Chapter 6 - The Whispering Gallery
By Thursday afternoon, the Highland Park house was beginning to smell like an abandoned campsite.
Julian had not showered in thirty-six hours.
He sat on the cream sofa in his wrinkled trousers, his bare feet propped up on the chipped glass coffee table, surrounded by empty takeout cartons from an upscale Italian trattoria on Oak Lawn and three empty bottles of scotch.
The power had not been cut—I was still paying the municipal utility bills to ensure the HVAC units didn't fail and warp the three-hundred-thousand-dollar antique parquet floors—but the internet service had been disconnected at noon because the primary commercial account was held by my downtown office.
Vanessa was sitting in the corner armchair, wearing a trench coat over her clothes, packing her designer cosmetics into a leather Louis Vuitton duffel bag with jerky, furious motions.
"Where are you going?" Julian rasped, his voice sounding like two dry bricks grinding together.
"I'm going to my sister's apartment in Addison, Julian," she snapped, not turning around. "My corporate phone has been ringing every twenty minutes since eight a.m. Two different process servers have left business cards in the door of my design studio. My landlord told me if I don't clear the commercial lease arrears by Friday at five, he’s padlocking the front entrance."
"Don't leave, Vanessa," he pleaded, half-rising from the sofa, his hands trembling as he reached for her wrist. "You leave now, and it looks like an admission of guilt. We have the Vanguard dinner tomorrow night! Christian Miller is signing the six-million-dollar equity commitment! Once that wire clears, I can pay off the mezzanine debt in three hours! We’ll be clear! We’ll be liquid!"
Vanessa spun on him, her eyes flashing with a cold, vicious contempt that made him flinch back into the cushions.
"You idiot," she hissed, pointing a manicured finger at his chest. "Do you honestly think Christian Miller is going to sign a six-million-dollar deal with a man whose job site is locked down by the county sheriff? Look at yourself! You smell like stale whiskey! Your hair is sticking up like a scarecrow! Elena has spent three days running circles around your lawyers, and you’re sitting here waiting for a miracle from a man who doesn't even return your text messages!"
"Christian Miller is my friend!" Julian shouted, his face turning an ugly, mottled crimson. "His father knew my father! We belong to the same club! He’s not going to pull out of a forty-million-dollar development project because my wife filed a few nuisance motions in domestic court!"
"Then prove it," Vanessa said, slinging the leather duffel over her shoulder with a sharp, heavy thump.
She stopped at the edge of the travertine, her hand touching the diamond baguette earring on her left ear.
"I’ll be at the Petroleum Club tomorrow night at seven-thirty," she said, her voice dropping into a flat, transactional drone. "If Christian Miller signs that contract, I’ll stand next to you for the photographs. If he doesn't... don't bother coming back to this house, Julian. Because there won't be anything left to save."
She slammed the front door behind her.
Julian sat in the silence of the room.
His gaze drifted down to the floor, where the severed braid had lain forty-eight hours earlier. The marble was clean—the housekeeper, Maria, had come on Wednesday morning and scrubbed the stone until it shone—but in the corner, beneath the baseboard of the pier glass, he spotted a single, three-inch strand of chestnut hair that Maria’s vacuum had missed.
He bent down. He picked it up with shaking fingers.
It was thick, healthy, resilient. It smelled faintly of the rosemary-mint wash she had used for fourteen years.
He remembered the first time he had seen that hair.
It was nineteen-ten, at an outdoor beer garden near White Rock Lake. She had been twenty-four, laughing in the late afternoon sun, wearing a five-dollar cotton sundress, her hands smelling of shampoo and wet towels. She had looked at him like he was the only man in Texas who mattered. She had believed him when he said he was going to rebuild his father's company into an empire.
And then he had spent fourteen years making sure she never felt big enough to stand beside him.
May you like
He crushed the single hair between his thumb and forefinger, letting it drop back onto the stone.
"You're nothing, Elena," he whispered into the dark room, his jaw clenching until his molars ached. "You're just a girl with a pair of scissors. Tomorrow night, I take it all back."
