Chapter 7
Present Day
The day after my lunch with Magnolia, I arrive at the studio early and park. I dip under the awning, unlock the double doors,
and hustle inside, leaving the doors open behind me so I can bask in the sounds outside—of the city awakening, of delivery
trucks rumbling and gushing exhaust, of students ambling to campus. The smell of a bakery wide-awake a few doors down.
I sit at my desk and paw through the binders of fabric swatches stacked in wobbly constellations. Before long, Maya breezes
in.
Her purse hangs glamorously in the crook of one arm, a cardboard cup holder stacked with coffee cups in the other. The sun
behind her lights the dark, velvety curtain of hair cascading down her shoulders. She’s tall and lean, muscular in a way that
looks natural but comes from four days a week of weight training. Even if Maya looks like a Puerto Rican warrior princess,
she’s also a former computer engineer so skilled that she could hack someone’s identity and ruin their credit in less than
an hour (though she’s yet to be pressed to use her skills for evil). A true union of brains and brawn.
“Thought someone might have broken in when I walked up and saw the doors hanging wide open,” she says. “You’re early.”
I waggle my brow. “We have a new project.”
“Well, it seems I’ve come prepared.” Maya pulls a cup from the holder and sets it in front of me. “Rocket fuel. Drink.”
Maya is an associate designer, our operations manager, and a critical part of our team. She keeps the office running, the
clients soothed, and me on my toes. She’s also our resident textile expert, thanks to the garage sale sewing machine she snagged
as a tween.
I take the coffee gratefully. I was up most of the night, replaying my rapid post–fellowship tour tailspin. How we’d been
inches from the city’s prestigious prize, but I now find myself in the miserable position of having to lean on my mother for
our next big project. She sure loves to save me when it’s at my own expense.
Maya looks around. “This place just feels different without Grady.”
I nod and squeeze a closed-mouth smile.
“That’s all you got?”
“No. I am glad. It’s just—I won’t ever understand him giving up a place like this. It’d kill me. But you’re right. It feels
different.”
And it feels strange. Grady and I both knew we never had the kind of love to shatter the earth or induce a heaving bosom,
but working toward a shared, tangible goal was one thing we actually did well. When we were working, we made sense.
Still, I’m glad I kept this business as mine at heart. Grady had asked, pleaded even, for me to name it Suffolk Builds , but his argument didn’t have a toe to stand on, let alone a leg: We weren’t even officially together at the time. He was
still trying to win me back when I inked the paperwork a week before I had my college diploma in hand.
When it all started, I had zero dollars in the bank, zero clients, and zero employees. We weren’t an overnight success and instead grew steadily by accepting and excelling at small jobs until we got a shake at the bigger ones. It took time to get Bishop Builds to what it is today—an interior design firm with a reputation for having historic preservation chops. A firm that can afford the rent on this office. Sure, Grady worked here, and he was paid. But this firm? It wasn’t ever his.
I turn back to my fabric, pull a few out, and flatten the edges.
“Those for Hallie?” Maya asks.
I smile, and Maya extends her hand, then carries them over to Hallie’s nook.
Yes, my girl has her own corner of the place. After unearthing her design treasures from the bottom of my washing machine
a few too many times, I was glad to give the little magpie a better place to store them than her pockets. She has a desk,
a chair, and baskets stacked with secondhand paint chips, fabric swatches, and even small stone samples. She uses them to
style and trim the Victorian dollhouse that also sits in her nook. Her one permanent client.
I watch Maya deliver the swatches so tenderly, and I have to say something. “Maya? I want you to know... I’m really sorry
we lost out on the fellowship. I know we were all optimistic about a win. I hope you’re still feeling good about your position
here.”
One of the worst parts about losing is knowing how disappointed the rest of the team is too. We all busted our behinds to
put forward our best work.
“Come on, Boss,” she says. “I’m just finding my groove here. I can’t even imagine going back to a dark computer basement.” She scowls.
From what she’s told me about her family, interior design isn’t held in particularly high regard. Both of her parents are
academics, and computer engineering—the career she ran screaming from—was the family plan.
“There’s probably a slew of vitamin deficiencies caused by living down there during daylight hours.”
“Just call me a health nut,” Maya says.
We laugh and settle into a quiet hum of work. The clicking of keyboards, the gentle thump of a coffee mug set down, chatter
from the street flowing in through our open doors.
About an hour later I page over to my calendar to check out the rest of my day and decide to get a grasp on the full week.
I know what I’ve got scheduled for tomorrow afternoon—like I could ever forget—but still a groan pops out of me like I don’t
have a say in it.
“What’s got you in a bother over there?” Maya asks.
I spin my chair to face her. “I— we , assuming you can make it—have a meeting with my mother tomorrow afternoon. She’s got a project with the Carolina Historic
Society she’s giving us. It should be great work; it’s just...”
“It’s just that it’s from your mother,” Maya says.
“Precisely.”
“Sounds uncharacteristically generous of her,” Maya says. “No offense.”
“Oh, you’re absolutely right. She made it quite clear she’d be as good as joining the design team.”
“Do we have a plan for that?” Maya lets out a nervous chuckle.
I nod slowly, like I’m thinking, but it’s mostly the same realization settling inside me. “If there’s one thing I know how
to do, it’s work my mother. We’ll have to bend to her a little, but in the end I think we can get away with doing the project
our way. Whatever we do, we’ll never confront her. She hates that, and all it ever does is make her dig her heels in.”
“So your mother trained you in psychological warfare, is what you’re saying.” Maya sips her coffee.
“It’s a basic requirement for any debutante, didn’t you know?” I laugh, even though it’s a true statement all the way through.
Maya crosses the office to the coffeepot and begins to refill her mug. “Speaking of debutantes, a jobsite definitely doesn’t
sound like Magnolia’s scene.”
I nod quickly. “That was going to be my second point. I’m not sure she’s ever been ‘hands-on,’ as she described it, with one
of these projects before, so I think before long the dust and dirt will scare her off.”
Maya shrugs. “Sounds like a problem we can work.” She freezes, then pulls in a quick breath. “Also, I have an itty-bitty piece
of news about how we might get the firm back on its feet.”
Maya grins like she’s up to the right kind of trouble as she sits back at her desk, crosses her legs, and looks right at me.
I take off my reading glasses. “Go on.”
A crowd of chatty tourists breezes by our open front doors.
Maya lowers her voice. “This is top-secret info. All right, maybe not that top secret, but it feels like it, saying it out
loud. I didn’t want to mention it until I knew—for certain—it was legitimate, and from what I can tell based on the message
I just got, it is.”
I feel my shoulders inching toward my earlobes. “Maya, say it!”
“I got a message to our Instagram account from a recruiter with Exquisite Interiors TV,” Maya whisper-screams. “They’re looking
to pitch new shows from the Southeast region, and they love the work we’ve posted online. I mean, the timing is perfect, right?
Like maybe this is the reason for all those random acts of chaos on the fellowship tour day.”
My shoulders drop, and my hands wander to the throw pillow beside me. “Oh. Well, that’s cool.”
“Oh, ‘that’s cool’? What do you mean? This could be us! This could be our new thing, our fresh start.”
“It sounds like a one-in-a-million shot, Maya. But I do love the enthusiasm.”
A network TV gig is a lovely idea. If I’m honest, I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be a designer on one of those
shows. All the female hosts seem so talented and at the top of their game. Their installs seem to flow so naturally from their
minds into the physical space.
“That’s not a no, right?” Maya asks. “What harm comes from talking to them?”
Of course I would love to be the next new designer on Exquisite Interiors TV, especially if I’m not trying to force myself
into an old-guard-shaped design space. Especially if I can create the designs we’re loved for—the reason customers pick us
over another group. There’s just a tiny snag in my hopefulness, left over from the fellowship flop, that has me feeling gun-shy.
“There’s no harm in following up,” I say. “You’re right. I’ll loop in Fitz—maybe it’ll spur him to come back home. He and
I need to talk about the Magnolia project anyhow. But otherwise, let’s just keep this between us for now, ok? I don’t want
to get anyone’s hopes up about this after what happened with the fellowship.” Maybe my own hopes most of all.
Maya grins. “I’m hoping they message back soon, but it sounds like they’re inviting us to audition. It’s invite-only, apparently,
because they don’t want a deluge of amateur tapes.”
It certainly wouldn’t be the worst thing. Exquisite Interiors would mean work and publicity, which would mean even more profits
for the studio. I wouldn’t mind having our jobs adored by the general public either.
“You have my blessing,” I say to Maya. I reach over and squeeze her hands briefly. “To keep discussing . Keep me updated.”
Maya lifts her fists in tiny pumps. “I have a good feeling about this.”
I turn back to my desk and smile to myself, and I feel a little seed of hope plant itself inside my heart. I feel it taking
root because this would be a way out beyond Magnolia Bishop. If we could get the network TV deal, neither I nor Bishop Builds
would ever again have to rely on my mother for handouts.
It really could be the answer to all my prayers.