Priscilla

S1 ⭒ Episode Three

"Love's a hand-me-down brew..."
♪ Black Coffee • Sarah Vaughan.

SHE WANTS ME, SHE WANTS ME NOT

Halen Elle

Priscilla smells like Jasmine and Leather, and she sounds like Marilyn Monroe.

She walks slowly, with her head held high and her posture perfect. She doesn't hold the door open for me, she lets the frayed wood snag on my suit, too proud to get caught behind the group.

She smiles like she has a secret and chooses her words like picking only the ripest fruit from a peach tree. She wears warm brown lipstick, without even a smudge on the uneven edges of her lips.

She cuts her hair herself, I can tell by the band-aid on her ring finger from a clumsy cut and the freshly chopped ends of her tucked, short hair. She's an optical illusion; tall, yet delicate and light on her feet. She has crescent moon diamond studs, and the stars behind her ears in ink.

She is beauty.

She may not like me, but she wants me.

And I want her too.

But, I don't like her.

Pearl is the name for a boat. Not a person.

I can't trust someone who willingly goes by the name 'Pearl' when they already have a perfectly beautiful name like 'Priscilla' that's much more pleasing to say and hear. But, Fox trusts her, which means something and nothing, all at once.

He trusts a lot of people that he shouldn't.

I suppose that's what it's like living at Crocket manor. Everyone is one big, happy, horrible family with their own secrets to spare. Including me, but I am a hypocrite and incandescently happy about it.

Priscilla's a hypocrite too, and perhaps that's the reason why she's staring at me as angrily as she is. Poor prissy boat girl. She cannot take constructive criticism very well.

"Come with me."

I can't tell whether she's taking me back to her room because of the obvious control freak need in her impulsive nature to get me in a space that's only hers' and controlled by only her—or because she wants to listen. But, I follow her anyway.

I clutch my suitcase tighter and leave with her out of the corridor, toward the kitchen space with dark green cabinets and wood countertops.

The decor in the living room is different, but the rustic dining space has remained the same, down to the gold, vintage wood stove and horrifyingly ugly floral drapes cascading over the window by the breakfast nook.

Flashes of breakfasts' with Alicia soar through my memory, but I shove them away and push through to the dim hallway.

Priscilla pulls a small key from somewhere in the front of her dress and when we reach the end of the hallway, we take a sharp left and meet her bedroom double doors. She sticks the key into the withered brass lock and turns it until it clicks.

She grabs the knob and turns around when I take a step forward, and she stops me briefly, placing a hand onto my chest, "The last man to touch one of my things without permission, lost a finger. So, don't even think about snooping through my shit."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

She presses her lips together and gives me a once over before she turns around and opens the door.

I step inside slowly and inhale the deep scent of citrus and old wood, and I'm welcomed into the first section of her living suite, the size of a small apartment.