Madison Blake's Arc

Chapter 2 of 7

Five days out, Madison sat at the bar with a stack of invoices and a shrinking pile of cash. Champagne. Ice. Stage bulbs. A backup sound board because the first one hummed. Every line item bled her thinner. She had a headliner and no way to light her. Harper Love came through the door with her leather ledger clutched to her chest. Madison's budget planner was small, brown-eyed behind big glasses, and allergic to bad math. She took one look at the invoices and set her ledger down like a verdict. "You're eight hundred short on essentials," Harper said. "Not wants. Needs. No champagne, no lights, no show." "I know." "Then you know what I'm going to say." "Don't say it." "Cancel opening night." Madison pushed off the stool. "No." Victoria Sterling walked in on the word, yellow suit blazing, phone against her ear. She snapped it shut. "Save your fight. I brought a wallet." Behind her came a wide, silver-bearded man in a navy three-piece. Gold watch. Gold rings. He smelled like cigar smoke and money that had never once worried about itself. "Reginald Goldsworth," Victoria said. "He collects private clubs. He heard we were opening." Reginald looked around the room like a man buying a painting. "Miss Blake. I understand you have a stage and no budget for it." "I have a stage," Madison said. "The budget is a conversation." He laughed once, deep in his chest. "I want a permanent booth. Front row. My name on the reservation card. And a standing tab." "How standing?" He named a number. Harper's pen stopped moving. Victoria's hoops went still. It was four times what Madison needed to cover the essentials. "Half up front," Madison said, because her mouth worked faster than her fear. "All up front." Reginald pulled a checkbook from his jacket. "I don't do payment plans. I do rooms with my name on them." He wrote the check on the bar. He slid it to her. Madison read the number twice. Harper stood up. "Grand Ledger Bank closes in forty minutes." They walked. Madison kept the check flat against her ribs the whole way. The bank rose out of the block in pale stone and columns, calm as a church. Inside, Harper walked her past the marble counter to a desk she clearly already knew. "Deposit," Harper told the clerk. "All of it. Business operating account. Locked to invoiced expenses only. She signs for each release." Madison opened her mouth. "You spent your emergency fund in one afternoon," Harper said, not unkindly. "I love you. I don't trust you." The clerk stamped the slip. The number went in. Madison watched it go. On the steps outside, she counted what she had. Lights. Ice. Champagne. A show. A rich man in the front booth on opening night, expecting the filthiest thing Crackleflat had ever seen — and a budget planner who now held the key to every dollar she needed to deliver it.