Lush Lives by J. Vanessa Lyon

Author:J. Vanessa Lyon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 2023-07-14T18:31:52+00:00

Chapter 18

Parkie had extricated herself from the media circus enough to see that there was no place to go but into the jaws of hell that were the preview itself. The elevators were blocked, and the entrance doors were being monitored by Cuthbert’s staff. The stairwell would provide only a temporary hideout, as there was no way she could climb the five floors to her cube.

From the cheerful Vivaldi strains sporadically released into the lobby, she could tell crowds of visitors were pouring in and out of the preview rooms. But although she knew her absence would soon be detected, if it hadn’t been already, she did not want to go in.

She had convinced herself that staying physically outside the space that contained the material gains of the Flagg family might somehow preserve her from disgrace. Surely there must be a way to distance herself from all of it. Was any of this really a surprise?

It would be to Glory, she thought. After tonight, Glory would know everything. She’d see that Parkie, with her name literally on this disgusting sale, was in the middle of it all.

A friendly presence appeared at Parkie’s side in the person of Nicholas Burdine.

“Holy cats,” he drawled. “I guess we should have seen this coming. Maybe not Madeline, but for sure that scary raptor from Communications. Somebody should have known the chickens would come home to roost.”

“That’s a lot of animal, and dinosaur, imagery,” Parkie said.

“As to dinosaurs, you’ll see what I mean when you get in there,” Nicholas said. “And you should go soon, too. It’s a clusterfuck. Absolutely teeming with the old guard. I gave out so many cards, I had to go back upstairs for a refill—from the bottle of old Kentucky bourbon in my desk drawer. Shit. Are we awful people? I knew in the back of my head something was rotten about them after the whole USB thing, but I never asked the Google. Pricing AIDS patients out of their meds, though, Parks. Not good.”

“I mean, of course it’s not good,” Parkie said. “It’s heinous. But I never asked for this sale, and you know Madeline would have fired me if I’d said I couldn’t do it. Armand went MIA, remember?”

“Yes, nutter butter. We were both just following orders. I don’t think that’s gonna fly with the next Anderson Cooper–­loving homosexual I date. Maybe that’s why he left. I wouldn’t put it past La Mort to grow some integrity for this one thing. He was alive for AIDS.”

Parkie hadn’t considered this possibility, but it did make a certain kind of sense. Armand had indeed left suddenly. And he had seemed uncharacteristically edgy about being in the Flaggs’ apartment from the minute Parkie followed him into their vaulted faux-marble foyer.

But whatever his reasons, he was gone and she was here.

Parkie was the one Madeline had asked to step up after her supervisor’s departure. And, like the boss bitch she was, Parkie had handled everything—supposedly with Armand’s blessing. From the endless rounds of cataloguing to the decision to re-create the look of the Park Avenue apartment.

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