Toronto Collection Volume 3 (Toronto Series #10-13)

by Heather Wardell

  She held up the form but I didn't need to see it. In the spot marked "Customer, print greeting here" I knew what I'd written. Exactly what they'd written on the cake.

  "Well," she said, shooting me a long and meaningful look then discarding the box lid on a chair, "I guess we'll eat it as it is."

  Candice gave my arm a squeeze when her mom looked away and mouthed, "It's okay."

  I tried to smile but I was too close to crying to manage it.

  Ian carried his two kids over, one in each arm. He gave me a reassuring smile and said, "The three of us are starving, aren't we, Libby?"

  She giggled. "Cake, daddy?"

  "You got it, princess. Candice, cut that thing before I just dip Libby in it."

  He held his daughter over the cake and she shrieked with laughter.

  The other guests, glad to break the tension, laughed too, and Candice began cutting the cake into pieces. I reached out to help put them on plates, but her mother pushed in to do it before I could wreck anything else. I stood back, watching and trying not to burst into sobs, then took my piece of cake when Candice insisted.

  Everyone tried it and made the usual "Oh, how delicious" noises, then they descended on my kitchen where I'd arranged the coffee maker and tea kettle and the fancy teas I'd bought. I dug through my fridge and hauled out all the pop I had, which wasn't nearly enough.

  Most people went with tea or coffee, claiming with what I felt sure was fake sincerity that they preferred it, but Candice's mother poured herself a full glass of Coke and took a sip so small it could barely have wet her lips. With a delicate shudder, she set the glass down, and ignored it. Just like she ignored me for the rest of the miserable affair.

  *****

  As I slumped sadly around my now-deserted apartment cleaning up the mess I'd insisted I didn't want help with because I'd simply needed to be alone, Candice sent me a text.

  Ian says he's calling you LarisKsa from now on. With a silent K. :) Please, don't feel bad. It's okay. Today was great.

  Yeah, right. As I pondered a reply, she sent another message.

  And don't worry about the present either. It'll make a great funny story for him when he's older.

  Sure. The tale of the idiot godmother. I had found a beautiful silver flask, very similar to one Candice's dad had received as a gift for his own christening which still sat on the mantelpiece of Candice's childhood home. Unfortunately, I'd had the one for Eric engraved to look even more like his grandfather's, and of course it too bore the wrong name.

  I'll get it fixed.

  You can if you want to, but it doesn't matter to us. We're so touched by all the work you did for today. You're the best.

  I sent her back a smiley face, because I couldn't think of anything else to say, then carried on cleaning up while making short work of a glass of wine. I didn't usually like to drink alone but on a day like today I'd make an exception.

  After the bustle of people, my apartment seemed even more empty and desolate than usual. Once again I wondered if I should get a pet. Candice's cat Ninja had always made her place cozy, even before the kids arrived.

  I pushed the idea out of my head with another sip of wine. Given my competence these days, I'd probably forget to feed the poor creature and it would starve to death without me even noticing. It certainly wouldn't get any Diet Coke.

  Leaving the rest of the cleaning for later, I collapsed onto the couch and told myself to shut up. I was being unnecessarily whiny, and it wasn't helping anything. Yes, I'd made mistakes, but I hadn't been malicious, and I knew Candice and Ian knew that.

  They were right, someday we'd probably laugh about my misspelling of the kid's name. It was hardly the worst thing ever. But even so I couldn't shake off my disgust with myself. I was doing everything wrong.

  When my dad died, I'd sunk into what I'd realized at university was probably a depression. Nobody had told twelve-year-old me that his death was my fault, of course, but there'd been the obvious fact that if he hadn't been on that road at that time he'd never have gotten into that accident. I'd been smart enough to make the connection, unfortunately, and I'd never been fully able to let it go.

  Ian's parents had sadly died the same way, on their way to get a Christmas present for Candice, but of course as an adult she hadn't taken on the blame for their deaths. I had blamed myself for my dad's accident, though, and when I took a psychology class in college I'd realized what I'd done to myself. I'd gone to the college's counseling service and a sweet lady there had helped me realize that my dad's death wasn't my fault.

  But what about everything else? What I'd said to Kegan was true: all areas of my life were currently messed up. How could none of that be my fault? It didn't make sense.

  I heaved myself off the couch, since if I couldn't clean up my life at least I could clean up my apartment, and got back to work. When I was putting away the glass tealight candleholders I'd arranged so carefully on the table to highlight the cake, I saw a small black velvet bag near the back of the drawer.

  My tarot cards.

  I hadn't looked at them for weeks, which was unusual for me. In the years since my sister had taught me how to read them on one of her rare visits home I'd hardly ever gone more than a few days without a consultation. My counselor had approved of them, saying they were just a doorway into my own thoughts and feelings that bypassed my own judgments about what was and wasn't acceptable for me to think and feel, and we'd used them together to dig into and help me understand my sadness and confused feelings about my dad.

  When that counselor had quit suddenly because her husband had found a job in another city and she needed to move, I hadn't felt comfortable starting again with someone else but I'd grown more and more reliant on my tarot cards over the years, even carrying a little pack Candice gave me in my purse so I'd always have them available. They'd helped me through so much in my life.

  But lately they weren't helping at all. I'd given up on the purse ones months ago, not bothering to take them with me since they were nothing but a waste of space now, but even my big set wasn't working the way it used to. I didn't get any clear messages when I read the cards, with one saying go and the next saying stay, one saying no and the next saying yes, no matter what question I asked as I laid them out. I didn't understand it, since they'd been so useful in the past.

  Now that I thought about it, I realized that they'd started losing their effectiveness right after my breakup with Greg. Beforehand, I'd truly believed he was the man I would marry, and the cards had agreed. But when their confident predictions of a great relationship and a happy life had given way to seeing Greg kissing the face off another girl my belief in them had been badly shaken. I'd bought a book of tarot card meanings, since I'd clearly been reading them wrong, but even using those hadn't made the cards work better.

  I'd kept trying, though, because I knew I needed help, but to no avail. My attempts to ask the tarot cards what I should do about Hayley, and my lack of a boyfriend, and all my screw-ups around getting my own studio, had given me nothing but confusion and stress.

  Maybe because that was all I was feeling these days.

  I drank a little more wine and decided I'd see what the cards could do for me now.

  I pulled them out, shuffled them gently, and laid them out on their special black velvet cloth while asking myself, "Why is my life so messed up?"

  Every card might as well have had, "It's because you suck," written across it for all the good the reading did me. There was stuff in there about change and hatred and standing still and fresh starts, and try as I might I couldn't make it all turn into anything cohesive, into anything that could guide me.

  I put the cards back in their bag then pushed them to the very back of the drawer. No point in bothering with them again. I was clearly beyond their power to help.

  Chapter Eight

  After work on Tuesday I wanted nothing more than to go home and drink a bucket of wine and lose myself in sleep, but I made myself fulfill my promise
to have a late dinner with Lydia. I'd been drinking alone too often over the last few weeks and I knew it wasn't a good sign. Drinking with her would be a social thing, not a desperate attempt to make myself feel better.

  But either way there would be drinking. I needed to dull the pain of the last few days. Friday would always stand as the worst day of my life, or at least I hoped nothing would be worse, but yesterday and today hadn't been great either. Yesterday because of what Hayley had done to me, and today because of what I'd done to her.

  I took a long shower before dinner, hoping it would help relax me. It didn't, but I did at least feel cleaner on the outside. I put on my makeup, using a light application of neutral blush and lipstick so I could emphasize my eyes with steely gray shadow and take some of the focus off my still-scabby cheek, then braided my hair and dressed in black pants and a gray sweater and headed out to meet my friend.

  Lydia, looking relaxed and happy in a soft pink sweater over a flowing brown skirt, told me all about the yoga class she'd taken and encouraged me to join her. "Everyone's so nice and supportive. It's a great environment."

  So, the exact opposite of my work. On Monday, Hayley had been raving to a disinterested model about the hot account manager she saw leaving the office on Thursday, and her description had made it clear she was talking about Greg. That made me feel even worse, somehow, since I hadn't realized he was around on Thursday. He'd been there and hadn't even bothered to find me to say hello.

  She went on and on about him, while I seriously considered telling her exactly what he'd done to me on Friday night in the hopes it would shut her up, then when she said, "I'm definitely going after him this week," I blurted out, "He won't be here, he's gone."

  She stopped doing her work, which should have been my work, and stared at me. "And how would you know?"

  Her emphasis, like she couldn't imagine that someone as hot as Greg would give someone like me the time of day, infuriated me, even more because it was what I thought too. I wanted to say we'd gone out Friday night, wanted to wipe that smirk off her face, but I knew I'd regret it so I backed off. I shouldn't have said anything at all. "I heard him on the phone."

  She laughed. "Eavesdropping? Classy."

  My face blazed hot, the scrape tingling even more as blood rushed to it, and she laughed again and said, "You match the mess on your cheek. I know he's gorgeous, but hanging around outside the door spying on him is a bit much, don't you think?"

  Hayley, originally, had been polite to me almost to the point of being cloying. She was clearly feeling more confident in her place in the company.

  And she was right to, because Chaz was making it clear he thought she was amazing.

  At least, he did until Tuesday's incident.

  "Larissa?"

  I blinked. "Sorry. I'm beat."

  Lydia frowned. "Is your face making it hard to sleep?" She leaned closer. "It looks like it's healing up okay, though. Yes?"

  I nodded. Externally, I was getting better. Internally? My emotional cuts were infected and oozing. "Sorry," I said again. "What were you saying?"

  She shook her head. "Just about yoga, no biggie."

  "Tell me." Any distraction from what I'd done, and how it had made me feel, would be great.

  She shrugged. "Well, I want to go again next Tuesday night, and maybe another class before then if I can find time. But there's still this stupid contest we're doing. 'Be good to yourself'," she said in a sing-song voice. "I'm still trying to figure out what it means. And if I can't get my site working perfectly so my readers stay interested I won't be able to go to yoga later this week and I want to."

  I'd gone to her company's web site on Sunday night after giving up on the tarot cards, hoping against hope that my friend's columns there would help me straighten myself out. They'd only made me feel worse, though, because Lydia so clearly had herself together and knew who she was. I envied her, and hated myself for it since she deserved a good life. "But your site looks great."

  She blinked, then gave me a big smile. "You read it? I didn't know that. Thank you! And it is going well but it has to be spectacular to keep me ahead of Sasha and Patricia in the competition. If Felix doesn't love it, I don't get the promotion."

  We shared a wry smile over her boss, undeniably sexy but equally undeniably aware of it and happy to use it against her, then she added, "Although who knows with him? He seems to like playing games with me, so I might get the promotion because he hopes he'll get something from me in return. A naked something."

  I took a long drink of my martini. Greg had taken me out hoping he'd get that something from me, and then he'd been ready to take it from me when I'd refused. And Kegan had been the one to rescue me. I'd thought a lot about Kegan, and his business card, since then, and had again become sure that he too had ulterior motives. No chance he didn't. Everyone was after something. That was the only way the world made sense.

  That was the only way what I'd done to Hayley today didn't make me a total bitch.

  We'd had a full day of shooting scheduled, with new models arriving every hour for a magazine feature, and since I knew all the girls and Hayley didn't Chaz had instructed me to skip my morning coffee and tell Hayley everything she needed to know about each one. I'd tried, although sharing the knowledge I'd gained over years of hard work didn't seem quite fair, but Hayley had clearly thought she didn't need to lower herself to listen to me.

  She'd put on a good show when Chaz wandered by when I was telling her that the first model would never wear any cosmetic with the word 'ruby' in its name because her chief rival was named Ruby, and again when he came back the other way while I was explaining another model's paranoia of germs and how Hayley therefore needed to show that she'd sterilized every tool before touching the woman's face with it, but when Chaz wasn't there neither was her attention.

  But then she brought up Greg, cutting me off mid-sentence to ask a passing hairstylist if he'd seen him and saying she was going to go after him. Though I knew I shouldn't care, her words turned my aggravation to fury, so in the middle of my talk, I left something out. I didn't tell her about Oksana's eyebrows.

  Oksana was infamous in the industry for her fiercely arched brows, which she plucked herself and personally dyed pure black every three days. They were a strange contrast with her pale face and near-white blonde hair, but their oddity had made her career take off, and as a result she cherished them like beloved pets. No makeup artist had ever been allowed to touch them, not even to smooth a stray hair, and the stories of her storming off sets when someone tried were legendary.

  I didn't tell Hayley, and it turned out she didn't know. Oksana did indeed walk out, after Hayley had the audacity to suggest Oksana let her bleach them ("Bleach? I'd rather cut my head off! Or better yet, yours!") and it threw the entire shoot into disarray.

  Hayley insisted to Chaz that I hadn't told her, and I made myself lie straight into his face that I had. He wasn't convinced either way until Hayley used an un-sterilized tool on the germ-phobic model's face and she too walked out. He'd heard me telling her about that one, and so he also believed me that I'd told about Oksana. Even though I hadn't.

  I'd felt petty and small ever since. If I had to be like that to win out over Hayley then I didn't want to beat her, and yet I did want to beat her because she was in the way of my getting a studio of my own.

  As I'd left work, feeling sick at my own actions and distastefully satisfied with their outcome, Chaz took me aside and said, "So, Hot Caramel's changed his mind about you. Wants to talk to you next week about helping you start your own studio."

  Delight flooded me, washing away my sick feelings. "Really?"

  He nodded. "And I agree with him. We both think you can hack it in this business after all," he said, then gave me a slimy wink.

  It hit me in an instant: both men knew I'd screwed Hayley over. And they both approved. They thought that my obnoxious behavior, and the fact that I'd pulled it off, meant I could handle my own studio. My skill with
makeup, and my ability to calm nervous models, didn't impress them. Just my willingness to shaft a coworker. A coworker they'd both flirted with, pretended to like. My sick feelings had returned with a vengeance at the realization and they hadn't left me alone for an instant.

  I raised my nearly full martini glass again and drained it, then said as the alcohol hit me, "Yeah. They're all like that, aren't they? Fake to the core."

  Lydia sighed and played with her wine glass, then wondered aloud whether the guy she'd met at her nephew's hockey game would be more honest and real, ending with, "I'm really getting tired of the game-playing."

  You and me both. My throat tightened and I stared into my empty glass and said, "So lame and pointless."

  My words came out louder and angrier than I'd expected, and I felt people at nearby tables turn to me. My cheeks flushed and I said at a more appropriate volume, "Sorry. But it is, right? It just..." Exhaustion and pain swept over me and I couldn't stop myself admitting the truth. "God, Lydia, I'm so tired."

  Her forehead wrinkled. "You're not sleeping?"

  That was nearly all I was doing, actually, and by design. When I was sleeping I didn't have to think, and I couldn't mess anything up. I tried to laugh it off. "I am. Probably too much. Look, never mind. I'm fine."

  She wouldn't let it go. "What's the tarot situation? Anything significant there?"

  Picturing the cards at the back of my drawer, I shook my head and said, "They're useless. Nothing seems to make sense."

  "Talk to me."

  Her attention was entirely on me now, and I didn't like it. I'd decided not to tell about Greg, and telling about Hayley would just make me look like the bitch I was, so why was I discussing this at all? "I'm fine. Really. Just an idiot. I'm making a big deal out of nothing. I'll figure it out."

  I should have stopped talking halfway through that speech but somehow the words wouldn't be held back. No surprise, she said, "What's the nothing you're making a big deal of?"