Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Harper

I took the stairs up two at a time, pushing out into floor 31 and making a sharp right. This company had liquid cash flow out the nose, but they still never found a budget for a designer, from the looks of things—the tacky carpet running the floor of the office hall looked like it might have been there since the 90s, a kind of faded baby-blue that didn’t do any favors with the eggshell walls.

I knocked at Susanna’s door, and her voice called out lightly from inside.

“Harper? Come in.”

I pushed the door open as she rose from her desk inside, reaching over and taking the folder I handed her. “Here’s everything. Sorry it took a minute.”

“Please.” She waved me off, flicking through the folder. She was a woman in her late forties, dark hair in tight curls, a loose shirt with a paisley pattern in a vibrant red that brought out the warm tones in her medium skin tone. She had a thing for paisley patterns. I’d always managed not to think about it too much. “When I say end of day, I just mean I want it there when I get to the office next. You’re always punctual.”

I hadn’t stopped moving for one second since I got to New York. Just… felt right this way. Felt right for being me, being Harper. “So, looks good?”

“Looks good to me, but I’m not the one evaluating it.” She snapped the folder shut, and she closed her laptop. “Free tonight?”

I paused. “Er… why?”

She smiled. “I’m attending an event we’re catering for. Mayor’s there, schmoozing with some deep-pocket corporate types. Ostensibly it’s a political action summit, something or other about addressing crime in the city, but… well, you know how these things are. You’ve been so busy in the office and the bakeries that you haven’t touched ground in a lot of the actual events we do, and it might get you some good perspective to see some of our higher-profile events in action.”

I didn’t even hesitate. I’d had plans for the evening, but only in the way I did every evening—plans for the sake of having plans. Keeping myself moving. Any one plan was interchangeable with any other. “Sure, I’m game. Dress code?”

“The suit will fit in perfectly. Unless you’d rather get changed.”

“No, this is good. Are we heading straight there, then?”

She waved the folder in the air as she headed for the door, flicking off the lights on her way out. “Handing this over to Solomon and we’re on our way. Make no mistake—the mayor is obviously the most high-profile figure there, but talking to him won’t be interesting.”

I fell in line beside her as we walked through the halls, moving quickly. New Yorkers were all like that. No wonder Aria had a stride that always left us in the dust. “He’s that dull?”

“Too popular. Rule of thumb, Harper,” she said, gesturing with the folder at me. “In an event, you don’t look for the person with the highest standing. You look for the person with the highest ratio of standing to attention. Find the guy who’s important but everybody’s overlooking him, and make him feel important. Then the world is yours.”

“And… any idea who that is?”

“Jessica Perler, an operations executive for a construction conglomerate for the tri-state area. Internal hire, pretty recent, so she’s not exactly coming in with a strong personal network here. She’ll probably be grateful to be flattered. Solomon,” she called, pausing at Solomon Forrester’s office, leaning inside and waving the folder.

“Designs statement?” he said, standing up and stepping around the two he shared his office with, leaning in the doorframe as he took the folder. “Brilliant. Harper’s work?”

I nodded. “Compiling and reviewing, anyway.”

He smiled lightly at me. “And now I see Holcomb’s whisking you away. Rubbing elbows with the mayor?”

“Susanna tells me I should be rubbing elbows with someone less popular… preying on rich people’s insecurities, I think is what she’s saying.”

“You don’t need to put it like that,” Susanna laughed. Solomon set the folder down with a deep, rich laugh. He was a big guy, six two with dark skin and a killer fashion sense, and he’d always been clear about his interest in me… respectfully so, and he was an attractive man, but I just felt nothing.

I think I’d felt nothing from anyone this whole time. There was just work—blessed work.

“Well,” Solomon said, “I’m sure you could get anyone at that party to like you, Harper.”

“Just such a natural at charming people, I know,” I said.

“Hey. Pick out a person in this office who doesn’t like you. Or the central bakery, for that matter. I defy you.”

“Veronica?”

He waved me off. “Veronica’s never liked anyone a day in her life. She doesn’t count. All right, Harper, skedaddle. Any chance I can catch you this weekend in the Upper East Side?”

“I’ll be there.” Not because I was so eager to see people, but… just… just to fill the schedule. To keep me moving.

Susanna led me a ways down the hall before she said, “Normally people wait until the boss isn’t looking to flirt with their coworkers.”

“Solomon doesn’t care what people normally do, I don’t think. Marches to the beat of his own drum.”

She quirked a smile at me. “Very skillful tacit rejection, Harper.”

I shrugged, just keeping my eyes ahead. “He’s nice. But I’ve only just started here… I’m just focusing on the job.”

“It’s been almost half a year.”

I didn’t say anything, just turning it over in my head. Half a year. The words sounded so surreal. It felt like half a year passed in my first week here—waking up alone in a tiny apartment, nobody there climbing in through my window or moving around in my kitchen. Who would have thought I’d miss getting my house broken into?

Those last two weeks in Bayview, after I’d copied my keys for Paisley, she’d barely been in her own house. She fell asleep in my bed almost every night, and for the first week, I moved about quietly in the mornings, getting ready for my early start in the bakery. By the second week, I’d realized I could start a rock band and not wake up Paisley, but there had still been a kind of sacred silence waking up next to her and taking a moment to just… look at her, eyes shut, breathing slowly, before I got up.

And inevitably, I’d be halfway through my shift before Paisley would come down from upstairs, close the bakery for me to have a lunch break, and drag me back upstairs or out somewhere to have lunch. Breakfast for her. Bit odd making it work between someone who woke up at four and someone who woke up at eleven, but I wouldn’t have changed a thing.

Lindsay would have loved it.

Mornings in New York were torturous, especially since I still woke up at four and work didn’t start until nine. I was almost tempted to move somewhere cheaper in Jersey City and just take an hour commute, but… a long commute would have given me time to think.

So instead, I’d just packed everything I could into my day-to-day. And so the first week had lasted half a year, and the next half a year had lasted about a week. Funny how things worked.

“That blow your mind?” Susanna said, stepping into the elevator alongside me. “Time moves faster in the Big Apple.”

“No kidding.”

“That town you moved from, it was a small place, right? I think you said you ran that bakery yourself.”

“Yeah.” My voice came out colder than I meant, and I shifted my posture, watching the floor number go down. “So, tell me about the party.”

She raised her eyebrows, sensing the tension in my posture, the abruptness I steered away from the topic with, but she didn’t push it. Thank god. Bayview didn’t exist anymore. That was how it had to be.

The day melted into a slurry of moving around, walking with Susanna and arriving together at the event space that had a gorgeous 14th-story view of Manhattan and an eye for luxury in the décor, dressed up in Gilded Era stylings that were just on the right side of tasteful versus tacky, balanced out with warm neutrals and a few modern touches. Our display was exactly as I’d helped David Fontaine finish up the design for, an artful array of elegant dishes and pastries, classics accented with a few unusual standouts, taking heavy inspiration from the Gilded Era style to create something that looked luxurious, almost sinfully abundant without veering into overt maximalism.

Susanna was right—Jessica Perler wasn’t as connected as everyone else and was all too receptive to me and Susanna approaching her to talk about the party and how she was enjoying it, and I saw Susanna’s logic in bringing me along. Two against one meant Jessica was pulled into our dynamic instead of it being Susanna’s against hers, and bringing a new hire helped make it less intimidating at the same time, especially matching her presence as a new hire into the executive suite. She opened up before long, and it was a good conversation, getting to know her. Ended up linking us into a couple good chats with some other bigwigs in construction and infrastructure there, including a rail executive who was so friendly and charming you’d forget he was there basically to bribe the mayor into granting lucrative kickbacks.

Susanna left with the event finishing, but I stayed behind to help our crew clean up the catering, just for something to do, somewhere to be, someone to talk to. They weren’t bad in terms of ops either—the staff got the juiciest scoops on what the executives were like when no one was looking, because the executives considered staff to be no one. Soured my feelings on Perler a little when poor Minh, whose English was good but not fluent, mentioned how snappy she’d gotten over her drink.

But it wasn’t about liking people. It was about knowing them. Networking, I guess. Just for something to do—an objective to have. Liking people was inevitable, but I was in no rush to get there—it was just bound to lead to trouble.

I walked with Tasha to make sure she got to the subway safe, and it was only twenty minutes later, pushing in through the door of my apartment, that I was finally out of things to distract myself with. That it was quiet. Ten o’clock already so it was probably time for bed, but… the silence in my apartment was oppressive.

“Home sweet home,” I called out into the empty room, stripping off my suit jacket, hanging it up in the closet. My shoes came next, then the tie, and then once the shirt was gone, I took off the necklace—a simple pearl string necklace, no adornments except a silver tag on the clasp with a P and an H.

Was it a bit strange to wear a necklace underneath a shirt with a tie? Yeah, probably. But, well… that was what a parting gift did to you. Wear it and remember me, she’d said, through eyes shimmering with tears, and it was the one image I couldn’t get out of my head—the last bit of Bayview I could never erase from my memory.

I didn’t know Paisley anymore. But I still found myself putting the thing on every morning.

Once I was changed into something comfier, the necklace placed in its box on my nightstand, I heated up leftovers and sat by the tiny square window, looking out at the city as I poked my food.

A whole meticulously crafted ritual. But there were chinks in the armor, spots like this where the thoughts bled through, and the city was so… big, so dense, so full of life.

And it was so empty. And so quiet.

Nothing to it. I had the thoughts every time I stopped and looked around. Just another day in New York City. Work was good today. Work would be good tomorrow. I was on the way up.

I finished my food. Took a quick rinse, put on pajamas, kept my back to the mirror as I brushed my teeth, took a half a melatonin tablet, and I fell into bed, staring at the faint outlines of the building opposite mine through the curtain, squares of light from people staying up late. People living.

My phone buzzed. I picked it up as an automatic reflex—if someone wanted work done, I really wanted to be on it right now. My thoughts were wandering more than usual.

It was the exact opposite of what I needed right now, though. An app I hadn’t used in years and that I’d forgotten I still had on my phone, with a message from a screen name it took me a second to place.

Annabel. Of all the people.

Hey, if you can see this. I know you’ve tried to erase us from your life, but I thought you deserved to know.

My stomach turned. I’d gotten a new number, new email, wiped everything I could from my life—just trying to start clean—but I’d forgotten about the messaging app Annabel and I had used back while we were dating. You deserve to know… it felt sickly familiar, the heavy wording.

I couldn’t do this right now—couldn’t do this ever. I was supposed to disappear. But another message came in while I was watching the notification bar.

Paisley’s in the hospital. Hasn’t been well. I know you’re busy in New York, but I think it would do her good for you to see her again.

I strained to breathe, clutching the phone tighter. The room… I think it was spinning, seeming to lurch around me. I tasted something metallic on my tongue. Another buzz, another message.

I think it would do you good, too, but what do I know?

And as if that wasn’t enough, another, one last twist of the knife.

Take care, Harps. We love you and we miss you, tons.