Heirs Book Two: American Lady (12 page)

“There you are, maman! I knew you’d be here.
Thiérry?” Maix quirked his head curiously as he finally noticed his
friend and equerry. Leigh’s pulse thudded. Had he overheard any of
her conversation with Thiérry?

“I managed to track your mother down and was
just about to come and let you know,” Thiérry responded smoothly,
flicking a hand through his ruffled hair.

“I wish people would stop surprising me.”
Leigh managed to sound calm. “First Thiérry catches me unawares so
that I drop my favorite vase.” She turned to indicate the mess of
flowers and broken glass bowl, avoiding Maix’s inquisitive gaze.
“And before I can call someone to clean up you startle me.”

Thiérry, also avoiding Maix’s questioning
eyes, speed walked out the door to seize the first servant he saw
and send a uniformed maid inside.

“Maman, have you forgotten our fundraising
luncheon for the Médecins Sans Frontières?”

“Oh, of course! I lost track of time,” Leigh
started guiltily. “I meant to find you after my breakfast meeting
with the Red Cross ladies, but then I got distracted by the garden
and just had to pick these flowers.” The blooms were now sadly
crushed in Marie’s dustpan along with Thiérry’s wild dreams, Leigh
hoped.

Linking her arm through Maixent’s she lead
him from the room. “Where’s Charley today?” She knew this was the
most reliable topic to veer his attention away from any lingering
suspicions he might have about finding her alone with Thiérry.
Thank God she had repulsed his erotic overture. An affaire with
Thiérry would be dicing with her son’s trust and she didn’t want to
lose that.

“She’s out with Aurie.”

“Perhaps you can spend time with her after
our lunch.”

Regretfully Maix shook his head. “No I have
to meet with the Recortadores Committee. I’m entrusting her to
Thiérry’s care this afternoon.” His tone was so wistful that it
wrenched Leigh’s heart to see how completely in love he was.

“She’s a lovely girl, Maix. You two make a
handsome couple.”

Maix smiled smugly as though walking on air
were now his everyday habit. If only she could wrap his heart in
Kevlar to protect his happiness.

“The critics are saying you’re a has been. American
Lady is washed up. The originality, the flair is gone,” Lyric
Duveyung, eyes smoldering behind the thick lenses of his glasses,
placed the
New York Times
in front of Nikki, folded to the
headline
Fashion worth zip
.

“Well, if you’ve come here to insult me you
can just walk out again.” Nikki’s defensiveness made her snarl. She
had bypassed the forthcoming grand reopening and 50
^th
anniversary of the Apollo Theater, billed as a six hour
extravaganza of pop music’s who’s who, because she couldn’t bear to
face the snide speculation – would she wear one of her own designer
flops or someone else’s gowns? “And who are you to criticize?
You’re a second rate accountant who couldn’t keep a job until I
took you on. You haven’t done anything to help me!”

“Well, the IRS haven’t arrested you yet. And
I’m trying to help make your next season a success by bringing
Griffin Capizichi to help you,” Lyric offered with a nervous
smile.

Nikki looked dourly at the other individual,
whom she’d barely noticed come in with Lyric. He was a lanky young
man, with reddish brown hair falling over his forehead. Dressed in
torn jeans, cowboy boots and a faded denim shirt, he looked like
he’d be more comfortable on a horse than her sofa, preferably
slinging a couple of six-shooters. And Lyric’s introduction hadn’t
made his position in her office any clearer.

“How can a man whose name I cannot even
pronounce help me?” demanded Nikki irritably. She was having a
terrible week, overindulging herself in Poppy’s homemade cream
cakes, Hershey’s chocolate bars and Lorenzo’s champagne to dampen
her panic at Charley’s non-stop chatter about Maixent when she
phoned. Today her designer clothes were feeling distinctly tight
around the midriff. “And why is your hair that horrible shade of
orange, Lyric?” Nikki suddenly noticed her accountant’s hair, dry
and lifeless as week-old orange peel.

Lyric blushed bright red which clashed
unpleasantly with his carroty roots.

“I thought I’d streak my hair to ah be
fashionable,” he mumbled. “But um well it turned out orange
instead.”

“Well, it’s certainly not an improvement.
You should always go to a professional. I suggest you get as much
of it cut off as possible.” Nikki had totally lost her sense of
humor and couldn’t even raise a smile at his absurd appearance.

“Stop picking on Lyric,” Griffin spoke for
the first time in the conversation. “Your daughter convinced him to
leave his dodgy accountancy firm to set himself up in business with
you as his first client. It’s not his fault your finances are
sliding downhill faster than Bill Johnson winning gold at
Sarajevo.”

Nikki turned her astonished gaze from Lyric
to Griffin. “With Charley’s penchant for lame dogs, I’m guessing
you’re another one of her projects?”

“No, no,” Lyric protested feebly. “Well,
that is, Charley did think it was a good idea when I spoke to her
on the phone. But Griffin is here to help with your next
collection. American Lady simply can’t afford another flop. The
reviews are killing your business.”

“Dayam, don’t take all the credit and get
shot in the crossfire, Lyric. You know this scheme was cooked up by
Charley and me to salvage American Lady.” Griffin drawled with a
chin splitting grin. “If it’s not too late.”

Nikki gave him a sour look. “All fashion
houses have critics. American Lady has been around for twenty years
and believe me a little set back like this is not going to end
us.”

“Well, speaking from a financial basis,”
Lyric opened his enormous briefcase, which his spindly arms seemed
hardly strong enough to lift, and pulled out a sheaf of papers.
“That’s not strictly true. You really do need some kind of income
to balance your outgoings. If you don’t have any income, and if the
bank refuses to loan you the money to continue trading after the
winter collection, the only other step will actually be to sell off
assets,” Lyric’s voice faded at the look Nikki turned on him.

“Are you still advising me to sell
Rosedale?” she sniped.

“No, and that’s why you need me,” Griffin
was unfazed by Nikki’s cold stare.

“I don’t have to listen to any of this,”
Nikki stood up. “Maybe it’s time I fired you, Lyric.”

Lyric gulped convulsively, his face was so
slick with perspiration that his glasses slid down his noise and he
clasped his hands so that the knuckles on his big, raw-boned hands
glowed white. He didn’t move. It was Griffin who rose to his full
six foot three inch long-limbed height.

“I admired you even before you designed
clothes. You were the best-dressed First Lady this country’s ever
seen. You created an entirely new era in the White House. You
showed America that elegance, style, sophistication and good taste
were possible for American women. You single-handedly proved to the
world that American designers were the equal of French couturiers.
Dayam, now that Dominique Cassidy was a courageous lady and one
hellova woman,” he drawled. “The Nikki Cassidy who’s letting
American Lady slide into inglorious oblivion and taking it out on
the messenger is not a woman I admire. Come on, Lyric. This lady
doesn’t have the guts to try anything new. Dayam, she’s willing to
let everything she worked for for twenty years go down the drain
just so she won’t have to stick her neck out.”

Stuttering, shaking, Lyric was dragged to
his feet. Griffin stuffed Lyric’s papers unceremoniously back into
his briefcase and hefted it in one brawny hand.

“Just a minute.” Nikki stood behind the
desk, irresolute. Amongst her tumult of emotions, this young man
sparked a small flame of excitement. “What could you possibly know
of those years in the White House? Or my first collections? You’re
too young to remember any of that.”

“Sure, I wouldn’t have been any more than
ten when President Cassidy died,” Griffin admitted. “But even I
felt it then. You had an aura. Dayam, you were one of the big
influences in my life. I’ve always attributed my desire to design
to seeing you in a parade with President Cassidy.” He closed his
eyes as if bringing the image to mind. “You wore a blue straw lace
dress. Classically simple, yet heart-breakingly stylish. I knew
then that I wanted to make all women look as beautiful as you did
that day. When I went to design school American Lady was one of the
designers I studied. So you see, I do know your history well.”

Nikki was moved by his declaration, but
hated to admit it. It was especially wonderful to be so
complimented after the failure and continual panning she’d received
for her recent collections. “Alright, I’m willing to listen to your
ideas. Sit down and tell me why you think I need you.”

Lyric collapsed with relief onto the soft
cushioned sofa. Griffin hesitated before letting his long legs fold
into the chair.

“The way I see it is if American Lady is
lucky it has one more chance to make good its reputation. If your
winter collection bombs not even a buyer from a third rate five and
dime will touch you. As it is now Lyric says you haven’t received
orders for more than ten percent of your summer collection. Those
are pretty lousy odds.”

“I thought you were going to tell me how you
could help me, not give me a critique,” Nikki snapped ungraciously.
Annoyed and nervous she paced over to the bottle of vodka.

Griffin’s long legs had him over to Nikki
before she’d finished unscrewing the bottle. He shook his head and
led her back to the desk.

“You don’t need that crutch any more. What
you need for the new collection is a hot line. And I mean a dayam
chilli-hot line that will sear the shiny Gucchi pants off the
competition. The problem with your last series of collections, and
we’re talking the last two to three years here, is that it’s tired,
trite and designed for women in their forties and fifties.”

Nikki flushed scarlet.

“Giancarlo has got lazy. He’s recycling the
same old designs and you’ve got slack in not keeping him on his
toes, just because his gowns look good on you. Now, technically
there’s nothing wrong with designing for older women. They usually
have a lot of style and money. But the majority of the baby boomers
are in their twenties and thirties. They’re professional women.
They have money. And they want to look good. Dayam, it’s a huge,
cashed up even if not cacheted market. Young professional women is
the market you started out with in 1966 and it’s the market you
should return to.”

Despite the resentment Nikki felt at being
lectured by someone young enough to be her son, his words
penetrated her annoyance and buoyed her with hope.

“What do you suggest I do?”

“Fire Giancarlo and hire me. That way you
not only have the benefit of new blood, you will also have less
overheads,” Griffin flashed a white picket fence smile out of his
suntanned face.

“That’s impossible. Our declining sales are
temporary. Everyone knows the fashion industry is in a slump. It
will recover.”

“American Lady has to take the gamble,”
Lyric butted in hesitantly. “Giancarlo has produced too many flops.
And Griffin is right, American Lady has lost the majority of its
support over the past three years.”

“Firing Giancarlo is not impossible, but I
knew you wouldn’t do it. In that case, keep Giancarlo to the
sidelines and hire me to handle the entire 1985 winter collection,”
Griffin said breezily.

“So how come my accountant suddenly thinks
it’s okay to spend money hiring one of his buddies when it’s not
okay to spend money on anything I want?” Nikki protested.

“Hey, you’ve got to spend money to make
money,” Griffin retorted. “I don’t come cheap but I’ll bet you
could hire three of me for the price of the deadwood you’re
carrying now.”

“Have you ever worked as a designer?” Nikki
frowned.

“If you’re asking for credentials, my last
position was with Galanos,” he responded somewhat testily. “I guess
you’ve heard of James Galanos? He works in Los Angeles and he has
designed a few gowns for Nancy Reagan and Diana Ross amongst
others. And that’s a man who’s been in the business for over thirty
years and yet still manages to keep his designs young.” It was a
dig at Nikki and she didn’t take it too kindly.

“Well at least I don’t have to hawk my
clothes from store to store,” she retorted, referring to the
in-store appearances that Galanos regularly made with his stainless
steel touring trunks filled with designer gowns.

“Hey, I accompanied him on one of those
tours. He pulled in five hundred thousand dollars in three days in
Palm Beach. Dayam, the man knows not only how to design and market
his collections but how to keep changing with the times.”

“What’s in it for you?” she queried
belligerently.

“I’ve learnt a lot from Galanos but I’m only
one of the crew. Galanos is and always will be
the
designer.
At American Lady I have the chance to be the head designer. Charley
knows working with you is my dream job in New York, and since I had
to return home for family reasons, the timing is perfect.

“The new collection will rise or fall on my
designs and so will my reputation. I was with Galanos for nearly
five years and learnt a lot, especially about quality. But I want
more control over my designs.” Griffin leant forward, for the first
time showing an intensity of emotion that Nikki found riveting.

“Unfortunately I don’t have the money to
start my own business,” he continued. “And with the whole industry
in a slump no opportunity to get backing either. Also, my name is
unknown so I’d be starting with three strikes against me. By coming
to American Lady I get in with a company that does have an
established name and offices on Seventh Avenue. But it’s in big
trouble, so if I save your hide I’m going to have a lot of clout
and possibly become famous. If American Lady goes down the tubes,
well, who ever heard of Griffin Capizichi anyway?”