26. Can I Tell You?
26
CAN I TELL YOU?
Bridger
At ten minutes till seven, I’m pacing outside the Bettencourt Gallery as the sun streaks lower, playing peekaboo behind skyscrapers on the Upper East Side.
I haven’t been able to reach Harlow all afternoon. Meetings and phone calls ate up my day. Text is entirely unsatisfying for the conversation we need to have.
When I wrote to ask What happened? her only reply was It’s all good and I’ll explain tonight .
Then, she’d added, I’ll walk to the gallery. It’s only four blocks from my home.
I’m hoping—make that fucking praying—that she’s early. I need a minute alone with her. No, more than a minute.
And I need to not see a soul I know here.
Good thing not many of the agents, producers, casting directors and writers I court are likely to be at an art gallery event.
I’m not trying to avoid them because of Harlow. I want to avoid them because our idea for the show’s backstory excites me. The love letters as a way to frame the hero is like a whole new level of market research I’m conducting with her. Only her. Story research. Clandestine research.
I don’t need a Mia type, or an analyst, or anyone else showing up.
I check my watch. Two minutes till seven. Harlow’s never late. The gallery is at the end of this ritzy stretch of Madison Avenue, populated by shoe stores with four-figure price tags, and boutiques peddling maybe eight items apiece surrounded by so much empty space it’s a real estate sin. On the corner is a chichi bar named Opal. I pass it, then stop, turn around, peering this way and that, staring at my phone, waiting.
Still waiting for her.
Then, the back of my neck tingles. Somehow, I sense her before I see her.
Is it the sound of her shoes? The memory of her scent? Can I even smell that vanilla perfume or bodywash in the midst of Manhattan rush hour with buses trundling by and garbage cans on corners, needing attention?
I don’t know the answer. But I feel her somehow, and it’s entirely disarming.
I turn around, both gratified I’m not losing my mind and gobsmacked at the sight of her walking toward me on Madison.
Her chestnut hair is clipped on one side with some kind of shiny, silver barrette. Tendrils fall from it. That’s a new look. A little boho, almost. I drink in the rest of her. She wears short ankle boots, a black leather skirt—vegan, I bet—and a silver top that slopes off one shoulder.
My mouth goes dry.
This is not office Harlow.
This is some other version of her.
And I am here for it. Which is a problem. I am here for all the versions of Harlow.
I shove aside all the reasons she’s a bad idea for me. Immediately, I go to her, since I am caught up.
But the second I reach her, a cab pulls to the curb. A quick glance inside tells me all I need to know. It’s full of art types. I don’t need anyone to hear us discussing her job.
Correction— her former job.
“Grab a drink with me?” I ask quickly before anyone spills out of the taxi.
“Of course.”
I tip my forehead to Opal. Two minutes later, we’re in a corner booth in the quiet bar, nursing iced teas.
“What happened? Why the hell did you quit?” I ask in a hush.
I don’t want to say did you quit for me. That’s presumptuous. But I’m thinking it. I’m absolutely thinking it.
“Bridger,” she says, then glances around, taking the temperature. Hardly anyone is near us. “What you said last night on the way home, about how risky this is, it stuck with me. I was foolish not to think of those things before. What this might mean especially for you. How this could hurt you and your career.”
I grit my teeth. Then grumble, “I told you not to protect me.” Though maybe it’s a hiss.
“I know,” she says, her shoulders squared like she owns what she did today, like it’s her choice only, and really, it is. “And still, I don’t want you to get hurt. I don’t want you to have to start over.”
“And I don’t want you to lose a job you love,” I say sternly since she can’t, she just can’t, give up things for me.
“But see…the internship? It’s not my dream job.” There’s an apology in her tone.
“What?” That does not compute. “You…seemed like you really wanted it. That day when you came into my office. You said it was your birthday wish.”
A soft shrug. Almost a confession unto itself. “It was…expected of me. I knew it would make… him …happy.” Her eyes look a little guilty. “And honestly, there are probably a ton more TV and film students who’d be better at it than I am. Who deserve it more. I shouldn’t have a plum internship just because of my last name.”
I disagree. “You wouldn’t have lasted if you weren’t smart and sharp,” I point out. “Don’t discount what you brought to the table. You’re one of the best.”
“Thank you. But it’s because I’m good at school. I can learn. I can figure things out.” She reaches for her glass of iced tea, runs a finger along the condensation sliding down it.
“But what will you do for work?” I ask, though the second those words come out, something occurs to me for the first time. She’s not making much as an intern. We don’t pay a ton. No one does.
“Can I tell you a secret?” she whispers.
God, tell me all your secrets. “Yes.”
“My apartment?”
“Yes?”
“It’s paid for. My mother’s royalties on her last Sweet Nothings made it possible.”
I drag a hand over the back of my neck, absorbing that. Her life is so different to mine. I had to fight for every cent growing up. My mom didn’t make much, and what she made went to booze, parties, and sequined dresses. I never had anything unless I worked for it. I went to college on scholarships and loans.
Harlow attended a top university…well, on her parents’ many, many dimes. She probably lives loan-free.
Nothing wrong with that. We’re just from different worlds. But that doesn’t bother me. She’s learned how to use her head, not simply her privilege. She’s sure as hell used her brain in the last few weeks at Lucky 21.
As I sort out my thoughts, untangling the practical aspects of her quitting from the emotional ones, I take a drink then ask, “What will you do? What do you want to do?”
“I have some time. But I think I’ve figured it out, Bridger,” she says, and my name comes out full of excitement. Like I’m the first one she’s wanted to share this realization with. And, hell, do I ever want to be the first one to hear it.
That’s why her decision makes me feel emotional too. Because I desperately want to be privy to her future plans. “Tell me,” I say, eagerly.
“Turns out, I do want to work in the art world after all. I just don’t want it to be theory or education or history. I want to curate things that make people think and feel,” she says, her green eyes bright, sparkling. All at once, she seems young again. Or rather, she seems her age. “Is that…silly?”
“God, no. I think it’s great. I truly do.” It’s a gift to discover your passion. To learn what excites you.
But it’s also a weight off my shoulders.
For a couple of hours there today, I’d thought she was giving up everything for me. And I didn’t know how to deal with that kind of gesture. Mostly because I don’t want her to make sacrifices for me. I want her to experience the world. To find her own way. “I guess I just thought you’d really wanted the internship,” I say, relaxed finally.
She dips her face, turns the glass around, then looks me in the eyes, a softness around her mouth. She holds my gaze as she says, “I did. I really did.”
My breath catches. My heart stutters. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I know why she wanted it now.
“I’m glad you did,” I admit, quietly.
Then I check my watch. We should go, but I don’t want to. Not when we’ve escaped into this quiet corner of a bar where no one’s knocking on the door, no one’s asking where we’re going.
I nod to her hair. “That’s a new look.”
She lifts her hand, touching the silver barrette like she’s just remembered it’s there. “You noticed.”
“I notice things too.”
She smiles. “Like my barrettes?”
“Yes. Like your hair and how you style it. Like your skirts. How you’re wearing something I’ve never seen you in before. Is this Art Harlow I’m seeing tonight?”
Her cheeks flush at those last few words— seeing tonight.
Yes, they fit in the context of the question, but maybe there’s a Freudian slip in there too.
“I guess I need to look more gallery chic than office chic,” she says. “Am I pulling it off?”
“It’s a good look,” I say.
“I want to look the part,” she says, then a little breathlessly, she adds, “I’m having coffee on Saturday with the MoMA curator. I met her at the Sweet Nothings party and saw her again last night. I reached out to her this afternoon.”
Damn. That’s the way to take charge of your career. “You’re a go-getter.”
“Should I have given two weeks’ notice? When I told Jules I was quitting, she said I was free to go immediately. That I didn’t even need to come back to the office.”
I’m not surprised at all. “It’s fine. Jules said this afternoon she’d found someone else to hire.” I don’t add that Jules felt threatened by Harlow in the first place. Nor do I add that Ian and I basically invented an extra intern position for his daughter. Harlow doesn’t need to know that now.
“Okay, but I feel like I’ve left you high and dry. Can I still help with Afternoon Delight ? I want to, Bridger. Can we still work on the idea for the hero’s backstory?”
“Of course,” I say, immediately since it feels like ours . “It’s our idea.”
Besides, working with her like this is safe. Ian wanted me to solve the script problem. And he’s shared story ideas with Harlow for years. The Afternoon Delight project is a natural extension of the nights I’ve spent at Harlow’s home when she was younger. Nights working with her father.
And…nope.
I can’t go there. Not now. Not with her sitting across from me looking so very lovely.
I fight off the thoughts of my partnership with her dad. I only want to think about these nights with this woman, visiting art galleries, checking out love letters.
“Besides, the show needs it,” I add, like dammit, come hell or high water, we’ll fix Afternoon Delight .
“Good. I want to help,” she says.
That gives me a plausible excuse to see her in the evenings. An excuse for Ian if he saw us or called. It’s not as if I can reveal to anyone else that we’re dealing with a story problem.
I’ll take whatever I can get with Harlow. Even with her off the team, there’s no way we can last. There’s too much still at stake. We’re an impossibility. A few nights though? Yes, please.
The server swings by and asks if we’d like a tapas menu. It’s tempting, utterly tempting to order a meal with her.
“Harlow? Are you hungry?”
“Starving,” she says.
We order a few small plates, and it feels like playing hooky as we stay a little longer and nibble on appetizers. Like we’re closing the place down, even though it’s barely past happy hour. “Tell me more about your meeting with the MoMA curator,” I say as I dig into a portobello mushroom.
“I’m going to spend the day tomorrow prepping for it. But I feel ready. I’ve been following her collections ever since I met her. She has an amazing eye,” she says. “And it turns out we both love The Frick.”
“The museum on Fifth Avenue? That used to be a house?”
“Yes! Have you been?”
“Never.”
She gasps playfully, lighting up as she tells me more about the collection, then takes a bite of her tofu satay. When she’s done, she says, “You’d like it there. Maybe someday…you can go,” she says, almost swallowing the we to say you instead.
Like she knows that we won’t happen—her and me at The Frick.
“Maybe I will,” I say, resigned, since realism is easier right now than giving in to the drumbeat in my heart.
As Harlow sets down her fork, finished with the meal, she says my name, firm but a touch desperate. “Bridger?”
“Yes?”
She glances around once more, as if she’s making sure we’re still safe. Her eyes lock with mine. “I meant it when I said I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
My heart slams painfully against my rib cage. Like it’s throwing itself at her. “I know, honey.”
“I thought about it last night. I can’t let something bad happen to you because of this.”
But something already is happening to me. She’s happening to me.
I should stop moving closer to her. Truly I should. She might have removed one jagged rock that could have sliced me. But there are plenty of others below us hidden under the raging river. There’s no way to cross these rapids safely.
There’s her father and the company, and I won’t get past those without getting cut apart.
For now, though, at least I’m not the guy who’s fucking an intern.
On that bitter thought, I push away from the table. “We should go. Because you have to experience some art.”
Her smile is magnetic. It says I understand her completely and in this moment, that’s all we have—our understanding of each other. “I do,” she says.
I pay the bill. I wish I could do this every night for her. And I suppose, I do know how to deal with the gesture she made by quitting.
I want to wrap her in my arms, kiss her for a good, long time, and take her home.
But I can’t.