Praise for Perfected:
âCompelling, imaginative, and unique. I couldnât turn the pages fast enough!â
â Mary Lindsey, author of Shattered Souls
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~Perfected Excerpt: Chapter 1~
âRemember⊠Youâll never be one of them,â Miss Gellner said, repositioning each of us on our divans in the sitting room so our gowns draped elegantly around our crossed ankles.
She stepped back and gazed at the group of us, her face pinched and stern like always, but I spotted a tiny glimmer of pride behind her rheumy eyes. Twenty girls: lovely, demure, quiet. She was pleased with us, even if she wouldnât say it out loud.
Miss Gellner blinked, as if bringing herself back to the moment. âThings wonât change once you leave here,â she went on. âSimply because youâll be pampered and spoiled, your lifeâs mission wonât suddenly be any different. Remember that. Your sole purpose is to enrich the lives of your new owners.â
As she said this, she lightly tapped her bamboo training stick against my back, not a hard whack the way she had done relentlessly when we first transferred from the Greenwich Kennel to the training center, where she and her staff could cultivate us into the sort of girls we were bred to be. This was just a warning tap, reminding me to sit so that my spine was a stem, and I was the flower resting atop it.
It was a pose weâd practiced daily for the past four years; during music and etiquette and dining, even during our nightly baths. But the fluttering in my stomach distracted me, drawing me down into myself. My whole body felt fluttery: my hands, my feet, even my eyes. I worried that the moment the two grand doors leading to the reception room swung open, I might flap away; a feather caught on the wind.
Next to me, Seven bit nervously at her bottom lip. It was weird to think that by tonight sheâd have a new name, a real one. The breeders at Greenwich assigned us numbers as names at conception: One through Twenty, since twenty was the maximum number of girls they were allowed to have each year. I was Eight, but not for much longer. By tonight, I could be anything.
Across the room, Miss Gellner took a few steps towards the grand wooden doors, resting her hand lightly on the knob before she turned to face us one last time.
“I want you to keep your composure when they come in. I’ve spent four years preparing you for this moment.â She thumped her training stick on the ground for emphasis. âFour years. Donât waste them. Each move that you make, every turn of your head and pout of your lip speaks to my effectiveness as a trainer and I wonât have that work tarnished. When I open these doors, I expect you to remember all the things I’ve taught you.â
The stiff lining of my dress rubbed against my rib cage and I ached to shift to a more comfortable position, but I held still, staring straight ahead at Miss Gellner with a soft smile placed carefully on my lips.
âBe sure to hold your tongues,â she went on. âYou are not doing the selecting. Do not ask questions. Speak if spoken to, but keep your answers brief. We don’t want to scare away a potential buyer with a girl who has too forward a notion of whoâs in charge.”
Beside me, the other girls were sitting silently. We were perfectly trained, all of us. And lovely, too. In our new dresses, we looked like royalty. Miss Gellner had picked out a different shade of gown for each of us, our first piece of clothing that was distinctly ours. Sheâd deliberated long and hard on the color choices. She wanted us each to look different. It wouldn’t do for the customers to think they were getting cloned girls even though there were plenty of differences between us to set us apart. Yes, we all had large eyes, spaced perfectly on our heart shaped faces. We all had small noses, long, thin necks, and rose petal lips. But we each had distinct coloring. Sevenâs hair was nearly black. Sixteenâs eyes were green, the color of fresh summer grass, and Twentyâs skin was the same warm brown of the toasted bread that we were rewarded with on Sunday mornings. We were unique. One of a kind.
I was happy with the dress Miss Gellner had chosen for me. It was the palest shade of blue, hardly a color at all. These dresses would be the only item that would accompany us to our new homes. Our new owners would provide everything else.
“Weâre lucky to have a number of congressmen and senators here today,” Miss Gellner went on. “Power, prestige, wealth, you’ll be surrounded by the best, which is why it is important that you be the best.” Miss Gellner sighed, nodding her head once. âAll right girls. Itâs time.â
She turned and threw open the doors. âLadies⊠GentlemenâŠâ her voice boomed as she glided into the next room. âIf youâll kindly follow me, Iâll show you to the sitting room. Youâll have a chance to look over each of the girls before you make your decision. As I told each of you over the phone, the number on your tag will determine the order of selection.â
A moment later a stream of bodies and voices flowed into the room. I drew a breath and held it, trying to compose myself, but the fluttering inside me only grew worse. My vision blurred as the men and women pressed closer, talking loudly to one another.
âOh my! Theyâre so little,â a woman cooed âThey look like twelve-year-olds.â
âI can assure you, theyâre sixteen,â Miss Gellner said. âTheyâre fully grown; all measuring in at exactly five feet.â
An older man grabbed a lock of my hair and rubbed it between his fingers. âLike corn silk,â he said to the woman next to him. âDid you say you were hoping for a blond or a red head? This one almost seems like a mix of the two.â
âAnd it does have beautiful eyes. Look, theyâre practically turquoise,â she crooned. âBut, I was hoping for a real red head. Thereâs an auburn one over there we should look at.â
I didnât dare turn my head to watch them walk across the room to look at Ten.
A middle-aged couple finished looking at Seven and circled around me. I blinked a few times, finally bringing my eyes back into focus as the manâs dark eyes skated over me. He was obviously quite a bit older than me, but his jaw was much stronger than the other men Iâd seen so far and his eyes were bright. A sprinkling of gray hairs dusted the dark hair at his temples. The woman beside him had probably been a beauty when she was younger, but now she was a different sort of beautiful: regal and refined. She was tall, even taller than Miss Gellner, with high cheekbones, a strong jaw, and long arched brows perched overtop piercing blue eyes. Even though she had lines around her eyes and mouth, her hair was almost as dark as Sevenâs, without a hint of gray. Everything about her intimidated me.
âNow this has some promise,â the man said, looking into my eyes. âDo you like this one?â
âOh, John, do we really need to do this?â The woman sighed, her eyes drifting around the room.
âDo what, Darling?â
âYou can cut it with the âDarlingâ, too. Itâs not like anyoneâs listening. Theyâre busy choosing their own pets,â she said, gesturing towards the rest of the people in the room with an elegant sweep of her arm. âAnd you can stop pretending I have any say in your precious little project. You know I couldnât care less about getting her.â
Her husband stepped forward, so close their bodies almost touched. âYou know how it looks for us not to have one, donât you? After all the time I spent getting this bill to pass. People are saying things. You donât want them to thinkââ
She took a step away from him, eyeing an old man who had turned his attention to their conversation. âWhatever you say, Dear,â she interrupted. âIâm merely along for the ride.â
âYou canât argue that Ruby needs this,â the man said. âWe agreed.â
Her face softened. âI know.â
He took a deep breath, and when he turned back to me, it was as if heâd flipped a switch, changing his face back to the same well-groomed look of prominence and stature Iâd seen on it to begin with.
âStand up and give us a little whirl, Love,â he said to me.
I hadnât anticipated the weakness in my legs, but I stood and turned slowly, the way I learned in my Poise lessons. I kept my chin up, neck elongated, my arms held out ever so slightly from my sides as if my hands were brushing the skirt of a tutu.
The man smiled once I faced him again. âAnd what are your talents? The Kennel Trainer said that you each specialized in two.â
âMy talents are piano, dance, and singing. Although my vocal range is not as diverse as some.â
His forehead creased, his eyes narrowing, and my stomach flipped. If Miss Gellner had been standing next to me, she would have lashed me with her stick. Weâd practiced our lines over and over and still I said it wrong. There hadnât been any need for me to point out my faults so blatantly. I should have only mentioned the piano and dance and not said anything about the singing. I was trying too hard to impress.
âThree talents?â he asked. âMarvelous. I suppose Weâd be getting a little bit more bang for the buck if we go with you then, isnât that right?â
The manâs phrasing confused me and I lowered my eyes to the ground and smiled softly the way weâd been taught to do if we ever didnât know how to answer a question.
âSo which is your favorite?â
âFavorite?â I asked.
âWhich one do you like the most?â
âIâm quite good at all three as long as the song Iâm singing is written for a mezzo soprano.â
âBut certainly you have a favorite?â
My mind raced, trying to think over all the scenarios weâd spoken about like this one in our Conversation class, but I drew a blank. Those classes were meant to help us understand our new owner better, not to help them understand us. I couldnât come right out and tell him that I had a favorite. Miss Gellner would be outraged. Maybe I could try to change the subject? But then he might realize I was doing it to avoid his question, and he would know that I really did have a favorite.
It was too complicated an interaction.
The woman smiled slyly. âMaybe she doesnât understand your question John. Sure, sheâs pretty, but they werenât bred for brains.â
âI thought you said you wanted to stay out of this.â
She raised her hands and took a step back without saying another word.
The man tried again. âWhat I mean to say is: which one of your talents do you prefer? Is there one that makes you particularly happy?â
I swallowed, hoping to push down the rock that had lodged itself in my throat. âWell sir, if thereâs one that you prefer, Iâm sure Iâd be delighted to perform for you.â
The man sighed and shook his head. âNever mind. Why donât you sit back down?â
I smiled once more and sank back onto the divan, trying to hold my head high even though my eyes burned.
For the next hour, the groups of men and women circled around the room. They were all so much bigger than Iâd imagined theyâd be, not only in their physical stature, but their presence, as if the room couldnât contain them. They gobbled up the air.
Finally Miss Gellner moved us into the concert room. Weâd each been assigned one talent to demonstrate to give the clients a better taste of what theyâd be buying. Four and Five would each be performing an adagio en pointe, a few girls were playing the flute and the cello, but the majority of us would be playing the piano or singing.
Maybe it should have bothered me that I wouldnât stand out, but all I could think about as we sat down in the velvet seats arranged along the edges of the room was Debussyâs First Arabesque in E major, the song Miss Gellner had chosen for me to play. It wasnât an elaborate song. I could play solos that were so much more difficult like the piece by Prokofiev that I learned last year, but I was glad she hadnât chosen that one. Sure, I wouldnât be able to show off my finger work playing the First Arabesque, but that didnât matter. I could already feel the notes of the song moving up through my fingers and arms, a soft vibration that settled somewhere at the base of my neck like the warm hand of a friend.
We moved in order: One, Two, Three, Four, on and on until finally it was my turn. As I climbed the stairs to the small stage at the front of the room and sat on the tufted cushion of the piano bench, it was as if a white curtain had been drawn down between the crowd and me. I took a deep breath, savoring the moment before I placed my hands on the keys and started to play.
My fingers floated over the ivories for only a short four minutes, but my heart and mind quieted. I didnât know if the other girls felt this way when they were playing, as if they were all alone and the rest of the world melted away leaving the air awash in soft color. Iâd always been too embarrassed to ask. What if it meant that I had something wrong with me?
Those four minutes didnât last long enough and before I knew it my fingers had stopped, hovering over the keys as the last notes died away. A polite spattering of applause brought me back to the room full of strangers. As I stood, I glanced out into the audience, allowing myself to imagine which of these people might be my future owner. Toward the back of the room I spotted the man with the salt and pepper hair and his wife. Neither of them was clapping, but for just a second he held my gaze and nodded ever so slightly.
That small gesture made my face burn with shame. He knew that I lied to him before when heâd asked me which one of my talents was my favorite. Of course it was piano, but I could never say it out loud. I was supposed to bring pleasure to my new masters, not to find pleasure for myself.
A cold sweat broke out across my back and I shivered, sitting back down on my chair to watch the remainder of the performances. If he could read me so easily, maybe everyone else could, too.
*****
Yay! Sounds like an awesome book. Thanks for sharing đ I don't usually do blitzes or tours anymore but I still like seeing them on other blogs!
I'm excited to read this book, sounds like the type I would love. đ