Emmie knew he was trying to get a rise out of her, and she had to admit that it was working. She forced herself to take a breath. “What did you tell the Hudsons?”
He snapped, “I told them that if this is the sort of thing they want, they can take their business elsewhere. I recommended they take a decorating class at Home Depot and stop wasting my time.”
“Wow,” she marveled.
“Emmaline,” he said in a clipped voice, “your excuse is unacceptable. And unbelievable. I cannot trust that you will not try to influence another client in the future, thereby jeopardizing my business and my reputation. Collect your things. You’re fired.”
Wilma couldn’t look at her, as though he were ashamed of his decision. But he said it anyway. And when he was through, he marched back to his office, tossing over his shoulder, “I want you out of here in ten minutes.”
“How do you feel?”
“. . . I’m not sure.”
Fifteen minutes of quiet later, Trish ventured, “How about now?”
“Kinda numb.”
Half an hour of tea drinking later, Trish tried again. “Now?”
“You know, I’m a little hungry, actually.”
“There we go. I’ll make you a sandwich.” Trish got up from the dining room table to poke around in the fridge.
“Can you make some pudding, too?” Emmie called.
“Honey, after what you’ve put up with for the past four years—”
“Nearly five.”
“—nearly five years, I’ll make you a vat of pudding so big you can swim in it.”
Over the sound of Trish clattering around in the kitchen, she called, “Shouldn’t I be more . . . I don’t know . . . devastated?”
“Curled in a fetal position, wondering where your next meal is going to come from?”
“Something like that. Although I know I can always show up at your house for dinner every night.”
“Absolutely you can.”
“So how come I’m not blubbering and frantically trying to figure out what to say to Wilma to convince him to give me my job back?”
“Because, first of all, your tears reservoir has gone dry because of Graham.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
“Second, you should have told Wilma to stuff it years ago,” Trish declared, setting a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on honey wheat in front of her. “Getting fired is the best thing that could have happened to you. Now you can do whatever you want.”
Emmie considered for a moment. “I suppose I could go back to work at Michael’s,” she said, thinking of her first post-college job at a craft store, back when she didn’t know what to do with her design degree except sell yarn and hope to work her way up to the framing department.
“Er . . . no.” Trish took the plastic clip off a half-full bag of potato chips. “I think you’re beyond that, don’t you?”
Emmie shrugged. “Somebody’s gotta restock the bead racks.”
“And what about that little conversation we had, about going into business for yourself?”
“Maybe I can return all my new appliances for the cash,” Emmie mused, ignoring her friend.
“Honestly, woman!”
Emmie’s phone rang from deep in the pocket of her coat, which was draped across the end of Trish’s sofa. Emmie got up, dug out her phone, and turned it off. Then she calmly went back to eating her lunch.
“Hey, what if that was Wilma—he’s seen the error of his ways and wants to beg you to come back to work?” Trish grinned.
Emmie shrugged. “I didn’t look. Not interested.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Well, now we’re making progress.”
But Emmie’s curiosity got the better of her. Before she pulled out of Trish’s driveway to head home, she put in her earpiece, fired up her voice mail, and listened to her messages as she started down the road. Both were from Graham, which made her catch her breath.
The first was, “Emmie? It’s Graham. I was just, uh, calling to see . . . how you’re doing, if you’d slain your dragon. Or whatever. Hope you’re all right. Please give me a call, okay? Okay. Uh, bye.”
In the second message, he sounded more worried. “Emmie, I just talked to John. He wouldn’t tell me anything, just that you don’t work for him anymore. I’m really concerned about you. I know you don’t want me to be, but I can’t help it. I care. So please call me and tell me what’s going on. I need to know you’re all right. If you don’t call me, I will hunt you down. I know where you live, you know.”
Emmie found herself melting, so much so that she had to pull over and get herself together. But she couldn’t, just couldn’t let herself fall into this once more. Not after seeing him with Juliet again . . . still. Maybe someday he really would get rid of her (or she’d drop off the face of the earth—that’d be fine, too), and Emmie could have another chance. But there wasn’t any indication that was going to happen, and she’d be a fool to wait around, nursing her broken heart. She had been right to shut him down the other day, Emmie insisted to herself. She needed to get him out of her system. Even talking to him as a friend would kill her resolve. So she wasn’t going to call him back. Definitely not. Nope. Not going to call him back. If her finger just happened to scroll through her list of contacts, and then just happened to hit the “call” button, well, that would just be a crazy coincidence.
When her phone rang again, right in her hand, she yanked that wandering finger away as though she’d been burned. Was it Graham? Did they have some sort of psychic connection? Did he know she was thinking of calling him just then? She looked at the name on the screen and groaned. Somebody was psychic, but it wasn’t Graham.
“No fucking way.”
“Emmie? It’s Juliet! Juliet Winslow! Well, of course, you knew that, right?” Emmie was speechless as the voice she least wanted to hear peppered her ear with laughter. As though nothing were wrong. As though she hadn’t threatened to overdose on dog suppositories or stick her head in her electric oven because Graham wanted to break up with her. “I’ve got a bone to pick with you, young lady!” Juliet was saying in a mock-scolding voice. “I’ve been looking all over for you! When are you going to put me on your schedule, Miss Busypants? We have got to get together—I want to hear your ideas for the shop!”
Stunned, Emmie could only choke out, “Um, I—I don’t . . . I hadn’t—”
“Where are you?”
“Er, on the road.”
“Well, I’m at the shop. You get over here right now, ma’am! Do you hear me?” And Juliet laughed again to take the edge off her demands. “I won’t take no for an answer!”
Graham had once called Juliet a force of nature, and he sure knew what he was talking about. Juliet was like a tsunami of chatter, an avalanche of intense energy, and Emmie felt overwhelmed, powerless against her. Before she could stop herself, she heard herself say, in a voice far duller and more vacant than Juliet’s, “Um, all right. I can be there in about five minutes.”
Emmie sat in her car in a parking space just down the block from Juliet’s shop and wondered what the heck she was doing there. Had she really buckled, just like that, obeying the commands of the Almighty Juliet just because she was more forceful? What was the matter with her? This was the last place in the world she wanted to be. Juliet was last person she wanted to work with. What had happened to her newfound independence, the inner strength she had been so proud of? Beaten out of her by the events of the past few weeks, she supposed. After all, she had stood up for herself, and it had gotten her nowhere, except broken up with Graham and fired from her job. So much for the New Emmie, she thought. Lesson learned.
So she took a deep breath, reminded herself it was a paying job (even if it was Juliet), which she could use right about now, and forced herself out of her car. She headed down the block toward Juliet’s shop, feeling very much like the Old Emmie once again. So this was what it was going to be like from now on, then? Julie
t was still the golden girl, still the perfect female who called all the shots, got whatever she wanted, just like in high school? Juliet won, she got Graham after all. And Emmie was going to be relegated to the background, an extra in Juliet’s big movie—All About Juliet, of course. Shit, she might as well apply for the job as Juliet’s lady’s maid. The guys working on Graham’s house hadn’t taken out that little hamster run of a servant’s bedroom yet. Maybe they could leave it there, just for her. If she lost her house because she couldn’t make her mortgage payments, she could live in it. She didn’t need much space.
Emmie crossed the street, flinching when she stepped onto the sidewalk where she had last seen Juliet and Graham together. Entering the shop was worse. She hadn’t been inside since the night of the winter festival, when Juliet had hauled her in there, and she had been so miserable . . . until her chat with Graham. Well, more specifically, until his breath first brushed her ear when he said, “I would still choose you.” Those words of his still gave her shivers.
The inside of the store, which was empty, didn’t look any different, despite the fact that Juliet had said, weeks ago, that Graham was going to draw up plans to rework the space. If the big construction hadn’t started yet, why did Juliet need Emmie right now? Probably to rub her nose in the whole Graham thing, she speculated, which sparked her irritation.
Emmie heard noises coming from the back room, so she called out tentatively, “Juliet? It’s Emmie.”
Juliet appeared almost instantly in the short hallway between the front and back rooms, clad in super-tight lavender velour track bottoms that belled out over her tiny feet, bright pink rubber gloves that extended to her elbows, and a white spaghetti-strap cami that showed off those toned arms that Emmie had been so jealous of when she saw her photo on Circle-O. Damned Web site. Emmie blamed it for all her trouble. She knew it wasn’t fair to blame an inanimate object—and a virtual one at that—but she couldn’t help it. Her mother had never trusted the Internet—she’d often said it was the root of all modern evils. Emmie used to laugh about it; now she had half a mind to agree with her.
Juliet beamed at her as though they were lifelong besties. “Emmie! I’m so glad you’re here. I’m just doing some cleaning. Come on back.”
Dammit.
She couldn’t bear to be in there with Juliet; she wanted the memory of her moment in that room with Graham to stay pure and Juliet-free. But Emmie had no choice, so she followed Juliet’s “Juicy”-labeled butt exactly where she didn’t want to go.
The early-afternoon sun streaming through the newly cleaned window on the back wall made the room almost unbearably bright—so different from the cold, shadowy place she remembered. Juliet started chatting as she leaned a mop against the wall, but Emmie was miles away, staring at the open door of the utility closet, where Graham had laughed at her for pretending that Avery was her boyfriend. Emmie shook herself, turned away from the memory, tried to focus on Juliet.
Whatever she had been rambling about, Juliet stopped when she saw Emmie’s face. “I know,” she said, which put Emmie on high alert. What? What did she know? Juliet looked around with a shudder. “I hate this back room, too. It has a weird vibe to it, don’t you think?”
If Emmie weren’t so despondent, she would have laughed. She hoped Juliet was picking up on some emotions she and Graham had generated and it was making her uncomfortable. But she just shrugged. “Nothing a little bit of paint and a new floor can’t fix.”
“Well, that’s why I’ve been working away here, trying to get a few layers of grime off of everything!” Juliet stripped off her rubber gloves with a snap! snap! that echoed in the empty room. “But now I want to talk about making it pretty!” she said eagerly. “What have you got for me?”
“Well . . . I’ve been pretty busy . . .”
“Oh, I heard, you poor thing,” Juliet commiserated, her blue eyes wide. “Graham told me the two of you have been working so hard on that house he bought!”
Oh, he did, did he? Emmie thought. What else did he tell you we’ve been working on, hmm?
Juliet carefully smoothed out her gloves and said, “Silly man, with such a crazy house that needs so much work. I don’t know why he bought that thing.”
Emmie gaped. Juliet’s dismissive tone made her blood boil. She wanted to shout, He bought it for you!
“Do you know,” the other woman said, turning back to Emmie and propping the heels of her hands on the edge of the sink, “he won’t even let me see the place? It’s true! I’ve never been there.”
Emmie swallowed hard. “Why?”
Juliet let out one of her overly cheerful laughs. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s so awful that he’s embarrassed or something.”
“It’s coming together really well,” Emmie said in an even tone, trying to keep a lid on her fury. She had to change the subject before she took a swing at this tittering blond pixie. “So,” she said, “if you want to talk about this shop, let’s talk about it.”
“Oh,” Juliet said, more seriously, “right. Actually . . .” She fluffed her hair as she glanced around the room. “I do want to ask you for some advice . . . but not about interior design . . . exactly.”
Emmie, confused and suspicious, waited.
Juliet paused, then smiled warmly. “Emmie, I admire you so much.”
What was that, now?
“So, so much,” she repeated. “You have no idea.”
That was true. Emmie really had no idea. “Okay . . .” she prompted, dreading what was coming next. She was sure it couldn’t be anything good.
“Emmie, do you ever miss high school?”
Whoa—first a zig, now a zag. Emmie was getting dizzy. “Um, no, can’t say that I do. Juliet, what’s this all about?”
Juliet shook her head and smiled ruefully. “Oh, God, I don’t know what I’m saying. I mean . . . well, everything seemed so much simpler, and clearer, in high school. I always knew where I was going and what I needed to do next. You know?”
Did Juliet just admit she had peaked in high school, as Emmie always hoped? She certainly wasn’t following Juliet’s train of thought, whatever point she was trying to make. Now the woman fell silent and picked at a dried blob of paint on the rim of the sink.
“Juliet?” Emmie prompted.
Still picking at the paint, she went on hesitantly, “Remember the talk we had after your party? When you drove me home?”
How could Emmie forget? That unfortunate conversation was filed away in her brain for all eternity, under the category “TMI: Juliet Edition.” She had hoped Juliet had been so drunk she’d forgotten it, but no such luck. She nodded.
“You gave me some really good advice. You’re so smart, Emmie—that’s another reason I admire you—and so sensible.”
Hah! If she only knew.
“You’re a good friend. And you know what my . . . situation is. So I want to ask you about . . . about Graham.” She rushed on, “We’ve had a rough month or so, and I really, really want us back on track. I just don’t know how to get us there. You work with him almost every day—you must know him pretty well by now. Has he said anything? Does he mention me? What’s his mood like? God, what should I do?”
Emmie could have sworn her jaw hit the floor and a tooth or two fell out, even though all of her anatomy was still where it belonged. What, Juliet was starting to tweak to the fact that her suicide-threat plan wasn’t working (imagine that)? And now she was asking her how to get Graham back? Was this some sort of joke?
Apparently not. Juliet, obviously extremely nervous, started to pace. When Emmie didn’t respond right away, she filled the silence with more prattle. “It’s not too late. I don’t think it is, anyway. Even if he did finally tell me he was seeing somebody else.” Emmie didn’t move a muscle. “It was right out there, on that sidewalk, in fact.” She gestured toward the street. “He stood there and told me he was in love with someone else—that this was ‘it’ for him. In love. Thinking marriage and everything. Can you believe it?
I mean, come on!”
She turned to Emmie expectantly, and Emmie realized Juliet was waiting for her to laugh along with her. However, all she could croak out was, “Who?”
Juliet shrugged. “He wouldn’t tell me.” She laughed again. “He probably thought I’d go claw her eyes out or something. And I probably would have! But the point is . . .” Here Juliet’s mood changed again, and her eyes welled up with tears. Emmie couldn’t tell if they were real or manufactured. “The point is, he broke up with me. For real this time. And . . . and I don’t know what I’m going to do without him. I need him. I don’t expect you to understand, of course. You don’t know what it’s like . . . you have so much in your life, and I . . . well . . .” Juliet flapped her hand in front of her face as she sniffled delicately. “Oh, gracious. I’m just going on and on. Just tell me to shut up anytime!” And she let go another tinkly laugh.
Then Emmie heard herself speaking—very quietly, very calmly. She said, in what would be a conversational tone under any other circumstances, “Juliet? Shut up.”
Juliet started and put a dainty hand to her cleavage. “Excuse me?”
Emmie’s voice remained controlled and quiet. “I said, shut up.”
“Emmie!” Juliet gasped, an incredulous half smile on her face that showed she hoped Emmie was joking.
But Emmie wasn’t. She spoke a little louder, to cut her off. “You . . . you need to stop talking now. You talk too much, and you don’t listen.” Juliet was indeed shocked into silence, so Emmie continued, before she lost her nerve, “I have never—and I mean never—met anyone as selfish as you are. You really think you have nothing in your life? What about your husband? Two kids, a nice house, your own business? Are you blind? Or just stupid? Tell me, because I really want to know.”
Juliet’s cheeks flushed a brilliant pink. She started to respond, but Emmie cut her off again. “No, wait. I’m not done yet. I also want to know why you think you deserve another man in your life, when you don’t treat the first one anywhere near as nicely as he deserves.” Juliet’s lips parted and she took a breath, but Emmie cut her off a third time. “No, wait. I’ll answer that for you. You don’t deserve another man in your life. Nobody, least of all Graham, should have to deal with what you’ve been dishing out lately. You are ruining his life, you know that? He’s a kind, compassionate guy, and you’re taking advantage of that, getting him to come running to you every time you threaten to kill yourself. But I know, even if he doesn’t, that you’re never really going to commit suicide. Because then you’d only have everyone’s undivided attention for the two hours it takes to hold your funeral. And that’s nowhere near long enough for you! So lay off Graham. Leave him the hell alone. And, if you have any sense at all, pay attention to your husband instead, before he wises up and kicks you to the curb!”
By Design Page 27
