“‘You should have stuck to your ‘out for a duck’ rule, Roscoe,’” my mom said, and I could tell she was hurting too. But she was also angry. At Cammie, not me. I know this because she added, “‘Because that nasty piece of work would have been bowled out long ago.’”
“‘You’re getting your analogies wrong, darling,’ Dad said. ‘That’s cricket to which you’re referring, but your mom’s right, Roscoe. When you fall in love, you have to protect yourself before you throw your hat in the ring. Didn’t you hear warning bells at any stage during your courtship? You can’t possibly have been that blind!’ But I had been. I really had. Or maybe I’d just wanted to be. I don’t even know anymore.” He sighed.
“Mom stroked my arm and taught me a lesson that has been with me ever since. ‘Love is blind, Roscoe, but that’s no reason to be stupid. Next time, do your due diligence and your father’s right, you have to protect yourself from this ever happening again. The French have a saying: jamais deux sans trois, never twice without three times. And I’ve lost count of the number of times that spoiled brat hurt you.’
“Dad stood up and patted my arm. ‘Now, now, time for you to chalk this up to experience and come back home. You’ll know better as you get older.’”
* * *
After Roscoe shared his story with me, all I could think to say was that we should see which way the cookie crumbles because we were still getting to know one another. I would promise not to call it quits once the deal was finalized, but we needed to see how things would go until then. This seemed to bring him comfort, because he murmured, “The cookie’s not going to crumble, Tess, because this is going to work.”
He did say one more thing before he went to sleep. “I don’t need the three-strikes rule with you, Tess, because you’re not going to do anything to hurt me, are you?”
Great. While Roscoe went fast asleep, I was left staring at the ceiling alone with my worries. When sleep finally came, my dreams were filled with confused, stressful images of a young Roscoe Bridges smoking cigarettes and crying into his espresso coffee on the banks of the Seine River.
CHAPTER19
TESS
I kinda wish he hadn’t shared the story of his heartbreak with me. Before, I was able to look at Roscoe as a billionaire who was selfish and sour from too many choices and not enough people around to tell him no. Now I have to consider the fact that he has been carrying a wounded heart around with him all this time, and that he finds it easier to operate in his world like this.
He asks me to move upstairs into his room and keep the studio for work. I say no, making up some excuse about my art needing all my concentration right now. Strangely enough, he understands what I mean immediately. “I’m the same, Tess.” He grins at me. “I once spent the weekend at the family mountain retreat so I could meditate on crypto.”
Sometimes, Roscoe can be so endearing without even knowing it. I have to admit the place feels kind of empty when the elevator doors slide shut as he leaves for BB 27.
I might have mooched around the studio all day, except my phone rings and a number I don’t recognize is on the screen. “Hey, Tess…” Sarah. I know she apologized for her unintentional copying, but I’m still not sure how to feel about this. “…Can I come over? I would love to catch up, preferably some place where there is no pounding music!” I laugh. Sarah has the ability to bring a smile to my face which was why we became buddies in the first place. “Sure. The address is-” Sarah interrupts me. “Everyone knows where RB1 is, Tess. It’s won architectural awards.”
Half an hour later, the doorman calls me to ask permission to let Sarah into the building. I tell him yes, and go to the elevator to press in my floor code so the elevator can stop here. When the doors open, she’s there with a big smile on her face and mercifully sober. Sarah comes in for a hug. “Hey, girl. So good to see you again. This place is as wonderful as I knew it would be.”
I begin to see the problem of inviting Sarah to my studio immediately. Roscoe and I have been telling so many little lies about our relationship that I’ve already forgotten what I told Sarah at the nightclub. This could be a problem.
“So, I’m guessing your boyfriend is at work?” is one of the first things Sarah asks me. I’m completely thrown. Did we give her the sponsor-designer narrative? Or did we tell her we were lovers…friends? Fuck! I might have even told her about the fictional engagement! That’s the problem with going out for a night of clubbing swiftly followed by a long night of making love: I’ve completely forgotten which lie I told Sarah. I decide to shine her on.
“Which boyfriend, Sarah? Colin and I broke up - I found out he was cheating on me with his female boss.”
She looks at me funny and I cringe inwardly. That must have made me sound like a bit of a dick. “Roscoe Bridges? The guy you were with at the club, Tess? The man who owns this building? Hello?”
Too late for misdirection. “Oh, I was just kidding, Sarah! Yeah, he’s not here. He doesn't actually live on this floor. Only I live here.” I’m trying for some kind of damage control and I think I get lucky because she seems to lose interest in me.
“Please can you ask him when he comes back if he knows of anyone who’s interested in buying my label? I think I remember telling you that I want out of fashion design. It’s too insular for words - I don’t know how you can handle all that designing for other people’s approval. They don’t want trendsetters, they want sheeple.”
We chat about fashion predictors and trend forecasters, and how they operate outside of the approval of fashion editors. “Editors fuckinghateit that trend forecasters tell them what’s next in fashion because they want to be the ones to do it. I want to give up design and get into predicting trends,” Sarah tells me, sipping her coffee at the same time she wrinkles her nose, “because sure as hell I will never allow some old British bitch to tell me my designs stink when they don’t even know how to operate a sewing machine. Taste? My ass! Especially when all their revenue is coming from selling overpriced ad space in their stupid glossy magazines that no one buys anymore.”
This is a common designer complaint, and we chat about hideous fashion editors for a while. “So…” Sarah says when she finishes her coffee. “Let’s see what you are up to.”
I know our history isn’t the best regarding me showing her my designs, but she did apologize. And since she did say she’s selling her label, I guess I could. Yet, there is a nagging voice at the back of my mind telling me, “what if…”
As I consider what to do, she says, “It’s okay. You don’t trust me. I know you don’t believe me when I say I didn’t knowingly steal from you.” She smiles sadly at me. “It’s cool. I’ll just go. We’ll meet again some other time, okay?” She gets up and I stop her. “No, that’s not it.” And I know I’m partly lying, but I can’t see her like that. Looking defeated. I sigh. I don’t know if I should trust Sarah with a preview of my new line, but everyone deserves a second chance, so I say, “Come on.” She beams at me. “Really?”
I just hope I don’t regret this. “Yeah,” I say and take her through to the workroom to show her my sketches and fabrics, moving then to the main bedroom, where my mockups are pinned on the mannequins. Sarah is enthusiastic. “Fabulous, genius! Outstanding.” She’s the first person to see my new collection and I get a warm glow from her praise. “It’s for next year’s Spring/Summer,” I tell her. “Dad sourced some amazing new materials: silk, chiffon, cashmere, on his last buying trip, and I’m creating my collection around them.” I don’t tell her the cashmere is an idea I got from Roscoe’s underpants on the yacht.
She asks me a few questions about whether cashmere is a wise choice of fabric for a summer collection, but I defend my decision. “Show me a summer without wind and rain, Sarah, and I’ll show you a unicorn! Of course light cashmere cardigans and knits are going to sell in a Spring/Summer collection! I’m designing them so they can be used all year, indoors and outdoors. With so many offices going green, the big HVAC switch off is coming, and I don’t need a trend forecaster to tell me that folks will want to regulate their body temperatures with clothing instead of relying on an air conditioner blasting into their building round the clock!”
She disagrees, but only because Sarah has always been a fan of comfort and luxury. “You can pry my AC out of my lovely and cold dead hands, Tess!” We laugh and make arrangements to meet for lunch later sometime next week. I’m excited, because I don’t see so much of Charlie these days anymore. She works in Jersey and thinks I’m living over my studio under the aegis of a benign backer, and I have to maintain that story.
If someone asked me to point out the benefits of deceiving so many people, I would struggle to come up with a positive spin. At least with Sarah I have nothing to hide. She seems like the perfect bridge between my world of fashion and Roscoe’s world of wealth and privilege. I feel all warm and intellectually stimulated after she leaves and busy myself with sewing for the rest of the day.
The elevator pings. When I look at my phone, it tells me it’s past eight o’clock at night, but the sky is still light outside. Manhattan can be so brilliant when it's summer and it's not raining. Roscoe sticks his head into the studio. “Can I open the patio doors? It’s stifling in here.”