“I have enough for another month of rent,” I said, trying to keep my voice even.
Violet looked down at my feet under the small table, her gaze lingering on the scuffed leather of my left boot.
The sole had started to separate at the toe, showing a tiny sliver of grey cardboard underneath.
“We need to get you some proper shoes before you start interviewing for those office jobs,” she said.
Her voice had dropped to a confidential whisper that felt louder than a shout.
“These are fine for walking,” I said, pulling my feet back under my chair.
“They look like they belonged to someone else,” Violet said, offering a small, tight smile.
She reached across the table and touched my wrist, her fingers warm and perfectly manicured.
“I can pay for lunch today, of course, but we have to get you sorted out, Layla.”
The sweetness in her tone felt different today, heavier, like a hand pressing down on my shoulder to keep me in my place.
“Thank you,” I said, the chicken sandwich suddenly tasting like dry paper.
Violet ordered another glass of wine, her eyes scanning my faded wool coat draped over the back of the empty chair.
“My mother wants to redo the guest house before the holidays,” Violet said, swirling her wine. “She’s looking at some expensive linen curtains from France. But you know how she is, she’ll probably change her mind three times before October.”
“It sounds nice,” I said.
“We could use some help picking out the patterns,” Violet said, leaning in. “I told her you have a good eye for that sort of thing. It would give you something to do, and she would pay you, of course. Not much, but enough to help with your little rent problem.”
I smoothed the fabric of my skirt. “I am looking for a full-time job, Violet.”
“Of course you are,” she said, her voice dropping to that soft, patronizing register. “But until then, we have to keep you afloat.”
She paid the bill with a crisp hundred-dollar bill, leaving the change on the dark wood table without counting it.
“Come to the estate this afternoon,” Violet said as we walked out onto the street. “Rick wants to see you, and it gets you out of that small room.”
“I should go back and look at the listings,” I said.
“The listings will be there tomorrow,” Violet said, her tone snapping back to its usual brisk authority. “Don’t be stubborn.”
The drive to Lake Forest in Violet’s mother’s car was quiet, the trees along the avenue already showing patches of dry gold.
Rick’s brick estate house sat back from the road, surrounded by a high iron fence that kept the gravel driveway hidden from the street.
Inside, the house was always quiet, the sort of quiet that only comes with thick rugs and stone walls.
I found Rick in his study, sitting behind a massive walnut desk that smelled of beeswax and old paper.
He adjusted his gold signet ring as I entered, his dry, slow cadence cutting through the quiet of the room.
“Sit down, Layla,” Rick said, gesturing to the leather chair opposite him.
A thick blue ledger lay open between us, its pages covered in neat columns of black ink.
“I was just looking over the foundation’s annual expenses for the youth program,” he said.
“Is there a problem with the numbers?” I asked, smoothing the fabric of my skirt.
“Not a problem,” Rick said, turning the ledger so it faced me. “But you see how these columns match exactly, down to the penny.”
I leaned forward, looking at the long rows of figures, the precise handwriting that detailed thousands of dollars.
“The administration costs are high,” I noted, pointing to a line near the bottom of the left page.
Rick watched my face, his expression calm and completely unreadable.
“Look here,” Rick said, pointing with a dry finger to the column labeled Operations. “Twelve thousand four hundred and fifty dollars, paid to a shipping company in Gary, Indiana. And on this page, the offsetting entry is exactly twelve thousand four hundred and fifty.”
“That means the books are balanced,” I said.
“Exactly,” Rick said, adjusting his signet ring. “A perfect balance. But the shipping company in Gary has been closed since June.”
I looked at him, my hand stopping on the edge of the desk.
“If someone wants to hide a theft, they make sure the columns match exactly on paper,” Rick said. “They focus on the symmetry because they think a neat line will stop anyone from asking questions.”
“Why do you keep showing me these, Rick?” I asked, my voice quiet in the large room.
He did not answer the question directly, instead tapping his finger on the blue leather binding.
“A ledger is just a story told in numbers,” Rick said. “If you know how to read it, nobody can lie to you.”
He closed the book with a soft thud, the gold lettering on the spine catching the light from the desk lamp.
“My daughter Angela thinks the foundation is a personal bank account,” he said, his voice dropping slightly.
“Surely Gary would notice if something was wrong,” I said, remembering his formal, legalistic attorney.
“Gary notices what I tell him to notice,” Rick said.
The afternoon sun was sinking low behind the brick walls of the carriage house when we walked out into the garden.
The air smelled of damp earth and the dry, sweet scent of fading roses.
Rick walked slowly, his cane making a soft rhythmic click against the gravel path.
He paused for a second, resting his hand heavily on the iron handle of his cane, his breathing slightly shallow.
“Are you alright, Rick?” I asked.
“The humidity is rising,” he said, waving off my concern with a brief gesture of his hand. “My chest always feels tight when the weather changes.”
“The winter here is hard,” Rick said, stopping near a cluster of pale yellow rose bushes that were losing their petals.
“I suppose it is,” I said.
“What are your plans when the snow starts, Layla?” he asked, looking at me with his pale, steady eyes.
“I do not have any plans yet,” I said, watching a single yellow leaf drift down to the gravel.
“You notice the price of everything before you notice its beauty,” Rick said, his voice dry and calm.
The words did not sound like a rebuke, but they stayed in the air between us like a physical weight.
“I have to notice the price,” I said, keeping my hands clasped in front of my skirt.
“Yes,” Rick said. “That is why I trust you to look at the columns.”
“I don’t understand why you trust me at all,” I said.
“Because you have nothing to gain by lying to me,” Rick said, turning back toward the house.
We walked back toward the terrace in silence, the long shadows of the oak trees stretching across the lawn.
I could see Violet watching us from the sunroom window, her silhouette dark against the glass.
She did not wave when I looked up, and after a moment, she pulled the thin lace curtain shut.
I walked down to the estate gate alone, the gravel crunching under my worn boots.
At the station, the platform was empty except for a man reading a folded newspaper.
I boarded the train as the sky turned the color of wet slate, the carriage smelling of cold rain and wet wool.
I stared at my reflection in the dark glass of the subway car, questioning my future.
Before Violet arrived, I had been boiling water in a chipped enamel kettle, hoping the steam would warm the small kitchen. The apartment was always cold by November, the wind whistling through the loose caulking around the windows.
The radiator in the corner of my living room gave a sudden, metallic clang that shook the floorboards. It was a familiar, rhythmic noise that usually started around eight in the evening, a harsh rattling that made the windowpane vibrate in its wooden frame.
Violet stood by the small kitchen table, dropping three heavy shopping bags onto the worn linoleum. She began pulling out yards of thick, cream-colored velvet, letting the heavy fabric spill over my cracked countertops. The material looked incredibly expensive, the sort of dense, plush cloth that belonged in a Lake Forest drawing room rather than my small apartment.
“These will completely block out the streetlamps,” Violet said, holding a panel against the grime-filmed window. “The brass rings are in the smallest bag, and I bought a double rod so they will hang properly.”
“I need rent money,” I said.
Violet stopped, her hands still buried in the velvet. She slowly twirled her silver chain bracelet, her eyes shifting from my scuffed shoes to the narrow space between us. The silence in the room grew heavy, punctuated only by the slow hiss of steam escaping the radiator valve.
“We talked about this, Layla,” she said, her voice rising slightly. “You can’t keep living like a tenant in a waiting room. My family’s guest house is still sitting empty by the lake, and the silver key is right here in my purse if you would just take it.”
“I can’t pay seven hundred fifty dollars with curtains, Violet.”
She sighed, folding the fabric back into the bag with quick, sharp movements. “It is hard to help someone who insists on staying at the bottom.”
She reached into her designer tote and retrieved a small, gleaming silver key, placing it on the edge of the table. It sat beside my unpaid electric bill, looking entirely out of place in the yellow light of my kitchen.