Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 57779 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 231(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57779 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 231(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
A few seconds later, I’m sealed inside the empty car. My adventure with Ethan is over.
A part of me feels very sad, a big part of me, if I’m honest with myself, but I did the right thing. And I can’t risk running into him again. I need catch an earlier flight.
Chapter Nineteen
Ispend most of my first flight reliving my night with Ethan and filled with regret. By the time I’m settled onto the second stretch of my travels, I’ve pulled out my sketchpad, and started reviewing my notes from the show. The Moore’s collections are safe and rather boring. Could I design for them? Yes. Is it what I want? Yes and no.
My mind once again is back on Ethan, replaying one of our conversations, this one over dinner.
“Does she think Moore’s is the right move for you?”
“Why?” I ask, and not because I’m avoiding the topic of my mother, though on some level I am. Her death cuts deeply. I’m not sure if it’s smart for this man to know that part of me. “Is there something wrong with Moore’s?” I ask.
“It depends on what you want. Store brands are not Prada. Which do you want to become?”
“Prada, of course.”
“Then you don’t want this offer.”
“What if I don’t get another offer?”
“You won’t if you take this one. But do the work, get them to offer, and then that becomes part of your résumé. They offered. You walked away.”
It’s smart advice, and similar to something a headhunter told me once. Get the job, she had said. You can’t turn down what isn’t yours to claim. I’m going to get the job, but as I start designing, a few ideas come to me—big ideas. What if I give them the basic, beautiful designs that fit their present mold, but I also give them an option two, a designer label that they strive to make as high-end and recognizable as a Prada? It’s never been done by a department store, not properly, and department stores aren’t exactly the big game to play any longer. Online shopping has become king. And maybe, just maybe, I can turn this into money, which my father needs. So do I, of course, but he comes before me. I’m motivated, and my work flows from my mind to the page.
I’m also exhausted when I arrive home in the middle of the night—the price I paid to fly through Atlanta instead of New York and ensure I didn’t run into Ethan. I crash into the bed, but not without my mind going to Ethan again. I want to pitch to Moore’s, I do, but he knows I was pitching. If he looks me up, or Zoey, he’ll find out I don’t exist. Or rather, she doesn’t exist. If he dug hard enough, he’d figure out who I am, too. That would surely kill my chances with Moore’s.
But that would mean that Ethan actually was into me enough to look for me.
And that’s a foolish, fantastical thought.
It’s over. I’ll never see him again.
The next morning, I have coffee and breakfast with my father, who is eager to hear all the details of which I will not share, and any other idea would be highly inappropriate. He encourages me to do my submission, and I encourage him to keep looking for a new investor. With both of us inspired, we part ways, and I bury myself in work. I go home and send a thank-you note to the executives at Moore’s, letting them know how excited I am to be preparing a proposal for them, and I’m given one month to do so.
Exactly one month later, I send off my proposal. Exactly a month after that, I’ve heard nothing, which does not feel like good news as the new season will need to be in production quite soon. I’ve decided this is done, and I need to think about a real future, and that means saving my father. I’ll work for him. I’ll pitch to investors. I have ideas, and as disappointed as I am about leaving my career behind, I am motivated to save his business, and to work by his side.
He is not in the same mindset, and when I show up to work the first day, my self-assigned new job, he rejects me again. “Call Moore’s,” he orders, standing across from me at my new, rather dingy little desk in an office with some sort of stain on the wall. I think I’ll paint this weekend and spiff up my workspace to get in a campaign state of mind.
“I’m not calling Moore’s. I’m done, Dad. This is my path, with you. And if they wanted me, they would have contacted me.”
My cellphone rings with an unknown number. I answer on the first ring. “This is Sofia Cameron. Can I help you?”