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Vi stuck out her lip again and sighed in mock exasperation.
“Fine. So why did you leave the catwalk?”
Chiara faltered slightly, but that was the only tell that she’d heard the question, because the silence stretched for so long, Vi thought she’d put her foot in it again. She was about to say something, to apologize, when Chiara spoke up.
“To quote this bratty intern of Aoife’s,family is hard, Ms. Courtenay.” The deft hands resumed, making quick work of folding and pinning the fabric across her back. Soon, Chiara turned her around to face the mirror where their eyes met again. The now familiar sadness was back, and Vi cursed herself for putting it there.
“We all do what we must. Am I right?”
What did Chiara know about her family? Vi’s eyes widened, burning hot with unshed tears. Chiara observed her in kind silence.
“Yes. We love them, and we want them to love us. Want ourselves to be good enough to be loved.” Something hollow darkened Chiara’s gaze before she took a step back from Vi and looked her up and down.
Her name fell off those sensual lips in an exhalation, like deliverance, and Vi suddenly wanted to cry. “Vi, when you are loved, you believe yourself eternal. Have you ever felt it?” Chiara’s faraway look told Vi that she wasn’t really seeking an answer. “And then I imagine it’s like being cast out of heaven. Or thrown down from Olympus. The titans had a lot to begrudge the Olympians, didn’t they?”
A mirthless laugh and a tilt of the head, and Chiara’s eyes turned empty on a dime. “I guess what I’m trying to say via this very circuitous route is that the people in our lives… they should love us already.”
Vi didn’t know how Chiara knew, but something in her opened up with a twin ache, one of empathy, of understanding, of recognition. They were talking about completely different situations that had nothing and yet everything in common, and Vi wished she could rest her head on the cool glass of the mirror and let her tears fall.
She had long ago resigned herself to not having love in her life, but for this woman, this beautiful soul, to know what having affection withheld felt like? It just seemed like such a tragedy, such a complete injustice.
A hand on her cheek made her flinch, and then they both stood absolutely still before the fingers trailed higher and came away with what Vi realized was a tear. She was crying, after all.
Vi shook her head again and dared not lift her eyes to Chiara’s. It didn’t matter, as the wet fingers tipped her chin up again in a characteristic gesture that was becoming more and more familiar. Vi’s skin was getting accustomed to the touch and to Chiara’s eyes on her, and it felt both amazing and like blasphemy to ever get used to any of it.
This time, however, the grip held a touch of ice to it and when she finally looked up, there was no warmth in Chiara’s gaze. The steel that Vi always knew was beneath the velvet was on full display. She gasped, but Chiara’s grip just tightened.
“If these are for me, I don’t want them, Ms. Courtenay. You can change back into your clothes. I will finish on the mannequin.”
“I’m sorry—” Regret rang loudly in her voice, and Vi almost reached out to grasp the hand that was already letting go of her.
“I will see you tomorrow. We can talk about your photography assignment. I have some ideas.” And with that, Chiara was gone, leaving Vi alone with her regret.
* * *
As Vi trudgedto work the next day and passed Zizou’s bistro, the cover of Le Figaro caught her attention. She picked it up and was reading the headlines screaming from the front page when his grumpy voice interrupted her.
“Catching up on current events? You know, despite the whole ‘dad got me a job at the important fashion house’ vibe, you don’t really look like anyone who’d give a damn about said events, or fashion, for that matter.” He waved his scrawny hand at her, and Vi’s temper shorted.
“What? You’re not even going to say ‘no offense?’”
Zizou did not look deterred in the least, but before he could answer, a voice from one of the tables on the sidewalk interrupted their squabble.
“If you think you can shame him into apologizing for being rude, you are mistaken, Ms. Courtenay. He’s Parisian. And he’s a man.”
Vi thought how unfair the assessment was to all Parisians, but to her surprise, Zizou blushed to the roots of his dark hair and looked discombobulated. Vi understood his predicament. She had only interacted with Renate Lilienfeld twice. When they met and when she’d briskly handed her the non-disclosure agreement along with her contract and a pen. They must have exchanged all of ten words in the couple of weeks that Vi had been at Lilien Haus.
The matron—as that was how Vi thought of her, mostly due to her age and to being Frankie’s older sister—was always ensconced in her glass office, ruling over the administrative side of running a fashion house. Vi was never dispatched to bring her lunch and generally steered clear of her. Not that she wasn’t curious about the woman.
“Take a seat, Ms. Courtenay. I see Aoife has not beaten the bad habit of staring out of you yet. And she’s had weeks to do it. Her famed powers of intimidation must be waning.”
An eyebrow rose in challenge, and Vi found herself smiling. They may be sisters, but Frankie and Renate were nothing alike. For one, Renate possessed a sense of humor. Dry as a slice of Pecorino Romano cheese, but a sense of humor, nonetheless.
Her insides quivering, Vi gathered all her wits about herself. She felt that she would need every last one of them.
“Aoife might wish she was intimidating, but she isn’t, and she doesn’t possess the dubiously effective method of beating her employees. Browbeat maybe?” Vi made a show of getting comfortable on the iron-wrought chair opposite Renate’s, despite her hands going numb.
“I’m glad to not be forced to deal with lawsuits from that direction down the line then. I’m not the one looking for more legal trouble, as it were, don’t you agree, Ms. Courtenay?”
