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Somehow I always got my hopes up when it came to conferences. As if I expected lavish spaces on the thirtieth floor in luxury hotels with beautiful women in silk dresses drinking champagne, when it was hardly my first conference, and I should have known full well it would have all the glamor of a school play without the fun props. And that instead of beautiful women in silk dresses drinking champagne, it was mostly middle-aged white men who assumed I was an assistant or an intern and called me sweetie.
I was a machine that ran on spite, so I’d never felt more confident climbing up onto the stage at the start of the conference, adjusting the neckline of my dress and holding my presentation materials loosely by my side as I waved to the crowd. The best part of the whole conference was catching the condescending white guys’ faces when they saw pretty young miss assistant on the stage representing Queen Pearl for the headliner.
Still, I wasn’t about to make myself look unrelatable and icy, so I fumbled with my papers at the lectern and dropped two, stooping to pick them up, and I dropped one of them again. A few laughs broke out, the tension easing, and nobody seemed to catch on that it was intentional, so I settled in and relaxed at the lectern, giving a big smile and starting off on the presentation.
It went well, and people nodded along, plenty of them leaning forward in their seats. María had built a good sense of back-and-forth tension into the script—plenty of unresolved lines pulling people in for more, making them actually care what I was saying. I pulled some laughs from the audience, some noises of approval, and even got a round of applause at the key quote towards the climax of the presentation. Resounding applause filled the room when I wrapped up, and María and I had agreed to screw convention—I didn’t soften the ending with a squishy Q&A session. Instead, I gathered up my things, and I walked towards stage right under a halo of applause, feeling good enough about myself I didn’t even panic at going down the steps in high stilettos like I always did.
A younger woman, probably Southeast Asian, wearing a smart blue suit, came up to me with eyes all but shining once I got off the stage, gushing praise for seeing a woman up on the stage, asking if she could message me for career advice. When I responded with a warm smile saying I’d be delighted, she pulled out her phone, and the back of the casing popped open, the battery bulging. She stared at it, blank, seemingly so caught off-guard that she didn’t even know what to feel, and I just shrugged.
“They don’t build phones to last anymore… I’ll just write down my information.”
“Th-thank you…”
Someone else caught me as well, asking a couple of follow-up questions, and his tablet died when he was finishing up. A self-important white man fresh out of college gave me some more-of-a-comment-than-a-questions and I smiled and nodded and felt some satisfaction when he got back to his chair and it cracked and buckled when he sat back down, the folding mechanism apparently bunk.
I sat front and center once we were seated for the rest of the presentations and talks, and—as much as I was glad to see just how much I had been the star of the conference, it didn’t mean I enjoyed sitting through a dozen people with the personality of cardboard phoning it in on stage, especially since the lighting kept malfunctioning the second it was on someone other than me.
And when the speeches finally dragged themselves over the finish line, the conference took a much nicer turn. The organizer led the bulk of us up to the hotel rooftop, where the night sky was clear, crisp, and the city was beautiful spread out past the glass railings—and to make matters better, not only did they have champagne, but it even included the beautiful woman in a silk dress part, because I was leaning against the railing talking with the woman who’d approached me earlier when my stomach dropped at the sight of long black hair and glasses with blood-red rims. I almost dropped my champagne flute clear over the railing, turning to where Cameron—Amelie—leaned against a table, a champagne flute in her hand, giving me a playful smile.
I excused myself breathlessly from the conversation, drawn like a magnet by Cameron’s gaze, and she smiled wider as I came closer, my heart pounding. I hadn’t seen her since we toured the cheaper property together… almost a week ago now. It felt like an eternity.
“Miss Douglass,” I said lightly, joining her to the side, past a row of plants that tucked us in for a bit of privacy by the railing. “Pleasant surprise to see you here.”
She tucked a strand of black hair back, looking up at me just under the rims of her glasses. “Well, isn’t that a cold welcome? I’m just Miss Douglass now, am I?”
“Ah… I’m in professional mode. You’ll have to excuse me.”
She let her gaze travel down my body, going quickly back up to meet me, and it gave me a lump in my throat. Agreeing to behave, to act appropriately… it seemed to be going about as well for her as it had been for me. Still, she didn’t say the million things I could see were on her mind, settling to sip her champagne instead. “Your presentation was marvelous.”
“You were watching?”
“I’d heard about a pretty little rising star…”
I ducked my head, suddenly shy, blushing. Something about showing Cameron myself at work… even though she’d literally been my job for a while now, it had me feeling nervous, almost like what had been between us was realer for it. “I was set up for success, that’s all.”
She made a face. “False modesty is such a passe look, London. You can be bigger than that.”
I looked away, my heart pounding too much. I didn’t know why. It wasn’t my first time around Cameron. It wasn’t my first time with her outside of the tours. Just… I couldn’t place the sensation. Still, I flicked my hair back. “Well, I’m a goddamn star. How’s that?”
“No sense for the middle ground, huh?” She laughed, sidling just a bit closer, leaning against the railing with me. “I like that, though. I like it quite a lot when you’re all in.”
I pursed my lips, keeping my eyes fixed on the distance. “Cam… Amelie. Didn’t we agree on something?”
She sighed, short and sharp and frustrated, bending over the railing with her arms folded. “Yes. We did. I apologize. I shouldn’t even be here.”
But… I’d drawn her in? The thought that she couldn’t resist coming here just to see me was pure adrenaline. I tempered my reaction and kept it to a quiet, “I’m glad you are.”
I only got a glimpse of her expression from the side like this, but I could see the smile play on her lips. Still, she didn’t say anything, and I contented myself with leaning on the railing next to her.
“Is… everything okay? With—you know who.”
She shrugged. “He doesn’t control me. All he can do is annoy me. Which he does exceptionally well.”
“You’re not worried about what he might do?”
“He’s not a violent man, if that’s what you’re getting at. No matter what’s happened to him, between us…” She swirled a fingertip in the air, searching for phrasing. “I don’t love him anymore. And there’s nothing left there that brings happiness. But when you let someone in that close, for that long, it’s not something that ever goes away. I know that man. Sometimes it’s gratifying, sometimes it’s frustrating, but I can read him like a book.”
