1. Nell #2
"It'll ease up after the spring line. He's already talking about taking time off."
"Is he."
"He mentioned it last week. Said he was thinking about October, maybe November. Take you somewhere warm."
I watched Beckett's back disappear into the crowd with Talia.
"That sounds nice," I said.
Winston looked at me for a second longer than was comfortable. Then he changed the subject.
"So. The venue. You should have seen the back and forth we had with this place.
Beckett wanted to use the west wing for the receiving line but the building's management pushed back on the weight limits for the upper terrace.
Something about a load-bearing issue from the nineteen twenties that nobody could find the original engineering for. "
"What did he do?" I asked.
"Hired a structural engineer to certify it. Cost him fifteen thousand dollars just to prove he was right."
"Of course he did."
"He usually is," Winston said. "Right, I mean. About these things."
One minute. Two. Five.
"You drove up, didn't you?" Winston asked.
"Yes."
"He sent the plane."
"I know."
"Long drive."
"Four hours."
"You could've been here in forty minutes."
"I know," I said.
Winston nodded like that explained something. Maybe it did. Maybe he understood that I'd needed the four hours more than I'd needed the forty minutes.
My thumb found the seam again. There was a thread that didn't sit quite right, and I caught it between my nails and tested it. Just to see if it would hold.
I pulled.
It came loose.
I stared at it. A single thread, fine and white, trailing from the lining of my mother's coat. I could see where it had come free, a tiny gap in the stitching that hadn't been there this morning.
Seven minutes.
"You all right?" Winston asked.
"Fine," I said. I let the thread drop and smoothed the coat closed.
Ten minutes.
Winston kept talking. He told me about the Swiss ambassador, about the Geneva gala and how Talia had been the one to arrange the introduction. He said she was good at this, the diplomatic side, better than anyone they'd worked with. He said Beckett was lucky to have her on the team.
I wasn't listening. I was watching the thread and thinking about how far it might run if I kept pulling.
Fifteen minutes.
Beckett came back and found me exactly where he'd left me.
"Ready?" he asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Sorry about that," he said. He took my hand and led me toward the door. "Let's get you home."
The car was waiting at the curb, black and quiet, the kind of car that didn't need to announce itself. The driver opened the door and I got in. Beckett followed, and the door closed behind us.
It was the first place all night I couldn't walk out of.
He talked the whole way. His voice was easy, warm, the way it always was when he was happy about something. He told me about Talia, about how she'd connected Crowe to the Geneva gala and what that meant for the European market.
"She knows everyone," he said. "The old families, the ones who've been dressing royalty for two hundred years. She just walks in and they open doors I've been knocking on for a decade."
"That must be useful," I said.
"It's more than useful. She understands how these people think. What they value. It's not just about the clothes, Nell. It's about legacy, tradition. She gets that in a way most people don't."
I watched the city lights slide past the window.
"A royal wearing my name," he said. "Do you know what that does? Not just for the brand, but for everything we've been building."
"I can imagine."
"She's commissioning a full wardrobe. Formal, casual, travel. Everything. It's going to be in Vogue, Harper's, the European editions. We're talking about a five-year exclusive. Five years, Nell. Do you know what kind of exposure that is?"
"That's good," I said.
He looked at me. "It's more than good. It's everything. This is what I've been working toward since we started."
I didn't answer.
After a while, he noticed.
"You're quiet," he said. He shifted in his seat to face me. "What do you think? Really."
I turned the wedding ring on my finger. He'd bought it without me six years ago, picked it out himself and guessed the size. It had been loose ever since. I'd never mentioned it.
"Tradition," I said.
The word hung in the air between us.
He went still. For one beat, maybe two, I was certain he was going to apologize. I could see it in his face, the way his mouth opened just slightly, like he'd heard what she'd said to me and he was about to make it right.
Then he said, "This is exactly the kind of tradition I'm building for the Crowe name."
The floor went out from under me.
"Nell," he said, and his voice was gentle. He reached over and took my hand, the one that was turning the ring. "You're feeling left out. I get it. But you're not. You've never been."
I looked at him.
"Listen to me," he said. He shifted closer, the way he did when he was trying to make me understand something. "The house. Do you remember what it cost? Two million dollars. I built that for you. For us. You said you wanted light, you wanted to see the ridge, and I gave you that."
I had said that. Once, years ago, when we were still in the apartment above the mill and he'd asked me what I'd want if money wasn't a problem.
"I told you six years ago you never have to set foot in that building again," he said. "That offer is still open, Nell. All you have to do is take it. You could walk away tomorrow. You know that."
I looked out the window again. The city was thinning out, the buildings getting shorter, the spaces between them wider.
"And the trips," he said. "Paris, Milan, London. I send the plane for you. You've seen collections most people only read about. You've sat front row at shows people would kill to get into."
He squeezed my hand.
"You're not left out," he said. "You're the one thing in my life I don't have to worry about. Do you know what that means to me? You're the one thing I don't have to work on. Everything else is a fight, Nell. Everything. But not you. Not us."
My thumb pressed into the band of the ring. I turned it once, twice, and he was still holding my hand while I did it.
"I need you to trust me on this," he said. "Talia is business. This European launch, it's the last big piece. After this, we're set. After this, I can finally slow down."
He'd been saying that for three years.
I pulled my hand back, gently, and folded it into my lap.
"Okay," I said.
"Okay?"
"I trust you."
He sat back, satisfied. He thought he'd fixed it. He thought the problem was that I didn't understand the plan, and now I did, and we were fine.
He didn't say anything else until we got home.
When we got home, I went straight upstairs.
The house was glass and light and everything he'd said it was, built into the side of the ridge with windows that looked out over nothing but trees and sky. Two million dollars. He'd told me that number so many times I could say it in my sleep. He'd built it for me. That was what he said.
I walked through it without turning anything on. The motion sensors picked me up and lit my path, soft and automatic, the kind of system that cost more than most people made in a year. Everything worked perfectly. Nothing needed me.
In the bedroom, I turned on the light over the vanity and looked at the thread I'd pulled loose from my mother's coat.
It had run halfway down the lining.
I held it up to the light and followed the line of it, the way it had unraveled from one small pull.
The stitching was old. My mother had sewn this coat herself, thirty years ago, before the arthritis had taken her hands.
Before she'd spent three decades on someone else's floor making things she'd never own.
I set the coat down carefully on the bed.
My phone lit up on the nightstand. A calendar notification. I picked it up and read it.
Ten days, September 24-October 3. Marked tentative. A note underneath: Please pencil in what you'd like to do so we can make arrangements.
We. His office. The people who managed his time and sent his plane and made sure he got where he needed to be.
I looked at the message for a long time. I thought about Portugal. About the place I'd mentioned two years ago that he'd remembered tonight like it meant something. I thought about answering, about picking a place, about penciling myself in.
Then I set the phone down and didn't answer.