by Piper Lennox
We’re quiet when the doors open to the lobby. Camille flattens herself against the wall again. “I’m not allowed to take this elevator.”
“You’re not allowed?” I punch the Door Close button, then 10. “What, they make employees haul their carts and stuff up the stairwells?”
“There are special elevators for staff,” she explains. “I’m breaking a huge rule, right now.”
“Would they really care that much?”
“They’ve fired people for doing it. I mean, it’s usually a ‘three strikes’ kind of thing, but you never know.”
As the elevator rises, I move to the wall beside her. There’s something impossible to ignore about Camille. Maybe it’s the fact I just witnessed her transformation from employee to real person, like some secret only I was privy to. Maybe I’m just so tired of getting ignored on this trip, I’m grateful for anyone who gives me the time of day.
“Do you like working here?”
Her smile tightens. She takes a breath, not speaking, and looks at our shoes.
“What? You hate it.”
“I don’t hate it,” she says quickly, “it’s just...not my dream job.”
I turn to her. My arm slides up against the wall, braced over her head. I swear I see her blush.
“I’m not a guest,” I whisper, as the doors slide open to no one. Together, we stare into the deserted hallway until the doors close. “You can tell me.”
The breath she took skates out of her mouth. “Okay. I hate it.”
We laugh. I stare at the pout of her lips when she grows quiet.
“Actually, the job is okay. I mean, it sucks, but it pays better than my last one, so...I shouldn’t complain.” She pulls a bobby pin out of the bun at the base of her neck, replacing it on the other side. “To be honest, it’s not the job. It’s the place.”
“You don’t like the Acre? Wow. The way everyone talks about it, you’d think it was Disneyworld, or something.”
Camille snorts. “Yeah, right.”
“Okay, not Disneyworld. But you know what I mean. The Acre, the Fairfields...” I cut my eyes to her. “...everyone acts like they’re the greatest thing ever.”
“Not me.” She motions for me to move closer. When I lean in, ducking so my ear rests just an inch from that beautiful mouth, she whispers, “I actually hate the Fairfields.”
The world’s biggest sigh forms in my chest. Of course she does. Because, blue blood or not, that’s exactly the kind of luck I get.
2
“‘Hate.’” Silas lets out a low whistle that I find oddly impressive. “That’s...that’s a strong word.”
“Do you know another word for ‘dislike with every bone in my body’?” Before I can pull back and choose another floor, he turns his head. Locks his eyes right on mine, just staring.
Four things in my life have left me breathless. And I mean literally, truly breathless, that blissful burn when you feel your lungs shrink like you’re at the edge of a cliff, in total awe at what’s right in front of you.
The first: my ninth birthday, when Dad gave me Arrow in a little black basket that matched his fur. My squeal rang through the neighborhood before I gathered that dog in my arms and felt the air seep back into my chest, one sip at a time.
Second: the first time I saw a boy naked, when I was fourteen. That was the bad kind of breathless, where it feels like your lungs collapse on themselves, because it was Liam Miller, star of the school play. Lesson learned. Always knock on dressing room doors.
The third was when I was eighteen, and tasked with changing Mom’s bandage after the amputation. Logically, I knew her leg was gone. I knew it was a good thing, because if the leg was gone, so was her cancer. And I knew, thanks to common sense and Dad’s hundreds of warnings, exactly what to expect when I pulled back the comforter.
Even knowing all that, I still exhaled too much when I saw that bandaged stump, and all the empty space below where her leg used to be. The little crate of medical supplies in my arms hit the floor before I could finish waking her. I was gone, down the hall and out the backdoor, before she opened her eyes.
Dad found me an hour later, my bare feet blistered from the endless walk with Arrow around our neighborhood. “Jesus, Cami. What the hell were you thinking, leaving like that? Leaving her all alone?”
“Jeff is there,” I offered lamely. We both knew Jeff, the basement tenant we rented to for help with medical bills, was pretty much useless.
“We both know Jeff is pretty much useless,” Dad spat, “so don’t give me that.” He shut his eyes and took Arrow’s leash from me, calling the dog into the backseat of the car. The way he was acting, I wondered if he’d give me a similar command.
Instead, he climbed into the driver’s seat, waiting and silent. I got in.
“I know it’s hard,” he said, a moment later, “but you and I can’t show her that. She needs us to prove nothing’s changed. We don’t see her differently, we won’t treat her differently—life is gonna go on exactly the way it should. That’s what she needs to know.”
When he looked at me, I focused on my side mirror, instead. Arrow poked his nose between my headrest and seatbelt, his sniffs filling my eardrum.
“It just...surprised me. I didn’t think it would be that hard.” I swallowed. It wasn’t like Dad had never seen me cry, but right now, I knew it wasn’t the correct response. Besides that, I was sick of crying.
“However hard it is for us? It’s a hundred times harder for her.”
“I know that, Dad. It won’t happen again. I promise.”
Finally, his anger cracked. Every callous on his palm slowed my heartbeat a little more when he placed his hand over mine.
We drove home. Dad watched me change her bandage carefully, as though I needed reminders. As though he and I hadn’t practiced on the same silicone mannequin the entire time Mom was in the hospital. Maybe he just wanted to make sure I wouldn’t bolt again, filling up the doorway of their bedroom with his fridge-like frame, arms crossed, until I was done.
The bandage started and ended in a band near her navel, to secure it all properly; the rest was woven around her thigh in a crisscross that reminded me of ballerina shoes. For some reason, I went slowest at her waist, the farthest site from her wound. It felt strange to reach beneath her back with one hand, then around with the other to grab the roll of gauze. Like I was a little kid hugging her waist, the way I used to.
“Finished,” I managed, and practically whipped the blanket back into place. Mom stirred when I kissed her forehead and told her goodnight, but she didn’t wake. I guess that was one thing I could be thankful for, that day: she was still too drugged up to know how hard this was. She had no idea I left. With any luck, she never would.
* * *
All in all, that’s one good moment of breathlessness, one mortified, and one of complete terror I still can’t explain, to this day.
Just like I can’t explain the fourth moment. Right now.
Silas smiles and it might as well be a body slam, the way it knocks all the air out of me. The way it leaves my heart buzzing.
“Why?” he asks quietly.
I blink. Whatever spell that stare had over me vanishes, and I can think again. I push the button for the second floor, where Roz is probably bitching to the furniture polish about how I abandoned her to chase a boy down the hallway.
“Why don’t I like the Fairfields?” I ask, pulling a breath through the tail end of my laugh. “How much time do you have?”
“Do you, like...actually know them? I’m just curious.”
He sounds more than “just curious,” but I might be imagining it. It’s not like I know him well enough to tell.
You don’t know him at all, I remind myself. Breathless—who was I kidding?
“I’ve only met Mrs. Fairfield once,” I confess, “and she was nice and all, but in this way I just knew was fake. I’ve heard plenty of stories to know how she really is. And Caitlin-Anne?” My laugh sounds so petty
it’s pathetic; even I can hear that, but I still can’t help it. “I’ve run into her three times, and she managed to get bitchier and bitchier each encounter.”
“Yeah,” he sighs, “I’ve heard stories about her. Guess growing up rich will do that to a person.”
“I’ve known plenty of rich people who aren’t stuck-up idiots like her. That’s not ‘growing up rich.’ That’s growing up a Fairfield.”
Silas tongues his cheek. “Huh.”
The doors open. He follows me to the end of the hall while I fish the key to the supply closet out of my apron. It turns out Roz isn’t down here yet; if I grab a new cart and start a room before she arrives, she won’t be able to say shit. As far as she’ll know, I’ll have been hard at work this entire time, instead of flirting with some stranger in the elevator.
Are we flirting? I certainly think Silas is cute, and there’s got to be some reason he’s still talking to me, but I’ve been wrong about that kind of thing before. The worst part is that, when men actually are interested in me, I totally miss it. Brynn says I wouldn’t know flirting if it came up and dry-humped my leg.
“What about Timothy Fairfield?” Silas asks suddenly. I’ve just gotten into the supply closet. When I turn to answer him, he’s stepped into the space with me. We’re even closer now than we were in the elevator.
I’m about to answer—or try to, through the desert in my throat—when the door at the end of the hall opens.
“Jesus,” I whisper, before shoving Silas back into the hall. It’s instinctive: guests aren’t allowed in the faculty closets, lounges, or anywhere Lupé has dubbed “behind-the-scenes spaces.”
Unfortunately, I shove Silas right into the man who just exited the room.
“Whoa,” they say at once, righting themselves. Silas steps away while I pull my cart into the hall and slap on my best work face.
“Mr. Fairfield, how are you?”
He shakes his head without even looking at me. “Thought I heard my name.”
I hold my breath. Partially out of fear, mostly because Timothy Fairfield reeks of alcohol and sweat. Judging from the frozen shock on Silas’s face, he smells it, too.
This is the second time I’ve ever seen Tim Fairfield in person, but the transformation is still shocking: instead of his dress shirt and jacket, he’s sporting a stained undershirt. That legendary confidence looks like it was beaten out of him, the way he leans into the doorframe and sighs.
“Can...can I help you with anything, sir?”
He looks at me like he’d already forgotten I was here. Maybe he did. “Water,” he slurs. “And, uh....”
“Coffee?”
His brow creases. “Coffee,” he repeats, like testing a new language. I decide to take it as confirmation and end the pure hell that is this exchange.
“Right away, sir. I’ll let the kitchen know and send someone up.”
Vaguely, he nods. I’m going to send up a lot more than coffee and water. From the looks of it, he’ll need several staff members to haul him out of here and back to his estate—or at least, someone to turn him onto his side when he passes out in his office.
His hand fumbles behind him for the door. As he steps back to shut it, he scans us one last time.
Then he freezes, glazed eyes focusing on Silas.
I’d think it was weird, the way he’s just squinting at him with his mouth open, if Silas didn’t look like a deer in headlights as he stares right back.
Great: I’m probably breaking some hidden rule. Don’t let guests see the Fairfields drunk, or don’t interrupt Tim in his office. There’s always something.
“I’ll go give the kitchen your request right now,” I say loudly, and nod goodbye with a smile as I steer my cart in front of Silas, herding him back to the elevators. He turns to look.
“Stop,” I hiss. “You’re going to get me fired or something—you need to go.”
Even though Mr. Fairfield shut the door as soon as we left, Silas keeps twisting his neck to stare.
“I said stop.”
“He looked terrible.” Mercifully, he looks away. But the way he stares at his feet, instead, is even weirder.
“Do me a favor: don’t...don’t tell anyone you saw that, okay? I know it sounds paranoid as hell, but I’ve gotten written up for the most benign stuff around here, and the last thing I need—”
“I won’t say anything.” Silas chews his lip a moment, then snaps his attention to the elevator. “Thanks for not turning me in, by the way. Security putting a boot up my ass is the last thing I need, right now.”
“People sneak in here all the time. The worst you’ll get is a polite request to get out.”
“Complete with a maid’s cart digging into my spine?”
Blood rushes to my face. “Sorry. I freaked out.”
“Well, I’m sorry I interrupted your workday.” He nods, a silent goodbye, so I nod back and watch him step through the doors.
Before they close, he sticks out his arm. I try to look like I’d already forgotten about him. Like I wasn’t, for some reason, sad to see him go.
“Would you....” The laugh when he pauses makes my stomach lift into my chest. “I don’t know, maybe—maybe we could get coffee or something, whenever you’re free?”
I’m two seconds from giving him my “I don’t have time to date” spiel. What stops me, besides the fact he didn’t technically ask me on a date—coffee can be just coffee, right?—is the way he leans against the elevator door, like a cowboy leaning on a fencepost. His entire body matches the way he walks, loping and smooth at the joints. Like a stretch of weathered rope: you know exactly how strong it is, because it looks a little beat-up already.
It sounds solely physical. I can’t lie; that’s part of it. Wondering what it would be like to have a body like his wrap around mine is going to keep me up at night.
More than that, though, is wondering what makes someone look like that. Silas already seems more interesting than anyone I’ve met here before. Maybe anywhere. I want to know more about him, even if I don’t know why.
“Okay,” I hear myself saying, and I wish to God that Brynn could see me now: slipping my phone from my pocket and programming his number like I’ve done this a million times, leaning on the wall beside the elevator as easily as he leans against the door.
“Text me,” he says. “I’ll save your number.”
Brynn would urge me to send something flirty—a heart, maybe. Hell, she’d go so far as to send an eggplant.
I choose a coffee cup. A little boring, but it makes him smile.
“Saved,” he declares, before stepping back from the doors. “See you soon.”
“Guess so,” I say, and smile back.
We don’t break eye contact. I’m always aware of that, how long I’ve been looking at someone directly, measuring myself in glances and blinks. But not, I realize, with Silas. The only thing that reminds me to turn away is the elevator closing between us. Like a magic trick, ushering him from sight.
3
The news van is gone. I still hustle through the streets to the parking deck, just in case they’re pulling something, but it makes me feel ridiculous. So the apparent fall of Timothy Fairfield is a great scandal. That doesn’t mean some journalist is going to stalk me all day for the local news.
In my car, I open Camille’s message and stare at the coffee cup she sent like it can materialize into an actual drink. I think about her mouth and the foam of a latte sitting there. Watching her lick it off just might kill me.
The fantasy’s a nice little break, but it doesn’t last: as soon as I pull into traffic, creeping past the Acre in a line of cars, I think about the encounter with my father again. Seeing the great Tim Fairfield, drunk as hell and broken, stumbling out of that suite. If I hadn’t memorized his face over the years, I might have mistaken him for someone off the street.
It makes me wish it all over again: that I’d never done any of this. The lawyers, the news—I’d figured, if Tim didn’t respon
d to my letters and calls, he’d respond to cameras and numbers. That’s what he knows best.
Everyone back in Filigree and Hillford thinks I want his money. But all I want is his response. Any words, any answer.
The anger floods back, remembering that: he deserves to be broken. He didn’t even recognize me. Sure, it’s been over sixteen years, so I’ve changed in a million ways he wasn’t there to see. But whose fucking fault is that?
When I pull up to the motel, Mom calls. I let it ring out while I drag myself inside, then wait for the inevitable redial.
“Hey, hon. Heard anything yet?”
I dive backwards onto the bed. The complimentary pen on the nightstand, its cap already broken when I arrived, rattles onto the floor. “Not yet. How’s Mrs. Langley?” In reality, I couldn’t care less about the elderly widow my mom takes shopping once a week so she doesn’t slide into total shut-in mode, but I’ll happily endure the updates if I don’t have to talk about my father with her. In her mind, my miniature journey into the city has one goal: to get what’s mine. She’s never specified an amount, but I’m guessing it’s something monetarily equal to all the support and stuff Tim’s other child got over the years.
“Oh, you know Louisa. Every day’s gonna be the last day of her life, she’s just so sure of that. Spent the whole time griping about her eyes going bad, her hips giving out, how the good Lord better take her soon and put her out of her misery....”
I force a laugh, but all it does is reveal how bored I really am. “Yep. Sounds like her.”
“I keep telling her a little positivity would work wonders on her health, but she’s set in her ways.” Mom gives a sigh like she’s sitting down and relaxing for the first time all week, which, knowing her, is exactly the case. “Missed you at dinner last night. I brought the leftovers to your apartment, though. Knox was real happy.”
“I’ll bet.” Knox would survive on nothing but stale cereal and American cheese if it weren’t for me and the grocery budget. He earns a lot, but he’s also frugal, hates food shopping—and isn’t nearly picky enough.
