11. Emma #3
“I was furious when they refused that payment. I thought some rich collector had decided an anonymous artist wasn’t worth paying because he could get away with it. Then I saw the B.M. collection and thought maybe they genuinely believed someone was trying to pass off a copy.”
She tears another piece of bread.
“And then you show up in Pinehaven, and suddenly Villain One wants you working for him.”
My shoulders stiffen. “It is complicated.”
“You had another job. A perfectly respectable boss. A possible move to Houston. And instead you chose to become a housekeeper for Villain One.”
“Again. Complicated.”
“A housekeeper who wears fifty-thousand-dollar dresses.”
“I did not buy the dress. And what do you mean fifty?”
“I know. Mine had almost the same price tag. Danny sent it for one of his ridiculous events, and I looked up the designer because I thought surely I had misread the label.”
“And?”
“I had to lie down.”
I laugh.
“They buy clothes like printer paper. Neither one understands money.” She takes a violent bite of biscuit. “Arrogant, selfish assholes.”
“They weren’t always like that.” The words leave before I think about them.
Sofia stills. The knife lowers.
“No?”
I look down at my coffee.
“Alex used to be the person everyone called when something went wrong. A roof leaking. A porch collapsing. A family that couldn’t afford the estimate.”
“What did he do?”
“Fixed it.”
“For free?”
“Sometimes. Other times he took the job at a loss and told his father he had estimated it badly.”
Sofia studies me.
“So the man who sends a private car because he doesn’t trust taxis used to lie to his father so strangers could keep their roofs?”
“Yes.” A smile tries to form before I can stop it.
“He hated anyone making a fuss about it. If someone thanked him too much, he’d find an excuse to leave.”
Sofia watches my face instead of the story.
“And Danny?”
My stomach twists.
“The sweetest boy.”
Her eyebrows rise.
“Danny Hartley.”
“Yes.”
“The man has ‘off limits’ written across his forehead.”
“He wasn’t like that.”
I can still see him the way he was.
Sixteen and impossible to keep still. Baseball glove under one arm. Hair always needing a cut. Girls following him through school corridors while he looked past them toward whichever field or court held his attention.
“He had scouts driving hours to watch him play. Everyone knew he was going somewhere. He was popular without trying, and he was kind without thinking about it. Girls adored him.”
“He noticed?”
“When they blocked his view of the baseball field.”
Sofia snorts.
“He smiled at everyone,” I continue. “He never made anyone feel like they were bothering him. Never made a girl guess whether she was welcome near him.”
Her amusement fades. “What happened?”
Guilt rises before I can stop it. My thumbnail catches the skin beside another finger. I hide both hands beneath the table.
“I happened.”
Sofia removes her sunglasses. “Emma.”
“Don’t ask me more.”
Her expression changes.
“I’m the reason for all their heartache,” I say. “Whatever they are now, they have reasons to be angry with me.”
“I don’t believe that for a second.”
“You don’t know what happened.”
“I know you.”
“That isn’t enough.”
“For me it is.”
The certainty in her voice hurts almost as much as Alex’s doubt. Her stomach chooses that moment to growl loudly enough that the couple at the next table glances over.
Sofia presses both hands over it.
“Save me.”
The tension cracks.
I reach for the menu.
“Let’s order before your stomach calls the National Guard.”
She opens the menu, but she does not look down.
The line between her brows remains.
I know that expression.
Sofia worries by investigating. Questions become searches, searches become rabbit holes, and rabbit holes become entire weekends spent chasing things no one asked her to find.
The last thing I need is Sofia digging into my past. That particular minefield is better left alone. Thankfully, the waiter arrives.
Sofia orders enough food for a family of four and hands over the menu with no shame. Once he leaves, she pushes her sunglasses onto her head.
“How long are you here?”
“We leave tonight. Danny still has work in New York, so Alex is handling everything back in Texas.”
Her face falls. “Tonight?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a tragedy. I was going to show you actual New York instead of whatever billionaire-approved itinerary Villain One has for you.”
“You mean pizza in the middle of the night and getting on the subway in the wrong direction?”
“That happened once.”
“Twice.”
“The second time was just me exploring.”
“Sure.”
She smiles, then starts shredding the paper wrapper from her straw. “I really wish you could stay a few more days. There probably won’t be many more chances, anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m closing up the apartment.”
My hand stops around the coffee cup. “You’re serious?”
“Yep.”
“So you’re really moving back?”
“I have your old job now. Might as well.”
“That cannot be why.”
Her fingers still on the wrapper. I know Sofia too well.
“You fought your whole family to stay in New York.”
“I know.”
“You loved it here.”
“I did. I still do.”
“Then where is this coming from?”
She leans back and looks through the window.
“I’m tired.”
The answer is so simple I do not interrupt.
“I finish a commission and dread the next blank canvas. Clients stand behind me explaining color as if I waited my whole life for their beige revelation.”
I laugh.
“I’m serious. I wanted people to pay for my work because I thought that would mean I had made it. Then people started paying, and suddenly every canvas belonged to someone else before I even touched it.”
She rubs her thumb over a smear of butter left on her plate.
“Commissions suck the soul out of me. I finish one and don’t want to look at paint for days. I want to change my mind halfway through something. Ruin it. Fix it. Spend three weeks on a piece nobody ordered and maybe never sell it.”
“You want freedom.”
“Yes.”
“And you think you can find that back home?”
“I think I can breathe there.” She gives me a crooked smile. “Creating might follow the breathing.”
The studio comes back to me before I can stop it: scarred floorboards, salvaged windows positioned to catch the northern light, shelves Alex measured to my height, brushes crowded into jars, and the sharp scent of linseed oil mixed with fresh sawdust. Canvases leaned wherever I abandoned them because no one cared about the mess.
I can still see Alex standing in the doorway, watching my face after he showed me what he had built, a room where I could paint whatever I wanted, for no client and no commission, with nothing to explain to anyone.
My unfinished portrait of him had stood near the windows, one eye painted and the other still sketched in pencil.
The wanting hits so hard my fingers curl into the tablecloth.
I want those floorboards beneath my bare feet again, paint drying on my hands, sunlight falling across the canvases and silence beneath the rafters.
But every time I picture the room, Alex is there too, measuring the shelves, filling the doorway, smiling when I first stepped inside. For ten years, I told myself I missed that studio. It was never just the studio I was missing.
“I understand,” I say.
Sofia studies me.
“I had a place like that once.”
Her expression softens.
“I’d give anything to get it back.”
She does not ask where or who built it, and that is another thing I love about her.
Sofia is curious about everything and has no problem digging when she thinks there is something worth finding, but she also knows when a question stops being interesting and starts being personal.
Once she realizes I do not want to open that door, she leaves it alone.
She reaches across and squeezes my wrist once.
“When I’m back in Texas, I’ll visit you in Dallas.”
“I’d like that.”
“Full day. You, me, questionable street food and absolutely no billionaires.”
“That last part may be difficult.”
“I will create a perimeter.”
“You?”
“I know people.”
“You know artists.”
“Same thing, but poorer.”
I laugh.
“Deal.”
“Good.” She rubs her hands together as our plates approach. “Now let’s dig into this amazing food. I’m starving.”
The waiter sets down omelets, crisp potatoes, berries and buttered toast.
Sofia steals one of my potatoes before touching her own plate.
“Food thief.”
“Survivor.”
I steal it back.
She gasps as though I have betrayed sacred ritual.
The potato cracks between my teeth, crisp outside and soft in the center. Espresso cuts through the butter. Sofia narrates every bite as though she is filming a food documentary no one asked for.
For a little while, I let myself enjoy it. My best friend across the table. Warm food. Mid morning sunlight through the windows.
Soon, I’ll be back in Texas, and I have no idea which version of Alex will be waiting for me there. So I take this small pocket of peace for what it is and tuck it away somewhere safe, knowing I may need it later.