Brady Mason's Perfect Fit, page 5
“Okay, a social worker,” Brady said, feeling relieved. She knew what visits with social workers were like. “That, I can do.”
“We’ll figure this out,” Elena said, but she wasn’t looking at Brady. It didn’t really sound like she was talking to Brady, either.
Brady set her own fork down, her dinner now finished. “I have one more question.”
“Yes?”
“If you didn’t want me back then, like, when you had me and put me up for adoption or whatever, what made you come get me now? You could have left me in the group home.” Brady thought about Sierra again. “It wasn’t like I was sitting around waiting for you, for real or anything.”
Elena searched Brady’s eyes again, reading her in a way Brady knew would be hard to get used to. “Did you want me to leave you in the group home?”
What a stupid question. “I’m just asking, why now? You don’t owe me any favors or anything. You didn’t sign up for this. I mean, you kind of signed up for the exact opposite, you know?”
“You went viral anyway.”
Brady groaned. “I wasn’t really expecting anything to come of it. It was just… something we did. I thought it was all bullcrap, really.”
“Bullcrap,” Elena repeated. Brady almost laughed at the way it sounded coming from her.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Brady pointed out.
Elena sighed, turning away from Brady to gaze out the kitchen window. “And you didn’t answer mine. What matters is that you’re here now, and I promise we’ll figure this out,” she said again, firmly this time, though that didn’t answer anything, either. “I’ll take your plate. Go ahead upstairs. You’ve had quite the day, and I think an early bedtime would be good for both of us.”
On cue, Brady yawned. “Yeah, all right. I’ll, um, see you in the morning?”
Elena nodded. “I was trying to avoid having to take you with me to the office so soon, but I’m not sure I’ll have a choice. We’re putting out a written statement about you coming to live with me, but my PR person says we should keep a low profile, at least until you’ve had some media training, and we’ll schedule specific events to introduce you to the public.”
Brady blinked at her. “I’m sorry, what?”
Elena waved her off. “Nothing for you to worry about right now.” Brady was certainly going to worry right now. “Point is, until then, I don’t want to put you in a position you’re not ready for, and I’m worried bringing you to the office will attract attention. I’ve hired a nanny”—Brady shot her a glare that Elena promptly ignored—“but that process took longer than I wanted. I’ll also need to enroll you in school, but that’s going to have to wait until I have a moment to breathe. It’s early enough in the school year that you should catch up with no problem, at least.”
Brady didn’t think Elena had any memory of what school was like; otherwise, she’d never suggest something so ridiculous. “Can’t you just add a private tutor to your repertoire of employees and spare me from having to do the whole school thing?” Brady asked.
Elena didn’t seem to hear her. Or she chose to ignore her again. “Long story short, it was hard enough keeping today free, and tomorrow I need to go to the office. You might have to come with me, but I don’t know. I do want you to see what I do, so it is what it is. Hopefully the nanny problem gets sorted fast, though.”
“Can you please stop calling her ‘the nanny’? You’re treating me like I’m five years old.” Brady scowled.
Elena smiled. Brady realized it was the very first time she’d seen her do that since she arrived that afternoon.
“What?” Elena said, smile now gone.
Brady went for broke. “You’ve got a really nice smile.”
Elena waved off Brady but ducked her head as her cheeks turned a little pink. “All right, that’s enough. Go on to bed now. I’ll be in my office working if you need anything.”
Brady was pretty sure she shouldn’t bother Elena in her office at all. “Okay. Thanks. Um, good night, Elena.”
Elena met her gaze once again. “Good night, Brady.”
Upstairs in her room, Brady sat on the bed, thinking about her mother, and having to be introduced to the public, and the idea of a nanny, and how there were three entire floors below her. She reached over to Becoming Elena and flipped the cover open.
Brady put her finger on the page, traced the words, and read slowly: To the girl I was in Ohio.
Brady thumbed through the book, knowing that somewhere in those pages, she might get to know her mother. Somewhere in those pages was the explanation of how Brady came to be.
Brady closed the book.
It was still light outside, the sun reflecting off the windows of the town houses across the street. Brady closed the heavy blackout curtains, and the room fell dark. In the soft blankets of her new bed, with the ceiling fan gently blowing cool air on her face, Brady couldn’t help giving in. The exhaustion of everything was too much, and soon she was fast asleep.
6.
Brady woke to a knock on her door. It was so soft at first, she wasn’t sure what she heard, but when she picked her head up to listen, the hesitant knock came again. “Brady?”
It took another moment for Brady to recognize the voice. When she did, when it all came back to her and she remembered that was her mother’s voice, she dropped her face back into her pillow, taking a moment to breathe.
“Brady?” Elena repeated through the door.
Brady responded by making an incoherent noise, muffled by her pillow. Elena opened the door, and light from the hallway poured in. Brady squinted up at her. “What’s wrong? What time is it?”
“It’s almost six,” Elena said. “I’ll need to leave for work soon, and, well, you need to come with me. I want you to come with me. But also, you have to. So, if you could get up now and get dressed and meet me downstairs, that would be good. There’s breakfast.”
Brady made another mumbled noise while pushing herself to a sitting position. It wasn’t like she was used to sleeping in or anything—they had early wake-up at the group home—but that didn’t mean she was a morning person, either. She rubbed at her face.
“Have you looked in your closet yet?” Elena said. She, at the very least, sounded like a morning person. She didn’t sound or look sleepy at all—in fact, Elena was fully dressed in a sharp gray pantsuit, her hair soft and styled, makeup on. “Here, come look. I made sure you were fully stocked. You won’t need to get all dressed up just to come to the office, but it is my work, so something nice, still. Plus, that’ll help in case any photographs get out. Though we are taking precautions so that doesn’t happen. But I won’t lie, Brady, media attention is going to be part of your life now.”
While Elena rambled on a little too early in the morning, she moved to open the closet doors. Brady gaped. The closet was packed. There were more clothes in there—just for Brady—than all six of the girls put together had back in Jersey.
There were dresses hanging, and pants folded, and shirts and blouses and an entire row of shoes at the bottom—flats and sandals and heels (Brady had never in her life worn heels)—and everything in almost every color and why did she need so many of everything and how was she supposed to know what to wear?
“I know, it’s exciting, right?” Elena said, and Brady just kind of blinked at her again. “What do you think you’ll wear? How about this…?”
Brady was perfectly capable of dressing herself. Still, she didn’t stop Elena from picking out a pair of pants, a top, and a pair of shoes and laying them out on the bed. It saved her the trouble of having to go through everything, of trying to figure out how to dress for your birth mother’s work, the job she gave you up to be able to have.
“There you go. Okay. Come down once you’re dressed. There’s breakfast,” Elena said again. She stood there for an extra moment, just kind of looking at Brady, before turning to leave.
The pants were a little big, the shoes were a little too small, and the top was a light-purple color that Brady normally wouldn’t be caught dead in, because it reminded her of the bedsheets she’d had when she was a little kid in one of her earliest foster homes. She tried not to look at herself too long in the mirror, because all she saw when she did was her mother’s eyes and nose, plus clothes that didn’t fit.
After walking down the three entire floors it took to get there, Brady found Elena in the kitchen. She was sitting on a stool at the kitchen island, cup of coffee in front of her, scrolling through the phone in her hand. She smiled when Brady entered the room, gesturing to a plate of fruit. “We can order you something more on our way if you want. Let me know what you like for breakfast, and I can make sure the housekeeper stocks up.”
Brady grabbed a banana. “This is fine.”
“You look nice,” Elena said. She reached out a hand to smooth down Brady’s pant leg. “A little big, but it suits you. How’s everything feel?”
The shoes were pinching her toes. “Fine.”
Elena put down her phone to reach for her coffee, and Brady caught sight of what she was looking at. “I wouldn’t think someone like you spent time doomscrolling on social media.”
“Not doomscrolling,” Elena said, picking her phone back up and leaning closer to Brady so she could see. “I quickly scan in the morning to see if anything on my feed grabs my interest or inspires me. A big part of my job is understanding what’s trendy, what people are drawn to. What I’m drawn to. I got my start on social media, and I worked incredibly hard to reach people online. Some professionals try and discredit people like me because of that. But we all agree, at least, that this is where trends start. This is where discoveries happen. Here, you want to see if anything catches your eye?”
She handed Brady her phone. Brady stared at the influencers on the screen. “I don’t know what to even look for.”
“Anything you like.”
Brady looked back down at the screen. Scrolled past a couple images. She hovered for a moment on a video of an actress on a red carpet in a sharp black suit, pants, vest, and blazer all shining like leather—maybe it was leather—with a crisp white shirt and tie. The actress had long brown hair and full red lips, the incredibly high heels she was wearing making her leg muscles look amazing.
Brady liked that outfit. A lot.
But Brady knew how to keep opinions to herself. Foster parents didn’t want to hear what you thought about their house rules. The older group-home girls didn’t want to hear what you had to say about the food they chose for dinner. And the bigger girls who took you under their wings at juvie just wanted your loyalty; they didn’t care if you agreed with what they made you do to prove that loyalty or not.
Elena was the top of the pecking order here.
Brady slid the phone back across the island to Elena, who then finished her coffee standing.
“I like to be at the office by eight at the latest, but it varies depending on how much I need to do. Ben’s driving us; I’m having him pull into the garage so we can get out and into the office without issue. I’m hoping my employees have discretion, but who knows. Don’t talk to anyone I haven’t introduced you to, especially not the media. Which, of course, the entire building is full of, since we’re a publication, but just bear with.”
“I could just stay here,” Brady pointed out. “I’m old enough.”
Elena shook her head. “I’m not leaving you alone. Not until the nanny is here. And, well. I want you to see it.”
“See what?” Brady asked. “Your office?”
It got very quiet in the already-quiet room. Elena kept her eyes on her phone, using a manicured finger to keep scrolling as she said, “To see what I’ve sacrificed to do.”
It was nice to find a friendly face when Brady and Elena got to the basement of the town house to where the garage was and Ben was standing there, holding open the door to their car. He smiled and nodded at Brady, who smiled and nodded back.
When they arrived at Elena’s office building and exited to the sidewalk, Brady stared up in awe. The building was tall enough that Brady had to lean back to see the whole thing, and the morning sun reflected off it so brightly, she had to cover her eyes. Maybe she shouldn’t have been impressed by just a big building, but she couldn’t help it. She was the kid who had dreamed of getting to the city full of skyscrapers across the bay, and here she was, at the center of those skyscrapers. She wondered for a moment if she had ever seen this specific one, blinding in the sunlight, from home.
“Are you coming?” Elena asked, rushing toward the entrance.
Brady scurried after Elena, a shadow at Elena’s heels. Everyone they passed offered a quick “Good morning, Ms. Lavigne,” and Elena simply smiled a tight smile back at them. Brady was out of breath by the time they entered the elevator.
“Impressed?”
It took Brady a moment to realize that Elena was talking to her. “Do you own the whole building?”
Elena smirked. “I do not. But my offices are here, and I’m important, so everyone knows me,” Elena explained. “I’ve earned respect. You’ll have that respect here, too.”
“I haven’t earned any respect.”
“The point is that I have,” Elena said. “And now you’re with me.”
The elevator dinged, the doors opened, and Elena stepped through them the second she could fit through the opening. After a half second of hesitation, Brady did, too.
The floor was covered with wall-to-wall windows, an open plan with desks and workers fluttering around, every single person saying, “Good morning, Elena,” as the two of them walked down the hall. There were a couple odd glances, a couple of people leaning over their desks to get a closer look.
Doors opened to rooms filled with racks and racks of outfits that were runway ready. Photographs on the walls had models in similar outfits and various past Vivacité covers, most in color and some in black and white.
At the end of the hallway, Elena held out a hand, stopping Brady from entering what she guessed was Elena’s office—a wide space with clear glass walls so anyone could see her working inside, but couldn’t hear a thing when the doors were closed. Outside of that office was the doorway to a much, much smaller office and a desk with another woman, who was deep in a phone conversation.
The woman hung up the phone, and Elena turned to her and said, “This is Brady. She’ll be spending the day with me.”
The woman’s eyes opened a little wider, but she recovered quickly to say, “I’m Kylie. Elena’s administrative assistant.”
“Oh,” Brady said, mentally cataloging administrative assistant alongside personal assistant, housekeeper, and driver in her head. She walked over to stand in front of Kylie’s desk. “So, what’s the difference between an administrative assistant and a personal assistant, anyway?”
“I answer the phones and organize the office.”
“Jenna doesn’t do that?” Brady asked, which summoned Jenna from another small office.
“Yes? Oh. It’s you,” Jenna said. She looked Brady up and down, then gave her an approving nod before lingering on Brady’s shoes. Brady had pulled her heel out of one of them—it had started to pinch a little too much during the walk from the car to Elena’s office, and it was scraping a little too much against her skin.
Jenna narrowed her eyes, but Brady ignored her. She stepped away from Kylie’s desk and walked over toward one of the windows instead. She looked out at the city. At New York City. They were really high up; she could see pretty far in any direction where other skyscrapers didn’t get in the way. Down below, cars drove by and people walked through the streets, and Brady thought, This is what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it?
She pressed her face against the glass, trying to see farther down, trying to see as much as she could.
“Like what you see?” Elena asked.
Brady glanced at Elena, back out the window, and back at Elena once more. “I don’t know that I’ve ever been up this high.”
“The higher the office, the more powerful you are.”
Brady ventured a guess. “And you’re very powerful?”
“Here, I am, yes,” Elena said, voice strong. “Now come into my office with me; I have about a million emails to respond to.”
As Elena sat at her desk to tend to those emails, Brady walked around the room. It was styled not unlike Elena’s town house—the same types of decorative plants, the same style artwork on the walls. Brady found herself more interested in what Elena had chosen to frame and place on the shelves along the walls. There was a New York Times interview that had a picture of a younger Elena, smiling bigger than Brady had yet to see her do in person, and featured her work from her vlog, Young Adult. Next to it were two framed issues of Vivacité. One had a cover with an actress Brady recognized but couldn’t come up with a name for, and the other had another woman Brady didn’t recognize at all. Both had bright eyes and gorgeously done makeup, shiny cover page reflecting the office light.
“Why do you have these two framed here?” Brady asked.
Elena looked up from her computer. “The first one has my first written feature in Vivacité. The second one is the first issue where my name appears on the masthead.”
“What’s a masthead?”
“It’s kind of like the credits of a magazine. That was my first as editor.”
Brady nodded. “Cool.”
She looked back at the New York Times interview. She couldn’t find a date, but she wondered just how long ago this was from. Back before Vivacité but after Elena had been discovered from her vlog. When did Brady fit into all this? Had Elena already given birth to her?
“I usually aim to get most of these emails taken care of before my first meeting of the day.” Elena shrugged. “This is the boring part, but you’ll get a better idea of what I do during the editorial meeting soon. Sound good?”
“Sure,” Brady said. “Sounds good.”
