Chapter 5
Sapphire
I was still bouncing on the adrenaline, the rush of it all, even as I was crashing down with exhaustion stepping into the café alongside Britt, shopping bags over both of our arms. Suddenly I felt like a superhero—like a fully accomplished member of society who could do anything.
The café was a cute place with a stylish vibe, and I couldn’t have been less surprised Madeleine worked in a place like this. It looked like a cinematic speakeasy, like something out of a movie with a jazz soundtrack playing, dark wood and low lights, and Britt waved me towards the booth seats at the edges of the room.
“Go squat on that table. Don’t let anyone claim it. Bite them if they try.”
“O-okay. That is a metaphor, right?”
Britt winked at me before she headed for the counter. I was just going to… assume it was a metaphor.
I crashed at the seat by the thick-paned window, setting my bags down on either side of me—plenty of clothes, but more importantly, everything for my phone.
It had been a whirlwind of activity the whole morning, making it alive out of the metro and heading to the blue-and- white stylings of Primark, and I’d clung to Madeleine laughing like a little kid as we took our shopping baskets up the escalators to the top floor. I think I’d shamelessly tried on half the items in the store, Madeleine and Britt weighing in on what styles best suited me, and I’d started feeling like a fashion model before long, coming out of the fitting rooms doing a little twirl to show off. Madeleine had patiently walked me through the concept of the capsule wardrobe while Britt had been off looking at novelty socks, and I’d just about skipped out of the building after an hour with shopping bags packed full of essentials and a few flair pieces.
Including a hat that nobody could have talked me down from buying, because I wanted to be able to wear them well like Madeleine did.
I’d embarrassed myself at the T-Mobile store and made the clerk look at me like I was a child cosplaying an adult—which is all I really was—before Madeleine cut off my rambling explanation to say let’s say it is her first phone and go from there. Madeleine had timed it well, too—we were close to the café she worked at when we got out of the store, and once we’d traded numbers with my new phone, she’d headed off to get to her shift on time. Britt had wasted no time in following her here, insisting I should come with, and even though I still watched the crowds with a paranoid anxiety, I looked like a whole different person in a new outfit that was kind of… Madeleine had called it coquette. I didn’t know what that meant—I’d look it up later—but I just liked ruffles and bows. Britt had said it worked well with the braided look too, and I was kind of liking my hair braided, which meant I’d have to learn how to do it myself.
I was looking at my phone, just playing around with the settings—going through the contacts list and feeling a nervous rush seeing how empty it was, no parents, no sister, the visual encapsulation of a fresh start—when Britt slid into the seat across from me, setting down a tray with coffees and sandwiches.
“Oh—you didn’t need to get me food,” I said, sitting up straighter, my hands folded on the table. Britt laughed.
“God, you’re such a little princess.” She puffed her chest out, folding her hands on the table like I was, and I thought I’d die. I uncrossed my hands.
“I-I’m not sitting like that.”
“Girl, it’s cute. You make a cute, uh… cute set with Madeleine, too, her all cool cosmopolitan and you dressed like a princess.”
“Um…” I looked out the window at where clouds were setting in now, thick and dark, casting a pale gloom over everything. If Britt had been trying to torment me over Madeleine, she couldn’t have done a better job. “And your spot in the dynamic?”
“Someone’s gotta bring the color. I dressed pretty sensibly today—normally I’m less sensible. One day you’ll meet my pink-and-blue coat. It’s, like, my signature.”
I laughed, taking the food she pushed my way. “You and Madeleine are both really good with fashion.”
“It’s how we met,” she said. “We’ve been going to this community clothes swap for ages, and we just sit there with the girls and the gays and we try stuff on and see what looks best. Think that’s something you’d like to try?”
I flushed. Kind of had to wonder if people who were both girls and gays were welcome the same way. “Um… that sounds really fun, actually.”
“Then you’re definitely set in the friend group.”
I laughed nervously. “I’m not that good with people, actually. So I might make the whole thing weird.”
“You’ll pick it up.” She took a bite of her sandwich, talking with her mouth full. “So, your family was kind of isolated, huh? Are they here, in Chicago?”
“Yeah, I’ve been in the Chicago area all my life, which, you know, makes it even more embarrassing that I don’t know up from down around here. My parents and my sister would do all kinds of things for work, go out to places and meet people, but I think my mom was a little too… protective. Scared of what the world would do to her youngest child. So I was closed up at home all the time with nobody but, you know… the butler, the maid.”
“You had a butler and a maid? What’s the butler do, tell the maid to clean?”
I laughed awkwardly. “The butler’s kind of the catchall for everything. He raised me more than my parents did. Hired our tutor and coordinated lessons, managed the schedules for the rest of the staff, worked with the cook to figure out our dietary schedules. Taught me piano himself, too. He's a little of everything.”
Britt shook her head, smiling incredulously. “What do your parents do, anyway, run the mob?”
“Ah, no. It’s kind of a manufacturing business, nothing too big but I guess it’s lucrative.”
She pulled out her phone. “What’s it called? I wanna look it up.”
“Stanton Group.”
She dropped her phone. “The fucking— what? ” She shot me a look. “That’s run by, like… a person? I thought it was a publicly traded entity with, you know, board of directors, president, CEO, the works.”
I blinked twice. “My dad’s the president and CEO. He’s talked about the board of directors… he doesn’t really like them.” I shifted awkwardly. “Um… don’t all companies have a CEO and a board of directors?”
“Girl— nothing too big? They run half the manufacturing in the Midwest.”
“Oh.” I looked away. “Mom always said we were wealthy but not rich. ”
“Are you fucking kidding me? What, while you were riding your yacht drinking champagne?”
“Um…” I thought I’d shrivel into myself and die. “Are yachts, you know… expensive?”
She dragged a hand over her face, giving me a look I could really only describe as shellshocked. I think that meant they were expensive. Mom had complained to Andrew about the operating costs, but I’d kind of figured it wasn’t that big a deal since we didn’t use the yacht very often…
“I, uh… I didn’t really know,” I mumbled, picking at my food with my face burning.
“You sure you’re not going to feel too deprived living without all those luxuries?”
I looked away, furrowing my brow. “I’d rather be without them… I think they just drive people mad.”
“Oh, yeah?” Her tone lightened, playfully curious now. I sighed.
“It was only ever wanting a bigger house but also complaining that the house was too expensive. A better car but also complaining that maintenance was too expensive. A bigger boat but also complaining that the operating costs were too much. You’re never happy. And those are all just… things. I mean, don’t get me wrong, riding a limousine is a nice experience, but is it worth turning into that? Is it worth… losing sight of real, human things?” I shook my head, folding my hands on the table. “I feel like it corrupts you. My sister used to think the same things, but then she started working with my parents and having all these big, expensive things, and I watched it consume her until she was just like our parents. I’d rather live simply. Just have the things I need, and then focus on being happy instead of being rich.”
She grinned, holding a hand up across the table. “A-fucking-men.”
It took me half a second too long to realize she was going for a high-five, and it was just a little bit awkward when I finally met it. “I-I admit I was really… unprepared, though,” I said shyly, sipping my coffee. A simple black coffee, a rich dark flavor with a subtle tang under the surface keeping it lively. Britt leaned forward, giving me a sly smile.
“Hey. We’re here for you. Lucky you met Mads.”
“Yeah… very, very lucky. How long have you two known each other?”
“Four years? Something like that. She’d still been in her Bachelor’s program.”
I paused. “Is she a graduate student?”
“Oh, yeah. Got her BA in urban studies, and now she’s doing her MA in architecture. Wanted to work in urban planning, graduated, got a job, absolutely fucking hated it.” She laughed. “But she’s really into architecture. Wants to design a hotel one day.”
“Oh, wow.” I felt myself glowing, even if the gulf between me and Madeleine got wider with every word. “So that’s why she wanted to see the hotel, why she just likes to… go and look around inside.”
“Girl’s chasing her dreams. Just like you are.”
“Oh. Um.” I looked away. “I don’t know about that. Maybe I’m just running away from my past.”
“Well, you don’t want to run towards your past, do you?” She knocked back what must have been half her coffee in one go. Seemed like she didn’t do anything in half measures. “Besides,” she said. “It’s your dreams. You just said so yourself. You want to live more simply, more freely, more in touch with yourself. That’s as much a dream as is designing a hotel.”
I wondered what would have happened if I’d never met these two… where I might have ended up if I hadn’t worked up the guts to tap Madeleine on the shoulder asking her for help.
Sometimes the universe worked in mysterious ways. But I wasn’t one to turn down a blessing like this. I just had to find a way to repay them… someday.
“Thank you,” I said quietly, looking down at my hands, folded on the tabletop. Like a princess, Britt probably would have said. “That means a lot…”
“What’d your parents do that pushed you over the edge?”
I grimaced. “It’s a whole thing…”
She put her hands up. “Look at me for two seconds and tell me I don’t want to soak up all the drama, all the juicy gossip, all the long messy stories.”
I looked away, my heart beating faster, a sick anxious feeling in my gut. “Well… I don’t know if it was really a thing they did so much as it being the straw that broke the camel’s back. Mom and I were having the millionth argument about the same stupid thing and I just decided I couldn’t take it any longer.”
She softened. “I’m sorry that happened. I can tell you were already at your limit for a while before then.”
“Mm. Yeah…” I scratched my wrist, looking down. “I mean, it’s fair. My parents don’t want a daughter like me, so now they don’t have one.”
“A gay daughter?”
“Uh—” I fumbled, every word in the English language getting caught in a tangle in my throat at the same time. “Did I say—?”
She grinned. “I’m just taking a stab in the dark. You’re totally giving lesbian.”
“G-giving a lesbian what?”
“Am I wrong? It’s something else?”
“Um…” I felt my head spin, face burning, and I looked away, fussing with the collar on my shirt. “N-no, yeah, you’re not wrong, no. Yes. No. I’m—you know, I like girls,” I said, my voice getting more awkward and strangled with every word until I was wincing at myself. Britt laughed, eyes sparkling.
“Girl, I knew it. I had you figured out from the start. Welcome to the club.”
“A-are you—?” I couldn’t form words together anymore. Britt looked at me like I’d grown a second head.
“You thought I was straight? Jesus Christ, woman, what did I ever do to you?”
“Oh. Um. Sorry.”
“Mads and I are both bi. I’m just, like, genuinely obsessed with women, though, and Mads is more of an equal-opportunity girlfriend.”
I felt like I’d just finished a run, everything in my body collapsing in exhaustion—finally letting go of so much tension, and I sank into myself, feeling like I could cry. Britt’s face fell, and she reached across the table and put a hand on my arm.
“Hey… are you cool?”
“I’m cool,” I said, my voice wavy and thick. Britt stood up, moving quickly, and slid over to my side of the table, closing me into the corner.
“There. Nobody will see you if you cry.”
“Th-that’s really nice of you,” I said, and I folded my arms on the table and buried my face in them. “Sorry. Just… everything… catching up to me a little bit.”
She put a hand on my shoulder, gentle, comforting. “I’m sorry about your parents, Sapph. Family genuinely sucks sometimes. People genuinely suck sometimes. Uh… I’m not good at this kind of thing, but I’m sorry.”
“I was just a little worried about coming across like… like some kind of creepy predator.”
“What, for being gay? Oh, honey.” She put an arm over my back, pulling me into her side. “No way. Not in a million years. God, girl, look at you, you poor thing. You’re safe now, okay?”
“I-I don’t know how to… believe… that I am,” I said, not even sure why I was dumping all this on her when she just wanted to get me my stuff and help me out and then go home—as if I wasn’t causing enough problems already—and Britt shifted awkwardly.
“God, you’ve been through a lot. I’m not good at this.”
“I’m really sorry.” I sat up, forcing myself up, wiping my face. “I’ll be… I’ll be good. Normal.”
“No—wait right here.” She put a hand on my back and stood up, disappearing as quickly as anything. I hoped she was just giving me some space, but… I couldn’t shake the voice in the back of my head saying I’d scared her off by being annoying and what would be the odds of ever finding something like her and Madeleine ever again if I scared them off?
My resolution to be normal crumpled like wet cardboard, and I slumped into the table, not caring who was looking anymore. I didn’t cry—somehow tears just weren’t there, nothing to be found—but I hung there in a space that felt worse than crying, a gnawing empty anxiety, like I was walking on a tightrope and I could already see the ends fraying.
Britt came back slower than she’d left, sliding back in next to me, but it was only when she spoke that I realized it wasn’t Britt at all—Madeleine’s voice as she put a hand on my back.
“Hey,” she said, speaking softly, and I whipped my head up to look at her—she looked like a different person in her uniform, a black apron over a forest-green button-up, but frustratingly she was just as pretty like this, too. “No—it’s okay. You can cry.”
“I-I’m being weird.”
“We’re downtown. There’s one person being weird in any shop you go into. Today’s your lucky day to be that person.” She gave me a side-hug, holding me gently, which was—really really considerate of her, because I’d heard she wasn’t a huggy person. “Crying means you’re processing it and not holding it inside any longer. You’ve had a lot to process. It’s a good sign to start crying now.”
I buried my face in my arms again. “I’m bothering you on your shift—”
“No, Britt is bothering me on my shift,” she said lightly. “You are never a bother. She always is. The two of you average out to a normal amount of bother. Go ahead and cry.”
I sniffled, nodding against my arms. “You deserve… so many more Hilton reward points.”
She laughed. “Now you’re speaking my love language. You find yourself traveling in the future, you know what to do. But for now, we’re looking after you.”
That meant we’d still be friends in the future, too. Maybe that meant I was okay.
“Wait—where’d Britt go?” I looked up at her, and she rolled her eyes.
“She would just cause more problems, so I gave her an expired croissant and told her to go feed it to pigeons.”
“You just keep her occupied like a toddler to stop her from causing problems.”
She smiled wider. “You’ve already picked up the dynamic. See, you fit in great.”
I could do that. I could also handle being the weirdo in the café today.