God. What on earth was I in for?
The wealthy and fabulous, having suffered as children, deserve all of the privilege and prestige that society affords them. They should be able to do what they want, when they want to, with no consequences. After all, they’re worth it.
Discuss how well-reasoned you find this argument. Write your answer in the book labeled ―Analytical Writing: Argument.‖
chapter six
Megan Smith, I presume.‖
Those words found me gazing at the glorious view of the Atlantic through the picture window in Laurel Limoges‘s home office at Les Anges, an estate that Vanity Fair had not oversold. Thick raindrops hit the surface of the infinity-edged pool outside. It was hard to tell where the pool ended and the ocean began.
I whirled around and found myself face-to-face with a woman of a certain age. ―Laurel Limoges.‖
―It‘s a pleasure to meet you.‖ That was your basic nicety. I had no idea if it was going to be a pleasure to meet her, or whether in fifteen minutes I‘d be asking her driver to bring me back to the Palm Beach airport.
As we shook hands, I was struck by her beauty. Anyone would be. Her alabaster skin was taut and flawless, stretched over high cheekbones. She wore a gray suit with a fitted jacket and a straight skirt that fell just below her knees. Her pearl-gray open-toe pumps matched the buttons on the suit. She wore a silver bracelet on her left wrist but no rings on her fingers.
―Please.‖ She nodded toward a carved mahogany-framed couch and took a seat opposite me on a paisley chair. ―Your flight was satisfactory? You did not get too—how do you say—drenched?‖ She had a slight French accent.
―Your driver had a parapluie très bon et très grand. ‖ Translation: a very big and good umbrella. Thank you, four years of French at Yale.
The sky had opened up as soon as the Gulfstream landed in Palm Beach. During the limousine ride from the airport I could barely see out the windows. I‘d flicked on the limo‘s mini TV and watched a Miami weatherman warning people in Palm Beach County to beware of hail as said hailstones pinged off the limo‘s roof.
The hail had abated by the time we pulled in to a circular gravel driveway in front of an enormous mansion the color of cotton candy. The car door swung open, and a very bald, cadaverous man in a black suit held an umbrella over me as I stepped out into thick, fetid air. ―Miss Smith? This way, please.‖
He guided me toward an enormous mahogany front door and then into a foyer larger than my entire East Village apartment. It had a white tile floor, intricately carved woodwork, and a round marble pedestal in the center. On that pedestal rested a three-foot-high white onyx vase and dozens of enormous orange and purple bird-of-paradise.
―Welcome to Les Anges , Miss Smith. I am Mr. Anderson, Madame‘s butler,‖ he intoned, touching the Secret Service–style earpiece in his left ear. ―Your rucksack, please, Miss Smith?‖
The butler—I immediately dubbed him the Skull—took my backpack and pushed a recessed metal button. A well-disguised elevator door swung open.
―Take this to the second floor,‖ the Skull instructed. ―Madame Limoges‘s office. She‘ll be with you shortly.‖
―Okay, thanks.‖ I stepped into the elevator.
―And Miss Smith? Madame doesn‘t like her things to be touched.‖
The elevator closed automatically. The last thing I saw was the Skull two-fingering my backpack like week-old roadkill.
And now here I was, face-to-face with the woman to whom all this wealth and power belonged. I didn‘t have to be a Yale grad to figure out that she‘d flown me eleven hundred miles to offer some kind of position involving her granddaughters, the Fabulous Baker Twins. But the what, where, why, and most of all, how much, were still a mystery.
―The flight was great,‖ I told her now. ―I mean, it was fine. Your plane is very nice.‖
Your plane is very nice? I sounded like an