night, I couldn’t keep that piece in stock!”
“So you weren’t…troubled?”
“Last night? Not at all. After I spoke with the police, Tad and Rena whisked me away. No problem.”
Lottie gave that high-pitched laugh again. “Let’s go sit down,” she suggested, leading me to a pair of folding chairs set up in the corner. “I’m so tired, and I’ve been dreaming of one of your invigorating lattes.”
I held out the warm bag. “Dream no more. Still hot and fresh in a thermal mug—and I brought along some of those Ricciarelli you said you liked last night. The baker made this batch fresh this morning.”
Lottie clapped her hands, then opened the bag and sniffed the contents. “Clare Cosi, you’re a life saver! I didn’t have anything to eat for breakfast—nerves, you know?”
“Are Tad and Rena around by any chance? I was hoping to talk to them.”
Lottie sipped the latte and sighed contentedly. “Oh, you just missed them, dear. They brought me a watercress sandwich and some salad. I wolfed it down not ten minutes ago—right before Mr. Kazumi arrived. But I’m still so hungry.”
“Mr. Kazumi?”
“That man I was speaking with when you came in. Otomo Kazumi of the Kazumi department store chain. His Tokyo store is a real marvel. Twenty stories, more lights than Broadway, more bells and whistles than a Las Vegas casino. Stores in Osaka, Singapore, and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, too—probably the most upscale and expensive department store chain in the world. He’s been buying my accessories since my heyday in the 1980s. A wonderful man and a delight to see again after all these years.”
We chatted pleasantries while Lottie sipped her latte and nibbled on a Ricciarelli, licking the powdered sugar off her perfectly lined lips. As gently as I could, I steered the conversation toward Lottie’s business partners.
“So where has Tad gone? And Rena? Shouldn’t they be here helping out?”
“Oh, they said they had some last minute arrangements to make before the show.” Lottie arched an eyebrow—as if she suspected them of something.
“So where are they then?”
She waved a hand and shook her head. Again the strained, high-pitched laugh. When she didn’t offer any other theories, I started fishing. “You know I still remember the day when you three first met,” I said. “I never asked you. What exactly was the business arrangement you all worked out?”
“Oh, Tad and Rena each own twenty-five percent of the label. Fen has a few points, too.”
“So, you’re the single largest stakeholder, but if you put all their stakes together, they actually own over fifty percent?”
“That’s right. But it’s not as if they’re going to use that against me.” Once more, Lottie laughed nervously. “We’re all friends. And I’m not only the head designer, I’m the only designer. They can’t get a thing done without me.”
Just then, two young men appeared in the doorway. One was laden with photographic gear, the other carried a clipboard and an over-the-shoulder tape recorder.
“Oh, the folks from Paris Match are here and I promised them an interview. I have to go now, but we do need to discuss some of the changes I made to the show, which will mean some changes to the coffee menu. Can you stay for a while?”
“Of course,” I replied. “I’ll wander around and we can talk in a half-hour or so.”
While Lottie chatted with the French journalist—the photographer circling the pair and snapping pictures the whole time—I perused the fashion designer’s photographic retrospective. It was easy to see why Lottie’s accessories had returned to the forefront of fashion. Some of those clothing designs, hair, and makeup styles from the early eighties did appear contemporary again.
I recalled a discussion Moira and Tucker had had one night at the coffee bar…Moira, a fashion student at Parsons, had explained that fashion style was cyclical because of two things: imitation and class distinctions. The rich emulated the fashion of the poor who in turn emulated the styles of the rich. This theory of fashion evolution explained why every decade or so the same fashion trends would tend to reemerge.
“Sounds crazy,” Tucker had said.
“My professor explained the theory using the example of that fashion trend from a few years back,” Moira had explained. “The hip-hop look, where guys sported baggy pants and shoes without laces. That look actually started among impoverished urban African-American youths in the late 1970s. The ill-fitting pants were hand-me-downs—even bell bottoms that had fallen out of fashion by then. The shoes without laces were the result of criminal behavior—they take your shoelaces