“I need to speak with Jay!” I yell through the glass. “I’m a friend.” Then more quietly, I add, “Sort of.”
The girl points to her ear and mouths, I can’t hear you, even though she so obviously can.
“I said”—yelling even louder and feeling like an absolute lunatic—“I’m a friend of Jay’s.”
She holds her hands up and shrugs before walking away.
“Hello, friend.”
I spin on my heel. “Jay!”
“I hear we’re friends,” Jay says playfully. Today they wear a blue-and-white seersucker romper with a pair of Gucci sneakers. It’s the perfect summer-in-NYC outfit.
“I think I scared your store manager.”
They shiver. “Nothing could scare that troll. You know she once told Lucy herself that she couldn’t take more than six pieces into the fitting room.”
My eyes widen. “And she still works here?”
“Would you believe that Lucy thought she was kidding and gave her a bonus for her dry sense of humor?”
“That’s a thing people give bonuses for?”
Jay smirks. “Not on my watch. I’m guessing you’re not here to give me all the latest Gossamer gossip.”
“I could?” I offer.
Jay reaches for my hand and cuts right to the bone. “He still hasn’t been back to the office.”
“You’ll let me know when he has?”
Jay’s smile droops.
“I guess it makes sense that he’d get you in the divorce,” I say.
“Honey, I belong to no one. But you’ve got to understand, Henry’s spent most of his life playing second fiddle to someone’s career.”
“So he knows, then? He knows why I wasn’t there?”
Jay narrows their gaze. “You’re a real sneaky one, aren’t you?”
“Hey, you can’t blame a girl for trying to read between the lines.” I push my sunglasses up into my hair so that they can see my eyes and, somehow, I can hypnotize them into delivering this message for me. “Listen, I’m leaving tonight for Italy…I don’t expect to see him before then, but can you just tell him that I’ll be back…and at the very least, I’d like to talk about what happened. To apologize.”
They nod pointedly. “I can’t promise anything, but have a safe trip. Think of me wasting away at the Olive Garden in Times Square while you feast on fresh pasta.”
“Hey, when you’re there, you’re family. And yes, I’ll clean every plate,” I tell them. “Just for you.”
The Gossamer offices remind me of my classrooms at Parsons. I have my own work desk complete with all the technology I could ever need and my own personal cobbler station so that I can craft prototypes before sending them off to our manufacturer for official samples.
Beside me is Freja, a Danish designer fresh out of school in London. We’ve been practicing a few Italian phrases every day at lunch, and she’s convinced that I’m going to meet a great European rebound guy in Italy. Multiple rebound guys if she gets her way.
“Buongiorno, Cindy!” she calls over her shoulder. “I’m running home to get my suitcase at lunch, so maybe we can get to the airport a little early. Get a little vino to kick off the trip?”
“You know this is a work trip, right?” I remind her.
“You Americans are such prunes,” she says.
I let out a snort.
“What? Did I say it wrong?”
“I think you were going for prudes.” I sit down at my desk and pull out the shoe I’ve been pecking away at for the last few weeks. Even though most of us have been in the office for a little while now, our team doesn’t officially assemble until the trip to Italy, so when we’re not doing HR trainings, we’ve all been encouraged to just…play.
My phone chimes, and I find a text on my group thread with Sara Claire and Stacy.
Stacy:
What if I told you I was already moving back in with my ex?
Sara Claire:
RED ALERT TOO SOON
Cindy:
Meh. Life is short.
I got their numbers from Beck a few days after the finale. That night, the three of us talked over a video call for almost five hours. I told them everything. Meeting Henry on the plane. Erica. My parents. Anna and Drew. And it turned out Sara Claire and Stacy had secrets of their own. Sara Claire’s father had bribed someone on the craft service’s team to give her a cell phone, and of course Stacy spilled all the details about her ex crashing our hotel room.
Sara Claire was upset at the finale, of course, but has fully embraced her status as America’s new favorite meme. Since I’ve bowed out of the next season, it looks like Sara Claire is being eyed for my position. She’s already made it very clear that the only person choosing the winner will be her. And Stacy is happy to be back to life as normal, though Beck has already reached out to say she’d love to have her on her queer take on Before Midnight, which was just greenlit, should Stacy’s girlfriend ever once again become her ex.
Since that marathon video chat, the three of us have stayed in constant touch, and Sara Claire is already demanding we rendezvous in Austin for a girls’ weekend.
I drop my phone back in my bag and return my focus to my workstation. In school I never really did much menswear, but in my free time over the last few weeks, I’ve been challenging myself to try. After rolling my suitcase under my desk, I open my sketch pad to the page I’ve revisited over and over again the last few days.
At the top in a soft script, I’ve titled my design The Henry. Below that is my sketch and fabric sample. A deep blue suede loafer with a slightly pointed toe and a super-soft brushed finish with a tassel on top. They’re more extravagant than my Henry might wear, but the details remind me of him. Refined and polished and bold without being too loud or taking themselves too seriously.
Crow was right. Crossing one bridge had allowed me to look back and see all that I had been through, and when I sat down to sketch a few days after the finale, things started to feel more and more natural. I was designing again. Really designing. Some of it was bad. Some of it was okay. And some of it was even great. But I was thankful for it all. Most importantly, I was relieved to have the thing that brings me so much joy back in my life. I think for a while there, I began to wonder if I’d made it all up, and that the inkling of talent that had gotten me through the first three years of fashion school was just a fluke.
“Did you find that tassel I dug up for you?” Freja asks.
“No.” I turn around in my chair to see a soft navy tassel next to my keyboard. The tassels are thick—not too delicate—and remind me of the ropes from the sailboat that last night. “This is perfect,” I tell her.
I pull the shoe out from the cubby beside my desk where we can keep our current works in progress. It looks like an old card catalog, except the drawers have been replaced with shoes.
The shoe I’ve been working on is rough-looking to the naked eye. Exposed seams. Obvious shoe nail tacks. But I can see what it’s supposed to be. I can see the potential, and this tassel is the crowning finish.
At the end of the day, as Freja and I are walking down the street with our suitcases to catch a cab, she begins to frantically pat down her pockets and dig through her bag. “I forgot it. Damn it. I can’t believe I did this. Or I left it at the office.”