Pampered
Trent was the kind of guy Jessica had always wanted to be with. He was eager to get married and start a family, and his job and parents would afford the two of them the opportunity to do those things with minimal difficulty.
She didn’t suspect he was going to propose at all when he asked her to go to brunch one Sunday. She just thought it would be a relaxing morning of watered-down drinks and custom-made egg white omelettes.
When Trent got down on his knee in front of the entire buffet and asked her to be his bride, she dropped her brioche French toast in delight and squealed. She couldn’t have been more happy.
While they were glowing, snuggling in each other’s arms in their booth, a rather run-over looking waitress came by and dropped the check on their table.
“Okay lovebirds,” she said in a hard-drinking, hard-smoking voice. “Beautiful occasion but we need the table.” And she left the check there.
“What a troll,” Jessica whispered to Trent. He giggled. “She’s just jealous a great guy like you won’t take her out to brunch and propose to her.”
The waitress snapped around like she had heard, and she looked hard at Jessica, who suddenly felt very uncomfortable.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said nervously to Trent.
“Sure beautiful,” he said, dropping cash on the table.
Before Jessica could slide out of the booth, the waitress walked by, bent down and whispered, “Pampered” into her ear.
Over the next few months, rich older members of Trent’s family showered the happy couple with lavish engagement gifts. A four hundred dollar bottle of French wine. Tickets to the opera. A go-kart that looked like a swan. Eventually, Trent’s parents even offered to pay for every cent of the wedding expenses.
Jessica wasn’t materialistic, but she didn’t hate it either. They were fortunate, she thought, and it was important not to look a gift horse in the mouth.
When the wedding day came, 200 well-wishers came and rained down rice and fat envelopes filled with cash on Jessica and Trent. When they returned from the honeymoon, Trent’s parents had outfitted their house with servants, so they could both focus on career and family.
“Wow, I didn’t realize your parents had that kind of money.”
“They don’t, honestly,” Trent said. “They actually sold my grandmother’s ring and remortgaged their house, but they really wanted to do this for us.”
“Well, that’s very sweet of them.”
With no laundry or handiwork or cooking or cleaning to do, Trent and Jessica had plenty of time to focus on career and each other. Within a year, both had six-figure salaries and Jessica was pregnant.
Once she started to show, she noticed that Trent doted on her even more than usual. The books and her more experienced friends said that was normal, but Jessica was getting a little annoyed that he wouldn’t let her do things like put milk in her own cereal or feed the dogs. Every time, he’d leap or slide in front of her and insist, “Let me do that! You’re already doing so much,” and then smile knowingly at her belly.
On the day of Jessica’s baby shower, nearly everybody from the wedding (plus some second cousins and high school friends who hadn’t made the cut) showed up with more envelopes of cash and boxes of adorable baby clothing and toys. Trent insisted on opening everything, as he didn’t want Jessica to get a paper cut.
Once the party had dispersed, they started opening the envelopes. When they got to Trent’s parents’ envelope, there were just two pennies in it.
“I guess it’s like that story from the Bible,” Trent said with a shrug.
“How do you mean?”
“Well, they gave what they could. They’re stretched pretty thin with all the servants’ salaries.”
Jessica felt a pang of guilt and horror.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“They didn’t want you to know. They thought you might feel bad.”
“Well, yeah, I do feel bad. I mean, we don’t need that stuff. We’ve got our own money — I mean, not servant money, but we could at least start doing the dishes or something.”
“Don’t be silly! You deserve it.”
“You don’t think they resent us?”
“Oh, honey, what on earth could you mean?” Trent said with an innocent smile.
When the baby arrived, everybody who knew Trent and Jessica celebrated, sending more envelopes and “zeroth birthday presents.” Jessica begged Trent to send the gifts back and tell everybody enough was enough, but he just wouldn’t.
“You’ve worked so hard for this,” he told her.
When the baby was baptized, Trent’s parents bought them an engraved silver cup with the baby’s name and the date on it. After the ceremony, Trent mentioned offhand to Jessica that his father had pawned his cherished ’88 Dodgers World Series ring to buy it. She cried the whole way home, despite his objections that his parents were old and ugly anyway and the world was for the young and beautiful like her.
Jessica loved her baby, and she loved Trent, but she began to hate herself. Every time one of the servants changed the baby or put it down for a nap, she died a little inside. Anytime she got as much as a greeting card in the mail, she would become inconsolable. At one point, she found a winning scratch card on the sidewalk, tried to give it to a homeless man, and wound up crying again when he refused to take it.
Finally, one Sunday morning, she left the baby with Trent and the servants, excusing herself to go to a book group. Everybody agreed that sounded great and she really deserved it.
She drove as fast as she could to the place where she and Trent had had brunch that fateful morning. She asked for a table for one and waited until she saw the haggard waitress. She put a thousand dollars in cash on the edge of the table and waved the woman over.
“Please,” Jessica said. “I know what you did.”
“Sure,” the waitress said, pocketing the money, “but do you know what you did?”
“I know what I did. I’m so sorry; I just want to change a lightbulb or clean the toilet or something. I get it.”
The waitress studied Jessica for a second, then bent down and whispered, “Inconvenienced.”
“Thank you, thank you so much.”
Jessica walked out of the restaurant, got in her car, turned over the engine, and realized she had a flat tire. She pulled out her cell to call Trent, and it was dead.
She cried again, but this time, it was out of joy.
This story is part of 13 Ghost Stories in 13 Days. Each entry in the series was written and published in a single day during October of 2020. This idea was completely stolen from Mark Macyk.
Day 1: The Devil’s Diphthong
Day 2: The Podcasting Ghost
Day 3: The Portal Potties
Day 4: The Household Accident
Day 5: The Scarecrow Competition
Day 6: The Cursed Father
Day 7: When the Car Hits the Tree
Day 8: Thank Christ It’s Halloween
Day 9: The Greek Halloween Myth
Day 10: The Ghost & The Cockroach
Day 11: Pampered
Day 12: In the Name of Menohpeque
