Chapter 9 #3
“What happened?” Pam spoke first.
“Eloise got fired.” Pam was shocked. “They are making huge cutbacks.”
—
Eloise reported to Daphne by text. And five minutes later Daphne called her sister.
“What the hell happened?” she asked Eloise.
“Too many employees and bad sales figures. It’s everywhere.”
“What are you going to do now?”
“Mom wants me to come home, but I look like a total loser if I come home now.”
“So what? Just come home,” Daphne concluded. “See you soon,” she said when they hung up.
—
Worrying about Eloise took some of the pleasure out of transforming the store. Eugenia walked home a little while later, still thinking about her.
She told Patrick about it, when he came to her apartment for dinner and to stay with her that night. He was surprised to hear it and sad for Eloise. It was exactly what she’d been afraid of and she was right. She had felt it coming, like a tidal wave, and it had finally caught up with her.
—
Patrick staying at Eugenia’s apartment was very different and less glamorous than her staying on his boat. He was at a loss to help her with her children. He hardly knew them. All he could do was be reassuring to their mother. Patrick was impressed by how supportive they all were of each other.
Her household was much simpler and quieter than his, but it gave them time to walk around as they chose, and to make love anywhere they wanted in the apartment.
Her housekeeper went home at six-thirty, and they took full advantage of it.
They played the stereo and listened to music, and sat on the terrace in the warm night air.
—
Eloise took her mother’s advice and came home.
She was nervous and on edge, and heartbroken over losing a job she loved.
She was stunned by how fast Eugenia had waved a magic wand and the entire Cotton Candy collection had appeared.
By the time Eloise came home three days after her call to her mother, they had sold more than half the collection, and it had taken off like a forest fire.
Eugenia was stunned by the appetite people had for it.
About half their customers were teenagers, shopping on their mothers’ credit cards, with their full knowledge and permission, and the other half of their growing fan base were trendy young women with the bodies of even younger ones.
They looked sexy and cute in the sequined denim jackets, the skirts, the dresses, the tulle confections, and the abundance of sequins on everything.
Eloise couldn’t believe how her mother had transformed the store.
They had already caught the attention of the fashion press and Page Six in the Post to report the craze.
Eugenia had tapped into her customers’ desire to look like fairies and mermaids and little girls.
They were devouring Cotton Candy, in the best sense of the word.
And the vendor with the cotton candy truck in front of the store was handing out great cloudlike balls.
Much to Eugenia’s astonishment, they sold every single item within a week, and she had already ordered more.
She told Patrick about it and he came to see it before the last of it sold.
And in the midst of the shopping frenzy, Natasha Wylie showed up and introduced herself to Eugenia.
She was wearing a stretch leopard-print bodysuit and looked at her new partner’s pink candy land in amazement.
Eugenia hadn’t expected to see her so soon.
The deal had been cleared by her attorneys, signed within two days, the funds transferred within three, and Eugenia Ward was suddenly cash-rich again, with twenty million more in the bank.
Natasha looked even more spectacular than she had at Daphne’s dinner party.
She watched two teenage girls and their mothers carrying five shopping bags out of the store. Pam had ordered pink ones for them in record time. Everything had happened at breakneck speed.
The day Natasha showed up, Eloise was helping her mother set out new merchandise, and they had brought two of their salesclerks back to wrap everything in pink tissue with half a yard of pink tulle exploding out of the bags containing their customers’ purchases.
“We are partners now,” Natasha said proudly.
She was wearing platform slides with seven-inch heels to go with the bodysuit, and her raven dark hair hung straight down her back.
She looked more like sixteen than twenty-two.
“I read about this on Page Six. It is very smart.” She totally got what Eloise was trying to do and approved.
“First we sell them Cotton Candy so they look like little girls, then we sell them evening gowns like real women. Where are the gowns?” She glanced around, but there were none in view.
“They’re not on display at the moment. I wanted to test the strength of the new line,” Eugenia explained. Natasha was interested in everything around her.
“Very smart. You and your employees work very hard.” Everyone was moving at full speed.
Eloise came to join them when she spotted Natasha.
She remembered her immediately from Daphne’s dinner party, with the man in the Stetson with the diamond necklace.
They weren’t easy to forget. And Eloise put her fashion purist aesthetic aside for now.
It had been dormant since she got home and went to work helping her mother.
It was actually in a deep coma. She was dazzled by the craze they had started, which Eugenia had turned into marketing genius.
The money was rolling in faster than they could count it.
It was a major coup, and they had no idea how long the craze would last, but for the moment it was increasing day by day.
“You need help at the store?” Natasha asked Eugenia, and was clearly ready to pitch in.
It looked like fun to her. She tried on some of the clothes and they looked great on her.
She had a flawless body, which she worked on daily with a trainer Austin had brought with him from Dallas.
They were staying in the presidential suite at the Four Seasons, while Austin did business in New York.
“We’re managing pretty well,” Eugenia said, amused by her.
She was so earnest, and friendly to everyone.
She told all the girls trying on the clothes that they looked beautiful and hot.
Eloise could hardly repress a laugh, and until then, she hadn’t smiled since she got home.
But the success of Cotton Candy was something to smile about, even crow.
Natasha stayed for another hour, bought two pairs of pink sequined very short shorts, and a denim jacket to match, with a giant pink sequin heart on the back. She promised to come back soon, and Eugenia was surprised to find she liked her.
Daphne came by after her weekly checkup and couldn’t believe the scene either. She gave her sister an enormous hug in sympathy for her heartbreak at Balenciaga.
“Mom has started an avalanche. Everyone’s talking about it,” Daphne said, licking wisps of the candy floss the vendor with the bright pink cart had handed her outside the store.
“What did the doctor say?” Eugenia asked her when she joined them.
“That I’ll go into labor any minute. She’s surprised I haven’t yet.
And if I get any bigger it’s a C-section for sure.
” She wasn’t happy about it, but at this point getting them out without a C-section was terrifying too.
Her face looked beautiful, but her body looked like she’d swallowed a balloon.
“I can’t even stand up without help, or get out of bed,” she complained.
“Anyone who tells you having twins is fun is lying.” She lumbered over to a chair and sat down.
She couldn’t stand for long either. “How is it being back in New York?” she asked her sister.
“Sad,” Eloise said with a mournful expression. “I miss Paris, but it’s nice being with Mom, and you.” She smiled at her younger sister.
Eugenia took her two daughters to lunch at The Grill while Pam and three salesclerks minded the store. Daphne didn’t eat a thing. She said she didn’t have room, she just drank iced tea. “Has Liz been to see it?” she asked, while her mother and sister ate their salads.
“Not yet,” Eugenia answered. “She’s working on a merger at the startup where she works. She’s going to try to come this weekend. She sent us a magnum of pink champagne when we launched the line, to wish us luck.”
“She’s going to love this,” Daphne said, and Eloise shook her head.
“She’s not our customer. It’s not jazzy enough for her. Our customers are more na?ve, younger, and want to look more innocent. Liz favors femme fatale. She’s more given to rhinestones than sequins.”
They knew exactly who their client was now, and they had a lot of them.
After lunch, Eloise and Eugenia headed back to the store and Daphne went home to rest.
“I hope the next time I see you both is at the hospital,” she said with a smile as she left them.
“The poor thing looks so uncomfortable,” Eloise said sympathetically. “I couldn’t do it.”
“Yes, you could, if you had to,” Eugenia said, as they walked back to the store to get some air.
“Thank God I don’t have to.”
“The reward is worth it,” Eugenia responded.
“Aren’t the bride and groom due back any minute?” Eloise asked her, and Eugenia shook her head.
“Not till next week. His parents are arriving tomorrow, however,” she said to Eloise with a sigh.
“I hate to say it, but I didn’t like them when we met two years ago.
Arrogant, pompous, impressed with themselves.
No money but lots of pretensions. We just have to put up with them for Gloria’s sake, and it’s only for a week.
They’re organizing the rehearsal dinner, and I still don’t have the details yet.
I don’t even know where they’re giving it.
I have enough on my hands with the wedding.
I haven’t received an invitation yet. I guess they’ll just tell me when they get here.
It’s a little vague for my taste,” she admitted.
“Gloria is making a terrible mistake,” Eloise said, as they reached the store, with the Cotton Candy samples in the window, and a crowd of customers inside, which there hadn’t been for a year and a half.
“I tried to tell her that when she was here. She doesn’t want to hear it, and she defends him to the death. That’s why they left,” Eugenia said, unhappy about it.
“It’s her choice, Mom,” Eloise said.
“I just hope he doesn’t break her heart.”
They pushed open the door to the store then, and joined the crowd.