AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She’d sat here at the age of nineteen, and I’d helped her do her makeup for her dad’s memorial service.
I stare at myself in that mirror now as Anika steps in behind me and picks up my brush.
“I know you’re not wearing that dress because you want to entice Nick back, but have you considered you’re wearing it as a revenge dress?” Anika asks as she starts to brush my hair. “I would bet anything you didn’t plan on buying a new dress until after you found out Nick is going to be there.”
“I just figure I’ve always played by the unwritten rules, and look where it got me. And I look good in this dress. The Chanel is pretty, but I don’t stand out in it. That was kind of the point. I wanted to blend in. Now I need to stand out. CeCe will respect the gesture.” I hope. CeCe was part grande dame, part barracuda who could eat a face off when she wanted.
“Why is he even going?” Anika asks. “He doesn’t do what you do. I thought this was about connecting investors with people who need money for their business ideas. He doesn’t have ideas.”
He has plenty of ideas. All of them bad. “He’s working for an associate of CeCe’s.”
I don’t bother to tell her that pretty much everyone in tech is an associate of CeCe’s.
“Okay. Let’s make you gorgeous. One of the hairstylists on the set taught me some new tricks. And if Nick wonders what he’s missing, well, he can keep on missing,” Anika says. “Because you’re done with him.”
I was. I have to hope that he is done with me, too.
Chapter Five
I hurry up the steps and out of the subway station, the glow of the lights from the buildings all around illuminating the night. New York is never really dark. Not here in Manhattan. When we talk about the lights at night, we’re not talking about the ones in the sky. Those are a distant thing, almost an afterthought in the great and grand nightly show that is New York.
Even here in the Upper East Side, the lights are all manmade. I walk along Fifth, the concrete and stone wall that separates the road from Central Park to my side, and wonder how long it’s been since I went to the park to simply enjoy it. Not since I was a kid. I won’t tonight either because I’m not looking to become a Dateline episode, but also because there’s work to be done.
There’s always work to be done.
It’s not like I took advantage of the natural beauty of San Francisco. I can count on one hand the times I left the city proper to explore something beyond the office or other people’s offices. If I went to a party, it was to network.
In the beginning it was fun. When Nick and I first got together we felt like we were building something. Then after a year we felt like roommates.
The truth of the matter is my mother doesn’t have to worry I’ll fall back into Nick’s arms. What she doesn’t know is that I hadn’t felt anything like love for the man. I’d felt some attraction, and then he was comfortable. We wanted the same things. He didn’t get upset when I canceled a date for work.
I guess when I think about it, Nick was an accessory. I’d used the phrase when thinking about Heath hours before, but it fit Nick to a T.
You know the old Coco Chanel saying? Something about before you go out, look in the mirror and take off one accessory.
He’s the one I should have dumped before I ever walked out of the room.
He is also the one walking up the stairs to CeCe’s magnificent brownstone as I turn the corner. CeCe lives in a building that looks like the Gilded Age happened inside it—the robber baron height of luxury and society version. Nick looks like he belongs there. Killer designer suit. A trendy haircut that probably cost two hundred dollars, and I happen to know those loafers are Ferragamos because I bought them. I don’t like to think about how many tacos that cost me.
He’s not alone. He’s never alone. I’ve found that Bro Coders prefer to travel in packs. Whether they’re the “Hot Pocket, never get out of a hoodie” kind, or the “look at how successful I am I have a Harry Styles haircut” kind. They like to move through the world like a school of high-tech fish, protecting each other and plotting the downfall of rival schools.
In this case, he’s brought along two vaguely familiar figures. I say vaguely because honestly, they all look alike to me. They’re almost always named Brad or Tad or something that makes them sound like they’re still at a frat house living large off daddy’s cash. I’m always surprised how in a community filled to the brim with super-talented immigrants and first-generation Americans, Nick manages to find the whitest of white dudes to hang with.
