Just Look Up

by Courtney Walsh

  Besides, work wouldn’t hurt her. Not the way people could. It was safe and she was in control, just the way she liked it.

  She got off the elevator and Otis pulled her down the hallway toward her door, where she saw Chloe sitting on the floor, piles of papers strewn out in front of her. She’d missed so many texts and phone calls from Chloe while Ryan had her phone, she felt even more behind now.

  Her assistant glanced up when she heard Lane’s footfalls in the hallway. “Oh, thank goodness.” She started gathering the papers and stacking them in a neat pile. “I was starting to think you were never going to get here.”

  Lane reached her apartment and opened the door, wishing she’d left Harbor Pointe that morning like she planned or, better yet, days ago. Before the uncomfortable dinner with Lindsay and Jasper. Before the memories of life in that town. Before the motorcycle ride that had sent her emotions into a tailspin.

  She would’ve been much better off.

  “We have a lot to do,” she said as she dragged her bags inside, Chloe trailing close behind.

  “First things first,” Chloe said. “How’s your brother?”

  Lane threw her keys in a small glass bowl on the table near her door, kicked off her shoes, and set down her bags, all the while trying hard not to internalize Chloe’s question. “He’s the same.”

  Chloe paused. “No change at all?”

  Lane looked away. Chloe’s genuine concern seemed to have triggered something inside her. Her assistant was the only person who knew anything about her life. And while she still knew very little—and would hopefully never find out about Lane’s humiliating past—she did care about Lane the way a friend would.

  She supposed she valued that a lot more now than she had before her stay in Harbor Pointe.

  “Are you okay?”

  Lane could sense Chloe’s eyes on her.

  It wasn’t good news and she knew it, though she hadn’t allowed herself to think about the fact that the longer Nate stayed in this coma, the worse it was.

  What if he died?

  It was like the thought had only really occurred to her now, in that moment, removed from it all. She’d assumed he’d be fine. Told herself it was so. Perhaps she’d been bewitched by her mother’s blind optimism. She’d even taken to talking to him when it was her turn to visit. She figured he’d answer all her questions when he woke up.

  Her heart started to race, and her fingers trembled as she was overcome with the most profound fear she’d ever felt in her life.

  “Lane?”

  She dropped onto her plush sofa, her chest hollow as if there were a large, cold hole carved out of the center of it. What if he dies?

  “You look like you’re going to be sick.” Chloe sat down next to her but kept her distance. She knew Lane didn’t like to be touched.

  “I’ll be right back.” Lane stumbled toward the bathroom. She couldn’t fall apart in front of Chloe.

  She closed the door and flipped on the light, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror. The bags under her eyes were more noticeable than usual and she looked tired. Exhausted even.

  Somehow the trip to Harbor Pointe had sucked the life right out of her.

  Her phone buzzed, pulling her attention. Or maybe it was the constant connection that had sucked the life out of her. That would’ve been Ryan’s theory.

  She looked down at her phone, still taking slow, deep breaths. Marshall.

  Home? I’m going to stop by and check on your progress.

  Her head spun, her heart pounding as she struggled for the next breath. She closed the lid and sat on the toilet, phone still in her hands, fingers cold.

  Her stomach turned. Marshall could not come over. He would just make her second-guess herself.

  He should know by now she didn’t need him to check on her progress.

  She dropped her head down between her knees and did the only thing she could think to do—she prayed.

  It was a short, burdened prayer, one that probably didn’t even make sense and one she had no business praying given her distance from God these days.

  But even a quiet “Help me, Lord,” began to calm her panicked heart, and her breathing eventually evened out.

  She texted Marshall: Just got in. Don’t come over. Too much work to do.

  So much work to do.

  She splashed water on her face, steadied herself, and focused on what had to be done. She had a job to do, and if she wanted to land that account, she needed to pull herself together.

  Just breathe.

  She dabbed some concealer under her eyes, pulled her hair up into a loose bun, and emerged from the bathroom, wholly different from when she went in, even if that buzz of anxiety still lingered.

  Chloe sat in the same spot on the couch, watching Lane, wide-eyed, as she sat down next to her and pulled the laptop out of her bag.

  Lane glanced at her unmoving assistant. “Are we going to work?”

  “Are you okay?”

  Lane toggled her laptop to life. “Of course.”

  “You didn’t look okay.”

  “How do I look now?” Lane opened the mood board she’d begun for JB Sweet.

  “Creepily better.” Chloe frowned. “Did you have a panic attack?”

  Lane patted Chloe’s closed laptop. “Work. We have lots to do.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “Have you ever known me to have a panic attack, Chloe?” The last thing she needed was for her assistant to lose faith in her. She wasn’t one of those people with anxiety, the kind who needed medication. Whatever had just happened, it was not a panic attack.

  She was born for this—it was time to prove it. No racing heart was going to tell her otherwise.

  Lane turned her attention to the images on the screen: a business space that was elegant without being stuffy and trendy without being cliché. She pulled up Marshall’s notes on her designs.

  “How many of these changes were requested by the client and how many were Miles’s idea?” Lane scrolled through the e-mail Marshall had sent with his thoughts.

  “It’s been a weird week, Lane,” Chloe said. “JB and Marshall took Miles to lunch on Friday.”

  She thought of her own lunch on Friday—standing at the counter of the cottage Ryan had been so excited to show her. It was almost like he’d been waiting to share this piece of himself with her. She wasn’t used to feeling included like that. But while she’d been smitten by the possibilities for Cedar Grove, Miles had been swooping in to steal her promotion.

  “But these changes aren’t from Miles. He’s doing something completely different. Apparently they’re letting him present a separate idea to Solar.”

  “What?” Lane stood. “Why would they do that? We’re supposed to be a team.”

  Chloe shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess they see value in giving them a variety of options to choose from.”

  This was not the way they’d ever worked before. What had changed?

  “There’s . . . talk.”

  Lane pressed her lips together and faced Chloe, hands on her hips. “What kind of talk?”

  “That they’ve already decided about the promotion.”

  Heat rushed to Lane’s cheeks.

  “They haven’t announced it, though, so the way I see it, if you knock this one out of the park, you still have a great chance.”

  Lane plopped down on the couch again and let out a heavy sigh.

  Her phone chirped at her.

  “Maybe you should put that away,” Chloe said.

  “It’s Julia Baumann,” Lane said, reading a series of tweets that seemed pointed directly at Lane. “She acts like she landed Solar already.”

  “And she wants the world to know it,” Chloe said.

  “She’s very confident.” Lane glanced at her new, unfinished design. She’d been so in love with the original images when she’d finished them, but all of Julia’s tweets combined with Marshall’s “concerns” had led to a complete over
haul—one that wasn’t even close to being done.

  The new design didn’t give her that same feeling of excitement, but she thought it was more in line with what the Solar execs wanted, so she was going with it.

  She turned the laptop around and showed it to Chloe. “What do you think?”

  Chloe’s eyes landed on the screen, then darted back to Lane. “What happened to it?”

  “I fixed it.”

  Chloe took the computer and studied the image. “It looks so . . . sterile.”

  Lane could feel the bubble of panic return to her center. “Really? I don’t think so.”

  “I thought we were going for upscale trendy?” Chloe had spent hours helping on the campaign. She knew Lane’s designs almost as well as Lane did. “What happened to the bicycle wall?”

  “Things . . . changed. This is better.”

  “But it’s not you. Actually this looks like something Miles would pitch.”

  Lane took the laptop back. “I designed it, so that makes it me.”

  Chloe looked away. “I’m not trying to be difficult, Lane. You know I just want what’s best for you.”

  “Landing this account and proving I deserve that promotion are what’s best for me. So let’s concentrate on finishing up the new designs so we at least have a fighting chance.”

  “I just don’t want to see you trade away your aesthetic to land this account. Your artistic eye is what people love most about you. Miles doesn’t have that, and honestly neither does Julia Baumann.”

  “Marshall said the client might respond better to something more sleek. That was his impression after the preliminary meeting last week.”

  “Lane, how long has it been since you’ve heard Marshall give one good design idea?”

  Lane frowned. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying Marshall needs you to make him look better. It’s your gut instinct that’s gotten him where he is today.”

  “Then why would he question my designs now?”

  Chloe shrugged. “I don’t know, but I don’t think you should change a thing. Give your original presentation and get some sleep tonight. You’ve earned it.”

  Lane stared at the rendering on her screen, remembering the way she felt when she finished the original designs, the ones she was going to pitch last week. She’d been so excited about those, and a part of her still believed if she’d been able to give the pitch, Solar would’ve loved them too.

  Had she been obsessing over new designs simply to keep herself occupied while she was dealing with the turmoil of being back in Harbor Pointe? Or had she allowed Julia Baumann and Miles to get inside her head? How easily they’d revealed her insecurities.

  She needed to stay busy—always busy—but what if Chloe was right? What if all her busyness was for nothing and the designs were fine as they were?

  Chloe turned her own laptop back toward Lane. “This is you, Lane.”

  The image of Lane’s original design—trendy, youthful, modern—shone back at her, a reminder of how it felt to truly be proud of her work.

  Lane’s phone buzzed. Another social media update from Innovate.

  At this hour?

  Lane clicked over to view Julia’s most recent post—a photo of her standing in front of a huge presentation board depicting a very masculine-looking room, decked out with deep jewel tones and accented with gold. It was ornate, rich-looking, and there was nothing particularly special about it at all. It looked like every other business out there.

  Had Lane misread Solar altogether? Maybe the young executives wanted to be taken more seriously.

  Chloe looked up from her own phone, where she’d obviously just seen the same image.

  “There’s a Solar logo in the corner of that presentation board.” Lane squinted at the photo.

  “The curtains have fringe on them,” Chloe said dryly.

  Lane read the caption. “‘Innovate goes life-size for its clients, especially the sunny ones.’” She glanced at Chloe, who rolled her eyes, but Lane didn’t know how to be flip about her competition. It only made her want to do better. She had an overwhelming desire to win, to be the best. But Innovate was their biggest competitor and Julia was no junior designer.

  “How do I compete with this?” Lane asked, clicking her phone’s screen off.

  “Maybe you should turn off your notifications for a while,” Chloe said. “You shouldn’t focus on Julia Baumann or Innovate or any of this. You should do a real Lane Kelley design—that’s what you’re known for. Wouldn’t you rather win the account without sacrificing your own artistry?”

  The thought stung. Of course she would. But part of her job was giving the clients what they wanted.

  “I’m going to keep going on these,” Lane said, turning her attention back to the new designs on her laptop. “I need to make sure it’s perfect.”

  Chloe got up and walked toward the kitchen. She grabbed a Coke from the refrigerator—something Lane kept in there only for her—then plopped back down on the oversize white sofa and cracked it open. “It was already perfect.”

  But Lane had moved on.

  She didn’t have time to linger on old ideas. Not when she had twelve hours before the Solar meeting and about fourteen hours of work to do. She began working with the design program on her computer, creating an animated digital walk-through, first of a sample reception area and then of the office suite and conference room. Each had its own unique traits, but they were perfectly branded in a way that Lane felt reflected a sleeker version of her original impressions of Solar.

  Chloe looked up sources while Lane worked on the creative design. Lane moved quickly, opening tab after tab on her computer, checking with suppliers she wished kept middle-of-the-night hours and doing her best to guess prices on the items she couldn’t confirm in the moment.

  She made a pot of coffee and drank until it was gone, then felt wired and high-strung, but she couldn’t take a break. She didn’t have time.

  Every once in a while, she’d think of Nate in his hospital bed or Lindsay and Jasper in their pseudo-mansion or Ryan Brooks and the way his hand on the small of her back had seemed to steady her, but she forced herself to stay focused.

  Marshall texted until about one in the morning, then—thank goodness—he must’ve gone to sleep or given up because she wasn’t quick enough in texting him back.

  About 4 a.m., Chloe drifted off to sleep on the couch, the way she had so many times before, and Lane wondered if she should buy her assistant a week away somewhere. The massage was kind, but Chloe deserved more for how hard she worked. And like Lane, she never took any vacation time.

  Without Chloe, Lane had no friends, and she didn’t want to run her off too. If Chloe got tired of working these long hours or suddenly realized she wanted to have a life outside JB Sweet, Lane would be left alone.

  Completely, utterly alone.

  And yet, Lane had made the choice to be a career woman—and career women had their careers. She’d always found a way to take solace in that.

  Why, after all this time, did it suddenly seem like it wasn’t enough?

  Just before nine that morning, Lane sat on the sofa outside the conference room at JB Sweet with Chloe, her laptop, and a to-go cup of coffee from Dillon’s, her favorite little café near her loft.

  “Did you go to sleep at all last night?” Chloe asked. Her assistant always looked put together, but then, she did run her own fashion blog. She just had a way about her. Today she wore a mod-style navy-blue dress with white polka dots and a red belt. If Lane didn’t know better, she never would’ve guessed Chloe had gotten herself ready in about twenty minutes because she overslept after Lane had already woken her up twice.

  “I might’ve drifted off for a few minutes,” Lane said.

  Chloe shook her head. “I don’t know how you do that. It’s like you’re Superwoman or something.”

  Lane didn’t know if Chloe’s comment should make her feel as gratified as it did, but she couldn’t help it
. She worked hard. She was always busy. She wore that busy like a badge of honor, hoping someone would recognize it.

  “You feel good about this?” Chloe asked.

  Lane had completely overhauled her original design. Her new presentation was flawless. She was going to land this account. She nodded.

  The elevator opened and Marshall appeared, that typical stoic expression on his face. Marshall was all business. It was a wonder he’d ever asked her out in the first place, and sometimes Lane wondered if he approached their relationship the same way he approached business deals. She was surprised a contract wasn’t involved.

  Lately she could feel him getting impatient with her. They’d been dating five months, and apparently in his world, that meant they should be sleeping together. Lane had put him off, though, for so many reasons. He wouldn’t wait much longer, she was sure. But she’d be fine if their romantic attachment slowly faded away.

  “You’re back.”

  She stood, feeling like she should probably hug him, though he didn’t make a move to suggest he felt the same. Instead, he motioned for her to sit back down, then took the chair next to her. “Are you ready?”

  “She’s ready,” Chloe answered before Lane could.

  “Good. Can I see the new designs?” Marshall leaned toward Lane, who held her computer and portfolio tightly on her lap, feeling suddenly possessive of her work.

  “No.”

  His eyebrows popped up, surprise on his face. “Funny. Let’s see them.” He laughed as if she were kidding.

  “You can see them during the presentation,” Lane said.

  At her side, she could feel Chloe’s shock, but she kept her eyes on Marshall.

  “Lane, this is my name on the line here too.” Marshall lowered his voice. “I need to be confident you’ve got this right.”

  “I can make sure everyone in there knows these designs are my own. I can keep you out of it completely so it’s just my name on the line,” Lane said, thinking about what that meant. She’d worked so hard to build a reputation she could be proud of. Her name now represented certain things in the design community, and though that community might be somewhat small, it was where she lived and worked and spent her days.