The city lights reflected off the glass, cold and impersonal. Evelyn turned away.
Maggie returned with scissors and a carrier bag. “To collect the scraps,” she explained.
Together, they stalked into the bedroom Mindy had claimed as her “dressing room.” Evelyn opened the door and winced. “God, it’s like a Hollister exploded in here.”
Clothes everywhere. Mindy had never met a surface she didn’t want to drape something over. She also had a preferencefor statement pieces, the kind of clothes that said, “Look at me!” and then screamed about it for another hour.
Evelyn started methodically pulling items off hangers and folding them into neat, soulless rectangles. Maggie immediately began rooting through drawers, making gleeful commentary about Mindy’s taste in underwear. Every so often, she’d let out a feral whoop, snip a thong in half, and fling the remains into the air. She started a running tally on a notepad.
“Thongs: seven,” Maggie reported, snipping one with tiger stripes. “Ew, eight. I hope she wasn’t saving this one for you.”
Evelyn just kept packing, not trusting herself to speak. The repetitive motion was soothing. She was in her element: disaster, meet process. She packed two large carrier bags before Maggie lost steam.
“You’re so calm about this,” Maggie said, collapsing onto the unmade bed and watching Evelyn box up another pair of Mindy’s platform heels. “I’d be smashing every bottle in sight and cursing her ancestors.”
Maggie had seen this before. After Roslyn died, Evelyn had cleaned out her mother’s office in a single weekend, methodically cataloguing every file, every photo, every Post-it note. She’d worked through the night, refusing help, refusing to stop. Maggie had found her at dawn, surrounded by labelled boxes, eyes dry and distant. This was the same. Evelyn didn’t break down—she broke things into manageable pieces.
“You know,” Maggie said carefully, “it’s okay to be upset. You don’t have to be efficient about everything.”
Evelyn didn’t look up from the shoes she was packing. “If I stop, I’ll think about it. If I think about it, I’ll realize I wasted eighteen months on a relationship that was wrong from the start. So, no. I’d rather be efficient.”
Maggie opened her mouth, then closed it. There was no arguing with that logic, even if it was heartbreaking.
“You’re not me.”
“No, you’re the Ice Queen.” Maggie pronounced it with mock grandeur, then softened. “But, seriously, Evie. You don’t have to be okay with this.”
Evelyn paused, a pair of garish metallic trainers in her hand. “What else am I supposed to be?”
“Livid. Heartbroken. Something.”
“I’ll get there,” Evelyn said, more to herself than to Maggie. “For now, I’d rather be finished.”
“Fair.” Maggie sat up and patted the bed. “Come here.”
Evelyn finished the last pair of shoes, tied off the bag, and perched beside Maggie. There was an awkward moment where Maggie clearly wanted to give her a hug but hesitated, probably fearing Evelyn would squirm away or bite.
Evelyn set her jaw. “It’s fine, Mags. I don’t need a hug.”
“You do, but I’ll allow it to be a virtual one.” Maggie raised her wine glass, and Evelyn clinked it.
“I do appreciate you,” Evelyn said, letting a little of the mask slip.
“Of course you do. I’m the best friend you’ll ever have, unless you develop a sudden fondness for schnauzers.”
“Schnauzers are noble dogs,” Evelyn said, warming to the topic. “Unlike your last three exes.”
“That’s why I like you. You insult with such sincerity.” Maggie cackled, then stood up, her hands on her hips as she surveyed the remains of the dressing room. “Right. What’s next?”
Evelyn considered the closet, now half-empty. There was a void, a blank stretch of rail and shelf. “Now I have to reorganise,” she said. “It’s going to drive me mad otherwise.”
Evelyn pulled each blazer from its hanger, checking for lint, loose threads, anything out of place. Navy, charcoal, black, grey—a gradient of corporate armour. She’d bought most of themafter becoming CEO, each one a small act of defiance against the board members who thought she was too young, too female, too much her mother’s daughter to lead.
Mindy had mocked her once for the uniformity. “You dress like a sexy undertaker,” she’d said, sprawled across the bed in one of her neon crop tops. Evelyn had taken it as a compliment. The board took her seriously in these suits. They didn’t see a grieving daughter playing dress-up in her mother’s company, they saw a CEO.
She ran her hand along the empty rail where Mindy’s clothes had hung. Sequins and leather and ridiculous statement pieces that screamed for attention. Evelyn’s wardrobe whispered. It was better that way.
“You know,” Maggie called from the ottoman, “you could buy something fun. A little colour. Maybe a floral print.”
