up to the third floor if necessary.”
“All right. I can do that.”
“Good,” he said, giving me a curt nod. “You can be discreet, can’t you?”
I smiled. “Of course.”
I knew exactly what he meant. Some—if not all—of the party guests upstairs were screwing their brains out, and they didn’t want anyone talking about it.
Charles returned my smile. “Good. Oh, and something else—the rooms aren’t numbered like some sort of hotel, but there is an easy way to tell where the people are. Each room has a different gold emblem on the door. One is a star, another is a crescent moon, and so on. When the guests put in their orders, they’ll mention which room they’re in using that emblem.”
Wow.He had a full-on private party setup in the south wing. That was cool, even if it was a little strange at the same time.
“Understood,” I replied.
“Thank you, Delaney. I knew I could trust you to help me out.” Charles smiled again and handed the phone to me. It started buzzing right away. “Oh, look at that. Your first order.”
“I’ll take care of it.” I read the message with a furrowed brow, hoping I wouldn’t let Charles down. If I did, I’d be letting my mom down as well.
Champagne and 2 glasses @ Crescent room on 2nd floor,the message said. No please or thanks. Just straight to the point.
I rushed to the kitchen and grabbed a bottle out of a champagne bucket, along with two glasses. Then I headed up to the second floor and turned left.
The first half of the south wing was a sprawling collection of intimate rooms with comfortable furniture and dark wood-paneled hidey-holes that seemed custom-designed for making out. Some young people, presumably RFA students, were filling those spots, making loud smacking noises as their lips and bodies crashed together.
I ignored them and headed farther down the hall, toward the private rooms. It was much quieter at this end of the house. Much darker too. The hall was lit only by small, flickering candles set in bronze sconces on the walls.
Squinting, I located the room with the crescent emblem and knocked on the door. A middle-aged man stuck his head out a moment later. He was shirtless and beaded with sweat, and he grinned when he spotted me. “Ah, our drinks. Thanks, darling.” He winked and tucked a twenty dollar bill in my pocket.
“Wow, thank you, sir,” I said, marveling at the size of the tip. Twenty might not seem like much, but if only ten people put in orders for the upstairs rooms tonight, and each gave me the same tip, I’d make enough to pay every cent of the electricity bill. All that without even counting the money I was already getting paid for waitressing tonight.
If I was lucky, I might walk out of here with over three hundred bucks.
Over the next hour, I received twenty more orders. Some for champagne and cocktails, some for romantic foods like chocolate-dipped strawberries, and others demanding full hot meals. Not everyone tipped me as well as the first guy, but by the time I’d dropped off the twentieth order at the Tulip room all the way up on the third floor, I’d made $225 in tips. Also, the people I delivered the stuff to actually acknowledged my existence by smiling and thanking me every single time.
This was actually turning out to be a decent night after all.
Wiping another bead of sweat off my brow, I sank into a plush chair back in the make-out zone on the second floor while I waited for another order to come in. I figured I was allowed to relax between orders, because when I was filling one, I had to race up and down the stairs and hallways to get it done as fast as possible. Not an easy feat in such an enormous mansion.
About three minutes later, the phone buzzed again.Two French martinis, please.