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Reagan scrolled through the phone. “Shit, Lib. This is a lot of people. Are you going to reach out to them?”
Libby drained her glass before responding. “I don’t know.
If they’re upset at the mess I made and I lost their trust,”
she shrugged one shoulder, “I can’t begrudge them that.”
Reagan flared her nostrils. “But how does your personal life have anything to do with your job? What does it matter?”
“It’s part of what I’m selling,” she replied, pulling her down to sit next to her. “If my judgment led me down this road, they probably feel like I can’t make good decisions for them either.”
A vein in Reagan’s temple she’d never seen before pulsed.
“But that’s a false equivalency, and you did it because—”
Libby cut her o with a soft smile. “I’ll try and salvage who I can, but even if everyone leaves me, I’m not quitting.
If my grandmother could start from scratch in a new country and in a new language, then I can surely rise from the ashes after this. Plus, this is my own fault. If I’d been honest from the beginning, I wouldn’t have so much to clean up.”
Searching her face, Reagan’s expression softened. “Come on,” she jumped to her feet and held out her hand. “What’s say we take a break and I show you how to use that pottery wheel again.”
Libby glanced at the phone. There were over 400 emails unchecked and waiting in her inbox. They can wait just a little longer, she decided before taking Reagan’s hand.
E P I L O G U E
ONE YEAR LATER
RUSHING OUT of her o ce elevator, Libby cursed herself for being late. Leave it to her to make it all the way to the highway before realizing she had to turn back.
Crossing through her waiting room, once cold and sterile but now full of colorful art, she made sure not to bump into the massive blue dog Freddie made for her the year before. It was still her favorite among the dozens of pieces scattered around the o ce, and at least once a month someone tried to buy it.
Once in her o ce, she went for the desk drawer right under the misshapen bowl she made at a speed dating event they’d held at Reagan’s studio. At least the event had been much more successful than her creation, which she’d intended to be a vase.
Snatching what she needed, Libby passed a long line of Reagan’s art on pedestals lining the hallway and made a beeline for the stairs. In the middle of the day there were way too many people heading down for lunch and she couldn’t risk any further delay.
As soon as she emerged from the stairwell sweaty and breathless, her phone went o .
Taylor: Where are you, she’s waiting…
Libby: Stall please!!! Twenty minutes tops.
Twenty minutes to get all the way across town during the day on a weekday was optimistic, but she was going to try her best. As if she’d jinxed herself, Libby merged onto the highway and immediately into bumper-to-bumper tra c.
Shit.
Biting her bottom lip, Libby took her life into her hands and started weaving in and out of tra c, earning honks, curses, and more than a few flipped birds as she cut people o and generally behaved like a maniac.
“Sorry!” she shouted as if they could hear her while she threw her SUV in front of them and claimed space that wasn’t hers.
Nearly an hour later, she pulled o the exit and took the familiar road through the industrial district. Once dilapidated and deserted, more than half the buildings were now occupied.
Reagan refused to take credit for the renaissance, but once they’d bought the pottery together with the money she’d raised and the funds from the sale of Libby’s condo, new places opened by the month. At first it was just other artists, but soon it was restaurants, clothing stores, and unexpectedly, a few florists. It was like their grand re-opening had breathed new life into the rusty husk. There was so much new activity that the city was forced to repave the roads, a fact Libby was newly grateful for as she raced over the fresh asphalt without needing to dodge tire-shredding potholes.
Pulling around the back of the craft brewery that opened at the corner of their block, Libby was met with the face of her very displeased grandmother.
“We’ve been waiting for over an hour,” she announced as soon as Libby jumped out of the car. “Are you going to leave the engine running?”
“Don’t worry, mija,” Reagan’s dad shouted when Libby turned toward the SUV. “I got it.” He leaned in and killed the engine.
