15. Celebrity
CELEbrITY
The apartment is seven hundred square feet of nothing.
Third floor walkup in a neighborhood where the streetlights flicker like they're auditioning for a horror film.
I keep the drafting table pushed against the window because the overhead fixture buzzes at a frequency that makes my teeth itch, and natural light is free.
Natural light is about the only thing that's free.
I hunch over the AutoCAD file for a strip mall renovation in Jersey City.
A strip mall. Three storefronts, a nail salon anchor, and a parking lot that needs to accommodate exactly forty-two cars per the township variance.
The client—a man named Gus who owns the property and communicates exclusively through his nephew—wants "something modern but not too modern" and has a budget that wouldn't cover the lobby tile I specified for the Elkwood.
Don't think about the Elkwood.
My cursor drags a wall segment into alignment.
The screen's backlight catches the dark circles under my eyes in the reflection, and I look away.
I've been at this for six hours. My lower back screams from the secondhand office chair I found on the curb last Tuesday—one wheel missing, replaced with a folded wad of cardboard that slides on the hardwood every time I shift my weight.
The freelance platform takes twenty percent.
Gus's nephew negotiated my rate down to forty-eight dollars an hour, which sounded reasonable until I calculated the actual scope.
I'm redesigning a facade, drafting structural modifications for a load-bearing wall removal, producing permit-ready construction documents, and coordinating with a mechanical engineer who hasn't returned my email in four days.
At forty-eight an hour, after the platform cut, I'm pulling maybe thirty-one thousand annualized if I work fifty-hour weeks and never lose a client.
I was making one-eighteen at Whitfield Boyd. Before they destroyed me.
My phone buzzes. I grab it too fast—habit from the old days, when a 2 AM text meant Torrance had a revision or a question or?—
Don't.
It's Gus's nephew. Hey can u make the entrance wider my uncle wants double doors now. Also he says the columns r ugly.
The columns are structural, Kevin. They hold up the building.
I type back a measured, professional response explaining that the columns are load-bearing and cannot be removed without significant engineering modifications that exceed his uncle's current budget.
I use small words. I attach a diagram. I add a smiley face emoji because Kevin responds better to smiley face emojis, and right now Kevin is my entire income.
Send.
I stand up. Walk to the kitchen, which is four steps from the drafting table because everything in this apartment is four steps from everything else.
Open the fridge. Half a rotisserie chicken from two days ago.
A bag of spinach turning liquid at the edges.
Sriracha. I grab the chicken, eat a cold strip standing over the sink, and wash it down with tap water from a mug that says WORLD'S BEST ARCHITECT—a graduation gift from my mother that used to be funny.
My portfolio is a graveyard. Whitfield Boyd claimed ownership of every project I touched during my employment, which is standard in most architecture contracts and which I signed without blinking at twenty-three because I was so goddamn grateful to have the job.
The Elkwood renderings, the lobby redesign, the penthouse—all of it technically lives on their servers under their name. My name appears nowhere.
So I'm rebuilding. Spec projects. Conceptual designs for buildings that don't exist and nobody asked for.
I spend my evenings after the strip mall work sketching residential towers and cultural centers and transit hubs, pouring myself into imaginary commissions because the real ones won't come.
Not with the whisper network Whitfield Boyd activated.
I've applied to eleven firms since the firing.
Three ghosted me. Five sent polite rejections.
Two told me, off the record, through back channels, through friends of friends, that my name came up flagged.
Intellectual property concerns. Difficult to manage. Not a team player.
Eight years of education. Four years of grinding. A portfolio that should speak for itself, silenced because three old men in a glass office decided I was easier to crush than to credit.
I sit back down. Drag another wall segment. Save the file. Check the clock—9:47 PM. I should sleep. I won't. My brain doesn't shut off anymore, not the way it used to when I'd collapse facedown on the table at Whitfield Boyd and wake up with graph paper creases on my cheek.
Now I just lie in the dark and redesign buildings in my head. Every ceiling height, every sight line, every structural load path. Buildings nobody will ever see.
The Elkwood is out there right now. Forty floors up and climbing. I checked the webcam feed once, three weeks ago, from this same particleboard desk. The crane swings a steel beam into place. Closed the browser. Haven't looked since.
My building. My bones. Someone else's name.
I bring the strip mall file back up and keep working.
The envelope arrives on a Thursday.
Not an email. Not a text from Kevin's uncle. A physical envelope, heavy cream stock, delivered by a courier in a black town car who double-parks on my street and buzzes my apartment like he's got somewhere important to be. Which, fair. This neighborhood doesn't exactly scream "linger."
I sign for it at the door in my pajama shorts and a bonnet, because it's 8 AM and I wasn't expecting anyone, least of all a man in an ironed suit holding a leather folio like he's serving the Pope.
"Celebrity Nash?"
"That's me."
He hands me the folio, nods once, and walks back to the car without another word. The engine purrs away before I've even closed the door.
I carry it to the table. Set it down next to the strip mall file like a bomb I need to disarm carefully. The folio is embossed—no logo, just a monogram. T.E. in clean, architectural sans-serif. My stomach drops straight through the floor.
Inside: a single sheet of paper. Same heavy cream stock. The letterhead reads ELKWOOD DEVELOPMENT GROUP, and the address is the construction site on West 57th.
Ms. Nash,
Your presence is formally requested at The Elkwood construction site, 441 West 57th Street, on Friday, October 11th at 10:00 AM. Please present this letter at the security gate for site access clearance.
Professional attire and hard-soled shoes required. A hard hat will be provided.
Regards,
Office of Torrance Elkwood
No explanation. No context. No subject line, no case number, no cc'd attorneys. Just a command dressed up in nice paper.
I read it three more times, standing barefoot on cold hardwood, the bonnet slipping sideways on my head.
Then I call Yolanda.
My cousin picks up on the second ring because Yolanda always picks up on the second ring. First ring means desperate. Third ring means she's deciding whether to answer. Second ring means she was already holding the phone.
"Girl."
"Yo, I need you to think with me for a second."
"It's eight in the morning, Celeb."
"I got a summons."
Silence. Then: "From who."
"Elkwood Development."
More silence. I hear her set something down—a mug, maybe. The clink of ceramic on granite.
"A summons like a lawsuit summons?"
"That's what I'm trying to figure out." I hold the paper up to the window light like there might be invisible ink. "It just says show up at the site Friday at ten. That's it. No lawyers cc'd, no legal language, nothing about IP or royalties or?—"
"That's how they get you. They make it look casual and then you walk in and there's six attorneys sitting around a table."
"That's what I'm thinking."
"So don't go."
I look at the paper again. The monogram. T.E. The address I know by heart because I drew every square inch of what sits on that lot.
"What if it's a formal severance? Torrance contracted me directly to Elkwood Development before the IP dispute blew up.
" I chew the inside of my cheek. "If he wants me permanently off the project so Whitfield Boyd can take over the penthouse, he needs me to sign a release and an NDA.
They can't strip my name without my signature. "
"So you think they're bringing you in to strip it."
"What else would it be?"
Yolanda breathes out slow. "Celeb. You know what else it could be."
I don't answer.
"It could be him."
"It's from his office. That doesn't mean he'll be there."
"Baby. The man sent a courier to your third-floor walkup in Bed-Stuy. He knows where you live. That's not a legal department move. That's a Torrance move."
She's right and I hate that she's right. The legal department would've emailed a PDF and cc'd fourteen people. This—the cream stock, the monogram, the town car—this is deliberate. This is specific. This is a man who knows exactly what he's doing and does nothing by accident.
"I can't afford a lawyer if they're coming for the royalties," I say, and the admission burns on the way out. "I'm designing a strip mall, Yo. A strip mall. The client's nephew sends me text messages in all lowercase asking me to remove structural columns because his uncle thinks they're ugly."
"I know."
"If they take the consultation fee, I'm done. That's my safety net. That's the last piece of proof that I was ever on that project."
"Then go. But go armored. Wear something that makes them remember who the hell you are. Don't let them see you shaking."
I look down at my pajama shorts. The fraying hem. The bonnet sliding off my twist-out.
"And Celeb?"
"Yeah."
"If he's there—if it's him—you don't owe that man a single word. You hear me? Not one. You walk in, you get the information, and you walk out. You are not his good girl anymore."
"I hear you."
"Friday at ten?"
"Friday at ten."
"I'll be parked on the block. You text me every fifteen minutes or I'm coming in with mace and a attitude."
"Love you, Yo."