Chapter 3
Elena
The subway ride back to Harlem feels longer than it actually is.
My feet are screaming in these ridiculous heels, and I’m pretty sure I’ve been glared at by every single person in this car.
Not because I did anything wrong. Just because I exist in their space, taking up room they wish I weren’t taking up—New York hospitality at its finest.
By the time I climb the three flights to Nadia’s apartment, I’m ready to collapse.
The building smells like someone’s cooking something with too much cumin, and the stairwell lighting flickers in that horror-movie way that makes you walk faster without meaning to.
I fumble with the keys, nearly drop them, and finally shove through the door into the overwhelming scent of eucalyptus and roses.
The apartment is exactly how I left it this morning.
The walls are a pale yellow that’s seen better days, scuffed and water-stained near the ceiling.
The wooden floors creak under my weight, worn smooth from decades of footsteps.
Buckets of white roses crowd the tiny kitchen counter.
Half-finished centerpieces take over the dining table that doubles as Nadia’s workspace, and there’s a pot of something that smells like marinara bubbling on the stove.
In the middle of it all, Nadia sits cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by peonies, looking completely at peace.
“You’re alive,” she says without looking up. Her hands move with practiced efficiency, trimming stems and arranging them in a low glass vase. “I was starting to wonder if Manhattan’s corporate overlords had eaten you.”
I kick off my heels “Close. One of them tried.”
“Patrick Aldera?”
“The one and only.” I collapse onto the pull-out couch, the springs groaning under my weight.
“He’s terrifying, Nadia.” I rub my eyes, feeling the exhaustion settle in. “Also, he’s handsome. “
Nadia looks up, scissors mid-air. “How handsome?”
“Six feet, maybe more. Dark hair, close-cut on the sides and a little longer on top, thick eyebrows. Tanned skin, not from a booth, from somewhere real and warm. Shoulders that fill a suit jacket without trying. Dark brown eyes. He’s like one of those Italian models you see in black and white photos, all bone structure and no expression. ”
Nadia considers this seriously. “Okay, that’s actually worse. On a bad day, it’s a problem because you can’t focus. On a good day, it’s a bigger problem because your brain starts wondering what else that man could do with that face.”
“Nadia.”
“I’m just being honest.” She tilts her head. “Is he married?”
“I have no idea.” I pause. “Probably? Men like that are always married. To someone elegant and thin who went to Yale.”
“Or divorced. Rich men divorce a lot.”
“Or divorced,” I concede. “Does it matter? He’s my boss. He’s already docked my pay, and I’ve been there two days.”
“True.” She picks up her scissors again. “Speaking of which… that arrangement. The one I made. Is it still sitting in his office?”
“On the coffee table in the reception area. Why?”
She points at me with the scissors. "It's not exactly office décor. You know that, right? He asked for sympathy flowers. That's what I made. White, green, restrained. They were meant for someone."
I think about it. "Maybe he did something truly unforgivable to his last assistant. We're talking nuclear. And the flowers were an apology. But she packed her things and left before she even saw them."
Nadia looks up from her peonies. "That's very specific."
"I'm an actress. I pay attention to subtext."
Nadia sets her scissors down. “Wait. A man does something so bad to the person working for him that he has to send apology flowers, and she leaves without even seeing them?” She gives me the warning, red-flag look, the one where she lifts an eyebrow so high her face looks like it’s caught in a spasm.
“Don’t even say it.”
I tell her what I did today. All of it. About the meeting in the wrong place. How he came back all fury and tight jaw, and I was sitting there with greasy fingers reading his first-edition Hemingway.
“He was pissed. Very. So when he said he didn’t want to be disturbed, I turned off the volume on the phones. I figured I could watch the blinking light.” I press my hand flat against my stomach. “I might have missed a few calls.”
“I know.” I look at her. “Nadia. If he did something so bad to his last assistant that he had to send her flowers, what do you think he’s going to do to me?”
She opens her mouth. Closes it. Thinks about it for a second.
“Run,” she says.
We laugh.
“Okay, but seriously.” She tilts her head. “What exactly does a corporate assistant even do all day? Like, besides the phones?”
“You need to watch something. Like a show. Don’t they have those? People in offices, scheduling things, looking efficient?”
“I could watch The Devil Wears Prada.”
“That’s fashion.”
“Suits?”
“That’s lawyers.” She waves her scissors. “Find something with an actual assistant who isn’t being chased by a serial killer and take notes.”
“That actually makes sense,” I say, more to myself than to her. “It’s like a role. I just have to learn the part. Be corporate assistant girl for eight hours a day, sneak out for auditions whenever I can, and hope he doesn’t notice how completely lost I am until I’ve sorted something else out.”
“That’s a terrible plan,” Nadia says cheerfully.
“It’s the only one I have.”
She stands, brushing pollen off her jeans, and sits next to me on the couch. “Even if your boss turns out to be the actual devil, in a very nice suit. You could be answering phones for a troll who smells like old cheese, and you’d still smile and say thank you.”
She pauses, and when she speaks again, the lightness is gone. “Elena. We are three months behind. If you lose this job, we lose the apartment. I don’t have a backup plan for that.”
I don’t say anything. There’s nothing to say.
“I have a wedding in two weeks,” she says. “It’s a big one. I’ll make money on it. But I still need to buy supplies first, and until the payment comes through, there’s almost nothing to work with.” She says it plainly, like a fact she’s already made peace with. “So. That’s where we are.”
I look at her hands, still moving through the peonies. Still working.
Nadia is four years older than me; she has been taking care of me since I was eight. She shared her clothes, her bottom bunk, and her lunch when mine ran out. She let me sleep on her couch without asking how long I’d be there. She never once made me feel like a burden.
I want, more than anything, to be the person she doesn’t have to worry about. The person she can actually count on.
We sit there in silence. I think about the nights in foster care when the lights went off, and the room went that particular shade of dark where the walls disappear. We’d lie on our beds talking in low voices about everything we were going to do.
Nadia was going to have a flower shop with her name on the door. I was going to be on a stage with lights so bright I couldn’t see past them.
We’d talk until our words got slower and started drifting, the way they do right before sleep takes you. Somehow, the dreams felt more real in those moments than anything that happened during the day.
I pull out my phone, desperate for a distraction, and open Instagram before I can stop myself. Bad idea. Terrible idea. I know it the second the app loads, but I do it anyway.
And there he is.
Ryan. My ex. Smiling in a photo posted three hours ago. He’s at some party, arm slung around a girl I don’t recognize. They’re holding drinks, looking like they’re having the time of their lives.
The caption says: “New adventures with new people.”
I want to throw my phone across the room.
“You’re looking at his Instagram again, aren’t you?” Nadia doesn’t even glance up from her arrangement.
“No.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“I know.”
“He’s an asshole. He was always an asshole. You’re better off without him.”
“I know that too.”
“Then stop stalking him on social media.”
If only.
Ryan and I were together for two years. Two years of thinking we were building something real, something that mattered. I moved in with him. I adjusted my audition schedule around his life. I convinced myself that Colorado was where I belonged because he was there.
And then one day, out of nowhere, he sat me down and told me he didn’t want a serious relationship. That he wanted to see other people. That I should too. Like it was a kindness. Like he was letting me off the hook.
The worst part is he meant it. He thought he was being honest, even decent. He expected me to understand.
I left with everything I owned packed into two suitcases. I would never let myself be reduced like that again.
I came to New York, to my sister. She was always the strong one, the one who left to build a life she chose, a life that belonged only to her.
I would do the same. I would pay my own way, make my own choices, and not need him or anyone to exist.
Nadia gets up to stir the marinara. “You hungry?”
“Starving.”
“Good.” She pulls down two bowls. “Then you won’t be criticizing my cooking skills.”
“I would never.”
We eat at the dining table, pushing aside a half-finished centerpiece to make room. Nadia twirls pasta around her fork and says, without looking up, “I need you to come with me to the flower market on Friday morning.”
“What time?”
“Four.”
“Four in the morning?”
“The good stuff goes fast.” She finally looks at me. “I need an extra pair of hands. And you’re already going to be up early for work.”
I look at Nadia, still working, still asking for nothing she doesn’t need, and there is no version of this where I say no. “Of course. I’ll be there.”
“Good.” She points her fork at me. “Wear shoes you don’t mind ruining.”
Later, after we’ve eaten and Nadia has gone back to her peonies, I pull my phone out to set an alarm for tomorrow morning. That’s when I see it. An email notification. From HR at Aldera Luxury.
My stomach drops.
I click on it, hands trembling.
Ms. Brown,
Please report to HR on the 27th floor at 10:00 AM sharp, Friday morning.
Margaret Calloway: Director of Human Resources
“Shit,” I whisper.
“What?” Nadia looks up.
“HR wants to see me this Friday.”
“That’s just orientation. Paperwork.”
“Or termination.”
Nadia gives me a look. “You’re spiraling.”
I am.