Chapter 43
Jamie awoke to find sunlight back in the cabin… and buildings coming into view outside the window.
One could not see many details that high up, but it was a sprawling city, probably old, surrounded by rolling green hills and dotted with gray and blue.
The lower the plane descended – sending Jamie’s stomach up her throat – the more she recognized the unmistakable architecture of Italy.
She would know by now, having been there every time Etta got the urge.
“Etta knows you brought me to Italy, right?” Jamie was trying not to get excited. Adele was trying to wake the hell up. “You survived?”
“She will deal.” Adele popped some pills and swallowed half a glass of sparkling water. “You will experience one of the world’s most fantastic cities from my point of view.”
“We’ll be landing in Milan soon,” the stewardess said. Adele had a look of so much for that surprise spreading across her visage.
“Milan? Oh my God, the fashion capital of the world?”
“Naturally. I need new clothes, you need… things. Where else would we go?”
“I’ve been to Milan before, but…”
“With Etta, yes. Trust me, I did the Italian tour a time or two with her. She knows how to see the sights, but she doesn’t know how to shop. I know everything. You’re about to have your mind and purse blown. My treat.”
“Really?”
Adele’s wan smile was barely there. “Sure. I’ve been looking forward to this.”
They landed without issue, and they made it through immigration and customs without a bat of any Italian officer’s eyelashes.
It helped that they were filthy rich, and it really helped that Adele knew how to charm any man – and woman, apparently.
The one grumpy looking female officer they got was soon smiling after Adele was done with her.
A car was waiting for them outside the main terminal. They got in, Adele speaking fluent Italian to the driver and then announcing to Jamie that they were staying in one of the most beautiful historic hotels downtown. Her treat, of course.
They shared a suite with separate rooms on opposite sides and a common living area in between. The view overlooking the downtown district was divine, although it felt weird to not have Etta there sharing it.
After settling in, they had a quick brunch and then crashed for two hours in their respective rooms. The voice of an Italian woman roused Jamie, who informed her in hasty English that a car was awaiting her downstairs and that Ms. Thompson had a schedule to keep. So much for that European charm.
Jamie freshened up in her bathroom and put on one of the dresses Etta had packed for her – a green halter dress that would keep her cool in the heat but still held a flirty sophistication.
Ah, it was quite Italian, wasn’t it? Maybe Etta knew what she was doing, after all.
Although she sorely forgot some pajamas.
Is that what one of the T-shirts is for?
She probably had so much sex with her fiancée that Etta assumed she slept naked.
She wasn’t surprised when their car went toward the fashion district.
Adele had said she needed new clothes, but they bypassed the usual stores and studios.
No Gucci, no Louis Vuitton, no Valentino, no Dolce & Gabbana, and definitely no Armani that day.
Instead, the car pulled into a nondescript parking garage beneath an old building with no obvious signs or markers.
“I have a very special treat for you today,” Adele said, waiting for the doors to open on their own. “I hope you like it.”
How could Jamie not? She had no idea what was going on, but the idea that she wouldn’t appreciate it was a different story!
Each floor of this building was a separate fashion studio, although Jamie didn’t recognize any of the names on the plaques.
Adele told her that these were “up and coming” designers who could finally afford some space in the fashion district.
They had small boutiques elsewhere in the city, maybe a few international – in Europe, of course – but the designers were still growing their names and looking for their biggest break.
They climbed the stairs to the fifth and highest floor, where a brusque woman awaited them.
“Adele! About time you got here,” she said with a terribly romantic accent. By “terrible,” one meant “pant-shitting.” Narrow eyes, long, bone-straight hair and nails as long as her lashes went straight to Adele’s face. They exchanged kisses before the introductions.
“This is Jamie. The one I told you all about, Bonita.”
The woman took a step back, sizing poor Jamie up as if she were about to be feasted upon.
Or at least trying to decide if she was worthy of such a feast. “She is so American.” The woman named Bonita whipped out a cigarette and lit it without a second thought.
Her first smoke trail clouded the small corridor.
Both Adele and Jamie wrinkled their noses.
“I can work with this. You challenge me, though.”
“I hear you’re all about challenges these days.”
“If I could dress that scruffy princess and make her look like actual royalty on her precious big day, then I can work with this. You say her fiancée’s loaded?”
“Come on, Bonita, you remember Etta.”
“Yes, yes, Etta, il tuo donna grande.” Bonita spat out more smoke. “Si, let us do this thing. Benvenuto, Jamie, I am Bonita Bocelli, the next big thing in wedding fashion. I hear you have no good vestito. I mean, dress.”
“Um… yeah.” Were they dress shopping? Was that the big surprise? Oh, my God.
“Then come here so I can make you the best dressed sposa in your non sofisticato excuse for a country.”
Jamie had no idea what that meant, but it probably wasn’t nice.
“Ignore her mannerisms,” Adele said into Jamie’s ear as they went into the studio. “Bonita has gotten this far since I knew her in undergrad because she likes to slice stomachs open. Including a woman’s.” She snorted. “Ask any of her girlfriends.”
They were probably working the studio, which was filled with nothing but women, all of them thin, young, and beautiful.
Some of them were stuck in front of computers.
Most were hunched over yards of beautiful, glistening fabric or painstakingly adding beads to bodices.The whole studio was a paradiso bianco.
Bonita Bocelli, as Jamie would soon learn, was about to give the other Italian wedding dress designers runs for their Euros and liras, if they still had them.
She had made that Northern European excuse for a princess look like a fairy-tale on her wedding day last year, which had spread her name all over the Eurosphere and allowed her to move up in the Italian fashion world.
She had boutiques in Paris, London, and Stockholm.
To hear her tell it, it was only a matter of time before she was in New York.
The cigarette was long extinguished before they entered the studio, but Jamie still smelled the tobacco hanging off Bonita as she went to a huge rack of finished wedding dresses – all of them impeccably Italian and regal.
“I promise you, Jamie,” Adele said as they were sat on a bench and served more sparkling water.
“If we can’t find you something perfect here, we will find you something in this city.
I have faith in Bonita, though. I’ve known her since undergrad in London.
She has perfect taste and knows how to dress a woman.
Could’ve been the best personal stylist in the world if she wasn’t obsessed with wedding dresses. ”
“This is almost too much to take in…” Jamie watched as Bonita and one of her assistants spoke in clipped Italian in front of the rack of dresses, gesturing to Jamie and saying the colors of her skin and hair over and over. “If you say she’s the best…”
“Oh, I didn’t say that. I said I have faith in her.”
“It’s so kind of you to do this.” A dress was coming in Jamie’s direction. “Really.”
Adele shrugged, and left Jamie in Bonita’s eager hands.
This was a completely different experience from shopping at the boutique in New York.
Those women had been all about Jamie’s tastes and trying to match them.
Bonita? She didn’t give a fuck about what Jamie envisioned herself in.
“Women don’t know what’s good for them,” she sighed more than once, motioning for an assistant to put another dress on Jamie.
“I do. No, no, idiota, I said get the one with the tulle! What is this? Che ho fatto…”
Jamie wasn’t a bride. She was a model, and Bonita ran her models through ringers designed to test their stamina until they collapsed dead on the floor.
It also didn’t help that these dresses were made for women one, two sizes smaller than Jamie, so trying to fit into them was like trying on her old high school clothes.
Fat chance. Literally. I’m too fat. Adele assured her that Bonita and her team of seamstresses would make anything fit before Jamie’s big day.
Bonita kept looking at her as if she were cosi folle.
“Stop this pain you are inflicting upon me,” the designer lamented more than once.
“Does she look like some ugly duck who needs a mermaid dress? When did I design a mermaid dress? I would never! Someone put this on my rack without permission! Where is she? I will cut her gola before she has the chance to wake up from her nightmare! Get me a fucking ball gown before I burn this place down! Princesses! That’s our money! That is the name Bocelli!”