The Debutante

"Ladies and gentlemen, let's all welcome our lovely debutante! Ms. Ellise Albrecht Windsor!"

Ellise slowly descends from the grand staircase to the ballroom in her magnificent Monique Lhuillier gown. With so many gowns to choose from different couture houses, her mother decided to choose a gown based on the affinity of childhood memories. She found out during her gown fitting that Monique Lhuillier, is a high school classmate of her mother and Aunt Joy way back from Cebu city, an island somewhere in the Philippines.

The thought that her mother personally picked the dress for her eighteenth birthday warms Ellise heart. She focuses her emotion on those heartwarming feelings and controls her facial emotion, careful not to show the nervousness she feels at the back of her mind on what will go down at the end of this celebration.

She dares not screwed up the years of flying under the radar, playing the perfect and obedient Ellise isn't easy, but she gritted her pride, went back home and apologized to her Old People, her mother, and even to her step-father on running away to China, promised to behave, stay out of everyone's business, and never to do it again. Well, not until tonight.

She smiles, as she stepped on the ballroom and extend her hand to dance with her grandfather, her great-grandfather was supposed to be her first dance, regretfully the patriarch of her mother's family succumb to his illness due to old age, hence her grandfather has the honor to have her first dance under the 18th-century chandelier hanging from this enormous room full of all the eligible bachelors her great-grandmother could find for her. She bit her cheeks when after swirling around the room for feels like an eternity, the one standing in front of her is a man, old enough to be her father.

Freedom. Far away. Ellise has those words in her head, as she gives her most polite smile to the man waiting for a dance. Thankfully this one is the last for her cotillion.

The coordinator signals her that there will be a break, until the next part of the program which is the messages of her well-wishers for formally entering the society, which is the polite way of finding a husband.

Looking at her reflection on the bathroom mirror, Ellise has the overwhelming urge to throw up, but with her empty stomach, a gob is what she can manage. She takes a deep breath and thinks if she should fake a fainting spell when she goes back to the party, to escape the phony crowd waiting for her. All her relatives don't give a single darn about celebrating her birthday, they just all want to know who the man is, and from what family is the prospective husband chosen for her, and if the man would give her an advantage in the possibility of being part of the family business empire.

It was the only thing that mattered since her great-grandfather died. There's an ongoing power struggle within the conglomerate of her great-grandfather. Uncles and aunts she never thought existed would have a sudden urge to take her somewhere to talk. She doesn't have an idea why she's part of it when she barely knows the names of her great-grandfather companies. She just knows she has a card with money from all of it.

"In a moment," Ellise answered the soft knock from the door. She releases a deep breath as she takes a last look at her reflection. It seems like she has no way of escaping this circus.

A black coat on a broad chest blocked Ellise from the door when she opened it. "Put it on." a familiar voice said before she could open her mouth to speak.

"Ting Ge?" she asked.

"No time, hurry!" the man said, extending a paper bag of Zara on her arms.

Ellise grabs the bag and turns around, hurried to one of the cubicles, and ripped the thousand dollars flimsy gown. She could feel her heart drumming on her rib cage, as she stuffed the dress to the paper bag, after putting on the jeans and white long polo dress, she smiled while tying the shoelaces of old converse shoes on her feet. She's quite sure that it's one of the many pairs she had in her apartment in Shanghai. She can feel the corner of her eyes warming up. But no time for tears, as she jumped up from the toilet seat, and with wings on her feet, got out of the bathroom to be pushed to the fire exit by the waiting Ting.

"Where are we going?" she asked in a voice full of excitement.

"No talking," he said as he opened the door one floor down from the ballroom. They crossed the floor to the waiting elevator door. Ellise watches the number go up to the last number on the door.

"Enter the room 805 at the end of the right corridor."

"Mn," she answered without question.

Ting looks at her, and can't help but smile at the determination on her face.

"Don't worry. It took years of planning, nothing will go wrong," he said as he handed her a card key. Room 805 is open, this key is for the elevator inside the room. It will open to the floor where I'll be waiting."

Ellise took the card key and got out of the elevator without any words. Turn right, and walk the corridor that feels like the longest walk she has ever taken in her whole life. She put her hands on her jeans pocket, to control herself in sprinting the hallway to room 805.

805 is printed on the door in front of Ellise, she pushed the door open, scared that it won't open but it clicked softly when she puts her shaking hand on the doorknob. Ellise exhales a big sigh of relief entering the room, thinking what's with this room 805 when it's not even on the eighth floor of this building, and why it has an elevator inside. She trod inside with the card key tightly gripped on her right hand, looking around, it looks just like any ordinary hotel room, no elevator in sight.