by Holley Trent
“How many bedrooms?”
He laughed. “People always ask me that. What is it with New Yorkers?”
“I guess we just want to know if all the stairs are worth it.”
“Two beds, sitting room, dining room. Gonna ask me my rent, too?”
“No. I’m curious, but not that gauche.”
The place had a decidedly 1920s feel to it with all of the ornate molding and detail work, but hadn’t been allowed to go into disrepair. And of course, what she could see of the apartment was as immaculate as the man who lived in it. Understated colors. Art precisely hung in tasteful frames. Interesting rugs.
“Bottle of water?” he asked. “You don’t want to drink what comes out of the pipes here.”
“Sure. Thanks.”
He vanished to the right after hanging his coat on the rack by the door.
She did the same.
She liked that he owned practical furniture.
In fact, she was beginning to like nearly everything about him. She wished that wasn’t a problem.
He returned carrying water bottles and a bag of leftover candy cane chocolates. “I’ve got a freezer full of these. Stole them from Stacia.”
“Does she know?”
He scoffed and nudged her toward the left. “No. Barely made a dent in her stash, if that tells you anything.”
Everley took the bag. She deserved candy.
“I have a friend like that.” She sank into his slipcovered sofa, clutching the candy bag and water bottle for dear life. “Lets me raid her fridge and sometimes puts things in it that only I eat. She doesn’t live in the city, though. I don’t see her enough.”
“How’d you meet?”
“College.”
“I’m surprised all your friends aren’t in publishing.”
“None of my friends are in publishing, though not for lack of trying.”
“You had to expect that.”
“Honestly, I didn’t.” She made a halfhearted dismissive gesture. “I assumed people would give me the benefit of the doubt.”
He leaned his rear end against the credenza and fidgeted with his water bottle cap. “Maybe we could have if Athena was a small family-owned business. We’d expect it. Your situation is different, and nobody likes the reek of nepotism.”
“Sometimes I think about where I might be instead if I’d never walked into that building.”
“And?”
“And I stop quickly because it’s depressing to think you’ve wasted part of your life doing something you were expected to do but hadn’t planned to do. I wish I could have been more like you.”
“What, avoiding your family at every turn and copy and pasting the same Q&A statement into reply emails whenever journalists contact you about something your father did?”
“No. Brave.”
“I’m not brave. I’m cynical. Also, I’m stubborn, just like my father, but I tend to manage how much suffering other people endure as a result of it. I’d prefer not to be so cynical. I don’t particularly enjoy expecting the worst of people. I shouldn’t be surprised when people turn out to be decent.”
“I was just thinking that earlier.”
He lifted his water bottle in a toast, which she returned. “Write your own story, Everley. Keep your eyes on your own paper. Ignore what other people are shouting at you to copy down, or you’re going to be miserable.”
“I know.”
She wanted to tell him that she’d already come to that conclusion on her own, but she couldn’t. He’d see. He’d have his proof. He’d learn on Monday that she’d decided to do the decent thing—not just for her, but for everyone struggling to succeed in a hard business.
And she’d just...go away.
He settled on the sofa beside her and scrolled through his phone’s contents. “I haven’t been to a movie theater in ages. Hate going alone. Want to see something?”
“Me?”
It was a silly question, and she knew it. There was no one else in the room but her, but certainly he didn’t mean her.
“Would you rather just fuck? That might be easier than coming to a consensus about a movie.” He tapped his chin contemplatively. “We’d probably talk more in the movie, ironically enough.”
She stood and reached for her purse. “I’d like to see a movie with you.”
“Was the sex that bad?”
“No. I just...like the talking more. I can pretend I have a boyfriend that way.”
She was joking, but not.
It wasn’t really the worst idea she’d ever had.
They could get along, once they figured out they could trust each other.
He didn’t respond, and she suspected that was a good thing.
Grabbing her by the arm, he draped her coat over her shoulders and took his own off the rack as he passed.
“We can cab it. It isn’t far.”
Chapter Nineteen
Less than one hundred words. Short sentences. He made sense when he used short sentences.
Bruce clicked Send and sat back against the rock hard sofa cushion. It needed replacing. Everything in that apartment did. It’d been decorated with fashion and trends in mind, and Bruce had paid for it all because he supposed that was what wealthy people did. He didn’t like it, though. Any of it. He should have been better on top of it, but he was so rarely in New York that it was easier for him to just stay in a hotel when he was there than to have the apartment opened up.
What was there would suffice for the time being, though.
Feeling a sudden, belated surge of trepidation, he fished the message out of the sent box and reread it.
Ev.
Tried calling. Maybe something wrong with my brother’s phone?
Back in the States. Getting settled in city. Have a landline. Here’s the number. Call please. Want to see you.
Seemed all right. He’d waffled over the nuances between “want” and “need,” and decided that “want” sounded less petulant. He did need to see her, though. They’d already had a head start. She knew all the gristly bits about him and didn’t seem to mind, so he was ready to take a leap. He was ready for definitions and labels. He just wanted to have her.
A new message appeared in his inbox. He quickly clicked over to it, excited, only for his enthusiasm to quickly pivot to confusion.
SUBJECT: Out of office response
The employee you have emailed no longer has access this account.
This mailbox is unmonitored. Please send queries relating to publicity of Athena books to...
“No...longer has access?”
What did that mean? She couldn’t get fired. Everyone at Athena thought she was on deck to be the next head honcho.
He set the computer down and fetched the phone from the kitchen. He called Everley’s cell again, but calls were going straight to voicemail after a single ring.
“Call me, will you? This number’s okay,” he left on his third attempt.
And then it suddenly dawned on him that perhaps she didn’t want his contacts. Perhaps he’d dodged a hit by the clue stick when he’d really needed it. She wasn’t answering her phone and hadn’t responded to the last couple of messages he’d sent to her personal address. Granted, he hadn’t given her much to work with. All she could have responded to what he’d sent was “Okay,” but at least he’d feel less like a fool if she had.
He squished the rubber bumper of the handset beneath his thumb and thought.
Shit.
He’d had everything all figured out, he’d thought. Everley was supposed to be his first order of business after getting settled in, and he was already off track.
“No no no.” He shook his head and stood so he could move. Idleness led to fixating on shit he couldn’t fix. Movement kept his brain cycling.
He s
till had calls to make. People to see. A list to go down. He could pencil Everley in to a later spot just to follow up.
If she told him to fuck off, he could handle that.
He just needed to hear something. He needed to know if he was a fool for feeling the way he did.
He probably was.
* * *
As soon as Raleigh had dropped off his coat and gym bag in his office on Monday morning, he headed to Everley’s. He had a fist raised to knock on her doorframe before entering, but the door was already open.
Music played at low volume and there came a murmur of frustration right before a metal file cabinet drawer slammed shut.
Everley wasn’t a grunge band lover. The music coming out of her office had always been either show tunes, Motown classics, or yacht rock.
And Everley wasn’t a man of around five-eight who tended to forget to brush his hair in the back or tuck in his shirt all around.
“Charlie, what the hell are you doing in here?”
Charlie spun on the heel of his loafer, blue eyes round and open wide.
Supposedly, Charlie was many years past the threshold of adulthood. Twenty-four. Twenty-five. He sure as shit didn’t look it, though.
“Oh...kay, well, you see—”
A sigh came from the corner behind the door.
Raleigh looked behind it and found Joey seated atop a low stool. His fingers were tented. Eyes dead with malaise or fury or something. One could never really tell with Joey.
“She’s gone,” Joey said.
Immediately, Raleigh’s teeth went into perfect alignment for gritting and hands clenched at his sides.
She’d moved upstairs.
One of the global strategy specialists had announced she’d be leaving for good before having her baby. Everley had probably showed up bright and early to move in and find new necks to walk on.
By the end of Friday night, she’d convinced herself that she wasn’t capable—that like him, she was just a kid trying to make the most of a shitty situation a parent had created. She’d spent half the movie with her head on his shoulder and keeping her hands warm in his coat pocket, and he’d let himself think, “This is nice.”
If that was what being her boyfriend was, he was exactly cut out for it.
But evidently it wasn’t.
She’d known all along it wasn’t going to happen because they would no longer be equals in the organization.
“I’ve been in this business for twenty-five years and I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Joey muttered.
“They said I couldn’t say anything,” Charlie said. “Obviously, I wasn’t going to blab and lose a promotion.”
“So, you knew she was going?” Raleigh demanded.
Charlie shrugged. “Since before the holidays, and that was only because HR forced her to loop me in close to the end. She was going to have to get me up to speed on what she was working on. She couldn’t just drop it in someone’s lap and go.”
“But now my workload has gone up thirty percent and no one saw fit to tell me in advance.” Raleigh was practically shaking with anger.
Yet again, he’d been used. People’s strategies at manipulating him were becoming far more sophisticated. If he weren’t so pissed, he might even want to congratulate her.
“I’ll help you out in the interim,” Joey said flatly. “HR made the job posting for Charlie’s old position live this morning. We’ll start interviews in two weeks or so. Unfortunately, you’re going to have to absorb a couple of Everley’s authors as well—just the ones who do solo appearances. Charlie’s not ready to coordinate that stuff yet.”
“So that makes my workload, what, fifty percent larger?”
“For now,” Joey conceded. “Sorry, Ral. At least you’re not working on the rock star book. Know who is?”
“Who?” Raleigh snarled.
Joey hooked both thumbs toward himself. “Me. Remember? Thanks a lot to you assholes for not showing up for meetings. I should have known something was up when Everley evaded it. Nothing was getting done and the nonfic team doesn’t know their heads from their assholes.”
“You really mean to tell me you didn’t know she was moving upstairs? She reported directly to you.”
Joey’s brow creased. “That who was moving upstairs?”
“Everley. She took Natasha’s job, didn’t she?”
Joey leaned away from Raleigh as though he were suddenly looking at an alien and was trying to figure out which part of him was the head. “What? No. Natasha’s job is still vacant. They’re trying to poach someone away from another house so they haven’t advertised it. Everley is gone.”
“Gone?”
“Yeah, like Gone Girl, gone.”
“She peaced out,” Charlie said. He held up double deuces.
Raleigh wanted to throttle him. The only thing holding him back was the knowledge that if he did, his workload would get even larger.
“She coordinated it with HR before we went on holiday break.” Joey stood and released another of those weary sighs. “All they told me was that someone in publicity was leaving and that they’d have details coming soon. I’d assumed it was one of the interns or even Charlie, because he’d been avoiding his cubicle a lot. I’ve never seen a situation where someone’s direct supervisor didn’t know they were exiting the company.”
“She’s...gone,” Raleigh repeated, because it didn’t make sense.
She hadn’t said anything and she’d known for weeks that she was leaving.
If she’d told him, so much could have been different.
He realized then that perhaps that was why she hadn’t told him—because it mattered to him. Because he hadn’t been able to trust her words. Because he’d assumed that her motives were anything but pure.
Gone.
If Joey hadn’t been in the way, Raleigh would have plopped with agitation on that stool. Instead, he gripped the doorframe and tried to remind himself that he wasn’t allowed to take it personally.
After the way he’d treated her, he didn’t have the right to.
“Gals in HR informed me that she probably didn’t tell her father, either,” Joey said, “but I’m sure he’ll be on the warpath soon enough. If I were you, I’d keep my office door closed and avoid any calls coming from his extension.”
“Shit,” Raleigh whispered.
“Yeah.” Joey clasped his shoulder on the way past. “You’re too busy to care though, huh? You’ve got all that cross-promo stuff to work on for Stacia’s television show tie-ins. You’ll probably be in the weeds for weeks just with that.”
“I can handle it,” Raleigh said hoarsely.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had the rug pulled out from under him like that.
She’d surprised him. Not in a bad way or a good one. Just in a big way. He wasn’t certain how to digest the shock except to go directly to the source for answers. He needed to know she was okay, because she hadn’t seemed like she was. But of course she wasn’t. She’d known what was coming.
She’d done exactly what he had when he was twenty-three, and left before anyone could tell her she couldn’t. He could respect that, even if he wished she hadn’t had to do it.
He owed her so many apologies.
He retreated to his office, scrolled through the last incarnation of the employee directory, and dialed the number marked, Shannon, Everley (c).
“The number you have dialed is no longer in service.”
Chapter Twenty
“You’ll get used to the smell,” Lisa said with a laugh. She sifted more manure out of the straw scattered about the stables at the Burnout Bungalows and flicked it toward an established pile with unenviable precision.
“Not sure I want to,” Everley muttered.
She’d gotten a late start to the day, at least lat
e by Lisa’s standards. Lisa had been up with the sun, pouring what must have been gallons of coffee down her throat and whistling jaunty tunes near the guest bedroom door that had either been meant to cheer or annoy.
Everley had pulled her pillow over her head and gone back to sleep. She just hadn’t been ready to face the day yet. Avoidance was probably the most difficult job she’d ever accepted.
“I can’t believe this is your life,” Everley said. “Nubs for fingernails. Dry skin. Burrs in your hair.”
Lisa pointed to her in warning. “Watch where you’re going with this.”
“I’m just saying.” Everley laid her head atop the stable door and closed her eyes. “I guess I could see the appeal, though. The busyness. The uncomplicated relationships.”
“The busyness I like. I could do with less quiet, though, Ev. I need to get more people into this place or I’ll be paying my property tax bill with an IOU come summer.”
“You know I’ll help you out.”
“I know you would, but I won’t let you. You’re not exactly employed right now, at least by anyone who isn’t me, and I know what I pay you.”
“I have money.”
“Yeah. So do I. A dwindling inheritance. When my grandmother moved up north, all she had was two pennies to rub together. I sank everything she left me into this place. If it doesn’t take off, she’s going to rise up out of her grave down in Rocky Mount and drift all the way here to fuss at me.”
“I’ll help you.”
“With the ghost?” Lisa scrunched her nose. “You got some talents you didn’t tell me about?”
“No.” Everley grabbed a mangled towel off the hook nearby and lobbed it at her friend. “With the place. I told you. I can’t promise you miracles, but figuring out some sort of marketing plan for you is the least I can do to repay you for being my rock for so many years.”
Her father would never think to look for her there, if he cared enough to go looking at all. She didn’t think he’d ever been farther west in the state than Staten Island.
She’d tried to do the responsible thing so no one raised any panic alarms. She’d sent notes to both parents saying she was going to be off the grid for a while and that she’d forward her new number whenever she had it. She’d been at Lisa’s for a week. She suspected her inbox was overflowing, but other than to pay a few bills that couldn’t be ignored, she’d been avoiding the Internet.