“Kingmaker.”
“Well then.” I pushed off from the railing, reaching to the bar just to pour myself another glass of the chardonnay, sipping it as I leaned back against the rail. “Kingmaker and Houdini.”
“Oh my god. Yep… that’s us.”
“Should I listen to Stephen Shale?”
She took a second with eyes flicking around like she was scoping out her options before she said, “Not yet.”
“Not yet?” This girl was constantly raising more questions.
She knocked back the rest of her wine, setting it down on the bar, before—clearly emboldened on liquid courage, she gave me a playful shove and said, “We’ve gotta produce his big hit first. Something really worthy of his abilities. And then you’ll be the first to hear it. What do you say?”
Well, wasn’t Houdini a cute one? Almost a shame she was married. “We only just met, and you’re writing me a song?”
She had a look on her face like, briefly, she regretted everything she’d ever said, and then she puffed out her chest as she, I think, remembered that she was drunk. “Isn’t that what happens when you meet a muse, Helen of Troy?”
God, I couldn’t help smiling. “I think everything with Helen of Troy turned out badly.”
“Ah, yeah… yeah, kinda. But would all the stories exist if they hadn’t?”
I laughed, sipping my wine. “Music promoter and producer, Ancient Greece buff, and connoisseur of old magazine articles. Aren’t you an interesting one, Houdini?”
She beamed. “I’m drunk is what I am.”
“Sure, it’s a plan,” I said, slipping my phone from my clutch. “I’ll give you my number… and you can send me Stephen Shale’s future big hit. But it had better be a good one. I’ll be very critical.”
“Ha. You can trust in the Kingmaker.” She murmured something quietly to herself as she took out her own phone, and what I wouldn’t have given to know what she’d said.
Chapter 6
Julie
Not to be, like, dramatic or anything, but I think I was in love. I didn’t even know what itwasabout Helena, just the way she carried herself, how she walked and talked like she was blazing radiance, and then the way she looked at me like we were the only two people in the world. Green eyes I was going to see every time I closed mine. Holy fucking shit. She was funny and charming and clever and jaw-droppingly beautiful, and somehow she gave me her number and I was not supposed to be happy about that, because what the fuck, she thought I was Cassandra Evans-Pierre and that I was married. Kingmaker was right about, like, two things in his life, and one of them was that I needed to wash my hands of anybody who thought I was Cassandra.
I was thankfully spared any more spiraling over the most perfect woman who had ever existed or ever would exist, because her businessman friend from Shanghai, Mr. Cheng, showed back up to talk to her again, and I took the opening to slip away, trying to catch my breath and sort out my thoughts—I got around the corner and away from everything, to a quiet partof the party, where I leaned against the back of a pristine white couch with the speakers between me and the rest of the party, looking out over the railing back in the direction of Brooklyn behind us, trying to sober up—both off the alcohol and off the sound of Helena’s voice—when, once again, I heard the very last voice I wanted to hear.
“Do you think God gave me two eyes for nothing?”
I choked on the air, freezing up and looking back at where Krysten Adesina came around the sofa towards me. Shit, she had me pinned in now. Unless I went full chimpanzee on the situation and vaulted over the back of the couch to climb the terrace roof. I wasn’t ruling it out. “Oh, uh, hi,” I said. “Lovely weather, huh?”
“The weather? This one wants to discuss the weather. I think you want to kill me.” She folded her arms in front of me. “You will explain this. You will explain this now.”
“Explain what?” I said, my voice too high-pitched. “The party? Yeah, lovely… party. Lovely night. Party night. I love to party. Have you ever thought about making a party app?”
She gestured at me. “Will you look at yourself! The lord has made you out of shamelessness.”
“No, he, uh, made me out of shame. Concentrated shame, squeezed out of a tube like toothpaste.”
“Why did the woman just now call you Cassandra?”
I needed another drink real quick. Specifically cyanide. I’d take a shot and… and never see Helena’s smile again? Wasthatmy reason to live? God, I was such a fucking lesbian. I slumped against the back of the couch, looking wearily up at the sky. “You have to promise not to laugh at me.”
“I will make no such promises.”
“Okay, you know, fair, I’d laugh at me too.” I hunched my shoulders. “You remember that Kingmaker guy?”
“The eccentric genius. I do remember.”
