14. Clarence
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Clarence
Kara Whitfield’s assistant puts me on hold for the third time this week, and I stand in my own kitchen listening to jazz play into the silence where a woman who used to take my calls in two rings used to be.
“Mr. Carrington, I’m so sorry, Ms. Whitfield is still in meetings. Can I have her return your call?”
“Of course. Whenever she’s free. No rush.” I keep my voice light, easy, the same voice I use on nervous first-time donors.
There’s a rush. A massive one. But you don’t say that to an assistant who’s been told to keep you at arm’s length, so I thank her and hang up and set the phone down and stare at it like it’s going to explain why a friend of three years suddenly can’t find ten minutes for me.
Her coffee’s already made. Charly’s. Her mug, the chipped blue one she brought from the apartment. Her milk, her sugar, sitting on the counter next to mine.
My hands did that before my brain signed off on it, and I’m standing here looking at two mugs of coffee arranged side by side and wondering when exactly I became the person who sets up a woman’s morning before she’s awake and calls it nothing.
The guest house door opens across the yard. I know the sound of it by now. The particular click-and-swing, then her footsteps on the gravel, then the back door, then she’s in my kitchen with her hair still wet and a look on her face that means she’s about to say a thing I’m not ready for.
“We need to talk.”
“You say that a lot. It never ends well for me.” I set my mug down and brace for it.
“Sit down.” She drops her bag on the chair without slowing down.
“I’m in my own kitchen.” I don’t sit.
“Then lean on your own counter and listen, because I’ve been up since four working this out and I need you to hear the whole thing before you argue with me.”
“That’s a very promising start.” I lean back against the counter and cross my arms.
She ignores that. Pulls out the chair across from me, sits, puts both hands flat on the table. Full briefing mode. The same energy she probably uses when she’s telling a patient’s family what’s about to happen, all calm authority and zero room for negotiation.
“Adam’s story to everyone is that you’re the unstable brother. That the family blew up and you’re the wreckage. That nobody who values their own name should stand too close to yours right now.”
“I’m aware. I was just on hold with the proof.” I tip my head at the phone on the counter.
“The counter-story is us. Engaged. Publicly, visibly, at the next foundation event. We show up together, we sell it, and suddenly Adam’s version stops making sense.
You’re not the unstable brother who took in his ex out of guilt.
You’re the man she chose. After everything. That’s a different narrative.”
My stomach does a full rotation. I keep my face still. “You want to fake an engagement.”
“I want to reframe the story. The engagement is how we do it.”
“Charly, come on.” I push off the counter.
“I said no arguments. Just hear me out.” She holds up a hand before I can get going.
“I’ve heard you out. You want us to pretend to be engaged.”
“I want us to walk into that room and show those people that Adam’s full of shit. Right now he’s the only one talking, and they’re all buying it because nobody’s telling them any different. So we tell them a different story.”
“So your big plan is us. Pretending to be together.” I say it slow, just to hear how it sounds out loud.
“We already eat dinner together every night. I’m living in your guest house.
We showed up to a gala together. Half that room already thinks we’re sleeping together.
I’m not inventing anything here, I’m just giving it a label.
” She ticks each one off on her fingers like she rehearsed it, which she probably did, at four in the morning.
“So we’re just gonna lie about it.”
“We’re putting a useful label on it. Something that can fix what Adam has been spreading around.”
I turn away from her and pour coffee. Take way too long doing it. Stir it twice when it doesn’t need stirring.
“You’re stalling,” she says.
“I’m thinking.” I keep my back to her and watch the spoon go around.
“You’re stalling because you hate this idea.”
“I don’t hate the idea.” The mug stops moving. “I just hate the word fake.”
That just sits there. She’s looking at the back of my head and I don’t turn around until I trust my own face again.
“People are going to ask questions,” I say, turning back. “Your coworkers, my board, your dad.”
“Priya already thinks we’re together. My dad’s going to have questions, but he’s seen you show up for me, so he’ll deal with it. And your board cares about money coming in, not who I’m sleeping with.” She counts those off too, fast, like she’s already won each one in her head.
“Adam will lose it.” I set the spoon down.
“Good. Let him lose it in front of everyone. Every time he reacts, he’ll look worse. That’s literally the whole point.”
“And when this is over? When the donors come back and we don’t need the act anymore? What happens then?”
She goes quiet for half a second. Just half. Then she looks back down at the table. “Then we figure it out.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I’ve got right now.” She lifts her chin and meets my eyes again. “Are you in or not?”
“I’m in.” I don’t even make her wait for it.
“Just like that? You’re in?” Her eyebrows go up like she expected more of a fight.
“Don’t make me say it twice. What are the rules?” I pick my coffee back up.
She pulls her legs up under her in the chair, getting cozy, full planning mode, the way she gets when she’s about to run a whole meeting from a kitchen table.
“In public, we’re engaged. Chill about it, not putting on a show. We hold hands, we stay close, we call each other the right things. No big announcement. We just let people figure it out on their own, because gossip moves way faster when people think they caught it themselves.”
“Fine. And at home?” I ask it before I can think better of it.
“At home we’re whatever we are.” She says it to the table, not to me.
“Which is what, exactly?”
“Clarence. Can we just do one impossible thing at a time please?” She shoots me a look that ends that thread cleanly.
“What about a ring?” I let her off the hook and change lanes.
“Yeah, we need one. Can’t sell an engagement with a bare hand.” She chews her lip for a second. “How about we just go pick one up together? Keep it simple, nothing fancy. I mean, if this were real you wouldn’t be ring shopping with me, so at least this way it’s obviously just a prop.”
My jaw does a thing. I can’t stop it fast enough.
“Your whole jaw just moved. I’ve been staring at that jaw for two months and I know what it does when you’re holding back. So just say it.” She points at my face like she’s caught me.
“There’s nothing to say. We’ll go pick one out. Moving on.” I turn back to the counter and the safe, stupid coffee.
She stares at me. Puts it together. I can see the exact second she gets there, because her face changes into a thing I haven’t seen before. Not pity. Not surprise. Closer to panic.
“Oh. Oh, you actually mean it,” she says quietly.
“Leave it alone.” I cut her off before she can pick it up.
“Clarence, you don’t have to pretend with me right now,” she says, softer, careful.
“Don’t do that. Don’t look at me and say oh and turn this into a conversation we’re not having. We’ll get the ring, it’ll be simple, it’s a prop. Next topic.”
She holds my eyes for three more seconds. Then she looks down at the table and nods, and when she looks back up the panic is gone and the planner is back, and we both act like that didn’t just happen.
“So who do we tell first?” I ask, grabbing the lifeline of a safer subject.
“Priya. She’s my work wife, and she physically cannot sit on a secret.” She’s already counting it out. “I tell her, she tells the whole unit by lunch, the unit tells whoever they’re going home to, and by the end of the week everybody who matters has heard it without us having to announce a thing.”
“So you’ve basically built yourself a little gossip machine.”
“I’ve built myself a little gossip machine.” She points at me like I finally caught on. “I’ve been up since four, Clarence. I’ve worked every angle of this. You’re about ten steps behind, just so you know.”
“I’m not behind. I’m just trying to figure out what I actually have to do here besides stand next to you and look like I’m crazy about you.” I spread my hands like it’s a joke, so it can pass for one.
“That’s the whole job. You stand there and you sell it.” She raises an eyebrow. “Think you can handle that?”
“I’ll find a way to cope.” I take a sip of coffee, mostly to have a reason to look away from her.
“Good. Then we need to practice.” She uncurls from the chair.
“Practice what?” I set my coffee down, already wary.
“Us. Being a couple, out in public, the kind people actually believe.” She crosses the kitchen toward me as she says it.
She comes around the counter and stops right in front of me, looking up. Her hair’s drying all wavy and she smells like soap and the coffee she still hasn’t touched. My hands are still on the counter behind me and every part of me is very aware of how close she is.
“Give me your hand.” She holds hers out between us.
“Why, what’s the drill?” I don’t move, eyeing her hand like it might bite.
“Because couples hold hands, Clarence, and right now you’re white-knuckling that counter. Let go. Give me your hand.” She wiggles her fingers at me, impatient.
My fingers unstick from the counter and she takes my hand in both of hers, easy, turning it over, lacing our fingers together. Checking the fit.