Janice clutches her phone like pearls. “Do you even know who’s going to be there? Half the city’s elite. Real money. Real couture.”
“Please,” Steph says, rolling her eyes, though the smile on her lips is smug. “I already ordered two gowns online, just in case. Manifesting a plus-one. Manifesting champagne that doesn’t come out of a box. Manifesting men who don’t even know what overdraft fees are.”
Janice snorts. “Manifest harder, babe. Maybe Caleb will bring you as his plus-one.”
Both of them collapse against the counter, laughing like they’ve just cracked the funniest joke in history.
I drag the cursor across my screen, highlight, delete, highlight again. Pretend the monitor glow is more interesting than Steph’s shrill giggle. My jaw aches from holding still.
The wordCalebsticks in my throat like a pill I can’t swallow.
Mr. Kaplan arrives like the human embodiment of an eyebrow—two canes, a Ziplock full of nickels, and that face that tells the truth even when you don’t want it. He parks himself in the chair like he’s staking a claim and looks at me the way old people look at you when they know the thing before you do.
“Mary, you look like hell,” he says, and I almost laugh at the bluntness because it’s the kind of kindness that doesn’t ask for theater. “Have you been sleeping?”
No. I have been doing a lot of things that do not involve sleep: replaying the last twelve hours in my head like a scratched record, trying to find a seam where the memory would come apart and show me the man with the green eyes. Trying to remember whether I’d been brave or reckless or both.
“Just a long week,” I say. My voice is small and unsure, like an unpaid bill.
Mr. Kaplan sets his cane aside by the window counter and places his Ziplock bag of nickels on the marble surface, pushing it toward me. I lean forward to grab it, and he studies my face with those sharp eyes that miss nothing.
“You look… different. Not like the usual haggard. More… awake. Living, even.”
The words land weird and warm in my chest. Living. It’s absurd—like someone offering you cake right after you’ve sworn off sugar—but the idea makes my shoulders drop a little. Maybe I’m not a complete disaster. Maybe being inside a terrible, beautiful thing—whatever it was with this mess—left some residue that feels less like shame and more like… color.
Mr. Kaplan taps the nickels down with deliberate dignity. “You ever have one of those nights where you’re not sure if it happened or if it was a dream?”
I pause with a nickel midway. “That’s… specific.”
“My late wife used to say the best nights were the ones you couldn’t quite remember.” He looks at me, eyes bright at the corners. “Usually meant you were living instead of just existing.”
Or it meant you got blackout drunk, made terrible choices, and woke up next to a masculine cologne that still won’t leave your lungs. God help me, part of me wants that cologne back. Wants it pressed into my sheets, stuck in my hair, clinging to my skin until I can’t pretend it was just a mistake.
From across the floor, Stephanie coughs loud enough for the entire lobby to hear, then mutters just within earshot, “Some of us have actual work quotas to meet instead of hosting therapy sessions.”
Mr. Kaplan’s eyebrows rise to his hairline. “Well,” he says, voice carrying perfectly, “if efficiency were measured by kindness, young lady, you’d be filing for unemployment.” He turns back to me with a conspiratorial wink. “Don’t mind her, dear. You’redoing just fine. Better than fine—you actually treat people like human beings.”
My cheeks flush as I quickly finish counting his nickels, fingers flying over the bills. “Forty-seven dollars and sixty cents,” I say, scribbling the deposit slip. “All set, Mr. Kaplan.”
He doesn’t move right away. Instead, he studies me with those sharp eyes, tilting his head like he’s solving a puzzle. “You know what’s different about you today?”
I pause, pen hovering over the receipt. “What’s different?”
“You’re not apologizing.” He taps his finger on the counter. “Usually, you say sorry three times during a transaction—sorry for the wait, sorry for asking questions, sorry for existing. Today? Nothing. You just did your job like you belonged here.”
The observation hits me sideways. He’s right. I haven’t been shrinking into myself, haven’t been making myself smaller.
“Confidence looks good on you, dear.” He reaches for his cane, gripping it with weathered hands. “Whatever—or whoever—put that spark back in your eyes, don’t let anyone dim it.”
He shuffles away slowly, cane tapping against the marble floor, leaving me staring after him.
I turn back to my computer, fingers moving across the keyboard as I process his deposit, but there’s this warm feeling spreading through my chest. Like maybe I’m not the same person who walked into work this morning.
The feeling doesn’t last long.
A shadow falls across my desk, and something cold crawls up my spine—that instinctive awareness of being watched. I turn around.
Caleb stands behind me, too close, his smile too perfect.
