The One Love Collection

by Lauren Blakely

  I laugh it off. The attention is still weird to me. “Recap the plans for me.”

  She spreads her hands like a movie director making a pitch on Sunset Boulevard. “You have the morning shows booked where you’ll demonstrate all the cool aspects of Haven, and we also have magazine features lined up that’ll reach some high-end consumers.” She twists her index and middle finger together. “And I have Up Next interested in a potential in-depth feature on you, and how you made the change from your first business to this one. I’ll know soon if it’s a go.”

  The mention of the prestigious magazine makes me sit a little straighter. That publication is the holy grail when it comes to feature profiles. “That would be quite a coup.”

  “Your assistant has all the others in your calendar, and she’ll be sure to tell you what color shirt to wear when you’re on TV,” she says with a wink.

  I give her a thumbs-up. “Good. Because fashion is hard for me,” I say, deadpan, since clothing is no laughing matter, which may explain why my wardrobe consists of jeans, pullovers, and the occasional business button-down that my sister picked out for me. Without her help, I’d be lost.

  I head to my office, and I’m tackling some of the items on my to-do list when my assistant, Whitney, pops in. “Hi. I have all the name tags for your costume for the masquerade party tomorrow night. Do you want me to google popular names and mix them up with weird and bizarre ones?”

  I drag a hand through my thick brown hair. “Nope.”

  “You’re going to do it yourself?” she squeaks. Whitney’s voice is naturally high-pitched—she almost always sounds surprised. This time, though, it seems legit.

  “Why don’t you give the name tags to Carson? I need a whole new costume. Any ideas?”

  She taps her lip then blurts out, “A headless horseman. You’d totally be in disguise.”

  I cringe at the image as Whitney nods enthusiastically, delighted horror in her eyes. “That would be a fantastic costume. You could be totally hidden under a creepy cloak. It would be so scary and gross.”

  “Thanks, but I think I’m going to pass on the bloody stump for a head.”

  But I do need a kick-ass costume. Something that makes people think. That reminds them that I’m at the top of the game. Something as clever as ID theft.

  As I review a set of proposals from hot young start-ups, the new costume idea descends into my brain, fully formed and entirely entertaining.

  Surely, everyone will get it.

  After work, I do a little shopping for the costume then head to the racquetball club to take my mind off work for a bit.

  My sister, Olivia, joins me, her brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, her game face on. “Get ready for me to crush you and crush you quickly, because I have plans tonight.”

  “Got a hot date?”

  She looks at me. “Yes, with my six-month-old. It’s called breastfeeding, and she’s going to be hungry in about an hour.”

  “Glad to hear you still know how to party. How is my perfect niece?”

  She points her racket at me. “Zoe is awesome, even though her uncle is being a pain in the ass for saying I have no life.”

  “Teasing.” I grab a ball and bounce it. “Although, clearly you have no life if you’re hanging out with a guy like me.” I lower my goggles, lift the ball, and smash it toward the wall.

  “I’m not teasing when I say I’m going to kick your pain-in-the-butt ass.” As the ball rockets to her, she slams it back.

  We proceed to pummel the hell out of the ball for the next thirty minutes. Olivia works in the same field as me—she’s an ethical hacker, and like me, she’s also highly competitive. She also hates when I win, so she makes sure I don’t, finishing our match with a victory at the last second.

  She smacks my shoulder. “Take that. Your older sister still has it, even while she’s nursing.”

  Panting, I grab a water bottle and down a gulp. “Damn, you and your boobs are the toughest. Also, can we pretend I totally did not acknowledge your boobs right now?”

  She thrusts out her chest. “You can’t deny what nature gave me and what my baby made even bigger.”

  I cringe and cover my eyes. “Make it stop. Put on a bag.”

  When I open my eyes, she says, “Speaking of hot dates, what’s your excuse for hanging out with me when you could be, I dunno, out with a sexy single woman? Assuming any sexy single woman would want you.”

  “Thank you, as always, for your support.”

  “It’s endless.”

  I grab a towel and wipe my brow, answering her seriously now, “Same old story. Two days ago, I was propositioned after a keynote speech.”

  Her eyes widen. “For sex?”

  “No, for marriage. That’s what made it even crazier,” I say and share the details of Nova’s pitch to become Mrs. Flynn Parker.

  “Damn,” she says, whistling, “it must suck to be you.”

  She raises her racquet like a violin and plays a lament.

  “Tell me about it. It was as sad as a sad song.”

  “Seriously, though, can you even imagine what it’s like for athletes and really rich and famous people?”

  “I can’t. I honestly don’t see how you could ever trust that someone was truly into you. Especially given what happened with Annie last year.” I shudder at the memory of my ex.

  “She was a tough one to spot as a bad seed, I’ll give you that. But what about Dylan? He found someone who’s truly into him, and if memory serves, he’s as rich as sin, too, since he netted half of the sale of the company you two ding-dongs founded.”

  “True,” I concede, since my twin, Dylan, tried using a matchmaker and wound up falling for her. She also happened to be immune to rich guys, so I think that helped smooth the path to trust. “But even so, I need to focus on Haven. Make sure we launch the marketing campaign flawlessly, especially with ShopForAnything breathing down my neck.”

  “I suppose whenever you do date again, we could just paint your face like a clown so no one recognizes you.”

  “Oh, yeah. Bozo scored with the ladies, didn’t he?”

  “Who doesn’t want a big red nose and floppy shoes on her man?”

  “Bozo was a real Casanova.”

  “Or,” she says, snapping her fingers, “we could give you a new look entirely. Find one of those aesthetic centers and give you a face-lift.”

  I grab the door to the court, and we leave to head down the hall toward our respective locker rooms.

  “It’s either that or you’re going to have to become a monk.”

  I laugh as I reach the entryway to the men’s locker room. “Yeah, that’s at the top of my list of life goals.”

  But as I turn into the locker room, grateful Dale’s not here to talk up what’s next in sexual performance grading, something Olivia said sits up in my brain and insists on being heard.

  No, I don’t plan on getting a face-lift.

  The idea has some merit though.

  4

  Sabrina

  I zoom in on the prize. The box sits high on the shelf, atop an old Candyland, a beaten-up game of Twister, and a 1980s Trivial Pursuit. Not just the ’80s flashback version. The actual 80s version from shortly after the game came out when US history questions stopped at President Carter.

  I reach for the Monopoly box and yank it off the shelf. It imitates a Jenga tower and tumbles down.

  “Ouch.” The cardboard smacks my face, and Marvin Gardens and its brethren scatter as the game spills onto the floor of the Salvation Army, where I’m now standing in the midst of an iron, a race car, a thimble, and dozens of pink and green bills.

  Crudola.

  Maybe I am cursed. Maybe Sasha was right.

  Making sure I don’t flash anyone as I bend to the linoleum floor in my once-a-kimono-now-a-cool-red-dragon-skirt, I gather up the spilled pieces.

  A woman with wild and curly brown hair and kind eyes joins me. “Let me help you.”

  “It’s no big deal. I�
��ll just pick it up, and then I’ll take it.”

  “Are you sure you want it?” Her voice is gentle, full of concern over a game that looks like it’s seen many lives. “It’s missing a lot of pieces. We were going to toss it because the last time someone wanted to buy it, he said there was no Boardwalk and then left in a huff.”

  I smile. “Boardwalk is the dream, isn’t it?”

  She smiles back. “I’d like to live on Boardwalk.”

  “You’re telling me,” I say as I grab some stray bills. “But I don’t plan to play the game. I need it for the money.”

  The woman arches an eyebrow and gives me a curious look. She lowers her voice and talks to me like I’m in third grade. “You know the money isn’t real, right?”

  “I do know that,” I say, laughing.

  She takes a beat and screws up the corner of her lips. “Why don’t you just take the game for free?” she says in a conspiratorial whisper, sliding the box toward me.

  “Are you sure?”

  She winks. “It’d help me out to get it off the shelf. Plus, I have a Mega Monopoly that needs a good home if you want another one.”

  Mega Monopoly has the biggest bills. That makes it even more perfect. “You’re an angel.”

  “Happy to help . . . you.”

  I swear she nearly added someone in need, and I bristle. Do I look that needy? I’m not starving. Yet.

  But hey, I’ll chalk this up as a victory since I don’t need to shell out three bucks for an old game. Take that, universe. My dress can’t be cursed, because how else can you explain why I’m now thanking the saleswoman and leaving the Salvation Army with not one but two free Monopoly boxes in the canvas bag on my shoulder?

  As I head home, I wave to the woman who runs the dry cleaner near me, and she smiles back. Passing the florist on the corner, I ask how business is, and he tells me it’s coming up roses. When I turn the corner at the bodega, I nod at the guy who’s rearranging the sandwiches on display in the window. He smiles and mouths, Roast beef today? He winks. I shoot him a dirty look and mouth back, Never roast beef.

  I’ve lived in New York City my entire life. I grew up in Queens and commuted to Manhattan for college, attending NYU on a patchwork quilt of cobbled-together scholarships. I can’t imagine living in any other city. This place, despite all its issues and price tags, is my home.

  I want to stay here, but I don’t know how long I can last, even given my unusual living situation. I’m damn grateful for my crazy cousin, Daisy, who’s generous and well-off enough to let me live in her rent-controlled apartment while she gallivants around Europe.

  Her place makes it possible for me to pay other bills. Bills my mother won’t pay since she’s too busy wasting her own money. Bills like the ones needed for my little brother to go to divinity school. Kevin is brilliant and determined, and he wants to do good in the world and become a pastor. I’ve taken care of him since we were younger, reading him Percy Jackson and Harry Potter in grade school, tucking him in at night when he was in middle school, helping him with math in high school, and making sure he got into college, since Mom did such a crap job of everything, especially mothering. That’s why I petitioned to and became his legal guardian when my mom left. He’s more than my brother. He’s mine to look out for, and I want Kevin to succeed more than anything. I understand where his drive for ethics, and right and wrong, and compassion comes from.

  I send him a quick text.

  Sabrina: Is your nose in Spinoza and stuff? :)

  Kevin: No, it’s in classical theories of religion. Geez. Can’t you remember my schedule? Also, I’m in the library right now, studying.

  Sabrina: Prove it. Send me a picture.

  Five seconds later, a close-up of his big blue eyes and floppy blond hair in front of shelves of tomes pops onto my screen.

  Kevin: You should have been a lawyer. Always asking for proof. It’s impressive.

  Sabrina: It’s called being skeptical, even of my favorite person.

  I add a zebra for no other reason than I like emoticons of animals.

  I bound up the steps that lead into my building in the East Village as my phone rings. I gasp quietly at the caller ID. It’s the main line for Up Next, the most prestigious magazine in the country. I submitted my best articles there the second I was canned.

  I answer with the speed of light. “This is Sabrina Granger.”

  A deep male voice barks at me. “Bob Galloway here.”

  I gulp. The Bob Galloway? He’s the top editor at the magazine. “Hello, Mr. Galloway.”

  “I’m calling because I read your clips and we might have a story for you.”

  I nearly break into a tap dance, and I don’t even know how to tap-dance. “You do?”

  “I wanted to see what your availability is in the coming week. We’re looking for someone who knows business and knows how to write a goddamn feature. Seems damn impossible these days for those skills to reside in the same person, but you appear to be able to both write and make sense of a P and L sheet.”

  “Yes, I’m absolutely available,” I say, loving that he already knows what I’m good at.

  “Great. Let me finalize some details. I’ll be back in touch later tonight. If you don’t answer, I’ll assign it to someone else.”

  Damn. He works round the clock, and he’s tough as nails. Works for me.

  “My phone is literally glued to my hand.” I cringe at my incorrect usage and quickly correct. “Well, not literally, of course. But I’ll be a quick draw.”

  He manages a small laugh. “Good to hear. But keep the other hand ready to write with.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I release a huge, happy breath when he hangs up. Maybe my luck is truly changing. All I have to do is hold on to this phone at the party like my life depends on it.

  Because it does.

  An hour later, I finish my costume. I try it on, turn in front of the mirror, and slide on my mask.

  It’s perfect. It’s sexy and smart, and I’ve always wanted to wear a mask like this.

  Confession—I love masquerade parties.

  Addendum—I haven’t been to many masquerade parties.

  In my mind, I’ve attended countless soirees and balls. I’ve dressed in elegant gowns, worn satin gloves up to my elbows, and descended grand staircases wearing a butterfly mask or a black satin one with silver and red feathers rising high on the side.

  I run my finger along the gold outline of my mask, remembering my fascination with these stories when I was younger. As a girl, I was obsessed with historical romances. I found the tattered old books on my mother’s shelves, and I didn’t know she’d stolen them from the library. Innocent then, I gobbled up her contraband tales, devouring forbidden stories of the most rakish rakes, of the most roguish rogues, of the most devilish dukes who attended such masquerade fetes in hope of seducing the women they’d always had their eyes on.

  Naturally, the hero could only seduce her if they were both in disguise, for she was a commoner and he was a titled man who could only be with a lady.

  Or something like that.

  I give a coy curtsy in the mirror then a shy little smile, pretending I’m the star of the story. All that mattered to me in those tales was that both hero and heroine were in disguise—half masks, eye masks, even full-face masks that could be pushed up at the critical kissing scene. I’d watch their seduction play out on the page. Mistaken identity, playacting, lords in disguise—all of it was so delicious.

  Some scenes were chaste, and some were not. A waltz with an unknown lass, a stolen kiss in the hallway, a secret moment—every room was a potential location for a tryst at a masquerade ball, especially the library. If they went to the library, you knew it was going to be oh-so-good.

  I flutter my hand over my chest, as the heroine would do.

  No matter how far they went, they’d always leave on their masks. Names hardly mattered when you could zero in on his lush, knowing lips.

  The mouths of the
men in masquerade were made for sin. For making a woman weak in the knees—drunk on a kiss.

  I fell for the hero’s charms too. As the heroine swooned, I’d swoon. As the charming duke with raven hair kissed her throat then licked a path to her heaving bosom, my skin flushed hot too. I’d flip dog-eared page after dog-eared page, consumed by the tale, picturing the plunging necklines on the women and the tight breeches on the men that, naturally, barely concealed their manhood.

  How I longed to be at such parties.

  I turn away from the mirror, heading to my jewelry box on the bureau. I don’t attend many such parties in real life though. Most of the masquerades I’ve gone to over the years have been the standard Halloween variety. The masks the men wore were of gorillas, zombies, or President Nixons.

  Suffice it to say, none of those made me swoon.

  I suppose the closest I came to a true masquerade party was in college when the drama boy I dated senior year invited me to one, and costumes and masks were plentiful and traded freely. So were kisses between the girls and boys, the girls and girls, and the boys and boys.

  When I found him kissing one of the other drama boys, I ditched my Venetian mask and headed straight for the wine coolers.

  I suppose I’ve never had great luck with men, or masquerade parties.

  But perhaps that will change tonight.

  I slide a third gold hoop into my right ear. Three tiny earrings on the right, one on the left. I weave a tight braid down my hair on the right side, since my mask rises high on the left.

  Makeup comes next, and as I learned from those tales, one should never skimp on makeup. I slide a glittery gold shadow over my eyelids, then finish off the mascara.