Just Another Damn Love Story (8 page)

The Visionaire’s lobby greeted visitors with massive stone columns, and a giant twelve foot aquarium filled with exotic tropical fish.  A lounge just off of the lobby, provided guest with a pool table,  a massive plasma T.V., a giant natural gas fireplace, and even a separate movie screening room. 

Resident’s were spoiled with a sky lit indoor swimming pool and hot tub that looked out onto one of two roof gardens, while work out buffs could pass the time away in the fitness center, which was filled with state of the art cardio and weight equipment.  The world class fitness center also boasted of a spa, a sauna, a steam room, a massage room, a yoga room, and an aerobics room.  And for those who wanted to relax on a more leisurely scale, the building’s rooftop garden held a view of the Hudson River.  This rooftop paradise also came equipped with an outdoor events area, with built in grills and individual cabanas in case the residents wanted to do a little entertaining. 

As stunning as the building itself was, the apartments were even more breathtaking.  Bamboo floors greeted the guest upon entry, and continued into the kitchen where they were joined by beautifully crafted bamboo cabinets and black granite counter tops.  The bamboo floors stopped only at the bathrooms, where limestone floors took their place.  The luxurious affairs that were the bathrooms, boasted of teak cabinetry, marble jetted tubs, and hand crafted marble vanities.  To live in the Visionaire is to have made it big time.  Or, to have been born with rich parents.

“Brittany, I love your apartment!”  Mia screamed once again.  She peered out of the massive floor to ceiling windows, taking in the views of the Hudson and the lights beyond.  “This view is breathtaking!”

“Yeah, except when it’s lightening,” Brittany told her.

“Brit, you’re still scared of lightening?”  Mia said shocked.  “I thought that you were over that?”

“How?”  Brittany asked, turning up her palms.  “It’s a phobia.  It’s called Astraphobia.  I’ll never get over it.”

“People get over their phobias all the time,” Mia said.

“Duh, the reason it’s called a phobia, is because it’s an irrational fear,” Brittany said slurring.

She and Mia broke into alcohol induced laughter.

“You guys, this is supposed to be about me!”  Kim said, slurring her words.

Brittany climbed onto her crème colored leather sectional with Kim, and pulled her close. “I’m sorry.  It
is
about you.”

Mia joined them.

“I had to put up with an entire Sunday service of nothing but nagging from my mother,”  Kim told them.  “Marriage, marriage, marriage, nothing but marriage.  I should have married John.  That could have been me walking down the aisle.  Your sister is so happy.  Your job really sucks.  You know what, Mom?  You’re right, my job
does
suck!”

“That’s right, just let it all out!”  Mia told her.

“Why do people feel you have to be married to be happy?”  Kimberly asked.

“I get it from my mom all the time,”  Brittany told her.

“I don’t,”  Mia smiled.  “My mom would have a heart attack if I told her that I was going to marry Shaun.”

“Why?”  Brittany asked.  “Shaun’s cool.  He’s a great guy, nice looking, great job, and he treats you like a princess.”

“Guys, my parents are from a different era,”  Mia said, wiping away a tear.  “They like Shaun, but not the fact that he’s Black.”

“Wow!”  Brittany gasped, and reached for her drink.

“Parents!”  Kim shouted.  “Why come they won’t just let us live our lives!”

“Here, here!”  Brittany said, lifting her glass in toast.

The girls held up their glasses and clinked them together.

“John, John, John!  I’m so tired of hearing about John!”  Kim shouted.  “She thinks that John was all that!  Well, he wasn’t!  He was a cheat, and he was weak, and he let those women dominate him!”

“A cheat?”  Mia asked, lifting an eyebrow.  “You think he cheated on you?”

“I know he did!”  Kim told them.  “All of those late night phone calls, and him creeping off in the middle of the night.  Besides that, why would all his ex’s still be so hung up on him?  He had to be telling them something, or giving them some reason to think that he was still going to be with them.”

“Wow!”  Brittany said, taking another massive drink from her glass.

“I just want to move on with my life,”  Kim sniffled.  A tear rolled down her cheek.  “Why won’t my mother let me?  Why won’t life let me move on?  I just want to be happy, what’s wrong with that?  I go to church, I pay my tides, I sing in the choir, I don’t cheat, or steal, or kill, or hurt people.  I don’t want a lot of money.  I just always dreamed, since I was a little girl, of finding that perfect prince just for me.”

Mia and Brittany both nodded.  They knew of those dreams too. 

“All teenage girls dream of that,”  Mia told her.

“Am I destined to be alone?”  Kimberly asked.  “If I am, I may as well get started collecting my pet cats right now.”

“No, of course not,” Brittany told her.  “The right guy will come along.  He’ll show up when you least expect it, and he’ll whisk you off into that magic land of happy endings.”

“Another damn love story,”  Kim moaned, and rested her head on the sofa pillow. “I hope so, because I don’t even like cats.”

Mia and Brittany laughed.

Mia rubbed Kim’s back.  “It’s going to be okay, Kim.  You’ll see.”

“What happened to sexy Mr. Elevator Man?”  Brittany asked.  “I  thought you two hit it off in The Hamptons.”

  “Sterling?”  Kim asked, lifting her head from the pillow.  “I don’t know.  He scares me.”

“Love is a scary thing,”  Mia told her.  “You have to stick your heart out there, and risk getting it hurt in order to find your happy ending.”

Kim lowered her head once again.  A happy ending.  Could Mr. Vespasian be Mr. Perfect Love Story?  She had just met him, and they had shared one little kiss.  That didn’t mean that he was her destiny.  Besides, she didn’t even know what he did for a living.  He worked for Vespasian, and probably as an executive in men’s fashions.  But… there were just too many variables.  He was nice, and nice looking.  He seemed like a gentleman.  He was well groomed, nice job, great sense of humor.  But the million dollar question was how did he feel about her?  Was she jumping the gun here?  Why was she even thinking about him right now?  She should be thinking about her happily ever after man, not Sterling Williams.  He certainly was not Mr. Happily Ever After.  Was he?

Chapter Ten

Amaniko Somari was a fashion legend.  Her name was a household name, one that reminded everyone of the glory years of fashion.  She conjured images of Halston, Lagerfeld, Hermes, and Chanel.  She had been a model for each of them, plus a number of other A-List designers.  Discovered in Ethiopia in the Sixties, she had been airlifted out of a refugee camp with a large number of Falasha Jews.  An orphan, she was taken to Israel, and adopted by a French Jewish family where she was relocated to Paris.  It was on the streets of Paris where the thirteen year old with the copper colored skin, pale blue eyes, and long, silky, sandy colored hair was discovered.  She was an exotic, among exotics.  Her thin, lanky frame, awkward stand, and Mona Lisa smile, soon had her splashed across every fashion magazine in the world.  And yes, she even made the cover of the French Vogue.

Amaniko modeled for more than thirty years, and along the way she amassed a fortune.    First came her cosmetic line for women of color, then her very own modeling agency, and finally, her fashion house.  Amaniko quickly became a fashion powerhouse, because rich White women loved her.  Her designs reminded consumers of the age of Jackie Kennedy.  Lime Green Hermes Kelly Bags, Louis Vuitton scarves tied around their heads, while sun bathing on the decks of a yacht.  These were the looks that the Scarsdale crowd loved.  Her designs were timeless, classic, elegant; they spoke of a gilded age, an age where America could do anything.  An age where America could send a man to the moon, save an entire city from starvation by means of an airlift, and shake the conscious of an entire planet by way of a non violent civil rights movement.  Amaniko’s designs represented the best of America, and reminded people of all that was right with America.  She and her clothing designs were both fashion icons.

Kimberly couldn’t believe that Amaniko herself had agreed to meet with her.  Of course it took a call from her father to one of his best friends, who in turn called a cousin, who was Amaniko’s publicist.  This fortunate meeting was taking place at Ms. Emma’s.  The ambiance just seemed right.

“Thank you for meeting with me, Ms. Somari,” Kim said, rising as the legendary designer approached the table.  The two of them exchanged handshakes, and Amaniko seated herself.

“Sprite, with a lemon twist,” Amaniko told the waiter.

“I’ll have the same,” Kim said, following the first rule in sales; Always have what the buyer or the boss is having.  The waiter wrote down their orders, nodded, and quickly disappeared.

“Well, I’m going to be brutally honest with you, Ms. Neel,”  Amaniko said.  “I have very little patience when it comes to designers.  I personally have a hand in the design of everything with my company’s name on it.  We have a certain look, and we have to adhere rigidly to that look.  Timeless elegance is what we strive for.  Not trendy, not runway shock value, not to make the covers of Vogue, or Elle, or Ms., or any other magazine.  We are part of the Town and Country set.  My patrons are extremely wealthy, well bred, and predominantly White.  They come from generations of wealth.  They ride horses, play polo, hunt foxes, attend the Belmont races, the Kentucky Derby.  Their children go to Groton, Philips Exeter, and Lawrence Academies.  Their children are legacies at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.  This is the Skull and Crossbones set. They vacation in St. Tropez, and St. Moritz.  When the want to gamble, they don’t go to Vegas, they go to Monte Carlos.  Do you understand?”

Kimberly nodded.  She was now more nervous than ever, and she felt wholly inadequate to the task.  She gripped her design portfolio tight, and could feel beads of sweat forming at the top of her head.

“Good,”  Amaniko told her.  “I won’t waste your time, or mines.  If your designs are inadequate, or don’t mesh with my company’s design philosophy, I’m going to tell you up front.  However, with that said, there is nothing that I love more than to help a sister break into this industry and make a name for herself.  If you have the talent, I will do all that I can to help you.”

The waiter arrived with their drinks, placed them on the table, and again disappeared.

Amaniko held out her hand.  “Well, let’s see what you have.”

With her hands shaking, Kimberly lifted her design portfolio to the table and opened it.  Amaniko took a look at the first sketch, and sat her soda down.  She waved for the waiter to come over.

“Well, you’ve past the first test,”  she told Kim.  “Most designers don’t get past the soda stage.  Looks like we’ll be having lunch together.”

“Thank you!”  Kimberly gushed.  Her smile was now uncontrollable.

“I’ll have the baked chicken,” Amaniko told the waiter.

“I’ll have the same,” Kim said.

The waiter nodded, and retreated to the kitchen.

Amaniko flipped the first page in the design book, taking in the sketches on the second and third pages.  “Promising.  Very promising.  Classy, elegant, timeless.  The trick is to ask yourself, if you can visualize your customers wearing your designs fifty years from now, and still being in style.  If the answer is yes, then you have designed something worthy of manufacture.”

Kim couldn’t believe that she was getting design advice from the legend herself.  She felt as though her head was going to explode.

“Long, elegant, wool skirt and matching long sleeve jacket.”  Amaniko nodded.  “I like.  This is perhaps your best design thus far.”

“Thank you.”

Amaniko closed Kimberly’s design portfolio and peered across the table at her for several moments.  “I’ll tell you what.  You take the designs that I spoke kindly of, and you design a collection around those, and I’ll agree to meet with you and see what you have.”

“Thank you so much!”  Kim said, clasping Amaniko’s forearm.  “You can’t imagine how much this means to me.”

Amaniko nodded.  “Yes, I can.  But I don’t mind.  I see potential in you.  Real potential.”

*****

Trump Place was an event to be experienced, and not seen.  It was not your run-of-the-mill luxury Manhattan apartment complex, by any stretch of the imagination.  Personal service and attention to detail had been elevated to the level of decadence.  From the around the clock concierge, to the fully equipped, state-of-the-art fitness center, to the club lounge with its creamy leather sofas, big screen TVs, and intricately carved billiard tables, to the complex’s location itself.  Right outside of the door, was Riverside Park, with all of its hiking, biking, and walking trails, along with its basketball, tennis, and handball courts. Two blocks down the street sat Lincoln Center, a boon to jazz, theater, ballet, opera, and symphony lovers.  All of this luxury, service, and convenience did not come cheap, however, Trump Place was one of the most expensive places to live in the New York metropolitan area.

Kimberly climbed off of the elevator on the penthouse floor, huffing and puffing, and lugging her designs with her.  She was late.  Her meeting with Amaniko had went
very
well.  The two of them enjoyed a late lunch, a stroll through Manhattan, and then a couple of lattes at Starbucks.  Their conversation about fashion and about the history of modern American fashion had engrossed them.  Time slipped by as the laughter and friendship grew through the afternoon and early evening.  Before she knew it, her dinner date with Sterling was upon her.

Kimberly rang the doorbell; she was anxious, excited, exhilarated.  Amaniko had her blood running.  She hadn’t been this excited about fashion in a long time.  Finding someone with as much passion for design as she had was rare.  Finding someone who knew a hundred times more about the industry than she did, was even rarer; especially someone who was willing to share their knowledge.