Constance
I was in Cannes for work. I was here because, in the lead-up to the festival, I had nabbed not one but two clients. Not too shabby for someone who thought she’d never work again after Carly Wolf practically ran me out of Tinseltown.
I had to keep telling myself that. And to do what I was meant to do.
Because this job never ceased to surprise me, I now had a new best friend in Cannes, a sixty-something French woman with skin so tanned it had the consistency of rubber.
A lifetime of sun damage on display, like war medals.
She wore emerald green eyeliner and vintage Pucci caftans, no bra.
We were in the birthplace of “less is more,” which gave Marielle’s devotion to peacock dressing a certain gusto.
I liked her instantly. I’d met her online after finding her store on Instagram.
Her boutique was just as eclectic and colorfully loud.
She sold flashy costume jewelry, cushions with embroidered slogans, vintage tableware, and swimsuits. Randomly fabulous.
“You are so petite!” Marielle said in her thick accent, as I walked through the door.
The space smelled like lavender, layered with her rich fragrance. Guerlain, I guessed when she leaned in to kiss me on both cheeks, the French way. She wore so many bangles on each arm I could barely hear my darkest thoughts over the sound of them.
According to Laila, Dorian posted on his account multiple times a day, but there hadn’t been a peep from him since he’d accepted my request to follow him. That couldn’t be a coincidence. No way. But what did it mean? What did it mean? I was spinning again. I had to stop.
“Tiny but mighty.” I forced the joke out, but even as I pretended to laugh, Marielle looked at me, puzzled. In our direct messages I’d used Google Translate liberally, but everything was always harder in real life.
“Your things,” she said, pointing to the back of the boutique. “Many, many of them.”
Marielle led me there, speaking a mix of French and what she probably thought was English, arms gesturing wildly, her bracelets in concert. In the closet-sized stockroom at the back, there were, indeed, a pile of packages with my name and the boutique’s address on them. My plan had worked.
You don’t need to tell a Hollywood stylist that appearances are everything.
After Tyler had agreed to hire me, going to Cannes had become an obsession.
I needed to make a splash, to show Carly Wolf and anyone else watching that I wasn’t as messed up as they made me out to be.
I couldn’t let them find out I was staying at a sad chain hotel with bad lighting and lime-green carpeting.
Which meant I needed a different address, where fashion labels could mail me clothes and accessories throughout the festival.
Online, I’d stumbled upon Villa Beach, a design boutique hotel that was so chic it had been featured in Vogue Living.
There was a quirky little shop attached to it, Les Merveilles de Marielle.
Since you miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take, I had presented Marielle with a business proposal.
My newest client, Julie Lillie, had a large following on social media.
I’d bring her to the boutique for fittings, ensuring she’d post and tag away, getting it tons of publicity.
In exchange, I’d use the place as my delivery address in Cannes.
As soon as Marielle said “pourquoi pas,” I connected with a number of emerging European labels I’d had my eye on.
Now I had an hour to unpack their shipments before Julie arrived.
“Julie Lillie is huge on TikTok,” I reiterated to Marielle as I started ripping open the first box. “She was on The Bachelor a few seasons ago.”
Marielle raised a questioning eyebrow.
“The Bachelor?” I insisted. “It’s a reality TV show.”
Marielle pursed her thin lips. “TV? Why she in Cannes then? We only care about the movies here.”
The woman had a point. I would have loved to tell her that dressing a wannabe reality star wasn’t my idea of Cannes either, but desperate times had called for foolish choices.
“To be seen,” I answered.
At the end of the day, that’s what it was all about. That’s all any of us ever wanted. The desire—the need—to be seen could justify so many things. Ask me how I know.
I worked through each package, pulling out dresses, suits, shoes, bags, jewelry.
I made a record of every piece on the spreadsheet I kept accessible on my phone.
I ran my fingers over silky fabrics, inhaled the scent of leather, of newness.
I admired metallics and intricate prints.
My heartbeat slowed down, my fears melted away, however briefly.
I didn’t even think about Dorian then. I didn’t wonder where he was, what he thought.
If he knew I was in Cannes. If he guessed—
The door chime resonated.
“She’s here!” Marielle called out enthusiastically. She came to find me in the dressing room, putting outfits on hangers. “Pretty girl. With her phone…” Marielle mimicked taking pictures with her hands, looking mighty pleased.
Once a Bachelor hopeful, Julie Lillie (not her real name) had reinvented herself on social media, where she was known for ranking everything in her life on-screen, along with quippy commentary.
Moments of her day, kisses from her boyfriend, outfits her best friend wore, wildest story she heard that week—you get the picture.
She was brash but funny, politically incorrect but earnest. Or at least that’s how she’d seemed to me.
I had reached out to her a few weeks ago, when she’d mentioned an exciting project that would take her to the South of France this spring.
I’d guessed correctly that she meant Cannes.
A French soft drink brand was flying her over for a couple of parties.
I would love to dress her for those, I’d said.
I’d thrown in Carly Wolf’s name—calling her “my mentor”—and explained that I’d already be in Cannes for Tyler Charles, and we were on.
Now Julie was sighing loudly from behind the curtain and my heart sank. Again.
“I don’t know, Connie. This is not what we discussed.”
She came out wearing a metallic purple halter dress that grazed her ankles. The fit was slightly off, but that was a problem with a solution. Julie clenched her fists on her waist and puffed out her cheeks as she studied herself in the mirror.
“No.” That’s all she said. A complete sentence.
“Hold on a second.” I busied myself with pins, showing her how it could look. Julie had disliked every one of the six outfits she’d tried on so far. Outfits she claimed she liked when I showed her pictures last night, when we met after Laila sent me away.
“I look like Ariel from The Little Mermaid.”
“It’s—”
I didn’t even know what I was about to say, but Julie cut in.
“Don’t you know my style? I look better in black.”
“You look great in black,” I hastened to agree, though I didn’t.
I’d been interested in Julie because I could see the potential. It was obvious she liked clothes, but so many of her looks were dated, and the colors weren’t always the most suited to her skin tone. I felt like she came with a challenge, one I could rise to.
Now, I wasn’t so sure.
“But this is Cannes,” I continued. “I’m going for classy with a twist. We want people to say, ‘Is that really Julie Lillie?’”
“In this outfit, I’d want them to not recognize me at all. It’s psychotic.”
She started taking off the dress as she went back to the dressing room. Conversation over.
“What about the white jumpsuit?”
I tried to sound chipper, but my stamina was taking a beating.
The woman was a lot less funny in person. I remembered what Carly used to say: the stingier the client, the more they cost you. I flicked through the clothes and pulled out a black minidress. It was satin with spaghetti straps. Too nineties for my taste but worth a shot.
I slid it through the gap of the curtain. “Try this!”
Julie exhaled loudly, like I was asking her to solve world peace on her lunch break.
“So simple yet effective,” I said, ignoring the blasé look on her face when she came out in it. “I wish I’d suggested this one first.”
I rummaged through my stash of jewelry, and clasped a bracelet on Julie’s wrist and a pearl choker around her neck from a Danish designer. It was coming together.
Marielle came to the back then, holding a shopping bag with her store’s name on it. She gave it to Julie with a big smile.
“For you, my dear,” she said, with exaggerated reverence.
Julie grabbed the handles with the tip of her fingers, like the bag had been dipped in mud. “Thanks.”
I could tell that Marielle expected her to open it, to show gratitude for the gift, but Julie put it down with a glum expression. Influencers got given so much free stuff that most of it was junk to them now.
Marielle stood there awkwardly. “Pretty,” she said, meaning Julie’s dress.
Julie shook her head. Marielle walked away, eyes wide open with judgment.
“So you have nothing for me,” Julie said.
The nerve she had. I’d seen them before, those microstarlets acting like entitled brats.
I’d watched Carly handle them in the moment and then refuse to dress them again.
A luxury I couldn’t afford. But I had shown Julie option after option.
She had seen the rack of clothes. And before then, the inspiration mood boards, links to past best-dressed lists, ideas for outfits I was trying to emulate. The bitch had bled me dry.
At least she was distracting me from Dorian. Why accept my request to follow him if he didn’t want me to see anything? My mind spun and spun and spun. I felt dizzy.
I forced myself to breathe as Julie went to take off the dress. When she emerged it was in the outfit she’d come in, baggy jeans and a tube top, a sign that we were done here. Part of me was relieved. The other part knew how badly I needed this.
“I’m here for you, Julie,” I said, my voice coated in honey. “For as long as you need. I want you to feel amazing.”
She grunted. “Didn’t you use to work for Carly Wolf?” She fluffed up her hair. “I should be in Chanel.”
As if Chanel would even lend a safety pin to someone like her.
“Chanel is not the vision I have for you. And yes, Carly taught me so much. But I decided to go out on my own.”
Julie waved at the clothes she’d left in a pile on the floor. “For this? In this place with the French granny?”
I looked down, just for a second.
“Oh my god!” Julie clasped her mouth over her hand. “Carly Wolf fired you! That’s why you ‘went out on your own.’ What did you do?”
She was excited now, loving the drama.
“Can we not—”
“Seriously, what happened?”
“I’m good at this.”
My voice was broken, in that moment I couldn’t even convince myself. But I’d do whatever it took to keep Julie here.
“I had a thing with…” I started.
Julie raised an intrigued eyebrow. “A thing?”
“With a client.”
She sat on the tiny stool inside the change room, mouth wide open.
“Was he married?”
I shook my head. “No, it wasn’t like that.”
What was it like? I didn’t even know.
“Is he in Cannes? Is that why you’re here?”
I looked down again. Was I so hideously transparent?
I had told myself that Cannes would be my redemption, how I would show to the world that I was an independent woman, a self-starter, a business owner.
I had my whole career ahead of me. So what if I’d demonstrated extremely poor judgment when a charismatic older man made me feel like I was worth a million bucks?
I knew better now. At least I was delusional enough to believe that I did.
I picked myself up. “No, he’s not here. But Carly Wolf was not happy about the whole…situation.”
“Was she threatened by you?”
Julie glanced at the clothes next to her with renewed interest. I could tell that I had her. She would be leaving Marielle’s boutique with a fabulous outfit styled by Constance Griffin for Cannes. God damn it.
I pretended to ponder this for a moment.
“You know, I think she might have been. Maybe Carly realized that her twenty-something assistant could have the amazing career and the incredible man, and she did not like that. You didn’t hear this from me, but she’s been single forever.”
Julie nodded. “Older women can be so insecure. But like, yeah, of course we’re here to steal the spotlight from them. That’s how it works. Move over, ladies. You’ve had your time.”
“Exactly,” I agreed. “If you have a few more minutes, I’d love to show you something only you can pull off. You will look stunning in this.”
Like I said, my job had turned me into a pathological liar. One so skilled even I had started to buy my own bullshit.