THEY WERE SEATED in the round room surrounded by the curving floor-to-ceiling bookcases and the overhanging loft where she and Lucia had played as girls, filled now with clutter of all kinds—old expense reports and clothes in transparent tubs labeled with black faded marker that had once clearly said Donate. Mya wondered who the hell James Stein was. Who was he to come all the way here unannounced with that bottle? Willow had never mentioned him before, not a single slip about a man on her mind, yet they seemed so familiar, and he knew about the family’s business. He knew too much.
Lucia sat on the chaise lounge and stretched out her legs like she was on vacation. In a way she was—free room and board, offered a great job, sister falling apart like on a reality television show. All Lucia needed now was a margarita. Willow moved books off the orange wing-back chair for James, and Mya sat on the cream loveseat, waiting for them to get settled. Willow would not stop shifting items on the coffee table, as if she were making room for the drinks none of them had.
“Mom?” Mya said. “Will you sit?”
“No.” She continued stacking the coasters.
James grabbed Willow’s hand and said, “It might be better,” and just like that, she stopped and eased herself down on the orange ottoman. Zoe’s death had shocked Mya, but a man who could penetrate her mother’s stubbornness shocked her more at the moment. All three women stared at James. He didn’t look surprised, just unprepared. Perhaps he thought Willow’s daughters didn’t live at home. Perhaps he’d planned only to see Willow and never to meet Lucia and Mya in person.
James propped one ankle on his knee and smoothed his pant leg, then said, “If you need answers, I don’t have any.”
“Why are you here?” Lucia said.
“To deliver the perfume,” he said.
“And?” Lucia prodded.
“And to see your mother,” he admitted. “That wasn’t clear?”
Willow smiled. How could she be falling in love now, at a time like this? She’d taken away the company from Mya, and the flowers were dying. Zoe was dead. This was no time for love. Yet Willow looked like she couldn’t help herself.
“Did the perfume do it?” Lucia said. Everyone became quiet and then slowly turned their attention to Mya, whose face felt hot. Lucia, Willow, and James secretly believed, and always would, that Mya had intentionally killed Zoe Bennett. How would she ever convince them otherwise? Yes, she had ill intent. But not intent to murder.
“Zoe killed herself,” James said. “Hanged herself in her home theater. Why she did that is up for debate.”
“That’s not what Peter’s assistant told me. Said she overdosed,” Willow said.
James coughed, rubbed his chest, and then cleared his throat again. With a scratchy voice he said, “She was in bad shape when I saw her. No shower, seemed very drunk. I didn’t think she’d kill herself, but she did make a lot of strange comments about hating herself and being a hack and begged me to forgive her for being such a failure, things Zoe never would’ve said. She always had the confidence of a redwood.”
Lucia sat cross-legged on the chaise lounge. “She was depressed. A broken heart can do that sort of thing.”
“But to hate herself was not Zoe’s style,” James said. “Even if she was sad, she could always manage to love something about herself. When I visited her she despised everything and everyone that had made her so famous. Except the perfume. The only positive thing she talked about was the new perfume, how she’d never stop wearing it.”
Willow smoothed her white hair with both hands. “That’s not reason enough for you to take the perfume, I wouldn’t think.”
“You would,” he said, “if you had smelled it on her.”
At this Mya stood from her chair, but by the way James leveled his stare at her, she saw that he knew exactly what her perfume had been intended to do. Mya couldn’t move.
Willow shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“Mya does,” James said, not once taking his eyes off her.
“Mya?” Willow said.
“I told you already,” Mya said, and she began to make her exit from the room.
Willow looked back to James, and he said, “I wanted to eat her because she seemed so delicious, but I also wanted to puke her back up and flush her down the toilet. For thirty minutes I’d never felt anything so strange in my entire life. And she was living in it. I told her to return to the studio in the next few weeks or however much time she needed, but she locked herself in her home theater and didn’t see me out. I went to her bedroom just to find that smell, and the bottle was open on her vanity. Half-empty, as you can see.”
Willow closed her eyes like she’d just been told of women and children dying in some mass genocide in a faraway country.
“She used too much,” Mya told him. “It’s not like the usage rules had changed. But you’re right about everything else, about the smell.”
“But why?” James asked, like he couldn’t believe her.
Sometimes that question had no place in a conversation.
Lucia said, “Look, Zoe’s dead, and it was nice that you brought it back, but it could make us look guilty, right? I mean, if she was bragging about the perfume to you, who else heard about it? Her manager knows.”
“That occurred to me,” James said, “and I still took it.”
“So you think we’re guilty?” Willow said.
He rested his hands in his lap. “Do you think you’re guilty?”
Willow shook her head and then looked at Mya. Mya said, “Someone else might’ve made a different decision, given the same perfume. She didn’t have to kill herself.”
“That’s true,” James said, “but did you consider what kind of personality you were dealing with before you made it?”
Mya shifted in her chair. Attention-obsessed Hollywood narcissist. Of course she’d thought about it. James Stein didn’t think Mya was innocent; there wasn’t even a sliver of hope. He’d turn her in. That’s the kind of man her mother was attracted to, apparently, and it was sickening. He had no loyalty to the business or to her family. Mya said defiantly, “She made a choice and I won’t be made to feel guilty about it.”
“Let’s say she didn’t kill herself. Your plan was to make a perfume, take a large amount of Zoe’s money for it, and kill her career at the same time?” James said. “That’s ethical to you?”
Mya nodded.
“But you selected her,” James said.
“Now, hold on,” Willow protested.
“No.” Mya stood up. “He’s right. Revenge isn’t ethical, but neither is greed. Zoe made the first mistake here. She should’ve stayed where she belonged. Cameo roles are one thing, but she had to climb and she knew it was wrong. That’s why she didn’t tell us about Schol’s film. She deserved a consequence.”
Lucia said, “She deserved to die?”
“I didn’t want her to die. I just didn’t want her career to ruin Jennifer Katz. I mean, that’s not ethical either, right? Not on Zoe’s part, not on our part.”
James looked at the ceiling, and Mya followed his gaze there but found nothing but the same old skylight.
Lucia said, “You could’ve accepted the consequences of your contract mistake.”
“And let Zoe ruin the business?” Willow finally stepped in to defend Mya. It was about time. “That wasn’t a decision I could make, and you wouldn’t have either. You either, James, so nobody start in with the high and mighty today.”
“I would’ve called Zoe’s bluff,” Lucia said. This made Mya want to toss a book at her sister. “She needed us more than we needed her; she would’ve quickly figured that out.”
“After she did some damage,” James agreed. “She was impulsive.” Again he looked right at Mya. Why did he keep doing that?
“So what?” Lucia said. “It would’ve been a glitch in the business. Not a tragedy, not like this.”
Finally, her mother’s face pinched with annoyance. Willow said, “I’m sorry you weren’t the one to make all the decisions.”
“You honestly think that was the best decision?” Lucia asked.
“I did.”
“It doesn’t matter now,” Mya told them. “It’s over.”
“I hope the report comes back inconclusive.” James stood up from his chair. “But I wouldn’t want to live with that.”
“Well,” Mya said, “you won’t have to.” She didn’t like this man at all. And he did not like Mya. It was palpable in the room. He didn’t seem to like Lucia much either, so that helped Mya a little.
Willow stood with him. “Take a walk with me?”
“I should go,” he said.
“Just a short one, while you wait for your driver.”
“Nice to meet you two.” He walked out of the round room and back through the kitchen to the front door. Willow said nothing and followed him out.
Mya picked at her cuticles and waited for the front door to shut before she said, “Bastard.”
“He did us a favor,” Lucia said. “I think.”
“Are you my sister?” Mya said, looking directly at Lucia.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“What I said.”
“Yes. Obviously, I’m your sister.”
“Then act like it for a change.”
“Fine,” Lucia said, “act like this is a big deal and I will.”
“I’m terrified. How can you not see that?”
“You’re scared that you might die.” It pained Mya to hear this confirmed. “Not about Zoe and what this means for us.”
The phone rang in the office and Mya’s heart pounded faster with each ring. “You know what it is,” Mya said.
“Should I answer it? Or get Mom?”
Mya and Lucia hurried to the office, and Lucia stared at the phone like it might go up in smoke. “Pick it up,” Mya said.
Lucia snatched the phone and said, “Lenore Incorporated—no, this is Lucia Lenore, that’s right . . . No, she’s not here . . . Now, hold on, Peter, you can talk to me about that . . . I don’t think that’s a good idea—hold on, let me ask her, but I doubt it.”
Mya chewed her fingernails. She hated listening to other people’s telephone conversations, especially when she happened to be the subject.
Lucia put him on hold and dropped the phone on the desk. “He’s so pissed, oh my God.”
“Tell me.” Mya stood right next to her at the table.
“He’s accusing you of crazy things, of killing her on purpose, of getting rid of evidence. He wants to press charges but can’t.”
A wave of relief swept over Mya. “Why not?”
“The report came back. She had trace amounts of prescription drugs in her blood but that was it. Normally not fatal, but that’s what they’re blaming it on, saying she was sensitive to it. Peter swears he knows it’s not true and all the papers are writing about Zoe’s drug problem. He’s weeping. Just weeping and screaming and wants to speak to you and only you. Breathe.”
Mya hadn’t noticed she’d stopped until Lucia pointed it out, and she finally inhaled, her lungs burning. She said, “What should I do?” She wanted Lucia to say, “Don’t speak to anyone,” but instead her sister shrugged and offered up the phone to Mya.
“You decide,” Lucia said.
Mya accepted the receiver and Lucia pushed the button. “This is Mya Lenore,” she said.
Peter Sable, who was a legendary entertainment-industry hard-ass, remained silent on the other end of the line. Mya almost hung up until she heard him cough.
“Peter?” she said softly.
“I don’t even know what to say,” he said in a voice so low and so hoarse that she almost didn’t recognize it.
“How about you call back later then?”
He grew louder as he said, “But I know what you did. No one can prove it, but I know that it was here and what it did to her. I watched her use it and saw how much she changed. As soon as it touched her skin she turned into someone else, someone deluded and angry and sad and ill, and now it’s just gone. How’d you get your hands on it? Where is it?”
“Peter,” Mya said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you don’t. Not on the phone you don’t.”
“Is that all?” She scratched her snakebite bandage with her nails.
“You watch out,” Peter said. “You hear me? You think you can’t be touched?”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me, I know you did,” Peter spat, and hung up.
Mya’s mouth remained open as she handed the phone back to Lucia.
“What happened?”
Mya dropped onto the couch and put her head between her legs, taking deep breaths to curb the oncoming panic. The other side of the couch dipped and Mya felt Lucia rubbing her back. Lucia asked, “Seriously, what just happened?”
She couldn’t talk. Where was her breath?
“Mya,” Lucia pleaded. “Talk to me.”
She shook her head back and forth.
Lucia said, “Are they pressing charges or something?”
Mya continued to shake her head, and she squeezed her eyes shut tight. She’d never meant to hurt Zoe, not like this. But no one would believe her. She gripped her hair and finally found her voice: “He told me to watch out.”
“For what?” Lucia said naïvely.
Mya finally sat up and laughed at how childish her sister could be sometimes. “For whatever’s coming.”
“He threatened you?”
“I’m pretty sure,” Mya said.
“You think he meant it, or he was just upset?” Lucia kept her hand resting on Mya’s back. They’d lost this kind of affection so many years ago that it felt foreign to Mya now, but it brought her comfort and she was grateful.
“He meant it,” Mya said. “This is it, I told you.”
Lucia moved to the edge of the couch and put her hands together. She said, “Then you need to go. You can’t stay here.”
Mya shook her head. “I won’t feel safe anywhere but here.”
“You’ll need to go somewhere until we hear from him again. I don’t think you did it on purpose, but I do think you’ve always been reckless, and that’s why we’ve come to this.”
Mya wanted to respond with some forceful comeback, but her entire body felt like a dried leaf crumbled beneath a boot. It was true, what her sister said. Why did her actions have such permanent results? Other people seemed to make mistakes that worked out just fine in the end. She couldn’t stand being Mya Lenore sometimes, and she had no idea how to fix herself.