It happened at an industry showcase in August.
These events were the ones Lina had come to understand as weather systems rather than occasions: they had patterns and pressures and the specific atmosphere of a space where professional stakes and personal history collided in ways the invitations never mentioned.
She had been there for ninety minutes and was preparing to leave when Cece found her by the coat check.
They had been, since the coffee on Whitfield Street, in a kind of detente — not friendship, not quite alliance, but a mutual acknowledgement that required occasional maintenance. Cece had sent a brief note when the Sylvia campaign was announced. Lina had thanked her. They had attended two shared bookings without incident.
Tonight Cece had been drinking. Not visibly — she was too professional for visible — but there was a quality to her that Lina had learned to read, the slight loosening of the exact control she maintained.
