14. Good 4 U, Olivia Rodrigo
"Good 4 U," Olivia Rodrigo
Victoria
I was a woman who always had a plan, but for the first time in over a decade, I didn’t know how to react.
None of my plans involved children.
On Grace’s lap in a tufted leather chair perched a little girl with a ridiculously oversized bow in her hair. She dropped her teacup—mercifully Grace steadied it on the coffee table—and sprinted closer, making me flinch.
The next thing I knew, my business partner—the only man my family ever approved that I didn’t actively detest—hoisted the little girl into his arms.
“This place is so beautiful! You really work here?” the girl yelled in a grating, high-pitched voice as she wrapped herself around his neck. Grace, Connor and Mallory all looked sheepishly into their teacups.
He lowered her and took her hand, walking her close. “Ruby, this is my friend, Victoria.” I held out my hand, and the little girl shook it vigorously. “Victoria, this is Grace and my foster daughter, Ruby.”
My eyes snapped up in alarm. His widened in a non-verbal request not to make a scene. I looked down and forced out, “Nice to meet you, Ruby.”
“Have you ever been to a tea party?” The little girl gripped her full skirt, twirling slightly.
My breath hitched, momentarily stealing my words.
“Victoria’s been to more fancy parties than you can imagine,” Alexander said to fill my silence, shooting me a look of, ‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’
“I…I used to love tea parties when I was your age,” I said, even though I had no fucking idea how old she was. Hopefully she was potty trained. “For my birthday, my mother took me to afternoon tea at the Plaza.”
“Where Eloise lives?” She gripped my hand. “I love that book! Can you take me there?” Before I could extract my hand from her sticky fingers, she dragged me over to the coffee table. “Did your tea parties look like this? Scoot over, Connor.”
She climbed back onto Grace’s lap, lifting a tiny ceramic teapot. Alexander watched with arms crossed, expression stony.
“You can be Snow White." Ruby handed me a teacup, which I rested on my knees to hide my shakiness. "This was Aunt Mallory’s tea set, so it’s only got the old princesses." Mallory sheepishly cheersed me with her Jasmine teacup. “Grace made finger sandwiches, do you want a cucumber one?” Ruby said, forcing a bite-sized sandwich toward my saucer.
I recoiled. “I can’t eat that.”
“But it’s delicious!” she said, wiggling it near my face.
“I said no,” I snapped, pushing her hand away.
Ruby’s lower lip wobbled.
Alexander’s voice boomed, “Victoria, let’s talk.”
I bristled at his tone but would do anything to escape from this nightmare. I set my cup on the saucer and stood, smoothing my skirt. Grace whispered, “Remember, Ruby, Victoria can’t eat bread. We have to respect her choices.”
With a hand on my elbow, Alexander dragged me away—but remained in eyesight of the tea party. Mallory lifted her phone to snap a discrete photo of me and her brother, then whispered to Connor.
“I told you Grace is a foster parent," Alexander hissed.
“Of course she is, she’s a fucking saint,” I retorted, unable to restrain my frustration at how fucking perfect everyone thought Grace was.
He narrowed his eyes. “I reminded you last night when I left for foster parent training.”
Right, he’d mentioned that. I’d been annoyed he was leaving early again.
“That’s why we bought a six-bedroom house, Victoria. For our family.”
But what will happen to her when we leave?
He crossed his arms as if he could read my thoughts.
“You always do this, Victoria. You plan so far into the future that you miss what’s right in front of you.” He ran a hand over the scruff of his jaw. “Let’s skip the champagne, ok?”
We returned to the lobby, where Grace was packing up Ruby’s tea set. I forced my chin up, staring behind the reception desk at our freshly mounted Blackstone & Clarke sign. My name may have been on top, but I was outnumbered.
Alexander took Ruby’s hand, placed the other on Grace’s back, and led them out without looking back. As they walked away, I re-imagined the Forbes cover: me in an incredible chic black dress, arm wrapped around a suit. But the face above the tie was a blur.
Silence descended over the small lobby, where Connor and Mallory had just witnessed my abject humiliation. I forced a calm expression, refusing to let them see the storm raging inside, planning to escape to my office and bury myself in contracts.
Contracts could separate personal from professional. A well-drafted indemnification clause could prevent messy outcomes by establishing boundaries to protect against future heartbreak.
Contracts couldn’t hurt me.
“Well, that was awkward as fuck,” Mallory broke the silence, texting furiously. Probably laughing with somebody—or worse, posting to social media—about my mortifying oversight.
I rubbed my temples, fending off a migraine. “I’m going to my office to—”
“You can’t go,” Mallory said, blocking the path to my office. “I called for reinforcements.”
The elevator pinged. I straightened in case it was Alexander returning with more criticism—or worse, Grace, who would blink those giant doe eyes and say softly, ‘Are you ok? You seem upset.’ Ugh, she was so fucking annoying.
A woman charged in balancing a paper bag, dressed in head-to-toe black with burgundy lipstick and gold hoop earrings. It took me a moment to place her from the incubator meeting: Mallory’s friend, Kate.
“I left as soon as I got your cryptic text. What happened?” Bottles clanged as she hefted the paper bag onto the reception desk and lifted a handle of tequila.
“It was awful,” Mallory said. “Alex left Ruby up here with Connor while we took a look at the downstairs studio—without telling Victoria. Totally blindsided her.”
“That asshole!” Kate said, pulling out four shot glasses from her bag. Damn, the girl came prepared. “Victoria, did he seriously not tell you about Ruby?”
Had he told me? He mentioned the evening training and the large house, but I’d thought …
“Hearing about it is different than seeing it for yourself,” Connor came to my aid as Mallory nudged a glass across the desk.
I backed away. “I’m not doing a tequila shot.”
“After that train wreck, you deserve at least three,” Mallory negotiated. “I need two just from watching Alex’s smug face when he threw you to the wolves.”
Kate lifted a glass. “I’ll do one for solidarity. Seeing my ex with his cute kid would wreck me.”
“You think that’s what bothered me?” I hadn’t felt … what were they expecting? Desire, longing, nostalgia? Yeah, none of that.
My marriage plan had been to advance our careers and shut up my family. After Spencer’s manipulative obsession with legacy, I’d sworn off having kids. Had Alexander wanted them, and I hadn’t listened when he told me?
“You don’t have to do the shot,” Mallory said. “but I won’t let tequila go to waste, so you might have to drive me home.”
Mallory licked the webbing of her hand, then Kate shook salt onto the wet skin. I’d seen girls do this in my college dorm, but Spencer had warned me not to fraternized with people below our level because they would exploit me.
Maybe he knew their game because he wrote the book.
“You in, or am I doing a double?” Mallory asked.
I inspected my hand. Beverly would chastise me about how unladylike licking myself would be.But Beverly wasn’t here.
The three people who were each held out their hands in solidarity.
Connor gasped when I lifted my hand to my mouth, pushing aside all thoughts about germs and decorum.
Mallory salted my hand. Connor slid over a lime. Kate lifted her shot glass and gave the toast: “To getting over asshole exes.”
The tequila burned as my lips pursed at the lime's acidity. Mallory jangled the bottle. “Another?”
I sputtered a cough. “You’re not going to let me go back to work, are you?”
"Hell no, it’s after six on Thirsty Thursday.”
“So why the fuck not?”
“Attagirl,” Kate lined up another round along the reception desk. “So how was the studio space?”
“Incredible,” Mallory breathed on a soft sigh.
I waved off her need to placate me. “Stop. If you don’t want it, I’ll find another tenant.”
“It’s not that I don’t want it,” she said, salting my hand.
My only reply was a lifted brow: Could have fooled me .
She swallowed thickly, fidgeting with the lime wedges. “I couldn’t think straight with Alex rushing to get back to Ruby and Grace proposing expansions she wouldn’t be around to do.”
I stilled. I hadn’t realized how pressured she’d felt.
“You know how Alex can be,” Mallory continued, earning a sympathetic nod from Kate and Connor.
As she distributed the shot glasses, Kate asked me, “Can I see the space?”
“I want to see it too— after shots. Not only did I miss out for the tea party …” Connor said, wrinkling his nose in mock disgust. “I got relegated to Sleeping Beauty.”