Four Of A Kind

Chapter 61: [2.34] Poor Resource Allocation

The kitchen at Valentine Manor smelled like butter and sugar at three in the afternoon, which meant Chef Laurent had visited that morning and left destruction in his wake. The marble island bore evidence of his artistry: macarons arranged in perfect rows by color gradient, fruit tarts glazed to mirror-like perfection, and tiny éclairs that probably cost more per unit than most people’s lunches.

Nobody was eating them.

Harlow sat cross-legged on one of the barstools, phone held close to her face, giggling at something on her screen. Her twin tails swayed with each laugh, the pink ribbons catching afternoon sunlight streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Cassidy occupied the stool beside her, sprawled in that deliberately casual way she had perfected, one leg hooked over the other, arms crossed. She looked like she was ignoring her sister completely. Her eyes kept flicking toward Harlow’s phone screen every few seconds.

Vivienne claimed the far end of the island like a general surveying a war map. Her tablet glowed with what looked like a financial report, rows of numbers and percentages arranged in neat columns. Her posture was immaculate. Her blazer was still on despite being home for hours.

Sabrina had taken the armchair near the window, positioned so the light fell across her book but not her face. She turned pages at irregular intervals, sometimes lingering on one for several minutes, sometimes flipping through three in quick succession. The book’s spine read “The Bell Jar” in faded gold lettering.

Silence filled the space between them, comfortable in the way only siblings could achieve. The kind of quiet that came from years of existing in each other’s orbit.

Harlow’s phone emitted a particularly loud squeal.

“Oh my god.” She slapped Cassidy’s shoulder without looking up. “Look at this. Look.”

Cassidy tried to maintain her disinterested facade for approximately two seconds before leaning over to see the screen.

The video showed a black cat with an absolutely tragic bleach job on its head. The blonde patches were uneven, faded in some spots, brighter in others, creating a two-toned disaster that somehow still managed to be endearing. The cat sat in a cardboard box, staring at the camera with the most profound expression of existential exhaustion ever captured on film.

The caption read: “when u let ur friend practice bleaching on u”

Cassidy snorted.

“It’s got his stupid hair.” She pointed at the screen, her finger covering the cat’s face. “The same dumb two-tone thing. And look at its eyes. That’s the same ’I’m so done with everything’ face he makes.”

“Right?!” Harlow bounced in her seat hard enough to make the stool squeak against the tile. “It’s Isaiah-cat! The resemblance is uncanny! I need to send this to him. Do you think he’d be offended? Or would he think it’s funny?”

“He’d probably just stare at you and say ’interesting’ in that voice he does when he’s being sarcastic.”

“The one that sounds like he’s disappointed but also amused?”

“That’s the one.”

Harlow giggled and rewound the video to watch it again.

Sabrina spoke without looking up from her book.

“Where is he?”

“What do you mean?” Harlow turned in her seat to face Sabrina’s armchair. “Who?”

“You know who.” Sabrina turned another page. “Isaiah. I thought his tutoring session with Cassidy was this afternoon.”

Cassidy’s shoulders went rigid. “Why are you keeping track of my schedule?”

“I’m not. I’m keeping track of his schedule. You’re simply a variable in that equation.”

Vivienne set her tablet face-down on the marble counter with a soft click. “I’ve repurposed his afternoon. He’s acquiring appropriate professional attire.”

Silence.

Then,

“WHAT?!”

Harlow nearly fell off her stool in her haste to turn toward Vivienne, catching herself on the counter at the last second. Her phone clattered against the marble.

“He’s shopping?! Without me?! But I’m the fashion expert in this family! I could have helped him! I could have picked out colors that complement his skin tone! I could have prevented him from buying boring business-casual basics that make him look like every other corporate drone!”

“He’s not shopping for aesthetic expression, Harlow. He’s shopping for professional function.”

“Fashion is always about aesthetic expression! That’s the whole point! You can’t just throw function at people and expect them to look good!”

Cassidy leaned back against the counter, affecting her usual bored posture. “Whatever. As long as he’s back for tonight. We have a study session. And I have a bet to win.”

Sabrina closed her book with a soft thump.

All three sisters turned to look at her.

“This is inefficient.”

Vivienne’s eyebrow twitched. “Elaborate.”

“Simple math.” Sabrina set the book on the side table and folded her hands in her lap. “Isaiah has the same school hours we do. He has a two-hour commute each direction. He has a fourteen-year-old sister who requires his attention. In three weeks, I’ve watched him lose approximately eight pounds and gain dark circles that could qualify for their own zip code. Spreading one assistant across four principals with conflicting schedules and competing priorities is poor resource allocation.”

The kitchen went quiet again.

This time the silence wasn’t comfortable.

Vivienne was the first to break it, her voice crisp and controlled. “He’s an employee, Sabrina. Not a resource to be allocated. His schedule will be managed according to operational priority.”

“But my priorities are important!” Harlow’s voice climbed toward a whine. “I have fittings for V-Girl next week! And Fashion Club needs final approval for the fall show budget! And I ordered custom buttons from Japan that need to be picked up from the post office before they get returned! Isaiah is the only one who understands that these things can’t wait!”

Cassidy shifted her weight, crossing her arms tighter. “Yeah, well, my tutoring is literally written into his contract. With a performance clause. So that’s top priority. The rest of you can work around it.”

“Your tutoring sessions are important, yes.” Vivienne picked up her tablet again, swiping through screens without looking at Cassidy. “However, my responsibilities involve actual revenue generation. Brand partnerships worth millions. Client meetings that cannot be rescheduled on a whim. When I require Isaiah’s assistance, he will provide it. This takes precedence over algebra homework.”

“It’s not just homework!” Cassidy’s voice went sharp. “It’s my GPA. It’s my future. It’s the whole reason he was hired in the first place!”

“The reason he was hired was to provide general household assistance, which includes, and is not limited to, academic support. The contract is quite clear.”

“Oh, so now you’re a lawyer?”

“I don’t need to be a lawyer to read a document I personally negotiated.”

Harlow looked back and forth between her sisters like she was watching a tennis match. “Wait, can we just, maybe we could make a schedule? Like a rotation? I get Mondays, Cassidy gets Tuesdays, Vivi gets—”

“I don’t operate on a rotation system, Harlow. Critical tasks require immediate attention, not scheduled windows.”

“Well I can’t exactly reschedule a fitting when the photographer is flying in from Paris!”

“Maybe if you managed your calendar properly—”

“Maybe if you weren’t such a control freak—”

“Maybe if you took anything seriously—”

Sabrina stood.

The movement was smooth, unhurried. She crossed the kitchen to the island and placed both hands flat on the marble surface.

“The solution is simple.”

Three pairs of purple eyes turned toward her.

“We each get our own assistant.”

Pause.

“I’ll take Isaiah.”

Another pause.

“He’s quiet. And warm. Also, he doesn’t argue when I ask him to feed me ramen at midnight.”

“NO!”

The word came from three different mouths at the exact same time, in three completely different tones.

Harlow’s “no” was high and panicked. Cassidy’s was low and dangerous. Vivienne’s was clipped and final.

Sabrina tilted her head slightly, the ghost of curiosity crossing her face. “Interesting. Why not?”

“Because he’s not yours!” Harlow’s hands gripped the counter edge hard enough to turn her knuckles white. “He’s ours! All of ours! We hired him together!”

“Actually, I hired him.” Vivienne’s correction was automatic. “You simply participated in the interview process.”

“Okay, fine, you hired him, but that doesn’t mean you get to monopolize his time!”

“I’m not monopolizing anything. I’m managing a schedule.”

“By making him go shopping when Cassidy had him booked!”

Cassidy’s jaw clenched. “I didn’t have him booked. We don’t book people. He just… shows up. For tutoring. Because that’s his job.”

“Which he can’t do if Vivienne keeps reassigning him!”

“Which wouldn’t be an issue if you could manage your own errands!”

The argument spiraled, voices overlapping, each sister defending her claim to Isaiah’s time with increasing volume.

Sabrina watched them for a moment longer, then sat back down and reopened her book.

Harlow’s voice cut through the noise, smaller now, stripped of its usual brightness.

“What if he doesn’t want to stay?”

The kitchen went quiet.

Cassidy uncrossed her arms slowly. Vivienne set her tablet down again.

Harlow stared at the untouched macarons, her reflection distorted in the glossy marble. “It’s been three weeks. He’s still on probation. What if all of this, all of us, what if it’s too much and he just… quits?”

“He wouldn’t quit.”

“But what if he does?”

Vivienne’s voice cut in, calm and rational. “His contract includes financial penalties for early termination without cause. Quitting would cost him significantly. He won’t walk away from ten thousand dollars a month over scheduling conflicts.”

But even she sounded like she was trying to convince herself.

Harlow twisted one of her twin tails around her finger, the ribbon pulling tight. “Yeah, but contracts don’t make people stay if they really want to leave. Money doesn’t make people stay. Nothing makes people stay if they don’t want to.”

Cassidy looked down at the marble counter.

Her reflection stared back at her from the polished surface.

“He wouldn’t be the first guy to leave us.”

The words dropped into the kitchen like stones into still water.

Ripples spread outward in the silence that followed.

Harlow’s hand went still in her hair. Vivienne’s fingers stopped moving across her tablet screen. Sabrina’s eyes lifted from her book, focusing on Cassidy’s face with sudden intensity.

Cassidy pushed away from the counter and walked out of the kitchen without another word.

Her footsteps echoed down the hallway until they faded to nothing.

Harlow stared at the space where her sister had been standing, her eyes wet at the corners.

Vivienne picked up her tablet again, but her hands shook slightly as she gripped it.

Sabrina returned to her book, turning pages that she wasn’t reading.

The macarons sat untouched on their perfect platter, arranged by color gradient, each one a tiny work of art that nobody wanted anymore.