"Lady Rose, how are you doing?"
I was plucking the strings of the guitar when I heard someone talk.
I looked up only to see an unfamiliar face.
I tilted my head, trying to remember her.
She has long red hair tied in a ponytail with ends having big wave curls. She looked charming with her purple dress, tailored to fit her small waist, and I couldn't help but praise how cute her dimple is when she smiles.
I've never seen her these past few days, and I've already met or seen most flowers here.
"I'm doing fine Lady..." I traced off and waited for her to answer, "Hyacinth," she answered with a smile on her face, "...Lady Hyacinth, thank you for asking." I finished off.
"I've been sick for a week, and it is only today that I heard the Bare Elegance has accepted another flower."
Oh so that's why.
I did hear about a flower getting sick but I didn't try to know more about her identity.
"Are you feeling okay now Lady Hyacinth?" I asked. I've never been good at showing concern but I had to build good connection with the other flowers as I've heard that there are some who treat each other as enemies.
Such as Lady Poppy and Lady Camellia.
I don't want that to happen.
I want my days here to be relaxing and problem-free.
"I've already recovered, thank you for asking Lady Rose. I just want to welcome you, although a bit late."
I lightly laughed at what she said, I've been practicing making my laugh sound graceful and pleasant to the ears these past few days, "Thank you, I appreciate it. My stay here has been comfortable so far."
"That's good. I've heard that tonight is your debut?" I nodded at her.
I didn't know debut was a thing here. Turns out that once a flower is added to Bare Elegance, they have to do a debut, which is a performance showcasing the flower's talent and characteristics in front if an audience.
Similar with a concert but with a smaller audience just around 10-20 number of people.
It is already more than a week since I stayed here.
The hostess has told me that the announcement about the Bare Elegance adding a flower to it's collection has already circulated the city. They had to do so to buildup my momentum.
The higher the momentum, the higher my rate for each performance will be.
And it would happen around 6 hours later.
"Are you not going to prepare?" Lady Hyacinth asked and I couldn't help but laugh at her question.
Of course I had to prepare. I was actually nervous as this would be my first ever performance that has only me on stage. Since then I had members that I danced with in the competitions.
Not to mention, I was a dancer, and now I have to perform a song piece that I had created. The Matron was impressed with the song 'City of Stars' that I did, and thought that it would be best if I perform a song of my own.
Aside from that, because of my red eyes, it would be easy to identify that I'm Elivette Hirsch, especially since most of the clients of Bare Elegance are rich men and women and are familiar with the Noble families, and this will surely affect my growth as a flower. The Matron is not taking any chances and want to ensure that my debut doesn't fail so she decided to have me wear an eye piece to cover my eyes and made it out that Lady Rose is blind but has a voice that can touch anyone's heart.
I know that for the time being, it's the best course of action, but my conscience is bugging me about lying that I'm blind.
Pretending to have a disability was something I've never done before.
It's wrong and there's no excuses for it, but I couldn't do anything because it was stated in the agreement that I had to go with their arrangement.
This is the problem of the at-will agreement, although I get to choose when to leave, I don't get to decide for myself.
"Maybe in a while, I'm kinda nervous so I went here to play an instrument." I simply said as my fingers pluck the strings.
I'm currently in the room where the hostess teaches me about deportment.
They also have instruments here.
"Do you want someone to talk to or do you wanna be alone by yourself?"
"In all honesty, I don't want to talk to anyone right now, but I also don't want to be by myself. Would you mind spending a minute with me here?" I honestly stated and asked her, "Then I'll do so Lady Rose." She sat beside me with a few inches of space and went silent.
I appreciate that she accepted my request. I went back to grazing my fingers to the guitar.
"Do you miss your home Lady Hyacinth?" I looked at her and asked.
I actually don't want to play any instrument right now, I just want to hold a guitar as it reminds me of home.
I feel like I'm drifting apart but at the same time closer to going back to my world.
I don't wanna stay in my room because Penny is there and she's anxious about my debut and I can't really relax my mind.
"Bare Elegance is my home." She answered.
"I miss mine." I can barely hear myself when I said those words and I doubt if she even heard me.
I couldn't help but think about my cousins, wondering what Erica is doing now.
She likely has class at this time. And she'll be waiting for me when she got home before starting to answer her assignments because she likes it when we write together.
Elijah, on the other hand, would stay up all night playing games and would wake me up in the middle of the night when he remembered he had a project to complete.
I hope Aunt Beth is taking good care of those two. She tended to focus on her job and forget to take care of her own child which pisses me off most of the time.
Another thing that's bothering me is I'm having the same dream for a few days now. It's still about the shadows and the woman who was kneeling, other from that everything was unclear. And every time I try to get closer to her to help her, I awaken from the dream and my emotions would be heavy after.
Suddenly, we heard a knock and the door opened, "Lady Eli, I've been trying to find you! The hostess is looking for you." I nodded and put the guitar back in it's place.
I looked at Lady Hyacinth and thanked her, "I'll go then."
"Do not worry too much about it Lady Rose, I believe you'll do well."
Such simple words yet it made the corner of my lips perked up ad somehow made my mood a lot better.
I thanked her once again and followed Penny.
We went to our room and there were already a few women walking back and forth inside.
The other Ladies won't be accepting any clients tonight as the focus of the night will be the debut. It will be held in the Theatre stage that they have inside the establishment.
I found out that it was where the other flowers debuted also.
Penny grabbed my hand and pulled me towards my bed.
"My Lady, your dress is here!" I could tell how excited she was by the way she gripped me in my wrist.
We passed the curtains and what unraveled was a bed with a dress on it.
A beautiful one.