“Looks like you hired the right lass for the job,” Morrie said to Heathcliff. “Maybe our Mina can help you transcend your grubby gypsy aesthetic.”
“Better a grubby gypsy than a dandy coxcomb.”
“Did you just call me acoxcomb?” Morrie snorted. “Nice topical reference. You got any more Shakespearean put-downs? Tell me how I art a boil, a plague sore, an embossed carbuncle in your corrupted blood—”
“Quiet, both of you.”Quoth spoke, his voice velvet and darkness.“Let Mina speak.”
I took a shaking breath. “A few months ago, I started noticing I couldn’t see very well in low light. I was sitting at this bar with Ashley. She’d convinced a couple of guys to buy us drinks, and I realized I couldn’t tell if they were the same two we started the night with. I couldn’t discern their faces. I thought maybe I’d had too much to drink, but then later that week I fell down the stairs to our flat. I scraped my arm all up. It hurt like hell.” I lifted my arm and rolled up my sleeve to show them the scar along my forearm.
“There was other stuff, too. Ashley said I kept bending my head weird. It turns out I’d been angling my head because my peripheral vision was receding at an alarming rate. A couple of weeks later I crashed into a filing cabinet and chipped a tooth. Then I missed the edge of my desk and dropped my cold-pressed cacao smoothie on the floor. In New York, that’s fuckingsacrilege, like spitting on the Pope. It was weird, but I just thought I was stressed about work.
“We were leading up to New York Fashion Week, so work was crazy. Marcus was unveiling his first ever bridal collection and everything had to beperfect. I worked backstage at the event and I could hardly see a thing. I had so much to organize and so many people relying on me, the whole show’s success was riding on me getting every cue perfect, solving every disaster, finding every missing accessory. Ashley called my name and I stumbled toward her through shadows and gloom and crashed into a model wearing an eight-foot-high headdress. Luckily, she managed to steady herself before she fell and ruined the outfit, but I couldn’t stop shaking. I’d never done something sostupidbefore. It was like I was on drugs. I thought maybe one of the other interns had roofied my drink. Ashley kept telling me it was just an accident, but that was it… I didn’tseeher. Even when I hit her, I couldn’t see her body. And Ishouldhave seen her.”
Tears stung in my eyes at the memory. Working Fashion Week for Marcus Ribald should have been a dream come true. Instead, it was forever etched in my memory as the day I realized something was really wrong with my eyes.
Grimalkin jumped into my lap and curled up, her body vibrating with an intense purr. I stroked her silky fur – the action helped steady my breathing so I could continue. I squeezed my eyes shut in an attempt to keep the tears at bay. “I went to an optometrist and she referred me to a specialist ophthalmologist and after some more tests and things, I got my diagnosis –retinitis pigmentosa.”
“And that is?”
“A breakdown of cells in the retina,” said Morrie. “As the retina degenerates, patients suffer loss of night and peripheral vision.”
“Are you a doctor, too?” I asked, surprised that he knew so much.
“I’ve dabbled,” he said simply.
“Well, you’re right. It’s a genetic condition, so as well as my tiny nose and mousy hair I’ve inherited these delightful genes from my parents. No one in my mum’s family has the condition, and she doesn’t have any contact with my father so we don’t know anything about his side. The specialist said mine’s quite a rare form of RP that may accelerate at any time. There’s nothing I can do about it and there’s no cure. He says that…” I sucked in a breath. “That I’ll eventually go completely blind.”
My greatest fear hovered out there in the open. Instead of being horrible, it was weirdly liberating, speaking the words into the gloom. I felt as though I stood outside my body, watching this sad girl in her scuffed Docs and jersey dress spill her guts in front of these guys. It didn’t matter what their reaction was because she’d done the scary thing. She’d said the words. She’d made them real.
“Shite,” Heathcliff spat, the word dripping with hidden pain. My eyes flew open, and a jolt raced through my body as he looked –reallylooked – back at me. He saw the clues that had been hiding in plain sight ever since he hired me, and everything this diagnosis meant for my future.
And it made him angry, not at me, butforme. It made him remember some long ago pain from his past that made him feel helpless and alone, and for the first time since I’d walked into the Nevermore Bookshop, I realized that Heathcliff and I had a connection.
“That’s a bloody shame, gorgeous,” Morrie said.
Quoth said nothing.
I sucked in a breath, strengthened by their reactions, but the set of their eyes upon me. Outside, the rain came down harder, slamming against the windows and pounding on the roof, matching the pattering of my heart. I continued. “The first thing I did was call Ashley. She came straight over with a bottle of bourbon and we finished it off that night. I got completely maggoted and cried a lot. All I’d wanted my whole life was to be a fashion designer, but how can I do that if I can’t even see? Ashley convinced me that it wasn’t all bad. It might be twenty years or more before I go completely blind. It might never happen. She thought I should keep pursuing fashion and fuck anyone if they tried to stop me. I’d never loved her so much as I did that night.
“I woke up the next morning with a new sense of determination. Ashley was right. I wouldn’t let what might one day be destroy my dreamstoday– and that started immediately. I went to work hungover but with a bounce in my step, and worked my arse off until well after the sunset. Marcus stopped by our desks to say the show had been a success, and he’d be giving us our performance reviews the next day, as well as announcing who got the permanent job on his team. Ashley and I went out for a drink that night and we both talked about how we’d be happy for the other person if they got it, but I could tell from the way she was looking at me that she knew I was going to get it. I bought all her drinks that night because she’d been such a good friend and now I was going to get this amazing job she really wanted. It was the least I could do.
“At work the next day we waited outside Marcus’ office. He called us in one by one like he was a school principal and we were naughty children. My head throbbed from the drinking, but I was too excited to care.
“Marcus called me in, and I perched on hisla corbusierrecliner, launching into a speech I prepared about how honored I was to work with him and how I’d do him proud. Marcus looked pained. ‘I’m sorry, Mina,’ he said. He clasped his hands on his lap. ‘You’ve worked so hard this year, and you have a real flair for design. I think you have amazing potential, but I’ve decided to give the job to Ashley.’
“I couldn’t believe it. The words didn’t make sense. I asked him why. ‘The fashion world is shallow, and it demands nothing less than perfection. It’s sad, but that’s fashion. I just can’t have someone on my staff who’s going blind. You would be a liability. What if you fell off the runway prepping for a show? What if you cut a garment wrong? My silks are handmade by cloistered nuns in Tibet. They’repriceless.’
“‘I’ve been looking at ways to adapt,’ I said. ‘It’s really not as difficult as you think—’
“Marcus shook his head. ‘I really am sorry. You’re not able to work in fashion. Here or anywhere. It’s just not possible.’ He turned back to his drawing board, indicating that was the end of the conversation. I sat frozen in the chair, and finally willed my feet to move. I couldn’t… I just didn’t—”
“That’s discrimination,” Morrie said. “You could take that bastard to court. I’ll help with your case.”
“He should not be allowed to do that,” Quoth added.
“I’ll gut the bastard,” Heathcliff growled.
“Or, even better, we’ll blackmail him into giving you the job. I’m skilled at digging up nasty secrets from the past people don’t want to be made public. I bet this guy has a mistress. Or hey, I wager Marcus Ribald isn’t even his real name.”
