Chapter 7 Alekhine’s Gun
MELBOURNE
I sit up, my hand already holding my stomach.
I had that dream again.
Sweat’s pooled over my skin, and I peel off the hotel blankets, duvet and sheets and pillows, until I’m in the bathroom and I’ve gotten off my damp clothes and I’m only in my underwear.
Cool air wicks the moisture off my skin as I rest my palms against the cold marble vanity.
It’s always the same dream. I’m walking home from school, past a long gold cornfield, still in Illinois, and then I’m not walking.
I’m small, I’m a rabbit, I’m darting through the cornstalks, something is behind me.
My grandma’s voice, from before I could read and she had to do it for me.
All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you.
I’m thirteen, I’m a rabbit, I’m in the corn, there’s a fox on my trail.
But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner.
I twist the faucet on. Cup cold water, splash my face. Leave the soggy girl in the mirror and go to where my running clothes and shoes are packed.
Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.
The first hard step against the asphalt clears my head instantly.
Lets me breathe again. I like that feeling the most; wherever I am in the world, running on concrete always hurts a little.
Ponytail whipping around my shoulders, morning air chapping my skin, and the thump, thump, thump of my own feet, the two things I trust the most, carrying me away from that dream.
Watership Down was my grandma’s favorite book before it was mine.
Just like the name Arcadia was her name first, just like the red lipstick—applied with a wink and her mint-green Clinique compact.
“Red’s a color that terrifies men,” she’d tell me, “and that’s why we wear it.
It makes you look powerful, Cady-Cat. Like you’ve ripped someone’s heart out with your teeth. ”
My feet hit the pavement. I’m around a corner, down an empty street. Breathing in, whole again.
“I don’t think I want to hurt people,” I remember saying.
“Ah, well. That’s okay, too. You’ll be like the rabbit in the story then, yeah?
As long as you keep running, no one will ever catch you.
” Grandma grabs me around the stomach and squeezes me until I burst out giggling; I still feel it like it was yesterday.
Red lipstick kisses smudged on my cheek.
Everything’s okay. “My brilliant, beautiful girl.”
When the cancer got her, too, they came for the house.
Grandma’s restaurant, her supplies, the liquor license.
Dad’s garage, his tools, our community. All of it.
Doors were locked. Phones were shut off.
Even her funeral cost us tens of thousands.
At first, I only declined my college admission so that we could budget better, and maybe I could stay in Waterfield another year, help put the pieces back together.
Not two weeks later, I realized that if I wasn’t working a real job, my family wouldn’t be here.
And my only quick-money talent was my face. Or, well—so I thought.
In just one year, I saw how quickly the system unravels you when it wants to. I learned why Grandma wore red lipstick. And I couldn’t even tell her that I got it now. I understood.
In this world, you’re either a cat or a rabbit.
And rabbits don’t make it, not without something sharper looking out for them.
After I’ve run the dream out of my system, I’m sweaty and shaky all over again. In a good way this time. “You look chipper,” Mei says when I find her in the hotel lobby. “We haven’t scared you off from working with us, have we?”
“I have no fear. And starting a new job’s always a bit topsy-turvy.”
“That isn’t the Stark-Benzin way, but I appreciate the patience.”
Today, Mei is wearing prim gray trousers and a structured cotton button-down, and it feels like a trauma response to the past few weeks on her part.
Return to minimalist workwear. While getting to Melbourne had been a gargantuan feat—more visas, so much paperwork—it’d been easy to convince the team that I simply had to attend the Australian Grand Prix.
Now that I watch Mei unearth a sleek silver folder embossed with the word schedule and see how many filled pages she flips to get to mine, I realize she might need me here more than I needed to be here.
“Obviously, we’re in Australia early. Today’s the eighth, and the race is on the sixteenth. Your job is to get to know the drivers. Show them that you’re going to be there for them.” I hear the note behind her note: Please help me convince Faust and Christine that Stark-Benzin isn’t inept.
I won’t be the best at that job in the long run, though for now, I nod.
“I’ve taken the liberty of planning and executing their wardrobes for promo this go-around, but I’m hoping you can take over in Japan.
I’ll start forwarding the emails your way.
” Mei taps her notepad in thought. “You should spend time with them away from the cameras, when you can—particularly Faust.”
Great. “Because Christine is already beautiful and perfect and needs less help?”
“She is more in tune with fashion than he is, maybe.”
“I like her style, from what I saw online.” Basic, sporty. White turtlenecks, lots of jeans, simple.
“It works,” Mei agrees. “She’s American, so Ralph Lauren, Gap, L.L.Bean. Her fans will be younger, too, so easier on the wallet.”
“Then what about something young, too? Not that I don’t love a Boat and Tote, but like…
” I snap my fingers as I think. “Coach, Crocs, I don’t know.
American, but uber-trendy, so it’s a little tongue-in-cheek.
Get her that Coach Birkin and some shoe charms. Oh!
And Nike, oh my god. Or New Balances. Or Vans, but no checkerboard. ”
Momentarily, Mei’s pen tapping pauses. Then she scribbles down everything I listed. “That’s good.”
“Thank you.” I bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from smiling too widely. Can’t scare her off.
Mei sets the pen down when she’s done. No checkerboard is underlined three times. “Okay, now what about Faust?”
My smile drops away.
I haven’t seen Faust since our not-dinner.
I’d been there for twenty more minutes, finishing my after-dinner coffee, definitely not staring daggers at him, and he hadn’t looked my way a single time.
Not that I’m still angry about being iced out.
Clearly, his phone and plate of pot roast had been deeply engaging.
Asshole.
Frowning, Mei looks at me from over the rim of her glasses. “That’s what you’re doing today, then. Faust’s free this afternoon and evening.”
Incredible. I’d been planning on hatching my Bernard plan tonight. Faust has leveled up to ruining my day by proxy. “Yay,” I say, as convincingly excited as possible under such conditions.
The hotel Stark-Benzin has rented out is hosting a block party, and as Mei walks me to the elevators, I hear the chatter of workers buzzing around the closed-down street, setting up shop outside.
At least if I can’t sleep after an afternoon of simmering silence, I might be able to pop down for a bit of late-night DJ dancing in the dark, where I can sweat out the anxiety that’s looping around my stomach like a necktie, slinking shut.
“Check your email,” Mei says as the elevator doors close.
My phone pings before they reopen. Mei’s sent me a list of the brands Faust currently wears, along with snapshots of last season’s outfits: a sea of black jeans and team polo shirts.
Imagine a funeral at an automobile factory, then make it more boring.
Molding him into a fashion icon that makes sense with his personality (see: off-putting), while generating online buzz and, hopefully, behind-the-scenes cash flow… tricky.
Faust’s room info is at the bottom of the email, but I skip it for now, deciding on a whim to change first. Bernard is somewhere in Melbourne.
And if Faust’s idea of bonding is silently funeral-marching in the Australian sun, then I want to be appropriately cute if we bump into my target.
Ugh. I bet Faust is one of those people who likes heat.
I bet he goes to saunas for fun. Already annoyed, I drop my bag in my room’s swanky leather chair, survey the beautiful setup—luxurious hotels never get less impressive—and change into a white dress.
“Are you casually bridal enough?” I hum to myself in the mirror, turning to tweak the long poet sleeves of my lacy knee-length sundress. It’s one of those spit-take-expensive Zimmermann dresses, so flouncy and floral and feminine that you can’t really hate that it costs the same as a month’s rent.
I have other options. Moody black shorts, tiny black shirts.
A wispy polyester dress that all the other influencers are wearing this week.
Low-rise Prada work pants and a pinstripe office siren blouse.
Whichever version of Cat Cromwell that Bernard wants, he’ll get.
The fun fashion girl. The late-night partier.
The secretly sad working woman, longing to quit her job.
Please, oh please, save me from having to make my own money!
Turn this wayward influencer into your shiniest trophy wife!
Zimmermann works for all of the above, so I settle on the dress and head out the door.
Or I would, if I didn’t bump right into a human wall of muscle and—yup—black fabric.
In the tiny-hallway chaos, my nose somehow smashes against Faust’s shoulder and I yelp, my fingers flying up to my face before we’re even inches apart. “Fuck,” Faust exhales, steadying me by my shoulders as I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Cat. Sorry.”
“Am I bleeding?” I blurt out. “I feel like I’m bleeding.”