Page 4 of Fauxmance in the City

My readers think I’m a genius in the kitchen, but I have no idea how to remedy it without ruining both our lives. The public will not take kindly to being lied to. They love a villain.

Lie number two: I’m a domestic goddess.

Give me an empty room, and I’ll slay it with my designer’s eye. I can throw beautiful paint on the walls, fill it with chic furniture that dazzles the eye, and transform any space into a masterpiece. Ask me to maintain it, clean it, and keep it organized—as I expertly advise my readers every month—and I fail every time.

My closets are piled with clothes that need ironing, designer shoes I plan to sell on The RealReal if I ever got around to it, handbags shoved on top of winter coats, piled on top of filing boxes, heaped on top of designer queen sheets that don’t fit my new king-size bed. Nothing is organized. Nothing is neat.

If I didn’t discreetly hire a cleaner, there would be inches of dust and dirt all over the counters, windowsills, and wood floors. But every month, I write tips on how to keep a clean, efficiently run, organized home. And still, I leave my unpacked suitcase in a corner for months after I’ve returned from a trip.

The only part of my house that is a wonder of organization is the kitchen pantry. It’s systemized, labeled, and color coordinated. I spent an entire weekend using every hack I ever wrote to organize it to perfection. Since I don’t cook, it never gets used. DoorDash for the win!

It’s not technically lying to give wonderful advice but not follow it. Right? I could do it. I just choose not to.

Lie number three: I’m married.

Okay, it’s not a total lie, but it’s not the whole truth, either. And that’s all I’m gonna say about that can of rotting worms. It would stink up my carefully curated life if it ever popped open.

I never expected to get a book deal three years after being hired—Catelyn Bloom’s Guide to Living Simply Chic, number eight on USA Today’s Best-Selling Books list—and I certainly never expected to be a guest correspondent on Good Day USA.

It all just blew up.

two

My phone pings, and I wrench my thoughts from my tangle of lies and back to the present. It’s a text from my editor, Patrick.

Where are you?

I text him my location.

Coming now. Don’t move.

Besides Sam, Patrick is the only other person at work who knows the truth. I slipped it in right after he got engaged to his now-wife, Avery. The news that half of what I write is basically a lie hardly fazed him. He’d been too focused on his upcoming nuptials and the honeymoon.

As a thank-you or, as he calls it, entrapment, I asked him to edit my book when I signed the deal. The publishing company hadn’t been too pleased, but they hired him as a freelance editor when I made it clear it was a deal breaker. The fee he received covered the cost of his honeymoon, so I think we’re even.

Unless it all comes crashing down.

If the truth came out, it wouldn’t be just my career and life that’s over, or Natalie’s, which would be horrible, but Patrick’s is on the line too. And he has a wife and a baby on the way. If I were to take responsibility for these lies now, I’d sink a ship filled with the people I love.

“What’s everyone doing in here?” Patrick, his tall figure slumped inside his gray overcoat, walks into the office. “And why is there champagne?”

“I bought an apartment.”

“Fuck me.” He tugs the flute from my fingers and gulps the last drops. “You have to tell me before you make big decisions.” Yanking his overcoat off, he dumps it on the arm of the sofa. “We’re never getting out of this mess.”

His words stick to me like an icky film. I take the bottle of champagne and shove the open end into my mouth. Before I can take a sip, he yanks it away.

“I need you sober. I have news.”

Under the two blotches of red on his cheeks from the outside cold, his face is pale. Suddenly, I’m worried something has happened to Avery. They underwent fertility treatment for a year. Last week, they announced her pregnancy.

“Is Avery okay?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. She’s great. The baby’s great.” Patrick shoves half a pastry in his mouth, chews, and doesn’t bother to swallow before saying, “You know that Good Samaritan who has been making headlines?” Flakes fly out of his mouth, and he rushes on. “The travel writer who was almost killed when he saw a girl being kidnapped in Greece, then followed the kidnappers and rescued her?” My blank stare prompts him to continue. “And when he woke up in the hospital, he had amnesia? He has no parents—they died when he was a kid—and he’s been working overseas for the past year. Ringing any bells?”

“That’s so sad,” I say. I need to watch the news. Or check Twitter. But a designer’s life is on Pinterest, Houzz, and Insta. “Did he get his memory back?”

“I can’t believe you work in media,” Patrick says.

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