I Signed Away Eight Million to Leave Him novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: Live

I wrote back to the editor from the chaise, in Corbin's coat, with my hair full of grass.

"Yes," I typed. "On one condition. The cover is the medallion. Shot from the scaffold, looking up. Initials in frame."

She answered in four minutes.

"Done."

Corbin read it over my shoulder and kissed the back of my neck.

"Your initials on a newsstand," he said. "Honora's going to see that in every airport in America."

"Good. She has a lot of time for airports now."

Gorman Interiors opened on the first of August, in a narrow brick storefront in Providence.

Black glass. Gold letters. My name on a door, finally.

Ivy was my partner. She ran the front desk, the phone, the money and the clients, and she was terrifying at it.

She lived upstairs with Meatball and the lumpy green couch, which took three of us and a rope.

I lived on the harbor in Newport, with a man and his boat model, and I drove the forty minutes every morning with the windows down.

The magazine came out on the fifteenth. My ceiling was on the cover, my initials gold and upside down in the corner.

On page one, in bold, it said they'd credited the Fitzroy ballroom to the wrong woman in April, and they were sorry.

We had the opening party that Friday.

The storefront was packed. The owner sat by the window, with the housekeeper beside her.

The bartender ran the drinks, because he refused to let anyone else.

My mother came from Fall River in her good blouse and told every stranger in the room about the hockey puck.

Corbin stood at the back with a glass of wine, letting me have the room.

At eight the front door opened, and the bell over it jingled.

Margaux walked in.

White, again. Her phone up, again, with a little light on it.

Live. I could see the red dot from across the room.

The room went quiet in a ring around her.

"Hi, everyone," she said, to her phone. "I'm at the opening of a studio that's built on my work."

Ivy put down her glass. I put a hand on her arm.

"The Sea Cliff was my concept," Margaux said, louder. "I presented it to the press in April. My boards. My vision. Neve took all of it when I was fired."

She turned the phone toward me.

"Neve? Anything to say to my two million followers?"

The editor from the magazine had come up from New York for the party.

She was already holding out her own phone.

It was a photo from the press lunch in April. Margaux at her easel, beside her mood boards.

Pink. Every one of them. Pale pink silk, pink velvet, pink stripe.

I held it up beside Margaux's camera, and the magazine beside it, open to the Sea Cliff's gray lobby.

"These were your boards," I said. "This is what I built. Show them both. Let them decide."

Margaux's eyes went down to her own screen.

I couldn't see the comments. I could see her face while she read them.

From the window, the owner said clearly, "It was pink, dear. It was dreadful."

The bartender laughed so hard he had to hold the counter.

Margaux jabbed at her phone. The red dot went out.

"My father's lawyers will be in touch," she said.

"Your father cut you off in June," Ivy said. "It was in the papers. Bye, babe."

Margaux looked around the room at fifty people looking back at her.

None of them had their phones up.

Nobody was filming her. Nobody cared enough.

She walked out. The bell jingled behind her.

"I'm putting that bell on the logo," Ivy said.

It was after midnight when Corbin drove us home.

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