2. Fashion Emergency
2
Fashion Emergency
ANDREW
From: Andrew Jones
To: Oliver Bond
Sent: October 22, 6:01 am
Subject: Saturday’s video
Hey. Don’t forget, we’re filming Saturday at the Arboretum. Subject is Fibonacci sequence. I’ve got this one. All I need is for you to show up on time (no sorry excuses this time) and hold the camera.
- A
Get in, check on Mother, grab a fern, get out.
Avoid comparisons to my brother.
Steeling myself, I strode into the conservatory. One billionaire executive wasn’t enough for my mother. She wanted a matched set, no matter what I wanted.
I wouldn’t repeat the mistake I’d made at brunch last Sunday. When I mentioned my job, she’d started in on my lack of career progress and then my checkered dating history. I didn’t have the energy for that today, not after an email from the client down in Monterey had reminded me of the night I’d tried—and failed—to erase from my brain.
I held my breath as I passed the sunny corner where Mother grew lilies. They always made me think of my dad’s casket covered with the stinking things.
“Mother?”
When I reached the center of the room, a fresher aroma hit my nostrils, sharp and tart like a green apple. It reminded me of a night not long ago when I’d buried my face in silky skin and breathed it in. My fantasies had come true when I’d held a dream of a woman in my arms. In fact, I had feared it had been a dream when I woke up alone, the citrusy perfume that lingered on the pillow the only remaining proof of our night of passion.
I shook it off and approached my mother next to the fountain. I kissed the cheek she offered. The scent wasn’t coming from her. Like always, she smelled like Chanel No. 5. Maybe she had a new plant. I scanned the flower-packed room. I’d never find the source.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I texted I was coming over, remember?”
“Oh.” Her pale lips turned down. “I forgot. With your brother’s news—did I tell you they did a full-page spread on him in Buzz Bizz?”
Only about a dozen times at brunch on Sunday. “You did.”
“We’re so proud.” She glanced at the door to the garden.
Eyeing the pink splotches on my mother’s cheekbones, I asked, “Are you feeling all right?”
“I’m fine.” But when she waved her hand, it trembled.
After Dad died, the conservatory had been my mother’s refuge. How many times had I come in here to find her, elbows-deep in dirt, fussing over one of her plants? Too many to count. Sometimes it had been hard to pull her out even when one of the girls needed her. I tried to never need her, but my sisters had been too young to understand that adults grieved too.
As hard as I’d tried back in the dark days, I’d never been strong enough to hold our family together on my own. We couldn’t lose Mother too.
I scanned her face for signs of fatigue. “Are you taking your blood-pressure medication?”
“I take it every day. Remember, I’m the mother here.”
“Of course, but?—”
“Close that door, would you?” Mother pointed at the French doors that led outside.
Maybe she was overheated. I walked to the door and locked it, scenting that new perfume again. “Was someone here?”
“Carly Rose. You’d remember her as Carly Winner, Brad Winner’s ex-wife.”
I froze, remembering impossibly soft skin. Her rasping cry when she came. “Carly was here? Just now?”
“She left a minute ago. Ran out like there was a sale at Barney’s.”
I touched the door handle. One push and I could follow her, chase her down and ask why she’d left me alone in that hotel room after she’d promised we’d talk in the morning.
That would be pathetic. Clearly, I’d been only a fling. For her, our night together hadn’t been the earth-shattering moment it had been for me. I’d been foolish to hope I was worth staying for.
Besides, talking about it would break her rules. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t forget her any more than I could forget the derivative function.
I composed my face into a neutral expression and turned back toward my mother. After clearing the tightness from my throat, I asked, “What was she doing here?”
“Insulting me, can you believe it? Some nonsense about ruining her business.” Mother sniffed.
I chuckled, but when she didn’t smile, my stomach tightened. “You’d never do that, right?”
“Of course not. We’re friends. Of a sort.” She dusted off her hands and examined her French-tipped nails.
I narrowed my eyes. They’d always been in the same social circle, but they’d never seemed warm to each other. Carly usually ruled over one end of the party while my mother anchored the other like two oppositely charged poles.
“Hey, Andrew.” Natalie’s sneaker squeaked on the tile as she wheeled in a rolling cosmetic case, a dress bag looped over her arm. “I need a favor.”
“What else is new?” I reached out to tug a lock of my little sister’s hair. She dodged my arm.
“I need you to drive me to Bianca Waddingworth’s place.”
“She literally lives down the street.” I glanced at her sneakers. “You can’t walk there? I’m only here to pick up something for my video, then I have work to do.”
“I wish you wouldn’t waste your time making those videos,” Mother said, her lip curling the way it did whenever I talked about my YouTube channel.
I unclenched my jaw. “I can make the videos and still get my work done.”
“But you’d advance so much more quickly if you weren’t always goofing off with Oliver. You should be at least a vice president by now. Then you could champion your causes any way you wanted. Like your brother, for example…”
I turned away to examine a fern to keep her from seeing my flush while she chattered on about my perfect big brother, Jackson, his multibillion-dollar company, and his charitable foundation.
He’d been away at college when it all happened. He hadn’t found Dad slumped over his laptop in his office. He hadn’t watched Mother and our two little sisters fall apart. He hadn’t had to trim his focus to the essentials. He hadn’t been dogged by fears of dying too soon and leaving people behind unprotected. So, my brother had carried on our father’s legacy of success by founding his own software company.
I didn’t begrudge him his success. Much. I could never take the kind of risk he had. It was much better to work for someone else, a company that provided benefits, a company that didn’t depend solely on me like we’d all relied on my dad until one day he was gone.
I unballed my fist and ran a fingertip over the fern’s frond. When Mother launched into another rhapsody on my brother’s company’s stock valuation, I said, “This fern displays the Fibonacci sequence here in the frond pattern and these little shoots. Can I borrow it? I’ll return it unharmed at brunch on Sunday.”
“Not one bruise on it,” she said. “It’s an elfin tree fern. They’re endangered in their native habitat.”
“Andrew,” Natalie said in a wheedling tone. “That ride?”
“Down the street to the Waddingworths’? Fine.”
“We have to stop at Neiman’s on the way.”
“On the way?” I yelped. “Neiman’s isn’t on the way.”
“I meant we’re going there first to pick up her dress. Then to Bianca’s. She had a fashion emergency. Mother promised I’d help. Now hurry up. The store closes at six.”
I sighed. I wouldn’t get started on my work until after seven and on the script for Saturday until, at best, nine. But I’d been wrapped around Natalie’s finger since she was born. “Fine. What happened to your car?”
“Oh, you know.” She waved a hand. “Foreign cars.”
“I drive an Audi,” I grumbled.
“Not everyone can be as boring as you, Andrew.” Leaving the case where it was, she fluttered over to kiss Mother’s cheek. “See you at the party.”
Mother stilled her with a touch on her arm. “Who’s your date tonight?”
“One of the van der Poel twins.”
“Which one?” she asked.
“Not sure. Does it matter?”
“Technically—” Mother began.
“Bye, Mother.”
My sister swooped out like a butterfly. I offered Mother my arm and escorted her (and Natalie’s case) out of the conservatory.
“Have fun at your party tonight,” I said. “Don’t forget what the doctor said about mixing wine and your medications.”
She waved off my warning. “You could come too. I’m sure Bianca would love to have you. Her daughter Bella is home from college now.”
I hummed noncommittally.
“She’s always held a torch for you.”
“She’s, like, twenty-two, Mother. Have you forgotten how old I am? I’m thirty-two.”
She waved her hand. “An age difference like that doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me. Girls her age don’t know what they want. I’m looking for someone more…mature.”
She narrowed her blue eyes at me. “You’re in your thirties, Andrew. You need to settle down soon. You can’t afford to be so picky.”
“I’m not picky. I date a lot of women.”
“And you always find fault with them. No one’s perfect.”
For a moment, I’d thought Carly was. Until she’d left me without so much as a note.
“I know. I’m waiting for someone special.”
She huffed. “Don’t you want what your brother has?”
Not really. I didn’t want a whole company to worry about. Or kids.
I wouldn’t mind getting some recognition from my family. But that was petty of me. I forced a careless grin onto my face. “Sure. If Alicia’s looking to ditch my worthless brother.”
“Worthless?” Her right eyebrow shot up. “His company’s valued at?—”
“Andrew!” Natalie flung open the front door. “Fashion. Emergency. Move it!”
Relieved not to have to hear about my brother’s superiority yet again, I pecked Mother on the cheek. “See you Sunday.”
“I’ll give Bella your regards.”
I already had my hand on the door. “No, thanks.”
I wasn’t ready to date anyone, not even a nice girl like Bella. My heart was still too raw from the tenderization Carly had given it with her stiletto heel.