No. My feelings about that haven’t changed.
Several minutes went by with no response. I waited, occupying myself with a scroll through Dani’s photo feed on Instagram. It was mostly her clothes—she worked hard to maintain a professional online presence—but there was an occasional photo of her face. I lingered on those the longest.
After ten minutes with no response, I texted her again.
Dani, are you in trouble?
Again, no response.
I dropped the phone on my desk with a heavy thud, a knot of dread forming in my stomach. Something was up. And there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. I tried to tell myself it wasn’t my problem. It wasn’t, even if Dani was in trouble. She’d made her choice and I’d made mine. There wasn’t a reason for me to keep thinking about her, and yet, I couldn’t escape.
I looked around the sparsely furnished bedroom I occupied in Isaac’s home. A bed, a small desk. A chair in the corner. Without even realizing it, I’d furnished the room to look like a slightly grown-up version of my childhood bedroom. The furniture held the same clean, simple lines and the muted blues and grays of the bedding, and the chair in the corner was an echo of what my father would have chosen. Dani’s question hovered in my mind. Why did I live with Isaac? It wasn’t as though I couldn’t afford to live on my own. I’d meant what I told her about believing the job was only temporary, but even after I’d decided to continue the work, why did I stay? Why hadn’t I found my own place?
Laughter sounded down the hallway, Tyler’s booming laugh, followed by Steven’s lower-pitched chuckle. Isaac knocked on my open door before sticking his head in. “Hey. Mushroom brought home fried chicken. Want to eat?”
I nodded. “Sure. I’ll be right there.”
“Cool.” He banged his hand on the door jamb before disappearing back down the hall and into the kitchen. “He’s coming, ya’ll,” I heard him say. “Save him something.”
I’d opted to furnish my space with new furniture—it didn’t feel right taking things Malorie was presently using—but I’d gathered up several boxes of personal belongings that I’d missed while living in New York. There was a conch shell I’d found one morning on an early jog on Sullivan’s Island, as well as several sand dollars I’d collected through years of summer bonfires on the beach. There was my stack of Pat Conroy novels and the Mason jar of traditional Charleston moonshine my dad had purchased for me the summer I’d turned sixteen. He’d promised we’d open it the night I turned twenty-one. He’d already been sick by then, distracted by cancer treatments and his efforts to still care for his new family. It had felt wrong to bring it up, to make it a priority when he had so much else going on.
The randomness and clutter that filled the room would have looked wrong in my New York apartment, all sleek and modern. It would have looked wrong anywhere in that version of my life. And maybe that’s why I’d stayed at Isaac’s so long. Because the world I’d built for myself living in New York didn’t feel like a real life. It felt like a magazine cover—like a representation of who the world expected me to be, even though it had very little to do with who I actually wanted to be. But this place felt so much more like someone I recognized.
My eyes fell on the sweetgrass basket I’d purchased on a whim a few weeks back after striking up a conversation with a woman selling them in front of the courthouse downtown. Dani had told me once she’d always wanted one and had often talked about saving up for one of the handmade treasures. In retrospect, it was clear I’d bought it for her, though I wasn’t sure I’d ever actually give it to her. I wasn’t sure she’d take it if I tried.
I picked up my phone and scrolled through my photos, going back to when Dani and I had been together. I’d told her that my New York life hadn’t been an accurate reflection of the person I wanted to be, and that had been the truth. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t truth to our relationship. A lot of what we’d had had been real—as real as the room I’d carefully built for myself in Charleston. But what about how she felt? What could I possibly be to Dani if all I had to offer her was a single room in her brother’s house?
More importantly, why did I suddenly care?
I scrolled through a few more photos, Dani’s face filling my screen. Dani on my couch, the tall windows overlooking the city behind her. Dani in Java Jean’s. Dani behind the sewing machine in her tiny loft in Chelsea, her nose wrinkled in concentration. Dani leaning against the pillows in my bedroom, blonde hair tumbling down her shoulder. Dani and me together in front of the marquee sign for Hamilton right after I’d surprised her with tickets. It was the night of our first kiss.
I tossed the phone back onto the bed and pressed my face into my hands in frustration. I couldn’t think about Dani this way. It was too dangerous, too painful. I’d been gutted over our break-up, though she’d likely find that hard to believe. Life had only just begun to feel normal again.
I fled to the kitchen, hoping company would help. I dropped into a chair next to Mushroom and reached for a plate.
“Dude, what’s wrong with you?” Mushroom asked. “You look angry.”
I sighed as I piled potato salad onto my plate. “Not angry. Just . . . distracted, I guess.”
“Woman trouble?” Tyler asked. “I’m guessing woman trouble.”
I met Isaac’s eyes across the table and shrugged. “Something like that.”
Tyler waited, his fork poised above his plate, a look of expectancy on his face. “And?” he said when I didn’t offer any additional information. “Elaborate and maybe we can help you.”
“There isn’t anything else to say. It’s not recent trouble. I ran into an ex in New York and seeing her messed with my head a little bit.”
“You need a distraction,” Vinnie offered through a bite of fried chicken. “Someone new.”
I hadn’t given much thought to dating over the past year. I’d talked to a few women here and there but getting over Dani had felt like full-time work. Anything beyond talking had felt almost impossible. But maybe it was what I needed.
“Text Jasmine back,” Isaac offered from his end of the table. “Hasn’t she asked you out a dozen times or something?”
Jasmine was an old friend of Isaac’s. She’d gone to high school with him and Dani and recently moved into an apartment a few blocks away. A few weeks back, Isaac had invited her and a few friends over for an afternoon barbecue. I’d barely talked to her, but before she left, she’d asked for my number and we’d been texting off and on ever since. I didn’t know much about her. She had a dog that she often walked up and down Church Street. She was tall and had dark hair and a nice smile, and Isaac had known her long enough he wouldn’t have suggested it if she was crazy.
“Jasmine’s the tall chick with the dog?” Vinnie asked.
“Chicks are baby birds,” Mushroom said, not even lifting his eyes from his food. “Not women.”
The whole table froze, all eyes trained on Mushroom.
He looked up to meet the silence, his face flushing red when he realized everyone was staring at him. “What?” he finally said. “I’m just saying. It’s the twenty-first century. We should know better.”
Laughter spread around the table; I agreed with Mushroom. That wasn’t the funny part. I’d just never expected the comment out of him. Maybe I’d underestimated the guy.
“Jasmine is the tall . . . woman who owns a dog,” Tyler said, glancing sideways at Mushroom. “And she’s attractive . . . not that that’s the most important thing,” he quickly amended. “I’m sure she’s smart and . . .” He shook his head, clearly tiring of being so careful. “Whatever. Isaac’s right. You should ask her out.”
I pulled out my phone. “It feels wrong to be asking someone out because I need a distraction.”
“But maybe you’ll like her,” Isaac said. “Have an open mind. You never know.”
A part of me still felt guilty as I typed out a text asking if she wanted to get together, but I was desperate. Seeing Dani again had ignited
something in me I’d worked a long time to suppress. I had to find a way to stamp the flame back out again, for my own sake, and for hers.
Chapter Eleven
Dani
I looked up to see Chase walking toward my desk. A welcome distraction. I glanced one more time at my phone, the texts from Alex still visible on my screen. Even though I’d received them weeks ago, they kept pulling me back, taunting me. Reminding me of his warnings.
Was I in trouble? His question had irritated me, mostly because I didn’t know the answer. Something was definitely up with Sasha. And the longer I was left in the dark, the more I worried it had everything to do with me. I had a huge stack of sketches I wanted to show her, and three different dresses I’d started to work on at home. I’d assumed she’d want to see them, discuss them. Be a part of the design process. But I’d only gotten seconds of her time over the past few weeks. She’d encouraged me to keep working and responded with a Yes, of course when I’d asked if I could be reimbursed for the fabric and other notions I’d purchased to start the new dresses. But that was it. Which didn’t make sense.
It was the end of September—barely three months from debut month. When, exactly, was Alicio going to tell the design team about Sasha’s new venture? What’s more, I had no idea if anything had been done in preparation for the launch. Had there been a photoshoot? Would there be a magazine spread? Promotional material of any kind? I didn’t know everything about debuting a fashion line, but I’d been working at LeFranc long enough to know that we normally worked almost a full year in advance. When everyone was just starting to wear our fall line, we were finalizing what would hit stores in the spring. It didn’t seem realistic that this close to January, there wasn’t a word about Sasha’s dresses anywhere.
Chase dropped the latest edition of Elite Fashion onto my desk with a dramatic thump. “Page seventy-two. Quick.”
I shot him a look—I hated being bossed around—but flipped open the magazine anyway. There didn’t seem to be much on page seventy-two, just a few random blurbs of industry-related news. But then I saw, in the bottom right corner, a photo of Sasha and Alicio on the red carpet of some awards show they’d attended together. I quickly read the caption.
Wedding bells approach for designer Alicio LeFranc and his fiancée, Sasha Wellington. In a recent press release, it was revealed that Wellington—a senior designer at LeFranc—will debut the first in a line of signature gowns bearing Wellington’s name and backed by the Le Franc brand at their December wedding, a preview of the rest of collection, debuting in January. “I’ve been working on the dress for months,” Wellington told Elite in an exclusive interview. “It’s the truest representation of my style and what I want this line of dresses to be. I can’t wait to share it with the world.” For those of us in the fashion industry, that’s one wedding dress we can’t wait to see.
“So she’s finally gone public,” I said. It had been nearly three weeks since I’d handed over Paige’s wedding gown to Sasha’s greedy hands.
“Wait, you knew about this?” Chase said, pulling my attention back to the article. “How has she kept an entire line of wedding dresses a secret from the rest of the design team?”
“I don’t know much,” I said. “But she did mention it.” I bit my lip, hesitating before admitting what Sasha had specifically asked me not to tell Chase. “She actually asked me to be on her design team for the new line. I’ve been working on dresses at home.”
Chase’s eyes went wide. “Dani! That’s excellent news!”
I shook my head, cutting short his congratulations. “I thought it was too, but I don’t know, Chase. Something isn’t right.”
He narrowed his gaze. “What do you mean?”
I looked over his shoulder, making sure we were well and truly alone at my desk. “Sasha has been completely avoiding me since we first talked about it. She’s hardly been at work. She’s avoiding my phone calls. She told me the line is supposed to launch in January, I guess right after the wedding,” I said, motioning to the article, “but she hasn’t said anything about the actual dresses. She made it seem like they already exist, but they might still need a little tweaking so that they coordinate with Paige’s dress and I thought she was going to have me do that. But she doesn’t seem to be concerned about any of it. If she wants me to be lead designer, why is she avoiding me? Why aren’t we collaborating? Brainstorming? Working?”
Chase gave me a worried look. “Dani, why do the dresses all need to coordinate with Paige’s dress?”
Doubt welled up in my stomach. “Because I gave it to her. To include in the line.”
“But you haven’t seen any of the other dresses?”
“Well, no, but they have to be somewhere.” I pointed at the magazine still open on my desk. “I mean, she’s wearing one of them. I can’t imagine Sasha’s wedding dress being anything but top priority for everyone involved.”
“That’s just it, Dani. Who is everyone? No one else on the design team knows anything about this. The article says she designed the dress herself. Do you really have confidence in Sasha’s ability to create a designer wedding gown on her own? She can’t design anything on her own. Something doesn’t add up.”
“She told me she has a new design team that’s handling the dresses. Maybe they’re off location somewhere?”
“I guess that part makes sense,” Chase said. “Of course she would need a separate location. That way no one here has to know she isn’t actually designing the dresses herself.”
“Truly? You don’t think she could design a gown?”
Chase put a hand on my shoulder. “Dani, Sasha’s only contributions that actually get taken seriously are the pieces you design for her. The woman is a cheat and a master manipulator. That she’s convinced Alicio to give her a line of wedding dresses is evidence of that. Because she doesn’t have the talent to justify it.”
“But designers get help all the time,” I argued, feeling the futility of my words even as I said them. Chase had never spoken so blatantly about Sasha before. “Alicio has a full team of people who work for him. He still gets to put his name on the clothes.”
“But it took him years to build his brand. He did the work, in the trenches. He earned that right. But what has Sasha done? She hasn’t earned her place with her design skill, I can tell you that much.”
“So you think she’s using other designers to create her dresses, and she’s doing it away from LeFranc so no one knows she’s actually a fraud?”
“Exactly,” Chase said, his tone gentle. “But my hunch is that whatever underlings she hired don’t have what it takes to create a wedding dress good enough for her to wear herself. She had to find someone else with that kind of talent.”
I closed my eyes, a hand pressed to my stomach. “Someone like me?”
Chase nodded. “She already has Paige’s dress? Like, in her possession?”
I leaned back into my chair. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
Chase picked up the magazine and started fanning me with it. “Talk me through it, Dani. Tell me what happened.”
“She showed up at my apartment. I guess she’d looked through my sketchbook, and then Paige was actually wearing the dress when she came in because I’d been fixing the hem, and then she just told me so many amazing things. Talked about bowing from the runway at fashion week. She didn’t give me any reason not to believe her, Chase.”
“I’m sure. She’s very convincing.”
And yet, I had had a reason not to believe her. Alex’s warning had told me not to trust her.
“How long would I have kept picking up lattes and answering her emails before I realized it was all a lie? I’m her pawn. Her puppet. That’s all I’ve ever been to her.” I forced a breath out through my nose. “No decent designer in all of New York would stand for Sasha Wellington claiming one of their designs as her own. But she knew I would, right? Because I’ve been doing it for months.” Tears welled in my eyes and I pushed a hand against my forehead
. “Why am I so gullible?”
Chase reached for my hand, then scooted around and sat on the edge of my desk, our clasped hands resting on his knee.
“I’m an idiot,” I said.
He rubbed slow circles on my back. “Hey. We’re going off our hunches here, right? We don’t know anything for sure. Maybe she’s telling the truth.”
“She promised me she’d turn me into someone. Said I would be a part of something special.” I hiccupped a laugh. “And I fell for it.”
“Shhh. Maybe you still will be. You could absolutely be freaking out for no reason.”
“I appreciate the encouragement, but I’m done being optimistic. She stole my dress. Simple as that.”
Chase was silent long enough, he had to agree with me. “So what do we do about it?” he finally said.
Good question. “Make another one?”
“You could, though you run the risk of her accusing you of stealing her idea.”
My shoulders fell. If it actually did come to that, no one would ever believe me over Sasha. I pulled my sketchbook out of my purse and opened the page to the finished rendering of Paige’s dress. I flipped the book around and handed it to Chase.
He whistled, running his hands across the image. “It’s stunning, Dani. It’s no wonder she wanted it.”
“I feel like such an idiot.”
Chase leaned forward and kissed my temple, giving my shoulders a final squeeze. “Let’s find out the truth first. Don’t lose heart until you absolutely have to.”
Later that night, a text came in from Paige. Staying at work tonight so don’t wait up. How’s my dress?
I paused the Friends reruns I was binging and stared at Paige’s text. I couldn’t tell her. Not until I knew something definite.
Gorgeous as ever, I responded. It was a lie, but I had to buy a little time somehow. How was I ever going to tell Paige the truth?
Chapter Twelve
Alex
“Alex!” Isaac called to me from somewhere—the kitchen, maybe?—with a volume and intensity that might have alarmed me three months ago. I’d since grown used to Isaac reacting to everything from running out of paper towels to burning his toast with the same vigor he would an approaching hurricane.
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