Chapter 17
Alyssa was in her office, rooting in the closet for the painting equipment she stored there, when she smelled Stacey’s perfume. She turned, paint roller in hand.
“How’s everything going?” Stacey said.
“Fine.” Alyssa could hear the suspicion in her own voice.
Stacey didn’t smile. “Wonderful! How close are you to being done with Nick Sorensen’s place?”
“Um, maybe three weeks? The basic design decisions are made, but I still need to put everything in place.” She gave the roller a little twirl.
“Well, when you’re done, I want to use it in a commercial.”
Alyssa gaped. “You mean show his apartment? I don’t think he’d like that.” She was sure he wouldn’t. It seemed like an invasion of privacy for someone as well-known as he was. He didn’t need fans criticizing his throw pillows.
“He doesn’t have a choice. The contract specifies we can use the finished project in promotions.”
Alyssa shook her head. “I don’t use that contract. You know that. I think the client should make an informed decision after they see their space.”
Stacey’s eyes didn’t move—too much Botox—but her lips spasmed like a lizard whose tail had been run over on the highway. Probably it was a smile. “Well, that’s the contract Nick signed.”
Oh, shit.Stacey had shoved the contract into her hands as she ran out to catch Nick at his car the day he first came in. Shit shit shit.
“Stacey, you know that’s not the contract I use.” She sounded shrill. She hated sounding shrill. When she’d come on board here, she’d negotiated to use a slightly altered contract—one that was nearly identical to Stacey’s boilerplate but that included a few minor terms that Alyssa felt were more fair to her clients—instead of taking a signing bonus. At the time, being able to use the slightly altered contract had seemed like a symbolic victory. Alyssa took a breath to calm herself.
“You really should look more carefully before you have a client sign things,” Stacey said. “I handed you the contract I use. Anyway, do a good job because his apartment is going to be all over our digital marketing. He’s a hunk—a lot of ladies are going to be happy to see his bedroom, even if it’s only online.”
Frick.
Stacey turned and went back to her own office. Stunned, Alyssa gathered up the rest of her painting supplies and loaded up her trunk.
She called her mother from the paint store while the jiggle machine shook up her gallons of paint.
“Alyssa?” her mother said. “Is it urgent? I’m ironing the tablecloths. My women’s group is having tea here this afternoon.”
“No, it’s not important.” She hesitated and her mother didn’t fill the silence. “I just had a bad morning at work.”
“Well, work harder next time.”
“It wasn’t that I didn’t work hard.” She heard the defensive note in her voice. “I just made a mistake and … it feels bad.”
“Well, just don’t pull the tinsel, and you’ll be okay.” Her mother laughed lightly. “And wear navy for the next couple of days—it’s never wrong. Don’t say anything inappropriate, and you’ll be fine.”
“Okay, Mom. I’m gonna run.” She ended the call.
Once she had the paint cans loaded in her car, she texted Janet and Emma.
Alyssa: My life is a wreck. Have lunch with me? Right now?
Emma: I’m in the middle of a carnation delivery.
Alyssa: A. Wreck. Enough that I called my mother.
Emma: Wow. Was she … helpful?
Alyssa: She didn’t take the time to find out what was wrong, but she did suggest that it’s my fault.
Emma: ??
Janet: I’m free. Did your life wreck on the hunky shoals of those big shoulder muscles I met?
Janet: Muscle Shoals. I crack myself up.
Alyssa: ??
Alyssa: Sort of. Details at Gilda’s in fifteen?
Janet: I hope there are pictures.
Emma: Nobody told me there were muscles involved. I’ll be there.
Aw. Friends were great.
Gilda’s was a ’50s-style diner with chrome-edged stools and waitresses in poodle skirts. They also had a juke box that took tokens, and Gilda kept a bucket of them right beside it. When Alyssa had asked her about it once, Gilda had said, “Listen, honey, music makes the world a better place. Why wouldn’t I help make the world better if I could?” She walked away, calling over her shoulder, “Chrome makes the world a better place too. And Elvis’s butt. Oh, lordy.” Gilda was a trip.
Alyssa got there first, snagged a booth, and looked over the shake menu. All the food was named for singers or bands, and she never remembered what was what. Janet and Emma walked in seconds apart, greeted Gilda behind the counter, and slid into the booth opposite her. Janet was wearing faded jeans and a political T-shirt from a few election cycles ago. Emma had a short, spiky cut that she could pull off because of her bone structure. She wore her signature high heels, skinny jeans, and a red blouse with white polka dots. Alyssa could talk fashion with Emma. Janet, not so much.
“Spill,” Janet said, but Gilda herself walked over just then. She was a Black woman who was probably … eighty? Then again she’d looked eighty for twenty years now. Today she was in a pale blue poodle skirt and carried an order pad.
“I’ll have the Buddy Holly and a large Ella Fitzgerald,” Alyssa said.
“You make good life choices,” Gilda said, scribbling on the pad.
“Is any of your food a bad life choice?” Emma asked.
“Nope,” Gilda said.
They finished ordering, and Gilda brought their shakes right out. Their burgers followed quickly.
“It’s Stacey again,” Alyssa said finally. She brought Emma up to speed on the Sorensen job and explained how her boss wanted to use his home in a TV commercial. “And I know she’s just doing it to punish him for standing up to her, and me for … I guess going along with it.”
“You don’t use her contract, though,” Emma said. “You told me once you thought there were problems with it.”
“I don’t think it’s fair to the client in several places. But she handed it to me when I was rushing after him when he first came in, and I used it without noticing.” She hung her head. “I hate myself.”
“She’s a snake,” Emma hissed. “Let’s sneak into her closet and pry the rhinestones off her designer purses.”
Alyssa reached across the table and squeezed Emma’s hand. “You guys are the best.”
“What did your mom say?” Janet asked.
“She told me to wear navy, which I’ll admit is good advice. She also told me not to pull the tinsel.”
Janet and Emma looked at each other. “Um …” Emma said.
“The year after she married my stepdad, she threw a party for the Stuck-Up Ladies of Charity.”
“Catchy name,” Janet said.
Emma waved her hand dismissively. She didn’t remember the group’s actual name. “It was at our house in December. She set up lots of small tables so she could tuck more people in, but that meant making extra table decorations, and she was doing the food herself, and … She wanted to prove that she belonged, and, well, she was really stressed. She felt very evaluated by these women. And I understood how important it was that everything be perfect.”
“And a piece of tinsel ruined it?” Emma said. “Doesn’t sound like tinsel.”
“All the ladies were seated and served and had just started eating. I had been paraded around in a red velvet dress. Then I was supposed to stay in my room. But of course I peeked. So when the cat walked toward the living room with a piece of tinsel stuck to her butt, I grabbed at it so she wouldn’t walk out like that. It would make things not perfect.”
“And she jumped in the Christmas tree?” Janet guessed.
“Nope. I grabbed at her and she ran, but I got a hold of the tinsel. Turns out it wasn’t on her butt, it was in it.” Emma gasped. “And I was left standing at the edge of the room, holding a piece of tinsel covered in cat poop, which I had just pulled out of the cat’s butt. Some of the women saw, and started whispering to each other.”
“Oh my god,” Emma said, pressing her fingertips to her lips. Janet slowly sank sideways until she rested against Emma’s shoulder.
“Mom grabbed my shoulder with a ‘you have embarrassed me’ look and marched me back to my room. She said, ‘Alyssa, that was so inappropriate.’ And then she left me holding the tinsel.”
“Should I ask what you did with it?” Janet said.
Alyssa shrugged. “I stood there holding it, then I finally sneaked into the bathroom and flushed it.”
“Is it funny now?” Janet asked.
Alyssa raised an eyebrow at her. “You’ve met my mom. What do you think?”
“Aw, honey,” Janet said, and squeezed her hand. “So what are you going to do about Stacey? I hope it involves arterial splatter. Just a reminder that I have drop cloths.”
“I’m going to finish Nick’s apartment as fast as I can and try to make it a space he can enjoy. If he doesn’t mind having it featured, no problem.”
“And if he does?” Janet said.
“I drink twelve Little Richards and stick my head under a pillow.”
“Always good to have a plan,” Janet said. “You know I wish you’d come back to the party planning business.”
“Yes, but no,” Alyssa said.
They hugged goodbye on the sidewalk. Janet and Emma demanded that she keep them updated, and Emma told her to stop by the flower shop she managed because the mums were magnificent this year.
Full of fat, sugar, and friendship, Alyssa drove to Nick’s, parked, and lugged her box of paint supplies up to his apartment, then made two more trips for the paint cans. She thought about him tripping on the cans in Vanessa and Devin’s garage and smiled faintly. She’d decorated him before his apartment.
She set the last can down and turned in a slow circle. The space felt empty, and not just because of that one lonely brown chair in the living room. She’d been here without him a couple of other times—she had a key—but she felt that she had betrayed him with the contract issue. Accidentally, sure. But from the way her dad and brother talked about him, she knew he was a big deal to hockey people—and Detroit was Hockey Town. Just moving with him through the art museum, she’d seen people recognize him and whisper to their companions—and that was a museum crowd. He was a guy who was going to want privacy, and she’d accidentally robbed him of that right. At some point she would have to face him. All six foot two, hard-muscled, ridiculously handsome Nick, looking at her with disappointment. Maybe anger.
He had been so kind when they’d met at Joe’s Grounds and walked with their coffee. She’d told him about living in the car, the scary man at the food pantry—my god, she’d told him about the Pop-Tarts. And he’d really listened. She didn’t just lust after his handsome, muscley body—although hell yes, she’d liked kissing him under the arch. And she would absolutely help Janet with more receptions if she could make that happen again. But Alyssa really liked Nick. She felt safe with him, and she hadn’t returned that safety. She’d messed up.
Alyssa covered the floor in the living room and tugged his game system away from the wall. She should have asked him to do it before he left. Might as well have gotten some work out of those bulging don’t-like-her-anymore arms. Stupid judgy biceps.
She cut in around the floor, ceiling, and doorways of the living room, then did a first coat on the kitchen. She normally hired a professional painter, but Nick hadn’t wanted someone else in the apartment while he was gone, and anyway, she enjoyed painting. It was late by then and she was hungry, so she ran out for Chinese takeout. She was going to be up all night—she needed to get as much of this done as she could so that she could put the second coat on tomorrow and get the place aired out before he got back. If she was done painting when his road trip ended, she wouldn’t have to see him very much.
She cleaned her paintbrush in his bathtub, laid it on the edge of the sink to dry, and stepped out onto the balcony to get some of the paint stink out of her nose. She had all the windows open and hadn’t been chilly while she was inside, but now she grabbed a clean drop cloth and wrapped up in it, using her purse as a pillow.
She’d just take a catnap on Nick’s balcony, and then she was going to paint his bedroom. She yawned and fell asleep watching night settle over Detroit’s skyline.
When she woke an hour later and went to slide the glass door open, it was locked.