Page 8 of These Thin Lines

Aoife barked out a loud laugh before settling into an ergonomic chair by one of the shiny sewing machines.

“You’re a funny one, kid.” She lifted her legs onto the corner of the desk and gave Vi a long once-over. “Thought you’re one of those pompous royals. Then, after your amazingly executed belly flop, I thought you’re some talentless klutz who nobody wanted and who’s been hoisted on us—”

Because this supposition was so damn close to the truth, Vi felt her breathing go shallow. She touched her sternum and tried to look anywhere but at Aoife, who was still watching her closely.

“—but after seeing you with Chiara…” She trailed off, and Vi all but hyperventilated.Did she have to be this transparent?

“Look, I confess. It’s true. She was right. I did have posters…” Vi rubbed the back of her neck, absolutely certain her complexion was giving away how embarrassed she really was. The curse of the redheads. “What’s not to worship? C’mon, the first openly lesbian supermodel? The first openly lesbian supermodel to marry the first openly lesbian fashion designer and actually do it legally by eloping to the Netherlands?

“So I had a poster of her on my wall in college. So what? I take pride in being who I am, and I take pride in admiring the people who came before me…” She trailed off as Aoife was now staring at her owlishly, blinking eyes almost glazing over.

“Well, this is way more than I ever wanted to know, and I have nobody but myself to blame. How about we never, ever mention your puerile fantasies or whatever it is you were trying to tell me here under the guise of ‘respecting your queer elders’, because she’s only forty and I’m three years older than her, and I am nobody’s ‘elder.’” Aoife got up slowly, cracking her spine with gusto, and made her way to the small fridge secreted away behind a panel in the corner of the studio and pulled out two beers.

Deciding that she’d already said more than she ever wished for another human being to know, Vi accepted the bottle, took a big gulp, and kept her mouth shut after that. It was five o’clock somewhere, and she chose to follow Aoife’s lead.

“What I meant to say, before you shared all your teenage angst with me, Courtenay, is that we have been trying to figure out what she’s been drawing for months.” Aoife took a long pull and went on, still giving Vi a closed-off look.

“She has a process, you see. One that is very involved. It’s post-its and reminders and apps and journals and all the other small and big details that make her function and create the way only she can. And we have all pitched in, to help, to facilitate, to somehow streamline this process that had seemingly stalled, because she just couldn’t move on from that one design. And you waltzed in, took one look and said bloody ‘wedding.’ I wanted to hug you. I would, but you’re tall and that would just serve as a reminder of how short I am, so no. Chiara already gave you enough material to feature in your dreams. In technicolor.”

Vi wanted to grit her teeth and say something that would perhaps cost her the only friend she had made here so far. Something along the lines of, ‘maybe you all should just accept a person the way she is and not give her grief about how her talent manifests itself…’ Instead she shut her mouth, shoved the thought farther into her already overthinking brain and chose to move on. It had been an amazing hug.

She gave Aoife a cheeky grin and received a giggle in response.

“Okay, okay, I’ll lay off. But listen. You’re a smart kid. Frankie really thinks you will give her aninwith the Kingdom of Savoy monarchs, which is none of my business. But she also assigned you to me. And since we already established you’re bright but pretty much useless, sewing and pattern-cutting wise, you will spend a lot of time among these walls doing all the crap I don’t want to do. Running errands.Gopher. Get it?”

Vi nodded, stoically choosing to keep her silence. She took another swig of beer, which she might have enjoyed on a good day, but today it slid down her throat like lead.

“My point is, you’ll realize very quickly who is who and what is what around here. And you’ll learn that, when Chiara gets her creative juices flowing, Lilien Haus makes great fashion.”

Vi filed all that information away, her previous assumptions confirmed, and put the half-finished bottle in the trash, mindful not to tip it, before finally getting her courage up to speak again.

“I honestly didn’t do anything. About the sketch. It’s something that just popped into my head.”

“I dunno, kid. I dunno. But we’ve all been trying, and for the life of me, I didn’t see that dress as a wedding gown until you said it. And I’ve seen it in all the colors Chiara tried. Now that she knows what direction this is going, I think she’ll try ivory once again. Though something might be missing. She’ll figure it out now, and maybe it will free up her mind and her creativity enough to move on to the new spring collection. Though, perhaps Frankie should be doing a better job of nurturing her wife’s muse.”

The last comment was mumbled more than said out loud, with Aoife walking to the far corner of the studio, affecting an air of extreme involvement with a piece of ivory silk. Vi decided that some things were better left alone. She had poked the bear a bit too much today as it was. She liked Aoife, who was jovial and funny and so far kind to her.

Vi didn’t have many friends, and with the summer and fall months of this internship looming ahead, she wanted to do well. For her father, for herself, and maybe a little bit for the woman upstairs, who was somebody’s wife and whom Vi had no business thinking about.

* * *

In the end,her first errand turned out to be getting lunch. Vi almost raised an eyebrow at the list of dishes being rattled off to her from the top of her supervisor’s head, and decided not to ask why they didn’t simply order delivery.Gopher. She’d known what she was agreeing to when she’d signed on. It was time to go and do her job now.

She was relieved she hadn’t mouthed off to Aoife about the delivery situation, because the bistro a block away did not, in fact, actually deliver. That alone was strange, but once she stepped into the small space—that looked more like a hole-in-the-wall truck stop in the middle of Nowhere, Indiana, than off the Rue de Rivoli—many other things seemed even more peculiar.

The man behind the counter had a scraggly mustache and an air of invincibility that made him appear like a direct descendant of Napoleon himself. He raised his head from a badly battered copy of what looked like The Catcher in the Rye and gave his facial hair a rather theatrical spin.

He did not bother with French.

“Are you Madame Chiara’s new raccoon?”

Vi decided that she wouldn’t bother to speak French either. Though she immediately wanted to rub that air of Gallic superiority off his face. Her English noble half—direct descendents of William The Conqueror—wanted to remind him of the Battle of Agincourt.

“It’sgopher.”

He very demonstratively puffed his lips at her, and she wondered if the bistro wasn’t on candid camera, because surely he had to be playing to an invisible crowd.

“Same thing. The lunch order is ready. Since you are new and English, I can’t trust your taste to be of any quality, so I made the house special for you. The rest have their usual orders packed.”

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