Ripped at the Seams (16 page)

Sami almost fell off the ladder.

“Whoa, be careful,” Lola warned, helping her down. “I don't want to lose the girl who's putting this little love shack on the map.”

“But there must be fifteen orders,” Sami said, shocked as she flipped through the papers.

“Oh, no. Not that many. There's actually only fourteen. But some of them are for two or three items, so maybe it's more like twenty.”

“But how …”

“Those two girls from Casablanca Magazines must have told their friends. And they told their friends. And so on … and so on,” Lola said, imitating a classic shampoo commercial.

“But so many orders?” Sami said, sitting down, hard, on the floor. “There's tons to do here in the store all day. If I were going to make all these I'd have to work every night for a month, and even then I
don't think …” Her stomach was turning over.

Lola shook her head. “I've got it all figured out. You're going to set up shop in the back office and design
full time
. I'll hire someone else to work out here. Maybe that kid Nico, the one who started you off. She's looking for something permanent, right?”

Sami jumped up. “Lola, you would really do that for me?” she asked.

Lola nodded. “Look, I'm a businesswoman, and your designs are going to bring in cash. But hell, I'd help you even if they wouldn't earn me a dime. Sami, you're one of the real ones. There aren't many of us left. We gotta stick together.” She paused. “But there is one thing….”

“Anything,” Sami assured her.

“We gotta see a lawyer.”

“Why?”

“I want to make sure we make everything official between us. If you're going to be a designer, you're going to have to make sure you get everything that's coming to you. You have to set up a business account at the bank, and have a lawyer who can handle setting up small businesses. I can't
keep paying you commissions in twenty-dollar bills.”

“But I trust you.”

“I know you do. But you gotta think big. Bigger than this place. Sure, I'd love to have an exclusive deal with you, but that can't last forever.”

Sami was confused. “What? What are you talking about?”

“You're destined for huge things, sugar pie,” Lola said. “It's in your aura. And I just want to make sure that some nasty Bruce Jamison character can't come along and cheat you out of everything you deserve.”

Sami could feel the tears building up in her eyes. This woman had no reason to take care of her. And yet that was exactly what she was doing. Taking care of her like a mother. Better than a mother, in fact, if Sami's own mother was the barometer of maternal instinct. Sami reached out and hugged Lola tight.

Lola let the girl cry for a moment, clearly unsure what this sudden surge of emotion was all about, but instinctively knowing that Sami had to let it out. Finally, she loosened Sami's grip, handed
her a tissue, and gave her a smile. “Enough of this mush,” she said. “Do you think the head of IBM sobs like a baby every time he gets an order for a computer? This is a
business,
right?”

Sami smiled. “Right.”

“So you get in the back and start calling those women to make appointments for consultations and fittings. I'll call a lawyer friend of mine and get you an appointment.”

“You know a lawyer?” Sami asked incredulously.

“What, you think the only people I know are the lovelorn and drag queens?” Lola asked. “I've got plenty of friends with desk jobs. I just don't like to admit it too often.”

It was a few days later when Rain called Sami at work. “You're not going to believe who just called this house,” Rain gushed excitedly into the phone.

“Ashton Kutcher?” Sami asked.

“I wish.” Rain laughed.

“Brad Pitt?” Sami teased. “Justin Timberlake?”

“Now you're ruining the surprise.”

“Why?” Sami asked. “Did Justin really call?”

“No. It's just that after those names, I guess Genevieve Bluster doesn't mean much.”

Sami gasped. Genevieve Bluster was the editor of
Fashionista
magazine—the bible of the young fashion world.

“Genevieve Bluster called our apartment?” Sami asked incredulously. “Does she want you to do a cover?”

“She wasn't calling me. She was calling
you
. She wants to do a story—oh, I'm sorry, a
piece
—on you for their next issue.” The last few words were practically screamed into the phone.

“It had to be a joke,” Sami said, refusing to believe this was happening to her.

“No joke,” Rain assured her. “I'd know that fake French accent anywhere. I've met her at about a thousand different parties from the agency.”

“But—”

“No buts about it, Sam. I don't know why you're so surprised.
Fashionista
is part of the Casablanca Magazines publishing
group. Your designs have been circulating around that place for days now.”

It was true. Thanks to Nico's temping job, Sami had gotten a big in with a fashion magazine company. Sami made a mental note to do something incredibly nice for Lola's new shop girl.

“Oh, my God,” Sami gasped as the realization began to set in. “What do I do now?”

“Well, for starters, call Genevieve back and tell her that tomorrow is just fine to meet with her reporter. Then meet me at home.”

“Why?” Sami asked.

“Because we've got to work on your makeup, get your hair cut, and pick out a Sami Granger original for you to wear.”

“I have to get all done up to meet a reporter?” Sami asked nervously.

“Genevieve is sending a photographer too. And not just any photographer. She's sending the hottest one around:
Franklin Beane
!”

After jumping around the store with Lola and Nico, Sami exhausted herself enough
to make a relatively calm call to a woman who could literally make
or
break a designers career. Fortunately, Genevieve was all
“oui”
and
“vous”
and running in a million directions. Sami spent more time on the phone with one of her assistants than confirming the appointment with the woman herself.

As soon as Sami hung up the phone with Genevieve Bluster, she made another call—to Elk Lake. Celia sounded weary as she answered the phone.

“Hey, Ceil, are you okay?” Sami asked.

“Sami. Long time no hear. How you been?”

Sami felt a twinge of guilt at that. It had been a while since she'd called Celia. “I'm sorry it's been so long,” she said. “But things've been crazy here. I've been designing and sewing day and night.”

“Sounds like things are picking up at Beneath the Sheets.”

“Slowly,” Sami told her. “People seem to really like the lingerie I'm designing. “

“Funny the places life takes you,” Celia mused. “You never designed any lingerie before. It wasn't like you were the fashion
queen of the slumber parties either. You always slept in your dad's old shirts. “

“I know. And now those shirts are the inspiration for a lot of my nightshirts,” Sami explained. “And you're never going to believe this,” Sami told her. “Tomorrow, I'm meeting with a reporter and photographer from
Fashionista
magazine! They want to do a piece on me. Me! Can you believe it?”

Sami had expected her best friend to be really excited. But, curiously, Celia was nonplussed. “Of course I believe it,” Celia said. “You've always been great. Now other people are seeing it too. But Sami, a piece like that could get you a lot of work.”

“I know, isn't that cool?”

“Well, that doesn't leave you much time for …”

“For what?” Sami asked.

“Well, for romance. I mean, you haven't had a date since that Bruce jerk,” Celia said.

“Who needs romance? I'm going to be in
Fashionista
!”

Celia sighed. “It's wonderful, Sami, it really is. But don't you wish you had someone special to share it with?”

Now it was Sami's turn to sigh. Celia just wasn't getting it. “I
am
sharing it with someone. With you.”

“That's not what I mean, and you know it,” Celia said.

“Look, Celia, you live your life, and I live mine. I have different goals from yours.”

“Do you think being a mother before I was twenty was in my game plan?” Celia blurted out.

Sami grew quiet. Celia had always been so supportive. And she seemed so happy with Al. It had never occurred to her that she might be jealous of Sami's life. Or maybe it was just those pregnancy hormones talking. Either way, Sami hadn't expected this response from her best friend. “Celia, I didn't mean to upset you. I just thought you'd be excited for me.”

“You know, you only call when something exciting is happening to you,” Celia replied tartly. “You don't call just to say hi, or ask how I am, or how your brother is. I'm not so sure your father wasn't right about you moving to New York.”

That stung. Suddenly, Sami's guilt
about not calling was blanketed with a sheet of raw anger. “Well, its not like you've been calling me either!” she spat out.

“I left you a message just last week. You never called me back.”

Sami thought back for a minute. She vaguely remembered seeing a message from Celia. She'd meant to give her a call that night, but she'd had a client to meet with, and then she'd gone out for pierogis with Rain and Vin. After that, the message must've gotten buried.

“If you'd called, you would have known that I've been having more trouble with my blood pressure. It was pretty scary,” Celia informed her curtly.

“Oh, Celia, I'm sorry,” Sami replied earnestly. “I've been so selfish.”

“Yeah, you have,” Celia agreed.

“Are you okay?” Sami asked.

“I'm fine now. I can get out of bed in a few more days, now that my blood pressure's stabilized.”

“That's good, at least.”

“It is,” Celia agreed. “And I'll tell you, Al's been so great about this. He's waiting on me like I'm a princess.”

“I'm glad,” Sami said. “And the baby?”

“She's fine,” Celia told her.

“She?”

“See, you're not the only one with news. We saw her on the sonogram last week, and it's definitely a girl.”

“Heaven help the girl who has my brother for a father.”

Celia giggled. “I know. You and I are going to have to sedate him when she has her first date.”

Sami laughed. “He'll be just like your dad. Remember the interrogation he used to give the guys who came to pick you up?”

Celia lowered her voice to sound like her father. “‘And just what plans do you have for your life, young man?'” she said, imitating him. “And that was just the guys I dated in junior high!”

Before long, Celia and Sami were laughing and trading gossip again. Their disagreement had been brushed under the carpet. But Sami knew that didn't mean it had disappeared completely. Although she didn't want to admit it, the distance between them was growing wider.

Franklin Beane wasn't like any photographer Sami had ever encountered—not that Sami had had much contact with professional photographers. In fact, she'd only met two: the guy who had taken the photos at her senior prom, and the one who had taken the pictures at Al and Celia's wedding. And neither of those had ever leaped around the room like Franklin Beane did.

As Sami spoke to the reporter from
Fashionista
(Marla Simmons, a nervous girl who had starved herself way past fashionably thin), Franklin hopped up on counters, climbed ladders, and practically swung from the light fixture to take photos
of Sami and her designs. From time to time he would run his fingers through his dark brown, shoulder-length hair and consider what part of his photography jungle gym he should climb up on next. But he wasn't at all intrusive, and after a while Sami barely remembered he was there. Franklin even managed to get a few photos of Lola, who was circling around Sami throughout the interview like a mama lioness protecting her young from a predator known as the media.

“So, what do the folks back home in the hinterland think of your success?” Marla asked Sami in a voice that was part Long Island, part fake British, and completely affected.

Sami bristled slightly at the reporter's dismissive tone. Lola noted her discomfort and before she could answer the question, the store owner butted in. “That would be
Elk Lake,
” she told Marla. “I know its tough, being two whole syllables and all, but that's where Sami's from. And she's damned proud of it.”

“Of course she is,” Maria replied quickly, cowering into the high neck of her black leather jacket.

“My brother and sister-in-law are ecstatic!” Sami told her. “They helped me financially when I first arrived, and so they're sharing in all this.”

“And your parents?” Maria asked.

“Well, my dad has had a hard time letting his little girl go off to New York by herself, but I think he'll come around,” Sami said.

“What about your mom?”

Sami could feel the heat rising in her cheeks. “I'm not sure how she feels,” she said simply, hoping Maria wouldn't read too much into her tone.

“Have you seen Sami's latest creation?” Lola interrupted, holding up a rich, full-skirted purple-and-gold nightgown with a laced bodice. “It's a variation on a medieval gown. Incredibly feminine era, the Middle Ages, doncha think?”

Sami glanced up gratefully in Lola's direction. Lola smiled back.

“Hey, Sami, why don't you try that one on?” Franklin asked her. “We can take a few shots of you in one of your designs.”

“
Oh,
I'm not a model,” Sami told him.

“Thank
God,
” Franklin replied. “The
last thing
Fashionista
needs is more models. I want you to show that your designs are for anybody, not just for models.”