Chương 3
Jenna looked toward the salon.
“Yes.”
Adrian looked at Evelyn.
She did not defend Madison.
“Keep the original,” he said to Jenna. “Don’t edit it. Don’t send it to me yet.”
“Why?”
“Because it belongs to you.”
She looked surprised.
“If you want to share it later, we can talk about that. But I don’t want anyone pressuring you.”
Evelyn’s eyes moved toward the front.
Madison’s voice carried faintly from the reception area.
“She’s already making calls.”
Adrian pulled the sweatshirt over his head with some difficulty. Wet fabric caught on his shoulders. His right hand slipped, and for a moment he was stuck halfway through with the collar over his eyes.
Jenna looked away to give him privacy.
Evelyn started to stand.
He managed it before she moved.
When his head came through, his hair was worse.
He pushed it back.
“Better?”
Jenna considered him.
“Marginally.”
Evelyn gave her a look.
Adrian smiled.
“I appreciate the honesty.”
Jenna left.
Evelyn shut the office door.
“Mr. Cole—”
“Adrian.”
“This is not the moment to be casual.”
“It’s exactly the moment.”
She stood behind her desk instead of sitting again.
“What do you want me to do?”
He looked at her.
“Right now?”
“Yes.”
“Run your business.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It is.”
“Madison is out there telling Brooke that you deliberately sat outside looking homeless to test us.”
“Do I look homeless?”
Evelyn hesitated.
Adrian raised an eyebrow.
She rubbed her forehead.
“You look like you got dressed during a fire.”
“That’s fair.”
“Your shirt was torn before she poured water on you.”
“It was.”
“Why?”
“I like the shirt.”
“It has a hole from your shoulder to your ribs.”
“It’s comfortable.”
“You own seventeen commercial properties.”
“Nineteen.”
“That makes it worse.”
“I didn’t dress for Madison Reed.”
Evelyn paced one step and stopped because there was nowhere else to pace.
“You understand how this will look.”
“To whom?”
“Everyone.”
“That’s a large focus group.”
“You know what I mean.”
He did.
Adrian had spent the past eighteen months learning how quickly people looked for an explanation that made discomfort disappear.
When he first came home from the rehabilitation hospital, neighbors who had known him for eight years stopped asking about work and began asking how he was feeling. Men he had negotiated with across conference tables began speaking more slowly around him. A bank executive once rested a hand on his shoulder during a meeting and told him he was “inspiring” before arguing against his financing terms.
Strangers were harder to predict.
Some stared.
Some overhelped.
Some looked away.
Some talked to the person standing beside him instead of to him.
A few became aggressively cheerful.
Most were ordinary.
That had surprised him.
Most people held doors, forgot about the chair after a minute, or asked whether he needed help and accepted no for an answer.
The cruel ones were uncommon.
They were also memorable.
Adrian looked at his wet boots.
“Let her tell people I staged it.”
Evelyn stared.
“You can’t be serious.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s a lie.”
“People lie.”
“She’ll damage you.”
“Evelyn.”
“What?”
“I’m a landlord in a bad shirt, not a senator.”
Her mouth tightened.
“You’re missing the point.”
“No. I’m refusing to panic.”
The office phone rang.
Neither moved.
It rang again.
Evelyn looked at the caller ID.
“Front desk.”
“Answer it.”
She did.
“Evelyn.”
A pause.
“No. Tell her I’m busy.”
Another pause.
“No.”
She hung up.
“Madison wants to leave through the rear entrance.”
Adrian looked toward the window.
“Why?”
“Because two people outside have phones out.”
“How did they know?”
“The stylist at station three posted something.”
Evelyn looked suddenly tired.
“She didn’t post the video. Just a picture of the sidewalk and something about what happened.”
“How many followers?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then neither of us knows whether this matters yet.”
“You really can do that?”
“Do what?”
“Sit there while something may be exploding around you.”
Adrian looked at the filing cabinet.
“No.”
She waited.
“I can look like I’m sitting.”
That was the closest he came to telling her the truth.
His heart had been beating too fast since the water struck him.
Not because of Madison.
Because for one short, humiliating second, the impact had returned him to the night his truck rolled on Route 17 and shattered the part of his life that used to happen without asking permission.
Cold windshield glass.
Blood in his mouth.
A paramedic saying, Don’t move, sir.
Hands he could not feel touching his legs.
He hated that memory.
He hated it more because Madison had not earned the right to summon it.
So he sat quietly and folded a towel until his hands stopped wanting to shake.
Outside the office, Madison was trying to recover her world.
She had taken Brooke and Ashley to the far side of the reception area, where three framed photographs of models hung above a product shelf.
“I’m not discussing this here,” she said.
“You’re discussing it pretty loudly,” Brooke replied.
“Stop.”
Ashley stared toward Evelyn’s office.
Madison lowered her voice.
“We leave together.”
Ashley looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because I’m not standing around while he performs whatever this is.”
“What is he performing?”
“You saw him.”
“I saw you dump water on him.”
Madison’s head snapped toward her.
Brooke whispered, “Ashley.”
“What?”
“You don’t have to say everything out loud.”
Ashley looked at Brooke.
“That’s kind of how we got here.”
Brooke’s face reddened.
Madison put the empty cup down again even though she had already put it down once and picked it back up without noticing.
“He was blocking the entrance.”
“He wasn’t.”
“He was sitting beside it.”
“Yes.”
“In that chair.”
Ashley stared.
“In the wheelchair?”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, I actually don’t anymore.”
Madison laughed once.
It was sharp and frightened.
“Oh, don’t become a saint now. You laughed.”
Ashley’s expression folded inward.
“I know.”
“You pointed,” Madison said to Brooke.
May you like
Brooke looked at the floor.
“I know.”
