Chapter Text
The July heat wrapped itself around Manhattan like a wet, boiled wool sweater that had been left in the trunk of a Honda Civic.
Emily loathed it with every fibre of her designer-clad soul.
It clung to her immaculate burgundy Dior maternity dress, a custom piece that was currently sticking to her lower back in a way that felt like a personal insult, despite the town car’s air conditioning having blasted arctic air directly at her face less than ten minutes ago. The oversized Celine sunglasses perched atop her nose were doing absolutely nothing to halt the slow, treacherous descent of sweat beads creeping down her temples. She was rapidly beginning to suspect that the entire Tri-State area had taken personal offense to her existence.
Or perhaps the universe was just restoring cosmic balance.
- Executive at Dior at thirty-three? Check.
- Owner of a sprawling Upper East Side penthouse? Check.
- Mother to the single most exquisite child on the planet? Check.
- Currently seven-and-a-half months pregnant with baby number two while surviving the biohazardous aftermath of a divorce from a pathological narcissist? Double check.
Unfortunately, that exquisite child also possessed the tactical precision of a rogue general.
"Bronwyn," Emily called out, yanking her sliding leather tote back onto her shoulder with a sharp huff. "Darling, this way."
A mop of glossy chestnut curls bounced four feet ahead of her.
Bronwyn Charlton-the-better-parent-last-name ignored her entirely.
She was clad, naturally, in a miniature Dior sundress smocked with delicate embroidered daisies. Her tiny white leather sandals slapped enthusiastically against the scorching pavement as she toddled forward with the terrifying, unshakeable confidence of someone who assumed the entire borough of Manhattan had been constructed solely for her personal entertainment.
Every three paces, she executed a full tactical halt to inspect something appalling.
A pigeon. A crack in the sidewalk. A mysteriously warm, discarded iced latte cup. A greasy leaf.
"Mummy!"
"Yes, my darling?"
"Pidgey!"
"Yes, darling, a dirty sky-rat. Move along."
"Pidgey walking!"
"It has legs, sweetie, yes."
"Pidgey funny."
Emily hummed politely through gritted teeth, resting one hand against the firm, melon-sized curve of her bump. Right on cue, the fetus landed an aggressive, indignant kick straight into her ribs.
"Do not take her side," Emily muttered under her breath, glaring down at her own stomach.
Another sharp jab.
"Traitor."
They had just emerged from the pediatrician's office. The appointment itself had been a routine follow-up after Bronwyn’s horrific allergic reaction earlier in the week, an incident that had resulted in Emily spending six harrowing hours in A&E, quietly spiralling into a mental slideshow of every rare medical catastrophe known to humankind, all while trying not to smudge her eyeliner.
Thankfully, the toddler was fine. The culprit had been a rogue pistachio.
Frank, naturally, had missed the entire traumatic ordeal because he was "travelling for business", which Emily knew for a fact meant golfing in the Hamptons with a twenty-two-year-old named Lexi.
She’d stopped expecting basic human competency from him months ago.
Emily checked her watch with a flick of her wrist. Twenty-three minutes.
She had exactly twenty-three minutes before she was expected at an excruciatingly high-stakes lunch meeting with Dior's regional directors. Normally, her nanny would have whisked Bronwyn away post-doctor. Today, however, the nanny was currently at home battling a violent bout of food poisoning, and Emily's meticulously colour-coded schedule had completely disintegrated before 8:00 AM.
It was fine. She was Emily Charlton. She could pivot.
Restaurant first. Park the child with a fresh bread basket. Slay the meeting. Driver collects Bronwyn at one. Victory.
"Mummy."
Silence fell over the sidewalk.
Emily looked up. Bronwyn had stopped dead in her tracks.
"Oh, don't you dare..."
The toddler slowly, intentionally, lowered herself onto the filthy concrete with the dramatic flair of a tragic Victorian heroine succumbing to consumption. She flopped completely flat onto her back, starfish-style, right in the middle of pedestrian traffic.
"Oh, for heaven’s sake."
Commuters swarmed around them like water around a boulder, not bestowing a single glance upon the toddler dramatic-dying on 60th Street.
Bronwyn folded her tiny arms over her embroidered daisies. "I'm tied."
Emily pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling a migraine pulsing behind her sunglasses. "I know you're tired, sweetheart."
"No walk."
"I appreciate your position, but—"
"No."
Emily looked toward the heavens. "Is anyone up there taking requests? A sinkhole, perhaps?"
"Bunny."
"No."
"No walk."
"We really do have to keep moving."
"No."
Emily carefully lowered herself into a squat, every single ligament in her pelvis screaming in violent protest. Her knees popped like small fireworks. Her back throbbed. The unborn child inside her seemed personally offended by the compression and landed a heavy elbow to her bladder.
Emily held out both hands. "Come along, Bronwyn. Up."
Bronwyn looked at her mother’s outstretched hands, then at her face. She gave a solemn, shake of her curls. "No."
Emily closed her eyes for three full seconds, inhaling the distinct city bouquet of hot asphalt and exhaust fumes. When she opened them, she exhaled slowly through her nose. "Right. Option B."
Without another word, she scooped one arm beneath Bronwyn's legs and the other around her back, hauling the toddler upward.
"Oof, good God—"
Had the child been eating lead paint? Since when was fourteen kilograms this heavy?
Bronwyn, entirely thrilled with this sudden shift in transportation, wrapped both sticky arms around Emily’s neck and jammed her tiny face directly into Emily’s neck with a contented sigh.
"Yay," the toddler mumbled into her collarbone.
"Yes," Emily wheezed, forcing her centre of gravity upward with a level of grace comparable to a newborn giraffe. "There we are. Yay."
The baby in her uterus immediately revolted against the added weight, squirming furiously. Bronwyn felt like she weighed as much as a small boulder. The Louis Vitton tote was aggressively sawing off the circulation in Emily's shoulder. She was fairly certain she was now sweating in spots behind her knees she didn't know existed.
And yet... Bronwyn nestled closer, her tiny, chubby fingers mindlessly twirling a strand of Emily's red hair.
Despite the overwhelming physical misery of the moment, a small, involuntary smile tugged at the corner of Emily's lips. "Comfy, monster?"
"Mhm."
"So glad I could serve as your personal rickshaw."
They made it roughly twelve steps down the sidewalk before Bronwyn shifted, pressing her tiny mouth directly against Emily’s ear canal.
"Mummy?"
"Yes, my darling?"
"I wan' wee wee."
Emily froze mid-stride. "...I'm sorry, what?"
"I wan' wee wee."
Now. Of course now.
Emily’s head snapped up, eyes darting wildly down the block. No Bloomingdale's. No fancy hotel lobbies. No air-conditioned corporate sanctuaries. Just endless rows of brownstones and concrete.
She checked her watch. Eighteen minutes.
"Sweetheart," Emily said, employing a tone of hyper-controlled, psychotic calm. "Can you possibly hold it for five minutes? We are two blocks from Mummy’s lunch."
Bronwyn considered this proposal. Her tiny brows furrowed in deep thought. Then, she shook her head with absolute authority. "No."
"No?"
"No."
"Bronwyn, please—"
"Wee wee now."
Emily let out a long shuddering breath, a complete and utter surrender to the chaos of her life.
Because of course. When one is lugging a toddler, carrying a second human in one's womb, running an international luxury fashion brand, and carrying the heavy emotional baggage of a disastrous ex-husband, the universe will always demand an urgent toddler bladder emergency to top it all off.
She did a desperate 360-degree sweep of the corner.
There. Tucked between a dry cleaner and a bank.
A cramped, independent coffee shop she had never noticed in her life. It looked painfully hipster, completely un-Dior, and distinctly smelled from ten yards away of roasted oat milk and bad decisions.
Not ideal. A nightmare, frankly.
Adjusting the toddlers-and-tote load higher onto her aching hip, Emily squared her shoulders, adjusted her sunglasses, and marched straight toward the door like a woman walking into battle.
With any luck, they wouldn't deny a visibly heavily pregnant, hyper-stressed woman the use of their facilities.
With her luck? They'd ask her to buy a four-dollar scone first.
The tiny bell above the café door gave a sickeningly cheerful jingle as Emily shouldered her way through.
A wave of blessed, frigid air conditioning blasted over her sticky face.
"Oh, thank God," she wheezed into the ozone-scented cool.
It wasn't one of those insufferable minimalist spots crammed with tortured screenwriters glaring over cold brew. Nor was it empty. A smattering of patrons sat scattered about, laptops glowing, iced lattes sweating profusely onto scuffed wooden tables, conversations kept to polite, cultured murmurs beneath the soft, hiss of the espresso machine.
Manageable. Civilised.
Bronwyn, however, had officially crossed into Defcon One.
"Mummy," she whimpered, executing a violent squirm on Emily's suffering hip. "Wee wee. Wee wee."
"I know, darling."
"NOW."
"I know!"
Emily adjusted the toddler higher, squared her jaw, and marched straight toward the counter with the terrifying, single-minded momentum of an infantry commander.
The young barista, wearing a beanie in July, because of course he was , looked up with a sunny, innocent smile. "Hi there! Welcome! What can I get—"
"I wonder," Emily cut in, exerting every ounce of her remaining aristocracy to sound polite, "if my daughter might rapidly borrow your restroom? It is an emergency."
The barista's sunny smile instantly withered into corporate regret. "Oh. Gee. I'm really sorry, we have a strict customer-only policy."
Emily stared at him.
"I'm afraid we need to see a receipt before we can hand over the key," he added, looking genuinely pained.
Of course it does. Because why wouldn't it? The cosmic tribunal had clearly convened at dawn to vote unanimously on ruining Emily Charlton’s Tuesday.
She closed her eyes for one long measured second. "Right."
Bronwyn gave an alarmingly frantic bounce. "MUMMY. WEE WEE!"
"I am working on it, sweet pea!" Emily reached for her handbag.
Before she could unclamp the latch, a chubby, sausage-fingered hand shot out from her hip toward the impulse-buy display beside the till.
"MINES."
Emily snared Bronwyn's little wrist with the hyper-trained lightning reflexes of a woman who had performed this exact intercept six thousand times. "No, Bunny."
"But biscuit!"
"We are not robbing the coffee shop today."
Bronwyn’s brows pinched together in murderous offense. "Biscuit.”
"No."
"Biiiiiscuit!"
Emily delicately extricated the individually wrapped artisan shortbread packet from the toddler's death grip and placed it back in its basket. "There."
Bronwyn looked at her mother as if Emily had personally set fire to her stuffed animals.
The beanie-wearing barista was making a valiant, failing attempt not to snicker. Emily shot him a look sharp enough to slice glass, pretending she hadn't caught him enjoying her misery.
"I'll have..." Emily exhaled, her voice dripping with profound tragedy, "...a decaf flat white."
Pregnancy had cruelly stripped her daily caffeine allowance down to a level she considered a violation of her basic human rights.
"Medium?"
"Please."
The barista tapped the screen. "Anything else?"
"No, thank—"
"MUMMY!"
Emily’s head snapped up just in time to see Bronwyn pointing with manic, aggressive enthusiasm at the glass pastry display. Her entire face was illuminated with sudden divine vision.
"BWOWIE!"
Emily followed the chubby index finger.
A slab of dark chocolate fudge brownie the size of a brick sat glistening behind the glass.
"BWOWIE!" Bronwyn’s chant echoed through the quiet café like a air-horn. A couple at a corner table flinched. The toddler bounced furiously on Emily’s bruised hipbone. "BWOWIE! BWOWIE! BWOWIE!"
Emily pinched the bridge of her nose. Under normal circumstances, she was a strict advocate for organic raspberries and low-sugar Greek yogurt. Today? Today she was seven-and-a-half months pregnant, sweating in spots she didn't know possessed sweat glands, and holding a ticking bladder bomb.
"...And the chocolate brick," Emily surrendered deadpan. "...Please."
The barista finally broke, letting out a wheezing laugh. "Coming right up."
Charming. At least her public humiliation was providing quality daytime entertainment.
Emily slapped her card onto the reader. Beep. Approved.
The receipt spat out with a tauntingly cheerful chirp. The barista ripped it off and reached under the counter, producing a wooden slab the size of a cutting board attached to a metal key.
"Restroom's down the hall on the left," he said, pushing it across. "I've got three nieces. I get it."
Emily took the wooden plank with a tight nod. "You are an angel of mercy."
"Good luck," he offered, casting a sympathetic glance at Bronwyn, who was now doing an unmistakable, high-intensity pee-pee dance in mid-air.
The hallway was narrow. The bathroom door was narrower.
Emily fumbled the key into the lock using one hand while balancing Bronwyn like an unruly sack of flour on her hip. "Nearly there, sweetie..."
The latch clicked. Emily shoved the door open.
And promptly froze.
"...Oh, you have got to be joking."
It wasn't a restroom. It was a broom closet that had been forced, under legal distress, to accommodate plumbing.
The sink was practically welded to the opposite wall. The toilet had been shoved into the remaining corner like an afterthought in a submarine.
Emily stared. The toilet stared back.
She looked down at the massive, protruding hemisphere of her pregnant belly. Then back at the micro-room. Then at Bronwyn. Then at the belly again.
"Oh, goodness gracious glory me."
The math simply did not exist.
Normally, she’d step inside, guide Bronwyn, hold her tiny hands, and then supervise the hand-washing like a functional adult. But today, the physical universe dictated that Emily, a baby bump with the turning radius of a city bus, and an energetic toddler could not occupy the same square metre of space without violating the laws of physics.
Bronwyn wriggled in agony. "Mummy..."
"I know."
"WEEMEE!"
"I know!"
Emily experimentally attempted a forward step. Her bump collided directly with the lip of the sink before her feet had even fully cleared the doorway.
She blinked. "...Unbelievable."
She tried angling sideways.
Nope. Her hip jammed into the doorframe while her bump brushed the soap dispenser.
To make matters worse, the unborn child inside her chose that exact millisecond to land a sharp, brutal kick straight into her ribs.
"Do not backtalk me from the inside," Emily hissed down at her stomach.
Bronwyn began stomping her feet in frantic air-steps. "Mummy!"
"Right." Emily took a deep breath of industrial pine-sol air. "New tactical plan."
She crouched slowly, every joint in her pelvis crackling like dry twigs, and set Bronwyn on her feet. "Can you pull your pants down yourself?"
A fierce nod of toddler concentration.
"Good girl."
Emily backed up half a step and shoved herself sideways into the narrow doorframe. Well... half of herself. Her stomach stubbornly remained outside the threshold, effectively acting as an inflatable barricade.
She couldn't close the door. It was physically impossible unless she abandoned her lower torso in the hallway.
So instead, she wedged herself horizontally across the door opening, one shoulder slammed against the frame, her tote dangling awkwardly from her wrist, transforming her entire upper body into a living, breathing human privacy curtain.
"There," Emily gritted out, her cheek pressed against the wood.
Not elegant. Not dignified. A complete breakdown of basic human dignity.
Bronwyn waddled inside with supreme, unbothered focus, completely ignorant of the absurdity of her mother’s human-cork impression.
Emily stared blankly at the hallway ceiling. "One day," she whispered solemnly to the empty hallway, "I shall look back on this horrifying indignity and laugh."
A long beat passed.
"...Today is unequivocally not that day."
Emily shuffled another inch sideways.
Well... as "sideways" as a human being currently encumbered with a bump the size and density of a watermelon could physically manage.
Her back remained squarely toward the café hallway. Her left shoulder was jammed rigidly against the doorframe, while the immense, perfectly rounded swell of her stomach occupied the rest of the threshold, serving as an amazingly efficient, living human barricade between Bronwyn and anyone wandering toward the paper towel dispenser.
"I should have gone into corporate law," Emily muttered under her breath, glaring at the mildewed ceiling tiles. "Or tax evasion. Anything but this."
"What?" Bronwyn piped up from inside the closet.
"Nothing, my darling."
Bronwyn stood in front of the toilet bowl, hands resting on her tiny knees, looking up expectantly with wide, shiny eyes.
Emily exhaled a long, suffering sigh through her nose. "Right. Operation Lift-Off."
She bent her knees excruciatingly, because every single joint in her pelvis now demanded a formal three-day written notice before changing spatial orientation, and hooked her hands firmly under Bronwyn's arms.
"Up we go..."
With an effort that made every muscle in her lower back scream a violent profanity, she hoisted the toddler over the porcelain bowl.
Bronwyn squealed in delight, dangling mid-air. "WEEEEE!"
"Not weeee," Emily grunted, her wrists quivering as she readjusted her grip before her arms gave out entirely. "Wee. As in the verb, not the roller coaster."
The little girl hung happily over the water, legs swinging like pendulum clocks. Emily tried very hard not to calculate the exact number of squats she had been forced to perform since 7:00 AM.
"Are we comfortable, monster?"
"Mhm!"
"Tremendous."
A heavy silence descended upon the closet.
Two seconds passed.
Then—
"Mummy?"
"Yes, sweetheart?"
"The doctor haf fishies."
"...The doctor's office had an aquarium, yes."
"Wif blue fishies."
"Mm-hm. Dory. Splendid."
"And owange fishies."
"Yes."
"And one sleepy fishy."
"I am certain the sleepy fish was taking a lovely, floating nap," Emily said, her biceps trembling under the weight. "And not floating upside down due to poor water filtration."
"And Daddy don’t like fishies."
Emily closed her eyes. Of all the moments for Frank the Narcissist to enter the conversational chat...
"Darling."
"Yeah?"
"Could we possibly focus on the immediate task at hand?"
Bronwyn blinked her giant brown eyes.
Emily shifted her aching arms another struggling millimetre higher. "Mummy's upper body strength is filing a formal complaint with HR."
"What?"
"My arms are going to fall off."
"Oh."
"So if you could kindly proceed with the wee..."
Bronwyn considered this request with the solemn, deep gravity only a two-year-old inspecting a ladybird could manage. "...'Kay."
Mercifully, the child went quiet.
A second later came the delicate, unmistakable sound of success.
"Oh, thank the holy heavens," Emily wheezed into the doorframe.
"What?"
"Nothing, darling. You're doing wonderfully."
Thirty of the longest, most physically sluggish seconds of Emily's thirty-three years tick-tocked by.
"DONE!" Bronwyn announced proudly.
"My clever girl."
Emily carefully lowered her back to the sticky linoleum, doing her absolute best not to drop either the toddler or her own self-respect in the process.
"Now then."
Flush.
Little cotton shorts yanked back up with only minimal structural resistance.
"So far," Emily whispered to herself, wiping a bead of sweat from her hairline, "we are surviving. We are functional."
"I did wee!"
"You certainly did."
"I big girl!"
"You are an absolute titan of industry."
Bronwyn beamed, her entire face glowing with vanity.
Emily reached for the tiny sink tap. Unfortunately, while the sink was small, it had been mounted at standard adult height.
"Right. Phase Two."
She scooped Bronwyn up once more. The instant the child came within arm's reach of the faucet, she slammed both tiny hands onto the metal handle, blasting icy city water into the basin with the force of a fire hose. A violent wave of water rebounded directly off the porcelain and slapped square across the front of Emily's Dior dress.
"Oh... magical," Emily croaked, staring down at the massive, dark water stain bloom over her stomach.
"Splashy!" Bronwyn cheered.
"Yes. Absolutely soaking."
"So splashy!"
Working with one arm pinned around Bronwyn's waist, Emily used her free hand to frantically pump the liquid soap. "Hands together. Rub."
"Wub, wub, wub!" Bronwyn scrubbed her hands together with intense, furious concentration. "Bubbles!"
"So many bubbles."
"And rinse!"
More splashing. Naturally. A secondary wave hit Emily's chest.
By the time she deposited Bronwyn back onto the solid floor, the front of Emily's custom maternity wear looked like she had engaged in close-quarters combat with a sprinkler system.
"Phenomenal," Emily muttered, looking down at her ruined front. "I look as though I’ve lost a wrestling match with a washing machine."
Bronwyn proudly presented two dripping palms. "Dry!"
Emily ripped three paper towels from the metal dispenser, meticulously drying each tiny finger while trying to suppress the deep irrational love bubbling up in her chest. "There we are."
"All done!"
"Yes. Freedom awaits."
Emily turned around, ready to make a break for the exit.
And froze.
A sharp, incredibly familiar, low-belly pressure slammed into her lower abdomen.
She stared back blankly at the toilet bowl. "...Oh, you have got to be shitting me."
The baby inside her shifted heavily against her ribs, as if gleefully high-fiving her bladder from the inside.
Emily pressed two fingers to the bridge of her nose. Pregnancy. That magical, sacred miracle of life where one’s bladder is compressed to the exact storage volume of a thimble.
She looked at the toilet. Then at the narrow doorway. Then down at Bronwyn.
There was literally no universe, no arrangement of matter or spatial geometry,
in which all three of them could fit inside this broom closet with the door fully closed. Not unless the laws of classical physics had been suspended in this city .
Emily carefully sank into a low squat, her knees popping like dry bubble wrap. "Bunny?"
"Yeah?"
"Mummy needs to use the toilet now."
Bronwyn nodded cheerfully. "Otay."
"Could you stand just outside the door for thirty seconds while Mummy—"
"No."
The refusal was instantaneous. Unhesitating. Absolute.
Bronwyn wrapped both plump arms tightly around Emily’s left knee. "No."
Emily blinked. "Sweetheart..."
"No."
"I will be able to see you the entire time. I'll leave the door cracked."
"No."
"You will be literally four inches away."
"NO!"
With terrifying speed, Bronwyn locked her fingers into the fabric of Emily's dress and began actively climbing her mother's thigh as if it were a coconut palm tree.
Emily’s hands flew out instinctively, grabbing the toddler under her armpits before she flipped backward onto the tile. "Oh, for the love of—"
Bronwyn buried her face directly into Emily's damp knee. "Mummy stay!"
Emily tilted her head back, staring up at the stained drop-ceiling. Somewhere in the higher realms, the universe was laughing so hard it was tearing a muscle.
Very slowly, Emily closed her eyes. "Bronwyn Charlton."
The toddler peeked out from behind Emily's knee, one thumb hovering near her mouth. "Yes?"
"If you do not dismount from my leg this instant, I swear to God..."
Bronwyn flashed a brilliant, dimpled, utterly shameless smile, the smile of a child who knew, with 100% certainty, that she held all the leverage in the Tri-State area.
"...Up?" the toddler asked sweetly, extending both sticky arms into the air.
-
At a sunlit table near the front window, blissfully oblivious that destiny had selected a perfectly ordinary, muggy Tuesday to toss a bomb into her afternoon, Andy Sachs absently stirred an iced latte she had long since forgotten to drink.
"...So the senior editor wants an entirely new angle," her colleague was saying, throwing his hands up in exasperation. "Apparently the whole interview needs to feel 'more human.' Whatever the hell that means."
Andy offered a wry, easy smile. "I think it means she doesn't want another three thousand words analysing profit margins."
"That is literally word-for-word what I told her."
They both laughed.
Around them, the coffee shop hummed in a gentle, rhythmic symphony, the sharp hiss of steaming oat milk, the delicate clink of ceramic mugs, the steady, hushed clicking of laptop keyboards.
And then... a toddler.
"MUMMY!"
Andy’s lips twitched into an involuntary smile into the rim of her glass. Kids had an extraordinary, innate ability to hijack the acoustics of any room, regardless of square footage.
"...WEE WEE!"
The grand declaration rang through the quiet café with the unshakeable confidence of a royal decree.
Andy’s colleague didn't even register it, continuing to scroll through his tablet. Andy did. Mostly because she had spent the better part of her morning interviewing working parents for a feature on modern labour dynamics, so her brain was already primed for child-induced mayhem.
Then, a second voice replied.
Calm. Severely dry. Exhausted in a way that sounded almost theatrical.
"I know, darling."
Something about the inflection snagged sharply on Andy’s memory. She frowned, her spoon pausing mid-swirl in her condensation-covered glass.
British. Crisp London cadence. Perfectly enunciated. Razor-sharp around the edges.
There was a distinct rhythm to it...
"...We are not robbing the coffee shop today."
Andy’s eyes darted toward the counter.
That voice. It was like an echo from a past life. She couldn't quite place the origin, but her spine instinctively straightened as if responding to a muscle-memory reflex from ten years ago.
Her colleague kept rambling on. "...And then the guy completely backtracked on his own quote in the very next sentence—"
"MUMMY!"
"Yes, my darling."
"BWOWIE!"
Andy hid a chuckle behind her hand. Apparently, high-stakes diplomatic negotiations had officially shifted from shortbread to chocolate brownies. Smart kid. Highly tactical. She approved.
Still... that voice.
She leaned back in her chair by an inch, angling her head just enough to glimpse the ordering counter. All she caught was the back of a woman disappearing around the narrow corner of the hallway.
Red hair. Rich, vibrant streaks of mahogany and copper catching the afternoon sunlight streaming through the doorway.
Andy’s brow furrowed. Wait. That exact shade...
Was it someone from her investigative journalism rounds? A source? An old contact from—
"...Andy?"
"Hm?" Andy blinked, snapping her head back to her table.
Her colleague was giving her an amused, faintly puzzled look. "You spaced out for a second."
"Sorry," Andy laughed softly, shaking her head to clear the static. "You were saying?"
"Right, so the board wants another follow-up interview next Thursday."
Right. Work. Focus, Sachs. She forced herself back into professional journalist mode. She asked a follow-up questions, listened attentively, and managed to push the mysterious red-haired woman to the back of her mind.
Almost.
Because minutes later, another tiny voice shrieked down the hallway with unmistakable, toddler-grade outrage.
"NO!"
Andy’s eyes snapped toward the back corridor once again.
"...Bronwyn Charlton."
The woman’s voice drifted out, patient, bone-weary, on the precipice of losing a war of attrition.
"If you do not dismount from my leg this instant, I swear to God..."
Andy froze.
Charlton.
The name hit her like a bucket of ice water, unlocking a vault deep within her subconscious.
Charlton. British. Copper hair. Lethal sarcasm.
Charlton.
Emily...?
No. Absolutely not. The statistical probability was zero.
Andy’s pulse executed a sudden, erratic skip against her ribs. She hadn't seen or spoken to Emily Charlton in... God. Ten years? Eleven? The last time they had been in the same room was in a whirlwind of haute couture, crushed dreams, and high-fashion casualties in Paris.
Curiosity, raw and unstoppable, completely overruled her manners.
"I'll be right back," Andy murmured, sliding out of her chair.
Her colleague looked up, startled. "Everything okay?"
"Yeah." Andy flashed him a reassuring grin, picking up her iced coffee. "I just... think I recognise someone."
He gave a distracted nod and went back to his screen.
Andy wove her way through the maze of wooden tables, her trainers silent on the floor. She reached the mouth of the narrow service corridor, rounded the corner... and came to a dead, sudden stop.
The first thing Andy saw wasn't a face.
It was a heavily, impeccably, undeniably pregnant woman stuck sideways in the doorway of a broom-closet-sized restroom, bracing one hand against the frame while a curly-haired toddler vigorously attempted to scale her left thigh like an obstacle course.
The second thing she noticed was the hair, that undeniable, fiery, perfectly styled shade of ginger-copper.
And then the woman let out a long, theatrical sigh. The exact, bone-deep sigh Andy had heard echoing across the Runway office after a thousand impossible demands from Miranda Priestly.
"...Honestly."
That was it. The final, undeniable proof.
Emily Charlton.
Andy simply stood there, rendered entirely speechless. For a terrifying, hilarious beat, her brain utterly refused to reconcile the image in front of her with the legendary woman burned into her memory.
The Emily of Andy’s past wore seven-inch Louboutins, carried herself like minor European royalty, and could dismantle an intern's self-esteem with a single raised eyebrow.
The Emily standing three feet away in a hipster Brooklyn coffee shop looked... human.
Her custom burgundy designer maternity dress featured a massive, glaring water stain directly across her bump. One sleeve was hopelessly rumpled where tiny, sticky hands had clearly been yanking on it. There were faint, shadows of exhaustion beneath her eyes. One hand rested atop a massive, beautifully round seven-and-a-half-month bump, while the other was weakly trying to pry an affectionate toddler off her kneecap.
She looked thoroughly exhausted. She looked stunning. She looked frazzled beyond all human comprehension.
Andy hadn't even realised a massive, uncontrollable grin had spread across her face until Emily happened to glance up.
Their eyes met.
Emily froze instantly.
Andy watched, fascinated, as recognition washed over Emily’s face in distinct, hilarious stages:
- Vague annoyance at being stared at.
- Mild confusion.
- Stunned, violent disbelief.
- Absolute, soul-crushing horror at being caught in the middle of a tactical toddler meltdown.
"...Andrea?" Emily’s voice squeaked out somewhere between a rasp and a gasp.
Andy couldn't help herself. The grin stretched wider, bright and fond. "Hi, Emily."
From behind Emily's leg, the little girl poked her head out, blinking giant, dark brown eyes up at the stranger. She evaluated Andy for three solid seconds before declaring to the entire hallway with toddler bravado, "...Hi."
Andy burst out laughing.
Emily, meanwhile, looked very much as if she were praying for a sinkhole to open up beneath her expensive McQueen trainers and swallow her whole.
Andy blinked. Once. Twice.
Her eyes drifted, quite involuntarily, from Emily's hyper-ventilating face down to the unmistakable, magnificent curve of her stomach. Then to the tiny, curly-haired toddler currently executing a koala-hug around Emily's right knee. Then back up to Emily's face.
"...Wow."
It escaped her mouth before her brain's filter could intervene.
Emily closed her eyes, letting her head drop back against the doorframe. "Please," she croaked, her accent dripping with pure, theatrical misery. "Spare me the small talk. I am four seconds away from a nervous breakdown."
Andy let out a startled, genuine laugh.
It was so quintessentially Emily Charlton. Some things, apparently, never changed.
Emily had already turned her attention back to the considerably more pressing crisis attached to her leg. "Bunny."
Bronwyn was now clinging to Emily’s calf with the grip of a powerlifter.
"Mummy really needs to use the toilet."
"No."
"I have been exceptionally patient with you today."
"No."
"And now I need you to be a very big girl for approximately sixty seconds."
Bronwyn buried her face further into the damp, ruined Dior silk of Emily's dress. "Nooooo."
Emily inhaled. Slowly. Patiently. The kind of long, controlled breath a woman takes right before either demonstrating exemplary modern parenting... or faking her own death and moving to a remote island in the South Pacific.
Andy watched the exchange, her iced latte completely forgotten in her hand. It was almost surreal.
Emily Charlton. The woman who had once intimidated entire departments at Runway without so much as raising her voice. The woman who used to march down Fifth Avenue in nine-inch heels as if she personally owned Manhattan and all its contents.
She needed help. She actually needed help. And judging by the increasingly desperate, wide-eyed expression on her face as her bladder made another aggressive demand... she needed help immediately.
Andy’s smile softened into something warm and genuinely fond. "If you don't mind..."
Emily’s head snapped up.
"...I could watch her," Andy offered.
Emily blinked, her brain misfiring. "What?"
"While you..." Andy gestured vaguely with her coffee cup toward the broom closet behind them. "...go."
Silence stretched across the narrow hallway. Emily simply stared.
Ten years. Ten years since Paris. Ten years since Runway. Ten years since she’d last seen Andrea Sachs frantically running through the office carrying armfuls of dry cleaning and burning coffees for Miranda.
The woman standing before her now looked nothing like that panicked girl.
She stood comfortably in her own skin. Relaxed. Confident. Grounded. There wasn't a single trace of awkward uncertainty left in her posture.
She looked...
Emily’s eyes flickered over her involuntarily. Dark hair worn a little longer, tumbling naturally over her shoulders. A crisp, simple white blouse with the sleeves rolled up to her forearms. Tailored dark trousers. Minimal, elegant jewelry. Effortless.
God. She looked... annoyingly attractive.
For the briefest, most dangerous second, Emily’s brain betrayed her completely, whipping back to a memory buried deep in the vaults. She remembered another day. Another hallway. Andrea walking through the outer office after Nigel had worked his fashion-god magic. The new haircut. The impossible Chanel boots. Emily remembering. very reluctantly, and with immense irritation, that Andrea cleaned up extraordinarily well.
She had found her attractive then. She found her—
A sharp, violent pressure against her bladder interrupted the thought so abruptly that Emily nearly let out an audible squeak.
Right. Immediate biological priority!
She looked between Andy... the tiny toilet... and Bronwyn, who appeared 100% committed to becoming a permanent appendage on her leg.
Honestly, what choice did she have? Dignity was already dead and buried.
"...Yes," Emily admitted at last, sounding utterly defeated. "Yes, if you wouldn't mind. Please."
"Of course."
Emily crouched down slowly, her knees popping like small firecrackers in front of her daughter. "Bunny?"
The toddler peeked out from behind Emily’s leg.
"This is Andrea."
Andy flashed a soft, friendly grin.
Emily hesitated for a second, her voice dropping. "...Andrea was someone Mummy worked with a long time ago."
Andy felt something quiet and unexpectedly warm settle in her chest.
"She's very nice," Emily continued, sounding almost surprised by her own admission. "Would you stay with her for one minute while Mummy goes to the toilet?"
Bronwyn evaluated Andy with giant, unblinking brown eyes. The silence stretched between them like a tightrope.
Andy lifted her free hand in a small, gentle wave. "Hi, Bronwyn. I'm Andy."
Another heavy beat of toddler judgment.
Then, apparently having concluded that Andy passed her rigorous security screening, Bronwyn released Emily’s leg. She turned and toddled determinately across the narrow corridor, and straight toward Andy.
Emily let out a long, wheezing gasp of relief. "Oh, thank goodness—"
Instead of stopping politely beside Andy's shoe... Bronwyn planted both sticky palms onto Andy’s trouser leg and immediately began scaling her.
Andy let out a surprised, delighted laugh. "Oh!"
Within four seconds, Bronwyn had managed to wrap her tiny arms and legs halfway up Andy’s shin with terrifying, koala-like efficiency.
Emily looked mortified. She slapped a hand over her face. "Oh, God. I'm so sorry."
Andy looked up from the toddler, her eyes crinkling with amusement. "It's fine, really!"
"No, honestly," Emily groaned behind her palm, sounding genuinely mortified. "She has zero social anxiety whatsoever. None."
Bronwyn had already progressed from Andy's shin to hugging her knee.
"And apparently," Emily added dryly, "no concept of basic human personal boundaries."
Andy smiled down at the fierce little climber. "I'm starting to gather that."
"I am terribly sorry."
"Em." Andy looked up, her gaze steady and warm. "She’s a toddler. And she’s not exactly a threat."
Almost as if on cue to prove the point, Bronwyn let go of Andy’s knee, stood up on her tiptoes, and stretched both chubby arms dramatically toward the sky.
"UP!"
Andy couldn't help the chuckle that bubbled up. "Well..." She glanced at Emily. "I think I’ve just been given a direct order."
Carefully setting her iced coffee down on a nearby window ledge, Andy bent down and scooped Bronwyn smoothly into her arms. The toddler settled against Andy’s chest instantly. No hesitation. No toddler shyness. Just immediate acceptance.
Andy blinked, surprised. "...Hi there."
Bronwyn reached out a chubby finger and delicately poked one of Andy’s silver hoop earrings. "Sparkly."
Andy laughed softly, her heart doing a weird little flip. "They are, aren't they?"
Emily watched the entire interaction with open, stunned disbelief. "She usually takes at least..." She stopped herself mid-sentence.
Actually... no. That was a lie. Bronwyn was a tiny dictator. If she decided she liked someone, that was the law of the land.
Andy shifted Bronwyn comfortably onto her hip as if she’d been carrying toddlers her entire life. The little girl casually wrapped one arm around Andy’s neck with total unbothered confidence.
Andy looked back at Emily. "We’ll be right here. Go."
Emily hovered for one last second. "...I'll be quick."
"Take your time."
Emily shot her a glare sharp enough to draw blood. "I absolutely will not."
Andy grinned. "Fair enough."
With one last suspicious, disbelieving look between Andy and her suddenly very traitorous daughter, Emily ducked into the microscopic bathroom.
This time, mercifully, the door swung shut. The lock clicked.
A second later, muffled through the thin wooden panel, came a profound, echoing, "...Finally."
Andy had to bite her lower lip to keep from laughing out loud.
Bronwyn looked up at Andy with seriousness. "Mummy funny."
Andy’s gaze lingered on the closed door, her smile softening into something undeniably tender. "...Yeah," she whispered. "She really is."
The tiny bathroom door remained firmly shut.
From the other side came only muffled sounds, the rustle of expensive silk, the heavy clunk of the toilet seat, and what Andy was 100% certain was the lingering sigh of a woman experiencing the divine relief of someone who had been holding her bladder for thirty, too-damn-long minutes.
Andy smiled softly to herself, leaning against the hallway wall.
Some reunions happened beneath glowing chandeliers in Paris. Apparently, theirs involved standing outside a broom-closet restroom in a Brooklyn coffee shop, holding Emily Charlton’s toddler while sticky fingers gently tugged at her blouse.
Life was wildly, delightfully weird.
Bronwyn, meanwhile, had made herself at home. Perched comfortably on Andy’s hip as if they had known each other for years, she had discovered the layered gold necklaces resting against Andy’s chest and was currently examining the pendants with the intense, focused concentration of a seasoned jeweler evaluating stolen diamonds.
"So shiny," the toddler cheered softly.
"They are a little shiny, aren't they?"
Tiny chubby fingers delicately rolled one of the gold coins between thumb and forefinger. Andy stayed perfectly still. Experience told her that toddlers had an uncanny, supernatural ability to snap delicate jewelry with zero effort, but Bronwyn was surprisingly gentle.
After another thoughtful moment, the little girl leaned back on Andy’s hip to inspect Andy's face, getting so remarkably close that Andy nearly went cross-eyed trying to return the unblinking gaze.
Bronwyn pinched her little brows together in deep, philosophical thought. "I wike your eyes."
Andy’s smile broadened. "You do?"
A solemn nod. "They pwetty."
Andy felt a sudden, soft warmth bloom in her chest. "Well... thank you. I like your eyes, too."
Bronwyn blinked, genuinely surprised. "You do?"
"I really do." Andy nudged Bronwyn's little nose with a gentle finger. "We actually have the exact same eye colour."
Bronwyn’s mouth dropped open into a tiny O. She whipped her head around as though searching the empty hallway air for immediate physical proof. "Wow."
Andy laughed, the sound bright and clear. "Wow indeed."
"They bwown?"
"They're brown."
Bronwyn leaned back in to stare into Andy’s eyes again with a brand-new level of fascination. Then, with sudden, dramatic revelation—
"We haf same hair too!"
Andy blinked. She reached up instinctively, catching a dark strand of her own hair between two fingers before looking down at Bronwyn’s tumbling mass of glossy brown curls.
"...You know what?" Andy grinned. "We actually do."
Bronwyn gasped as if Andy had just revealed the secrets of the universe. "We MATCH!"
"We match completely." Andy lifted her free palm into the air. "High five?"
Bronwyn slapped her tiny, warm palm against Andy's with immense, uncoordinated enthusiasm. "Yay!"
The high five was a total disaster of spatial awareness, but neither of them cared. Bronwyn dissolved into a fit of delighted, ringing giggles, a sound so sweet that a couple seated near the front counter turned around to smile.
Andy couldn't help laughing with her. God, she was adorable.
Bronwyn tilted her head, her giant brown eyes scanning Andy’s face once more. Then, with zero warning and no conversational transition whatsoever "You wike my mummy?"
Andy froze instantly. "...What?"
"You." Bronwyn pointed a stubby index finger straight at Andy's chest. "Wike." She then swung her arm around and pointed decisively toward the closed bathroom door. “Mummy."
Silence descended over the hallway.
Andy stared at the toddler. Of all the sudden, high-stakes questions... Children truly possessed no concept of social etiquette.
Bronwyn reached out and gently patted Andy’s cheek with one soft hand, as if trying to help her process the question. The gesture was shockingly sweet.
Andy let out a breathless, nervous laugh. "Well..." She shot a quick instinctive glance toward the wooden door. “I..."
God. How did one answer that? To a toddler? Whose mother happened to be Emily Charlton? Who she just so happened to have a minor crush on back then?
"I did," Andy admitted quietly.
Bronwyn waited, unblinking, demanding details.
Andy smiled faintly, her eyes softening. "I worked with your mummy a very long time ago."
The toddler nodded solemnly, as if this was ancient history she was already well-acquainted with.
"She was..." Andy searched her brain for a diplomatic, toddler-appropriate word. "...kind of scary."
Bronwyn gave a single emphatic nod of absolute conviction, so earnest that Andy had to press her lip between her teeth to keep from bursting into a laugh.
"You agree?" Andy whispered.
Another heavy nod. "Mummy say no."
"Does she?"
"Mhm."
Andy hid her face against Bronwyn’s shoulder for a second. She could vividly, perfectly picture Emily, impeccably tailored, flawless hair, looking down her nose to deliver a lethal "No" to a child in the exact same icy tone she’d once used on terrified Runway assistants. Like her.
"But..." Andy continued, pulling back to look into those wide brown eyes, "Yeah. I liked her. A lot."
Bronwyn watched Andy’s face carefully, as if reading her aura. Apparently satisfied by whatever she discovered, her little face broke into a sunny, dimpled smile. "I wike you."
The statement was so simple. So raw and unvarnished.
Andy felt something deep in her ribcage squeeze. "Well..." She tucked Bronwyn a little closer against her side, shifting her weight. "I like you very much too, little lady."
Bronwyn beamed, delighted with herself, before immediately pivoting to an entirely unrelated topic. "I got teddy."
"You do?"
"Mhm. She pink."
"A pink teddy bear?"
"Her name Pickle."
Andy blinked. "...Pickle?"
"Yeah."
"That is an elite name for a teddy bear."
"An’ she sleep wif me."
"I imagine she does."
"An’ Bunny."
"You have another teddy?"
Bronwyn looked at Andy as if Andy were profoundly unintelligent. "No. Bunny me."
Andy’s mouth twitched. "Oh. Right. Of course."
"Pickle sleep wif Bunny," the toddler explained patiently. "An’ Mummy."
"All three of you?"
"Mhm. An’ baby." Bronwyn’s little hand drifted vaguely toward the bathroom door, pointing in the direction of Emily’s bump. "Baby kick."
Andy’s eyes softened. "Does the baby kick a lot?"
"So much!" Bronwyn flung her arms out as wide as humanly possible to demonstrate the sheer scale of the kicking. "So much."
Andy chuckled softly. "I bet."
The little girl leaned her head against Andy’s shoulder for a brief moment, resting her cheek against the crisp cotton of Andy's blouse, before looking back up with another observation already loaded in her brain.
"Mummy cwy sometime."
Andy felt her smile falter. Her chest tightened instantly.
Before she could process the words, Bronwyn continued in that same breezy, matter-of-fact tone toddlers used for everything, "But I gib kissy."
Andy swallowed past a sudden lump in her throat. She brushed a stray brown curl away from Bronwyn’s forehead. "I think... I think your mummy probably likes that very much."
Bronwyn nodded, entirely certain of her own medical intervention. "Make her feel better."
Andy looked back toward the closed bathroom door.
Ten years ago, Emily Charlton had seemed invincible. An untouchable, sharp-tongued force of nature who moved through high society without a single crack in her armor.
Now? Now she was a mother. A human being holding it all together by a thread, who cried sometimes, and whose little girl believed that sticky kisses could cure a broken heart.
And somehow, standing in a dim coffee shop hallway holding Emily’s child, Andy realised she was meeting the real Emily for the very first time.
A moment later, the broom-closet door clicked open.
Emily stepped out looking infinitely more composed than she had five minutes earlier. Not that anyone else in Manhattan would have noticed the difference, her hair was still a fiery, immaculate cloud, her posture remained that of an exiled European monarch, and she was carrying an extra human in her abdomen.
Andy noticed.
The intense, violent tension Emily had been carrying in her shoulders had finally eased. The faint, stressed crease between her sharp copper brows had melted away. She looked... relieved.
Still warm from the oppressive July heat. Still carrying the undeniable, glowing exhaustion of being seven hundred months pregnant. Still featuring a massive, dark water stain across the front of her Dior dress courtesy of an enthusiastic toddler.
Still, Andy thought with a sudden traitorous pang in her chest, unfairly, ridiculously beautiful.
Emily tucked a loose ginger red behind her ear, her cool blue eyes darting toward Andy. "Did she give you an awful amount of trouble?"
Andy looked down at the tiny girl currently riding her hip like a miniature general. Bronwyn had somehow managed to reclaim one of Andy's gold necklace pendants and was absentmindedly sucking on the edge of it.
"Not at all," Andy grinned. "We were actually having a very high-level diplomatic bonding session, weren't we, Bronwyn?"
Bronwyn looked up instantly, popping the gold coin out of her mouth. "Mhm!"
Andy bounced her gently on her hip. "We talked about eyes."
"And hair!" Bronwyn added wildly.
"And Pickle."
"My teddy bear!"
"And fish."
"An’ lions!"
"And giraffes."
"Giraffes?" Emily repeated, her brow twitching.
"Mhm."
Andy laughed, the sound warm and melodic in the narrow hallway. "So many giraffes. It was very intense."
Bronwyn nodded with absolute authority, as though long-necked savanna mammals were a completely normal topic for a Tuesday afternoon. Then, with sudden, dramatic urgency, she extended both sticky arms toward Emily. "Mummy!"
Emily’s sharp face softened instantly into a look of helpless profound love. "Hello again, my little monster."
She shifted Bronwyn expertly onto her hip with the seamless grace of long practice, resting the child’s weight against the high, solid curve of her baby bump. Bronwyn immediately buried her messy face against Emily’s collarbone before peeking back over her mother's shoulder to lock eyes with Andy.
Andy couldn't resist reaching out to smooth down a tiny puffed sleeve that had folded awkwardly beneath Bronwyn’s arm. "There you go."
Emily watched the gesture. Her throat bobbed.
"So," Andy murmured, finally looking at Emily properly. Really looking.
Ten years. Ten whole, chaotic years.
The razor-sharp, cutting cheekbones were exactly the same. The intensely expressive blue eyes. The bone-deep posture that somehow remained impeccably regal despite carrying what felt like half the population of the Tri-State area.
But there were tiny, breathtaking differences now. Softer ones. The faintest, lovely crinkles at the corners of her eyes. A gentle, protective way she kept one hand rested low against her lower back. The easy, natural way Bronwyn melted against her, as though she had always belonged right there in Emily's arms.
Emily Charlton had changed completely. And somehow... not at all.
Andy’s smile turned infinitely softer. "...Hey, Em."
Emily’s eyes snapped to Andy’s.
God fucking dammit. That nickname. Ten years of radio silence, ten years of living entirely separate lives, and Andrea just casually dropped that stupid, endearing monosyllable as if no time had passed at all. And Andy was, and always would be, the only human being on the planet Emily ever permitted to call her Em.
“Hello, Andrea," Emily breathed, her voice dropping an octave.
"It's really, really nice to see you again."
Emily let out a quiet, dry snort, though her cheeks flushed a very pale, very suspicious shade of pink. "Well. I daresay I might have preferred our grand reunion to occur under slightly more flattering, high-fashion circumstances."
Andy glanced around the cramped, dimly lit service corridor. The broom-closet door. The cartoonishly massive wooden bathroom key dangling from the lock. Bronwyn happily patting Emily's wet Dior dress.
Her grin turned downright mischievous. "I don't know. I thought it was pretty great."
Emily raised one refined eyebrow. "For you, perhaps. You aren't currently wearing half a cup of tap water on a custom garment."
Andy laughed out loud. "I'm just glad I was here to rescue you."
A comfortable, unexpected silence settled between them. The café hummed in the background, but in the hallway, time seemed to dilate.
Emily looked down at Bronwyn, who was now absentmindedly twirling a fiery strand of her mother's hair around her thumb. Emily hated asking for help. She despised being vulnerable. She had built an entire career, a whole goddamn armour, on proving to the world that she could handle anything Manhattan threw at her without smudging her eyeliner.
Yet... she hadn't had a choice today. And Andy had stepped in without a single second of hesitation, without judgment, without a trace of smugness.
When Emily spoke again, her voice lost its razor-sharp edge, softening into something quiet and vulnerable. "...Thank you."
Andy blinked, caught entirely off guard.
Emily cleared her throat quickly, pressing forward before her pride could stop her. "I... I did appreciate it. Truly." She shot a sideways glance at her daughter. "And... it would appear she has become rather absurdly fond of you."
Andy looked at the toddler. Bronwyn was already giving Andy a frantic, two-handed wave over Emily's shoulder.
Andy waved back with equal enthusiasm. "I think she's just a very friendly kid."
Emily let out a theatrical, suffering sigh. "Yes. Very. I have absolutely no idea where she gets it from. As you may recall, all those years ago, I was practically persona non grata to the entire human race. I still am, frankly."
Andy burst into a laugh. Bronwyn giggled happily simply because the adults were making noise.
Emily tilted her head, examining Andy’s face. "She’s actually rather like you."
"Me?" Andy pointed a finger at her own chest. "How?"
Emily gave her a long, knowing, intensely blue look that made Andy’s stomach do a sudden terrifying somersault. "You'll happily strike up a completely unprompted conversation with absolutely anyone in a three-mile radius."
Andy opened her mouth to aggressively defend her journalistic sociability, hesitated, and slowly closed it. "...Fair."
A smirk tugged at the corner of Emily's lips. "And she narrates literally every stray thought that enters her head."
"MUMMY!" Bronwyn interrupted right on cue.
"I know, my darling," Emily cooed without breaking eye contact with Andy.
Andy chuckled, rubbing the back of her neck. "I'm going to take that as a massive compliment."
"You should."
For a moment, neither of them said anything. It was... impossibly easy. Far easier than a reunion between two former, traumatised Miranda Priestly survivors had any right to be.
Then Emily happened to glance down at her watch.
"Oh, God!" Her eyes went wide as saucers. "I am sixteen minutes late for my meeting! They will execute me!"
She frantically hitched Bronwyn higher onto her hip, adjusting her heavy leather tote bag. "I really must dash!"
"Of course," Andy immediately stepped back against the wall, clearing the narrow path. "I won't hold you up."
Emily gave a sharp, decisive nod. "Thank you again, Andrea."
"My pleasure, Em."
Emily turned toward the sunlit front of the café, snatching her coffee and the takeaway bag with Bronwyn’s chocolate brick as she passed the counter. Bronwyn immediately twisted her upper body around in her mother's arms, practically doing a 180-degree turn.
"BYE ANDY!"
Andy lifted a hand, her smile beaming. "Bye, cutie!"
The toddler blew an exaggerated, wet kiss through the air. Andy dramatically "caught" it against her chest and shoved it into her pocket. Bronwyn dissolved into a fit of shrieking giggles.
Emily had almost reached the glass front door. Her hand was literally on the metal push-bar.
And then she stopped dead in her tracks.
Andy frowned, her heart thumping against her ribs. "...Em?"
Emily didn't answer immediately. She stood frozen against the sunlight, her silhouette sharp and elegant despite the chaos of her afternoon. She stared down at the scuffed wooden floorboards for three long seconds.
Then, without turning around, she spoke.
"You know..." She hesitated, her voice tight. "...I called you."
Andy blinked, her mind frantically racing through ten years of call logs. "What?"
Emily turned around slowly, her cheeks flushed bright scarlet. "I called you. After you left."
Andy frowned, searching the ancient archives of her memory. Then, a lightbulb went off. "Oh! Right!" She let out a soft laugh. "Yeah! I remember! I got a pocket-dial from you!"
Emily’s face instantly twisted into an expression of profound, explosive annoyance. "It was not a pocket-dial!"
Andy’s laughter died instantly in her throat.
Emily glared at her, looking equal parts furious and mortified. "No! I... I called you, you absolute idiot!"
The words hung in the air between them, heavy and charged.
"I thought..." Emily looked aggressively uncomfortable, staring at a spot on the wall three inches to Andy’s left. "...I thought perhaps we could... be pals."
Silence. Total, staggering silence.
Andy simply stared at her.
Then, slowly, her entire expression melted into something so ridiculously soft, warm, and fond that Emily looked like she wanted to crawl into a coffee burlap sack and die.
"...Em," Andy breathed.
There was something almost impossibly, devastatingly endearing about hearing the once-terrifying, ice-cold first assistant to Miranda Priestly admit that she had nervously dialed Andy Sachs’s number years ago because she wanted to be pals.
"You wanted to be friends with me?" Andy asked, a tiny, teasing grin threatening to break through.
Emily looked away instantly, her jaw clenched. "Oh, do not make it sound pathetic, Andrea!"
"I'm not! I swear I'm not!" Andy laughed, her chest aching with a sudden, overwhelming rush of affection. "It's just... Em, that is literally the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard."
Emily rolled her eyes dramatically toward the ceiling. "I was clearly suffering from a severe, temporary moment of brain damage."
"I don't think you were."
Another beat passed. Emily’s blue eyes flickered back, locking onto Andy's brown ones.
"...Is it terribly late to ask now?" Emily asked softly.
The answer erupted from Andy’s mouth before Emily had even finished the sentence.
"Never!" Andy let out a sudden, breathless laugh. "Oh my God, Em. Never. I am so glad I ran into you today."
Before Emily could respond, Andy spun on her heel. "Hold that thought! One second!"
She practically sprinted back into the main dining area. Her colleague looked up in utter shock as Andy furiously yanked open her handbag, practically diving into her leather wallet.
"What the hell happened to you?" he asked, wide-eyed.
"I found the most important person in the world!" Andy blurted out, yanking a crisp white card from the slot. "Gotta go!"
She jogged back down the hallway. Emily was still standing near the door, waiting, watching her with a soft, guarded curiosity.
Andy held the card out like a peace offering. "Here."
Emily accepted it, her long, manicured fingers brushing against Andy’s. Her eyes dropped to the slick black lettering.
Andrea Sachs. Senior Investigative Journalist. The Vanguard.
Andy smiled, her shoulders lifting in a quiet proud posture. "Yep. Still a journalist."
Emily looked up from the card. A tiny, genuine, breathtaking smile tugged at the corner of her lips.
"I knew you'd thrive," Emily said quietly, her tone laced with sincerity. "I always knew you would."
Something deeply warm and radiant bloomed right behind Andy’s ribs. "...Thanks, Em." She gestured vaguely toward Emily's chic fit. "And what about you? Still at Runway?"
Emily looked down at the card in her hand. For a single heartbeat, a shadowy, complex parade of emotions flickered across her face—Runway, Miranda, Paris, the messy divorce from Frank, the single-motherhood, the ascent to Dior.
She folded the card with exquisite care and slipped it into her pocket.
"...Let us save that particular tragicomedy for a glass of very expensive wine," Emily said smoothly. "When I am no longer serving as a human incubator."
Andy understood instantly. Her smile turned deeply empathetic. "Deal. No pressure."
Emily gave a firm grateful nod.
"So..." Andy pointed a finger at Emily’s pocket. "Text me. I mean it. We've missed... what? Ten years?"
"Ten long years."
"I really, really want to catch up with you, Em."
Emily looked at her, her expression softening into something raw and genuine. "...I will text you. I promise."
Andy’s grin was blinding. "Good."
Emily turned once more toward the bright summer street. Bronwyn immediately draped herself over her mother's shoulder, waving both chubby hands in a chaotic wind-mill pattern.
"BYE-BYE ANDY!"
Andy waved back just as frantically, completely unbothered by the stares of the coffee shop patrons. "Bye, Bronwyn! See you later, little lady!"
Bronwyn blew one final, dramatic, loud kiss. Andy "caught" it again, slapping her hand over her heart with dramatic flare. Bronwyn dissolved into more delighted giggles as Emily shook her head, unable to hide the bright, radiant smile breaking across her own face as she finally pushed open the door and stepped out into the Manhattan sun.
Andy stood by the window, watching them walk down 60th Street, an impeccably dressed, heavily pregnant fashion executive carrying a curly-haired toddler who kept waving over her shoulder until they vanished around the corner.
Andy glanced down at the empty, narrow hallway where, only twenty minutes ago, she had stumbled upon Emily Charlton wedged sideways in a bathroom doorframe, serving as a human privacy screen.
Life, Andy decided with a soft, breathless laugh, was absolute, unhinged perfection.