Part 2
Emmy left the card there until closing. Twice she picked it up to throw it away. Twice Roland Pike’s name lit her phone before she could.
That night, she sat on the edge of her bed with the card balanced on her knee. Her apartment’s refrigerator hummed unevenly. On the wall, a photograph of her parents leaned crookedly in its cheap frame.
She tried to imagine telling her mother she had married a man whose favorite food she didn’t know.
Then she imagined Friday at the stall.
By morning, she had put on a clean blue dress and placed her identification in her purse.
Beatrice was waiting outside the county offices.
“You came.”
“I said I’d consider it.”
“And you did. Thoroughly, by the look of you.” She touched Emmy’s cheek. “Did you sleep at all?”
Nathan stood a few steps away. He looked as solemn as she felt.
Inside, a clerk named Trudy checked their documents and prepared the license. The magistrate, Mr. Keene, spoke to them about the obligations they were accepting. Emmy heard the scratch of Nathan’s pen before she picked up her own.
When Mr. Keene asked whether they understood that this was a legal marriage, she answered clearly.
“Yes.”
Beatrice took possession of the certified copies before either newlywed could reach for them.
“We’re keeping those,” Nathan said.
“Eventually.”
“A certificate won’t stop anyone filing for divorce.”
“No, but I’d like you to get through lunch before you start researching it.”
Outside, she checked her phone and announced she had an appointment.
“You brought us here,” Nathan said.
“And now you know each other. Excellent progress.” She kissed Emmy’s cheek. “He can be difficult when he’s nervous. Don’t let him impress you with it.”
Then she left them beside the courthouse steps.
Nathan looked at Emmy.
“We should be honest about what this is.”
She appreciated the words then.
“I’m not expecting a romance,” she said. “Or a husband who pretends.”
“Good.”
She took a card from her purse and held it out. It had her bank details on one side and the name of her little sewing business on the other.
“I’ll send payments every month. I’ve got an interview tomorrow. If it works out, I can send more.”
“For what?”
“The money your grandmother paid. She sent me the creditor’s receipt this morning.”
Nathan didn’t take the card.
“You don’t need to repay her.”
“I need to repay somebody.”
He had expected questions about an allowance, perhaps about where he intended to house her. Instead, she was standing on the steps in shoes with worn heels, proposing installments.
“Keep what you earn,” he said.
“Where did she get that much?”
“Years of saving for my wedding,” he said too quickly. “Her retirement money.”
Emmy went still.
“Then she needs it back. Every cent.”
“She isn’t going without anything.”
“You don’t know what she might need later.”
Nathan pushed the card gently back toward her.
“Start with groceries and bus fare. We can discuss the rest.”
She put it away reluctantly.
Near the curb, his sedan gleamed in the morning light. Emmy stopped beside it.
“Would you take a picture of me?”
“With my employer’s car?”
“Beside it. I’m not claiming the title.”
He took her phone. The first picture made her look as though she were waiting to be sentenced.
“Again,” she said. “Tell me something funny.”
“I got married before breakfast.”
She laughed, and he caught that one.
Then she moved closer and held the phone out at arm’s length.
“One together.”
“You wanted this temporary.”
“It still happened.”
He bent enough to fit into the picture.
When she asked for a ride to the bus stop, Nathan led her instead to a small motorcycle parked nearby. One of his security men had brought it at his request.
“You ride this?” she asked.
“Sometimes.”
She settled behind him carefully, leaving an awkward inch between them until he told her to hold on.
At her stop, she climbed off and smoothed her dress.
“Don’t forget to eat,” she said.
Nathan watched her disappear into the waiting crowd before he started the engine.
Owen Mercer had the registry photographs open on his office monitor when Nathan arrived.
“Your grandmother says I’m to keep these somewhere you can’t delete them.”
Nathan shut the office door.
“Don’t.”
“I’ve known you since freshman orientation. You can’t expect professionalism today.”
“This won’t last.”
Owen enlarged the photograph of Nathan and Emmy beside the sedan.
“You’re smiling.”
“Briefly.”
“Dangerous symptom.”
Nathan put his helmet on the desk. He had agreed to the marriage because his grandmother was convinced she could recognize goodness in a few minutes. Emmy’s mention of money had seemed to settle the question for him. He would let the arrangement run long enough for Beatrice to see her mistake.
Now he couldn’t stop remembering the repayment card.
“What’s happening with Velmora?” he asked.
“The acquisition closed this morning. Recruitment is tomorrow. There’s a management feed and a recording of the interviews.”
“And the complaints?”
“Favoritism. Missing design work. Employees say certain names never have to compete for anything.”
“Then we watch before we announce any changes.”
Emmy’s applicant number was forty-three. By the time she reached the waiting room the next morning, there were people standing along the walls.
Two women beside her were talking about Veylan, the company that had bought Velmora.
“The owner’s twenty-seven,” one said. “Nathan Vale. Can you imagine?”
Emmy looked down at her application.
Twenty-seven. Nathan Vale.
She almost smiled at the coincidence. Her Nathan was probably following his employer through an office building at that moment. She had never had much time for business pages, and the women agreed that the billionaire rarely allowed photographs.
She unzipped her garment cover just enough to check the dress. She had stayed up three nights finishing its handwork.
“Applicants thirty-eight through fifty, changing area, please.”
She followed the group and stopped when she saw Vanessa Dorr.
They had studied together. Vanessa had once called herself Emmy’s friend, back when she was always asking to borrow sketchbooks.
“Emmeline Holt,” Vanessa said. “I thought that was you. Are you still selling out by the market?”
“Yes.”
“And now you’re applying here?”
“That’s why I brought a dress.”
Vanessa’s smile thinned.
“You used to mend the same two outfits all semester.”
“They needed mending.”
“My uncle’s already spoken to recruitment. He’s a director at Veylan. This is more of a formality for me.”
“Then relax.”
“I’m trying to spare you a bad afternoon.”
Emmy lifted her garment bag onto a hook.
“I’ll let my sewing embarrass me. You don’t have to help.”
An attendant called both their names. They would present together.
Nathan leaned toward the screen in his office.
Owen glanced at him. “That’s your bride.”
“I can see.”
“Did you know she was coming?”
“No.”
On the feed, the senior recruiter, Celia Ferris, arranged two application folders. Earlier, Nathan had watched her take a private call just outside the interview room. The microphone hadn’t carried every word, but Owen had confirmed whose office had placed it: director Malcolm Dorr’s.
Now two completed dresses stood side by side.
The same ivory fabric. The same neckline. The same sleeves, skirt, and dark beadwork.
Emmy’s hands dropped to her sides.
Vanessa spoke first.
“She copied my submission.”
For a moment, Emmy could only stare at the second dress.
She knew every alteration because she had made them alone at her kitchen table.
“That’s my work.”
Mrs. Ferris didn’t look at the garments. She looked at Emmy’s application.
“You haven’t held a design position.”
“I design for my customers.”
“Roadside sales aren’t the same thing.”
“They don’t make a seam any less mine.”
Vanessa gave a little sigh.
“She was like this at school. Always resentful. She’s never even owned a proper evening dress.”
“I haven’t,” Emmy said. “That doesn’t keep me from making one.”
She explained that an early drawing had appeared on her online portfolio months before. Mrs. Ferris dismissed that before asking Vanessa for her sketches.
“I didn’t bring them,” Vanessa said. “The instructions asked for finished garments.”
“Then ask her how she constructed it,” Emmy said.
“We’ll conduct the interview.”
Emmy took her notebook from her bag and opened it on the table.
“Here. The first neckline pulled too heavily against the shoulder. These are the corrections. These pages have the measurements.”
One panel member leaned forward. Another turned to the dated sewing notes.
Vanessa reached across the table and snatched the book.
“I knew you’d taken it.”
Emmy stared at her.
“You’re holding a book with my handwriting in it.”
“You stole my sketches in college, too.”
“You know that isn’t true.”
Mrs. Ferris closed Emmy’s application folder.
“We cannot employ someone who steals from another applicant.”
“You haven’t checked anything.”
“I’m also on the regional designers association. Other employers will hear about this.”
The room’s camera pointed straight at Emmy. Her face felt hot, but her voice stayed level.
“You’re threatening my entire career on her word.”
“An apology would help.”
Vanessa held the sketchbook against her chest.
“Go on,” she said.
Emmy looked at the dress she had sewn after full days at the stall, at the careful hem nobody had bothered to inspect.
“No.”
Mrs. Ferris straightened.
“Then leave.”
“I won’t work for people who punish the person they’ve robbed.”
She collected her dress. Vanessa let the notebook fall onto the table rather than hand it back.
In Nathan’s office, the feed showed Emmy folding the dress over her arm.
Owen already had the phone in his hand. “Do you want me to get the panel on the line?”
“No.” Nathan kept his eyes on the screen. “Have dismissal letters drafted for everyone who ran that session. Ferris, the panel, whoever made that call to her. Anyone who helped cover it.”
“You look angry.”
“They humiliated an innocent applicant in front of a camera.”
Owen raised an eyebrow. “Innocent applicant? Or wife?”
“Careful, Owen.” Nathan stood and reached for his jacket. “Shut off the feed. Then pull Velmora’s ownership records and every staff complaint on file.”
“Where are you going?”
“To finish that interview myself.”
At the doorway, an attendant stepped into Emmy’s path.
“Mrs. Ferris says you’re not to leave until you apologize…”
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