It was much more difficult than she could have ever imagined. It was a small dinner party, with only six couples and Jayda and Harrison, but the few that were there were brutal.
It started in the living room when she and Harrison walked downstairs. The guests were laughing and talking loudly amongst themselves, but as soon as they saw Jayda on Harrison’s arm, silence overtook the room. Every couple froze in place. Other than Carter Davenshaw, no other guest in that room had ever seen her before. She was not someone in the tight-knit, socially-connected, rarified air in which they traveled. There was no doubt in their minds about that.
And the idea that Harrison Bainbridge would have a woman on his arm of any stripe, and upstairs in his home on top of it, was shocking to all of them except for Carter, who knew she would be there. But for all the others? The actual presence of Big Foot would have been less startling.
“Good evening everyone,” Harrison said to his guests. They all spoke, but their eyes never left the young woman with him. “Please welcome Jayda with a y. She will be joining us this evening.”
“Welcome Jayda,” Carter said with a smile, as he raised his glass to her.
“Thank you,” Jayda said. She remembered him as one of the men by Harrison’s side at Sandhurst, but nobody else looked familiar at all. Nor very friendly either. But she had already expected that.
But when Harrison was pulled away from her side by Carter and a few of the men who needed to discuss a business matter with him, Jayda felt a sudden uptick of nervousness. She felt so out of her depth that she wasn’t at all surefooted as she usually was. But she refused to bury her smile as the ladies made their way over to her as if they just knew they had an easy prey.
Although Jayda didn’t know Harrison well enough to assume anything about him, she had assumed he would be her safety net. She thought he would at least stay by her side to help her navigate such rough waters. But he left her to navigate on her own.
Perhaps that was the experiment. Throw her into the ocean and see if she could swim. Which upset her. Because if she failed whatever the test could be, that would mean he would conclude that other people like her would fail too. That people like her weren’t capable of being at home in high society, and would be judged that much more harshly because of her. It felt like a burden more than a job.
The women encircled her as if they were sharks and she was their piece of meat. One woman she would later find out was a socialite named Phyllis Davenshaw was the ringleader. She was also the wife of Carter Davenshaw, the man who was with Harrison in the breakroom at Sandhurst when she received that big advance. The other ladies seemed to mimic whatever Phyllis did. They were her echo chamber. “So who are you exactly?” Phyllis asked her.
Jayda didn’t skip a beat. “I’m Jayda with a y.”
The other women looked at Jayda as if she was dim-witted. “No, but who are you?” Phyllis asked her again.
“I’m Jayda with a y,” Jayda said again.
“That’s your name. I didn’t ask your name. I asked who were you.”
“What do you expect me to say to that? If I ask somebody who are they, I’m asking them their name. Or if they’re so-and-so’s daughter. Something like that. If you want to ask more of me, then you need to be more specific.”
“Okay, let me be break it down to your level,” said Phyllis, which was a blatant putdown that Jayda received, but ignored. “How did you meet Harrison?”
“How did you get fromwho are youtohow did you meet Harrison? Is that what you call breaking it down to my level?”
“Yes!” Phyllis said frustratingly. “What do you call it?”
“A totally different question!” Jayda responded in her own animated voice that made a couple of the ladies hide their smiles. “Those are two totally different questions,” Jayda added.
Phyllis looked at the ladies as if Jayda was the one toying withthem. But before she could launch another attack, the announcement came that dinner was served.
They all entered the dining hall and sat around the dining table, with Harrison at its head. Carter, along with Phyllis, sat to the right of Harrison. Jayda was seated further away from him, in the middle of the table with a couple on either side of her. It wasn’t lost on her that she was the only person of color in the entire group. But she was being paid to be there. It was admittedly an experiment. She automatically assumed her skin tone would have something to do with it.
Harrison introduced everyone to Jayda once again, and she was surprised that Carter, who seemed overall a nice man, could be married to such a hard-driving bitch like Phyllis. Because even as they all were eating, the guests, led by Phyllis again, let her have it. “So what do you do exactly?” she asked her.
“What do I do?”
“Yes. Or is that question too difficult for you?”
“I work,” said Jayda.
“You don’t say?” Phyllis said to snickers from the others. “Surely I thought you were a lady of leisure. Surely I assumed you were a socialite of the first order who never worked a day in her life.”
The couples’ snickering turned to laughter. Jayda, hurt by their response, glanced over at Harrison. But he was eating and seemed almost disinterested in her takedown. Which made the takedown worse. But his response, or lack thereof, reminded her once again that she was on her own.
“What I meant to say,” Phyllis said, “is whattypeof work do you do. It is assumed, I’m sure by all of us, that you work. Certainly you work. We wish to know what kind of work do you do.”
Here goes more putdowns, Jayda thought. But she wasn’t lying to those arrogant assholes. “I’m a delivery driver by day,” she said, “and I wait tables at night.”
They all looked at each other as if this had to be some joke. “A delivery driver?” said one. “You mean like Door Dash or Fed-Ex?”
