I left Brandon's apartment early in the morning despite his multiple attempts to keep me in bed, even though he had more on his plate than I did. Before leaving last night, Cory had said he would be there by seven to work on his announcement speech and plan a strategy for the fallout of the Globe article. I awoke just before six with a massive ball of dread lodged in my gut, and much to Brandon's chagrin, escaped soon after in the back of an Uber.
Even at that early hour, photographers were already parked outside of Brandon's building. No doubt more would arrive by the time the newspapers hit the sidewalks, and I was very, very glad that my name wasn't on the lease of Eric's apartment or anywhere else anyone could find my address. The front of my building was thankfully pap-free. For now.
I spent the morning unpacking, trying to be quiet so as not to wake up Eric. I wasn't sure if Jane was still here too. I hoped she was. Although I had doubts she and Eric could last an entire two weeks together, she had been sending me goofy selfies from the apartment up until two nights ago. I desperately needed Jane's advice right now.
I got a text from Brandon informing me that Margie was sending over a stylist around three. Cory had suggested the idea, which I'd fought bitterly at first. But Cory had insisted that if I had to be there, then I needed to look the part.
"You don't want to be a sidepiece, sweetheart, then you need to dress like his wife," he'd said just before he left, narrowly avoiding Brandon's lunge as the elevator doors closed.
As much as I hated to admit it, Cory had a point. My flaming hair was a dead giveaway, so between the paparazzi and my name in the Globe article, someone was going to put two and two together. I didn't want to look like a poor student when they did.
My phone rang, jerking me out of my thoughts. It was a New York number, although one I didn't recognize. Dad.
"Hello?" I answered, with the ball in my stomach tightened into a knot.
"Skylar, darling, it's Janette. How are you, my love? We heard you returned from France last night. Was it exquisite?"
I blew out a breath of relief, although Janette's banter wasn't really high on my list of priorities at the moment.
"Hi, yeah, we got back late. It was great. Marseille is beautiful, as I'm sure you know."
"Divine, darling, just divine. Although to be honest, we prefer Cassis."
Janette launched on a long, melodramatic comparison of Marseille and Cassis, the city that bookended the other side of the Calanques National Park. I separated my clean from dirty clothes as she yammered on about what she and her family had been doing since the Fourth. They were staying with her parents in New York, and they'd all been enjoying a reunion with family there. I waited for her to mention that she'd seen Dad, but luckily, no mention came. Good, I thought. The last thing my fragile father needed right now was a run-in with his ex.
"So, darling, I have to ask: has Brandon said anything about Maurice's offer?"
I paused, a black shirt in hand. "What?"
"I thought he might have said something. Maurice gave him such a wonderful presentation at the Cape, but he hasn't heard a thing from him or his associates. I know the two of you have been having a lovely time together, but really, don't you think it's a bit unprofessional to let things go for almost a month?"
"No more unprofessional than Maurice sending his wife to get at Brandon through his girlfriend," I retorted as I sat down on top of a mound of clean tank tops. "What the hell is going on, Janette?"
There was a sigh over the phone, then a brief bark at the kids: "Annabelle! Christoph! Really, can't you please take the incessant clamoring to the nursery!" Then, back to me: "I apologize for that, and for asking about Brandon. It's just that, dear Maurice really is a bit rumpled about the whole thing. He was so excited about the prospect of working with your beau, and he's just been a beast about it since. Perhaps you could mention it to Brandon. Would you, darling?"
I frowned at a shirt that was perfectly clean, but now crumpled in my hands. "Sure. I'll mention it."
"Wonderful, wonderful. That's all I can ask. Now, your brother and sister are simply dying to see you. We were thinking about coming to Boston tonight. What say you to dinner?"
I chucked the black shirt into the clothes hamper next to my closet. Why did she always have to talk like a character from The Great Gatsby?
"I can't, unfortunately. I have to go to a dinner thing with Brandon. Maybe later this week, depending on how work goes."
"Oh!" Janette said brightly. Then, after a brief pause: "Of course. Absolutely. You let us know what works, darling."
She quickly said her goodbyes, leaving me with the familiar feeling that I had just been involved in only a fraction of the conversation that my mother had been having. It was always like that with her; her head was always in the clouds or somewhere else besides with me.
My bedroom door creaked open, pulling me from my irritation. A long white leg, followed by Jane's black-spiked head, poked through.
I grinned. "Hey there, lover."
Jane snorted, then came in my and flopped onto the bed next to me, wearing a pair of men's boxer shorts and a T-shirt that looked a lot like Eric's favorite Yankees shirt. Her long legs splayed down the comforter as she collapsed into the pillows.
"Still!" she cried toward the ceiling. "Still your bed is more comfortable than mine. What is your secret, woman?"
I shrugged and continued unpacking. "Discount sheets? Lumpy pillows? I only ever spring for the cheap stuff, you know."
Inwardly, I had to chuckle. Brandon was always complaining about my scratchy sheets, but I wouldn't let him buy anything to spruce the place up. I had done just fine with my meager budget, and even with the coarse bedding, we both still preferred my homey little room to the cold majesty of his high-rise.
"So...two weeks, huh? Whatcha been...doing?" I did my best to leer at her, making sure the emphasis on "doing" was clear.
Jane just shook her head.
"First of all, you should never, ever do that with your face again," she said. "It makes you look like you're having a stroke. Second of all––" she parried the sweater I threw–– "the fuck if I know."
She fell back into my pillows and pulled one across her chest. I stopped sorting clothes. It wasn't like Jane to get so...caught up in things. Especially to the point where her filterless wit wasn't readily available.
She sighed and buried her head in her hands, then gave a loud and extremely un-ladylike groan through her fingers.
"Fuck!" she griped. "It's...complicated. Eric is so..."
"Dreamy?" I teased.
"Annoying!" she shouted, just before apparently realizing that we were still in the same apartment as Eric and clapping her hands over her mouth.
I frowned. "If it's been that bad, why didn't you just go back to Chicago?"
"No, no, it hasn't been bad," she stated, this time in a much lower voice. "That's the annoying thing. See, that was supposed to be the point of this little two-week rendezvous. We were supposed to boink it out of our systems and remember by the end just how much we hate each other."
I pursed my lips sympathetically and rubbed my friend on the shoulder. She shuddered, as if the thought of actually liking Eric was too much to bear.
"He's really not so bad, Jane," I said. "I mean, I live with him. He's clean and usually pretty nice to me. Plus, if we're being real here, I don't think he ever hated you. Tell me again, why is dating him such a terrible thing?"
"Okay, how about, he's such a man whore, the guy keeps a thousand condoms in his closet." Jane looked up, her hands spread over her legs like she was going to catch said condoms from the sky. "I am not exaggerating, Sky. He buys them wholesale. There is seriously a cardboard box full of them. Right next to where he stacks his shoes in their boxes too, like a freak."
I chuckled. Neither fact was really that surprising. Eric was a sexually active neat freak. It made complete sense that he would be as conscientious about contraceptives as with his organization.
"Correct me if I'm wrong," I said gently. "But didn't you make, oh, weekly stops at the student health center all last year for free condoms?"
Jane gave me a look that would have frozen a lake. "Your point?"
I shrugged. "I'm just saying, you're kind of a match that way. I think you finally found a guy that can keep up with you."
"Yeah, and up with every other girl in the city when I'm not here."
She buried her face in the pillow next to my shoulder.
"Why?" she moaned dramatically. "Why did I have to fall for a guy that has the nicest dick in Boston? I swear to God, it's like he laces that thing with coke."
If I'd been drinking anything, I'd have choked. "Jesus. I really don't need to hear about my roommate's junk."
Jane just groaned again and then hiccupped a fake sob.
"Well, if it's any consolation, I can also tell you that since you guys started hooking up, Eric has been spending every night in his own bed," I said. "And he does not bring girls home, if you catch my drift."
"You're about as subtle as a waterfall," Jane said dryly.
I shrugged and continued sorting. "I just think maybe you guys have a good thing going, despite the distance. Maybe you should give it a real chance."
Jane bit her lip. I tried not to smile. My friend was really and truly smitten, and a part of me was satisfied to see her meet her match. Maybe Eric, with his stolid, unflappable personality, was exactly what Jane needed.
"And you?" she asked as she sat up again. "Are you finally giving it a real chance? Please tell me that in two weeks alone with Brandon, you finally found time to tell him about the abortion."
The answer must have been clear on my face.
"You have got to be kidding me," Jane said. "Seriously? You still haven't told him? Skylar, what the fuck is going on?"
"I tried," I said weakly as I refolded a shirt and placed it on the bed. Then I picked it up and refolded it three more times before looking up. "I really did, Jane. But every time...I don't know...you don't know Brandon. The shit he's been through. The shit he's still going through." I sniffed, and pushed away a few tears that suddenly welled around my eyes. "The divorce, his company, and now he's supposed to be announcing his candidacy for mayor. But on top of all of that, here's this guy, this great, amazing man who has never really felt what it's like to have someone love him unconditionally. Not his parents, not his wife, not his foster parents, not his in-laws. No one."
I paused. The thought of all of this was making it hard to speak. Jane, for once, was devoid of pithy comments. I took a deep breath and continued.
"He wanted a family so badly with Miranda, but they couldn't have kids for some reason. And now, just when things are finally getting back to normal between us, you want me to tell him that I took away his next chance to be a father? Jane, I can't do that to him!"
I sniffed the tears away that were starting to fall in earnest, listening as my voice cracked painfully over the words.
"I love him too much," I said finally. "I love him too much to break his heart like that. He'd...he'd never forgive me."
"I don't think that's true," Jane said as she sat up. "I've seen the way he looks at you, Skylar. You could grow green moles all over your face and that man would be on his knees for you."
"Ew," I said.
Jane rolled her eyes. "You could be a secret government assassin. You could develop sudden alopecia and become completely bald. Hell, you could lose your memory tomorrow and that dude would go full-on Notebook."
I couldn't help but grin. She was being ridiculous, but in my heart, I knew that Brandon did love me like that.
"Seriously, though," Jane said as she gripped my hand to pull my attention back. "Sky, you have to tell him. Aside from the fact that it just might get out anyway now that he, and by default you, are in the public eye, you owe it to him. Not because he's done all of these amazing things for you and your family. You owe it to him because you love him. And when you love someone, you have to be honest."
I hung my head, playing with the folds in the duvet while Jane's words sank in.
"I know," I mumbled, more to myself than to her. "I know." I looked up with sudden resolve. "I'll tell him tonight. After the announcement. I'll tell him tonight, and if he doesn't want to be with me anymore, then I'll just have to accept it."
My voice wavered considerably on the last statement, prompting Jane to scoot next to me and wrap her skinny arms around me in a tight hug.
"He won't," she promised. "He won't."
"And you?" I asked. I swiped at the tears under my eyes, and Jane laughed.
"What about me?" she asked.
"How about you try a little honesty too?" I looked in the direction of Eric's room. "I think you'll find our young Dutch friend in there cares about you more than you think."
Jane sighed. "Maybe," she said. "We'll see."
Before I could say another thing, the buzzer rang, loud and obnoxious, through the apartment. I heard Eric shuffling across the floor as it continued, mumbling under his breath something about it being a "freaking Sunday" before he answered the call.
"Who is it?" he drawled. There was a muffled answer. Then, "Hold on."
Jane and I listened to the sound of feet shuffling across the apartment, followed by a swift knock on my door.
"Skylar, you in there?"
"Yeah, come in," I called.
Eric popped his head in, much like Jane had a few minutes earlier. His normally straight blond hair was standing on end, and he took in the scene of Jane and me with obvious, yet calm interest.
"Oh, hey," he said, nodding at Jane as if she has just stopped by for coffee and hadn't spent the last two weeks alone with him in our apartment. Then he looked to me. "Welcome back. Are you expecting a stylist?"
I nodded. "Yeah. Brandon's announcing his run tonight."
Eric's eyes widened at the news. "Okay then. She's on her way up." He then turned briefly to Jane, then flickered a look up and down her bare-legged body that would have turned me bright red in about three seconds. "I'm going back to bed," he said, and shuffled back out.
Jane rose to follow, almost as if pulled by an imaginary string. She backed out of the room with a look of faux-terror, though underneath it I could see clear joy.
"I'm so fucked," she said with a shrug. "Completely and totally fucked."
~
As it happened, the stylist that Margie had sent came with a bounty of dresses that we laid out on the bed, and when Jane reemerged from Eric's room about an hour later, she was ready to drool with me over the sheer volume of couture I suddenly had hanging off a portable rack in my tiny bedroom.
"Feel this!" she said, fingering a long silk tunic. "Like butter."
The stylist, Mary, a middle-aged woman in all black who was probably the chicest person I had ever met in real life, just smiled.
"That's the latest Cavalli," she said. "Although to be honest, I wouldn't go with black for an event like this."
Jane and I both looked up from where we sat. We were both fans of the color.
"It's just that if you're going to be looked at like a political candidate's wife––"
"Which I'm not," I interrupted her.
Mary smirked. "Right. Well, I was given a specific brief. Let's just say black doesn't exactly scream out 'First Lady'. This was more something I brought for your friend here."
Jane and I both frowned at each other. I turned back to Mary. "What are you talking about?"
She pulled three papers out of her bright red purse and handed them to me. They were tickets for the dinner.
"I'm just a messenger," she said. "But apparently, Mr. Sterling thought you'd want your friends there tonight."
She looked at me sympathetically. Clearly, she had read the Globe article.
"Look, I've styled a lot of politicians and their, um, special guests," she said. "It will be nice for you to have your friends there if they can go."
I turned to Jane. "What do you think?" I asked. "Can you bear to spend your last night in Boston at this stuffy event?"
Jane squeezed my hand. "We'll be there."
I gulped and turned back to the clothes.
"Okay, Mary," I said. "You'd better show me just what does say 'First Lady'. Or, at the very least, what doesn't say 'sidepiece'."
~
With Mary and Jane's help throughout the day, I found a dress that made me feel like a million dollars. Or, in Brandon's case, a billion. It was a floor-length, sky-blue column dress with off-the-shoulder straps and a boat neckline. A modest slit up to one knee would likely appease Brandon's request that I show off his favorite part of my anatomy. It fit me like a glove, thanks to the last-minute alterations that Mary was able to pull off.
I stood in front of the full-length mirror in my room, going over my elegant transformation. Mary had also styled my hair, pulling it half up in a small bouffant with a French twist. I wore Brandon's cuff and a pair of diamond studs that were my college graduation gift from Bubbe, but otherwise kept the rest of my look simple, with natural make up and a bit of lip gloss.
"You look amazing, chick," Jane said as she came to stand next to me.
"You don't look so bad yourself," I said.
Jane patted her hands over her dress, which was a midi-length tea dress in a blocked red, white, and black pattern. Even though it was much more conservative than her usual Goth-punk style, she had still managed to maintain her edge with at least six different chunky silver rings and a pair of black Mary Janes that looked right out of a steampunk novel. She grinned and touched her bob, which had been tamed straight.
"Don't mind if I do," she said.
From where she was finishing packing up the rest of the clothes, Mary nodded satisfactorily. "I think my work here is done," she said.
"Thank you so much, Mary," I said, walking over to give her a brief hug. "We look amazing, and it's all thanks to you."
"Thank your man," she said with a grin. "Oh! That reminds me––I almost forgot. He told me to give you this and make sure you put it on."
She pulled a square velvet box out of her purse and opened it up for me.
"Holy shit," Jane breathed over my shoulder.
I couldn't even speak. Inside was a wreath of diamonds so bright I was practically blinded. The low lighting in my room flickered off the many facets, casting tiny rainbows all around the walls.
I blinked. "There must be some mistake."
"Oh, I would never make a mistake about Harry Winston," Mary replied haughtily. She set the box on my bed, then gestured that I should face the mirror while she placed the necklace around my neck. It fell just to my collar bone, perfectly setting off the fifties-style neckline.
"Now, this is just a loan," she said with a cheeky grin. "Mr. Sterling was adamant that I tell you explicitly. He thought for some reason you'd be upset if it was an actual present, though why you wouldn't want a gift like this, I'll never know."
"It's beautiful," I whispered as I drifted my fingers over the necklace, then down the silk fabric of my dress.
I looked like a completely different person. But I also looked like someone who could stand next to Brandon and look like she belonged. Gone was the tired, bedraggled almost-attorney with the worn-out jeans and the braid that was constantly falling out. Gone was the girl who couldn't deal with a man even paying for her dinner, let alone jewelry. I was glad to see her go if it meant I could be proud to stand next to Brandon.
"Hey, you guys almost ready?" Eric popped into the room, still fixing a cufflink. He caught a look at me and smiled appreciatively. "Damn, Crosby. You clean up nice."
"What am I, wilted spinach?"
Eric glanced at Jane next to me, then did a double-take. Almost immediately, his face turned the color of my hair. He tugged at the collar of his shirt and licked his lips. He took three massive strides to Jane before seeming to realize that they weren't alone in the room, then stopped to adjust his cufflink again.
"I think," he said to Jane with another look that would have burned through metal, "I'll have to tell you exactly what I think of that dress later."
Jane opened her mouth, then closed it with a smirk. "I guess you will."
With a curt nod, Eric looked back to me. "It's time. There's a car downstairs."
I picked up the matching clutch and shawl that Mary had provided and took a deep breath.
"Into the lion's den we go," I said.
"Don't worry, Sky," Jane said as she shepherded us all out of the apartment. "Brandon made sure you had armor for this battle."
I could only hope she was right.
~