Part 21 (2/2)
She could smell Rolf's guilt. He was a man rotten to the core, selling young girls into prost.i.tution, laundering them through her company, probably with info stolen from Bob and Ivanah through their involvement with White Rose. He would pick them up at LaGuardia Airport and take them G.o.d-knew-where.
Laura hurled herself up the stairs, her heavy bag ten pounds lighter in her mind, broken arm tap-tapping against the banister as she ran, too impatient for the elevator. Spring was easy. Update last season and shorten the skirts, lighten the fabric, and brighten the colors. Short sleeves became sleeveless, and long sleeves went half sleeve. Switch pockets and collars until they looked new. Let Ivanah design something outrageous in every group, choose sparkly b.u.t.tons, and trim with silly fabrics. Tell her she's brilliant, and they're done. Backing secured. Line perfect. Branding protected. Everyone happy.
In the middle of all that, she was going to ask pointed questions about Ivanah's relations.h.i.+p with White Rose and Pandora Modeling. About Meatball Eyes. About how Rolf could have gotten his hands on their EIN and the corporate paperwork needed to sponsor foreign workers without her knowledge. It was going to be a super-productive morning.
She was sure the sun shone right out of her a.s.s when she stepped into the little studio. Her pattern table was clear because she was done with everything, and Ruby's drafting table was the usual orderly clutter. Ivanah and the new Eastern European a.s.sistant she expected were nowhere to be found. Two men stood in the middle of the room, talking softly about something she didn't have a chance to hear because they shut up as soon as she entered.
”Pierre?”
”My dear.” He gave her the double kiss. ”My goodness, what happened?”
”You should see the other guy.”
Pierre indicated the man standing beside her cutting table. ”Do you know Mister Stern?”
Buck nodded and sat down in her chair.
”Hi, Buck,” she said, using the first name as if she didn't hear the formality Pierre had suggested with his introduction. ”What's up? Is Ivanah okay?”
”She is attending to other business,” Buck said. Laura imagined her getting a manicure, but business took many forms.
Pierre cleared his throat. ”Mister Stern wanted to let us know that Sartorial Sandwich will have to proceed without the backing of the Schmillers.”
”What?”
”All present contractual agreements are still in force, of course,” Buck said, ”including payment with whatever profit sharing we previously agreed upon. Nothing new should be required. The Schmillers just wanted you to be told in person, rather than through your agent.” He nodded to Pierre, and Pierre nodded back, like two old boys sucking each other off.
”But I agreed she could work on the line with us!”
”Mrs. Schmiller will be pursuing other opportunities in the fas.h.i.+on world.”
Laura looked at Pierre for an answer, or a way out, but there was nothing. He just shrugged. Just another line losing its money midstream.
”I can work harder,” Laura said, and almost immediately regretted it. She sounded every bit as desperate as she was. ”And I can get Ruby in more often. She was distracted last season. We're selling. Barneys Co-op is in the showroom right now, writing an order. We just need enough for fabric. I'll sew the whole d.a.m.n line myself to save money.”
She could have gone on, but Pierre put one hand on her shoulder while holding the other out to Buck. ”Thank you for coming,” he said. ”Tell the Schmillers we appreciate the courtesy.”
”My pleasure.”
They shook hands, and Laura knew she was expected to show the same kind of professionalism. She didn't know if she had it in her. Luckily, her right hand wasn't available for shaking because either she would have refused, or he would have felt the sweat on her palms, or she would have tried to break his fingers.
Buck saw her inability to shake his hand and, not understanding what a blessing it was for everyone involved, took her by the shoulders in a brotherly grip. ”It was nice to work with you. I hope to see you again sometime.”
”Sure,” was the best she could offer.
He nodded to Pierre and left.
”What the h.e.l.l just happened?” she asked.
Pierre sat halfway on Ruby's chair, one ta.s.seled oxblood loafer swinging and the other pressed to the cement floor. ”It would help going forward if you spoke more as a businesswoman and less like a teenager.”
”What the heck just happened?”
”You're closed. You cannot make your orders.”
She fell into her chair before she lost the support of her knees. ”But it's not fair.” She heard the ridiculous whine in her voice. She must have sounded like a child. When she and Ruby were eleven and twelve, Mom had sent them to a two-week sleep-away camp that had gotten some state-funded grants for poor kids. If there was a scholars.h.i.+p to be had, Mom found out about it and applied. Laura had no idea how many application rejections Mom slogged through, but the benefits of her tenacity always fell on the girls. The camp was a wooded ten acres on Long Island's gold coast, and as usual, Laura and Ruby were the freaks of the camp with their secondhand designer clothes and worn out shoes, before secondhand designer was a thing. When the bus dropped them at the outdoor amphitheater for orientation, she saw a sign draped over the stage. It read, ”Camp Is Not Fair.”
And it wasn't. The sign was meant to warn the kids that things wouldn't always go their way, and they'd have to be okay with it, because the type of kids at the camp always got their way. But camp was going to be a change for them. It was going to be like the real world. Sometimes you got away with stuff, and sometimes you got nailed for standing up to a mean girl who made fun of your shoes, and sometimes you pulled her Calvin Klein socks off and held her down while your sister shoved them down her throat. And when Mom came to get them a week and a half early because they were kicked out, maybe the fair thing would be for them to get in trouble, but maybe she'd laugh and get them vanilla ice cream for not taking any flak from a senator's daughter. But she wouldn't actually say that. She didn't advocate violence. She wouldn't actually say her daughters had made things fair by doing what they'd done. She'd say maybe the sisters were better off urban hiking, chain-link fence climbing, and camping out in the living room.
Even though an adult definition of fairness had been a mystery before camp, but after camp, Laura still felt she knew it when she saw it, and she was not looking at it. She'd worked hard up until recently. Really hard. Day-and-night hard.
As if he could read her mind, Pierre said, ”I think they decided this before the show.”
”Then what was the whole dinner at Isosceles about?”
”Feeling out their options is my guess. Who can say? At the end of the day, your destiny is not yours to write.”
”Destiny? Are you serious?”
”How else do you explain? You work very hard for this line and have it taken from you, and them? They don't work so hard and have the power to take it. It is not equitable. It's this type of thing that makes me miss France. At least there, we try, and we take not so much glee when we succeed at the expense of others.” She felt an odd kins.h.i.+p to him until he said, ”Well, onward and upward! My guess is you have the weekend to clean out. You may be able to sell some of this to pay your debts, if you choose to remove the Schmillers from your life. Or you may wisely wish to elongate a bankruptcy process to keep them close. We can discuss further on Monday. I have a client show in fifteen minutes.”
He kissed both of her cheeks. ”Trust me. I'm not abandoning you. There are things in the works.” Before she could ask him what he meant, he left. Another day in the life of super ninja fas.h.i.+on agent, Pierre Sevion, who couldn't protect them from a flame-out.
She thought one thing might go right. There was one place where she could show a little competence and dignity. She sat alone in an office that wasn't hers, with sewing machines silent just on the other side of the door. Owning nothing, in charge of nothing, with little to call her own, she called Cangemi.
”Carnegie, what now? Leg caught in a thresher?”
”Rolf did it!” She told him the whole story in a single breath.
”You copied the receipts before handing them over? Claiming her expenses on your taxes is illegal, far as I know. Dunno what else you thought you were doing with them.” She was cowed into silence. ”But I appreciate you calling me to tell me what I know. Except the part you don't know, which is Rolf was in a meeting all morning, and it checks out.”
”Was he at LaGuardia? Maybe picking up a girl from a German airline?”
She was sure that if he just told her, the pieces of the puzzle would fit together with an audible click. But her optimism did not meet reality.
”Ask him the next time you're chasing him down a stairwell, okay?”
”Please?”
”Go get a coffee, Carnegie.”
He hung up on her.
CHAPTER 22.
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