The Cherry Blossoms (2 page)

She defiantly told him,
“No, I chose it, so I’ll eat it just tell me what’s in it.”

“What does it taste like to you?”

“I can taste apple cider and some liquor.  It appears to be a layered dish of vegetables and some sort of meat.”  She dug her fork into the food and it hit something quite hard.  Once she uncovered it, Daniella let out a gasp.  “Michal, is this thing what I think it is?”

“Daniella, since I do
not know what you think it is I do not have a reasonable answer for you.”

“This looks like some cow’s hoof cut in half.  Is that what it is?”

“Yes my dear that is exactly what it is.”

Daggers shot from her eyes.  “
You let me order some cow’s hoof for dinner.  You could have said something.
”

“Daniella, I offered to order for you
, but you insisted that you order for yourself.  Here take my dinner.  You will enjoy the scallops.  Hand me your dish, I will finish your dinner.  I grew up eating this dish.  It’s a delicacy in France.”

“And it can just stay that way.”  She took his plate of scallops and enjoyed each and every one
of them.

Later that evening, Daniella was still fuming about dinner.  She stormed around the house like a white tornado.

“Daniella that Irish temper is going to get you into trouble one day.”

She laughed, “It has on more than one occasion gotten me into trouble, but you could have warned me about what I had ordered.”

“I offered and you declined.  You made your own bed.”

“Michal, you know me only too well.  How do you put up with me?”

“There are days
Mon chéri, when I ask myself that question.”

Indignantly she asked, “Are you asking me to leave?”

He chuckled, “Never.”

Daniella met Michal at her first fashion show in Paris.  He was there representing
Magazine de mode
.  In his review, he wrote that Daniella’s designs were fresh and invigorating.  When she called to thank him for his positive review of her choices, he’d asked her to join him for dinner.  Michal was like no other man she’d dated.  He understood her aggressive work integrity, even when his own was casual.  She enjoyed his humor, he laughed easily and often.  In her mind, Michal was the perfect man.

Daniella kissed Michal as she slid out of bed 5:30 in the morning.  She made it a habit of arriving to her office by 6:30 while Michal set a goal of 9:00 each morning.  Daniella sat at her design table reviewing her sketches.  When she was satisfied with them, she made lists for her staff.  Her assistant, Grant Beauchamp, would conduct first interviews with models.  Daniella would interview those that he referred to her.  Michele D’Aubigne would take charge of finding the perfect cloth.  She would task Annette Cheney to help with shoes and accessories.  Daniella smiled when she wrote Annette’s name down.  Annette was fun and upbeat, everyone in the designer’s staff adored her.  This was the largest job that Daniella had tasked Annette with, but she was optimistic that Annette was the correct choice.

There was no one finer in all of France than Charlene Laroque, Daniella’s head seamstress; it was as if she could see inside Daniella’s mind, since her patterns were always cut perfectly to Daniella’s specifications.

Now that her task list was complete and ready for her manager, she went into the shop’s kitchen to put on a pot of coffee.  Tempted to review her designs once more, she told herself to wait for the coffee.  A glance to the kitchen clock indicated that Grant would be at work in just a few minutes.  Grant was always the second person to arrive each morning, giving Daniella and him some quiet business time before the rest of the staff arrived.

When Grant entered the kitchen, he greeted Daniella, “
Bonjour Mademoiselle.”

“Grant, your timing is perfect.  I’ve already made the coffee, so grab a cup, and please join me in my office.”

Once inside her office, she whispered to him as if she was sharing top secret news with him, “The designs are complete.”

“Daniella, that is just marvelous, I’m dying to get a peek at them.”  Grant pressed the palms of his hands together as if he were praying. 
“Mademoiselle, when may I get the chance to see them?”

As if the two were involved in a far-fetched conspiracy, Daniella held onto the folder as long as she could before revealing the contents.    Even though they were the only two people in the building, she whispered to him.  “Here, take a look and tell me what you think.”   She then cautiously handed him the folder containing her sketches.

She watched his face as Grant reviewed her designs.  He went through them one by one without saying a word.  He took a sip of his coffee and started his review again, with the first design, which was the business suit.  He studied it in detail as if someone would test his memory of the design later in the day.  Grant moved on to the beachwear outfit.  Again, after taking a sip of coffee, he studied the design as if he were engraving it into his memory bank.  After working through all four designs, he handed the folder back to his boss and sat back to finish his coffee.

Daniella jumped from her chair, “Grant, the suspense is killing me.  Tell me something.  Tell me anything.  You’re just sitting there staring at your coffee cup. 
You’re making me crazy!”

“Mademoiselle,
Il s'agit de perfection absolue.”

Daniella’s blood pressure rose, “Grant, you know perfectly well that my French is limited so I have no damn idea what you just said.”

“Daniella, Je Sui désolé; I said your designs were absolute perfection.”

Daniella clapped her hands together as a child does when presented the gift she was hoping to receive on her birthday.  “Do you really like them or are you just saying that because I’m your boss?”

“Would I tell my boss a lie?  I most certainly would not.”

“Then we’re ready to move forward if you believe them to be perfect.”

“Daniella, we have plenty of time to prepare for the show.  What has caused that worried look on your face?”

Shocked that he wasn’t worried, she sat forward in her chair and earnestly told him, “Grant, what we have is plenty of time for things to go wrong.  Let’s go over the list together and you can hand out the tasks.  I want you to schedule twenty models for you to interview.  I’ll interview your top ten picks.  Michele will purchase the fabric.  Here’s the list of what I need.  Make sure she orders at least four times what we need for the show.  Annette is responsible for shoes and accessories, so she will require a copy of the designs and the cloth requirement.  Give a copy of the designs to Charlene so that she can start tracing the patterns.”

“Daniella, is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Nope, just make sure everyone gets started today.”

Once Grant had left her office, she sat back in her chair wondering if Grant weren’t right, and asked herself if she was just being impatient.  Daniella trusted Grant’s opinion of her work.  On more than one occasion, he spoke his mind when he didn’t agree with her decisions.  Daniella liked that.  There were too many employees in the fashion industry that did as the designer told them without questioning the task, causing a designer to put together a poor collection.

Daniella’s next task was the hardest for her.  She needed to let her staff alone and not hover over them.  Daniella was a control freak and knew it.  Her appetite to control her environment had bitten her in the ass more than once, causing her to lose several valuable employees.  She asked herself what she should do while they worked.  She picked up the phone and called Michal to see if he could meet for lunch.  When she saw that it was only 8:00 in the morning, she grabbed her purse, told Grant she was leaving for the day.  As she walked into his office, she told him, “I see that astonished look on your face,” and giggled.

“I’ve never known you to take a day off in the middle of the week, before a show.”

“If I stick around, I’m afraid I’ll meddle.  I hired good people who I expect to get the job done.  I’ll be in around 10:00 tomorrow morning.  You’re in charge.  Call my cell phone if you need me.”

Grant shook his head as she walked out the door.

Daniella walked into the house to find Michal dressed and ready to leave for his office.  He looked at her.  “Daniella, are you not well?”

“I am perfectly well.  We’re ahead of schedule, so I left Grant in charge and took the rest of the day off.  Michal, get that dumbfounded look off your face.  You’re the one who told me I was too stressed.  You were correct.  I pay my staff very well since I expect them to perform exemplary.  Can you stay home and play hooky with me?”

Michal laughed, “What does this play hooky mean?”

“When I was a child in the States, when I didn’t want to go to school, I didn’t go.  That’s called playing hooky.”

“Please tell me what you did when you did this thing called ‘playing hooky’?”

“Sometimes I’d go swimming in the ranch’s pond and sometimes I’d curl up under a tree and read a book.”

“Are you proposing that we find a pond and go swimming?”

“Maybe, does Paris have a pond?”

“Yes, my love it does.  We have a naturally created pond it is called Lac de Saint-Mandé.”

“Then I suggest that we pack a lunch and go swimming for the day.”

“What shall we pack for lunch for this day of playing hooky?”

Daniella thought for a moment, “I think we should take some goose pâté, a good cheese, with some fresh baked bread and fruit.  I also think we need at least two bottles of red wine.”

“S
hall we include dessert for this playing hooky day?”

“Of course we shall include dessert.  I vote for chocolate éclairs.”

“Well then, amour de ma vie. We shall go play hooky for the day.”

They found a quiet spot on the edge of the pond where they spread a blanket in the grass.  Michal opened a bottle of wine and poured the wine into the glasses they had packed in the picnic basket.  After drinking her wine, Daniella shimmied out of her clothes and walked into the pond.

“Daniella, does playing hooky mean that you swim naked?”

“Of course it does,
Mon amour
.”

She’d never seen Michal undress as quickly as he did that afternoon to join her in the pond naked.

“Now, in the States we call this ‘skinny dipping’, which means swimming naked.”

“So that means you went skinny dipping when you played hooky from school.”

“That’s right.  I never brought a swimsuit, so I swam in the buff.”

Michal swam to her and reached his arms around her buxom frame.  “I like this skinny dipping.”

“Michal, are you saying you have never gone skinny dipping?”

“As a young child I did, but never with a lovely woman.”

Neither bothered to dress when they exited the pond; Mich
al poured wine as Daniella plated the food.  She put the pâté in the center of a dish and then cut the bread into chunks, which she placed around the pâté.  She sliced the fruit and cheese and placed them on a separate dish.

They stretched across the blanket facing one another.  “Michal
, are you enjoying playing hooky?”

“Yes my American girl, I am.  We should plan to do this more often.”

They spent the day, eating, drinking wine, skinny-dipping and making love.  Taking a break from making love all afternoon, Daniella lay on her back and watched the clouds pass overhead.

“Look Michal that cloud looks like Mickey Mouse.”

“So I see.  Look over there to the left, there is a space ship floating through the air.”

As the sun slid low in the sky, it was time to dress, pack their belongings in the basket and head home.

“Daniella thank you for inviting me to spend the day with you.”

“
Thank you for saying yes.”

Out of habit, Daniella woke at 5:30 the next morning.  She went to the kitchen where she put on a pot of coffee.  Waiting until 9:00 to go to the office, she grabbed a fashion magazine she’d bought last week.  She told herself that her staff was competent, meaning that she needed to leave them alone to do their job.  She needed them to know that she trusted them.

Daniella laughed when Michal came into the kitchen, “You look as though you were in a wrestling match all night.  Your hair’s all askew.”

“Bonjour Mon amour, I was in a wrestling match all night.  You were quite the tigress.”

“Am I to assume that you did not like it?”

“Pas mon amour, j'ai beaucoup aimé.  You are quite skilled in making love, how could I not like it?  Most American women are not as enthusiastic about making love to a man as you are.”

While Michal, poured a cup of coffee, Daniella encouraged him, “Oh do go on and tell me about your extensive experience with American women.”

“Mon chéri, you are well aware that I went to school in the states.  I was a young man who loved American women.  I was certainly not a virgin when we met.  You were schooled in France, so I am certain that you have made love to one or two Frenchmen.”