Constance
At some point, I lost track of friendship. Not just friends in general—though I’d left most of those in New York—but the benefit of it altogether. First, there was my awful breakup in a city where I knew no one. I told some people around me—but the details were just too freaking sad.
Once I got the job with Carly Wolf, it became my whole life because I wanted it to.
I had no social life. With all that free time, I quickly realized that I would happily fill all of my waking hours with my work as a stylist. I loved it.
Carly’s team was small and we were pretty tight.
I never spoke to any of them again. That’s what Carly had asked, but I wouldn’t have wanted to try to stay in touch, not after what I did.
For three months I barely left my apartment, avoiding contact with my roommates as much as possible. Depression is a lonely hunter.
Cut to Cannes and meeting Marnie. She was the kind of person you wanted to hook yourself on to, like a wagon on a locomotive, because it was clear she was going to lead the way and take us places.
I’m not going to blame her for steering my life so sharply down a ravine.
She didn’t mean to. More importantly, I didn’t do anything to stop her.
The bar she found for us was all mahogany and antique chandeliers.
The vibes were cozy, the lighting moody.
It wasn’t the Cannes any of us imagined, but I think that was the point.
Marnie knew what she was doing. She’d picked somewhere chic, the kind of place where three girlfriends meet after work to plot world domination over elegantly named cocktails.
“What’s wrong?” Lou asked as we sat down and perused the leather-bound menus.
I couldn’t stop staring at her. She was making a youthful outfit look like an avant-garde ensemble Anna Wintour might give one of her infamous chin nods to.
She had so much presence, such a great way to hold herself, head royally high, skin aglow.
And she knew exactly how to play the game.
The designer had texted me a thumbs-up minutes after her post had gone live.
She’d thought of tagging them without my needing to ask and gushed about the fabulous outfit.
She was a movie star. Well, a movie star in the making, but it was good enough for me. I saw it now, the dream client she could be. And she worked with Dorian—she had direct access to him. And she wasn’t sleeping with him. Lou was all mine now. I needed her.
“Everything is perfect,” I said.
“Really perfect,” Marnie agreed.
“Totally.”
Lou only looked up briefly before scanning the menu again.
Marnie insisted we order finger food to share.
“We need to think, to strategize. There isn’t much time left.”
Why she’d wanted to associate with me after finding me midbreakdown in the fire escape outside Dorian’s suite, I couldn’t guess. And I didn’t want to.
Marnie’s timing had been just right. After many excruciating hours waiting for a sign from Dorian, I’d finally decided I had to go see him.
It was a miracle I made it to the floor of his suite unnoticed, but I had a festival pass, and the staff had seen me around.
Still, I couldn’t just turn up to his suite and knock-knock my way back into his bed.
Though that’s exactly what I wanted. I stood there for a few minutes, ear pressed against the door to check if someone was coming to let me in.
But no one did. The crushing disappointment made me dizzy as the tears threatened to come up.
I’d gone through the emergency exit, terrified that someone in Dorian’s entourage would see me like this, a broken little bird.
“You’re really Dorian Fisher’s stylist?” Lou asked now, eyes sparkling.
She’d placed her clutch on the table against the wall, and kept sneaking glances at it.
“I think this place is probably safe,” I said, a desperate attempt to change the subject.
She looked startled and put a protective hand on her clutch. Actors and their weird habits.
Marnie jumped in. “And we’re safe, between the three of us. I’m so tired of all the fakeness, the liars, and the cheaters. Aren’t you?”
Lou nodded, so I nodded as well.
How foreign it felt now to be at a bar with friends, and how easy it was to forget that I didn’t know these two girls.
I genuinely considered telling them everything there and then.
Because I never got the chance to share my side of it.
Carly wouldn’t listen. All she saw was that her employee had been sexually harassing one of her highest profile clients and the damage it could do to her reputation.
“Constance worked for Carly Wolf for years,” Marnie explained, picking the conversation thread right back up, while my mind was wandering. “But then you decided to go out on your own,” she added, addressing me encouragingly.
“For Dorian Fisher?” Lou asked, standing straighter.
Not only had she worked on Dorian’s latest hit movie, she’d attended the premiere with him. I had to be careful what I said.
“I worked with Tyler Charles first. But then, when the opportunity came, it made sense to dedicate myself to Dorian.”
No lies. That was the rule.
“So Dorian Fisher left that big-deal stylist for you? Wow.”
That was a good point. Did Carly Wolf know about those sessions with the Tom Ford stylist?
Wouldn’t Dorian have to tell her? People talked.
Carly would find out. And what would she think of him working with me after everything that happened?
It didn’t quite add up, but it wasn’t like I could ask either of them.
Lou checked her phone before turning it over to me. “You’re very good.”
Her notifications were filled with glowing comments about the outfit. Marnie beamed.
These two accomplished women were looking at me. Waiting for me to speak. It made me feel things I’d never felt before.
“I wasn’t reaching my true potential with Carly Wolf.”
I had never thought about it that way until the words came out.
I’d been devastated to lose my job. I’d cried over it nonstop for weeks.
But now, I wondered. While I was with Carly, the hope burned inside me that, one day, I’d have my own clients and my own designer relationships.
I wanted to build something with my own vision.
Less polished, more daring. And wasn’t that what I was doing right now?
Or trying to anyway? What I’d said to Tyler on the first day was the truth: major designers were all good and great, but my true purpose was to redefine style, to explore with fresh new talent, to push the boundaries of what it means to be dressed well.
And now, I was making it happen. Sort of.
Marnie eyed me sideways. “It looks like you did exactly the right thing at the right time.”
So this was how it was going to be. We would skim right past my tears on the fire escape outside Dorian’s suite. Marnie had seen me. She knew things weren’t as rosy as I made them out to be. But this was about Lou. Lou was the star we needed to impress. That was the logic.
We’d finished our first round of drinks, and Marnie glanced at both of us briefly before making the “another round” gesture to the server.
I must have looked worried, which Marnie immediately caught on to.
“This is going on the company card.”
“Your boss must be very cool,” I said.
“She’s the best; I’m so lucky.”
Over our next round, Marnie skillfully led the conversation to our pasts—Lou’s acting background, some of my favorite outfits of the last few years—and my mind floated away from Dorian for longer than it had in days.
Before Lou brought us right back to it. “So what’s it really like, working with Dorian Fisher?”
“You’ve worked with him too,” I said, deflecting.
“Obviously,” Lou said with a laugh. “But I want to hear your side of it. I mean, I’ve never seen him naked.”
I jerked back and sensed Marnie’s surprise without even looking at her.
Lou put her glass down and clasped her hand against her mouth.
“Oh gosh, I’m so sorry! I’m not a big drinker. That was a joke. Because you know, you dress him so maybe you’ve seen him… Shit. Never mind.”
I cleared my throat. “I do see people in their underwear all the time, when they’re wearing any.
But, to answer your question, I’ve been around enough big celebrities to understand how they think.
They’re used to people being at their beck and call, to agree with them, no matter what they say.
And I think sometimes they’re bored of it.
So it’s a careful balance of being on their side while nudging them in the direction that you know is right for them.
They’re so accomplished in what they do, and you have to show them that you are, too.
Otherwise, they’ll never see you as a viable work partner. ”
I thought about the many times I’d witnessed a heated exchange between Carly Wolf and a client, how she’d stand her ground even with some of the biggest names.
You’re only as good as your last best-dressed slideshow, she would say.
Her confidence was her greatest asset. The exact thing she’d completely stripped me of by firing me.
“You really know what you’re doing,” Marnie said.
But right there, munching on fries and garlic-stuffed olives, two cocktails deep, it wasn’t about work or what we’d accomplished.
It was about us. Fresh bonds created. On shaky grounds, maybe, but we didn’t realize then how much we were lying to each other.
For that one evening, it wasn’t about men, or Cannes.
It was just us girls.
That night, I heard myself laughing for the first time in a long while.
I was myself again.
So, like I said, I’ll always feel grateful to Marnie. She made my life a whole lot better.
Until she ruined it for good.