Chapter 8
“Jesus Christ, Charlie, that’s brutal,” Rachel says when I’m finished. “I can’t even imagine.”
“Sage’s family had money,” I say bleakly, staring at the carpet again. “She made it clear if I tried to sue her, I’d go broke in the process. I don’t have the money for a lawyer anyway.”
“But after she died, couldn’t you have come forward?” Rachel asks, slightly apologetically. “Told the truth?”
I splay my hands on my thighs, the weight of them grounding my breath.
“I did some research. It’s apparently very hard to get any traction on stuff like this.
You know, copyright and plagiarism. Especially when you basically have no proof.
It’s not like I had a draft with documented dates.
I only have my notebook. Handwritten notes that I could have jotted down at any time.
And with Sage dead, it would feel…pointless, I guess.
Plus, I was scared of the attention that would rain down on me.
I don’t want her publisher to come after me. Or her fans.”
Rachel leans closer and asks, “And you didn’t try writing something else?”
“I couldn’t,” I admit, pain pinching the base of my spine as I think about all the uninspired stories lingering in a folder on my laptop.
“It’s like the whole thing sapped my creative energy or something.
Every time I tried, all I could see was Sage.
Maybe I would have gotten over that, but then she died, and now it feels really impossible. ”
“I heard about the accident,” Rachel whispers. “I mean, we all did. It was all over social media. What horrible irony.”
“I know.” I curl my fingers tight and slam a fist against my thigh. “She shouldn’t have gone out there alone! It was stupid. And she was drinking, they said. Celebrating and drafting the sequel. If she was sober, I wonder if…”
Rachel gives me a sad smile. “The ‘what-ifs’ will drive you mad, Charlie. It doesn’t change what happened. It was only a couple of months ago, right?”
My throat dries up. “Yeah. There was this amazing eighty-degree day in September, a few weeks after she hit the lists. She went out on Lake Michigan by herself and didn’t bother to drop anchor.
We used to jump in and swim around the boat after working on our writing.
But this time she was alone. The authorities think the wind picked up and the boat floated away.
It…it was too far for her to get to even though she’s a good swimmer. And…and she…and she…”
I break off. I can’t think about it. How alarming it must have been to realize her salvation was getting farther and farther away from her.
Drunk or not, she must have been terrified.
Sometimes I have nightmares where I’m drowning alongside her.
If I had been there, maybe she wouldn’t have died.
Or at least she wouldn’t have died alone.
Rachel’s face ripples with empathy. “Hey, hey, Charlie. What you’re feeling is normal, okay?”
“She was my friend,” I sob. A stone cracks inside my chest. I haven’t spoken openly about Sage in months.
The pain has been there, festering in a corner of my heart, hidden away where I can’t touch it or try to heal it.
“I loved her. And I hated her. She stole my dream. But I never wanted her to die.”
“No, baby, of course you didn’t.”
Rachel’s arms, warm, surprisingly strong, wrap around my shoulders.
Before I know it, she’s pulled me into her, and I’m resting against her chest. She smells of lavender and sunblock, and her braids drape heavily against my tattooed arms. My chest heaves, but the building in my lungs settles as I inhale Rachel’s scent.
“I never got closure,” I whisper. “She never got a chance to do the right thing. It all just…ended.”
“Let it go, girl. Let it get out.”
But I can’t. There is a darkness down there I can’t release. The pain is too deep; an arrow with barbs that will tear apart skin and cause more damage if it’s removed.
I pull away from Rachel, wiping my eyes frantically and clearing my throat. “I’m sorry. This is so inappropriate. I’m a stranger and a coworker and here I am spilling my sob story to you.”
Rachel cocks her head. “Don’t apologize. I wasn’t sure about you. Now I am.”
This is the last thing I expected to come out of her mouth. I dab at my eyes and try to fix my hair, which I’m sure has gotten mussed up. “You…what?”
“I don’t know if Viv told you, but Empress is more than a job. We’re like a family. And families are honest. Families share. You seemed so closed off earlier. I’m glad to see this side of you. It means you belong here.”
My heart reaches for her, an insistent pulling. Friends. Belonging. Maybe I should stop waiting for the other shoe to drop. Maybe Rachel is right and I belong on Empress, micro-account and unusual style be damned.
This could be exactly what I need to move on from Sage.
“We’re all here to level up, right?” I ask, sniffing and sitting up straighter. “Can you help me do that? I want to move away from what I’ve done before online. Reviewing books and stuff is too difficult now since… You know. I want to try something new. But I don’t know where or how to start.”
Rachel nods. “That’s what Empress is for.
And I can help, but honestly, it’s Viv who will be the biggest asset.
She’s a genius at pivoting pages. I mean, she was totally right about Ashley and me—we have so many more followers on our separate pages than our shared yoga account ever did. Let her mold you. You’ll see results.”
I’m unsure if I want to spend that much time with Viv; I get a weird feeling from her. But if that is what I need to do to turn this opportunity into a real job, to forget my past with Sage, to earn some money and start a new life, I’m willing to do it.
* * *
I don’t end up meeting Trey Bardi until the afterparty.
When Rachel and I finished our heart-to-heart, we went back upstairs and rejoined the party, sipping on “Charlie” cocktails—some kind of fizzy gin drink—and chatting in a corner until Viv dragged us out to be social.
I felt purged, empty, after telling Rachel the truth. I didn’t realize how much I was bottling up Sage and A Song of Scales and Salt until now. I didn’t feel better, necessarily, but I did feel a little lighter.
It’s a relief when the party finally dies down.
The sun disappeared long ago, and the sunset process was a huge production; people crowding on the main deck to take the perfect photo.
That was the other exhausting part of the party—every ten seconds someone was asking me to take a photo of them or positioning me to be in one of their own.
Especially Viv. She must have taken about a thousand pictures.
“For your welcome post on Empress,” she said, winking. “Plus, parties like these are always good content. People love thinking that they might get invited to an Empress soiree one day.”
Finally, people start to trickle out, ferried back to Ligia and the Keys by a squadron of rental boats Royal Yachts paid for.
“They have to be back in Miami in time for the nightlife scene,” Rachel explains to me as we stand on the main deck, watching drunk people teeter on to speedboats and whip away. “Empress was the pregame.”
“Sounds exhausting. I’m a book influencer, remember? We don’t have many yacht parties and nightclubs in Milwaukee. The bars close at 2 a.m. where I’m from.”
“This is the job.” Rachel offers a half shrug. “I’m going to do some restorative yoga before bed. You good?”
I know she’s thinking about our talk earlier, and I’m drunk enough that the harsh edges of reality have worn off. “I’m good. Thank you, Rachel.”
She smiles and floats away, leaving me alone on deck, holding a martini glass with the dregs of a drink in it.
I’m pleasantly buzzed as I watch the moon inch across the velvety sky.
The stars peep between plump indigo clouds, and I revel in the coolness of the air after the stickiness of the day.
I inhale deeply, the salt and surf mixing pleasantly with the sweetness wafting from the inside of my glass.
A voice interrupts my reverie. “Viv said you wanted to meet me. Sorry, I’ve been running around hosting. Couldn’t get a second away until now.”
I spin around, too quickly, stumbling a little. A hand shoots out and steadies my elbow. Warm and firm fingers on my skin. Maybe too warm—almost hot.
Trey Bardi stands in front of me, looking exactly like he does on his social media posts and in all the magazine photo shoots; the hot, young billionaire everyone wants a piece of.
He’s not classically handsome like Carl, Fiona’s boyfriend. Trey’s eyes are a bit too close together, his nose is sharp like a church steeple, and his frame leans toward gangly, but he’s got an undeniable charisma that makes him universally appealing. And his eyes, gray, depthless, are magnetic.
“Hey. I mean, hi. It’s nice to meet you. I’m Charlie. I guess you know that. Sorry. It’s late.” I want to prove I can be valuable to Trey in the long term. I want to plant the seeds now to harvest a real career later. Instead I’m babbling like an idiot.
Maybe I’m drunker than I thought.
“Sorry about all this,” Trey says, waving a hand at the last boat chugging away in the distance. “I told Viv to stop springing parties on people. And me. But she insists.”
“Oh, it’s fine, it was nice to meet all your…friends.”
Trey laughs. “I wouldn’t call them that.
They’re business associates.” He looks closer, peering at my face, his hands still on my arm.
“Viv said she was very impressed with your page. How you stand out among the other book influencers because of how much personality you infuse in your posts. I’m interested to see what you’ll do here. ”