"A job?"
"Shampoo girl. It's not much and it pays very little, but it does come with a small apartment out on the roof terrace."
"An apartment?"
"I know what you're thinking. Is the apartment nice? But I'm afraid, no, it's not. It's tiny really, and filled with old furniture. You'll probably hate it and I'm embarrassed to even offer it, but I figured you might take pity on me and accept the position and the apartment."
I just stare at her.
"What do you say?"
I cry.
She wraps her arm around me and laughs. "Just say yes, Rook. And we'll go back upstairs and you can go settle in that terribly ugly and small living space and try to forget this whole day." She stands and takes me with her and we begin to climb the stairs. "Except for the part where you got your hands on that invitation card and met us, of course. Because maybe tomorrow you'll see this was a stroke of luck for you."
She knew all along that wasn't my invitation, yet she pretended to remember me when I gave her my name. "Why are you doing this? I mean, I'm grateful and I want the job and the apartment, I really do. But you don't even know me."
"I've been you, Rook. I don't know the details, but we've all needed a twist of fate at one time or another and Antoine was mine. More than twelve years ago now. So today, I'll pay it back and be yours."
"Thank you."
"And one day, you'll be in my position and you'll stumble upon a lost girl, and you can help change her fate. And when you do, and she asks you why, you'll tell her about me."
We walk up the rest of the stairs in silence after that and when she takes me through the studio door we come face to face with Antoine and that Ronin guy again. Elise says something in French, and then they are all talking in French. But Elise does not wait for them, because she walks me around the other side of the salon wall and takes me through the massive glass doors that lead out onto the terrace.
It's one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. Somehow, even though this is a rooftop terrace, there are two small groves of blooming cherry trees on either side. There's even grass on the ground under the trees. "How is there grass up here?" I ask as we walk past the trees and head towards a small brick building on the far side of the terrace.
"My Antoine is clever," she snickers. "It used to be a lap pool on one side," she points to the east where the sky is already getting dark, "and a family pool on the other." She points west now, towards the mountains and the setting sun. "Some developers bought this building from the city and made it into apartments back in the Seventies, but when we bought it more than a decade ago, the pools were a disaster, so instead of filling them in with concrete, we filled them in with dirt and planted those cherry trees and grass. We add something to the landscaping every year, usually another fruit tree."
It's like Mary Lennox's Secret Garden. Except it's on a rooftop in a trendy Denver neighborhood instead of the English countryside. I feel a little sad for a moment, because of all the people living in this city, only a handful of them will ever get a chance to walk through an orchard four stories up on the top of an old building.
Elise stops at the small apartment and punches in a number on the keypad. "All our doors have keyed locks. I'll bring you a code to use for the outside building after hours, but the garden studio apartment is all ones. Just five ones."
"OK." It sounds very fancy, but I can deal with five ones.
"And I might've lied a bit about the apartment."
"Oh," I say, the disappointment coming out.
"It's actually very cute. Not big, I didn't lie about that, but—" She opens the door and waves me inside.
It's the most darling place I've ever seen. The walls are painted a sunny yellow, the furniture is older, that wasn't a lie, but it's got a pretty flower pattern on it and it looks very comfortable. There's a couch, an overstuffed chair in the same pattern, a coffee table made out of oak, and two end tables. The kitchen is small, just one long counter against the far wall. There's a fridge and a small apartment-sized stove. When I look down the hallway I can see a bed dressed up in the same pattern as the living room furniture.
"It's not really a studio because it has a bedroom, but there's no door. So it's like a loft, I guess. The bathroom has a giant claw-foot tub."
I moan with happiness. "This cannot come with the shampoo girl's job."
Elise laughs. "No, I lied about that too. But if you play your cards right, Antoine and Ronin will choose you for the TRAGIC campaign and you'll be wanting to move out and get a penthouse apartment in New York like the last girl who lived here before you know it."
"The last girl?"
Elise nods. "She's the one who decorated the place, just secondhand stuff from consignment shops on the west side of town. But it's cute, right?"
It is, so I nod. There are many windows so even in the approaching darkness I can see how much light comes in.
"I don't even know what to say, Elise. I mean—" I'm truly at a loss for words. "I'm not sure how this happened. I didn't steal that invitation, I was just minding my own business over at Starbucks and these girls flipped the card away, and it hit me in the head, and—"
"It doesn't matter, Rook. That girl was never going to get asked back after her test shoot. She got an invitation as a favor to her agency. Antoine does not mess around with the models he uses. I told you he'd like your look and I was right. Now, my brother Ronin—"