1. Once Upon a Fairytale #3
Vi just nodded and wrapped her arms around herself.
She didn’t even care how defensive she looked.
Her fall and her lack of knowledge about anything that might remotely pertain to fashion aside, Vi still had no idea what she was doing here.
Working for Frankie Lilienfeld was not exactly a dream, but an amazing opportunity for someone trying to establish a path for herself outside of the crushing thumb of her family.
Observing some of the photoshoots alone would be invaluable for her.
“You’re gonna tell me you have no idea how to use a sewing machine, right, kid?”
Oh, swell, they were back to ‘kid’. She’d managed to disappoint people on her very first day. So what else was new? Except, Aoife didn’t look upset. She gave Vi one last considering look before moving farther into the massive open space flanked by columns and floor-to-ceiling windows.
“This is where the magic happens. Don’t let anyone, especially Our Lady of Conti upstairs, tell you differently.”
Before Vi could ask anything, Aoife was in motion again. “C’mon. I guess I will have to take pity on you and really show you around and explain things. Too bad, I hate talking…” Aoife gave her a long look at the end of which both of them laughed.
Vi’s shoulders relaxed again, despite still feeling like a total fish out of water.
“So this is the in-house production studio. This is what I do. I get the designs they send from upstairs and turn them into actual things. Clothes. At times, accessories.” She ran her fingers over the silvery curves and what looked like thousands of levers and buttons of the Singer sewing machine and it emitted a little purr.
Vi jumped at the unexpected noise and Aoife laughed.
“I’ve got twenty years on you, gotta keep you on your toes.”
They moved farther, to a row of work benches— material and clothes strewn all over them in a state of creative chaos. Vi could respect that.
“I prefer to work alone. So this whole space is mine. But we occasionally have people from the main production building here. Yeah, you might have guessed right, here on Saint-Honoré we have the sort of business-facing side of the house. The flagship store is here. You saw it on your way in. I don’t go in there.
Once the clothes are finished, they’re outside my purview.
” Aoife turned on her heel and pointed up the stairs.
“The financial and legal offices are on the third floor. Renate reigns supreme there. She’s the money whiz. ”
Vi nodded, though most of what Aoife was telling her sounded only vaguely intelligible.
Her anxiety was getting the best of her.
She could feel her hands grow numb and colder with every second.
Her mentor seemed to understand she was struggling.
Aoife gestured upstairs and motioned with her head for Vi to follow her.
“You’ll catch on. Despite that deer-in-the-headlights expression on your face right now. You really gotta do something about that.”
“I guess my being totally ignorant might upset Ms. Lilienfeld—” Vi finally voiced her biggest anxiety.
“I assume you mean Frankie?” Both eyebrows raised, Aoife looked at Vi, who nodded before lowering her face. “Pfft kiddo, Frankie won’t care. Frankie won’t even care that you are here, to be honest. Now, Chiara might. About both. She’s thoughtful like that.”
Vi lifted her face so quickly at the name that Aoife looked blurry for a second before coming back into focus. And the eyes that fixed on Vi were knowing. But all she said was, “Frankie is of no concern to you. C’mon, I’ll show you.”
Vi nodded again, deciding that silent agreement was the safest way to go since Aoife was already moving on and walking back towards the staircase leading them to the floor above.
This one was divided into glass cubicles, with several people working diligently on their computers or talking on the phone, snippets of their conversation in French, English, and what sounded like Chinese, reaching Vi’s ears as she and Aoife passed through.
Vi recognized Renate in the corner office, gesticulating gracefully as she spoke to a swankily dressed man with a luxurious mane of blond hair seated in front of her desk.
He winked at Vi from behind the glass wall as she and Aoife passed by, prompting Vi to stumble again.
Aoife proceeded to flip him off and Vi gawked at her.
In response, Renate threw a stern glare at Aoife and pressed a button on her desk, the glass instantly frosting over.
“Kiddo, what kind of lesbian are you? Don’t pay Lance any attention.
He’s only teasing you, anyway. He’s Renate’s right-hand man.
Great with numbers, can’t dress himself to save his or his wife’s life.
Good thing Véronique, who is also our in-house attorney, does have a brilliant eye for clothes.
” Aoife’s mouth twisted like she had bitten into a lemon, and Vi wisely chose to school her features and not ask questions about whatever conflict there was between her supervisor and the fashion-forward lawyer.
They walked the entire floor, with Aoife pointing at various people. Chief accountant. Chief something or other. Véronique, she-of-the-good-taste and even better legs. Marketing.
Vi valiantly tried to remember names and positions, but it appeared that Aoife had only two speeds—fast and faster—and Vi quickly figured out that the people she liked least, got the shortest amount of her time, with her basically sprinting past their offices.
So Vi chose to focus instead on the ones that got a minimum of five seconds of Aoife’s attention.
“And that’s the executive floor. May we never come here again this month.
” She giggled as Vi stared back in confusion, absolutely certain she would never catch on to the myriad of details, names, and tasks being thrown at her.
“You’ll get the hang of it. Since you’re with me, you really won’t have much business here.
Steer clear of Véronique, shysters are slippery.
Renate is strict but fair, so no funny business.
And that’s all the wisdom I have to impart regarding the third floor. Now onward, mon petit .”
Both the grammar and the accent were pretty bad, and Vi bit her lip. However, it seemed Aoife had eyes in the back of her head where Vi was concerned.
“Yes, yes, I see you cringing. Lived in this country for ten years now and haven’t learned any kind of passable French.
I wish I had, but that ship sailed. Lilien Haus is so cosmopolitan, English is the default here.
Don’t like the croissants here though. When they all learn to make decent scones, then we’ll talk. ”
“I’m partial to Belgian croissants myself.” Vi raised her eyebrow in challenge when Aoife turned to her on the stairs. The stare-down lasted for a few heartbeats.
“The Belgian ones are okay, I guess. But nothing compares to scones with raspberry jam. Nothing. Cream first, then jam. I said what I said. Now, come on, Ms. Posh. Let’s go meet Frankie.”
Vi barely had time to take a deep breath as Aoife pushed open a wooden door leading into a large space that seemingly occupied the whole floor, save for a sectioned-off area in the corner, which looked like a replica of Renate’s office with its glass walls.
Except, unlike Renate’s, these walls were already frosted.
“Yo, Frankie! The royal newbie is here!” Aoife’s voice rose, and a few seconds later the door opened and a cross between a fifty-year-old Brandi Carlile and k.d. lang stepped out, shutting it firmly behind herself.
Her attire was somewhat debonair, torn jeans and an even more massacred t-shirt adorned by a band logo that was indecipherable due to its numerous holes. Her handshake was rushed and her smile—a touch vague—was seemingly permanent.
“Hey, you’re the Courtenay kid. Princess Allegra’s cousin? Welcome. Welcome. How are you? How are you finding everything?”
Unlike her older sister, Frankie’s low voice had only a slight accent that Vi guessed was a remnant of her native Switzerland. The stream of questions was continuous, and Vi found that perhaps she didn’t need to reply at all. Frankie was very content to speak.
“Aoife here been showing you around? Good, good. I hope you see a lot, learn a lot, but don’t touch anything. Or anyone!” She laughed suddenly, loud and brash, and Vi almost cringed. It wasn’t all that funny, or maybe she’d missed the joke.
Aoife coughed and intervened.
“Yeah, okay, Lilienfeld. I’m just showing Vi the ropes. You busy later? We have to discuss some of the spring trends. Chiara said—”
“Later, Sully, later. And just run it by Chiara. She’ll know.
She always knows better. You think so, anyway.
” The smile didn’t waver. Instead it turned sharp, and Aoife’s eyes narrowed in what Vi was beginning to understand was a characteristic gesture.
But Aoife said nothing, and Vi felt like she was intruding on an old and particularly unpleasant argument.
For a second, silence reigned, and Vi could have sworn she could hear something moving behind the frosted walls of the office.
Frankie followed her line of sight, and her shoulders stiffened before she smiled again, this time fake and mocking.
She positioned herself in front of the door and pointed her thumb at her own chest.
“Genius at work here! Sully, you know how it is. I need my creative peace and quiet. We’ll definitely catch up, kid.
I’ll see you around, talk you through my process.
” She winked at Vi, but in comparison to Chiara’s earlier wink, it lacked in seductiveness, and the way she said ‘kid’ was indeed demeaning.
Aoife had made it sound kind and familiar.
Frankie’s ‘kid’ held no warmth and no sincerity.
They exited the fourth floor and Aoife stopped, watching her re-enter her private office. The walls did not turn transparent. For a second, Aoife looked like she might go back. Her hand on the door handle clenched once before relaxing. Her shoulders drooped.
“Okay. Did I not tell you that you won’t have to worry about Frankie? Genius at work .” She rolled her eyes. “Let’s go. I will show you where the genius actually resides.”
Like scaling the fairytale ivory tower, they climbed one more flight, and the stairs turned oaken instead of the marble downstairs, becoming narrower, the space more intimate, as if leading to a kingdom entwined in ivy vines, guarding secrets and, perhaps, a sleeping princess.
When they reached their destination, Vi’s breath was taken away for the second time this morning.
Their path opened directly onto another open floor, massive floor-to-ceiling windows bringing in the early June sun, making the immense room look even bigger and so full of light, it felt as if Paris had stepped inside this space and taken up residence.
The air was full of the earlier rain, petrichor seeping into Vi’s every inhalation.
The long desks strewn around the dark wooden floors with colorful materials draped over them made the place look inviting and gave it a fascinating, fantasy-like quality. Vi felt like she’d entered a magical realm where every single thing held meaning and purpose.
Everywhere she looked, there was beauty, a piece in progress, a mannequin wearing something amazing… The room was a rich and enticing canvas of colors and various focal points. And there, in the middle of it all, was the centerpiece herself.
Something stirred in Vi. Like a long dormant desire.
To belong. To be part. To walk these floors with purpose and a sense of fitting in as seamlessly as Aoife did.
She’d never thought herself ambitious. Certainly her family believed she had no drive.
But the idea of being good enough, competent enough, suddenly filled her with hope.
If she fit here, if she’d find her place in this world, among these people, she would perhaps be free of the confines that stifled her back home.
Chiara was bent over a designer’s workstation, her long dark hair on top of her head, with flyaways escaping the haphazard bun held together by a pencil.
Vi’s hands itched to pull it out, let those tresses fall down the narrow shoulders, and capture this vision on paper, even though she knew her meager drawing skills would never do Chiara justice.
Though she was facing them, Chiara had not raised her head from whatever was holding her attention.
Vi’s eyes traced the long, graceful lines of the neck and collarbones, marveling at the divine precision of their creation.
Surely, whomever had breathed life into that skin and those muscles and those bones deserved all the reverence.
Next to Vi, Aoife seemed to be holding her breath too, and she thought that this woman had that effect on people.
You wanted to look at her. To just be allowed to share a space.
The moment felt intimate. But with Aoife there, Vi didn’t believe she was intruding, more like she was allowed the privilege.
Finally, after what could have been minutes or hours, sad eyes lifted and Vi forgot how to breathe.
“Ms. Courtenay.”
Yes, keeping up with the newness of her internship was the least of Vi’s troubles. Literally tiny in comparison. And as far as Vi’s secrets went, she felt the weight of this one might be the proverbial last straw.