chapter 11
In late spring, Claire called me into her office and offered me a new title.
“You’ve been doing the work of a senior designer for months,” she said. “Let me pay you for it.”
I walked home in a thin rain, paper tucked under my coat. Ten steps from my building, I stopped, turned my face to the sky, and let myself be rained on.
Two blocks away, a florist had an end-of-day sale. I bought a bundle of peonies with bruised leaves and a single stalk of eucalyptus, put them in a jar, and set them under my mother’s photo.
When the invitation arrived, I laughed aloud, then sat down.
Ashley Xin requests the pleasure of your company at her thirty-first birthday gala and charity auction for congenital heart support. Dress code: black tie. Venue: The Astor.
I put the card down, then picked it up again. Then I thought of Lia’s message. I thought of peonies. I thought of the new pair of shoes I had bought and not yet worn anywhere except my living room.
I RSVP’d yes.
The Astor had ceilings like palaces and carpets that drank the noise of high heels. I arrived on time and found a table near the back where the sound of the jazz trio softened into warm air.
Ashley made her entrance on Daniel’s arm.
She always knew staging. The dress was blush, fluttering at the shoulders, the color of a ripe shell. The pendant was new and pale. She carried herself with that brave fragility she wore like a professional. People stood and clapped. She dabbed at her eyes. Daniel looked beautiful and distant, like someone airbrushed.
There were speeches. The auctioneer lifted his paddle and raised money with a patter like a song. Finally, Ashley took the microphone.
“Thank you,” she said, voice tremulous, perfect. “I’m so grateful to be here. There were moments when I didn’t think I would be.”
This was true. People clapped the truth as if they had invented it.
“I also want to thank the people who stood by me,” she went on. “My doctors. My family. My friends. And my best friend, Chloe.”
The room turned toward me like a flower. Ashley’s smile was the smile of a cat offering a mouse back to the owner as a gift.
“She taught me what courage looks like. Chloe, stand up!”
I stood. What else could I do?
I lifted my glass to her. From across the room, she beamed.
A woman at my table leaned over and whispered, “It’s wonderful, the way you two have stayed close.”
“We didn’t,” I said pleasantly.