A foxy tale: Episode 5

A collaborative serial by Catherin J Pascal Dunk and Jessica Perini

Wait just a sec—did you miss Episode 1 / Episode 2 / Episode 3 / Episode 4? Catch up first!

Episode 5

When Javier Belarte came to, the crowd had dispersed. 

Judging by the wetness he could feel seeping through his Pierre Cardin, and the fact that she was kneeling over him with a Perrier, Sophie Niveau appeared to have splashed him with water at some point—but she was currently preoccupied with something on her phone.

Javier cleared his throat experimentally as memories of the show came back to him. Jambeau’s utter glory … then his fall … then blackness …

“Oh, you’re okay then,” the designer said off-handedly, getting up and tightening the lid on her Perrier. “I’ll be off then.” 

“Wait! How’s my new star?” Belarte asked urgently. “And pass me that beanie baby!”

“No idea,” Niveau tossed off dismissively, throwing him the toy. He cringed as it hit him hard in the abdomen—but thankfully, the stitching held. 

She was nearly at the door when his plaintive cry reached her, “Wait! Help me up?”

Niveau pretended she hadn’t heard.

Javier got up gingerly and felt for bumps, or blood. Finding nothing, he took the beanie baby and fled out into the night. He ran as far and as fast as he could, running almost without thought, without knowing where he was going. Like a dog mushing against its leash, he simply ran. But he would be the first to get there, wherever “there” was.

Suddenly though, Javier screeched to a halt.

Through a restaurant window, he had seen the most unexpected pairing. The was the highbrow journalist and the intimidating media proprietor he’d noticed at the show, now involved in … an intimate tête-à-tête?!

Well, the man seemed intimate, leaning in. The woman, half turned away, seemed like she might run at any moment. 

Javier watched her lips through the glass, trying to work out what words she was forming— what these two could possibly have in common.

And then. A single-word sentence escaped her ruby lips—a word with an upward inflection. A question. 

‘Solomon?’ she seemed to ask.

Javier’s jaw dropped—
along with the beanbag baby.

How?
How did she know?

How could she
possibly know? 

… TO BE CONTINUED …

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