Designing Morgan

  I remembered Tommy Patterson and his Art Cloud scheme. Curiosity about the lump sum purchase price for 60% of Candy Blue had been nibbling at me for more than a week now.

  Maybe the email he’d sent Sophie would give me some insight. I got my laptop and pulled up Candy Blue’s email account. It took me a couple attempts to get the password right. I’d almost forgotten it because Sophie had been handling this account by herself for a long time now—at least a year.

  The easiest way to find the email would be to look through the “sent” file. Soph would have surely sent him a professional and polite, yet firm, rejection of any proposal. I tried to remember what day it was that Sophie had told me she’d heard from him. I scrolled down through the queue of sent emails. I scrolled and scrolled and scrolled.

  It seemed to take forever just to get through the past two days of sent emails.

  I swallowed hard and I stopped spinning the little wheel that made the list zip up my screen. How did she ever have time to do anything but reply to emails? If I were this busy on my computer, I wouldn’t have time to eat or shower.

  There were messages to the bookkeepers, the vendors, and the freelancers who make the actual jewelry. Then there were so many responses to customer emails, some of which included answers to the most asinine questions I’d ever seen.

  Someone with a dairy allergy had emailed Sophie wanting to know if our jewelry contained dairy. I would have replied “A: Why are you eating jewelry?” and, “B: No ma’am we do not use ice cream or cheese in our jewelry.” But the ever-tactful and gracious Sophie wrote a detailed explanation about how our products are hypoallergenic and ethically sourced.

  It was true. She had even been the one to insist and do the research to make sure our products all came from places where workers were treated decently. We even used organic threads and cloth and nickel-free everything.

  There were pages and pages of emails from each day. Time stamps on Sophie’s replies started at 6 a.m. and sometimes went until after 11p.m. She worked so much harder than I did. And it wasn’t pleasant work like sipping coffee and drawing sketches.

  Despite that, I was the one who did all of the complaining. Sure, Sophie made her share of snarky remarks about the customers, but she never truly complained or whined. Not the way I did.

  I pushed aside the surge of guilt and remembered why I was in this email account in the first place: I needed to figure out this Art Cloud deal. When I googled Tommy and Art Cloud, I had found a couple articles that made the company look legit. But there were no actual numbers in those articles. Because Art Cloud was privately held, they didn’t have to disclose anything.

  Scrolling through the mountain of tedium that was apparently Sophie’s life was getting me nowhere. I did a recipient search for Tommy Patterson. Nothing. Then I looked up “Art Cloud” and found what I needed in an email with the subject line “You’re invited to join Art Cloud.”

  There were no numbers in that email, which I should have known. It was the same blah-blah pitch he’d given us at the Spruce Woods festival. Then there was some non-generic butt-kissing about how much he liked Candy Blue’s products and how bringing our customer base to Art Cloud would be a “win-win-win” for our customers, Candy Blue, and Art Cloud. I cringed at the phrase “win-win-win.” So phony. Greedy-sounding, too.

  “Hey Franklin, let’s not sign up for Fart Cloud,” I said to my dog as I giggled.

  Sophie’s reply to Tommy was good, but she didn’t exactly slam the door in his face. She had written “Morgan and I enjoyed meeting you. We are pleased that you appreciate Candy Blue as much as we do. However, presently, we are not interested in collaboration with Art Cloud, nor do we want to sell any part of our business. Good luck with this endeavor.—Sophie Maslow.”

  “Presently?” I whispered to myself. “Presently.”

  For a moment I was tempted to email Tommy and press him for details. I just wanted to know how much he thought Candy Blue was worth. But I knew I had to get over it—to let that curiosity go unsatisfied. Talking to Tommy behind Sophie’s back felt like betrayal. If not betrayal, it was definitely a cheap and crappy move.

  Besides, things didn’t look promising for me getting into the MFA program. What would I do if I sold Candy Blue and wasn’t in school? I guess we would have an arrangement where I could still design jewelry. But Art Cloud would make Sophie’s role obsolete. That would be the last thing she wanted. Unless our recent rift had changed her mind. Or she was just sick of working with me. That was plausible. Sometimes I was even sick of me.

  The seemingly endless queues of emails kept popping up in my mind. Each time I thought of them a shock of guilt surged through me. Even now, when we weren’t even speaking to each other, Sophie was working hard to keep the business going. She wasn’t just maintaining it, either. Sophie made our business thrive.

  It was time for me to make up with her. Maybe this time, with an actual apology.

  I could see that she was online right now. It would be easy to send an email, but I knew I needed to show my face. I decided to text her.

  “Are you at home? Can I come over?”

  She responded within seconds. “Sure.” It was a warmer response than I deserved.

  I threw my laptop and sketchbook in my backpack and hopped on my bike—mountain bike this time because I took a couple gravel alleys to Sophie’s house.

  Twenty minutes later I was in front of her house. It was a much newer house than mine, but it didn’t have nearly as much personality. It was a neat brick ranch home with a concrete front porch just big enough for a bistro table and a couple big potted plants.

  Sophie was sitting there, at the table, with her laptop and a coffee mug. She looked nice in a three quarter sleeve white blouse, dark flared jeans, and Candy Blue’s silver and black beaded “midnight shine” necklace, bracelet, and earring set.

  I was wearing black capri leggings, a T-shirt, and my cycling shoes. I leaned my bike against a tree trunk, hung my helmet from the handlebar, and willed my breathing to slow as I walked up her front sidewalk. Why had I ridden so hard? I was sweaty too.

  “Hi,” I said, still obviously out of breath.

  “Hey.” Sophie’s smile was strained.

  “So.” My voice was suddenly shaky. I climbed onto the tall chair sitting across the tiny table from Sophie. “I’ve… been kind of a jackass.”

  She looked at me over her glasses. She didn’t say anything, but her amused smirk told me things would be ok between us very soon.

  “I’ve been selfish.” I looked down at my hands, palms pressed against the cool ceramic mosaic tabletop. My voice dropped to a low mutter. “You work way harder than me and you have to put up with my whining and I’m sorry.”

  “It’s ok,” Sophie said. “I never should have gotten us into this mess with Hannah and Clint. And I know that you feel like I’m not being very, you know, supportive about your master’s degree. But I do support you. I support you and I believe in you, and like who you are, without necessarily agreeing with everything you do.”

  I nodded.

  “So many people would love to have what we have with Candy Blue. And you don’t even want that. It sort of breaks my heart,” she said.

  “I don’t know what to say,” I said, managing to meet her eyes briefly. “I know how lucky we are that things are working out. Well, it’s not luck it’s you busting your butt. But I just feel like I need to try this. I’m bored and I need a new adventure and I need to feel like I can do real art.”

  “I’m not bored. I think having this awesome business is an adventure.”

  “Sophie, I promised you that whatever happens with me and with school, we’ll keep Candy Blue going. You have to trust me.”

  “Ok,” she said.

  “Do you have pictures of the new bridesmaid’s dresses for Hannah’s wedding? I have all day to work on it and get this fixed.”

  Sophie smiled and we got to work.

  The afternoon was warm and sunny, but
because it was early October now, there was no humidity. That made it perfect weather for staying outside all day. I drew sketches of the jewelry and Sophie worked on replying to emails and writing the next couple weeks’ worth of blog posts. I told her about Lee and our adventure at the baseball game.

  “I would have peed my pants!” Sophie said.

  “No way. You’re tougher than me.” I said. “I actually surprised myself.”

  “So Lee is good in a crisis? I like that.”

  “Me too,” I said, smiling. “He was calm. Actually, he was a rock.”

  “You sound nonplussed.”

  “I do? I’m plussed, I do like him.”

  “I don’t think you’re, you know, smitten,” Sophie said.

  “First of all, thanks Grandma, who even says ‘smitten’?” I said. “And secondly, you could be right. Or maybe it’s just too soon. I still feel like I don’t know him very well.”

  “Is Clint still crawling around in your brain?”

  I felt my cheeks get hot. Everyone needs that one friend who isn’t afraid to call them out on their dysfunction. I was grateful for that, but still uncomfortable.

  Sophie answered her own question for me. “I’ll take that as a yes. It’s all over your face.”

  “He messaged me the other day when I was halfway through a box of pinot.”

  Sophie looked at me only with curiosity—no hint of judgment or scandal in her eyes.

  “I should have just walked away, but I did talk to him for a couple minutes. Nothing that I wouldn’t let Hannah see, but it still felt kind of slimy.”

  “Do you think he’s trying to keep you for, like, an affair or something?” Sophie asked.

  I laughed, “An affair? I think you have to be an adult to have affairs, and we’re not adults—not really, you know?

  “It feels like he just wants to string me along emotionally. I don’t think Clint really wants to do anything. His ego just likes knowing I’m still there.”

  Sophie shrugged. “He cheated on you. Maybe he’s just a serial cheater and he wants to cheat on Hannah too.”

  “Aw. Hannah’s a pain in the ass, but I wouldn’t wish that on her.”

  “Do you think she really likes Clint?” Sophie asked. “I get the feeling she’s really just attracted to his checkbook.”

  I shook my head. “She’s not smart enough to pull that off—to straight-up use someone. But I’m sure she wouldn’t be with him if his real estate business wasn’t booming.”

  “Pfftt, no way! That girl has some expensive taste. You should see her blog.”

  “I’m kind of nervous to check it out—to see what she says about us.”

  “We’re not in there that much, but when she mentions us it’s really nice,” Sophie said. “And I’m still seeing a tail from the spike in sales when she tweeted about Candy Blue.”

  By the end of the day, I had sent Hannah a complete set of sketches and she gushed over them. It would take me another couple days—if I focused—to get the prototypes done. We would meet with Hannah and then if she actually liked them, we could have all of the pieces done at least six weeks before the wedding.

  10.

  We were meeting at Clint’s house instead of Hannah’s apartment this time. I guess Hannah was staying there most nights now. I was on my way to show Hannah the prototypes for her bridesmaids’ jewelry. My hands were sweaty on the steering wheel as I tried to find the house. Sophie had a stomach virus and couldn’t come. This is normally when I would bail and we would reschedule. But between Hannah’s fragile moods and my commitment to being a more productive partner in Candy Blue, I couldn’t flake out today.

  Clint had just moved in to a newly constructed neighborhood with a generic yuppie name—“Hunter’s Glen.” It was made up of what bungalow-dwellers like myself called “McMansions.”

  I had to admit the homes were beautiful. They had stonework and architectural detail that would have been charming if they had been unique. Other than the fact that they were slightly different colors and the three-car garages were sometimes positioned differently, the homes were all basically the same.

  It was obvious that the homeowners association set strict standards regarding landscaping and the buildings’ positions on the small lots. The uniformity coupled with the homes’ tight proximity to each other made the neighborhood seem homogenized and tacky. Precisely Hannah’s style, I thought.

  When my navigation app told me I’d arrived, I was in front of a three-story stone and gray-sided home. A two story tall window above the front door revealed a beautiful staircase and landing. There was a silver Acura that I’d never seen before sitting in the driveway.

  When I looked at the huge symbol of wealth towering in front of me, I felt a tightness in my throat. I wondered if envy was making me feel that way, but that didn’t seem right. This stuff was way too gaudy for my taste. Maybe I was intimidated.

  It’s just Clint, I reminded myself while I tried to calm down. Unfamiliar roads were the icing on my anxiety cake today. It was just douchey Clint and that little airhead Hannah. Right—just my ex-boyfriend and his fiancée. My hands trembled a little as I grabbed my phone, my keys, and my bag containing sketches and prototypes of jewelry.

  I was halfway up the walk when the oak front door opened. There was Clint. He looked dumpy and out of place in his T-shirt, sweatpants, and flip-flops. He had gained weight, too. That man-belly would not look good in a tux.

  Even though his sloppy appearance should have eased my sense of inferiority, I was still uncomfortable and heard my voice shake a little when I said hello.

  Inside, our footsteps were noisy on the floor of the nearly empty home. It smelled good; like paint and sawdust. I looked around desperately for Hannah. I wasn’t her biggest fan, but I needed a buffer right now. Surely the Acura belonged to her. Could it really be Clint’s?

  “I’ll show you around,” Clint said.

  “Where’s Hannah?”

  “Her nail appointment took longer than she thought.” Clint said, glancing at his phone. “She’s on her way, I think.”

  This is exactly why I didn’t want to take this job—inhumanely awkward situations with my ex. I was annoyed that I had to endure a tour of the McMansion, but at least it was something to do. Sitting in an empty room trying to keep a dignified conversation going with Clint was kind of my worst nightmare.

  We started in the finished basement.

  “Hannah wants this room to be our movie theater. Then my pool table will go over here. Obviously this will be the bar,” he said gesturing toward a corner of the room with a sink, granite countertop, refrigerator, and dark hardwood bar.

  “This is nice,” I said, brushing my fingertips across the cool granite. I eyed Clint’s bloated stomach. Judging by the inflamed skin around his eyes and nose, I guessed it was alcohol, not Hannah’s cooking, that was responsible for Clint’s weight gain.

  Because the home was built into a hill, part of the basement was underground, but one side was on ground level. French doors opened onto a brick patio and showed a view of the tree-covered valley in its best early October colors.

  Now I was jealous. I stood in front of the doors and looked out over the valley.

  “Pretty cool, huh?” Clint said, standing just behind my right shoulder. His handsome aroma—probably just drugstore deodorant—was the same as when we were together. Back then, that aroma had been a normal part of my day, but I never thought of it as mundane. I always felt like I needed just a little more of that scent.

  “It’s nice,” I said. Then I added, “Pretty day,” to remind him he owned the window we were looking through, not the world we were looking at.

  We lingered there and, for a moment, I forgot to feel uncomfortable. During our years of dating, the turmoil was frequent enough that tension felt normal. Maybe we were numb to it.

  Clint took his time examining the view. Even though he lived here now, I could tell he didn’t yet feel at home. He didn’t behave like this was
where he belonged. Those things take time, I thought.

  I covertly gazed at his reflection in the glass. He appreciated the view. Clint had plenty of shortcomings, but he always appreciated the things that really matter. I think that’s what I fell for first. He was happy to take a walk or spend time outside doing nothing.

  He pursued a high-paying career, but that was just Clint’s attempt to meet his family’s expectations. He really didn’t care that much about money. He had an older sister who died in some sort of accident at a swimming pool. She was twelve and Clint was nine. His other sister was fourteen.

  I’d heard about that from one of Clint’s friends. Clint never talked about her—I’d only heard his parents mention her fondly a couple times—Marissa. I think it framed a lot of what Clint did as well as how I interpreted everything he did; through a lens of pain and of wisdom about what’s really valuable.

  My interpretation of how that tragedy affected him probably wasn’t consistent with the reality of how it affected him. He was intuitive. But he often used his intuition to manipulate me rather than reach out to me.

  When he spent what seemed like an abnormal amount of time with our coworker Janae, and then when her number appeared far too many times on our phone bill, I became suspicious. Of course Clint knew I didn’t want to think of myself as shrill or jealous or insecure. He was able to twist my perfectly legitimate questions about his contact with her into my failings as a person.

  I remember the penetrating nausea that took over my body after I pulled up our wireless account on my laptop. Under texts, her number showed up twice as many times as mine. That night, I sat on the outside stairway of our apartment building looking through our wireless bill again and again, waiting for Clint to come home.

  When I finally saw his truck pull into our building’s parking lot, I had second thoughts. He was out late and I knew he would have been drinking. He was never violent or even intimidating. But alcohol affected Clint the way it did me, and most people I know. It made him irrational and overly sensitive. Every thought and emotion would be exaggerated.