Chapter 5 - The Emerald Suit
The sun rose on Sunday morning over a city dusted in four inches of pristine, powdery snow.
Warren was in the kitchen, bacon sizzling in his grandmother’s cast-iron skillet, the radio tuned to an old bluegrass station that played low and sweet. When I walked into the hallway, he set his spatula on the ceramic spoon rest and turned around, his eyebrows lifting in slow, quiet appreciation.
I was not wearing an apron. I was not wearing an oversized cardigan with flour dust on the elbows.
I wore a tailored, double-breasted emerald-green wool suit that I had purchased three years ago for a national bread bakers' symposium in Chicago and had never had the courage to wear in Oakridge. The trousers fell in a sharp, unbroken crease to the tips of my polished black leather pumps. My hair, dark brown with thin strands of silver at the temples, was swept back into an immaculate French twist, secured with tortoiseshell combs Genevieve had given me for my fortieth birthday. Around my neck hung a simple gold chain that Warren had bought me from his first overtime check after we moved in together.
Warren walked over, wiped his hands on a clean dishtowel, and gently smoothed the lapel of the jacket.
"You look like a woman who is about to foreclose on a railroad, Mrs. Nichols," he said, his eyes crinkling at the corners.
"I’m not foreclosing on a railroad, Warren," I said, looking into his steady gray eyes. "I’m foreclosing on a fantasy."
"Do you want me to drive the truck?"
"No," I replied, resting my hand against his cheek, feeling the rough scrape of his morning beard. "If you come, Sterling will make it about a mechanic trying to muscle his way into an executive parlor. This is an internal audit. I started it twenty-five years ago, and I need to be the one who signs the bottom line."
Warren nodded. He didn't offer the easy, patronizing protections that weak men offer to strong women. He simply leaned down, kissed me firmly on the lips, and handed me the leather portfolio from the hall table.
"Don't leave any crumbs for the rats, Elaine," he said. "I’ll have a pot of beef stew simmering when you get back."
The drive across town took twenty minutes.
Elmcrest Drive was lined with black luxury sedans, silver German crossovers, and late-model European sports cars. The street looked like a satellite parking lot for a private equity retreat. Sterling’s "promotion party" had evidently been rescheduled from Saturday evening to Sunday brunch after the caterer’s collapse, and the golden son was currently holding court for his corporate superiors.
I parked my ten-year-old Civic between a Porsche Cayenne and a BMW sedan, right across the driveway aprons, blocking the curb cut.
I took the emerald portfolio under my arm, stepped out into the crisp mountain air, and walked up the front flagstones.
The snow on the walkway had not been shoveled. It had been trampled into a gray, treacherous slush by forty pairs of expensive leather loafers. Bernice had clearly refused to pay the neighborhood boys ten dollars to clear the steps, expecting the "maid" to do it with a metal spade before the appetizers were set out.
The heavy front door was unlocked.
The foyer smelled of wet wool, pine candles, expensive bourbon, and the faint, unmistakable tang of scorched silk that still lingered in the plaster from the fireplace yesterday morning.
May you like
Laughter drifted from the living room—the loud, performative, self-congratulatory braying of corporate men who had spent their lives trading other people’s labor for quarterly bonuses.
I stepped across the threshold, wiped my pumps on the sisal mat, and walked into the parlor.
