What I Should’ve Said
Chapter 19

Norah

I don’t know how long I drive around Red Bridge, but when I loop downtown for the sixth time and Sheriff Peeler starts to look a little too interested in what I’m doing, I decide to head back to Josie’s house.

To say I’m a little shocked that my confrontation with Bennett Bishop ended in my getting a job that pays eighty grand a year would be an understatement. To say that’s the thing I’m thinking about most would be a lie.

Bennett has a daughter.

A daughter who’s obviously ailing and sick and who turns Bennett’s normally stony countenance into a puddle of goo.

As I turn onto the street that leads to Josie’s house, I try to concentrate on the pros of the situation.

My bank account won’t dwindle to zero, I don’t have to disappoint customers at CAFFEINE, clean up cow shit, or shear sheep, and I’m going to be doing something that genuinely fills the cup where I keep my soul.

Sure, I don’t know what my actual duties or schedule look like and I’m going to be working with a giant grumpous every day, but for the sake of reality, beggars really can’t be choosers. I came here with nothing, because for my whole life, I’ve been a nothing. But from now on, I’m actually going to have something. Something that feels like me. Something I actively chose.

This is a good thing. I hope.

My head is still spinning like a top when I close the distance to Josie’s house, but the situation that’s currently playing out pulls all my attention in a flash.

Oh no. Of course, this had to happen today.

My sister stands on the front porch, her arms crossed over her chest and her mouth set in a tight line. Moving boxes surround her, and more moving boxes are being unloaded by two big guys from a truck that’s parked in her gravel driveway and has NY Moves emblazoned on the side.

Looks like Lil’s efforts have finally arrived.

I cringe, put the Civic in park, and hide my face behind the steering wheel.

“I can see you, Norah!” Josie’s voice is loud enough to break through the barrier of the window. “You can get out of the car now and explain what in the hell is going on!”

Slowly, oh-so slowly, I get out and make my way to the front porch. It’s not that I’m intentionally being slow. It’s more that I’m hoping by the time I get there, the moving truck will be gone, and Josie won’t look so pissed off.

Obviously, it doesn’t work.

“So, there’s a moving company here,” Josie announces the obvious. “And they’re unloading boxes for a Miss Norah Ellis. Evidently, this is her final destination.”

“That’s pretty wild,” I respond with a nervous laugh and avert my eyes from my sister and to the two men moving the boxes. Every dang box has Norah Ellis written on it, so it’s not like I can pretend there’s been a big mix-up.

“It is wild,” Josie retorts. “Because it looks like they’re moving a three-bedroom house for a family of five.”

“Um…”

“Norah.”

I force myself to meet her eyes. “See…uh…my best friend Lillian was able to get my stuff out of Thomas’s apartment, plus some of his, if I’m honest, and she had to send everything somewhere, and since I’m here…”

“You had her send it all to my house.”

“Precisely.” I cringe again. “I didn’t think it would be this much, but Lil wanted me to have options. For selling, bartering, whatever. I had no idea she was including the sofa!”

Josie shakes her head on a sigh. “There are already two others inside.”

“You’re kidding me!”

Josie’s expression says that she is very much not kidding me. Desperate, I search for a reason to flip the switch from hopeless to hopeful.

“Is now the right time to tell you that I got a job?” I question. “I mean, I can’t be sure, but that feels like good news right about now…”

She tilts her head to the side. “You got a job?”

“And it pays really well,” I explain through several nods of my head. “So, you know, me being your roomie might not have to be such a permanent thing.”

“Call me crazy, but I don’t remember ever agreeing to it being a permanent thing,” she comments on a laugh that is equal parts exasperated and amused. “So, what is it? I have a hard time believing Earl is giving more than minimum wage, and I know Melba Danser wasn’t even offering seven bucks an hour to work at her bakery. The only other opening I saw was shearing sheep with Tad, and he’s a tightwad if I’ve ever known one.”

“It’s a position I interviewed for last week.”

“What position?”

“An artist’s assistant position.”

“An artist’s assistant?” She looks puzzled at first, but then, she puts those puzzle pieces together. “Wait a minute!” she shouts so loud it startles one of the moving guys. “You’re going to work for Bennett Bishop?” she questions, and her eyes dance with too much information.

Clearly, I was the only Ellis who didn’t know who the artist in town was.

“Don’t even start.” I point one index finger at her. “Don’t say a damn thing. It’s just a job. That’s it.”

Her smile is mischievous. “I didn’t say anything.”

“Well, you were thinking it. It’s written all over your face.”

“How much is he paying you?” she challenges with a little slant of her head.

“Enough that I can save up money to rent an apartment and get out of your hair.”

“How much, Nore?”

“Eighty thousand a year,” I whisper. She hears me anyway.

“What. The. Hell? Eighty G’s?” Her jaw goes slack. “What exactly does Bennett plan to have you doing?”

“I don’t really know. But, like, assistant things, I assume.”

“Wow. You got a job working for Bennett Bishop.” Her smirk is aggravating. And she doesn’t even know about the stupid kiss! Somehow, everyone in town managed to be somewhere other than Earl’s parking lot that day.

“Josie, it’s just a job.”

She nods. “Uh-huh. Just a job. With the guy who rescues you from scary exes and—”

“It is just a job.”

“Yeah. I know.”

I frown. “You implied differently.”

She laughs. “Can I assume you’ll start contributing to groceries while you’re living here since you’re a billionaire now?”

I snort. “Shut up.”

She grins, but then her mouth straightens in a slightly serious way. “Listen, I don’t want to ruin the mood, but there’s something else I think I need to tell you.”

Immediate dread settles in my stomach. “What?”

“Mom called me today,” she states bluntly, her gaze holding steady on mine.

“Mom called you?”

“She called CAFFEINE, actually. She wanted to know where you were.”

Oh hell.

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her I didn’t know,” Josie answers without hesitation. “From where I stand, it’s none of her business where you are or what you’re doing.”

Instantly, my breaths start to get easier.

“Did she say anything else?”

“It’s Eleanor. Of course she said other shit.” Josie shrugs. “Doesn’t mean I listened or believe her.”

“Did she mention anything about Thomas coming to Red Bridge and Bennett hitting him?”

Josie just nods but doesn’t give me anything else.

I can only imagine my mother’s point of view on the whole Thomas debacle. Surely it’s all my fault, and the golden boy didn’t do anything wrong. He might not be her biological child, but they’re two peas in a self-involved, narcissistic pod.

“So…I take it she had some not-so-nice things to say about me, then?”

“Don’t take it personally,” Josie responds with a gentle smile. “Eleanor Ellis is the most judgmental woman on the face of the planet. Amazing how everyone she encounters is the crazy one. Seems to me there’s a common denominator she’s excluding.”

She’s not lying. Our mother never turns the harsh judgment on herself, even though she needs to.

“Norah, I’m hoping one day soon, you’ll tell me the whole story. I’m your sister. I want to be there for you,” Josie adds and leans forward to pick up one of the moving boxes on her porch. “Now, let’s start helping these guys get all these boxes inside so they’re not here until midnight.”

She doesn’t push any further. Instead, she carries one of my boxes into the house, and I follow her lead, picking up another box and carrying it inside.

When I catch up with her, I ask one more question, though it doesn’t have anything to do with our mother.

“Hey, Josie?”

“Yeah?”

“Did…did you know Bennett has a daughter?”

Her face softens, making it instantaneously clear that she did. “Yeah. He tell you about her?”

“I met her.”

Her eyebrows shoot to her hairline. “You met her?”

“Yeah.”

She shakes her head. “Wow. I’m surprised.”

Frown lines sink into the skin at the corners of my mouth. “Well, it’s not like I gave him much choice. I just showed up at his house, demanding to know about the job. I just…needed an answer. To be fair, I had no idea he was the artist, though.”

“Tread carefully there, okay?” she says then, surprising me.

“What do you mean?”

She shakes her head and purses her lips before letting out a sigh. “Forget it. Bennett’s a good guy, and it sounds like he’s going to pay you handsomely. The job’ll be great.”

Her cryptic warning would normally put me on edge, but today, I have to admit, I’m too tired to care. I got a good job that’s going to pay me well, and I don’t want to taint it with anything else.

And just think, all you need to do is replace a way to work for Bennett Bishop without it ending in disaster.

I still can’t believe he’s the mystery artist. I figured he did something that required sweat and brute strength. But an artist? Color me shocked. And incredibly curious…

Scrambling to my bedroom, I ignore the mess of moving boxes, drop the box in my hands on the bed, and pull out my phone. I’m pulling up Google not even a minute later and typing my new boss’s name into the search bar.

In an instant, millions of results come up. A Wikipedia page. New York Times articles. Interviews. Gallery reviews. Auction houses like Sotheby’s and Christie’s.

Bennett Bishop is, in fact, an artist. A very successful artist with a very famous past.

I tap on his Wikipedia page and scan the first few paragraphs.

Who is Bennett Bishop?

Bennett Bishop is an American artist and son of Henry Bishop, owner of Bishop Galleries, and grandson of the late Harold Bishop, founder of Bishop Galleries. He is one of the Young American Artists (YAA) who dominated the art scene in the United States during his late teens and early twenties. At age twenty-five, he was reportedly one of the United States’ richest living artists.

Bennett Bishop is best known for defying rules within the art world. He has been nicknamed “the Chameleon” by American art critics, and European art critics have been known to call him the “bad boy” of the art world because he doesn’t follow rules. He is one of only a few artists who has been able to span different art genres with great success.

Life and death tends to be a central theme in Bishop’s works. A constant push and pull of living and dying is what Bennett Bishop is most famous for. He received notoriety at the age of eighteen after a series of impressionistic-style paintings showcased raw portraits that made distinguishing life from death impossible for the viewer.

Five years into his career, he sold an abstract painting called “The Mourning After” for a record-breaking $10.4 million.

I don’t even reach the end of the Wikipedia page before I come to a halting stop.

Bad boy of the art world?

10.4 million dollars? For one freaking painting?

And he’s been famous since he was eighteen?

None of this adds up with the man in the pickup truck and faded jeans who set me out in the dirt on my way into Red Bridge. Or the man who stepped into CAFFEINE and punched Thomas in the face…twice.

Or the grumpy bastard who seems to enjoy pissing me off to the point where I slapped him in the face. Or the mental case who kissed me after I did.

The article doesn’t say anything about Summer. To be honest, it’s lacking any and all information on Bennett for the last ten or so years.

Who Bennett Bishop Used to Be is what the title should have said.

I, for one, want to know who he is now. And since I start working for him tomorrow, I guess, maybe, just maybe, I’ll get to replace out.