Where Beauty Lies (Sophia and Ava London) (5 page)

*   *   *

Ava was five minutes late to the nine-thirty meeting in the kitchen, and still in a daze. When she got there, Lily, MM, Sven, and Sophia were gathered around the large black-granite island in the middle of the room. Open Chinese-food containers were pushed to one side and the pictures of their final model picks were spread in front of them.

“We got you an order of cold sesame noodles, in addition to everything else on the menu,” Lily greeted her.

Ava felt sort of odd, like she was floating, there but not there. “Thanks.”

Sophia looked up sharply. “Ava? Are you okay?”

Ava laughed. “The Contessa wants me to marry her nephew or else we don’t get to have a fashion show.”

“That makes no sense,” Sophia said. Sven hoisted a stool from one side of the island to the other with a single muscled arm, MM put Ava on it, and Sophia came around to look directly in Ava’s eyes. “Are you delirious? Did you take too much cough syrup again?”

“No and no. She says if I won’t consider it then that shows I am not a serious person and if I am not a serious person why would she fund our fashion line. Serious like you.” Ava smiled at Sophia. “See, perfect sense in Contessa logic.”

“Then this is over,” Sophia said, shaking her head. “Because I am seriously opposed. There is no way you’re getting married. This is not the eighteenth century.”

Ava shrugged. “Well, he is a count. That sounds very eighteenth century. But I forgot. He’s hairy like a beast and has only one eye.”

Lily had pulled out a computer and was already googling the count. “The only thing that came up is an old guy.”

“She didn’t make him sound old,” Ava said, looking at the photo of a man in his seventies. “And the guy in the picture has two eyes. Although he does look hairy.” She pointed to the thick mane of hair brushed off his forehead.

“I have a question,” Sven said, putting up his hand. He was looking at the computer screen.

“Yes, Sven?” Ava said. “You don’t have to raise your hand.”

Sven lowered it. “Did she say if he was alive?”

“No.” Ava shook her head slowly. “She didn’t
specify
that. I just assumed he was alive.”

He tapped the computer. “Then is not that man. That man in the picture is dead. It is her brother who died. The last count.”

“Rats.” Lily pushed the computer to one side. “Think of it as an exciting adventure with a mystery man,” she suggested.

Sophia had been frowning the whole time. “Don’t be absurd, there’s no way Ava is doing this.” She made a finish-line gesture with her hands. “The end.”

For some reason that made Ava want to cry. “Thank you,” she told Sophia. “But for now she says I just have to go to a few parties during Fashion Week. That’s not that big a deal. I can do that.”

Sophia still looked skeptical.

Sven raised his hand again. “I have another question.” They all looked at him and he lowered his hand slowly. “What about Liam? He is your boyfriend, no?”

Ava shrugged. “It’s complicated.”

Sven pointed to the computer screen. “Here he tweets to you, ‘Missing my special lady, thinking of her in NYC.’ This sounds like a boyfriend.”

“It does,” Sophia said, eyeing Ava. “What exactly is going on between you two?”

Ava got very interested in the casting photos. “I really liked this girl. I say we—”

“It doesn’t matter,” MM said in a strange, soft voice. “Any of it.”

“What are you talking about?” Sophia asked.

Before he could answer, the sound of a wild animal roaring in fury shook the walls of the kitchen.

Ava steadied herself on the island. “What was that?”

“I don’t know but I think I just understood the phrase
my blood ran cold,
” Lily said.

“It was her.” MM rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “And I think she must just have seen this.” He held his phone out. “It’s the magazine piece from your interview.”

Ava reached for Sophia’s hand.

“How bad is it?” Sophia asked. “Does it say we’re amateurs, just lucky, just pretty?” She repeated the things that had been said about them dozens of times before.

“No,” MM said, looking like he was in shock. “It’s worse. Much worse.”

LonDOs

Face wash

Fresh sugar lip balm

Protective pooches

Cold sesame noodles from Szechuan Gourmet

LonDONTs

Trusting reporters

Trusting yourself to not sound like an idiot while talking to reporters

Eighteenth-century marriage practices

Whoever snuck in and finished the cold sesame noodles in the middle of the night

4

badison avenue

It started with a tweet:

@reporterwithglasses: “Designing just like kindergarten” and other important things I learned from the London sisters on the eve of Fashion Week. #wisdomefortheages #LondonBridgesFalling #FashionWeek

And by the next morning, it had found a place among the blind items:

We’re hearing
 … Christopher Wildwood has an exciting celebrity-guest model, much sought by designers but never—until now—won.

We’re hearing
 …
Buongiorno
is the new pickup line, as Manhattan readies for the arrival of a most eligible Italian nobleman (wink wink) and his lady-killing crew for Fashion Week.

We’re hearing
 … a spot may be opening up in the New Designers tent at Fashion Week. Rumors are flying that in the wake of an article revealing a certain urban-named duo had no formal fashion training or knowledge of the industry, the Fashion Week Oversight Committee is opening an investigation into their collection. One whiff of impropriety and it’s bye-bye show tents, hello Show Over.

“Do you think the Italian nobleman they are talking about is the Contessa’s count?” Ava asked as they rode down to the showroom the next morning in a cab.

Sophia didn’t look up from her text. “What are you talking about?”

“In the second blind item. I only wonder because it says ‘wink wink’ and you know, with the one eye—”

Sophia looked up from her text. “I’m sorry, what was that?”

“Nothing,” Ava said. “Just trying not to think about what’s going to happen with our tents.”

“For one thing, this is just a rumor,” Sophia said, frowning slightly as her phone chimed again. She glanced at it while she talked, then typed a quick text. “We don’t even know if it’s true. And it could be some other people with an urban themed name.”

“Sure,” Ava said. “The Chicago Sisters. Oh no, that isn’t a brand.”

Sophia squeezed her hand. “Whatever they’re investigating, we didn’t do it, right?”

“Right.”

“So we’ll be fine,” she concluded. “Innocent until proven guilty.”

“Except we do have a way of getting into trouble,” Ava pointed out.

“And then getting out of it.” Sophia’s phone chimed and she sighed. “Excuse me.”

“It’s only nine thirty. That’s so early for Hunter to be up texting,” Ava said, partially to herself.

“He’s doing some kind of fast he read about in a magazine and it throws off his whole schedule. I’m supposed to text him to give him encouragement.”

“What do you say?” Ava asked, leaning over to try to see.

Sophia laughed and twisted away. “It’s private.”

“I saw the word
bicep
!” Ava told her, grabbing for it.

“Stop.” Sophia giggled. “It’s all scientific.”

“You’re sexting!” Ava said as the taxi pulled up to the studio. “I’m telling Mom!”

Sophia jammed her phone into her bag. “Then I’ll tell everyone about how the reason you offer to go to Starbucks so many times a day is because there’s a cute guy you like to smile at who studies there most mornings and some afternoons from three to seven.”

Ava gaped at her as she opened the cab door. “How did you—I mean, that’s not—
oh.
”

Two dozen microphones bristled at them like a wall.

Sophia reached around to pull the door shut and said to the cabdriver, “Drive around the block.” She looked at Ava, who was sitting on the other end of the seat with her eyes huge and glassy and her hands knotted together. “Are you breathing?”

“No.”

“Breathe.”

“No, thanks.”

“Ava, look at me.” Slowly Ava’s face turned toward her and Sophia saw tears in her eyes. “Sweetheart—”

“Don’t be nice,” Ava insisted. “This is my fault. It’s what I said in the interview that’s getting all the bad press.” It was true, she knew. Sophia would never have said any of the things she had said.

Sophia shook her head. “You were just being yourself. That’s what our whole line is about.” Her phone chimed but she ignored it. “If we can’t show it at Fashion Week, then they’re not ready for us. But that’s their problem, not yours.”

“Stop it,” Ava said. “You’re making me cry more.”

Sophia hugged her. “I wouldn’t want to be doing this with anyone but you, just the way you are.”

“I wouldn’t want to do this with anyone but you.”

“Even if we don’t know what we’re doing,” Sophia said. Her phone chimed another time.

“You do,” Ava said. “You always seem like you do.”

“Sure.”

“How did you know about the guy at Starbucks?” Ava asked.

“I’m your
sister.
I saw you eye flirting with him the other day when we were there together.” Her phone chimed again.

Ava glanced at it. “Hunter is really insistent.”

“‘Hungry’ is more like it,” Sophia said. “It makes him need so much attention. I would pay someone to go feed him Oreos.” She picked up her phone and started reading through the messages.

“Do we go back now?” the cabdriver asked.

Sophia looked at Ava, who nodded. “Yes,” she said. “We’re ready.”

“Just like all those reporters,” Ava said. “Hungry and wanting attention.”

“I guess that makes us today’s Oreos,” Sophia answered, typing into her phone. “Luckily they get stale pretty quickly so they’ll have to move on to something else soon.”

“Let’s hope so,” Ava said.

*   *   *

The oversight committee walked into their showroom at exactly one o’clock, right after Daisy, their receptionist, had put her head around the door and whispered, “They’re here!” in a scary horror-movie voice.

The AS Collection showroom and studio occupied the entire sixth floor of a building on West Thirty-fifth Street. There was a receptionist’s nook just inside the door, and then a large open space with couches, chairs, and a kitchen area stocked with snacks that were used for fittings, meetings, and anything involving the general public.

Beyond that was the work space, with sewing tables, mannequins, their three seamstresses, another sitting area, and their collection hanging on racks. One wall of the work space had windows, which were all covered, and the other was lined with bolts of fabric, fastenings, thread, and trimmings, anything they might need for a fitting or a quick repair. That part was completely closed to the public, since they wouldn’t be unveiling their designs until the show. Not even the models they’d had through had seen the clothes they would be wearing yet.

But the oversight committee was different from the general public and the first thing they’d done was ask to see the collection. After they’d looked through it, exchanging annoyingly meaningful looks, they’d taken seats on one couch, with Ava, Sophia, and the Contessa seated opposite them. Lily, MM, Sven, and Toma were perched on stools at a worktable behind them, like a pit crew waiting to jump in.

There was one woman on the committee with shocking pink hair, wearing a yellow body suit, yellow boots, and a yellow fur shawl. She was a well-known fashion critic, MM told the sisters in a quick whisper as she walked in, and a fixture at Fashion Week for years. Now she glanced at a paper in her lap and looked up at Ava with a puzzled, hurt expression. “‘Designing is just like kindergarten’—did you say this, Miss London?”

“No, I said that in kindergarten I enjoyed organizing things and to me designing is like that, organizing shapes and colors,” Ava said, and Sophia could have sworn she heard her whisper,
breathe
to herself under her breath.

“Sounds the same as saying designing is like kindergarten,” the man sitting next to her said. He had silver hair and an impeccably cut three-piece suit and was, MM told them, the dean of a fashion school.

The third man had dark hair woven into a long braid, dark-framed square glasses, and wore all black. He was a professor of fashion design, MM said, famous for his braid and his avant guard parties. “What else did you learn in kindergarten? Handwriting?”

Ava’s expression was confused, as though she wasn’t sure if they were serious. “I guess.”

“Tracing?” he went on.

Ava nodded. “Maybe.”

The Contessa made a face. “Why do you ask about child school?”

“Because it would appear that your ‘designers’ were actually using other kindergarten skills in their work,” the man with the braid said smugly. “Like tracing, copying, and playing pretend.”

Sophia’s stomach started to twist. “What are you talking about?”

“I’ll show you.” The woman took a sheath of papers from a folder and walked toward the AS mannequins wearing the collection. Picking up pins from the worktable, she walked from one look to the next, pinning a paper on each of them.

She stepped away and said, “See for yourself.”

Ava, Sophia, and the Contessa swarmed around them, with Lily, MM, and Sven following behind. The photocopies all showed a drawing of a dress with the produced dress next to it. In every case they looked almost identical to the AS designs they were pinned on, only in a different fabric.

Sophia felt hot anger flare inside her. “Someone has stolen our designs.”

“But how?” Ava said. “Who?

“Ma no,”
the Contessa said. “These are just knock-ups. Look, you can see the fabrication, it is hasty.”

“Knockoffs,” Sophia corrected.

“Up, off, around, is all good,” the Contessa said, giving Sophia’s arm an encouraging squeeze. “Imitation is the empire state of flattery, yes? It means they see your designs and feel”—she searched for a word—“the Wow.” She turned to the committee, smiling. “Who is it that knocks these up?”