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In the car, I dialed the number I really didn’t care to dial. Valerie’s voicemail picked up immediately.
“Hey, Valerie. It’s Sophie. Scaife. Neil’s girlfriend, um…” God, why did I always sound like such a moron trying to talk to this woman? “Anyway, I have something really important I want to see you about. I was hoping you could fit me in sometime this week. It won’t take long We’re obviously both really busy, but I do really, really need to talk. Just give me a call or something.”
I hung up and weighed my phone against my palm. Whether or not I had a ton of crap going on this week, I couldn’t move on to my future with Neil if I didn’t clean up the shit in our past. Making peace with Valerie, especially over this, was next on my to-do list.
* * * *
The next morning, Valerie’s assistant responded to my voicemail with some very clipped sentences about “Ms. Stern’s impossible schedule”, and “limited availability”. She tried to shut me out with times like, “Wednesday at four, for fifteen minutes” or “Tuesday at ten-thirty, for five minutes”. I strong-armed her into later that day, at noon.
I arrived at Porteras with my laminated “VISITOR” tag clipped to my blouse. When the elevator doors opened and I saw the familiar lobby, the reception desk and modern white couches, I realized that whether I’d worked there in the past or not, I was stepping into enemy territory.
Though many of my colleagues from Porteras had left to go with Gabriella Winters to work for her new magazine, some had stayed, and it seemed like everyone knew who I was. Unfortunately, I was the devious whore who’d slept her way from the beauty department to my own magazine, funded by my sugar daddy’s money. I held my head high as I approached the desk. “Sophie Scaife for Valerie Stern.”
“Sophie,” Valerie called across the lobby. She stood with the door to her office—once Gabriella’s office, then Neil’s, then Rudy’s—and invited me inside.
“Hi,” I greeted her awkwardly as we walked through the doors into the room where I’d done my former dream job. My old desk was covered with someone else’s things, like it was flaunting jewelry from a new suitor to make me feel inferior.
Valerie led me to the inner office, saying, “I only have a very few minutes, so if you’d like to come in…”
“Of course. This won’t take too much of your time.” Well, it might. It would depend on her reaction. I stepped into the room and froze.
She’d kept Neil’s desk. The one that he’d fingerbanged me over and eaten lunch from between my legs on. I might as well have caught her rolling around in our bed.
It took me a moment to recover. “I wanted to talk to you.” I sat in the plush new chair across from her, uncomfortable in the office, the magazine, the whole environment.
Valerie got this weird smile/glare combo she sometimes had when she was losing patience with my perceived stupidity. “I gathered that from your rambling voicemail.”
Okay, my Miss Congeniality act was not worth it. Too many other things demanded my energy. “Look, it’s an awkward subject, and I’m nervous, so maybe retract your claws a little.” I took a breath, and before she could respond or call security, I said, softer, “You told Elizabeth about Neil and your brother.”
She paled.
“You told her,” I went on, “because you were afraid that he wouldn’t tell her. Because you knew how broken he really was. And you were worried he wouldn’t get better.”
Her features froze. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You told Elizabeth what your brother did to Neil, and when she didn’t take it well, you let Emma think that you’d jealously tried to sabotage the wedding.”
“Are you sure?” She forced a laugh. It wasn’t even half convincing. “I was expecting you to say I did it to sabotage their engagement.”
“I think you were aware that it could. And I think you’d have been okay with that.” I felt my temper stir, and I pushed it back down. Now was not a time to indulge in my grudge against her. “But I know that, deep down, you still love Neil, and you were looking out for his best interests.”
“I…don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her smile was more frozen than Queen Elsa’s snow dress.
“Yeah, you do.” I wasn’t going to back down here. All of the pain and recriminations, all of the scheming and passive-aggressive barbs between us, all of it could have been avoided if we’d just been open about that one simple fact. “Emma once told me that she thought you didn’t love him, you were just unwilling to let him be happy.” Hurt flared in Valerie’s eyes, so I kept going in an effort to gloss past it. “But that would mean you put an awful lot of work into keeping me away from someone you don’t even care about.”
She rolled her eyes. “Is that what you wanted here, Sophie? To give me your little speech and walk out the better person?”
There was too much pain; she was a bonfire of it, burning up right in front of me. That wasn’t why I came. “No. I wanted to thank you. For caring so much about him. And that I know what it’s like to love him like that. I’m never going to hurt him, Valerie. I swear.”
“Well, I hurt him, so you’ve won,” she said, standing and moving around her desk furiously to grab a tissue.
“It isn’t about winning.” My voice rose, and I forced myself to calm down. Valerie was hurting. It wasn’t the time to pick a fight with her. There’s never a time to pick a fight with her, I reminded myself. “I came here because things have been nasty between us before. I just wanted you to know… I think it’s really awesome, the way you’ve handled all of this. You’re in a difficult position, but you’re still helping your friend out. I admire you, Valerie.”
For a long moment, she didn’t say anything. Then, “I’ve decided not to come to the wedding.” She looked down then swung her head up to meet my gaze with sad eyes and a smiling mouth. The combination caused a little flutter of sympathy pain in my chest. She shrugged. “I didn’t fill out an RSVP card.”
“Don’t feel like you’re not welcome. You’re Emma’s mother, you’re—”
She cut me off. “I’m Emma’s mother. And Neil’s friend. But I’m also a woman who’s lived for the past two decades with a broken heart. It’s too much to ask me to sit through another wedding, biting my cheek and trying not to cry.”
