The Ivy League

The Ivy League Part 38

          I blearily made my way down the Staircase of Doom, of course nearly breaking my neck. Yawning hugely, I walked into the kitchen where my uncle and Julie sat, drinking cups of coffee. I sat beside my uncle, ignored Julie, and drank the rest of my uncle’s coffee.

          “Hey!” he protested, looking up from the documents he was reading. But I could tell he was mostly back to his good-natured self and got up to make himself another cup.

“If it makes you feel better, that was a really good cup of coffee,” I offered as he stood.

          “I’ll get it, dear,” Julie inserted, pushing my uncle back into his seat and went to the counter to get him some more. My uncle slowly sat back down, a confused look on his face. I mentally rolled my eyes.

          I was still being careful with openly showing how much I didn’t like Julie. The sad part was that I probably would’ve liked her if she wasn’t getting in the way of my plans.

          “Coffee didn’t help?” my uncle teased as another yawn threatened to crack my jaw in two.

          “I’m so tired,” I complained, stretching. “I don’t know how Rebecca does it every day.”

          True to my word, and despite my intense hangover, I had spent all of yesterday cleaning my uncle’s enormous house in preparation for my family, whose plane was landing in an hour.

          Actually, enormous didn’t quite describe it. It could comfortably house a clan of mammoth-eating dinosaurs. Okay, weird analogy, but still.

          The first floor alone had a huge kitchen, a family room, a dining room, a living room, a games rec room (with a pool table, foosball, air hockey, table tennis, and a TV with several game systems), three bathrooms, two studies and a library. Heck, I knew it was a mansion, but the extent of its largeness had never fully hit me until I had to clean quite a few square inches of it. All I was normally familiar with was the kitchen, family room and my uncle’s study.

          I also had found out that there wasn’t just one Staircase of Doom leading up to the second floor, but two. The second level contained twelve bedrooms and ten bathrooms, not including the Servants’ Quarters.

          The basement was finished, with a second mini-kitchen, and I’d discovered an entire bar down there with cedar countertops, barstools, a well-stocked cabinet of alcohol from around the world, and a glass rack from which wine and champagne glasses hung.

          The entire house was tasteful, elegant, and above all, spacious. The space part would be a good thing, once my family arrived.

          So, all in all, I was pooped. And seeing Rebecca this morning in her customary place at the kitchen had never been a more welcome sight. I had already hugged her to death, but I think she rather liked it.

          “Julie, hon, can you get Courtney another cup, too?” my uncle asked. Julie smiled, setting my uncle’s cup down in front of him, and she gave me hers. She smiled at me too, before leaving to make herself another one.

          “Thank you, dear,” my uncle smiled, then kicked me under the table.

          “Yeah, thanks,” I mumbled, wrapping my cold fingers around the hot mug. My uncle quickly finished his cup, then scooped up his documents and disappeared into the study. Rebecca was preparing the bedrooms for my family’s arrival, so it left me and Julie in the kitchen, sitting across from each other in an awkward silence.