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“Just thinking about Mum’s show.” I rake my hand through my hair. “I’m stumped.”
Dom leans against the wall, arms folded over his chest. He looks more like her than I do—he got her hazel eyes and the softer tones in his brown hair. I’m harsher—black-rimmed eyes, dark hair and a sharp jaw and nose, like our dad.
“So the live fashion installation is a no go? I thought she would have liked that,” he says with a shrug. “She liked clothes and dressing up.”
“Yeah, but she only did that for the outside world.” I shake my head. “It was part of her public persona. I don’t remember her like that.”
In my head, my mother will always be that woman who danced around the kitchen in fuzzy slippers and colourful vintage silk robes, long brown hair swishing behind her and not a lick of makeup on her face. She used to blare The Beatles at full volume, grooving away to “Sgt. Pepper” and “Abbey Road” while making dinner.
“I remember her the way she was at home, laughing too loud at our stupid jokes.” The loss strikes me like it does every time I think about her—sharp and quick. With the precision of a needle. “I want to create a show that’strulyher. Not the woman people saw when she stepped out into the public eye.”
Not that she’d gone out too often in the later years. My father’s eccentricities had meant social invitations slowed to a trickle and, as he’d turned in on himself, my mother followed him. Like she always did.
She followed him until it killed her.
“We’ll come up with something,” Dom replies with a confident nod. His faith is unshakable, just like his loyalty. Some days I wonder what I did to deserve him as a brother. “In any case, we’ve got plenty of time.”
That’s a bold-faced lie, and we both know it. The deadline isn’t creeping closer anymore, it’s rushing full steam ahead like a rollercoaster on a downward slide.
“Go home.” Dom waves his hand at me. “Sitting here and staring out the window like a sad sack isn’t going to do shit. Kylie has the floor covered and we don’t have any more meetings today.”
It’s only 3:00 p.m. I’m usually here until dinnertime, often later. If we have an event going, then I rarely leave before midnight. Do I love this job? Even though it’s not what I ever thought I would do with my life, yeah. Mostly. It’s a challenge to deal with temperamental artists and picky buyers. I have to use my personal charm to convince them to do what I want. I enjoy that side of it, the people element. I also enjoy knowing that I get to carry on my mother’s legacy, to make sure people won’t forget her.
“You’re right.” I stand up from my desk and shove my phone into the inside pocket of my suit jacket. “I need some time to think and I can’t do it here.”
“Oh, by the way,” Dom says, a shit-eating grin spreading across his face that I donotlike the look of. “I saw the final report for the Lights and Love show.”
Uh-oh.
He swaggers toward me, his hazel eyes glittering in victory. “Now, if I remember correctly, we had placed a bet on how many pieces you were going to sell at that show.”
“I don’t recall any such bet,” I reply, lying through my teeth. I push up from my desk and snap my laptop shut.
“You were going to sell ten pieces and if you failed, then you agreed to accompany Glen and me to GameCon.” Dom folds his arms over his barrel of a chest. “In full costume.”
Way to kick a man while he’s down.
“And,” my little brother continues, “one very neatly typed-up report indicates that you only sold nine pieces.”
Ishouldhave secured that tenth sale. The buyer is a woman in her fifties who dresses like she’s filled her wardrobe with items from a fetish shop. She’s been prowling around for months, flirting and dangling her husband’s extreme wealth in my face. I thought I had her this time, but at the last minute she backed out.
“So, by my calculation...” He wriggles his fingers above his head and looks up into the sky like he’s working a complicated maths equation and I can’t help but laugh. He’s such a goof. “You’re one short.”
“You’rereallygoing to hold me to that bet,” I groan. “You know I hate that stuff.”
“Oh, come on. You’ve literally never gone to a con with me. How do you know you hate it?”
What’snotto hate? People dressing up in weird costumes, taking photos with other people dressed up in weird costumes like they’re celebrities when they’re just... Well, they could be anyone. Maybe that’s what I don’t like about the idea. I prefer toknowwhom I’m talking to. Lord knows we get enough fake people putting on appearances in this line of work as it is. I don’t want that in my spare time.
“I just do,” I say stubbornly.
Dom looks hurt. I don’t know why he has a bee in his bonnet about this whole thing. He’s been trying to get me to come to one of these things with him foryears. I thought the requests would stop after he started dating Glen, since they love dressing up and going together.
“You’re really going to back out of a bet?” he asks.
Fuck. I know I can’t, because I hold my relationship with my brother—and the promises we make one another—in the highest regard. Which means...
“Fine,” I say with all the petulance of an angry five-year-old. “I’ll come to the stupid con.”
