by Chloe Garner
He was naked. He’d left his clothes on the floor downstairs, casual as you please, and come up here with nothing but skin, and yet he held her with his eye and his voice.
You couldn’t buy power like that.
He tipped his head back and stuck out his jaw a fraction, knowing.
Knowing.
“Dammit, Jimmy. You’re the one talks about decidin’. Then you put me here. What do you ‘spect from me, lookin’ at this place?”
“Exactly what you’re saying,” he said. “I can see it easily from where you are. The difficulty you’ve had in your life makes this seem…” His eyes scanned the ceiling, where metal patterns imitated the shapes of the sections of the room, dividing one from another. “Meaningless, at best. Fraudulent at worst. But you still have to decide. Once more, are you with me, or are you on your own? This is who I am.”
“Like hell,” she muttered. “You expect me to stand by while you bring women into that bed…”
He held up his hands.
“I misspoke,” He said, standing. “I’m sorry. This isn’t who I am, but it is who I was.”
She shook her head.
“This isn’t who you were,” she said, the lashing drawl vanishing, her own words more powerful. “This is who you became to try to be the man they expected you to be. This is weakness, Jimmy.”
He stopped, looking around once more.
“Perhaps it is,” he said, and she turned her face away, not wanting him to see the surprise - or the relief - that he might agree with her.
She turned and left, not bothering to close the doors behind her, and he came down just a few minutes later to find her sitting on a couch, watching the city.
There was just an instant of hesitation - she saw it - then he held out his arm.
“We have more appropriate garments to procure for you,” he said.
He didn’t know if she was going to go.
For all the power he had with her and over her, he wasn’t sure.
If she’d been wearing a hat and duster, maybe she wouldn’t have.
She gave him a hard look, making him look into her eyes, to see that she was willing, then she took his arm.
“I thought I knew you,” she said quietly as they walked to the door.
“You do,” he answered, his voice confidential, personal. “You always have.”
She shook her head.
“You seem to be going out of your way to prove me wrong.”
He breathed, and she might have been able to tell anger from consideration if she’d been willing to look at him, but she wasn’t.
“No,” he finally said. “I’m going out of my way to prove to myself that we’re going to make it.”
She shook her head.
“This isn’t the way, Lawson.”
“It’s the only way I know.”
--------
Intec had a clothing district. Jimmy told her that it was no different from Oxala - that there were stores that sold everything, where most people went to get most of their things - but that the high end was big enough to support the artisans.
It wasn’t until they went into the store and the woman at the counter looked up and greeted them that Sarah remembered that Kayla’s mother was one of the most renowned dressmakers in Intec.
“No,” Sarah said, turning back to the door. Jimmy slammed his shoulder against the frame and looked at her innocently.
“Can I… help you?” the young woman said, then, “Oh, Mr. Lawson, I didn’t see you. What can I do for you today?”
“How’s your mother, Nalise?” he asked, stepping into the shop and giving Sarah a firm look as he let the door fall closed behind him. Sarah stood with her back to the shop, watching the door, for several more seconds.
“Busy as ever,” the woman said. “How is Kayla? Her last letter…”
Sarah could only imagine what Kayla would tell her family about her situation in Lawrence.
“She’s Kayla,” Jimmy said. “Brightening the whole city, one dress at a time.”
“I’ve never heard her so angry,” a deeper, more melodic voice said, and Sarah turned to find a woman breezing into the room through a set of curtains. “She said the dress was ruined.”
“Mail gets here quicker than I thought,” Jimmy said. “I’d like you to meet the culprit.”
“Culprit?” Sarah demanded. “It wasn’t my fault.”
“Was someone else wearing it?” Jimmy prompted. She could have stabbed him. Really could have.
“Not my fault there was a gun fight,” Sarah growled. “And if you didn’t need cover, you were doing a damned fine job making everyone else think you did.”
The younger woman gaped.
“You’re Sarah Todd.”
Sarah sighed. The older woman gave her a smile that suggested she’d had lots of reluctant clients through that door.
“We didn’t recognize you without your jacket and hat.”
“Duster,” Sarah said, and the elder woman gave her another nod.
“Of course. Nalise, would you please fetch the refreshments for Ms. Todd and Mr. Lawson?”
“Yes, Mama.”
Sarah sucked on a back tooth, watching Jimmy. Finally he couldn’t avoid looking at her.
“I’m not doing this.”
His eyes sparkled. Real, live humor. She’d been ready to leave him and go back to Lawrence not an hour before, and here he was, genuinely amused at her discomfort.
“I gave Kayla my word,” he said.
That was a mistake. She felt the heat rise in the back of her neck.
“Kayla knew we were coming, and I didn’t?”
He shrugged, rubbing a finger under his nose. It was an old habit he used to try to disguise honest emotions.
“I mentioned it. Her family is here. I asked if she wanted me to deliver anything.”
“And?” the elder Kayla lookalike asked.
“She sends her love,” Jimmy said. “She says she’ll send pictures once we get the ability to use them, and as soon as there’s something else from Lawrence worth sending, she’ll send it, too.”
Sarah closed her eyes. She could just hear it in Kayla’s voice.
“She sent us the lovely pressed flowers, there,” the woman said, pointing. Sarah stiffened, willing herself not to look but unable to prevent it.
Framed in glass.
Hobflowers.
She heard Jimmy snort, and Kayla’s mother frowned.
“Is there something funny?”
“Sarah hates them,” Jimmy said.
“How could you hate something as delicate and pretty as those?” Nalise asked, coming back in with a silver tray. Sarah sighed relief, pulling out a bag of gremlin.
“You mind if I make my own tea?” she asked. Nalise was unprepared for this, but she covered well, bringing out a chair for Sarah and handing her a teacup and saucer, waiting for Sarah’s nod to pour steaming water over the crushed gremlin.
“Do you want a filter for that?” the elder woman asked. Sarah shook her head.
“It really is that uncivilized,” Jimmy murmured.
“Can we get you anything, Mr. Lawson?” Nalise asked.
“I’m fine, thank you,” he said, taking a second seat as Nalise arranged it for him. Nalise nodded, going back to the counter and starting to pull out long strips of nearly transparent paper. Sarah wondered at this for a moment, then the elder woman cleared her throat. Sarah turned back.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t catch your name,” Sarah said.
“I am Inge Turnlake,” the woman said. She said it the same way that Sarah said her own name, and she had to respect that. Inge looked at Jimmy. “What can I do for you, today?”
Newfound respect gone, Sarah sucked on her teeth again, then sipped her tea and put the cup back down.
“Clearly you aren’t going to make a dress for him,” Sarah said. Inge looked at her, evaluating.
“But I am, Ms. Todd. You may have the financial wherewithal to afford my serv
ices, but if you want something before the end of next month, then I will be doing the work for him.”
“Today,” Jimmy said. “Tomorrow at the latest, but it needs to be first thing. We’re meeting with Descartes.”
Inge’s quick eye returned to Sarah.
“Do you always wear black, Ms. Todd?”
“When I’m not in Lawrence,” Sarah said. Inge nodded.
“I prefer the brighter colors, myself,” she said, standing and going to a drawer on the wall. She pulled it all the way out and came back to sit with it in her lap, revealing the contents to be entirely composed of sundry buttons. She pulled one out. “Bright crimson is a classic, though it wouldn’t suit you.” She dropped it and picked up a rich bluegreen. “Turqouise would be lovely, but I’m afraid it would edge all the way to the point of inappropriate, with Descartes.”
Sarah pursed her lips.
“You have anything in leather?”
Inge gave her a tight smile.
“We know that Kayla made a dress for you for the auction. Tangerine, she said. I can see how it would have suited you. She learned that from me. Powerful women must be dark and sleek and severe. Very powerful women prove that they are something above, by being stunning and elegant in an entirely different way.”
“Seem to remember her telling me about this theory,” Sarah said.
“She believes it,” Inge said. “And so do I. For many women going to see Descartes, I would recommend gray or pearl, perhaps slate. Something that stands out against a room full of black, but that conforms to affirm that they belong there. You…” She frowned, then tipped her head. “You do not, do you?”
“Can’t be bothered to care,” Sarah said, finding a defensiveness in herself, perhaps a residual from that morning, that kept beckoning to her accent. She resisted.
“That,” Inge said, snapping. “That is exactly what I want to capture.”
She ran her fingers through the buttons once more and Sarah shook her head.
“Kayla has an unnatural affection for buttons, too.”
Inge laughed quietly, still looking.
She paused, then pulled a blue button, holding it up.
“Cerulean,” she said. “This will do.”
“Do you ever just say blue?” Sarah asked. Inge smiled.
“Twenty-five percent of the buttons in this drawer fall among the blues,” she said. “When I choose one, I want to be very specific about it.”
“What fabric?” Nalise asked.
“Bring several,” Inge said. “Sleek, please.”
Nalise disappeared again, and Inge pulled out a smaller, maroonish button, holding it over the blue, then looked at Sarah and smiled.
--------
“I’ll admit, that was not how I anticipated that would go,” Jimmy said as they walked down the sidewalk about fifteen minutes later.
“Exactly how Kayla works,” Sarah said, crossing her arms. “Takes a bunch of measurements then sends me away so I can’t fight her on any of the decisions she makes, from there.”
Jimmy laughed.
“She might be the most clever of any of them, taken for what she is.”
Sarah blew air through her lips.
“Froth and fluff.”
“And incredibly wealthy,” Jimmy said. “For an honest businesswoman, Inge is very powerful and influential, here.”
“Not one of your people then?” Sarah asked, appreciating the opportunity to turn that back at him.
“No,” Jimmy said, unfazed.
“Then how did you get her to allow her daughter to marry Wade?”
“Didn’t have to,” Jimmy said, glancing down the street and then crossing, unconcerned with her. “She loves Wade. That’s all Inge cared about.”
“And when you announced you were uprooting everyone and moving to the middle of nowhere with just mail service?” Sarah asked. Jimmy chuckled.
“I expect she didn’t like that much, but Kayla is Kayla. You don’t tell her that you aren’t going to let her have what she wants.”
That was true. Truer than Sarah was ready to say out loud.
“Where to now?” Sarah asked.
“Lunch,” he said. “I have a table waiting.”
“I miss jerky and bread,” Sarah grumbled, but he ignored her, hailing a taxi. They’d driven down from the house, but the car was blocks away from Inge’s shop, and they were continuing further into town, now. Sarah hadn’t seen a parked car in the last half mile.
She got in ahead of him, sliding across the back seat of the cab and looking out the window as Jimmy got in behind her. Jimmy gave the driver an address, and Sarah leaned back against her seat, resting her chin on her fingers and watching the people outside as they went by.
Traffic wasn’t bad, for as big a city as Intec was. A lot of the communication here was digital, compared to Oxala, and their parking and driving laws were draconian.
“There are some things you probably need to know about Descartes,” Jimmy murmured.
“There are probably some things I need to know about a lot of things, but it doesn’t make me care,” she answered.
“I can’t tell anymore,” he said. “Is this about the dress, or this morning?”
“To hell with the dress,” she answered.
He grunted.
“It’s not my fault that you spent your entire life miserable.”
“I wasn’t miserable until you left,” she said.
“Me leaving didn’t make Lawrence into the hellhole it was when I got back. The absenta did that, and that still isn’t my fault.”
“And that it isn’t your fault,” Sarah said. “That’s supposed to make everything better?”
She looked at him. His jaw twitched.
He wanted to tell her that he was surprised. That he thought she was overreacting.
The problem was that both of them knew better. He knew this was how she was going to react, he knew that she was perfectly within her rights and in character to do it, and he’d put it in front of her, anyway, because he was damned Jimmy Lawson, and he wanted to prove that she would stay with him, no matter how bad a man he was.
She wasn’t going to give him any benefit at all.
It wasn’t that she wanted him to lie to her.
It was that she wanted him to be who she wanted him to be, and to do that, he had to regret who he’d been.
And that wasn’t in Jimmy’s character, either.
They didn’t leave each other enough space, and they never had. Back when they were younger, they’d both taken up less space, but it had always been there. Two boulders, grinding at each other, both of them unable and unwilling to give.
“What do you want from me, Sarah?”
She drew a breath and looked outside again.
“Nothing you can give me.”
“I can give you almost anything,” he answered, but she heard it in his tone. He knew just as well as she did.
“Almost,” she echoed.
He sat across from her at lunch, close as a million miles away, and they ate in silence. She ordered her own lunch and she didn’t enjoy it at all.
“I need you to be there with Descartes,” he said as they started walking again.
“Where else am I going to be?” she asked.
“You know what I mean,” he said, and she pursed her lips. She did know.
“Just tell me what you need to tell me,” she said.
“He’s going to like you,” Jimmy said. “He likes to-the-point, he likes business without emotion, and he likes people who say what they mean. He’s the wealthiest man on the coast, and his only competition comes from his brothers.”
“And Yip ran away with his daughter,” Sarah observed. Jimmy pointed.
“There. That. You cannot do that.”
“Which part?”
“Any mention of his children at all,” he said. “Descartes is competitive with his brothers about many things, and his children are one of them.”
“Their su
ccesses?” Sarah asked.
“Their number,” Jimmy said. “Just to start.”
“Are you sure that this is the one I’m finally going to like?” Sarah asked. Jimmy dipped his head, looking around.
“His cars are okay, but you need to be upfront that you know nothing about them. If he thinks that you’re trying to curry favor by discussing something beyond your depth, he will excuse you from the meeting.”
“Excuse me,” Sarah said. Jimmy nodded.
“If he does excuse you, you need to go without a fight.”
Sarah stopped, facing him.
“What exactly are you imagining I would do instead?”
He blinked.
“Argue.”
“Oh. Well, yeah. I could see that. But I’m not going to let his security people drag me out by my arms.”
“No,” Jimmy said, shaking his head. “He would shoot you, first.”
She let that one hit her, and he nodded again.
“What kind of people have you gotten yourself in with?” Sarah asked.
“The kind with enough money that no one could ever touch them,” Jimmy said. “Remember that. He is a businessman, he knows that people are always tempted to lie to him, and he honors his word, so long as he’s given it, which he has. We have an agreement about the claim. Anything outside of that… He is only bound by his own word.”
Sarah began walking again, just continuing on in the direction he had initially chosen. Whether he had a destination in mind wasn’t clear to her.
She looked at the sky.
“You said you were going to throw a party tonight?”
“Yes.”
She glanced at him.
“And there’s nothing you need to do for that?”
“Just clothe you,” he said. “I have staff for the rest of it.”
“You said we could pick up the dress tomorrow morning,” she said. He laughed mirthlessly.
“You don’t order a custom Inge Turnlake for a party,” he said. “You will wear that dress exactly once, and that is to meet with Descartes.”
She’d gotten an eyeload of the bill on the way by, and she frowned.
