Kiss the Sky (14 page)

Ben creeps down the stairs, the camera positioned under his
arm. He looks slightly petrified from being alone with them, his eyes bugged
and his legs shaking.

They must have been in the study room and not a bedroom, or
else he wouldn’t have been able to film them. And I’m sure they were making out
with more heat than a horny cat—just to say
fuck
you
to the cameras. They’ve been at it all week. It’s only getting worse
the longer Lo has to put up with Scott.

Lily said she’s been purposefully trying to distance Lo from
the producer and finding ways to keep them apart for as long as possible. I
think it’s a brilliant idea.

Ben almost drops his camera.

“Steady hands,” Savannah says to him.

Brett rolls his eyes. (I’m not a big Brett fan.)

Ben lets out a nervous laugh. Documenting Lily and Loren is
like being an extreme voyeur, peeping in on their intimate affairs. I bet he
feels a bit gross and wrong afterwards. Even reading about Lily’s sex life
online leaves me feeling violated. I imagine it’s ten times worse for Lily.

“Wait…” Lily says from the door. “There’s nothing here.”

I grab the shopping bag and head over to the two of them.
“This is for you,” I tell Lily. She brightens when she thinks it’s the comic.
But as she sifts through the bag’s contents, her face falls for the second
time. “Pepper spray?”

“For protection.”

“No, she thought it was for greasing pans,” Loren
retorts.
 

I glare.

“You’re going to treat us like idiots,” he says, “you’re
going to get an idiot response back.”

Touché.
“I’ll be
leaving.”

“Look at that, Lil. The queen has announced her departure.
Should we bow?”

“Lo,” Lily warns and gives him a sharp look, and for Lily,
those don’t come often.

He shuts his mouth, which must take a great, great deal of
effort.

“Go sit with your jackass brother on the couch,” I tell him.
“And just so you know, I like that jackass better than you, and I’ve known him
fifteen years less.” I flash Loren a dry smile. “See you tomorrow.”

Loren usually has the last word, but I slam the door behind
me before he gets it. Bickering with Lo solidifies my day as a normal one. The
bad days are the ones where everything is a little off. So far, so good.

* * *

I jinxed myself.

I know Connor does not believe in such things, but
I know
I fucking did something wrong. I
said,
so far, so good.
And OF COURSE
something decided to blow back in my face.

Scott is here.

At my office.

He just showed up while I was in the middle of rearranging
my inventory into plastic tubs.
 
I was
separating them according to seasons, trying to unearth the spring and summer
collections that we’ll need to wear soon for the show. I’ve been letting my
sisters wear their own clothes at certain times, just because I don’t have
enough pieces for six full months, even if we wear an outfit twice. Hopefully
Scott airs the footage where we’re all dressed in Calloway Couture and not Old
Navy, which Lily gravitates towards.

“You work too hard,” Scott tells me, setting down a plastic
bag on my white desk. Boxes and tubs line the large loft space. Besides that
and my desk and a pig, there’s not much else in here. Oh, wait, there is Brett
who films us.

Scott’s kindness must be a result of the camera in his face,
trying to capture some footage of him being nice. Must be painful for him.

“I don’t,” I say. “The people who work hard are the ones
dedicated to protecting our country, who do better by it. I just design
clothes.” I snap the lid onto one of the tubs and wipe my hands on my black
pleated dress, the seam touching my thighs (not good) and my collarbones (thank
God). At least I have on sheer black tights.

“I brought you dinner.”

I watch him pull out
two
Styrofoam to-go containers, vaguely interested. I ignore my stomach that
threatens to grumble on spot.

He opens the containers, and I see the lines of sushi, the
little dab of wasabi and bundle of ginger. I barely hear him say the name of my
favorite sushi restaurant in New York. I’m too slack-jawed that he got something
right. Maybe I’ve been too harsh, too bitchy and judgmental just because he’s
from California and says a few sleazy things.

I grimace as I try to come to terms with being
nice
too. I clear my throat and
straighten my spine. “I only have one chair.” I near my desk and peer into the
plastic bag, taking out chopsticks and soy sauce.

“That’s okay. You can sit on my lap.”

I glare.

“Just kidding,” he laughs. “I’ll sit on your desk.”

Fine.
I settle in
my rolling chair and pick the to-go box with the rainbow roll, also my
favorite. Connor usually brings me dinner in the city, and the fact that he’s
been replaced by Scott agitates me. “So who told you I liked sushi?” I ask him.

 
As promised, he sits
on half of my desk, his legs hanging close to me. “I’ve always known it’s your
favorite, babe.”

I pause, my chopsticks frozen above the ginger. So he’s
definitely playing into our
fake
old
relationship. Two can play this game. “I never ate sushi with you,” I retort.
“You said you hated it, and you always made me eat alone.”

His lips twitch in a cringe, which he hides very well. He
sets his to-go box on his lap. “Things have changed.”

“You like sushi now?”

He eats a piece, chews and swallows. “I
love
sushi now.” He smiles, and I absorb his features, the dishwater
blond hair that’s styled in a messy, dysfunctional way. And the light layer of
scruff along his jaw that makes him look a little older than his age.

I hate that he’s not ugly. I wish he had a thousand warts
and a hairy nose. Instead, he could be an actor on a daytime soap, not a
producer.

“You miss me,” he suddenly says.

My eyes tighten. “Not for a second.” My phone buzzes on the
desk.

Scott snatches it before I can.

“That’s incredibly rude,” I tell him as he opens my text.

He lets out a laugh. “
Marilyn
Monroe, Paul Newman, James Dean.
Your boyfriend is so fucking weird.” He
tosses the phone back to me, and I just barely catch it without dropping my
chopsticks.

“Sometimes weird is better than normal,” I say. “Normal can
be boring.”

He touches his chest. “I’m not boring, honey.”

Why does he have to say everything so condescendingly? “I
fell asleep every time you wanted to have sex. What do you call that?”

“A personal problem.”

I roll my eyes and quickly text Connor back.
Fuck. Marry. Kill.
I’m more comfortable
with the idea of having sex with a woman than I am with a man, as strange as
that may seem. Connor will most likely pick up on this, but I don’t care. I hit
send and set my phone back safely on the desk, away from Scott’s grabby fucking
hands.

“I saw your mother yesterday,” he says.

“You did?” I try not to act surprised, but my heart has
lodged in my throat for a second. Why would he visit my mother?

“We ate lunch and caught up. It was like old times.” He
passes me a water bottle and then takes a swig of his Cherry Fizz. “She said
she wished Daisy was around, that the house was too quiet without all of you
girls there.”

“Stop,” I tell him, standing up and setting the sushi on the
desk. It feels like fool’s food, a trap, something you give a three-headed dog
before sneaking into a treasure cove.

He frowns. And I can’t tell whether it’s real or fake.
Honest or deceitful. “What’s wrong?”

“You don’t know me,” I refute. I return to my tubs of
clothes, but I don’t want to squat down in front of him.

“I do know you,” he lies.

I spin around and realize he’s casually leaning against the
front of my desk. “Can you please leave?”

“I don’t get it. I say one thing about your mother and you
throw a tantrum.”

I glance at the camera. I don’t want to vilify my mother to
the nation. I don’t want to cause her that pain. She’s a good woman even if she
does bad things sometimes. But the more he pokes me, the more these thoughts
and feelings resurface, the more I can’t bite my tongue. That’s Connor’s
specialty. He’s the river that idly passes between mountains. I’m the volcano
that destroys a village.

“What is it?” he taunts, his voice anything but kind. He
wears an antagonistic smile. “She didn’t buy you a diamond necklace? She forgot
your eighteenth birthday?”

“My mother would never forget my birthday,” I tell him.
“She’s always been there for me.”

Scott shrugs like I’m insane. Maybe I am. Maybe my feelings
are irrational. Maybe I’m losing my mind with all the stresses in my life. “She
was upset that she was an empty-nester. It’s normal, Rose.”

“I don’t want her to take Daisy back,” I suddenly blurt out.

Scott frowns again. “Why not? Do you have some perverse
fantasy about raising her, becoming a mother because Connor won’t have kids
with you?”

“Fuck you,” I curse. I grab my handbag and lift one of the
tubs awkwardly in my arms. Scott doesn’t offer to carry it for me (not that I
would let him). “You can see yourself out.”

“My pleasure.”

I struggle to open the door with one hand. This time, I
don’t have Connor behind me to scoop up the box and help. I manage fine at
first. I breeze through the door and head down the hall, breathing sporadic
breaths that slide down my throat like brittle knives.

The tub drops out of my hands by the elevator. The lid
cracks, and I hurriedly fold each article of clothing before placing them back
inside.

I don’t want to float inside my head, but the longer I take,
the more I feel the past whisper against my neck like a cold, familiar ghost. I
see my oldest sister, Poppy, who grew tall before the rest of us, who was out
the door, married and pregnant in practically no time at all.

When she left, my mother focused her excess attention on me,
pressuring me to continue ballet, attending every practice and recital, filling
my schedule with dinner dates and functions. And I wanted to make her proud.
How else can you give thanks to someone who gives you
everything
you desire? Who showers you with things that glitter?
You become someone they can gloat over; you become their greatest prize.

Connor is right. He talks of monetary values. Of benefits.
Opportunity cost. There is a price that you pay growing up in luxury. You feel
so undeserving of everything around you. So you find a way to
be
deserving of it—by being smart, by
being talented and successful.

By building your own company.

With Calloway Couture, I could make my father proud—to show
him that I could follow his entrepreneurial footsteps. The failure of my
company feels not only like a failure of my dream, but a failure of my place in
the family. Of my right to have these beautiful things.

But I have to remember what else my company means to me.
What it has been. How it’s saved me. It was an outlet where I could be creative
despite my mother’s constant nagging. I used to come home, rub my abused toes
from pointe shoes, and sketch on my bed, in private. I was twelve. I was
thirteen. Fourteen. I found solace in fashion. I found peace and happiness.

It was something for
me
.
My mother couldn’t take my designs. She couldn’t make them hers. I created each
dress, each blouse and skirt. They were the clay that I could mold, even if she
continued to try and mold me.

And then I left for Princeton when I turned eighteen. My
mother lost me, the daughter who she fought the most with, but only because I
was the daughter she turned to, the one she talked to, the one who spent nights
listening to her prattle, who heard her advice, even if I chose not to take it.
I love that she loves me. I just wish she let me breathe for a moment in my
life.

My mother still had Lily after I left. But she brushed over
her, believing she was set for life with Loren Hale, the heir of a
multi-billion dollar company almost as lucrative as Fizzle.
 

So that left Daisy.

I knew exactly what would happen to her the moment I went to
college. I knew she’d take my place as consummate daughter, ready to say yes to
my mother the moment I shut the door. But as a teenager, I fought my mom each
step of the way. I was bitchy and obstinate.

My sister is none of those things.

I cried when I finished unpacking my dorm room. I was smart
enough to see what would happen. And I couldn’t do anything about it. Daisy
would bend to my mother’s desires, to her selfish ways. She would sign Daisy up
for so many classes to where she couldn’t see straight. She would make her date
whoever she chose. She would dress her in fancy ball gowns with too much frill
and lace. And she’d parade her around like a toy doll with no voice and no
brain. No matter how much I called Daisy to check in, to listen to her words
crack before she layered on the false optimism, I couldn’t change the course of
things.

I thought for sure Daisy would turn to drugs.

I thought for sure she’d party too hard to try to reach the
air that my mother always sucked dry.

I coped by scribbling in a sketch book at that house. I
couldn’t see that as a path for Daisy. I only saw blackness. And I’ll never
forgive myself for what happened, how blind I was.

I was focusing on the wrong sister.

Lily was heading down that dark road, feeding an addiction
that not many people understand.

Daisy wasn’t even close to that yet.

But I fear making the same mistake—not helping Daisy like I
was too late for Lily. I don’t want my mom to exploit Daisy with her modeling
career just so she can brag to her tennis club friends. I want my sister to
watch late night movie marathons, have slumber parties and eat too much ice
cream. But her childhood already consists of stumbling home with tired eyes
from a midnight photo shoot, from going on go-see after go-see where people
pinch her waist and call her fat.