Love Lettering

by Kate Clayborn

  I get it, that the Make It Happyn folks have to be more circumspect, but I’m not all that far in when I see the mood in the room shifting, when I notice a few cocked heads, a few furrowed brows. At first, I check my visuals—is the projector working right, are the sketches turned the right way, did anything get damaged?

  But everything looks exactly the way I intended it to.

  So something is definitely off.

  “What excites me about these sketches,” I say, moving into the final part of my presentation, “is that they tell more than a color story, or a seasonal story, or the occasional holiday story. They’re cohesive, gender neutral, and—”

  “Miss Mackworth,” a man in one of the corner seats interrupts, and I swallow, feeling a fresh wave of nerves. I clutch at my tiny projector remote like it’s a lifeline.

  “Yes?”

  “These are beautiful pieces, and your talent is clear. But I think I speak for everyone when I say that what you’ve presented us with here is surprising, given the work we’re used to seeing on your website and social media.”

  “Bill,” says Ivonne, her tone warning. But when she looks back at me and smiles, there’s a gentle encouragement there that seems condescending. “Go ahead and finish, Meg,” she says, as though the rest is a formality, or a generosity. She came all this way, her tone seems to say.

  I look back and forth between them, and for a second my old instinct comes roaring back—to smooth this over, to placate. To continue on as though I haven’t noticed anything at all is uncomfortable here.

  But I’m going to fight for this work.

  I turn my head to the projector screen, feign a few seconds of contemplation, as if Bill has revealed a great mystery about my own work to me.

  “Actually, that’s a great point, Bill. This is very different from what I’ve been doing with my custom planners. I’m known for . . . something more traditionally whimsical, you might mean?”

  He tips his head in acknowledgment, and a few of his colleagues nod in agreement, too.

  “I absolutely could have produced those kinds of treatments for you, and it would have fit in really nicely with your existing lines. But I think if you’re making an investment in creators, you want their lines to stand out from what you have. When Ivonne first called me for this opportunity, I studied what you have on the shelves, and it’s beautiful, and functional. And these days, it’s also the same kind of work you can see on hundreds of hand-lettering accounts all over social media, by amateurs and professionals alike. What was most exciting about this opportunity for me”—I break off, laughing a little at myself—“well, once I got over a tiny bit of creative block—was the thought that my version of a line could offer something new. Something that’s accessible to everyone, but also something that’s uniquely me. And since these lines are based on creator names, this seemed like the right direction to take.”

  I take a breath when I finish, noticing that Bill doesn’t look all that impressed with my answer. Ivonne is making some notes, though whether that’s a good sign or not, I can’t quite tell. Some of the others at the table are looking again at the sketches, and I can only hope they’re seeing them with new eyes.

  I get a few questions, most of which seem pretty generic, and a light round of applause. Ivonne stands to thank me, shaking my hand and telling me how glad she is I came in, how talented I am.

  But she doesn’t say that I’ll be hearing from her.

  It doesn’t truly hit me until I walk out—that heart-sinking feeling that it didn’t go well at all. They wanted flowers and fairies, more brush-lettering, more Bloom Where You’re Planteds. The other night, talking to Avery during that awkward run-in, I’d felt so sure of myself, so sure I was on the brink of something, so proud of the way I’d pushed myself to create something new, so pleased with the sketches I’d produced.

  But now I feel close to the way I did in those moments right after—when I’d finally looked up at Reid and seen the expression on his face. It’s part disappointment, part foreboding. It’s the sense that I’ve read everything wrong, that I’ve misunderstood.

  Make It Happyn didn’t want something new, something that required my creativity. All they wanted was more of the same, and I blew it.

  I keep my head up as I walk to the hotel lobby, refusing to crumple, even though I’ve got real crumply thoughts, my impending covering-the-rent problem being the most immediate. I’ll need to add planner clients, and soon. I’ll need to think about hours at the shop, maybe. It would help if Lark would want to move on the wall commissions, though God knows I’m not going to press it. I duck into a bathroom to change into flats before braving the trip home, and notice my hands shaking with adrenaline. It seems fair enough to break my promise to myself now, since the pitch is over. I root inside my bag for my phone.

  As soon as I tap the home button, all I see is stacked notifications. Three voice mails, over a dozen texts.

  All from Reid.

  Reid, who knows where I’ve been this afternoon. Reid, who would never want to interrupt.

  Immediately, I feel sick with worry.

  And as soon as I start reading, I see I have every reason to.

  This city loves a scandal.

  And as scandals go, the Coster Capital investment securities fraud is a big one.

  It all started to unravel this morning, apparently. 9:36 a.m., if you wanted to be precise about it, and the newspapers, at least about this, certainly seem to want to be. That’s when the FBI, along with members of the New York City Business Integrity Commission, entered the building where Reid has been employed for the last six years. Within two hours, they had seized every single computer from the company’s three-floor office space. They had also boxed up every single piece of paper in Alistair Coster’s office, as well as every single piece of paper in the office of his long-serving assistant. They had taken photographs; they had posted notices to the office’s sleek double-entry glass doors. For all of that time, Mr. Coster—one of the city’s most successful businessmen and one of its most generous philanthropists—had been allowed to wait in a conference room with two FBI agents, so long as he did not attempt interactions with any of his employees.

  And then he was marched, in handcuffs, out the front doors, only a few steps away from where I’d stood two nights prior.

  Where I’d stood talking to his daughter.

  It isn’t the first time, of course, that some high-flier finance guy in Manhattan has gone down for fraud. In fact, I’m pretty sure it isn’t even the first time this year. But the Coster story has a lot to recommend it, even for people who don’t know anything about the numbers, even for people who find it difficult to understand the complicated financial scheme that’s apparently been defrauding investors for over a decade, lining the Coster family pockets in the meantime.

  No, you could get interested in the Coster scandal even if you don’t know what “futures” are, even if you’ve never heard of “blue chip” stocks, even if your financial experience is limited to balancing your own checkbook.

  You could get interested because of Reid Sutherland.

  His name is everywhere, and not just on my phone.

  Meg, his first voice mail had said. Please, call me.

  Meg, said the second, his voice quieter, more strained. Something unexpected has happened. If you could call me, before you look at the news today.

  The third hadn’t bothered with my name. Reid spoke quickly, almost in desperation. I may not have access to my phone for some time, he’d said, as though he was seconds away from this particular fate, as though he was holding up a finger to someone trying to take it from him. But I will explain this to you. I promise—that’s three promises, now—I will explain it.

  His texts had been more of the same—desperate in tone, but pointedly vague, revealing nothing more than his hope to speak with me, his concern over my seeing the news, his warning that he might be unreachable.

  And because he is, in fact, unreachable
—my hands shake each time I try to get ahold of him—I have to rely on the other places where I can find his name.

  In the initial stories—the ones I missed when the news was breaking—Reid Sutherland is little more than a principled drone, a Coster employee who noticed something suspicious and quietly reported it. In those stories, Reid’s name is small, easy to scroll past if you were so inclined. It’s embedded—in tiny, unremarkable, roman fonts—in long columns of impenetrable detail about Coster and his scheme. Unless you knew him—unless your heart was pounding in shock and confusion for yourself and worry and fear for him—you might forget Reid Sutherland’s name altogether.

  But as the story unfolds, you can see the letters stretch to fit him; you can see the moment the press learned that he was more to Coster than an employee. One sub-headline teases it in bold, brutal type:

  Whistleblower Sutherland Almost Married into Coster Family

  After that, Reid is everywhere, an unforgettable part of the scandal, packaged for easy consumption by a media machine looking for a more click-worthy angle than the incomprehensible numbers. A one-time child prodigy who kept himself separate from his coworkers, most of whom thought him stern, humorless, distant. A brilliant analyst who’d risen in the ranks quickly, eventually spending eleven surprising months (some coworkers had taken bets on how long it would last) engaged to Alistair Coster’s socialite daughter, until a quiet, seemingly amicable breakup not long before the wedding. A nerves-of-steel hero who spent the last six months working with authorities, never betraying even a hint of disruption to his regular work.

  I spend an exorbitant amount of money to click through these stories. One part of it is the price I pay to get through paywalls, to make sure I don’t reach an article-per-month limit on any major news site I visit. But the other, more outrageous price is the fare for a sweltering, stale-cigarette-smelling cab ride all the way back to Brooklyn, because I am not losing cell service for any length of time during a subway ride. I sit in the back, sweating from the heat and the panic, barely noticing the traded honks of frustration as we crawl through Manhattan, hardly registering when we break free of the worst of the snarls, finally crossing the Bridge. I pause in my reading over and over, sending Reid messages I can sense already he won’t be able to respond to.

  By the time the cab pulls up at the curb outside of my building, my battery is getting low and my once-polished presentation outfit is crumpled and damp. I barely think about my portfolio of sketches as I pull them from the back of the cab, barely remember the disappointment I felt at the Make It Happyn committee’s response. I’m sure it’ll come roaring back soon, but for now my head is spinning. I think, fleetingly, of all the things Reid has been hiding from me, all the conversations we’ll have to re-do. But mostly I focus on all he must be facing, the desperation and pressure he must have been feeling.

  Not just today.

  But for the whole time I’ve known him.

  When I stumble into my apartment, dropping everything I’m holding haphazardly, I realize I have never been more grateful to be living alone. I’m ruthlessly sloppy as I tear through it, grateful that I don’t have to explain this to anyone, because right now, I can’t explain it, not without more information from Reid. I change into jeans and a T-shirt, pull my humidity-ruined hair into what I am sure is an appallingly messy bun. I shove clothes into a backpack, because it’s the only thing I can think to do—to use my key, to wait for Reid at his apartment. They’ve taken his phone, apparently, but certainly he’ll be allowed to go back to his apartment? After all, it’s not him who’s done something wrong.

  My phone rings inside my bag, and I curse its roomy depths as I try to unearth it. It has to be him, I’m telling myself, trying to force a sense of relief I don’t feel.

  But it’s not him.

  “Hey, Cecelia,” I say when I pick up, my voice sounding reedy to my own ears. I need to get some water before I leave; I’m probably dehydrated.

  “I promise I was going to call—” I begin, because I did promise. I said I’d call as soon as I left the hotel. She and Lachelle are both working today, and they’ve probably been waiting.

  “Meg, you’re all right?” Her voice sounds unusual—concerned, but also somewhat impatient.

  My brows lower in confusion. I’m not all right, but why does she sound as if she already knows that? Does she know someone connected to Make It Happyn, somehow? Did someone give her a heads-up it didn’t go well?

  “I’m . . . look, it didn’t go great, I don’t think, and I will tell you all about it, but I have to—”

  “No, I mean that . . . well, I’ve gotten a call about . . . about your name in the news?”

  In a day full of ominous feelings, it’s almost surprising to know I’m capable of being even more deeply weighted with dread.

  “My name?” I repeat slowly. My mouth somehow feels both dry and full of saliva.

  “I’m going to send something over to you, okay? And then I think we should talk. When you can.”

  I nod, even though she can’t see me. It doesn’t feel possible that I could know what’s coming, but somewhere deep down, I do.

  “Okay,” I manage.

  The link comes through only seconds after we disconnect. I sit on the couch, plugging my phone in to give it some much-needed juice. I recognize the site—a Manhattan-based gossip blog that occasionally gets national traction, but mostly covers stories focused on the rarified air of the city’s elite. Even a cursory glance at the words in the link text make me swallow in fear.

  I click, and read it in full.

  Coster’s Scorned Almost-Son-in-Law

  Couldn’t Get Over His Ex

  Everything about this article—if it can be called that—is like reading the earlier stories through a cracked, distorted mirror. Here, Reid is no genius, no nerves-of-steel hero. He’s a guy with a grudge, smart but vindictive, always insecure. “Everyone knew she was out of his league,” one of the article’s anonymous sources says. “He knew it, too. He was wrecked when they split.”

  I keep scrolling, shoving the thought of Reid’s reaction to Avery—wrecked—two nights ago out of my mind, getting to the place where my name becomes a part of this horrible scandal.

  Sources close to the Coster family say that Sutherland resisted Avery’s decision to call off their planned wedding, even going so far as to accuse others of sabotaging their relationship. Several people who knew the couple recall his certainty that their already-completed wedding program—designed by Meg Mackworth, the lately-in-demand “Planner of Park Slope”—contained a hidden message that the marriage would be a “mistake.” “Who thinks there’s a hidden message in their wedding program?” one source we talked to said. “Clearly, the guy has a screw loose. I’m pretty sure it’ll come out that he’s the one behind this so-called fraud.”

  No, I want to shout at this stupid, wrong rectangle, immediately defensive of Reid. I can see it, how this angle will take off, how it will spread like wildfire. Of course the numbers won’t be interesting. Of course the breakup with a beautiful, beleaguered socialite will be.

  But this isn’t how it went!

  Or at least, it isn’t . . . quite how it went, not so long as Reid has been telling the truth. About him, about Avery, about the feelings between them.

  And he has been, right?

  Except . . . Reid never told me he’d shown anyone else those hidden letters. Reid never told me anyone else knew about them at all.

  Don’t panic, I chide myself. He promised he’d explain.

  I take a deep breath, deciding this could be so much worse. Sure, my name is tied up in this, but no one will believe this accusation about a hidden message. It’s like this so-called friend says: Who would think that?

  Then I read the next paragraph.

  Maybe Sutherland does have “a screw loose,” but there’s at least some evidence to suggest he wasn’t paranoid about Mackworth’s program. We got ahold of one of these never-used programs, and
once you start looking for it, the “mistake” is pretty clear. Did The Planner of Park Slope know something Ms. Coster didn’t? We’ve reached out to Mackworth—who we hear is still in touch with Sutherland—via her website, and to the shop where she used to peddle her secret-code scribbles, but so far, haven’t heard back.

  Beneath it, there’s a photo of the program, marred with red circles around every letter featuring one of my cleverly drawn, traditionally whimsical characters.

  There it is, for the whole world to see. The word, the pattern, the code.

  The mistake.

  I don’t know how long I sit on my couch, frozen in shock, but I know that by the time I move again—minimally, only to grab the remote for the TV—the light outside is waning and dusky. Beside me, my phone continues to light at regular intervals—unknown number after unknown number, and every time, my stomach leaps and turns with stress. It could be Reid, I think, every single time, but that hope didn’t serve me well the first four times I answered and found myself immediately confronted with a reporter.

  Confrontation after confrontation, living in every corner of that phone.

  But not the one I’m desperate to have.

  Notification after notification.

  But not the one I’m desperate to get.

  He doesn’t call. He doesn’t text. He doesn’t e-mail. It is profoundly clear that he is not at home.

  All I can do is wait.

  I need to deal with my clients. I need to call Cecelia, Lachelle. Lark, my God. What must Lark, who guards her privacy so completely, be thinking? And I didn’t think I had much chance at all with Make It Happyn after today’s presentation—my gorgeous, not-what-they-wanted sketches—but now? Now I’m sure the idea of hiring Meg Mackworth exists somewhere on a continuum of never and not if she were the last hand-letterer in the whole, entire universe.