Brenna, Brat (Detroit ABCs)

Chapter 5

I looked around. It wasn’t bad; it wasn’t great, either. It didn’t have all the natural light that I had wanted, which had been in bold on my “must-haves” list. It was on the top floor which meant more stairs in my life, and the stairs in this building were in a poor state of repair. The whole building was in that poor state, in fact, and it also wasn’t located in a great area. One of my other must-have items had been “walking distance from work or apartment” and this place definitely wasn’t. However, due to how run-down and cruddy the neighborhood was, there was plenty of street parking and that was good.

I sounded like Addie, looking for the positives where there weren’t too many. But there was one really, really big plus: the price. I could afford this, because the rent here combined with what I paid on my studio apartment was well short of what an ideal atelier would have cost. I could have this, continue to live elsewhere, continue to pay for the gas I’d need to drive between the two places, and continue to eat. Those were all actual, real positives.

I looked around, picturing a high table where I wouldn’t have to bend to sketch designs and cut them out, space for several machines, bolts of fabric organized in a rack, and shelves with neatly labeled baskets for all my sewing notions. It was dirtier in here than in the gallery after the gum melt, but at least it was freshly painted and I could clean. I couldn’t move it to a new location in the city, but I could make it work.

“I’ll take it,” I said to the agent, who couldn’t have given one crap. I had to practically twist her arm into renting it to me, but after a while, I was the proud lessee of a new sewing studio, where Brenna Curran Designs—

Brenna Curran Designs? That sucked. I needed to think of a better name for my label, something cute and pithy like how Chic had used her name, doubling the Cs of her initials to make a stunning logo. “BC” just sounded like an era of ancient history, or a way to prevent pregnancy. Why hadn’t my parents thought of my bad initials when I had been born? Of course, as the fifth of six girls, my name had obviously been well down on the list of what they were able to agree on.

My unfortunate initials hadn’t been on their minds twenty-four years ago, and there were certainly bigger things to deal with now. My father had moved out of the family home (which had belonged to his parents, so he’d lived in that place for his whole life). My mother was still there but Grace, who had been holed up in the girls’ bunkroom on and off for years, had left, too. Sophie had visited Dad several times at work and reported that he seemed to be doing ok, but our mother?

I was headed there next to find out. Everyone else had a lot of other obligations (except Grace, who was useless anyway, even if she had bothered to respond to us). The task of spying on Mom had fallen to me. So after everything was signed and I had given over more money than I wanted to, I was on my way to becoming a fashion star in Detroit and I was also on my way to my parents’ house—no, now it was just my mom’s.

It had been a long week at the gallery, trying to keep the insurance stuff on track (because I had been unable to watch things flounder, and stepped in to help with that) and also with overseeing the new video installation that Alecta had decided to take on in the midst of the floor refinishing. She had hired a friend to do that job, and he’d gotten as far as creating a mountain of dirty rags and half-filled, smelly cans of chemicals near the door. Then he’d promised to come back later to do the actual work, and we hadn’t seen a sign of him since.

But the video installation had gone in, and now there were screens hung on the walls around the gallery which played short, terrifying films of prehistoric animals eating humans. They played on repeat, but the bloody, vicious murders weren’t even the worst part. The worst part was that the animals were all in disguise, hiding from their prey and popping out to kill them (in really hideous and prolonged ways). One giant bear with vicious claws burst out of a hollow tree trunk to carve into the victim and, in the scariest one, a giant cat with long fangs was disguised as a human, wearing a fake-skin costume. Having those constantly on was getting to me and Dion.

Anyway, I was glad to be out of the gallery today, but I wasn’t too happy about confronting the problems at my former home. “Hi, Brenna! Come in and see,” Mom greeted me when I pulled into the driveway.

First, I carefully locked my car. This safe neighborhood had been the place where my phone had been taken years before, after all. “Hi,” I answered. “What are you showing me?” She only gestured at me to follow and I did.

The house where I’d grown up showed several things first. Everything had been in its place for so long, ever since I could remember it—my parents definitely weren’t like Campbell’s mom, who he’d said liked to redecorate all the time. But since the last time I’d been over, things were different. My dad’s favorite chair was gone from the living room and the pictures of his parents, my grandparents, were absent from the mantel. So were several paintings that had always hung on the walls, and only faint rectangular patches remained in their former places. The hallway was bare because the rug that had always lain there was missing and the big fern (the one that had belonged to my grandmother) wasn’t in its place of honor in the dining room window. It wasn’t like the house had been stripped of everything, but it seemed so changed, so much emptier and strange.

“It’s different without your father here,” my mom noted.

“He was never around much.”

She turned on me, anger in her face. “He worked very hard to provide for his family!”

“Ok, but he also liked to work that much,” I said. “He liked to be away. Even when he was home, he was in the garage or in his office.”

“That’s what I have to show you,” she said, and threw open a door. “Look!”

My dad’s home office was a room where I’d never spent very much time. None of us had, really, unless it was to discuss something important like Future Plans (Juliet’s multiple scholarship offers to colleges, Sophie’s investigation business, Grace’s lack of thought about…anything). I’d gone in when I’d figured out how to pay for a year in France, and he’d looked over my paperwork and signed off on it all as he’d sat at the big desk that had dominated the room, with his books and files neatly arranged on the shelves that covered one wall.

That was all gone, even the shelves, but there was a lot of different stuff in its place. “What is this?” I asked.

My mom seated herself on the floor in front of a small waterfall that constantly gurgled into a ceramic pot, her legs crossed upside down. “It’s my new meditation room. I need it in order to refocus my life’s journey.”

“I think you need a job.”

She closed her eyes and seemed to center herself.

“Can’t you meditate in the yoga room that you already have upstairs?” I asked. That had been my brother’s old bedroom, and he had recently moved out (again). There was plenty of space to sit cross-legged.

“Brenna, don’t naysay,” she scolded. Mom never told me to stop being a brat, which I had always appreciated, but she had never liked my attitude. “My life’s journey is beginning here, in this room that I’ve reclaimed.”

I looked around. She had removed all the furniture, or maybe my dad had taken it with him, and someone had painted the walls a shade of blue that reminded me of the hospital scrubs that my sister Nicola wore. I was sure it hadn’t been my mother’s intention, though; people always picked the wrong paint. There were new leather cushions on the floor and pictures of deities on the walls, along with long, patterned silk curtains that needed to be hemmed. Plus, there were a whole lot of candles, and the scent of them was overpowering. She had definitely reclaimed it, but I had to argue with what she’d told me.

“Your life’s journey started fifty-six years ago,” I said. “What do you think that you’re restarting now? Where is this journey supposed to take you?”

She kept her eyes closed and didn’t answer. I watched her nostrils flare a little as she did deep breathing.

“I’m going,” I said, because if I stayed in here, I was going to want to say more and it was very frustrating to argue with someone who wouldn’t do it back. I went to the kitchen and looked around there, too, and I found more problems. There was some food in the refrigerator, but not a whole lot, and most of the cupboards were empty. It could have been that Mom’s interest in the new meditation space/refocusing room had made her forget to grocery shop, and it wouldn’t have been the first time that her attention got pulled away from boring but necessary tasks like that.

But I also wondered if her finances were getting to be a problem. It didn’t look like she had skimped on furnishing the reclaimed room and she had never been the person in charge of budgeting in our family. She’d blown through their bank account before and I remembered arguments she’d had with my dad about it.

“Do you need money?” I asked when she finally joined me. “Is Dad giving you anything? Are you planning out your spending?”

“You know that I don’t worry—”

“Do you have any thoughts at all about your future besides the next accessory for your mediation room?”

“I don’t appreciate your tone or your message, Brenna.” She checked her phone. “I have plans today.”

That was my cue to leave, made more obvious when she took my arm and walked me to the door. I tried to ask more questions but got nowhere, so when I did go, I dropped a message in our group chat: “She’s a lost cause.”

“That’s not helpful,” Nicola shot back. “What else did you find out?”

I had to describe the meditation room, the missing possessions, the empty fridge. “She has plenty of mustard and relish, but not much else. She’s so immature.”

“That’s not helpful,” JuJu echoed. “I’ll have groceries delivered.”

“I’ll send her some job listings. I thought childcare might work,” Sophie chimed in. “She’s always talking about more grandkids.”

That all sounded like a fine plan to me, but everyone argued a little more before we agreed to it—not that it mattered if we agreed, since we were adults (in age, for sure) and could do whatever we wanted. Sophie also added that she would try to talk to Dad to figure out how they were handling their finances. “He’ll say it’s none of our business,” she pointed out, and Addie wrote that it was our business, because Mom was also our responsibility.

“No, she isn’t,” I stated, which earned me another round of comments about unhelpful remarks and how we needed to pull together.

Then I got a separate message from Juliet: “Beckett said you wrote to him and asked how he’s doing. Thanks, Bren.” She didn’t call me by that nickname very often.

She was correct that I had texted her fiancé to check in. It wasn’t like I deserved a medal or something, it was just a hello. I didn’t answer but continued on my way to the suburbs, which was part two of my plan for the day.

“I feel like I’m more of a neon guy, but you just don’t see many fun colors on the slopes,” Campbell said as we walked between the racks of ski clothes. “The contrast of that pink and yellow-green against the snow is really something.”

“No one wants their retinas burned as they enjoy winter recreation,” I answered, and examined one of the coats. “The markup on outerwear is incredible. This consists of less than ten dollars of raw materials and look at how poorly the zippers are sewn.”

“It might look good on me, though,” he said, and held it under his chin. “What do you think?”

I thought that all of this would look good on him, because he looked good himself. It was an objective opinion that was apparently shared by another woman browsing in this store. She made her thoughts clear as she looked at him and smiled.

“Do you work here?” I asked her, and she said no. “Can we help you with something, then?” I continued. She said no again, and moved away to the women’s section.

Campbell hadn’t noticed that interaction. He had picked up another ski coat, a navy blue that was truly wonderful with his coloring. “Not bad,” he commented.

“I thought you knew how to ski,” I said.

“I’ve been skiing since I could walk. My dad loved it and we went out west every year at least twice, usually more.”

“So, why don’t you already have stuff to wear?” I asked, picking up a dark green hat. This would look very nice on him, I thought. It would have made me resemble a cadaver.

“I do,” he said. “We always got new stuff every season, so I was doing the same thing, I guess.”

“You got new ski clothes even if you hadn’t grown out of what you had before?” I asked. I put down the hat because obviously, he didn’t need it.

“Maybe it’s like turning in the leased cars every two years,” he suggested. “It’s just trading around.”

“It’s wasteful,” I corrected. “It’s silly.”

He hung the navy coat back onto the rack, and walked to another part of the store.

Were we done? I caught up, although it took a moment because he had moved quickly. “I don’t care if you’re wasteful,” I said. “It’s your money. Do what you want with it.”

He had picked up a football from a big bin and was gripping it in one hand. “I do,” he said. “I do what I want.”

“Then why do you seem angry?” Not that I particularly cared, because his emotions were his to manage, and I was neither his mother nor his therapist. I was…a friend? I guessed that I was. Since he’d sent me the beautiful flowers, we’d seen each other a few times. Once, we’d gone back to the same restaurant for dinner and once we’d met for drinks after work. It was just weeknight stuff. But it had been fun to do something different and I realized that I didn’t want him to be angry at me. I still thought I was right about what I’d said, but I didn’t want him to stop talking to me or sending dumb little texts like he did sometimes.

“I’m not angry,” he answered, but he was going to pop the football in his hand. “I never thought about it too much.”

“About ski clothes? Me neither. It’s not a very important topic.”

“No, I mean about buying new shit all the time. You’re right and I don’t need it. There’s nothing wrong with what I had last year.”

“Good, then you’ll save some money.” But he didn’t need that mindset, the guard-every-penny way of thinking, because he had plenty of money if he wanted to throw it away. I remembered the list of gifts that he’d given to his sister Carrington, and when I’d been casually browsing and had inadvertently found him online, I’d gathered more information about his financial situation. Yes, I’d seen several posts with him and women, different women over the years. But the majority of his mentions had been through his sister and his mom and I’d thoroughly examined both of those women. They self-published incredible displays of wealth, with their jewelry, clothes, trips, cars…it was in every picture they took of their amazing lives.

“Spend it if you want to,” I said, shrugging.

“I will,” he said, and then told me, “I do. You know, I work pretty hard.”

“Ok.”

“I put in twelve-hour days, regularly. I’m in the office on weekends. I work at night when I’m home, so it’s not like I leave and it stops.”

“Ok,” I said again. “Why do you have to convince me?”

He stared for a moment. “I don’t,” he admitted.

“Great. Are you buying anything here?”

“Not a damn thing,” he snapped, and he’d said that he wasn’t angry but that, for sure, was not what I would have called a pleasant remark or tone. He threw the ball back into the bin and started to walk toward the front of the store.

The deal was that I was supposed to go look at ski clothes with him for his upcoming trip, and then we would go over to his house. I would see it for the first time and I’d been looking forward to that a lot. If it was in the same style as his clothes, then it probably didn’t need my help at all (unlike most of my sisters’ homes, which needed makeovers—even the ones that had recently undergone a makeover). But with him so irritated, I considered that I shouldn’t have pointed out that I thought he was wasteful. I had been surprised because it did seem so silly, but it probably would have sounded silly to him how we all discussed the level of pinkness in our burgers when my dad grilled for us in the summer. We really fought about that, to the point that things got close to physical, and Nicola’s husband had been shocked the first time he’d seen us go at it. This was the same thing, of families doing things differently.

Of course, we wouldn’t be arguing about burgers anymore because my dad wouldn’t be grilling. Sophie had reported that he’d rented an apartment downtown, one without a yard, patio, or even a balcony to cook outdoors.

I watched Campbell walk away, through the racks of clothes, and I felt two competing urges. One was to tell him that I would see him around, because I was leaving since he was behaving like an idiot. On the other hand, I also wanted to chase after him and make things up, although I was still sure that I was right.

I followed. I didn’t have to chase because he had stopped to wait for me, but I still hurried. “I wasn’t trying to start a fight,” I told him. I hadn’t meant to be a brat.

“I know that,” he said. “You want to drive behind me? I parked right next to your car.”

“Do you still want me to come over?” I asked, kind of confused.

“I invited you, didn’t I?” He wasn’t smiling like usual, but he didn’t seem so upset anymore. So I did follow him to his house, which was in another suburban area with a little downtown that was small, but cute and walkable. He didn’t live too far from the restaurants and shops and his house was not what I’d expected. I was thinking of something closer to the castle/mansion that my sister Juliet and Beckett inhabited, but this was probably about the same size as the house where I’d grown up. For one person, like my mom or like Campbell, it was much more than adequate. For nine of us, it had been a squeeze.

“Here it is,” he said as I got out of my car. “Not as ostentatious as you might have expected. I think it’s good for me.”

“I think so too, and I had expected it to be nice. You dress so well,” I explained.

He finally smiled. “I’m glad that all that time I spent shopping wasn’t a waste. At least it made you think better of me.”

“What?”

“Come on in,” he said, and showed me around. No, the house wasn’t huge, but it was bigger than it seemed from the outside. It was also tasteful and lovely.

“This was how my dad started his company,” he told me as we returned to the kitchen. “He bought and sold a few houses and got some ideas about how to do things better. That was what led to him quitting at the bank and going out on his own.”

“So this was one of his homes?”

“Yep, another freebie for me. I owe it all to him.”

I looked over. “I’m not criticizing you,” I stated. “My family house used to belong to my grandparents, and they gave it to my dad when they moved up north permanently. It’s nice when families can help each other.”

“Really? I’ve been thinking that you’re sure I’m a shitty nepo baby.”

“What?” I shook my head. “No. It’s obvious that nepotism was involved to get you to where you are. You said it, too, that you and your sister are young to have your positions, and that your dad expects you both to take over for him. But I don’t think it means that you’re not working hard or doing well. Frankly—”

“Are you ever not frank?”

“I was going to say that your father sounds pretty tough,” I continued. “It sounds like he wouldn’t keep you around unless you were doing things the right way. Isn’t that true?”

“Maybe,” Campbell said. He didn’t sound at all convinced of that idea. “But yeah, he always has been my toughest critic. I remember that after games, and even after practices if he could make them, he’d have a list of things for me to improve on. I’d have to read them out loud in the car on the way home. I was so happy to get my license because then I could drive myself places and I didn’t have to dissect my failures.”

“That’s mean,” I said, and I remembered saying the same thing about his dad before, too. “That was a mean thing to do.”

“He sees it as helpful. He sees that he gave me so many chances, so many opportunities to do things that he couldn’t have even dreamed about when he was a kid. He never thought I appreciated what I got or worked hard enough to improve. He didn’t want me to go play professional hockey, but he really would have liked it if I’d had the chance. He took it personally that I wasn’t good enough.”

“If I were you, I wouldn’t work for him.”

“It’s another opportunity. It would be idiotic to squander it, and I hope that I’m not an idiot.”

“You don’t seem to be. I wasn’t trying to say that you are, just because you were looking at new ski stuff. It really doesn’t matter very much.”

“I don’t know why I started telling you all this crap.” He looked at me and then shook his head, frowning. “Does it sound like I’m complaining about the life that was handed to me? I’m not trying to.” He moved his head again, now like he was shaking it off. “Did I mention that I’m making dinner tonight?”

“No, but I can help.”

“Do you know how to cook?”

“We all had to, especially after Nicola moved out,” I said. “My mom is pretty good but she had a lot of other interests that took up more of her time.” Care of her seven children had never been high on her list of priorities.

“Did your dad do much in the kitchen?”

I thought again about him grilling. “No, he worked a lot,” I said. “I assume that now, he’s getting deliveries and eating alone.” It made me sad to think about, but hadn’t it been his choice? “We always had dinner together, at least the people who were home. Everybody did a lot of other stuff, like jobs and clubs or whatever, but there was usually someone to be with. It was weird when everyone started peeling off and moving out, and the house got quieter and quieter.” Maybe that was why my mom had wanted Patrick and his baby to move home last winter and live with her and my dad. I knew from the experience of having my own apartment that you were sad when you were alone.

“Do you want to have a big family like that?”

“No,” I answered immediately. “I don’t plan to ever do any of the marriage-baby stuff. All my sisters besides Grace are into it, but I can’t see the advantage.”

“Love? Companionship?” Campbell suggested, and I shrugged a little, because I wouldn’t have minded either of those things. I didn’t mind the new Curran babies either, not too much. But marriage took two people, and both of them had to be sentient. That meant I couldn’t wed a dressmaker’s dummy, which had been my longest relationship to date. I thought of the woman eying him over the clothes racks this afternoon and imagined that he got quite enough companionship without having to worry about a relationship at all.

But then I didn’t want to think about that topic anymore, and I changed the subject. “What are we making for dinner?”

Pasta and sauce, it turned out, which involved a lot of chopping of vegetables. He had a recipe that he wanted to follow very, very carefully, like assessing if we had the correct amount of diced carrots by checking them in a measuring cup, and removing a few little squares if they teetered on the metal lip.

“It’s fine,” I told him, and swept them all into the pot.

“Is that how you sew? Isn’t precision important?”

“Yes, unless you want strange ripples in the fabric or a big bulge in your crotch area.”

“I’m usually ok with that one.”

“Ugh,” I said, and threw one of the tiny carrot pieces at him. Being too athletic, he caught it and ate it. “You should have seen the first things I made. I wore them to school, too, which really made things better for me there. I thought I was good at hats, so I would make these triangles that I had to balance on the top of my head.”

“Like at a birthday party?”

“Yes, but a lot floppier and less secure,” I answered. “And I used to sew myself into things and then have so much trouble moving.”

He was laughing as he added celery. “Why would you have done that? Why not zip yourself instead?”

“Because putting in zippers is hard at first,” I told him. “I’ll make you come to my new atelier and try one, and then you’ll see.”

“What’s that? You have an atelier?”

I told him about it, getting increasingly excited as I did. “In my apartment, I hardly have room for a seam ripper, but now I’ll have plenty of space. I’m going to have tons of lights, lights everywhere. That’s necessary because there aren’t any in the ceiling, and the windows aren’t as big as I would have liked. There aren’t as many of those as I wanted, either. But without a bed and other furniture, and without the kitchen area, I can really spread out.”

“What’s your new address?” he asked, and he got a funny expression when I told him. “I’ve driven around there…”

“It’s not the safest area in Detroit, but it should be fine. I wanted something closer to where I live or work, but I’ve looked forever and I’m really tired of stepping over my sewing machine every time I have to go to the bathroom. Also, the electrical stuff in my apartment is always shorting out if I have the lights on and I try to sew at the same time. I couldn’t really test the new place, but I’m sure it will be better.”

“I could come take a look for you,” he suggested.

“You know how to fix things?”

“That was what I used to do during the summer when I wasn’t playing hockey,” he said. “My dad thought I was too soft and coddled, so I went out with some of his maintenance crews. I learned a lot from those guys.”

“Were you really coddled?”

“Probably. Is this burning?”

I looked into his Dutch oven. Ours, the one at my parents’ house, was stained on the bottom and a little chipped on the outside, but this one seemed suspiciously unscathed. In fact, it almost looked brand-new. And there were some other funny things about this meal, like how he had read the directions on the back of the pasta box and how we’d had to open everything, from the bag of carrots to the bottle of peppercorns. All the ingredients were new and previously untouched.

“It looks ok,” I said, and gave the sauce a stir with a wooden spoon that also looked pristine. “Do you actually cook or is this your first time using your kitchen?”

He looked at me. “If I said that I was really good at it and was in here all the time, would you believe me?”

“No,” I answered. “I think you’re faking.”

“I definitely make toast and I also watched a lot of videos. I thought I had the chopping thing down very well. Didn’t I dice that onion like a machine?”

“Yes, but you only have one, singular knife that we had to share. People who cook have more than just one…wait, do you have utensils so that we can eat when it’s done?”

“I do.” He paused. “I bought them when I bought everything else.”

“Why were you pretending?” I asked.

“Because I’m a grown man who should have been able to cook dinner.”

“I would have been fine going out in this nice little town,” I mentioned, but then had a thought about that. Maybe he didn’t want to be seen in public with me. Maybe there would have been people he knew and he didn’t want them to think that we were somehow together? I tested my theory. “After dinner, we could walk around and maybe get coffee or dessert,” I suggested.

“It’s kind of cold tonight.”

Hm. I nodded. I had been right, and I was not weekend-girl caliber. I opened my mouth to tell him what I thought about not measuring up, but he continued to talk.

“You were freezing at the rink, remember? Your nose turned white. I got brownies from that good bakery near Eastern Market.” He was looking in the drawers and did locate utensils, because he removed a spoon and had me taste the sauce.

“It’s not bad. It needs salt,” I said, and poured some into my palm before I stirred it in.

“How did you know that was the right amount?”

“It seemed right, didn’t it?” I asked.

“I’m learning a lot. I thought you’d need to be more careful about sticking to a recipe, otherwise it could be like when a hat doesn’t come out well.” He smiled.

“Someone should have stopped me,” I said, shaking my head. They probably couldn’t have, because I was a tiny bit stubborn. “It’s no wonder Juliet pretended that she didn’t know me for a decade or so.”

“My sister liked having me around. I was her conduit to the hockey team.”

I couldn’t imagine that Carrington had ever needed much help meeting guys, not with her appearance, but her attitude might have held her back. I remembered the expression she’d worn when she’d departed the bar after seeing me and my sisters there, and I thought that she could have beat me out for the Best Bitch Face award if she’d been in the running. She’d stared at me like I was a nail that had punctured her tire, a mixture of surprise, anger, and utter revulsion. I had a feeling it was the same expression that Campbell’s other friends might have if they spotted us out to dinner together. Like, what? Him, with her ?

Not that I was with him. Not that anything had happened at all, and it certainly wouldn’t. I didn’t appreciate that he might have been trying to hide me, but it made sense aesthetically. But maybe he really was worried that I’d get cold. I didn’t want to argue anymore, anyway.

Despite his lack of experience and my lack of measuring the salt, the dinner tasted good. He did have plates, forks, napkins, and a place to sit. The furniture in here was almost perfect, actually, a good mix of new and old. I wonder if his mom’s decorator had helped and then I thought about my own parents’ house being emptied out, divided up between the two of them.

“Why did you sigh like that?” Campbell asked. “Were the onions underdone?”

“No, they blended right in,” I assured him. He had been overly concerned about the onions. “I was over at my old house today and I saw my mom’s new meditation room.”

“What’s wrong with having a meditation room?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Just like you should buy whatever coat you like, she should meditate if she wants to. But you shouldn’t buy a new coat if you can’t afford one and you shouldn’t buy silk curtains, either. You shouldn’t spend your time with your eyes closed, humming, if you need to be scrolling through job listings.”

“You’re worried about her,” he said, and I shook my head.

“Not at all! She’s an adult and she can waste her resources however she choses.”

“Sure,” he said. “Then why did you go over to check on the meditation room, and why are you thinking about it during dinner rather than focusing on the new pillow I got for my couch? I meant for it to impress you.”

I turned to look at it. “Did you really buy that pillow in my honor?”

“I did,” he said, nodding. “I got the knife, the new pot, and several new spoons. And this thing.” He pointed to an object on the table.

“It’s a trivet.”

“And I got a trivet,” he said. “Do you like it?”

“Why do you care what I think?” I asked. “Why did you get so upset when I said that stuff about ski clothes?”

“You’re not impressed by very much,” he said.

“So?”

“I don’t know,” he answered, and shook his head. “I felt like an idiot at the store, like a spoiled kid. You’re sure of yourself.”

“No, I’m not,” I admitted. “I’m really worried about the atelier I just rented. I’m worried that I locked myself into something that I won’t be able to afford if the gallery goes under, which it will if the gum artist sues over the loss of all his pieces.”

“What about designing clothes full-time?”

“No, not yet,” I said. I wasn’t ready, not monetarily or reputationally. I had hardly sewn for anyone except my siblings and their babies, and they weren’t exactly high-flyers in Detroit society. No one was looking at what Nicola was wearing, and she was mostly in hospital scrubs, anyway.

“What about…” He stopped, frowning, and looked at his phone. Then he held it to his ear and stood up. “This is Campbell,” he stated, and walked out of the room.

He was gone for a while, long enough that I had time to clear the table, put the dishes in the dishwasher, and scrub the new Dutch oven by hand. When he came back, he was frowning and pulling on a coat.

“I’m sorry. I have to end the night early,” he said. “I need to go into the office.”

I would have thought that he was lying to get out of being with me, but he looked worried to the point that I asked, “Is something wrong?”

“It should be fine,” he answered, but he didn’t look like he thought things were fine. He looked nervous, and like he was ready to leave. Immediately. I walked to the door and Campbell came right behind me. He escorted me to my car, checking his phone as he did.

“We’ll fake our way through making dinner again soon,” he said, and opened the door for me. “Although, you didn’t have to fake it.”

“No, I’m…” I looked at his hand where he held the car door. He gripped it tightly enough that his knuckles had turned white. “Are you sure that everything is ok?”

“Everything’s going to be fine.”

I drove away, glancing into my rearview mirror as I did. I didn’t believe him at all.