by Megan Bryce
His dad took pity on him, probably because of the cookie, and stood up. “Before you leave, can you take a look at my computer? It’s taking a long time to start.”
Flynn smiled.
“Yeah, Dad. I’ll take a look.”
Megan BryceBoring Is The New Black
Seven
Flynn was in his closet, hiding, the next morning when there was a knock on the door.
He stared at it, thinking he hadn’t really been that bad yesterday.
Not worth firing.
He’d just maybe overstepped.
Knock knock.
He grimaced, then sighed, and was just about to get up and open the door when the knob turned. Nicole pushed open the door to look at him.
She looked behind her, then took a step inside. She shut the door and he said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”
She leaned against the wall and crossed one high-heeled boot over the other.
“And I wasn’t really yelling at you, just. . .around you.”
She said, “So, that was you yelling?”
“I’m sorry.”
She cleared her throat. “You seemed very passionate, and I was thinking about what you yelled. I think you’re right.”
“It wasn’t really yelling. . . You think I’m right?”
“I can’t underutilize my employees.”
He stood up and the closet suddenly seemed very small.
She didn’t seem to notice. “Have you ever made a website before?”
“Yes.”
“You should have led with that. Yesterday.”
He said, stupidly truthful, “Not with a store before.”
She nodded. “Do you think you can do it?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. But this is just a trial. If I don’t like it, I will outsource it.”
“You’ll like it.”
He smiled and she didn’t.
She’s so pretty but she always looks unhappy.
She was and she did, and he said again, “Sorry about yesterday. I could have been passionate without the. . .”
He waved his arms, demonstrating, as if she could have possibly forgotten him doing it just yesterday. He nearly brushed her with his fingertips and he stopped abruptly.
She nodded. “I have time during lunch to discuss what I want.”
“I’ll be there.”
Her lips twitched and she pushed herself away from the wall.
She pulled open the door, then turned back around.
“Do you need a bigger office?”
He shook his head because he’d suddenly realized how great his little closet was.
How visitors had to stand close to him, how he could smell the light perfume they wore that made him think of cookies.
How he was sure that scent would be lingering after they left.
He’d never had visitors actually come inside before. They just opened the door and talked to him and left.
And, you know, that was great, too.
Everything was great.
Today, everything was just great.
Megan BryceBoring Is The New Black
Eight
Nicole’s assistant stuck her head in the door right before lunch and said, “Hey, your sister’s here.”
Since her sister was supposed to be in school, Nicole sighed. Then finished her email and nodded.
Her little sister flounced in wearing a lime-green shag sweater, a pink and purple striped miniskirt, and black garter stockings.
Nicole hoped she had a coat somewhere.
“What are you doing here?”
Colette flopped into a chair. “I came to yell at you.”
“I mean, you should still be at school.”
“We got out early.”
Nicole didn’t believe her. “Hmm.”
“And I’m here to tell you that you need to fire your staff. I showed up to your show and they refused to let me in.”
“I told them not to.”
Colette sat up, outraged. “I was supposed to be one of the models!”
“You didn’t show up for the fittings. Any of them. I found another girl.”
“I’m your sister!”
“I’m your sister. And you couldn’t bother to show up, to call, text, email, send a friend, come early the morning of the show. The resources at your seventeen-year-old fingertips are legion. You just didn’t care that you were leaving me hanging.”
“I didn’t think I had to act like all the rest. I am your sister. And I’m the daughter of a supermodel. I don’t need–”
“To be fitted?”
“I’m telling Nikita that you walk-blocked me on purpose,” Colette said and Nicole let out a short bark of a laugh.
“Go ahead. What do you think she’s going to say to a model who doesn’t show up for a fitting?”
For an instant, Colette’s bravado wavered. Say what you would about Nikita’s mothering skills but as a model she’d been a professional. And she had choice words for models who weren’t.
Colette’s bravado came back quick enough though, and Nicole didn’t know if that was age or personality.
Her sister said, “You’d love that, wouldn’t you? You and Nikita could have something to talk about for more than thirty seconds.”
Well, love was a strong word. It would certainly be interesting to have her mother’s attention for that long.
“And I don’t know why you went to all the trouble of your own show, anyway. Hire some designers and slap the Bissette name on it. That’s what I’m going to do.” Colette fluffed her hair, schooling her decade older sister. “You don’t need to do it all yourself. Work smarter, not harder, Nicole. You’re Nikita’s daughter. Why work at all? Neither one of us has to.”
She was right, and she was wrong. They had money, trust funds. Maybe there wasn’t a monetary need to work. But there was a psychological need to become something of one’s own.
And Nicole was suddenly very, very tired because she knew Nicolette believed everything she’d just said.
Knew that she was happy to be the diminutive of her famous mother.
Nicole stood and began herding her sister out the door. “The daughter of Nikita is not really who I want to be my whole life. It’s not enough for me; it’s not enough for anyone. Now, if you don’t mind, I have lots of work to do.”
“You’ve got issues, you know that?”
“Yes. I like to pretend I have a few less than you.”
Colette opened her eyes real wide, her pupils big and black, and said, “You don’t.”
“It’s scary to think about, either way.”
Nicole ordered lunch in and worked. She didn’t understand her sister’s lack of drive. When she’d been seventeen, Nicole had been working. Modeling, and finding out rather quickly that she was terrible at it.
She’d tried being a personal shopper– the go-to job of rich, bored, skill-less young women.
But again, terrible, and it was a blow to realize she was terrible at shopping.
Probably Nikita had despaired of her as she despaired of Colette.
Of course, Nicole hadn’t been doing drugs when she was seventeen either. And she’d had a fierce need to be more than she was.
Prideful, that’s what she was. Thinking there was something more than being a supermodel’s daughter.
But she’d decided a long time ago that prideful was better than useless.
She’d started assisting that year’s hot fashion designer, her name opening doors that should have been closed to her– it’s not what you know, it’s who knows you– and she hadn’t been terrible at it.
Had loved the sewing machines whirring. Had loved the colors and fabrics.
Had loved watching something wonderful being created from nothing but a vision.
Every step along the way looking rough and nothing like clothing.
And then when it was done, something beautiful.
She’d come home every night to
pull apart another favorite piece of clothing. Dissect it and study it. Figure out why she’d bought it and why she’d wear it again and again when there were hundreds of other things to wear in her closet.
She loved clothes and fashion, and she’d take that from her mother without complaint.
Flynn knocked on her door, poking his head around the corner, and Nicole patted her lips and pushed her salad away.
She waved him in, trying hard not to stare at his ill-fitting and style-less clothing.
She’d never made it a requirement to be well-dressed to work here. Everyone did. They worked here because they loved clothing and fashion. They loved looking good and feeling good about it.
And then there was Flynn.
He sat down, pulling out a notebook. “So, what are you thinking for the store?”
“I hadn’t got that far yet. It was a nebulous idea forming inside my mind before you insisted you be allowed to make it.”
He put down his notebook and folded his arms.
They stared at each other and he said, “I thought you weren’t upset about that.”
She blew out a quiet breath. “Sorry. I’m cranky.”
“Well, finish your lunch then. And I’ll tell you what I’ve been thinking.”
She was hungry, so she nodded and pulled her salad back over.
He said, “We’ll match your website. Uncluttered, minimalist.”
“I like that. The clothes are the focus.”
“And we’ll add a ‘Shop at Nicole Bissette’ banner on the homepage. The hard part is fulfillment, and we don’t know what we’ll need until we know what kind of volume we’re talking about. Hundreds of items or a handful of items? One of a kind?”
“My mother is one-of-a-kind,” she said, as if that answered his question, and she guessed it kind of did.
“Limited quantities, then.”
She nodded. “Limited. High-end.”
As if there had ever been any doubt about that.
She pulled up a rival designers website, clicking around.
“I don’t like how they did that, too hard to find,” she said and Flynn came around her desk to look over her shoulder.
“Three thousand dollars for a dress!”
Nicole hadn’t noticed the price tag. “It’s not outrageous.”
“It is. It is actually the very definition of outrageous. I can go get a dictionary if you need proof.”
And if Nicole laughed, she would laugh at that, at him.
“And why aren’t the models smiling? Why do they have to look so miserable? If I was going to pay outrageous prices for a piece of clothing, I’d want to do it from happy, smiling models.”
“They’re not miserable, they’re supposed to be invisible. Because it’s about the clothes, not the models.” She glanced behind her and looked pointedly at his slightly too short pants. “And you wouldn’t buy nice clothing from any kind of model.”
He wasn’t offended at all at her snide remark, only nodded in agreement with her. “I’ve got much better things to spend my money on.”
She was still looking at him, studying him, and he said, “It’s no wonder you didn’t become a model. You couldn’t be invisible if you tried.”
Oh, she had tried.
She turned back around. “It’s because I have dead eyes. No model will last if she has dead eyes, even if she is Nikita’s daughter.”
“Dead eyes?” He came out from behind her desk and sat down again. “I’ve always thought they looked all-seeing. Like you could see everything everyone didn’t want you to.”
She blinked and sat back in her seat.
After a moment of silence, Flynn said, “Awk-ward. Back to the store.”
Nicole pinched her lips together to keep from smiling.
“Back to the store. I’ll have to decide what to price at. We’ll need stock of all the sizes. A store may be more work than I was anticipating.”
“We can do a test run. Put up one item, or just a couple of items, and work out the kinks.”
She nodded slowly. “A soft launch.”
“Ooh, do a Beyonce! Just put it up, see what happens.”
“Don’t announce it at all?”
He shook his head and Nicole said, “She’s Beyonce. She doesn’t have to announce anything.”
“And you’re Nicole Bissette. You just had a successful NYFW show. Just release it. One item each and we’ll put up a clock that shows how fast it gets sold out.”
Nicole’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. “Oh, I can just see that clock ticking on forever. Let’s not do that.”
Flynn laughed. “Come on.”
“No.”
“Come on.”
“No.”
“And if no one buys it within twenty-four hours, we’ll mark it as sold. If we can get it up now, while there’s lots of interest from the show, they’ll see it.”
She squeezed her lips together, her stomach tightening in knots.
“It’s impossible to get it up now. The clothes have to be made, the models have to be booked for photographs and I can tell you there aren’t any left on the eastern seaboard this week. Oh, and I’d need a store on my website. Now is impossible.”
“Say that all items ship in two to four weeks. I can get a temporary store put up in hours, there are templates available. And surely you know some models who can do you a favor on short notice.”
She shook her head, then stopped.
“. . .maybe my sister.”
“Or you could do it. You did the runway.”
“And that was a mistake, obviously.”
“Well, if invisible is what you were going for, then yes. And what about Nikita? Make it a family affair?”
Nicole couldn’t stop the laugh that escaped.
Flynn grinned at her. “I’d pay $3000 to see Nikita modeling your stuff.”
She laughed again, then shook her head.
“I’m not even going to ask her. But I might have a couple of friends who could model for me on short notice. You really think we could have something up this week?”
“It’ll be a simple design but I can have it up in hours.”
“They’ll need to be able to choose sizes and inseams for each piece. Can you do that?”
“I find your lack of faith disturbing.” He grinned. “I’m kidding. I can do that.”
“Is it going to look dumb?”
“No. Simple.”
She breathed out a long breath. Thought about really going after this. And said, “Not the clock. I just know that will be terrible for my mental health.”
Megan BryceBoring Is The New Black
Nine
Flynn got to work. A rush of energy and excitement hit him so hard that he floated back to his closet.
He read reviews, poured through code, and surfed forums because someone had already done everything on the internet and it was always for sale.
Hours later, he ran back to Nicole’s office before she left for the night.
“I need your credit card. Or PayPal. Or a picture of you naked. Any or all of those are considered valid currency on the internet.”
She just stared at him until he flushed and muttered, “I was just kidding about that last one.”
He hadn’t been.
And the way she was looking at him made him think she knew it, too.
But she followed him wordlessly and paid for it.
Flynn cracked his knuckles and said with glee, “Okay, now to make it ours.”
She watched him for a few minutes and when she left, he waved absentmindedly.
He hoped she hadn’t been talking to him.
And when she came back in the next morning, he was still working.
She stared at his untucked shirt and wild hair. “Did you work all night?”
He grinned like a maniac. “Red Bull and coffee. I can’t feel my feet.”
She tugged at his chair. “Please go home and get some sleep.”
“Not done. Still
prettying it up. You want to see it?”
“It’s not live, is it?”
He shook his head, turning his laptop so she could see. He opened a browser window and there was her store.
Nice, simple. It matched the feel of her website. It looked professional.
It had smiling models wearing bathing suits.
“I just cut and pasted so I could see what it’d look like. We’ll need sales copy to go along with your pictures.”
Nicole rubbed her forehead. “I’ll add it to the list.”
“It’s good, huh?”
Nicole looked at it again, leaning toward the screen and him.
“It’s good. Sizes, inseams, colors. Better than I thought it would be.”
“I’m still working on the banner.”
She put her hand on his shoulder. “Go home, it doesn’t need to be done right this second. I still have to find some models.”
He nodded and she left, and Flynn fell asleep on his desk.
“Oh, my back.”
Flynn sat himself up, creaking and moaning. His eyes were scratchy and there was cotton in his mouth and he quoted to his empty closet, “I’m too old for this shit.”
He pulled himself to his feet and staggered through the door, the light suddenly blinding him. When he could see again, the office was unexpectedly full of activity– sewing machines whirring and fabric being cut. Nicole in the middle of it all, looking through photos of outfits and models.
Everyone stopped to stare at him.
Nicole handed off the photos and came to him, her normal is that what you’re wearing expression looking more like who let this yeti in?
She didn’t stop when she got to him, just grabbed his arm and walked him toward her office.
“I thought you went home.”
“Fell asleep.” He nodded at the hubbub behind them. “How long was I out for?”
“It’s still today, if that’s what you’re asking.”
He grinned. “Oh, good. You’ve been busy.”
“I was inspired by how much you accomplished in one night. We’re picking the five outfits we think will sell the best and are making three sizes of each. That should be enough of a start, right?”