First Sight (2 page)

Timmie was one of the few holdouts who refused to move her base of U.S. operations to New York. She preferred living in Los Angeles, and the life she enjoyed there, dividing her time between her beach house in the Colony in Malibu, and her city house in Bel Air. She had no desire whatsoever to live in a penthouse in New York, freezing in winter, and commuting to the Hamptons in the summer. She liked her life just fine the way it was, and insisted it worked for her. It was hard to argue with success. She hopped on a plane whenever necessary, at the drop of a hat, to go to Paris or New York, or Asia in some cases. David had tried to talk her into buying her own jet, and she insisted that she didn’t need one, she was perfectly happy flying on commercial airlines, as she just had to Paris from Milan, and from London before that.

Considering how successful she was, Timmie was surprisingly unspoiled. She never forgot her simple origins, the luck that had started her on her career, or the coffee shop where she’d worked as a waitress, when she worked on her first designs at night, and bought inexpensive and unusual fabrics with her tips. She had been making clothes for seven years, before her first big break at twenty-five, when a buyer from Barney’s noticed some of the clothes Timmie had sold to her co-workers, which were kicky, fun, stylish, and exquisitely made. She bought half a dozen of Timmie’s best designs and took them back to the old Barney’s store on West 17th Street, long before they moved uptown, and they were an instant hit. Her next order was for twenty-five pieces, then fifty. When the buyer ordered a hundred pieces the following year, Timmie quit the coffee shop, rented a crumbling warehouse in the L.A. fashion district, and hired a dozen girls from an unwed mothers’ home to help sew. She had paid them a decent wage, which had been a blessing for them as well as for her. After that, she was on her way. By thirty, she was a nationally known success, and in the eighteen years since, she had skyrocketed into the stratosphere. But she never forgot how and where it all began, or how lucky she had been to be singled out, and blessed with success. Although there had been some tough bumps in her life since, she still felt fortunate in many ways. Most of all in her work.

Timmie looked out the window with a tired smile, as they landed at Charles de Gaulle with a sharp bump, and taxied down the runway toward the terminal, where someone from VIP services would be waiting for her. As usual, she was planning to hit the ground running, but at least she didn’t have jet lag to contend with, since they had been in Europe for two weeks. She had interviews with French journalists in Paris for the next two days, and she was planning to meet with textile reps to choose fabrics for the following year’s winter line. Although it was October, the ready to wear goods they were showing now were for spring and summer. She was already working on the next fall and winter lines. Cruise and resort wear were already in production, and would be shipped within two months. She was always working a year ahead, and had most of the following year’s designs either sketched or taking shape in her head.

“Who am I seeing this afternoon?” Timmie asked, looking vague, as she glanced out at a gloriously sunny October day, which was a relief after five days of consistent rain in Milan. It didn’t look as though the winter doldrums had hit Paris yet, much to her delight, although she loved Paris even in the rain. She always said that somewhere in a past life she must have been French. It was the city of her soul, although she had been twenty-seven the first time she had come, two years after the beginnings of her success. Her first trip had been to buy fabrics for her designs, and it was only after she opened European subsidiaries many years later that she showed her own designs at the Paris prêt-à-porter shows, a rare treat and honor for her.

The first time she saw Paris had been love at first sight for her. She loved everything about it. The weather, the architecture, the people, the museums, the art, the restaurants, the parks, the streets, the churches, the light, the sky. She had been so overwhelmed the first time she rode in a taxi up the Champs-Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe, she had started to cry. It was night, and an enormous flag was fluttering slowly in a summer breeze, lit up in the dark night, and she had never gotten over that feeling of awestruck adoration for the magical city, even now. Her heart always pounded with excitement every time she arrived. She had never gotten blasé about it, or taken its breathtaking beauty for granted. She had always said she wanted to get an apartment there one day, but somehow never had. She stayed in the same suite at the Plaza Athénée every time she came instead, and they pampered her like a deliciously spoiled child. She loved it, and as a result, had never gotten her own place.

“You’re meeting with the fashion writers from
The Washington Post
and
The New York Times
, and some journalist from
Le Figaro
, after lunch,” Jade said briskly, and then smiled as she looked at her. Timmie had a look on her face that she only saw in Paris. No matter how tired she was, or how exhausting the previous cities had been, there was a kind of glow about Timmie in Paris. She had a special kind of romance with the city, and people always teased her about it. “You’ve got that look,” Jade said with a smile, as Timmie nodded, unabashedly happy to be there, whatever her country’s views on the subject at the moment, or however much others liked to bash the French. Timmie always stood up for them staunchly. She loved the French, and everything about Paris. Sometimes she just sat in her room late at night at the Plaza Athénée, after she got home from business dinners, and looked out the window at the dark gray pearly light of the night sky, or a sunrise on a winter morning … spring … summer … whatever time of year, it was Timmie’s favorite city, more than any other in the world. There was nothing else like it and it never failed to make her heart race.

Timmie absentmindedly ran a hand through her thick, long hair, and pulled it back in an elastic. She didn’t bother to look in a mirror, or go to the bathroom to do it, or even brush it. She didn’t care. She rarely thought about her looks. She was beautiful but not vain. She was far more interested in the looks she designed for others. Her lack of narcissism about her own appearance was endearing and refreshing. When she was working and busy, she looked like a long, leggy child who had wandered onto the scene and was pretending to be a grown-up. Her style was commanding, and her talent obvious, but at the same time there was a kind of innocence about her, a lack of awareness about who she was and the power she wielded. Timmie’s real strength was pure raw talent, and incredible drive. She produced more energy than an electrical power plant, and Jade could sense her winding up now.

Timmie had a lot to do in Paris. They had fittings with the models scheduled for seven the next morning. She was driving three hours outside of Paris after that, to look at textiles at the factory, and see if they were willing or able to do some special fabrics she wanted. There would be more interviews after that, to talk about the collections she was showing, for both men and women, and she had just introduced a new perfume in September, which had been a major hit with the youth market. Young women all over the world were clamoring for it. Everything Timmie touched turned to gold, and was blessed with the sweet smell of success. In her business life, things had always been like that. In her personal life, she had been far more challenged. But to look at her, all one saw was a beautiful woman with a mane of thick red curly hair and big green eyes, who was totally unaware of how striking she was.

They stood up, waiting to leave the plane, and David took her alligator bag from her, and groaned as he always did when he held it. “I see you brought your bowling ball with you again,” he teased, and she chuckled. He looked like a young male model, and Jade was as meticulously dressed as Timmie wasn’t. If one had to guess, anyone would have thought that Jade was the designer and Timmie the assistant, although Timmie was capable of looking smashing when she chose to. Most of the time, she wore her own designs, mingled with vintage pieces she had collected over the years, and some fabulous Indian and antique jewelry she bought mostly at Fred Leighton’s in New York, or at an assortment of jewelers in Paris and London. She loved unusual pieces, thought nothing of mixing real with fake, and on her no one ever guessed the costume pieces. She never hesitated to wear a diamond necklace with a T-shirt, or a gigantic vintage Chanel ring, from Coco Chanel or Diana Vreeland’s collections of costume jewelry, with a ballgown. Timmie O’Neill was beautiful, in a strikingly natural way, but more than anything she had style, in a casual, mix-and-match bag-lady sort of way, as she liked to say herself. She was no bag lady, but she liked to think so. In fact, she didn’t like to think of herself at all. She just got up and dressed in the morning, and let things fall into place. It always worked well for her, although Jade frequently said that if she had tried to put herself together as Timmie did, they wouldn’t have let her in the back door of their hotel. But on Timmie, it all worked.

She looked striking and casually stylish as they finally filed off the plane, and David located the VIP woman to help them. He was happy to put Timmie’s immensely heavy alligator bag on a rolling cart. It was full of notes and sketch pads, a book in case she wanted to read, a bottle of her latest perfume, and a ton of what Timmie called “debris” that was always floating around her purse. Keys, lipsticks, lighters, an ashtray she had stolen at Harry’s Bar, or that they had actually given her when she tried to steal it, a new gold pen someone had sent her, and a dozen silver pencils, all of which weighed a ton as she lugged it all around. David always said you could open an office and start a business with what Timmie carried in her purse. It gave her a feeling of security to carry everything she needed with her. She didn’t want to rely on having to find some essential item while she was away on a trip. So she took it all with her, as though she might never go home again.

They followed the VIP woman to baggage claim, where Jade and David would wait for their bags. There was a mountain of them, as Timmie always packed too much, and they had the entire collection with them packed in special trunks. The airline had been warned, and the trunks and boxes containing the ready to wear collection came out first. David had arranged for a truck to get it all to the hotel. He had offered to ride the truck with it, so Timmie could go ahead, but she said she preferred to wait. She wanted to make sure nothing got lost. It would be a disaster if it did. She left Jade talking to David, as they waited for the bags. Timmie walked away, watching people, and lit a cigarette. She had quit for years, but started again eleven years ago, after her divorce.

She stood quietly near a wall, watching people drift by carrying their bags, on their way to customs. As an American, with an entire clothing collection in tow, they had to go through immigration and customs as well. They had documents exempting them from duty and tax, although it was unlikely anyone would open any of their bags or trunks. They had paid five thousand dollars in excess baggage, which was roughly what they always paid, moving the collection from New York to London to Milan to Paris, and then finally back to L.A.

As Timmie smoked her cigarette, she kept thinking how far she had come from her beginnings. Staying at the Plaza Athénée in Paris was second nature to her now, and felt like home, but she had come a long way to get here. She never lost sight of that, and was often grateful for her achievements and blessings, and her serendipitous beginning, all those years ago at the coffee shop. It had been a long, long road from there to Paris, as she stood in her vintage mink jacket, wearing a large diamond bracelet on her wrist, which a few passersby noticed as she smoked. She was so casual about it in spite of its size, that it was hard to guess if it was fake or real. She absentmindedly pulled the elastic out of her hair, and her long curly red hair cascaded past her shoulders. She looked like a young Rita Hayworth in all her glory. Timmie looked nowhere near her age, few people would have guessed that she was forty-eight. At most she looked forty, if that. And in her case, it wasn’t due to any special caution or attention, it was just good genes and blind luck. She hated exercise, had no need to diet, and rarely used beauty products. She splashed cold water on her face, brushed her hair, and brushed her teeth, and that was it.

Her eyes drifted to a young mother, struggling to get her bags off the conveyor belt. The woman had an infant strapped to her, while a two-year-old girl holding a doll clung to her skirts, and a boy who looked about four argued with his mother, and finally burst into tears. Both mother and son looked exasperated and harassed. Timmie noticed that the little girl was beautifully dressed. The boy was wearing short pants and a navy jacket. The mother looked tired as she struggled with the bags, and the little boy continued to cry. He wasn’t having a tantrum, he was just upset. And without thinking about it any further, Timmie reached into the pocket of her jacket where she had a stash of lollipops that she liked to suck on whenever she had to draw. It kept her from smoking, and was a habit she’d always had. She pulled out two of the lollipops, and approached the mother of the crying boy. They were obviously French. Despite Timmie’s passion for all things French, she had never learned the language, except for a few cursory words. She usually got by with gestures and smiles, and the driver she always used in Paris usually helped her out. This time, she was on her own. She managed to catch the mother’s eye, showed her the lollipops, without the children seeing them, and smiled a questioning, shy glance.

“Oui?”
she asked. The woman understood her, and hesitated. She looked Timmie over carefully, and was about to say no, as the children turned around to observe her. With her free hand, Timmie gently stroked the boy’s fine, carefully cut Dutch boy hair, which surprisingly was the same color as hers, or the color hers had been at his age. Timmie’s had settled into a burnished copper over the years. His was more carrot-colored, and he had the same pronounced freckles she had had in her youth. The little girl was blond with big blue eyes, as was their mother. The baby had no hair at all, and was observing the scene peacefully with a pacifier in her mouth, which was keeping her quiet. The two-year-old was sucking her thumb, seemingly unaffected by her brother’s tears.