Page 3 of Butterfly Sisters
Pacing down the busy sidewalk with forty minutes to spare, she checked her phone to see if she’d missed a call from Meredith. Nothing. She should’ve known better than to look.
Over the years, Leigh had tried to talk to her sister, but Meredith would cut their calls short, telling her she needed to go. If Leigh knew where Meredith was right now, she would find her, but Meredith was a nomad, traveling across the U.S. on pennies, still taking odd jobs to make ends meet. Last Leigh had heard, she was a waitress somewhere along the West Coast. Even the area code on her cell phone was cryptic—470: Georgia, a state Leigh never knew her sister had even visited, let alone stayed in long enough to register a new cell phone.
Leigh guzzled the last of her coffee, the bitterness burning her stomach. Never stopping long enough for breakfast, she always got a coffee on the way to work, but today, mixed with her nerves over the puzzling call from her mother last night and the presentation this morning, it ate at her insides like battery acid.
“I have something I need to tell you girls,” her mother, Katherine, had said last night over the phone while Leigh was preparing for her presentation. “It’s important. I can’t get Meredith. Think you can wrangle her up and meet me at the cabin?”
“Are you okay, Mama?” she’d asked, worried by the abrupt request that something was wrong. Ever since her father’s heart attack and sudden death, her mother’s health was the first thing that came to mind whenever she called out of the blue like that.
“Yes. I’m fine.”
Years before, when Katherine had finally begun managing her grief enough to face the cabin, she and Leigh’s dad had been gearing up to go through Nan’s things when her father had had the heart attack. Mama hadn’t mentioned going up to the cabin after that. Leigh had wrestled with the idea of returning. In the end, she couldn’t do it either. The cabin had been her refuge and the source of her happiness, what her youthful dreams had been made of. If she walked into that house, she would inevitably have to relive the memories of her time with Nan, lying out on the hammock with her grandmother and looking up at the stars, hearing her laugh in that way that sounded like bubbles. It had all been too much to manage.
Leigh tossed the empty coffee cup into the bin just to the right of the oversized glass doors, something she’d done every day for four years. She’d perfected the toss over time, making a shot that would impress any player on the New York Knicks basketball team. She tugged on the heavy door, stepping out of the chill and into the expanse of the lobby, pulling her Manolo Blahniks from her handbag and switching her shoes. Her new pair of heels tapped against the shiny white marble-patterned tiles as she shoved her flats into her bag and made her way to the elevators that would take her to the twenty-fifth floor.
She zipped up to the McGregor offices, waving to her best friend Julie at the front desk, trying not to let the fact that Julie was laughing at something with their newest colleague, Rebecca Mayer, dampen her mood. Rebecca had sashayed in a few weeks ago with a former client list that would fill the entire hallway to Leigh’s office if she laid it out end to end. Leigh had considered it fate that she’d been given this account before Rebecca had started at McGregor. But the fact she was chosen meant that Phillip Russo expected she could land this client. And if she didn’t—well, she didn’t even need to think about it. She would.
Leigh had to focus. Like clockwork, she arrived twenty minutes early to her meeting so she could drink one bottle of water, whiten her teeth, and go over her notes—a ritual she’d found always gave her confidence in these situations. She’d had several big meetings now, nailing every one of them, so her track record was impeccable.
She set her bag against the wall in the conference room, went over to the office fridge—a sleek, stainless-steel box with a glass front, showing off the latest in hip beverages for their clients—and snagged a water. With a twist of the lid, she chased the lingering coffee taste down her throat and pulled the meeting notes from her bag, arranging them neatly at her place at the conference table.
She knew this client backward and forward: Park West Securities, the up-and-coming private investment firm that had risen faster than any of their competitors in the nation. They began with only ten employees, rising steadily and solidly to a staggering two hundred employees in six short years. The boutique investment firm, owned by CEO Mark Shuster, was preferred by celebrities and corporate superstars. This company had their pick of who would handle their expansion. The heavens had opened up and led them to McGregor Consulting, landing right in Leigh’s lap. And she was prepared to win them over. She turned on the screen at the end of the office, the company logo coming to life and spinning in a three-dimensional geometric pattern, then set the remote next to her notes and her laptop.
Julie came in with a silver covered tray of the fresh grilled lobster poppers filled with eggs Benedict that Leigh had ordered from Cleo’s, the high-end restaurant down the street. She could always count on Julie to pull through for her. They’d met three years ago when Julie had started at McGregor. The only two females in the firm, they’d become fast friends.
Julie set the poppers on the table, along with a stack of white appetizer plates, a pair of serving tongs, and cloth napkins. Leigh had never had a client actually eat the poppers during a meeting, but she’d seen the sparkle in their eyes at the gesture, so she ordered them every time, and she always scheduled her meetings in the morning. As if tailor-made for her, this meeting was perfectly arranged on a Thursday, at 9a.m. Thursdays were good—clients were in a slightly more relaxed mood with the impending weekend, but they also didn’t want to spend too long after nearly finishing a busy work week. It meant a quick yes.
“All ready?” Julie asked like she always did, although Leigh sensed an odd stiffness in her friend’s voice.
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” she replied, trying to place why Julie would be acting edgy. She couldn’t be nervous about this client for her. Leigh knew she’d have no idea who was coming in. There was too much going on in the company for her to keep up with who would be where, and they never talked about work on their nights out, so Leigh hadn’t mentioned it. She’d speak to her later…
Julie headed for the door. “Good luck.”
“Thank you,” Leigh said, pulling her whitening strips from her purse and sliding them onto her teeth. She fluffed her hair and applied a thin layer of lip-gloss before poring over her notes in one last run-through. She mentally practiced her opening line, her pitch, and the final moment when she’d say, “And who better than us?” Time to make some magic happen.
With only two minutes to go, she straightened her blazer, removed the whitening strips discreetly with a napkin, balling it all up and dropping it into the trash, and turned the platter just so to make sure the sun coming in through the large glass wall-window shimmered off it perfectly—not a glare, just a bit of shine. Phillip rushed by the room, looking in, and she gave him a confident head nod. She was on her game.
Her phone went off in her bag, and she quickly reached in to turn off the sound, the name on the screen stopping her in her tracks:Meredith. Ugh, her sister literally never called her back on the first try. Given her mother’s failed attempts at reaching her and not having a clue when Meredith would get to Leigh again, Leigh needed to answer it, but she couldn’t. Her heart hammering in her chest, she silenced the call, closed her bag and straightened her suit.
One minute.
The glass conference-room door swung open and she brightened, turning around.
“Oh. Hey,” she said to Julie who was standing by herself, wondering why she’d come ahead of the clients instead of just showing them back. She knew Leigh was ready.
“Sorry, Leigh,” she said, still holding the door open with one hand while she hovered in the doorway. “Mr. Russo just popped by my desk and asked me to tell you that he moved the time of the meeting.”
“Really?” She already worried that the lobster poppers would get cold and she seriously doubted she could call in another order for later, on such short notice. “What time?”
“It was an hour ago,” Julie said, distant.
“I missed it?” she breathed, the blood running out of her face, leaving her cheeks ice cold.
Normally, Julie would have swooped in and given her an empathetic smile, promising they’d get a drink right after work and slough the whole timing snafu off. Instead, she dropped her gaze from Leigh. But then she smiled as Rebecca walked by. Not just a friendly smile, but as if they had a mutual understanding of some insider joke. Rebecca pointed her red-nailed, manicured finger at Julie over her shoulder and called back to her, “Last night was not my fault,” to which Julie giggled. Had Leigh’s best friend hung out with Rebecca Mayer last night?
“You didn’t miss it,” Julie said, resuming their conversation once Leigh’s nemesis had passed, but she was shifty and awkward again. “Don’t worry. The clients accepted, Phillip said.”
“How, when I wasn’t there to close the deal?”
