Chapter 3 Symmetrical Response
Unless you’re born with a silver spoon in your mouth—or you get extremely lucky in life—you really have no idea how easy rich people have it.
And I’m not talking about, like, Uncle Kenny who made a hundred thousand dollars flipping the family property he inherited.
I’m talking about the rich, the real rich.
But the easiness kills them.
They wish they could feel real pain. Actual suffering that bears real goals and personalities and growth. That’s why they hurt the rest of us, I think. Sadism is as close as billionaires can get to humanity, physically.
I see shades of Christian Grey in Imogen Baldwin, though most of her anger is directed toward Bernard—rightfully.
Loud, defiant classical music hammers down the hallway of her dance company’s rehearsal wing, and I wait in a studio doorway for her to finish the song, watching her work.
She’s in a black leotard, dark blonde hair slicked back, white practice skirt floating around her legs as she cuts through the motions.
To anyone else, she’d look like the picture of Sugar Plum Fairy grace.
But I see her eyes dart to me in the full-length mirror as she practices her pas de deux, alone.
“Isn’t it a little early for The Nutcracker?” I ask when the song’s done.
“I’m looking forward to the person I’ll be this December.” She touches her updo with a similarly sleek smile, sounding barely out of breath. “Have you seen our performance before? Most wouldn’t recognize the song.”
“No.”
There’s always a pause the first time I don’t give someone details about myself; the annual Nutcracker day trips with Grandma and Mom, hot chocolate, velvet dresses, a family tradition before Mom passed and we couldn’t afford the tickets anymore.
Nine years of fairy tale, dancing mice, animal transformations, Clara’s tenacity breaking the Prince’s curse. I keep it to myself.
Imogen nods, clearly understanding how this is going to work. “Thank you for meeting me here. I guess I just wanted to see…” She swallows. “It’s been nice, throwing myself back into rehearsals—as nice as Swan Lake can be at the moment. I’ll send you tickets.”
“No need.” I follow her to a long, flat wooden bench in front of the mirrors. A little lumbar support would be nice for us mortals. “We’ll need to keep this brief. From here on out, we text.”
She nods again. “Like I mentioned before, I have connections with three job openings on the team—junior executive assistant, travel coordinator, and personal clothing manager. Stark-Benzin is choosy with new employees. My friends say they’ll review all new hires at the end of the season, in November, at which point you could exit if you’d rather not quit before then.
It’s a shorter season, too. They’re redesigning multiple circuits for new safety protocols.
Personally, I believe the assistant role would give you the most access, but perhaps the travel or fashion roles work better with your background. ”
Okay, this ballerina is beyond Christian Grey. American Psycho, maybe? Either way, I’m slightly impressed. She’s done a lot of the leg work I usually do. Which begs the question… “Do your friends know you’re Trojan Horsing them?”
“I haven’t mentioned it,” she sniffs.
Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve rubbed elbows with a client’s inner circle.
Sometimes friends or family catch on that my meet-cutes are a little too coincidental, or that it’s strange that a twenty-nine-year-old New Yorker is suddenly interested in their seventy-year-old uncle who lives on the West Coast, golfs to unwind, and waxes poetic about Reaganomics when he’s drunk.
Usually, though, people don’t want to notice—because people love a love story.
Especially when it’s a little unrealistic, kind of unlikely.
That’s the magic. Random meetings. Fate at a coffee shop.
Rich man, normal-ish girl. People ignore the hints that I’m faking it, the telltale clues that, hm, maybe she’s not here for the right reasons, since I’m selling an illusion people want to believe.
True love conquers all! Compromise is possible!
Love at first sight is real and your boss-father-friend-whatever is proof!
Also, see, he can’t be that bad if someone loves him, which she does!
Like lemmings over a cliff.
Imogen goes to change into recovery footwear, giving me space to click through the three job descriptions.
It’s a tough choice. The junior executive assistant role would let me stick my grubby little fingers into quite a few email inboxes, but it reports to an executive, and that seems a smidge too dangerous.
Per Stark-Benzin’s website, travel coordinator would guarantee that I’d be on the road with the team.
And it’d be the easiest, probably. A headache, but mostly plane ticket bookings and melatonin gummies.
I could literally only-one-bedroom Bernard and me.
Right at the start, when he’d need to be chivalrous and bashful.
On the other hand, personal clothing manager would be… clothes.
A scratchy feeling creeps up my throat as I read the description: Founded by the Stark brothers outside Berlin in 1992, Stark-Benzin has become synonymous with modern motorsports and technical distinction.
Our personal clothing manager joins the premiere Formula 1 racing team as a stylist to our drivers, to make visible our world-renowned aesthetic.
The position is a one-season contract outright, starting in March with the Australian Grand Prix and ending in November at S?o Paulo—though the ideal candidate would understand they may work out of our offices in Surrey (England) and New York City.
So, I’d need to sweet-talk the team into letting me travel.
But they have to be desperate for candidates this close to the starting date, right?
Plus, flirting over fashion choices, telling Bernard how good he looks in those tacky F1 team T-shirts, working in how I used to be a model and now I’m an influencer and, oh, can he please save me with his money?
And—man.
Clothes.
Being a stylist would mean I was working in fashion.
With clothes, not just wearing them. I thought I’d shelved my dream of becoming a designer, but apparently, if my sweaty palms are a sign, there’s a tiny piece of my inner child lodged somewhere, holding out hope.
I let her be the one to talk when Imogen returns.
That little girl who screamed when she got her first sewing machine and turned socks into Barbie clothes deserves this moment.
“I’ll do the personal clothing manager position. I’ll be good at that. And the timeline’s good.” I wave a super casual hand. “It’s almost March. Bet they rush the background check.”
Despite her wet hair and puffy orthopedic shoes, Imogen looks like an angel as she considers my answer.
Beautiful, with underlying terror. “Okay, that works for me.” She takes a swig from her pale-pink water bottle, nudging at the medical tape around one ankle with her other foot.
“I’ll let Mei know. She’ll be your manager. ”
“And she’ll believe that her star athlete’s jilted ex-fiancée just so happens to know the perfect hire, in the nick of time?”
Imogen flinches. “They—yes. He left me.”
“And the team would know you’re pissed about it.” I watch her fingers tremble as she caps her water bottle. “I’m sorry. I know it’s uncomfortable to talk about. But we have to get the story straight.”
She glances at the mirror when she replies. “They always liked me. They won’t expect it. I… I can say we met at fashion week a few years back, and that you mentioned wanting to become a stylist. That you have connections in the industry as an influencer.”
“That’s good.” I smile, and she looks relieved. Not a sadist, just a woman. “And how many people from the team were at your wedding?”
She pauses. “A few. But I believe I created enough of a spectacle to distract from you.”
I weigh that response. I know Bernard didn’t see me.
When he discovered Imogen’s bathroom hiding place, he had the wherewithal to wait until she was ready to meet him in the hallway outside.
Plus, I sidestepped a majority of the photographers and have been using one of my burner accounts to monitor Winston’s post-breakup social media as he embarks on his #SoloTraveling sugar scrub vacay.
The only other person I’d really talked to that night had been Faust, the driver, and that base is covered, too.
He’s on another team this season. It’s close, but not that risky.
Because it’s only a risk if I left an impression on him, which…
yeah, no. I didn’t. You’re just not memorable, kid, was how my modeling manager had put it.
You might’ve been a pretty fish in a small pond back home, but you’re in the big leagues now.
I thought we’d have luck in the commercial space, do the whole redhead-next-door thing, but … you just don’t have it. Sorry.
“There’s always a potential for crossover,” I say, though. “Someone’s sister could be working on the team now and remembers when I dumped her brother. Things like that. But it’s never happened.”
“Really?” Imogen tilts her head. “But you’re pretty.”
I smile, a little amused. It’s a compliment to her—pretty enough to make a mark. Luckily, it isn’t true. “Thank you, but it’s okay. People don’t remember me.”
“I would.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. I really don’t have time to fight her on this. “Where did we meet?”
“In… the bathroom?”
Folding my arms, I tilt my head back at her. Time for my worst-received party trick. “Sag Harbor, two years ago, at that theater by the yacht club. You asked me to help you re-zip your dress.”
A surprise breath punches out of her, and I give her time to process. Remember. Then, “Oh my God. What—how did you do that?”