Love Redesigned

by Jenny Proctor

  Autopilot took me down the street, into the lobby, and onto the elevator which carried me up to the third-floor studio.

  When the elevator doors slid open, Isaac was waiting for me. “Dude, where have you been? I’m starving.”

  I slammed the bag of food into his chest with a little more force than necessary and stalked past him. I needed a place to sit down. Somewhere to think and figure out why seeing a woman I finally thought I’d gotten over had me feeling so torn up inside.

  Guilt, maybe. I’d handled the situation with Dani like an idiot and wouldn’t deny it. But it felt like more than that.

  Isaac followed me to the center of the room where an assortment of couches and chairs they’d used to stage the photos sat clustered together. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked. “You look terrible.”

  I sank onto the nearest chair and dropped my head into my hands. I breathed out a sigh and looked up, finally making eye contact with my friend. “I ran into Dani.”

  He stared, his eyes wide, then he slowly started to laugh. He shook his head as he pulled out a sandwich, peeling back the paper before taking a large bite. “I don’t feel sorry for you, man. You know you had that coming.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you’re the idiot who never called her.”

  “But she was right there, in person, without any warning,” I said. “That’s not how it was supposed to be the first time I . . .”

  “The first time you what? Saw her again? How was it supposed to be?”

  I ran a hand across my face, frustrated that Isaac was being so casual about the entire thing.

  “I just thought I would have the chance to explain myself before actually seeing her.”

  Isaac crumpled the wrapper of his sandwich. “You’re delusional, man. She lives here. Like three blocks away. You had to have considered the possibility of running into her.”

  “Millions of people live in this city. I just . . .” A thought suddenly occurred to me. “Does she know you’re in town?”

  “Yeah.” Isaac looked away quickly, like he’d been hiding something and was finally going to fess up. “We’re um, we’re actually having dinner tonight.”

  “Really?”

  That was surprising. Isaac and his twin sister rarely got along. They tried, but the entire time I’d known them, the trying had usually dissolved into fighting somewhere around hour two.

  “It was her idea,” Isaac said. “Apparently her boss gave her this reservation at some fancy place in East Harlem. I still need to meet with Rizzo to go over plans for the scavenger hunt, so I figured, why not take advantage of the opportunity, meet with Rizzo and knock out obligatory family time all at once?”

  I still couldn’t get used to Isaac speaking seriously about someone named Rizzo. When he’d called me and offered me a job three weeks after I’d left New York, I had known saying yes meant entering a sphere completely different than the buttoned-up financial world I was used to. But I’d underestimated just how different. Rizzo didn’t even have a last name. Apparently, you didn’t need one on YouTube, not according to the millions of subscribers his channel boasted.

  Rizzo was the only YouTuber more successful than Isaac who was participating in the upcoming scavenger hunt—Isaac’s recent effort to diversify his brand and make more of a positive social impact. The entire thing would benefit a charity organization chosen by the YouTube personalities participating in the event. To have Rizzo onboard was a big deal.

  “Two things,” I said to Isaac. “First, what else does Rizzo need to know? He was here for the promotional photos and he’s already agreed to the terms. Why do you need another meeting? Second, you’re having dinner with him and with Dani at the same time?”

  “Rizzo is in. He gave me his word and he’s good for it. And why not have dinner together?”

  “You haven’t seen your sister in over a year. I’m not sure she’ll appreciate having you bring a business associate to what I’m sure she assumes will be a family dinner.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Why do you suddenly care so much about Dani’s feelings? It’ll be fine. Rizzo’s coming an hour late, so I’ll do the family thing with her, then when Rizzo shows up, I’ll do the business thing with him. And if I’m lucky, I’ll still make it to Carlie’s party before midnight.”

  “Carlie?”

  “Carlie the lighting assistant? With the—” Isaac raised his hands and traced the imagined silhouette of a generously curved woman.

  I cut him off. “I get it.”

  “She said you can come too. I think her exact words were, ‘bring your stuffy assistant if you want.’”

  My jaw tightened. It had been bad enough watching the photographer’s lighting assistant fawn all over Isaac for the better part of the photoshoot. I didn’t need to see how bad she’d be in a less professional setting. “I’m not your assistant. Also, how did you make all of these arrangements for dinner and a meeting with Rizzo without my knowledge? I thought you hired me to be your manager.”

  “I hired you to be my business manager,” Isaac said. “This dinner is mostly . . . social.”

  “Rizzo counts as business. I should be there for your meeting.”

  “I was planning on you being there. The reservation is for four.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. “You just said this was a social dinner. Why are you expecting me to be there if I’m your business manager?”

  Isaac rolled his eyes. “For the first part of dinner, you can be there as my friend. When Rizzo shows up, you can play manager for a few minutes. This isn’t a big deal.”

  No, it was a huge deal. “Isaac, I’m not having dinner with Dani.”

  “Why not? You said you wanted a chance to explain yourself. Now I’ve given you one.”

  “But she doesn’t even know I’ll be there,” I said. “Does she even know I work for you? We can’t just spring that on her.”

  “She knows you work for me. I told her right after I hired you that you were helping with my taxes and stuff.”

  “Hiring an accountant to do your taxes is entirely different than hiring an accountant to be your full-time business manager.”

  “Right,” Isaac said, his voice annoyingly even. “I told her taxes . . . and stuff. I didn’t tell you not to reach out and clarify your new job description, man. You could have explained things to her yourself whenever you wanted.”

  Isaac made it sound so simple, but he had no idea how complicated things really were. I wanted Dani to know why I left without any explanation, without even saying goodbye. But there were some things I couldn’t explain. Not just because I didn’t want to. But because legally, I couldn’t.

  Not as long as she worked for LeFranc.

  After settling with the photographer, and agreeing on a deadline to receive the proofs, we took a cab to the hotel. I still had an apartment in the city and wished we could have stayed there. It would have been more comfortable than any hotel room. But it was presently sublet to a pair of Swedish ballerinas who I didn’t think would appreciate accommodating a pair of unexpected house guests.

  Before pulling away from the curb, our cab driver looked over his shoulder and immediately recognized Isaac. “Dude, are you Random I?” he said, his voice full of enthusiasm. “I love your stuff.”

  Isaac nodded. “Hey, thanks, man. I appreciate it.”

  The driver held up his phone. “Do you mind?”

  I leaned out of the frame while Isaac leaned forward, smiling into the corner of the guy’s selfie.

  “I love the weekly kindness challenge,” the driver went on. “I had somebody leave me a fifty dollar tip the other day. Hashtag Random I.”

  “Hey, that’s awesome,” Isaac said. “It’s what I love to hear. Just be sure to pay it forward. That’s the whole idea, right?”

  “Right on, man,” the driver said.

  It wasn’t the first time random strangers had approached Isaac to tell him about ways his weekly kindnes
s challenges had influenced their lives. The challenges had developed their own cult following; people completed them then posted and shared videos of their experiences on social media.

  “You still haven’t told me why you need another meeting with Rizzo,” I said to Isaac, once the gushing fan bit from the cab driver had subsided.

  He shrugged, not even looking up from his phone. “It’s not a big deal. He just wants to review the details one more time.”

  I raised an eyebrow but didn’t question further. At least not verbally. I was a bit territorial when it came to the charity event I’d been planning with Isaac. It was part of why he’d hired me. My primary responsibility was to make sure he managed his money in a way that would help it last, but he also hoped I could help to improve his brand and broaden his reach.

  A YouTube channel is a pretty self-serving entity by default, so I admired his desire to turn his success into something more meaningful than the notoriety of his own name. Though, it was admittedly challenging to find a balance between my Harvard educated professionalism and . . . I didn’t even have a word to describe what Isaac was.

  Still, I couldn’t criticize. He was really good at what he did. His tech news was always insightful, his comedy was sharp, and the kindness challenges were obviously making an impact. At the same time, in the last episode I’d seen Isaac film, he’d issued the weekly challenge while sitting in a bathtub full of chocolate pudding.

  I respected him, yes. That didn’t mean I always understood him.

  “You think I ought to let Rizzo have two teams?” Isaac asked.

  “Of course not. Why should he get two?”

  “He says he’s bringing twice as many viewers as the rest of us.”

  “Is that what this dinner is about?”

  “Cool your jets,” Isaac said. “We’re just talking about it.”

  I held up my hands. “You cannot cave to his pressure. We’ve set things up well. Five YouTubers. Five teams. This isn’t about him anyway. It’s for charity. It shouldn’t be about him feeling more important than anyone else.”

  “Fine, I get it. I’ll tell him no on the second team.”

  “And by you, you actually mean me,” I said, my tone flat.

  He reached over and smacked me on the knee. “That’s why I pay you the big bucks.”

  I scoffed. The salary he paid me was plenty, but it barely compared to what I’d made working at LeFranc.

  Though, I’d take Isaac over my stepfather for a boss any day. At least he had a measurable sense of integrity.

  Thinking of LeFranc brought Dani back into my mind and I tensed, realizing all over again that I would have to share a table with her at dinner. I had to think of a way to warn her. If she showed up to the restaurant expecting her brother, and I was there too, she might leave.

  That wasn’t what Isaac needed, and I realized with alarming clarity, it wasn’t what I wanted.

  I pressed my forehead into my hand. She’d looked amazing when I’d run into her. She’d been wearing blue. I’d always loved it when she wore blue, making her eyes explode with color. And then when she’d spilled all that coffee down her dress, her cheeks had flushed with embarrassment and . . .

  I ran a hand across my face, an attempt to wipe the image of her from my mind. It didn’t work, nor did it remove the guilt I felt that she’d wound up in such a mess in the first place. It hadn’t been my fault—not directly anyway. But I was the man she’d been running away from.

  When the cab pulled up in front of the hotel, I followed Isaac out of the car, but then paused on the sidewalk. A flower shop with a deep blue awning and a bright pink sign sat right next to the hotel.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said to Isaac. And then I went inside.

  Chapter Three

  Dani

  “What, did they make you brew the coffee yourself?” Sasha’s words were biting when I finally made it back to her office, coffee in hand. I handed over her cup.

  “Sorry. There was a . . . long line,” I said.

  “At eleven-thirty in the morning? I find that hard to believe.” She took a long sip of her macchiato. “At least it’s still warm.”

  I swallowed a sarcastic retort. What was with her? Her mood had been declining over the past few weeks, to the point that it felt like she always had something to be upset about.

  “What happened to your dress?” Sasha asked.

  I looked down, embarrassment flooding my cheeks all over again. She was lucky one of the coffees that had survived had been hers. “Someone ran into me on the way out of the coffee shop. It was an accident.”

  “Ugh.” Her lips turned down in disgust. “Well you can’t work looking like that.”

  I glanced again at my dress, pulling it away from my skin. I really wasn’t loving the stickiness inside my bra.

  “I’d say go find something in the sample room, but . . .” Sasha hesitated, looking me up and down. “With your curves, I’m not sure anything will fit.”

  Nice. “I’ll figure something out,” I said, hoping it wasn’t a lie. “Sasha, are you okay? You seem . . . agitated.”

  She gave me a dismissive wave and moved to sit down behind her desk. “I’m fine,” she said irritably. “It’s just been a long morning.”

  “Okay. Well, let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.”

  “Actually before you go, Dani, there is one thing.”

  “Sure. Anything.”

  “Do you remember the navy dress? The one with the fabric issue? Isabelle called this morning and it’s not going to work. For all her experience, she can’t seem to make the back-zipper seam lay flat. She says it keeps puckering.”

  So that’s why Sasha was in a bad mood. Changing the fabric had been her idea. I’d designed the dress, but since I wasn’t a real designer, she usually took my designs and tweaked them to make them hers. I didn’t love the arrangement, but it was all part of the process. Paying my dues. Proving to Sasha I had what it took to design. I was close, too. She’d been dropping hints lately about me being ready for the design team.

  Just the same, Sasha didn’t love it when it looked like I knew more about clothes than she did. Which was why the fabric puckering would always be Isabelle’s fault and not hers. It didn’t help that I’d known the fabric switch wasn’t going to work and had told Sasha as much. The fabric I’d used in the prototype was a thicker knit, with just enough stretch for ease of movement, but with much more structure.

  The charmeuse she’d swapped it for was meant to drape loosely, softly. It was not meant for box pleats. But Sasha had refused to take my advice, demanding we create an additional sew-by in the charmeuse. The sew-by sample was the most important one, acting as a gauge for what the piece would require in production and how much it would cost. If Isabelle—the best seamstress at LeFranc—couldn’t get a sample made correctly? There was no way the piece could go to manufacturing.

  “Do we still have the original sample?” Sasha asked. “The one in the navy with the tiny, pink pinstripe?”

  I tried to hide my irritation. She was talking as if I might not know exactly which dress she meant. Like it wasn’t the dress I had made at home, on my own time, after she’d foisted the sample fabric on me and begged me to turn it into something “stunning.”

  “We do,” I said, my face emotionless.

  “Good. We’ll have to send that one as the sew-by. There simply isn’t time to make another one.”

  Six months ago, I might have been thrilled by the victory. My design, unchanged, on the racks at LeFranc. But this time, the victory felt hollow. As far as anyone else knew, Sasha was the designer. “I’ll take care of it,” I said halfheartedly.

  Sasha’s voice softened. “This is a win for you, Dani. That’s your dress going to production. Your design.”

  No, a win would be presenting the design to Alicio myself. Letting him know it was mine and getting the credit I deserved. A win would be making the same salary the designers made instead of doing Sash
a’s job for a third of that amount. I hated that money even had to be a part of it. My friend, Chase, was already a LeFranc designer and had told me he’d take me on as an intern without a second thought. But I couldn’t take a nonpaying internship, even if it meant face time with the design team. Living in New York City wasn’t free.

  “I know,” I said, hoping I’d sufficiently masked my disdain. “And I appreciate it. I’ll pull the original sew-by sample and send it over.”

  “Good girl,” Sasha said. “Did you decide about the reservations tonight? At Rao’s?”

  I nodded. “My brother’s in town so I invited him to go with me.”

  She frowned. “Your brother? How nice.” She moved to the edge of her desk and perched herself on the end, one Prada-clad foot crossing over the other. “Did you know that’s where Alicio and I first had dinner together? Five years ago today, actually. That’s why we’re going away this weekend. To celebrate the anniversary of when we first—” She paused. “Well. I suppose you don’t want to know the details of all that.”

  “I’m sure it was wonderful,” I said, happy she’d spared me the details. It was Sasha’s favorite subject—just how in love she and Alicio were—but I wasn’t in the mood to relive her first anything with Alicio, dinner or otherwise.

  As Sasha rambled on about the trip she and Alicio were taking to the Caribbean, my thoughts drifted back to Alex. What had happened with his stepfather that day? And more importantly, why couldn’t he have talked to me about it? A familiar tightening filled my belly and I forced myself to breathe, to stay in control of my emotions. I’d carried the sting of his rejection for months—long enough that it had dulled to something I could almost forget about from day to day. But when I’d run into him at Java Jean’s, it was like the bandage I’d placed over my wounds was ripped away, taking half my skin clean off.

  “Did you hear me, Dani?” Sasha asked, a slight edge to her voice.

  “What?”

  “My three o’clock appointment?” She waved her hand in front of her like I ought to know exactly what she was talking about.