Martin was the last person in the world she
wanted to be like, and if that was how Emily saw her, a game player on the grandest
of scales, then she’d been a fool to think Emily would want…anything…with her.
She couldn’t even claim her tarnished reputation, deserved or not, was at fault
for Emily’s impression of her. She’d revealed more of herself to Emily than to
anyone in her life, even Aud, and that hadn’t been enough to matter. She
slowed, let out a deep breath. She should have known she couldn’t change who
she was like she changed her clothes, no matter how much she might’ve wanted
to. She had been
living off her inheritance and her name, she was
a player, just as Emily had intimated, and wanting to be someone else didn’t
erase that. Wanting Emily to see her as more than that wasn’t enough to make it
so.
And feeling sorry for herself was just
another form of self-indulgence. Emily had seen what she’d momentarily
forgotten—she’d chosen her path a long time ago. She hadn’t wanted the Winfield
legacy and had made herself into the woman everyone thought her to be.
Derian stopped at the corner and glanced
around. Nothing looked familiar. She checked the street signs and couldn’t
decipher which direction they were telling her to go. A cold sheet of panic
sliced between her shoulder blades. She’d done this before. Countless times
when she’d been very young. Found herself in a place she hadn’t expected to be
where everything looked foreign, as if she had stepped through an invisible
curtain into another universe. Alone, and unable to find the way home.
But she wasn’t ten anymore. She took a
breath, pulled out her phone, and punched in a number.
“Hey, Dere,” Aud said, sounding
uncharacteristically subdued when she answered. “Is this a friendly call or
business? Because I’m wrapping up for the day and I’ve had business up to my
a—”
“I’m a little bit lost.” Derian laughed
wryly. In more ways than one. “Turned around. Street signs say…um, West Third
and Mercer. And I could use a drink.”
A beat of silence. Then Aud’s brisk voice.
“I’m closing my computer right now. I’ll grab a cab and be there in ten
minutes. Is there a bar somewhere that you can see?”
Derian scanned the streets, stepping out of
the way of a vendor pushing a cart full of T-shirts toward the open van pulled
up to the curb. “There’s one on the corner, neighborhood-looking place. Tony
D’s.”
“I’ll find it. Ten minutes. Okay?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
The tavern, lit only by the neon beer signs
hanging on the walls at irregular intervals, was a single room about the size
of Derian’s living room at the Dakota. A big plate-glass window looked out on
the sidewalk, a scarred bar down one side, a handful of small mismatched tables
pushed against the opposite wall. A sign pointing to restrooms in an alcove at
the back. A few men and women occupied stools at the bar, most hunched over
their glasses in silent communion. Derian found a seat at the far end and
ordered a draft. The sharp yeasty bite felt good going down. The last of the
panic washed away as she finished it off and signaled for another. Right now,
she was tired of thinking about who she was and how much of her father might be
in her.