9. Natalie
9
NATALIE
T he reply email popped up in my inbox and I squealed. I glanced around the design floor to make sure no one noticed, because what I was doing had to remain top secret. I’d gone against my better judgment, and now it was time to find out if it was going to pay off. I held my breath and opened the message.
Hi Natalie,
What a nice surprise to get your note. I still think about the creative team all the time, and it sounds like it’s grown quite a bit since I was last there. Welcome to Branson—if my brother hired you, then you’ve got to be a superstar .
I blushed.
I love the idea of a color-based retrospective and I wish I could help, but the early years of designs only exist on paper. I meant to have them digitized but never got around to it. That said, since many of them are my work, I still have them in my possession. Unfortunately, I’m not comfortable sending them via mail or messenger since they’re fragile archival documents. I can send you photos of them, but you won’t get all of the nuance. Sorry I can’t be of more help. Please let me know if that works for you.
Sincerely,
Christopher Branson
Okay, it was a start! I bit my lip as I weighed my options. Do I accept photos, or…go big? I started typing before I could second guess myself.
Hi Christopher,
Thanks for getting back to me so quickly! I’m super interested in getting my hands on those drawings so I can really examine them and then do your work justice in the retrospective. Would it be possible to maybe swing by your place to see them? And then if you trust me, maybe I could transport them to the office to be digitized? No pressure, and thanks in advance!
Best,
Natalie
My heart pounded as I pushed send because I knew I was going behind my boss’s back, and if he found out, he wasn’t going to be pleased. The way James had shut me down last night made it clear he didn’t want me interacting with his brother at all, but Christopher was a grown man. If he didn’t want to work with me, he could say as much. He didn’t need his brother making the call.
And if all went according to plan, James would never even know.
The rest of the day flew by despite the fact that I kept refreshing my email, waiting for a reply from Christopher. I was about to admit defeat as I packed up to get ready to go to class, only to check one last time and get rewarded by a response from him.
Sure, you can come to my place to see them. Tonight works for me any time after eight. I’m in Hoyt Towers. Just call my cell when you get here.
His number was listed by his signature. Success!
I rushed off to class on a high that lasted until I was getting ready to walk out of the classroom, when MG cornered me. My hackles went up, but I tried to hide my discomfort with him. I wasn’t about to jeopardize my grade by offending my mega-famous instructor. Tonight he looked a little like a bridge troll, his longish brown hair more disheveled than normal and his vintage Gordon Lightfoot T-shirt obscured by a variety of scarves around his neck. His fans tried to claim his messy look was his unique style, but to me he always looked like he’d just woken up and thrown on whatever was on his bedroom floor.
“Nat, girl, you outdid yourself with those swim sketches,” he said as he reached out to clasp my elbow. “I’m really impressed with you.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. This was fine, I guess. The touching I could do without, but at least it was my arm and not my shoulders.
“Thank you, it was a fun project.” I tried to maneuver myself so that I was closer to the door.
“Has anyone ever told you that you could model your own designs?” He looked me up and down slowly. “Because I see it. You in that little Wedgewood bikini?” He shuddered. “I can only imagine!”
I laughed self-consciously. “Oh, no, that’s not my thing. My roommate, on the other hand, is a personal trainer. Whenever I need a body, I count on her.”
He laughed. “I’d count on your body. If you’ve got it, why not use it?”
I glanced towards the lone person left in the classroom, hoping for an interruption, but Bradley had headphones on and was oblivious.
“Not gonna happen.” I laughed again but it came out strained. How the hell was I going to get out of this? “Anyway, I should?—”
“Listen, I have some thoughts about your work I’d love to share with you. Let’s go grab a drink.”
As he stared at me I wondered if my grade would be in jeopardy if I turned him down. It was so unfair! Bradley didn’t have to fend off our instructor. Thankfully, I had an excuse.
“Sorry, but I have a meeting in twenty minutes. Actually, I need to run. But thanks for saying nice things about my work. I’m thrilled you like it.”
I sidestepped around him with a wave before he could respond and jogged down the hallway, breathing with relief. Now it was on to the next potentially stressful event: showing up at a stranger’s apartment at night.
I dialed Steph on my way over to Christopher’s place. “Mr. Touchy-Feely did it again. And this time he asked me to get a drink!”
“Nooo,” she groaned in commiseration. “How the hell are you going to make it through this semester?”
“I know!” I pouted into the phone. “Maybe I should stop washing my hair and wearing deodorant on class nights?”
“He might like you au naturale too. I’d be careful.”
“Speaking of being careful, I’m about to do something risky. I’m going over to the original creative director’s apartment to look at his old sketches. I wanted you to know, in case I go missing.”
“Natalie, what the hell? It’s late! Do you even know him?”
“I know of him…everyone in the department says he was the nicest guy ever.”
“ Was the nicest guy,” she chastised. “He doesn’t work there now. There’s got to be a reason why. For someone who’s really smart you sure do some dumb shit.”
For a second, I felt uneasy—but then I pushed it aside. “Don’t freak me out. I’ll be fine. But just in case, he lives in Hoyt Towers.”
“Fancy,” Steph replied. “Maybe he’ll use a silk rope to strangle you.”
“Stephanie Marie Riggins! Stop it !” I scolded.
Ten minutes later I was standing at his door with my heart hammering away in my chest. The doorman had checked me in, so I had another witness.
Footsteps, then fussing with a few locks, and the door swung open.
“Hey there, you must be Natalie.”
My nerves calmed immediately.
Christopher Branson was a golden retriever to his brother’s German shepherd—a shaggy-haired, smiling, mess of a man in sweats and a stained blue T-shirt. I obviously didn’t know him, but there was something about his energy that instantly put me at ease.
“Hi, Christopher, it’s so great to meet you! You have a giant fan club at Branson. I feel like I already know you.”
He flushed, eyes dropping to the ground as he shook my hand, looking embarrassed at the compliment. “Well, thank you. That’s nice. C’mon in.”
I followed him into the impressive space and noticed every lamp was on, like he was aware that I might feel a little weird about coming over to his place alone at night.
“Can I get you something to drink? I have every type of water available, half a dozen different juices, kombucha, tea, coffee…”
“Wow, you’re really stocked up,” I said with a laugh.
His flush darkened, but his smile widened. “Yeah, I have some help in that department. An overly involved delivery person. She keeps encouraging me to try new stuff, like celery water. Why is that even a thing?”
I wrinkled my nose. “Oof, no thanks. I’ll just take a glass of good old-fashioned tap water, please.”
“Everything is spread out on the table, go take a look,” he called from the kitchen.
I walked over to the massive circular table under a modern chandelier and found a treasure trove of work, all in pristine condition despite how old they were.
“How can I tell who designed them?” I asked as I looked through the stack. “The signatures are hard to read. Does that say Adam?”
“If you flip them over you’ll see background details like who designed it, the date created, and which collection the design was included in. The earliest ones were by my predecessor Armando Amoroso, who was hired by my grandmother.”
I flipped over a drawing of a white fit-and-flare sundress. “This sketch is forty years old!”
Christopher placed my glass of water at the far end of the table. “Yeah, it’s crazy because we could produce that dress right now and it would sell out.”
I went through the drawings carefully. “Are they all in order?”
He nodded. “All of Armando’s stuff is in that pile, and mine is in the other.”
As much as I loved looking at the vintage designs, I moved over to Christopher’s work since it was the reason why I was there.
The one on top was of a woman in a gray business suit, wearing sunglasses and a badass attitude.
“Damn, I don’t want to mess with her.”
“Yeah, that was our ‘Women Who Work’ line. Hugely popular.”
I checked out a few more drawings, then stopped to glance up at him. Christopher’s expression was sad, almost wistful.
“These are incredible,” I said. “You have such a gift.”
He gave me a tight smile. “Thanks.”
“Do you miss it?” I asked softly, aware that it came close to prying.
He stared at the designs fanned out in front of me before answering. “Yeah. I do.”
“Why don’t you come back?”
I was pushing my luck, but everything Rhea had said about the old days with Christopher sounded so great. I wanted that for the creative department again. If the problems that had caused him to leave could be fixed, then maybe there was a chance he could come back. So I wasn’t about to let the moment slip away without at least trying to get to the bottom of what had gone wrong. It wasn’t like James was going to tell me.
“I’m not in a place where I can even think about that.” He sighed. “I hit a rough patch a while back, and I’m still getting on my feet.”
“Was it work stuff?”
He let out a harsh sigh. “Not at first. I was married and let’s just say that it was a challenging relationship. Between trying to keep my now-ex-wife happy, which felt like a full-time job, and working my real job at Branson, I got pretty overwhelmed. I wound up doing some stuff that I’m not proud of, and I uh, I had to take some time away to deal with it. I’m still working my way back to stability.”
I nodded. There was no way I was going to keep asking questions about something that was obviously still painful for him.
“I’m lucky, though. My little brother is my very own life coach. He looks out for me.”
I managed to hide my shock. This I really couldn’t resist digging into. “Seriously?”
“Hard to believe, right? I know how he comes across, trust me. Has he insulted you yet?”
“Oh, maybe a few times.” I grinned at Christopher. “He told me I can’t sing, he called me hysterical. You know, stuff like that.”
“Yup, that’s James. But I’ll have you know that he’s a gigantic softie underneath it all.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“I’m serious. He might seem like this no-nonsense businessman, but the only reason he works so hard is to make sure his family is taken care of.”
I felt a pinch in my chest at the mention of family. How lucky the Bransons were to have each other.
“And if he sent you here that means he really trusts you,” Christopher continued.
I hoped my face wasn’t as red as it felt. “Oh, I, uh, I’m sort of diving into this project on my own. We didn’t actually talk about me coming over.”
It was in that moment that I realized I was going to have to come clean with James and let him know what I’d done. Hopefully Christopher would go to bat for me if necessary.
“Even better. He loves a self-starter,” Christopher said.
Why did my heart stutter out of rhythm at the thought of James loving anything about me? The man was a bosshole through and through…wasn’t he? I thought I’d taken his measure, but if Christopher was right, then I hadn’t met the real James Branson yet.
“Speaking of being a self-starter…would you feel comfortable with me taking these designs back to the office to be added to our archives? I promise I’ll treat them like museum docents.”
“Yeah. That would be incredible. We’re way behind on that sort of stuff, so thank you for taking the lead.” Christopher smiled at me. “I can tell already that you’re a phenomenal addition to the team.”
I blushed again as I wondered how in the world two such different men could be brothers.