Chapter 15 #2
“Tell me why you did that livestream at Bossi.”
Her jaw dropped. “ You watched my livestream?”
I nodded.
“Was that the first time you had seen one of my videos? What an intro.”
I shrugged in a way I hoped was chill. “I’ve seen a few.”
Hundred.
“You … watch my content?”
“Sometimes.”
Her eyes fell back to her plate-cone. “If you watched the livestream, then you know what happened.”
“I know that you were angry. And I heard what that”— motherfucker —“shiny guy said. But I don’t feel like that’s the whole story. Is it?”
She was quiet. Then she sighed. “I don’t know where to start.”
I put my empty plate on the coffee table and pulled the recliner lever so I could stretch my legs out. “Start at the beginning. You called the first video, ‘Get Ready With Me To Confront My Boss!’”
She heaved a sigh. “Yeah. But it all started the month before that, when I lost my internship. They said there was an issue with the authenticity of my work. Which is?—?”
“Bullshit,” I nodded. “Because your outfits are original. Scary original.”
“Exactly! Yes. But no one at Bossi would listen, and my position was eliminated. I was heartbroken. I couldn’t tell Caroline; I couldn’t tell anyone.
It was humiliating.” Her chin dropped. “To lack originality in fashion is worse than slapping someone across the face. It threw me into a spiral. I questioned my career, my talent, everything about myself.” Then she took a deep breath.
“And there was a complication. I was in a sexual relationship with the head of my department. Totally consensual,” she added quickly.
I didn’t say a fucking word .
But I was thinking lots of them.
“Paul’s the Director of Style at Bossi. It’s a prestigious role. He’s been at the magazine since it was a print publication in the 90’s and stayed throughout the digital transition. He’s one of the few left from those old days. He’s a legend.”
“Never heard of him.”
A small smile twisted the corner of Lyssa’s mouth.
“No. I’m sure you haven’t. Every year, Bossi takes on two interns who report to one of the senior stylists, but Paul takes an interest in interns who have potential.
If you catch Paul’s eye, you’re someone to watch.
It’s like getting a gold star from Anna Wintour.
Paul and I began spending a lot of time together. I liked him. He’s brilliant?—”
A growl bubbled in my throat, but she didn’t hear it.
“—and he knows everything about fashion. His body of work would make you drool. Well, maybe not you, but it made me drool.” Her expression clouded.
“Our sexual relationship just… happened. We kept it quiet, because we didn’t want anyone to think he was giving me preferential treatment because I was giving him sex. ”
She wrapped her arms around her knees, unaware of how much she’d revealed by wording it that way. As if sex was an output she generated, like knitting a hat.
But I didn’t say anything, because for once in my life, I needed to choose the right words instead of just blurting out a bunch of them and hoping some would be the right ones. I had to think first. Talk after.
“He did take an interest in me because of my talent,” she insisted, even though I hadn’t said a fucking thing. “Our relationship was an extra thing on top of our professional relationship. Completely above board.”
He was responsible for the trajectory of her career, had a lot of influence in a competitive industry, and was way older than the intern. But sure.
I managed a nod.
“One day, out of the blue, HR called me in and started saying all this stuff about the authenticity of my work and told me my internship would be concluding early. I argued. Paul contacted HR and appealed it too, but it was no use. I had to leave. After that, things with Paul and I were harder to make work. His job is very busy, and I wasn’t just down the hall anymore. Things mostly fizzled out.”
“Mostly?”
She shifted uncomfortably. “There was one time I went back into the office to see him and we were… um. Intimate. On his desk.”
Whatever she saw on my face had her quickly launching back into her story. “The following week, I noticed some looks on the Bossi site that I’d styled—all by myself, completely original looks—but Paul was credited as the stylist.”
That was what she’d said in her “Get Ready with Me” video—that someone had been claiming credit for her work and she wasn’t going to let them get away with it.
She promised her next video would be a livestream where she confronted the industry guy who had stolen her work.
She told her viewers she had to put on her “best beat” to do this.
I knew from listening to my sister, that beat meant makeup.
Watching the video, I expected her to drag khaki across her cheeks like a soldier, but instead she pulled out several tubes of red lipstick and got people to vote on which one was best for a confrontation.
After coating her lips with the chosen red, she kissed the camera in her usual sign-off.
It was a cute video. Lyssa was always cute—messy as hell, but cute.
“Then you went and confronted Paul,” I prompted. “On the livestream.”
She sighed. “Yes. As you know…? it didn’t go well.”
The second video, the livestream, started with her talking her way past the front desk and jabbing buttons in the lift at Bossi.
When the steel halves slid apart, she stormed past open-mouthed fashionistas, a woman on a mission.
I really thought she was going to get the retribution she’d dressed for.
I hadn’t watched the stream when she published it, I’d watched it after our Holli-ford family call, but I could see from the comments left by people who had watched it live, they thought the same thing.
They were typing things like go off vengeance queen , and petty icon.
Lyssa stormed up to a large office with massive pull-down blinds that I don’t know how anyone reached without a hook on a stick. Either Paul had really long arms, like a sloth, or the blinds were electric.
In the livestream, Lyssa didn’t slow down when she got to his assistant’s desk, nor did she spare a glance for the people on the sofa waiting for meetings.
She shoved through Paul’s door, leaving it open behind her so the whole office could hear every word just as clearly as those watching the livestream.
“ Et tu Brute ?” She had demanded.
A tall, white, All-American motherfucker rose to his feet behind his desk, buttoning his shiny suit jacket. “Good afternoon, Ms. Luxe. Did we have an appointment?”
“You know we didn’t, Paul.”
His thin lips stretched in an expression that I think was supposed to look sympathetic but made me want to punch him in the mouth.
“Mmm. It’s Bossi policy for all former employees to have their security access revoked upon termination.
” Like this was a casual meeting, he strode to the front of his desk and leaned against it.
He didn’t even look at the phone in her hand, recording him.
“We appreciate your contributions to the Bossi family, Lyssa, but originality and integrity are core Bossi values, and we stand by our decision to conclude your internship.”
You couldn’t see Lyssa’s face because she had the camera pointed at him, but you could hear her hotly accuse him of stealing her work and getting her fired.
Paul deflected her accusations calmly. He reminded her she was young and new to fast-paced professional environments.
He suggested she had been overwhelmed when she landed the Bossi internship and found herself surrounded by more experienced stylists.
He eventually concluded that industry pressure and her own imposter syndrome had led her to borrow too heavily from others, and not understand that her outputs were being directed by more senior stylists.
He came across as measured. Reasonable. Even compassionate.
And a total fucking dick.
In response to Paul’s claim that Lyssa lacked the emotional maturity to work in a high-pressure environment like Bossi, she inadvertently confirmed what he was saying.
She launched into a blistering verbal tirade almost too fast to follow, pulling framed images off his wall and smashing them.
She called him a motherfucker a lot—that was clearly audible—but I also heard villainous cad and pigeon-livered lackwit .
Then, my favorite of all her old-timey insults: bull’s pizzle.
When the security guard arrived, Paul stayed them with a raised hand.
He offered to extend Lyssa’s access to workplace counseling beyond her employment period to support her mental health during a period of acute crisis.
(This statement really activated her comment section in his favor.)
In response, Lyssa told him to choke on his own dick.
Then she pointed out an inconsistency in one of her looks that he claimed to have styled himself.
After that, Paul’s expression didn’t change, but his tactics did.
He told the crowd assembled at his office door—his assistant, some frightened looking models, the security guard, and everyone watching the livestream—that Lyssa had a crush on him, she was obsessed with him, she had thrown herself at him, and, finally, the haymaker: that she had tried to get him to leave his wife for her.
That’s when all the fight went out of her.