The Devil Wears Black

When he finished talking, he took a greedy, hungry breath, like he couldn’t stand the strain on his lungs of uttering a few sentences together.

“Thank you.” I bowed my head.

“It is not a compliment,” he deadpanned, surprising me. I looked up, frowning. He sighed, took another hit, and talked with the joint clasped between his fingers.

“I’m stubborn and pigheaded and extremely unreasonable at times. I love your mother, but I am the first to recognize I’ve put her through hell with my radical moods. I have no manners to speak of, and I’m sarcastic even when the time doesn’t call for it—which is always. I want you to promise me something.”

I hoped to hell he didn’t mean to warn me against being sarcastic. I’d need to cut off half of my brain and my tongue to be on the path toward not making a dark joke out of everything.

“Hit me with it,” I said guardedly.

“Give love a chance. It is rare and raw and completely life changing. A girl like Madison doesn’t fall into your lap every other day. If you miss your chance with her, there’s no guarantee another girl who is tailor made for you will just walk into your life. I know Amber hurt you, bad. You didn’t love her, though. You wanted to get settled and get the romance thing out of the way. I saw the way she looked at you. I saw the way you looked at her.”

I knew what he meant. I’d looked at postcollege Amber like a new, shiny, limited-edition car. She’d raised my stock and seemed like a good addition to my life at the time. I looked at Madison like she was a piñata full of surprises and orgasms I wanted to burst. With my dick-shaped bat. She kept me on my toes and made me second-guess what she was going to do or say. And I had ended up watching Me before You. Guess what? Louisa Clark was hot as hell.

“Open up your heart. Life is shorter than you think. And when you’re in my position, bedridden, a breath away from death, you don’t think about all the money you made, all the lucrative deals you signed, about the revenues and people who screwed you over and people you screwed over in business. You think about how lucky you are to be eating homemade banana bread and listening to your grandchild laughing from the other room and the love of your life being the person who made her laugh.”

I closed my eyes, nodding. “I promise I . . .” I started talking, but when I opened my eyes, I saw Dad passed out. He was fast asleep, the last flame of the joint burning in his hand. I took the joint, put it out in an ashtray on his nightstand, kissed him good night, and left.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

MADDIE

“Are you okay?” Sven asked as he tugged and smoothed the dress on my body.

I wasn’t.

I was absolutely not okay.

The model for the Dream Wedding Dress was MIA, again, and I had to fill in for her. At this point, I was furious. It was one thing to give him my measurements. It was another completely to model the frigging thing, especially when she was at least eight inches taller than me. How unprofessional.

“I’m fine,” I clipped. “You should talk to this girl’s agency. She’s stood us up twice in a row now. Maybe you should just get a size zero replacement.”

Phew, now I really was a long cry from Martyr Maddie. The old me would never say anything remotely negative about someone. The new me, however, wanted to hold people accountable for their actions. Living with the new me, I realized, was much more convenient than sharing a body with my previous version.

“Nah, too late for that.” Sven crouched forward, pinning needles around the fabric bunched at my waist. He had another row of needles in his mouth as he spoke. “Besides, even if I could get another model, I want the one that looks like a real woman. She’s worth it. Trust me.”

“Supermodels are real women too. In fact, women come in all shapes and sizes and colors and heights, and none of their physical characteristics make them any less of a woman.” Nina raised her arm in the air as if asking for permission as they both inspected me in my work of art.

“Amen.” I high-fived Nina before giving the customary bride-to-be twirl in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror we kept in the studio mostly for Sven’s daily angle check. Designers and interns and administrative assistants gathered around me to look at the dress. Crimson marred my neck and cheeks, and my skin became blotchy with embarrassment. I wasn’t used to everyone’s eyes on me.

“Fine. I’ll amend. The model is worth it because she looks like she was born for that dress, and I don’t care that she is busy. Now, Maddie, would you do me a favor and straighten your back? You look like you’re about to hide inside this dress.”