Page 113 of Hard Count
“I see you picked the place where I can’t fucking move,” Vivienne said.
Vivienne sat. A waiter came.
Vivienne ordered a martini. Carmen asked for another.
Carmen said, “How bad?”
“Worse than you think.”
“Tell me now, bitch.”
Vivienne told her. The same order she had told Henry Weiss that morning, minus the lawyer detail and plus the Henry conversation itself, which Carmen tracked, Vivienne watched her absorb it, a small tightening at the corners of Carmen’s mouth and nothing else. At Riley Dane, Carmen set her martini down. Vivienne finished.
Carmen drank her martini and petted her fur coat, which had become a nervous tic. Her hamburger was barely touched in front of her.
Carmen said, finally, “Noah doesn’t know, but I saw this coming.”
“I assumed.”
“Last week he played the best football game of his career in a fucking rainstorm, and tonight we are here, this is going to distract him.”
“Yes.”
Carmen was quiet again.
“Viv, what the fuck are you going to do?”
“Well Henry is going to threaten Riley a bit. He said I could not put a gun to her head, so plan A was thrown out.”
“For how long?”
“Maybe a few days, a week,” Vivienne replied as she grabbed Carmen’s burger and took a big bite.
“Oh, she is eating now, is she?” Carmen rolled her eyes.
“Bitch, I am here doing the lord's work, I need sustenance. Anyways, aren’t their burgers famous here?” Carmen said as she took a long breath to break the anxiety of it all.
“We need an out. Bitches like us always have an out?”
“Let's order another martini, I have an idea.”
Chapter Forty: Los Angeles
Piper Ashton was at his safe haven, Erewhon, when his phone buzzed. Baseball cap, sunglasses, a hoodie. He was holding a bottle of overpriced artisan water. It was Vivienne.Are you alone?He wrote back:Erewhon.Three dots appeared.
Leave your fucking home away from home. NOW. I just flew in from NYC, I will meet you at your house.
He put the bottle on the shelf, pushed the cart to the front and left it near the registers, and walked out to his car.
Joan, When do I get to fucking exhale again?
***
At the house, Piper walked into the kitchen and set his keys on the counter. He went to the living room, sat on the couch, and looked at the ceiling.
Vivienne arrived twenty minutes later.
She came in through the side gate in the same blazer she had worn on the flight from JFK. She had flown back on the red eye, went to her office and came directly to him. She set her Birkin on the counter and looked at him as he joined her in the kitchen.
