Chapter 1
One
FOUR YEARS LATER
“Mom, my answer is not going to change.” I take another lap around my living room to vent some of my frustration. “I’m not moving back to Canada.”
“Minnie, there is no reason to rush your decision.”
“We’ve talked about this. I’m not rushing my decision. The plan from the day I moved across the pond was for me to stay here and find a job when I finished my degree. You know that.”
I hear my dad’s voice in the background grumbling in Korean. Mom shushes him.
“But there are plenty of jobs in the fashion industry closer to home. What about New York or Los Angeles? I know you didn’t have the best experience in America, but . . .”
“No.” My tone is flat. There is no room for negotiation. “Nanaimo hasn’t been home since I was fourteen. It’s where you and Dad live, but it’s not a place I ever connected with.”
“But . . .” Mom sputters.
“Please, let me finish.” I’m fighting to maintain my composure.
She inhales sharply.
“LA is a nonstarter. As for New York, I’m sure you’re right.
There probably are a million opportunities, but it’s not where my heart is.
” I swallow hard. “You and Dad have never had a problem with me living abroad to pursue my dreams. You encouraged it. What’s changed?
Why are you two so against me staying here all of the sudden? ”
“Hand me the phone, Aurelie,” Dad says.
“She gets her stubbornness from your side of the family,” Mom mumbles.
“Minnie?”
“Hi, Dad. I assume the phone was on speaker and you heard everything I said to Mom?”
“Yes, I did,” he admits.
I shake my head. They’re so predictable. I lean against the couch. “So tell me . . . what’s the big deal?”
“We thought by now, you’d grow out of this fashion nonsense.
” I wince. Okay, I knew Dad didn’t agree with my decision to pursue fashion design, but he’s always kept his opinions to himself.
Hearing him say it out loud hurts. “There is no job stability. But if you were to consider going into the business side of the fashion industry, that’s something I would be able to get behind. When I was your age . . .”
Ding. Ding. Ding. There it is. Dad’s about to start in on how it would be best for my future if I applied to MBA programs. I understand where he’s coming from.
My parents are first-generation immigrants.
Mom from France and Dad from Korea. They came to Canada with hardly anything and worked hard to build and open a successful bed-and-breakfast business.
He doesn’t want me to have to struggle the same way they did.
But what they don’t understand is that I’ve thought about this long and hard.
I inherited that strong drive to succeed and be the best I can be.
One of the biggest pros about staying here is that the London School of Fashion guarantees its graduates will find a fashion-related job within six months.
If we don’t, the school will temporarily employ you and have an advisor from the career department work one-on-one with you until you find something.
There couldn’t be a better safety net. Not to mention, I already have a part-time job that pays my bills.
It’s not great, but at least it’s something.
“Dad. I hear what you’re saying, and I agree. On paper, an MBA would be the next logical step for me to take—that is if I were interested in becoming an executive in a company. But I’m not. I went to school to learn how to design. That means working in the trenches and getting my hands dirty.”
“Minnie, please. Your mother and I will pay for your studies if you do the MBA, just like we did for your brother’s advanced schooling.”
I frown. Mom and Dad have been working on paying back the loans from Cam’s medical school days for more than a decade and they still have a long way to go. I refuse to saddle them with more debt. Especially when I don’t need a fancy piece of paper.
“A bribe isn’t going to work on me.” I huff.
“I’ve found a way to make it this far, and I’m going to continue on the path I’m on.
It may not always be straightforward, but the experience I’ve gained along the way is more valuable than any piece of paper or things so-called business experts would tell me. ”
“Fine. If you refuse to see reason, there isn’t any point in me talking to you about it.” Dad speaks to Mom in the background and mentions something about prepping for the guests to check in this afternoon.
He can’t stand it when he knows he isn’t going to get his way.
He’s proud. Stubborn too. I probably did inherit that trait from him.
I rub my temples. My older brother always did everything my parents asked of him.
Raising him was probably a breeze for them.
He could never do anything wrong. Then I came along and tested sanity.
I never did anything by the book. I was a dancer, not a standout academic like Cam.
“Minnie?” Mom returns to the phone.
“Still here.”
“Excuse your father, he means well.”
“I know,” I breath out. “You both do.”
“You’re so much more independent than we give you credit for. Sometimes we forget that. If it is your dream to stay in London, we’ll support you, even if it’s an ocean away from us.”
“Nice try with the guilt-tripping, Mom, but it isn’t going to work.” Picking up the phone, I take it off speaker and flop onto the couch. “You and Dad moved an ocean away from your own families to follow your dreams.”
“It was worth a shot.”
“You know, you can visit or call me anytime.”
“I know.”
Mom asks me a few more questions about what I’ve been doing since they were here in December for my graduation.
My eyes travel over to the photo hanging next to the TV.
I’m wearing a black cap and gown, sandwiched between them.
The three of us are beaming with joy. It was the happiest I’ve been in a long time.
They were so proud of me. I’m determined to make them proud of me again.
“I have a little more work to do on my portfolio to make it just right, then I’ll start applying for internships.”
“Good. Good. What about your friend Liz? How is she doing?”
Liz is my former roommate and one of my closest friends. We both attended LSOF together.
“She’s doing well. She just moved into her new place and started working on Savile Row, believe it or not.”
“That’s wonderful. Please give her a hearty congratulations from me and be sure to tell her I said hello to her parents.”
“I will,” I promise, relaxing against the back of the couch. “She’s coming over soon. We’re going out to the V and A museum.”
“Well, then, I won’t keep you. I just have one more question.”
“Sure. What is it?”
“I was wondering when you’re going to start dating again. You’re not getting any younger, you know. Your brother was already engaged by the time he was twenty-six.”
I groan. I should’ve known I wouldn’t be able to get off the phone without her saying something about my lack of a love life.
“Not yet.” I grit my teeth. “Once I get a job or an internship, I’ll look into it.” Or not, I silently add. I don’t have any designs on dating or falling in love. My plan is to start my career distraction free.
“Well, if there is one benefit to you being in London, it’s that such a large international city will be crawling with nice young men. I’ve done some research, and there are some wonderful apps that have high success rates of matching people like . . .”
I hold the phone away from my ear and tap my knuckles against the coffee table. “Hold on a moment.” I repeat the tapping. “Sorry, but I have to go. It sounds like Liz is here. And we have timed tickets to the Chanel exhibit we reserved a couple weeks ago. We don’t want to miss out,” I say quickly.
“Oh no. We can’t have that.”
“No, we can’t. So I’ll call you next Sunday at our normal time. Love you.”
“Love you too, Minnie.”
We say our goodbyes and hang up.
“That was close,” I mutter, standing up to stretch my tight limbs.
“It was, but you were brilliant in stalling her.”
I gasp, and my hand flies to my chest. Behind me, Liz is sitting at the kitchen island, munching on a granola bar. She appraises me with interest.
“How long have you been here?”
“Long enough to hear your mum tell me she said hi and for her to ask about your non-existent love life.”
“And you didn’t think to wave to me when you entered the flat so I wouldn’t have a heart attack?” My eyelids flutter.
“I did wave to you, but you were too engrossed in picking your invisible split ends to notice.” Liz shrugs. “That’s not my fault. I was hungry. I figured you’d be a while, so it made the most sense if I helped myself to a snack while you finished up.”
That’s Liz for you. She’s always thinking about her next meal hours before it’s time to eat.
Food is always her number-one priority. It’s made our friendship interesting.
If it were up to me, I’d stick to making the same old rice and noodle dishes.
But with Liz around, I’m pushed outside my comfort zone to try new things at different places she discovers on food blogs.
“If you ask me, she does have a point. It wouldn’t hurt to put yourself out there.”
“Not you too. If I agree to consider going out on a date sometime in the distant future, will that get you off my back?”
“That depends.”
“On?”
“How distant is distant? A week? A month? A year?”
“For now, we’ll say within the next six months.”
“Brilliant, I’ll add a calendar reminder now.”
“You would.”
Liz stands, tosses her wrapper into the rubbish bin, and glances at her watch. “How much time do you need to get ready? Our tickets are for two twenty. We should probably leave here in the next ten or fifteen minutes.”
I was fibbing earlier to Mom when I said we needed to get going to get her off the phone. I wasn’t on with them that long, was I? I frown. “What time is it now?”
“Two.”