The invitation
Chapter 16
SOPHIA
The taxi hasn't even come to a full stop before I jumped out the door.
I call a quick thank-you over my shoulder, barely hear the driver's response, and am already sprinting toward the building entrance.
The elevator is out of service — maintenance notice taped to the doors, cheerful little yellow sign, as if that makes it better ,which means I take the stairs.
Take them the way you take stairs when you're already ten minutes late and the guilt is sitting somewhere between your ribs and your throat.
I burst through the apartment door, kick off my shoes in one motion, greet Prince.
"I'm so sorry," I announce, slightly breathless, pulling the crumpled piece of paper from my bag and holding it up like evidence in my own defense. "I know I'm late, but... I got the measurements."
I press one hand to my ribs and try to remember how lungs work.
My aunt looks up from behind a landscape of fabric swatches, scattered sketches, and open reference books, her glasses slightly crooked, her hair escaping whatever it has been pinned into that morning, a measuring tape looped twice around her neck. She looks at me for exactly one second.
Then she grins.
"Oh, Shopi." She comes around the table with both arms already open, takes the paper from my hand, and presses a kiss to the top of my head. "Now I can really get started."
I look around the studio. Every surface claimed. Mood boards covering half the wall. Fabric samples organized in a system I can't decode.
"You're already in the middle of it," I observe.
"I have so many ideas." She straightens her hair absently, smoothing it back with one hand while her eyes move over the measurements. "Oh and Mrs. Calloway has invited us for lunch tomorrow."
I set my bag down on the windowsill.
"What?"
Us? I'm not the designer, why would she invite me?
"I sent her some preliminary concepts this afternoon and she loved them."
Clara is already studying the paper, head tilted.
"She wants to say thank you in advance. And of course it's also business as a designer you always need to understand your client's preferences in person. The details you can't get from measurements alone."
She settles back into her chair. "She was very enthusiastic."
I move to the edge of the table and try very hard not to sound the way I feel.
"Right. Of course. That makes sense. But ... why do I have to come?"
Clara looks up at me over the rim of her glasses with the patient expression of someone who has had this conversation before.
"Shopi." She reaches out and takes my hand.
"Be a little excited. It'll do you good to get out of the apartment."
She gives my hand a small pat. "And who knows maybe Lorenzo will be there too. You could talk to him. He's around your age."
She gives me a look that is equal parts innocent and entirely deliberate.
I smile back. The kind of smile that requires effort.
"Are you hungry?" she asks, already beginning to stack her papers into something resembling order. "I could cook something. Something nice."
"No, thank you, I already ate." The words are out before she finishes the sentence.
Which is not entirely true. But it is significantly more true than it would be after dinner, and I have vivid, specific memories to support that calculation .
The salmon that emerged from the oven looking like it had lived a long and difficult life, followed by the salad she seasoned with sugar instead of salt and genuinely didn't notice until the third bite,
followed by the incident with the roast she left in the oven while taking a client call and hadn't thought about again for forty minutes.
I love my aunt. But her cooking skills are on another level.
So instead of having a delicious dinner I grab my bag, say goodnight, and retreat to my room with Prince padding close behind me. I change into my pajamas, then drop into the chair at my desk, charge my phone, and look at my cat.
"Why, Prince." I slump back. "Why does the universe hate me specifically."
Prince meows once and takes the opportunity to jump directly onto my lap.
"I cannot keep hearing that name," I mutter.
"Miau."
"Thank you. At least you understand me."