Chapter Three #2
His grin turns boyish. "We did."
"Three weeks later."
"Twenty-three days," he corrects. "Your mother wore a cream sundress she bought from a shop in Nice, and I wore the only linen shirt I owned. We were sunburned, under-dressed, and had exactly enough money left for the train fare back and a bottle of cheap champagne."
"And almond cake," I say.
"And almond cake," he agrees. "From a bakery with blue shutters. Your mother said if she was going to run off and marry an American she’d only known for three weeks, there should at least be good cake."
I laugh through the ache in my chest.
He looks at me then, warm and certain in a way that feels like a gift.
"That’s why she always wanted you to see it, honey.
Not because it was fancy. Not because it was Europe.
Because it was where her life began. Ours too.
It was the place she felt most like herself.
" He reaches for another cookie. "She used to say the Riviera taught her that beauty wasn’t frivolous. It was necessary."
I swallow hard.
"And she wanted that for you," he says. "A place where you could become more yourself, not less."
After an hour, dinner roll-call means I need to let him get back to his friends. Dinner tonight is lasagna and bingo—his favorite night of the week.
He gives me a big squeeze, and I tell him that I’ll be back tomorrow to see him.
In my car, parked in the Brookhaven lot, I sit with my hands in my lap and try to figure out what the hell I’m supposed to do now.
"You’re going to sit there and tell me he fired you?
For what?" Penelope Matthews, GM for the Hawkeyes hockey team, and someone I hold near and dear to my heart. She’s looked out for me since day one when Phil hired me.
She’s pacing her kitchen like a caged animal, gesturing wildly with a slice of pizza. "What possible reason could he give?"
"Redundant," I say flatly. I’m on her couch with a bottle of cider, watching hockey on the TV—which is somehow funny and tragic at the same time.
"Redundant?" She laughs—a harsh, bitter sound. "You do your job better than anyone on that floor. I’ve seen your organizational systems. That’s not redundancy; that’s excellence."
"Well, apparently it’s also unnecessary," I say.
"If I had an open position for you, I would hire you in a minute. You know I would."
I nod. "I know. Don’t worry about me. I’ll find something."
Her mind moves a mile per minute, and then something clicks. "You’re coming to the auction next week."
"What? No. I don’t even have a job there anymore."
"Cammy has an extra ticket. You’ll go as her date."
Cammy Wrenley. Penelope’s administrative assistant and one of my best friends.
"Penelope, I—"
"We’re going to get you a killer dress too. All the girls are meeting up this weekend to go dress shopping. You’re coming."
"You’re insane."
"Nope, but he’s going to feel insane when he realizes that he lost the best damn assistant in Seattle," she says. "We’re going to network our asses off at this event. We’ll find you something. I promise."
Three dresses don’t work.
The first is pink—pale, bridesmaid pink that makes me look like a cupcake.
The second is a blue mermaid situation that’s gorgeous but too much.
Too obvious. It looks like I’m trying to seduce someone, which is actually probably not the worst message, but it doesn’t feel right.
It feels like desperation in fabric form.
The third has so many beads that I can barely move. "You look like a disco ball," Cammy announces. "A very expensive disco ball, but still."
I’ve been in the dressing room for forty minutes. My anxiety has shifted into something numb. Maybe I’m not a dress person. Maybe I’m a jeans-and-cardigan person with paint splatters everywhere who has no business showing up at charity auctions with wealthy hockey players and billionaires.
"One more," Penelope calls from outside the curtain. "Don’t argue. Just wait."
There’s a moment of silence. Then she reappears with something dark draped over her arm.
It’s black. Sleek, sophisticated, devastatingly gorgeous.
"Try this," she says, passing it through the curtain.
I pull it on, and the world stops.
It’s a floor-length gown with a clean neckline and a back that dips deeper than anything I’ve ever worn. The fabric is Italian crepe—I can tell by the way it moves, liquid and forgiving. It fits like it was sewn directly onto my body. Every curve gets its moment.
Nothing is hidden, but nothing is desperate either.
I look like someone who doesn’t need anything from anyone. It’s a dress you wear if you want to be noticed.
I step out, and both Cammy and Penelope go absolutely quiet.
"Holy—" Cammy starts, then stops.
Penelope’s lips turn into a predatory smile. God help me.
"It’s perfect," Penelope says, her dress already selected and hanging by the front desk to be purchased.
I look at myself in the three-way mirror and don’t recognize the woman staring back.
She’s not the exhausted assistant anymore.
She’s not the terrified daughter wondering how she’ll afford her father’s care.
She’s not the girl who came in early and stayed late and swallowed a grimace every time she was dismissed.
She’s someone else entirely. Someone with purpose. Someone worth noticing.
"Someone," Penelope says quietly, meeting my eyes in the mirror, "is going to regret underestimating your value. And I better get a front row seat to see it."
I turn slowly, the fabric moving like water around my legs. "You mean Everett."
"I mean everyone," she corrects. "But especially him."
For the first time since my parents’ accident, since I lost my dream of being a painter, she’s right.
And the person who’s been underestimating myself the most is me.
The Hawkeyes charity is the best chance I have at making something work. I’ll do anything I have to do to keep my father in Brookhaven.
And I mean, anything.