They Never Picked Up My Calls, So I Made Dolls That Answer novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: Nine Seconds

Fletcher's arm tightened around me.

"You don't have to," he said under his breath.

"I know."

I stepped down off the loading dock.

"Five minutes," I told Gracie. "Here. Where people can see us."

She looked past me at the open door, the machines, the twenty faces suddenly very interested in their sewing.

"Fine."

We stood by the dumpster.

Up close she looked younger than on TV.

Her eyes were puffy, and her hands kept pulling at the sleeves of her coat.

"Colby doesn't know I'm here," she said.

"Okay."

"He'd kill me." She laughed like it was a joke. It wasn't funny. "Elsie, I need you to stop."

"Stop what?"

"Fighting. The doll. The book. All of it. If the launch goes badly, he's going to blame me. He already blames me for the hospital thing." She pulled at her sleeve again. "He says I'm the face of it, so if it fails, that's my face."

"Then don't be the face of it."

"It's too late. My whole account is the doll now. My publisher moved the book up for it." Her voice wobbled. "Do you know what Mom will do if I lose Colby? If the book flops? I'll be you."

The way she said it.

Like being me was the worst thing that could happen to a person.

"I lived," I said. "Being me."

"In a garage."

"In a garage with twenty people who stayed up all night for me. When was the last time anyone did that for you?"

She opened her mouth and closed it.

"Why did you come here?" I said.

"I told you. To ask you to stop."

"No. Why did you really come?"

She looked at the open door again. At the red felt on the cutting table.

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