Chapter 5 #2
“I’ve thought about it, to get us over this dry spell, but we’re managing for now, and if our new daywear takes off, it will keep us going until evening wear comes back.
” Austin nodded. He didn’t really care, he just wanted to give Natasha a project to keep her busy.
She complained constantly that she was bored.
And if he could buy her a major participation in her favorite line, she would be thrilled, and he’d be a hero in her eyes.
He stood up and put his hat on, and Eugenia walked him to the door.
“Thank you again for your interest.” She smiled warmly this time.
She was disappointed too, but there was no way she was going to sell him nearly half her business for ten million dollars.
She knew she had done the right thing, turning him down, and she wanted to talk to Patrick about it.
She hardly knew him, but she trusted him.
The Ferrari shot down the driveway with Austin’s foot on the gas, and Eugenia wandered back to the kitchen, thinking about the meeting.
It had lasted exactly twenty minutes and had been futile.
She was just as broke as she’d been before.
As she walked into the kitchen, there was a heated debate going on between Eloise and Sofia, and Eugenia smiled when she saw Sofia’s outfit.
It looked homemade and essentially ridiculous, but it was cute on her.
Eloise was outraged, her every sensibility offended by what her sister was wearing.
She took it personally, as an affront to the art form she loved.
Sofia was wearing an overall dress. The top was well-worn denim that had seen better days.
It had been cut off at the waist, and instead of the overall pants, someone had sewn a pink tutu skirt to it, with a pink lining so you couldn’t see through it.
A pink sequin heart had been pinned to the front pocket, and Sofia was wearing it with pink high-top Converse she or someone had glued pink sequins to. And she had her hair in pigtails.
“For God’s sake, Sofia, you look thirteen years old. Where did you get that monstrosity? I’m not going out with you today. I wouldn’t be seen dead with you.”
“I got it at the county fair for ten dollars. It’s handmade,” Sofia said proudly. “Like haute couture,” she added, and Eloise looked like she was going to have a seizure.
“Don’t you dare call that ‘haute couture,’ it’s not haute anything, it’s about as low as it gets.
” Sofia had great legs, and a perfect body and pretty face.
Eugenia thought she could actually get away with the dress.
She was wearing it with a pink T-shirt. “That’s not fashion,” Eloise said in a rage.
“It makes me happy,” Sofia said, unaffected by her sister’s comments.
She had heard them all her life. Brad looked amused as he listened to them, and left in the middle of it to play the deciding match with Stef.
Geoff and Gloria had retreated to their house.
Liz was in hers and Stefano’s, answering emails from her office, and Daphne was coming over that afternoon to swim with Tucker.
“I like your military surplus better, and I don’t like that on you either. You could wear streetwear,” Eloise said, which was what she designed for Balenciaga.
“Streetwear is too depressing. It looks better on guys,” Sofia said dismissively, but always kind, she added a compliment to her sister. “I like the bags you designed with the graffiti on them, but I can’t afford them.”
“I’ll send you one,” Eloise conceded. “How can people take you seriously when you wear clothes like that?”
“I wear scrubs when I see patients or deliver babies. I’m on vacation, so I can wear what I want.”
Eugenia glanced at Sofia again, as she poured herself another cup of coffee.
She was still thinking of the meeting with Austin Wylie, and was distracted.
She had heard the arguments between Eloise and Sofia before, and this was no different, except that Sofia’s outfit was even more whimsical than what she usually wore, and Eloise was even more offended.
The crazy overall tutu outfit was an assault on all her sensibilities.
“You dress like either a cupcake or a Marine.” Eloise glowered at her, and Eugenia looked at the outfit more closely.
“It looks like cotton candy,” she said, and sat down with them in the heat of the familiar battle.
“I love cotton candy,” Sofia said with a smile at her mother, undaunted by her older sister.
Eloise was wearing black shorts, a black eyelet blouse with balloon sleeves, and sexy black sandals that laced up her long, shapely legs.
She was chic and beautiful, but Eugenia thought Sofia was right about her funny outfit.
It was happy. “I thought that too when I bought it. I was eating cotton candy, and the tulle skirt looked just like it.” As she said it, Eloise stopped complaining and stared at her.
She got up from the table abruptly and started to walk out of the kitchen, as though she had forgotten something.
“Where are you going?” her mother asked her. “Don’t go away mad. You’re all entitled to wear whatever you want. Your sister works hard, she’s having some fun on vacation.”
“Yeah…whatever. I have to do something.” Her mind was a million miles away as she left.
“Don’t take it to heart. You know how she is.
” Eugenia smiled at her youngest daughter, but Sofia didn’t seem upset.
She was used to it. She went back to the guesthouse she was sharing with Brad, and said she’d see her mother later, while Eugenia sat alone in the kitchen lost in thought, wondering what to do now without Austin Wylie as an investor.
For a minute she had thought there was a glimmer of hope to save her business, but the tiny glimmer she had seen briefly had gone out, and she was right back where she was before, panicked.
She called Patrick before lunch and told him she had met with Wylie, and he was instantly curious, and happy to hear from her.
“How did it go?” he asked her.
“It didn’t. He suggested we collaborate on designs, his wife and I, which nearly gave me heart failure, and the bottom line is he wants forty-five percent of my business for ten million dollars.
He originally wanted a majority share, which I said was a nonstarter, and so is the collaboration on design.
He wants to buy a toy to keep her entertained, and have her be the ambassador for my haute couture line.
I turned him down. He had done some research, though, and knows the well is running dry.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that evening gowns haven’t sold in a year and a half, with the whole world in lockdown.
And he wanted to take advantage of it for a fire sale. ”
“You turned him down on all of it?” he asked her.
“Yes. So I’m back to square one, with no investors.”
“From what you’ve said, you haven’t looked for any. He’s not the only fish in the sea, if you really think you need investors, and you were right to turn him down. He’ll be back with a better offer.”
“I don’t think so,” she said, sounding discouraged. “I was pretty definite and so was he.”
“That doesn’t mean squat with a guy like him.
He’s a businessman and a shrewd one. He didn’t get where he is by being dumb or giving up when he wants something.
He wanted the most he could get for the least he’d have to pay.
You turned him down, so now he has to improve the offer.
We’ll talk about it tomorrow. But trust me, it’s not over yet, not at all.
” She was cheered by what Patrick said and looking forward to her day on the boat with him.
She felt faintly guilty for taking a day away from her children, but they could entertain themselves without her for a day, and she was excited about seeing him.
He was the first man who had sparked her interest in years, and he seemed just as attracted and intrigued as she was.
Her children had their own lives now, and she had a right to one too, although she hadn’t tried to have a life of her own for years, and it never worked out before when the children were younger.
They took up too much of her time and attention, and so did her business.
There hadn’t been a serious man in her life in a very long time, or even a minor interest. But Patrick seemed like a very special, unusual man, and worth a closer look.
“We’ll talk about Wylie tomorrow,” he reminded her. “I hate to say it, but I have to go now. I have a conference call in two minutes about my crumbling empire.” He sounded good-natured about it.
“That makes two of us,” she said, smiling.
“It’s just temporary. We’ll be back.” She loved how confident he was that their business problems were just a passing phase and not the end of life as they knew it.
She hoped he was right. She was skeptical, but he was very convincing.
“See you tomorrow,” he said, and a minute later they hung up.
She was interested that he thought Wylie was just trying to see how little he could pay her, and would make another offer.
She went to find Eloise then, and found her sketching furiously at a makeshift drawing board in her room.
“Working?” Eugenia asked, not wanting to distract her. She looked intent on what she was doing.
“Maybe…yes…I don’t know yet. I’ll talk to you later.”
Eugenia smiled as she quietly shut the door, put on her bathing suit, and went out to the pool with a book.
Everyone seemed to have their own projects that morning.
She found Sofia at the pool in a khaki-colored one-piece bathing suit, the color was awful, but her figure was so perfect, it didn’t matter.
She looked beautiful anyway, and the overall tutu had disappeared.