London Fashion Week was on. This time, there was no relaxing downtime in Vivian’s townhouse, no chance to take a nap before the next big social engagement. The Du Jour group went to the hotel, except for Jules and Vivian, who headed for the townhouse.
They didn’t stop for longer than it took to freshen up and change. Jules got out of her wrinkled clothes and threw on a new outfit, washed her face and reapplied her makeup, and combed her hair. There. She almost looked human again. Then she clattered downstairs toward the kitchen. Hopefully, the temporary staff had stocked it exactly as she’d told them to.
Vivian strode into the kitchen just as Jules stuck her head inside the fridge. “What are you doing? It’s time to leave.”
“I know.” She pulled out a bottled smoothie. “But it’s four hours until dinner, and I thought you might want one of these.” She offered the bottle to Vivian, who already looked as fresh as if she’d never set foot on an airplane. “It’s a protein and soymilk something. Mango flavored.”
Vivian looked skeptical, but she took a sip and then nodded. Which meant she loved it and Jules should make sure she got more of them.
When she lowered the bottle from her mouth, Jules realized the smoothie had left a peach-colored milky ring around Vivian’s lips. It momentarily hypnotized her, and her heart thumped pleasantly at the sight of it—it was cute and sexy, but nobody except Jules would think so.
“Ahem,” she said.
Vivian frowned at her.
Jules started making circling motions over her own mouth with her index finger, then tapped her lips. “You’ve got, you know.”
Vivian went pink. “I’ve got…to what?”
“You’ve got stuff on your mouth from the smoothie.” She winced. It seemed rude when you had to say it.
Vivian’s eyes opened even wider in understanding. Her cheeks went pinker too.
Jules quickly offered her a paper towel.
Snatching it, Vivian then dabbed at her mouth, peering at her reflection in a nearby glass cabinet and scowling all the while. “Let’s go.” She tossed the nearly full smoothie in the trash.
“Oh,” Jules said, inexplicably crestfallen. “You don’t want—?”
“I want”—Vivian cleared her throat—“to go. It’s not complicated.”
“I’ll get your coat.” Jules tried not to sigh audibly.
“This is an extremely important week, Julia,” Vivian said, like that wasn’t a massive understatement and like Jules didn’t already know. “Don’t let yourself get distracted.”
“Distract—” Jules began, then cut herself off, going rigid when she figured out what she meant. Being distracted meant fussing over the pregnancy, which Vivian did not want and would not appreciate.
Not this week, anyway. Maybe not anymore, ever. Okay. Fair enough. Totally fine. Right?
“Right,” she mumbled. She headed to get the coats, thinking hard about not thinking at all.
* * *
That afternoon, disaster struck. First of all, the front row at the Ashish show did not have a seat reserved for Charlotte, Du Jour’s top photography editor, a detail Vivian had told Jules to take care of personally. Fortunately, Jules noticed the mistake before Vivian (or Charlotte) arrived and pounced on the staging director immediately.
“Listen, I don’t know what to tell you,” he said.
“Tell me you’re going to boot one of these people so Charlotte Cooke can get a seat,” Jules said. “I spoke to Elyssa, and she said—”
“Oh, that explains it. Elyssa quit three days ago.”
“Well, I’m sorry to hear that,” Jules said, trying not to sound panicked because Vivian was due to arrive any second. “But Charlotte is in Vivian Carlisle’s entourage.”
“Oh-h-h.” The staging director’s eyes went wide as Vivian’s name worked its usual magic. “Shit. Okay. Let me fix that…”
Thank God. He went to talk to the woman who’d had the temerity to take Charlotte’s seat. Jules, bouncing on the balls of her feet and hoping the woman would vacate her place before the rest of the Du Jour crew arrived, checked out the other side of the room.
Stan Oppenheimer was sitting in the third row.
What? What the hell? He wasn’t supposed to be here. At least Jules hadn’t heard that he would be. Not that Mr. Oppenheimer’s schedule was even remotely in her purview. But surely Vivian had known he was coming and hadn’t mentioned it.
Why should she? Vivian wasn’t accountable to Jules for her movements. If she didn’t need her to schedule something, then Jules had nothing to do with any of it. They had gotten together in the evenings, after all, and Jules had never heard a word about it until Mr. Oppenheimer himself had called.
There was a flurry of attention by the door, and Jules knew Vivian had arrived. She always made an entrance: people got out of her way, cleared a path for her, watched her with equal parts envy and admiration, murmured to each other as they watched her pass.
Stan Oppenheimer was watching too. He looked approving.
Jules wondered how many punches it would take before his face actually caved in.
Deep breath. Deep breath. Charlotte’s seat was free now, and Jules thanked the staging director as she took her seat in the second row behind Vivian, who didn’t seem to notice the momentary glitch.
Then she tried to pay attention to the models on the catwalk and the clothes they wore instead of on the ridiculously rich, handsome, and available man across the way.
Thankfully, Mr. Oppenheimer didn’t attempt to speak to Vivian after the show. And there were two more shows before a late dinner, so Jules was able to keep busy and try not to think about him. Then there was the dinner itself, and Jules definitely wasn’t sitting at Vivian’s table this time. Even Simon wasn’t.
The editor in chief of Du Jour UK was, though. Vivian also sat with a Booker Prize winning novelist, the star of the latest West End hit, a publishing magnate or two, and Monique Leung.
Every time Jules managed a peek, Vivian and Monique were either not talking to each other or were exchanging frosty looks. Awkward.
It got even more awkward after dinner when Jules returned to Vivian’s side. Monique stood only a few feet away and in front of Vivian. She smiled and waved at Jules. “I thought I’d see you around this week.”
She managed a smile in return. “Wouldn’t miss it. Did you have a good trip here?” That had to be a conversational gambit even Vivian couldn’t get annoyed at.
“Well—” Monique began.
“So sorry to cut this important conversation short, but we need to get moving,” Vivian said curtly. “It was good to see you, Monique. Julia, call the car. We’re going home.”
Did Monique seem curious at “We’re going home”? Or maybe it was well-deserved annoyance at Vivian being a jerk for no reason at all. Again.
Jules couldn’t even be mad about it. Vivian looked exhausted, nearly faint on her feet. She also didn’t want Jules to get distracted, so there was no point in asking if she was okay. Better just to call the car and ride in silence to the townhouse.
The silence was oddly tense tonight. She wasn’t sure why. She and Vivian hadn’t had a disagreement; Jules had done everything right all day long. But the air in the back seat felt suffocating with all kinds of things unsaid.
Jules was probably imagining it. What was wrong with her? She was tired too, had endured a long couple of weeks, and she was still wrung out with inappropriate jealousy over an interest Vivian might not even have in some guy. And even if she did, it wasn’t Jules’s business to be jealous in the first place, as she’d told herself a million times already.
All of this tension was just in Jules’s head. She was projecting it onto everything. So what if they weren’t talking to each other in the car? Vivian didn’t have anything to say. That was all. She had to be far more tired than Jules was.
Jimmy stopped the car at the curb, and Jules and Vivian headed into the townhouse.
Vivian’s shoulders were as straight and proudly set as ever, but she was moving more slowly.
They both stepped into the darkened hallway. Jules turned on the hall light and helped Vivian out of her coat. Vivian didn’t say anything, but she did give Jules a long look. Her own face was expressionless.
Jules normally would have fumbled for something to say. Not now. Now, for some reason, after that quiet car ride and in this quiet house, no words would come to her. She just looked right back at Vivian and thought about that peachy ring around her mouth, then her brain shut down in self-defense.
“You look tired,” Vivian said quietly. “Get some sleep. I…need you rested.”
That would be an easy need to fill. Jules had no idea how much longer she could stand upright. “Of course.”
For a moment, something flickered in Vivian’s eyes. Jules couldn’t identify it, but whatever it was, it seemed to make Vivian open her mouth again.
Then Vivian snapped her mouth shut, turned around, and headed for the stairway without another word.
Jules removed her own coat and hung it in the hall closet, deliberately taking her time. When she reached the foot of the stairs, Vivian had already ascended them. By the time Jules got to the second floor, Vivian had shut her bedroom door.
Well…good. Jules needed rest too. Her shoulders alone seemed to weigh two hundred pounds.
She dragged herself into her bedroom, shut the door, and got ready for bed. Her alarm was set to go off at six, and it was ten thirty now. Her body’s clock was completely screwed up again.
Just like her sense of self-preservation.