When she turns, I raise my hand to get her attention. Smiling, she weaves through the café floor to our table.
“Here we are,” she says, bending to set the tray down as she settles down in the chair across from me. “Nothing like a good brunch.”
I snort.
“Only in New Orleans can you walk t-t-two miles in blistering weather and th-then drink hot c-c-c-c...coffee.” Ugh. I hate how I have to stop to get the last word out.
How hard it is to talk now, when I’d been so relaxed and confident and easy over a week ago.
My mother watches me with a sympathetic smile, without pity.
That’s one thing I’ve always loved about her. Her support comes with nothing but genuine warmth and acceptance.
And her hand is so warm now as she reaches across the table and covers my fingers with hers. “It’s a little rough lately, huh?”
“It’ll s-settle down,” I tell her, smiling weakly.
I mean, maybe it will, whenever my phone stops exploding with annoying texts and emails.
Old college friends wanting the scoop on my torrid fling with Chicago’s biggest bad boy.
Reporters offering obscene sums for an exclusive interview.
Matilda, poor sweet woman that she is, wanting to know how I’m doing and if I’d ever come back, even as a consultant. I can’t bring myself to answer when I don’t flipping know.
Even my Twitter notifications are a hot mess. I gave up the main Just Vibing account the day I resigned. It’s just my little seventy-follower personal account left, and I had to basically disable the stupid thing. Too bad it doesn’t stop the mentions and tags from rolling in, total strangers picking at my life.
The worst thing is, this isn’t about me.
It’s about Roland.
No one really cares who I am, except for the fact that I’m—I was an employee—and that makes it so much more deliciously wrong.
If people have a sweet tooth for dirty gossip, then I’m a scandal freaking sundae.
And that’s not even touching the many, many enemies Roland made during his rise to infamy. They’re out for blood, circling me on social media like hunting orcas.
They couldn’t care less that they have to chew me up to get to him.
Funny, isn’t it?
This was all about Vance Haydn before. But now no one’s talking about Haydn at all.
A man like Roland is impervious to scandal. He’ll brush off the gore and throw down the daggers at his throat. Then he’ll move on like nothing ever happened.
Was I his nothing?
My head throbs angrily, and this time I can’t blame the heat.
I’m the one left feeling like my life was gutted for someone else’s amusement.
Everything I worked for ruined while the powerful men entangled with me go unscathed.
You know what’s extra ridiculous?
I haven’t read any of the latest articles all the way through. I checked out around the time they started framing me as this conniving vixen who climbed the ladder by riding my boss’ dick. One even had a quote from a girl who hated me in high school, claiming my stutter was fake so people would pity me and not realize I was manipulating them.
There’s no point in reading more when you already know it’s total petty vengeance crap.
It won’t change the fact that it’s over.
The damage has been done.
My reputation isn’t coming back now that my name—and my sex life—is publicly tied to the infamous Roland Osprey.
I squeeze Mom’s hand, then pull back, avoiding her questioning gaze by picking up my heavy ceramic latte mug and taking a long sip. With my lips on the cup, it’s a little easier to control my wayward mouth.
“I’ll be fine. I promise, M-mom,” I say.
One way or another, I’ll keep that promise.
I might even keep it without stuttering.
I’ll figure something out. I’ll find a way. I’ll move on.
And I’ll forget everything about that man in his soaring dark tower with a pitch-black lump of coal for a heart.
From the very first kiss in Austin to the bitter parting words right before I shut him out of my life forever.
* * *
Coffee with Mom is calming and helps put things in perspective.
I haven’t lost everything.
I still have my family, my brains, and that’s enough to not give up on life.
Back at the hotel—a two-story beauty with luxury Spanish architecture right down to the ironwork railings, with my mother sectioning off a special suite just for me—I throw myself into looking at my options, spending whole days searching the internet.
Some temporary freelance work is always a possibility, I think.
Or I could probably take up a pen name and write op-eds as someone else. Maybe find an employer who’s a little more forgiving and willing to hear me out, convince them with the numbers from Just Vibing to let me run an editorial under a screen name.
Who knows, while I’m thinking up pen names, maybe I could start writing books.