“I don’t want pity. I want my invoice honored.”
“You should have it honored,” Lauren agreed. “And if you prefer, you can keep the dress instead of leaving it with people who never had the right to order it for me.”
Nessa considered the garment. “It would be difficult to sell. Too particular.”
“Then let me ask something unrelated to the event. Do you ever need help in your shop? I can sew. Not at your level, but I can work neatly.”
Nessa studied her. “You’re not applying for a job because you feel sorry for me, are you?”
“No. I’m asking because I used to make clothes and I let myself stop. I would like to find out if I still have the patience.”
“Patience you need. I can teach technique.” Nessa dug in her pocket and produced a folded business card. “Come by Thursday morning. Bring samples of your work. If all you can do is make a straight seam, I’ll tell you so.”
Lauren took the card with an unexpectedly steady hand. It was an offer without flattery, contingent on actual work. She found that she preferred it.
Inside, Priya was negotiating with the photographer about his invoice. Reid had promised him an extra payment if the final footage attracted sponsors. The photographer wanted nothing to do with that calculation now. He had hired an assistant, rented equipment, and turned down another booking. Priya was struggling to explain why the fee should be paid regardless of whether the evening had succeeded.
Lauren listened until the photographer noticed her. “You were supposed to be the feature,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind me saying that I was never told it was a surprise.”
“I mind that it was,” Lauren answered. “But I don’t blame you for accepting a job. I do ask that you don’t use the photographs you took of me last night.”
He opened his camera bag and showed her the images on the small screen. There were only a few from the hallway before Priya halted the recording. In one, Lauren was standing beside Owen with her hands clenched. It looked like a marriage at the edge of a cliff, the sort of picture Reid would have chosen to advertise a moment of courage.
“Can you remove those?” Lauren asked.
“Yes. I was hired to document a private event, not make a news story. I’ll keep the receipt for the equipment, but I don’t need your face.”
He deleted the images while she watched. His assistant checked the second camera. It was an unremarkable act of professional courtesy, and Lauren felt a weight lift that she hadn’t recognized until it moved.
Priya closed her clipboard. “I learned something yesterday,” she said. “I thought events were about making the host’s idea happen. But we need a rule that the people being honored are asked whether they want to be there. It seems absurd that we don’t have one.”
“Rules are useful when you can enforce them,” Nessa said from the doorway.
“Then I’ll bring it up with Hassan,” Priya replied. “He listens when I explain a problem. Reid usually talks over me until he thinks the idea is his.”
Megan arrived with a binder and a paper bag of breakfast sandwiches. She handed food to the workers without making a ceremony of it, then set her binder on the office desk. When Lauren described Nessa’s unpaid invoice, Megan added it to the list.
“Did he order the dress using our business account?” she asked.
Nessa nodded and gave her the receipt. Megan inspected it, not in search of a secret, but to make sure the right vendor would receive the right amount. She paid Nessa from the restaurant account after checking with Hassan and marked the invoice settled. Nessa looked at the confirmation on her phone, thanked her, and went back to the dry cleaner’s building with the dress hanging over her arm.
Watching her leave, Lauren realized how seductive Reid’s language had been. He spoke about brave choices and new beginnings. The people around him spoke about fittings, invoices, rented lenses, restaurant shifts, and wages. Those ordinary details had always been the part of his ambitions that someone else had to carry.
Megan asked Lauren to step outside for a moment. They stood beside a narrow bed of rosemary, beyond the kitchen exhaust fan. It was not a beautiful place, but it was quiet.
“I owe you an apology,” Lauren said.
“For what part?” Megan’s tone was not unkind.
“For talking to your husband as if you were an obstacle. For listening when he made you sound petty. I wasn’t confused about whether he was married. I was comfortable letting him explain why that didn’t matter.”
Megan touched a rosemary leaf and released it. “I appreciate you saying it. I won’t pretend it’s easy to hear. But my marriage was troubled before you came back into his life. He told both of us convenient stories because we made different parts of his life easier.”
“Are you going to leave?”
“I might. I haven’t decided what I can forgive. He seems to think if he admits the event was wrong, I’ll return to managing everything. I need him to understand that the problem is older than Friday.”
Lauren looked toward the street. “Owen and I haven’t decided either. He was prepared to let me go. I thought his calm meant he didn’t care. I know now it took effort not to shout.”
“You can recognize that without making it an obligation to stay,” Megan said.
“I know. That’s what frightens me. There’s no grand gesture left to make the decision for us.”
They stood together until a delivery truck rolled past the corner and splashed rainwater against the curb. Megan returned to her binder. Lauren went home carrying Nessa’s card in her coat pocket. Neither had asked the other to become a friend or offered a slogan about solidarity. They had told each other the truth and returned to the work waiting for them.
Chapter Ten: Morning Work
The next morning, Megan was at the restaurant before the breakfast staff arrived. Hassan had prepared a list of guests who needed refunds and workers who needed payment. He had also gathered the flowers, costume, and promotional materials from the back room so they wouldn’t be accidentally reused. The florist could repurpose the flowers if she wanted. The blue dress could be returned to its maker after the invoice was settled. Nobody needed it as a souvenir.
Reid arrived at nine, looking as though he’d slept in his car. He asked whether Megan had come to punish him by taking control of the accounts.
“I came to pay people,” she answered. “That’s what this business owes them.”
Hassan handed Reid the list. Two suppliers were awaiting overdue payments unrelated to the event. Priya had worked additional hours preparing the room. The photographer wanted his agreed fee. The videographers had shown up for a booking that was canceled at the last moment. Reid stared at the names as though seeing the labor behind the evening for the first time.
“This could destroy the launch,” he said.
“The launch never had everyone’s consent,” Megan replied. “You can design a new one that does.”
He tried to explain how valuable the concept might become. Hassan listened, then asked whether Reid would finish the refunds before ordering anything else. For once the discussion returned to a practical task that couldn’t be solved by an inspiring phrase.
Meanwhile, Lauren called the clinic where she worked as a medical receptionist and requested a meeting about reducing her hours later in the year. She did not resign or announce that she would become a designer. She asked what was possible. Her supervisor told her the clinic needed three months to arrange coverage but could consider a four-day schedule. Lauren thanked her and wrote down the details. In the afternoon she visited a local theater’s costume shop and asked whether volunteers were needed. The designer there, a blunt woman named Odessa, looked at photographs of Lauren’s old sewing projects and said the theater needed someone who could repair hems without complaining about impossible deadlines.
“I can complain quietly,” Lauren said.
“Then you’ll fit right in.”
It was the first time in weeks she had laughed without checking who noticed.
Owen spent the day at work repairing a damaged sidewalk near an elementary school. He kept remembering the way Reid had asked, Will you take the next step with me tonight? The audacity of the question still angered him. But another image kept intruding: Lauren sitting at the kitchen table, admitting she didn’t know what she wanted. He had wanted certainty from her, perhaps because he had so little of his own. At lunch he called his lawyer and asked what would happen if they chose a temporary separation without deciding immediately about divorce. She explained the options and cautioned him to avoid treating paperwork as punishment. He thanked her for being plain.
