about everything that went down with Brandy.”
“Oh, I’m bitter,” Clyde confirmed. “I’ll never forgive you for trying to tarnish Brandon’s good name. But I can assure you that I’m not lying about Edmond and I’m affronted that you’d think I’d stoop so low as to make something like this up.”
Aiden used his shaking hand to wipe at his eyes.
“If Edmond was gravely ill he’d have told me,” he said with certainty.
“Would he?” Clyde countered, removing his glasses. “You’re Edmond’s beloved prodigy. I imagine he wanted to protect you from the ugliness of it all.”
Aiden stood up and put a hand to his temple. His head suddenly felt immensely heavy from all the questions it now contained.
“You’re wrong.” Aiden tried to remain composed as he picked up his briefcase and prepared to leave.
“I wish I was,” Clyde moved around from his desk to get the door. “Edmond is a good man, one of the best.”
“He’s not dying,” Aiden insisted.
“Make sure you get that processed,” Clyde said, referring to his amended will. “I told Edmond I’d get it done as soon as I could.”
“So you knew you’d be seeing me today?”
“Of course.”
Aiden sighed in frustration.
“If you’re lying about Edmond—”
“I’m not. I wouldn’t.”
“Do you think telling me this makes us even?”
Clyde chuckled slightly to himself.
“Of course not,” he clapped Aiden on the back as he pulled open the office door. “We’ll never be even.”
*
Aiden sat in his car holding Clyde’s amended will. He kept re-reading the new benefactor. Clyde was leaving everything to Edmond’s family. Surely that meant it was true, that Edmond was actually dying?
Punching the steering wheel Aiden tried to release his anguish. He wanted to scream, to cry, to run until his legs gave way beneath him, but instead he turned on the key in the ignition and pulled out of the parking lot. He knew he was due back at the office but that wasn’t where he was headed. He was going to see Edmond.
*
“Has anyone called for me?” Brandy enquired hopefully as she came down the central staircase of Chez Vous.
“No, honey,” her Aunt Carol shook her head and raised a perfectly styled eyebrow at her niece.
“You need to stop waiting on his call.”
“I’m not waiting on anyone’s call!” Brandy insisted, forcing herself to smile brightly and sound flippant.
“Uh-huh,” Carol rolled her eyes and pursed her lips knowingly.
“We’ve all been there,” Rhonda, a senior stylist, retorted from where she was standing nearby, styling a middle-aged woman’s hair.
“You need to stop waiting on him and move on!” As Rhonda spoke, she pointed her scissors at Brandy.
Brandy liked Rhonda. Like all the other women who worked at Chez Vous, she was stylish and oozed confidence. Brandy had never known women like them before. They were assertive and knew their own minds and didn’t let the men in their life own them. It was a far cry from the life she’d known growing up, where Brandy’s own mother favoured her current man over her own daughter.
“Chin up,” Carol placed her hand beneath Brandy’s dainty chin and physically pushed it upwards.
Brandy tucked a loose strand of long blonde hair behind her ear and turned to head back up to her next client. She paused briefly, a hand on the rail and looked back at her aunt, her deep-brown eyes wide with irrepressible hope.
“If someone does call, you’ll tell me, right?”
“Child, you’re a lost cause!” Rhonda cried heatedly, pointing her scissors back at Brandy.
“Beautiful Southern belle like yourself could have any man in this city eating out of the palm of your hand!”
“Thanks,” Brandy whispered politely, not wanting to point out that the problem was that the man she wanted wasn’t even in Chicago.
*
The only place Brandy was able to find solace was sat at the white piano in the worn-down hotel a few blocks from her apartment. She’d sit at the stool and let her fingers glide effortlessly over the keys and she’d lose herself to whichever melody she decided to play. Lately, the songs she played were sombre and slow, reflecting her mood.
He’d told her he was going to call. He’d told her that he was going to leave his wife and come back to Chicago for her and they were going to be together, truly together. That was two weeks ago. Since then there had been only silence from Aiden Connelly. As Brandy pressed down firmly on a deep chord she tried to push out all her pain, all her hurt and anguish. With each day that passed she came closer to the heart breaking realisation that Aiden was never going to call.
*
“Was he the smartly dressed man who came to Chez Vous a few weeks ago?” Rhonda asked as she walked along the street beside Brandy. The two women were headed out to collect coffees for everyone at the salon, a Wednesday afternoon ritual. Usually Brandy went alone, but this time Rhonda insisted on joining her.
“Who?” Brandy glanced at her colleague, frowning slightly in confusion.
“The man whose call you keep waiting on,” Rhonda said directly.
“Oh,” Brandy looked down at her feet and blushed.
Rhonda placed a comforting arm around her. She stood almost an entire foot taller than Brandy. She had jet-black hair styled dramatically into a spiked style with fluorescent-pink tips and she always wore the latest fashions coupled with her beloved vintage leather jacket. Rhonda oozed originality and confidence and, like Brandy, she relocated to Chicago from her small home town almost ten years ago when she graduated from high school.
“And I’ve never looked back!” Rhonda would declare whenever she regaled someone with her tale of how she came to be in the big city.
“Yeah, I thought something was up, I saw the way you looked at each other.”
“He said he’d call,” Brandy admitted sadly. “He said he’d come back for me.”
“He’s married, isn’t he?” Rhonda ceased walking and looked directly at Brandy. There was no judgement in her eyes, only concern.
“Yes,” Brandy sighed. “He is. Does that make me an awful person?”
“No,” Rhonda shook her head and continued walking. “It
