your pieces. Which means your white pieces because you pulled the red. I mean, you do realize that the New Designer Showcase is right around the corner, right? And that Ramona McNeil is waiting for us to send her something new?”
“I know. I’m starting over.”
“But why?” She asked this in a voice louder than was necessary, but she felt herself on the verge of a full-throated, primal scream. “After all that hard work? Why would you do that? Do you really have time to start over?”
Victor stopped what he was doing. He pointed his scissors at her. “I’m not showing that collection, Carly. Not now, not ever. I don’t feel good about it. Have you seen what people are saying about me?”
“What people?” Carly asked, looking wildly around the studio.
June stepped forward and handed Carly her phone.
It was his Instagram page again. Last night, while she’d been text-flirting with Max, Victor had posted one of the white pieces and the trolls had leapt on the opportunity to trash his design. And then Victor had responded to each and every piece of criticism. “Oh hell,” Carly breathed.
“He won’t stop,” June said. “Just can’t keep his fat mouth shut.”
“I’m not going to let them walk all over me, Mom!” Victor said.
“Victor, listen to me. You have to stop responding,” Carly said. “These posts should be strategically scheduled. That’s what I do. You make clothes. The reason you pay me is so that I can create a positive impression of you. I can’t do that if you are fighting with nameless trolls. And that’s all they are. You know that, right? They are nameless trolls and this is nothing but sport to them.”
“Yeah, well, it’s also my life. Look, I’m sorry. Mom, I’m sorry. But I can’t show anything I don’t feel one hundred percent.”
In the end, there was no reasoning with him—Victor was starting from scratch with the most garish colors he could possibly choose.
Carly called the podcast producer and asked if they could postpone. The answer was no. They were booked all the way through New York Fashion Week.
She left the studio feeling dejected. As if all her hard work was being destroyed. She felt terrible for Victor—she couldn’t imagine how difficult it must be to show the world something you had created and watch as people tossed out negative opinions with no compassion and no understanding of the amount of work it required.
Her day did not improve from there. She drove home to think how she could repair the damage Victor had done, to salvage something of the campaign before the New Designer Showcase, and to call Ramona McNeil for the last time.
She could not wait for Red Bud Isle. She couldn’t wait to sit on a park bench and stare into the cool gray eyes of Max Sheffington while Hazel and Baxter romped. The trips to the dog park had been the highlight of her life these last couple of weeks. They were the bright spot in a universe that was getting bleaker. And if she needed any reminder of just how bleak, Conrad was on hand to remind her.
He popped up next to the drive so suddenly that Carly first thought he’d been waiting in the bushes. There he was, stumbling and lurching up the incline to the drive when she came through the gate, waving his hand at her. She stopped and rolled down the window, and waited for Conrad to bring the clouds rolling in. “Hello, Conrad. You don’t have to try and catch me pulling in, you know. You can call me.”
“Oh, that’s okay. It’s good for me,” he said through a wheeze. He braced himself with his arms against the window frame of her car door. She watched a trickle of sweat trace a path down his temple. “How are you?” he asked.
“Good! You?”
“Doing great. We had a Nobel Prize winner of Physics over for dinner last night. Fascinating stuff!”
“I bet.” She resisted a roll of her eyes. Conrad was always entertaining the most interesting people on the planet. It seemed impossible that one person could know so many interesting people. The odds had to be stacked against it.
“So, hey, the lease? I need you to drop by and sign it sometime soon. Definitely by the end of the month.”
“Oh yeah, of course,” she said. “I’ve been so busy! I’m going to do that this week, but right now, I have to rush.” She glanced at her wrist. She was not wearing a watch.