Page 56 of Backlash

I follow Cyrus’s instructions, handing off the keys and giving his name. Inside, I head straight for a bank of elevators with golden doors. Even though this was Cy’s idea, I still feel out of place. I want to get up to the room and out of the opulent entrance with its gleaming marble floors and domed, stained glass ceiling. When I reach the elevators, I turn to find Francie standing in the lobby, staring around her.

“Francie,” I hiss as the elevator in front of me dings.

She hurries over. A few others board with us. The suite is on the sixth floor, the very top level of the hotel. Everyone else gets off on other floors. When we reach the suites, I see why. There are only four, apparently numbered randomly between 600 and 614. In small letters under each number is the word ‘penthouse.’ The first one we reach, number 614, is also marked as a private residence.

“It’s the one at the other end. Number 600,” I tell Francie, shouldering our bags.

“People live here?” she says.

“Guess so.” I might have thought that was far-fetched until I met the Valmont elite. Now, nothing surprises me about this town.

“This wasn’t what I was expecting when you said your friend’s family owned a hotel. I thought it would be like that place we stopped outside Roanoke. The one with the mini-fridge and the broken ice machine.” She falls silent when I open the door to the suite.

It’s easily twice the size of our place in Queens, and a far cry from the Drive Rite Inn we stayed at in Virginia.

No expense was spared for the Eaton’s private suite at their hotel. Plum velvet sofas with turned arms face each other, perfectly spaced around a large stone hearth. A chandelier drips crystal above us, its light sparkling around the richly papered walls. Cyrus mentioned a kitchenette, and it turns out to be larger than our room and appointed with luxury appliances, including a refrigerator with French doors. An oak table that seats twelve stretches between it and the living room, with each place already set for a dinner party. I spot a note on the counter.

Make yourselves at home. Order what you want. Don’t worry about the bill. It’s on the house.

Francie wanders throughout, pausing before continuing down a hall. There are two bedrooms, each with its own private bathroom. I drop Francie’s bag in the biggest one and turn to her with a grin. It fades as soon as I see her face.

“I don’t know about this,” she says. “This is an expensive place, Sterling.”

“I guess I have friends in high places now.” The joke falls flat.

“That girl? Adair? She has money like this?”

“More, I think,” I admit. I drop onto the bed, knowing there’s more we need to talk about.

“Why didn’t you tell me she’s rich?”

“Does it matter?”

“If you have to ask, it does,” she says. “Do you know what you’re getting yourself into?”

Resentment bubbles inside me. Francie was the one that pushed me toward the private, affluent university. Who did she expect my classmates to be? I fight the urge to boil over. She’s voicing the exact same concerns I had when I first met Adair and her friends.

“Adair’s different,” I promise her.

Francie studies me before forcing a smile. “I hope you’re right.”

15

Adair

Present Day

“This will be your desk.”

I trail my finger across the top of the cheap office chair. It’s not much. A desk shoved into the corner of the room with a beat-up filing cabinet next to it.

The offices at Bluebird Press are a half-story underground. The vibe is exactly the opposite of most offices I’ve been in. Instead of a fluorescent-lighted, taupe-cubicle hell-scape, Bluebird shows signs of actual life. Along the two exterior walls, high windows give the cramped space a surprising amount of natural light. Piles of books and loosely bound, coffee-stained manuscripts gather on well-worn wooden desks. The air is slightly stuffy, except when I walk through a stream of air blown down by the ancient, belt-driven ceiling fan system. The stale, wet-cardboard smell of cheap coffee wafts through the room, but it’s unclear if this is from an actual coffee machine, or if the aroma has simply always been here.

A few steps from my desk there’s a community copy machine liberally plastered with instructions on how to coax it to do one’s bidding. It’s definitely not the executive office I imagined sitting in one day.

I don’t care, because there’s a stack of manuscripts waiting for me on my desk. Who cares about the cramped space? Books take you all over the world. No passport required. Trish watches me nervously, probably wondering if I’m going to demand a corner office.

Thanks to Poppy’s intervention, I’m overdressed for my first day on the job. Where Trish looks comfortable in a pair of slim-legged khaki trousers, canary-yellow ballet flats, and an oversized white tank top, I’m in a blank pencil skirt that hugs my ample hips and 3-inch black crocodile-leather heels that Poppy deemed “tame enough for work.” My saving grace is the soft denim shirt I insisted on. Knotted in the front, the outfit was classic but sophisticated. Even Poppy approved.