Page 1 of The Bad Girl List

CHAPTER 1

Clones

DOMINIQUE

There is nothing I hate more in the world than high-heeled shoes. I mean, who spends money to feel like they might tip over at any moment? If that was my thing, I would have pursued gymnastics when I was a kid.

Not that my parents didn’t try to coax me into it. You’d think a petite Chinese-American girl would be a shoo-in for back flips and the balance beam, but it only took one class for me to know gymnastics was not my thing.

That didn’t stop my parents from forcing me to take classes for the next two years. Chinese families aren’t fans of leisure time. If you aren’t being productive, you may as well be dead. It wasn’t until I started showing an interest in drawing that they agreed to let me quit gymnastics and take up art lessons.

Second to my dislike of high-heeled shoes are tight clothes. I hate the feeling of being constricted, of not being able to breathe for fear of my hips bulging out or tearing a seam. If I was allowed to script my perfect life, I would wear baggy cargo pants and tennis shoes every day, and I’d have a makeup-free face and my hair in two messy buns on top of my head.

My perfect life would not include me standing in a stuffy conference room in cheap plastic shoes from Walmart with aching, disgustingly sweaty feet. My toes are going to be white and wrinkly by the time this day is over, not to mention blistered. My perfect life also doesn’t have me stuffed into a tight black pencil dress with enough makeup and hair product to suffocate someone.

Yet here I am in the conference room of Presidio Designs, doing my best not to teeter on my heels as I make my way to the front of the room.

Our client, Tim Moretti from Moretti Winery–one of the most acclaimed wineries in Sonoma County’s wine country–leans back in his chair, surveying the wine label redesigns proposed by two of my colleagues. He’s an older man with distinguished silver hair who looks sharp in his dark blue suit and gold watch.

The six label redesign options displayed in front of him are all versions of the same thing: a whitish background with black or red lettering, followed by a black-and-white sketch of a vineyard or of the Italian-esque Moretti tasting room.

They all look like clones of the original label we are redesigning, the flagship wine of Moretti Winery. The original label is a light cream on textured paper stock with a vineyard illustration done in watercolors. The Moretti name is in bold, black text. Old Vine Zinfandel (the varietal) and Dry Creek Valley (the appellation where the grapes are grown) are in red. This wine sells for a whopping one-hundred-fifty dollars per bottle.

I stop beside presentation boards made by my colleagues, John and Lisa, who are also assigned to this project. My fingers grow sweaty as I dip them into my presentation folder, my heart rate spiking in anticipation of what I’m about to do.

The design proposals approved by my boss, Sophia, are all clones of the original label, just like John and Lisa’s. In other words, more of the same. Monotonous. Nothing fresh or interesting at all. Tim Moretti may as well have hired someone from Fiverr to knock out these boring, lackluster designs, not an upscale San Francisco design agency.

The proposals I pull from my folder looked like the clones decided to kick off their shoes, hop into a convertible, and live a little. There is color across my designs, everything from bright orange to pale blue. And I’d completely scrapped the idea of a vineyard or a tasting room illustration, opting instead for creative treatments on the family name, Moretti.

These designs are not the designs Sophia approved. In fact, she scrapped all three of them early on in the design process, calling them “drastic deviations” of the “artistic vision.” She sent me back to the drawing board, insisting on “classic” revisions. Also known as clone designs.

My heart pounds erratically as I set my drastic deviations on the last presentation stand. From the look on Sophia’s face, she’s pissed. By discarding her approved designs and presenting these instead, I am blatantly undermining her.

This may make me sound like a rebel, but I’m the complete opposite. I shove myself into uncomfortable shoes and clothes in the name of being a professional. I’m the person who arrives ten minutes early to work every day, works through lunches, and delivers on projects days before a deadline. There isn’t a rebellious bone in my body.

But I had sat in on the Zoom call when we did the intake interview with Tim Moretti. I heard him use words like fresh, modern, and elegant. My designs are all of those things.

There is nothing fresh or different in the clone designs Sophia opted to show him today.

“Huh.” Tim Moretti leans forward, the first sign of movement I’ve seen from him since the presentation began. He rests his forearms on the table, a slight dent between his brow as he scrutinizes my designs. “These are … unconventional.”

Silence descends. Tim continues to study the design boards. I can hear the clock ticking on the wall. Sophia glares at me. John and Lisa stare at me as though I’ve lost my mind. My stomach rebounds off the floor and into my esophagus, making me feel sick with distress.

“These are all great designs,” Tim says at last. “I’m going to take these boards back home to review with my family. I’ll get back to you in a few days with feedback.”

“Take all the time you need,” Sophia says, rising to her feet to gather up the design boards for Tim. “We look forward to hearing your family’s feedback.”

Sophia walks in her four-inch heels like she’d been born in them, leading Tim back to the reception area as she makes small talk. I scurry back to my cubicle, hoping she’ll forget about me.

“Dom, what were you thinking?” John hisses, poking his head around our shared cubicle wall.

“I don’t know.” I swallow, eyes darting. “I just thought–”

Crap. There’s Sophia.

“She’s coming!” John jerks himself back to his computer.

I grab my mouse and pretend to be absorbed in my email, even though my heart is pounding and I’m too nervous to read a thing.

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