8. Once Upon a Tennis Match
ONCE UPON A TENNIS MATCH
G enevieve Courtenay had never been to a ball. Her family had attended plenty. Her royal relatives—whom she never saw but frequently heard about, especially since she’d gotten hired at Lilien Haus—had thrown even more. But Vi herself had never been part of the family dealings.
“Why are you this excited?” Aoife took a big swig from her water bottle and made a decisive cut in the light blue chiffon. “Shit.”
“What was that saying? Measure twice, cut once? And what did that design even do to you?” Vi focused the shutter and snapped a few pictures of Aoife’s disgruntled face. Say what you want about Gwyneth, but her love for all things top-notch was on display here. The camera was state-of-the art.
“Stop it. The fortune cookie wisdom. I don’t understand why she has to have this particular cut.
She had some kind of epiphany over hemlines.
” Aoife got up and walked away from the workstation Vi was sitting on.
She wisely kept her mouth shut about anything related to adjustments in the design and why Chiara might have changed her mind.
A few presses of a button could be heard, and very soon, the aroma of coffee wafted Vi’s way.
She knew Aoife wasn’t really upset with her when her mentor carried two mugs back from the little kitchenette.
Which had nothing on Chiara’s beautiful, wood-toned kitchen with its gorgeous island, tasty food, comfortable silences, and absolutely inappropriate fantasies.
Vi glugged her coffee, burned her tongue, and felt like it was karma, punishing her for the prurient thoughts.
“To answer your question, Cinderella, I’ve worked with Chiara for ages now. And I’ve never had anything like this happen.” Vi opened her mouth to ask, then, with her tongue still smarting, once again thought better of it, closed it again, and they instead sat in silence, both sipping their drinks.
Aoife looked at the swaths of material on her workstation that reminded Vi of the sky and shook her head.
“Kid, I was your age when I met her. She was this absolutely massive star on the catwalk, and I was helping my dad, who was the backstage hand at the London Fashion Week. Much like yourself these past few weeks, she just couldn’t seem to stop tearing things.
I helped her, again, and again. By the end of that week, I was her personal seamstress.
When she married Frankie, who was flying high with Lilien Haus, my fate was sealed. ”
She took a longer sip, eyelids fluttering in the simple pleasure of enjoying the brew. Vi couldn’t relate, even if her mouth hadn’t still been burning.
“All of this is just not like her. She calls me in the middle of the night with the same five words that mostly spell doom for me since they’ll lead to a shit ton of work.
‘I have an idea, Sully!’ For the past fifteen years, Lilien Haus’ collections have been planned years in advance.
Sure, we’d tweak them here and there. We even scrapped a collection once, because Chiara’s red theme didn’t jibe with the Tuscany Yellow DeVor put out that year. ”
Aoife guffawed at the memory, and Vi drew her eyebrows together. She had a vague recollection of hearing the name.
“Cinderella, honestly, if not for your storied bloodline and your genuine, good disposition and skill with that monstrosity…” Aoife nodded towards the camera in Vi’s hand with her chin.
“I wonder about you sometimes. DeVor runs fashion, kiddo. Actually, scratch that! DeVor is FASHION with capital letters. They, whoever they may be, are a name behind the artist who has a grip on the industry. If you ask me, it’s inconvenient.
You make plans, and then someone comes in and their whims change everything.
But… do not, under any circumstances, tell Chiara I said so. ”
Vi made the gesture of zipping her mouth shut and waved for Aoife to go on as she tried to sip her coffee slowly, her burned tongue aching in protest. It still didn’t taste like anything she wanted to spend her whole life depending on.
“Anyway, Google is your friend, young lady. Especially working in this industry, you can’t escape DeVor.
I may kvetch that they make us change our plans sometimes, but they’re a genius.
Frankie wanted to buy Chiara an original DeVor painting once but was outbid at the auction.
If you ask me, she wasn’t trying hard enough. ”
Vi’s chest clenched as it always did when Frankie’s name came up in the context of not doing more for Chiara, so she was hasty in changing the subject.
“I’ve heard of DeVor. I think my stepmother worships at their altar.”
“Ha, of course she does. I mean, good on her for having great taste, but no one has ever accused Gwyneth Courtenay of not being trendy. There were pictures in the evening paper of her and your dad attending something or another at George V. She looked very chic.”
Gwyneth always looked chic, even as Vi’s father laid off another maid without paying her for the month she’d been hired for, claiming she, ‘had not met the expectations of the probation period.’ Vi mentally calculated how much was left in her bank account and fervently prayed she’d be able to score more dinners here at Lilien Haus, because she had to pay that poor woman something.
And her parents were already looking for a new patsy.
“In any case, it’s not important, kid. What is important is that this was the first year ever where Chiara didn’t have any ideas.
I didn’t get any midnight calls to discuss the cut and stitching, to argue halter over blouson and pegged line versus V-line.
” Aoife sighed, and Vi wanted to go and give her a hug.
After a few seconds of deliberation, she chose not to interrupt. She wanted to hear this out all the way through.
“So now, this particular collection? It gives off these wedding vibes that you homed in on that first night. She is holed up there all day and all night, and it doesn’t help that Frankie is never around—”
Aoife stopped mid-sentence, narrowed her eyes, and gave Vi a pointed glare.
“This conversation never happened, kid. I will just say that she has struggled with this concept and hence I’m struggling too, because I don’t understand it.”
Vi nodded, intent on showing Aoife that she could absolutely be trusted. Plus, she really didn’t want to hear about how Frankie, once again, was not there for her wife, leaving Chiara to do all the heavy lifting of conceptualizing and putting together a collection.
“In any case, perhaps it’s better this way.
At least this year, with the Lucci thing.
And now, have you heard? Word is D&B are being blackmailed too.
Except, unlike Lucci who stood their ground, D&B are actually willing to pay, so that they don’t have to cancel their latest line since they are headlining Paris and plan to do a showing at Cannes before then. ”
Well, this was news to Vi. She felt a chill run down her spine and unbidden, a piece of conversation at the dinner table came back to her. Her step-sisters boasting about access. Vi shivered. First Lucci and now D&B?
This wasn’t happening…
Aoife, oblivious to Vi’s internal dread, simply continued.
“So, us not having finalized anything before Paris and New York and London is a good thing this time around. But, as your skinny butt knows—I assume that’s why you’re bouncing around my workstations and counters—Frankie insisted on doing a soft opening of sorts, a pre-showing if you will, and managed to get the head of Hollywood’s number one movie studio, Gannon-McMillan’s very own Neve Blackthorne, to throw open her mansion’s doors to host a private but massive ball.
We will be showcasing the new collection—such as it’ll be by then—among canapés and good champagne. ”
Now, Neve Blackthorne Vi had heard of. Even if she wasn’t a movie buff, one knew about Neve Blackthorne.
One simply tended to. She was inescapable, ever-present.
Sort of eternal, despite only being in her late thirties.
She ran Hollywood with an iron fist and her name alone sold magazines and movies and goddamn ice cream at the North Pole, if she were to ever lower herself to promoting anything like that.
Even though her stomach was still in knots, Vi couldn’t contain her excitement and bounced even higher on her perch.
“Oh, god, you are such a baby gay! Stop that, the woman is married! Not to mention straight.”
“ The woman is going through a very ugly divorce, Aoife, keep up. And I honestly don’t care. She is scary as hell, and I doubt I’ll speak one word to her. But, I am just so freaking excited to even be there! To actually be contracted to photograph the ball. A dream, Aoife.”
Yes, it was an extremely limited showing in terms of pieces, and yes, Vi was part of a bigger team of photographers, but none of that mattered. Vi wasn’t just going to a ball. She was one step closer to making that dream of having a career in photography come true.
Vi squealed and then glanced down at the cooling mug in her hand.
She set it aside carefully, conscious she was always likely to spill it all over her white cargo pants or her equally white Converses.
And with her luck, she’d damage the camera too, and that was one thing she cherished most these days. The camera was her ticket to the ball.
Vi was still unsure how it had happened.
Her evenings with Chiara had become a fixture in her workdays and so had the photography lessons.
She listened to professional podcasts on the subject all the time, devoured every single issue of Poise magazine she could get her hands on, and poured over all the books Chiara’s library held.
And Chiara thought she was good. In fact, Chiara had such a high opinion of her skills, she had asked her to shoot the showing of the collection at the Blackthorne Ball at Lago di Como. Vi squealed again and hugged herself. She was going to Italy. In two weeks!