Ms. Birdie.
He sighed. “Before you say anything, I didn’t break her.”
“Didn’t you?” she replied. “Because I got a voicemail that sounded like it was recorded mid-nervous breakdown. Something about a wig-murdering mudhole, a maternity-leave handoff with zero training, and a binder held together with expired coupons and despair.”
“Her arrival had a few hiccups, and the bookstore owner went into early labor. Nothing this Francesca B persona can’t handle.”
“And yet she’s calling me, demanding immediate reinstatement at Naked Runway, and using words like ‘untenable,’ ‘cruel,’ and ‘possibly litigious.’”
“Relax. It’s part of the character she’s playing. You do know she’s pretending to be someone else while she’s here?”
“Yes. Of course I know. That’s not the point.” Ms. Birdie sighed the kind of sigh designed to fold grown men into submission. “The point is, I’m considering pulling her. Convince me not to.”
Marcus exhaled. “Look,” he said, quieter now. “She’s flailing, sure. But that doesn’t mean she’s failing.”
“That sounded suspiciously like sympathy.”
“It’s not that,” he replied, too fast. “It’s just…this morning, on the drive in, she hijacked the radio and broke into a full-volume, off-key rendition of ‘Material Girl’.I told her to keep it down. She dared me to sing backup.”
“And?”
He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “And I did. Like an idiot. And she laughed. Not her usual polished laugh. It was real. Loud. Messy. The kind of laugh that makes you think maybe the world isn’t as bleak as you thought.”
Ms. Birdie stayed silent. Which unnerved him more than her usual sass.
He shifted. “I thought the best-case scenario was that this little detour would return a safer version of her to the world. Toned down. Easier to digest.” He rubbed the back of his neck, annoyed with how uncomfortable this line of thinking made him. “But this morning…I don’t know. Watching her laugh like that. Watching her be. It made me think—” He trailed off, the words catching him off guard even as he spoke them. “Maybe the point isn’t making her safer. Maybe it’s giving her space to become someone no one saw coming?”
A pause.
He exhaled. “Even her.”
“And how would you feel if the consequences of her actions turned out to be a blessing in disguise?” Ms. Birdie asked, voice gentler now. More curious than confrontational.
He swallowed. Where was the fairness in Lola’s chance getting blown out of the water, while Frankie landed sunny side up?
“Honestly? I don’t know.”
But that wasn’t entirely true. He was starting to suspect he did know. And it scared the hell out of him.
“If you’d like to attempt damage control, and I assume you would, since you’re not saying good riddance, you’ll find her at a little coffee speakeasy called Petal & Thorn. Hidden behind a flower shop in the Lower East Side.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“You’re not supposed to. That’s what makes it cool. Or exhausting. I forget which.”
“I’m headed there now. Thanks for not bailing her out.”
“Go to the back door. Knock twice. Password is bitter bloom. And Marcus—”
“Yes?”
“Sometimes when a person’s pretending to be someone else…that’s when their true self comes through.”
Marcus paused.
That line landed closer than he liked.
Chapter 12
