by Ally Blake
“My grandfather would be ashamed.”
Descended from a long line of clothing manufacturers, brave Shun Zhang had come to the United States from Hong Kong with little more than a dream to start a label here. With his own two hands, he’d built LilyZ into a multimillion-dollar company that had once had an impeccable reputation.
Jin’s voice rose to a volume Mimi knew conveyed just how upset he was. “My father hid the debts. He withdrew funds to supposedly pay bills but instead spent the money on himself and his latest arm candy. And instructed his accountant to keep it confidential, even from me.”
“So you were blindly captaining that ship,” Mimi restated. She brought Jin his mug but this time set it down on the coffee table so as not to have physical contact with him again so soon. That was a little game she’d played with herself before. Unfortunately, the hitch of a smile he gave her in receipt of the coffee pinged right into her chest, defeating her strategy.
The upturn of his straight-set lips had the same effect on her as it had when she was fifteen and had first met Jin Zhang. Utter fascination. The same with the high cheekbones that defined the shape of his face. At seventeen, his cheeks were fuller than their sharp angles of adulthood now. The dense slashes of his eyebrows were the same. As were his luminous dark, dark brown eyes. They had held less stress in them then, although the toll of living with an alcoholic and unkind father had always been visible on him.
He regrouped in a more even-keeled voice. “I’m sure that I can turn the company around. I love LilyZ just as my grandfather did.”
Mimi knew that before his grandfather died, Shun had told a teenaged Jin that he didn’t trust his own son. That he’d known the responsibility for the label would rest on Jin’s broad shoulders when he came of age.
Which Jin had regarded as an honor rather than a burden.
Because that’s who he was.
Oh, Jin, with the one button undone on his crisp dress shirt—never more, just enough to call her attention to the length of his throat. Lean and six feet tall, he was effortlessly sophisticated in his tailored shirt and trousers. For a man in the fashion trade, his own look was always understated and polished.
Mimi was sorry for all his turmoil. He didn’t deserve it.
“Plus,” Jin continued, “I have to consider my mom.”
“Does Mamabai know anything about the state of the company?” Aaron asked, using the nickname that he and Mimi used for Jin’s mother, Bai, who had been like a surrogate mother to them both after their own mother had died. While Wei barely acknowledged their existence, Bai had always made sure they knew how much she cared about them.
Bai and their mother, Delia, had been close friends. Mimi couldn’t confirm it, but she wouldn’t have been surprised if on her mother’s deathbed the two women had had conversations about Bai providing support after the inevitable.
“She doesn’t know a thing,” Jin said. “Since her divorce settlement ran out I’ve been giving her money out of my own pocket from what I draw as salary.”
“If the label folds...” Mimi began.
“Not only will I have to worry about how to support her, it will be a public embarrassment to her on top of all the humiliation my father caused with his behavior.”
Mimi hated to think of Mamabai enduring any more pain. Even after the divorce, Wei had been indiscriminate with his carousing. Showing up all over New York, and within the industry, with other women.
Bai had had to see her son’s marriage fail as well, with Helene unfaithful just as Jin’s father had been.
When the food arrived, Jin, Aaron and Mimi used chopsticks to dig into their piping hot containers of Japanese soup. As they slurped and chewed, the conversation turned to her interview.
“It seems as if Gunnar has informed the entire industry that I’m talentless and worthless.”
“I never liked Gunnar,” Jin said. “You were way too good for him.”
Mimi chomped noodles so that her reaction wouldn’t be transparent on her face. Why did Jin always have to say things like that? Things that made a girl, day after day, year after year, question if impossible things might be possible.
Mimi had recently broken up with her boyfriend of two years, well-known designer Gunnar Nilsson. He had also been her boss and, incensed that she had been the one to call things off, he’d made the work environment terrible for her with his constant badgering and criticisms until she couldn’t bear the antagonism any longer.
Yet making Mimi’s life miserable wasn’t enough for Gunnar. He’d gone on to find out what other companies she was applying to work for and then bad-mouthed her to them before she even interviewed.
“I think Francois Boucher met with me as a courtesy to you,” Mimi told Jin. “He told me he was sorry but that because Gunnar wasn’t able to give me a good recommendation he had stronger candidates to consider.”
Jin had been calling in favors all over the New York fashion world to try to help Mimi get a new job. But, so far, Gunnar had undercut every attempt. Apparently he was as ruthless in life as Wei was from his grave, simply wanting to control and ruin things out of spite.
“Did you meet with Kiki and Pietro?”
“Yup. Same thing. No one I’ve met with knows Gunnar and I dated so they assume his negative review of me is based on my work.”
“Did you show them your portfolio? They weren’t impressed?”
Mimi slowed a minute, appreciating that Jin never failed to tell her how talented she was.
He had become something of a professional mentor to her. Letting her use his tools and equipment anytime she wanted. Giving her important feedback on her own designs. Helping her find opportunities to further her career. Cheering her on. Out of the corner of her eye she watched him eat, stopping to rub his temples, which she knew was a sign of his stress.
She could never repay Jin for all he’d given her. Yet every night for the past thirteen years she went to sleep longing for what he hadn’t.
* * *
“What are you actually going to do?” Aaron asked Jin two days later as they went one-on-one at the public basketball court near his apartment. “Is there a way to contest Wei’s will?”
Jin swooped around Aaron’s left side as he tried to steal the ball. Aaron pivoted away to keep his dribble going. “I spoke with my lawyer about it. I would have to establish that he wasn’t of sound mind when he wrote it and that’s almost impossible to do after the fact.”
“You’d have some witnesses.”
“Being an infidel and a drunk doesn’t mean you can’t make decisions. My lawyer said I didn’t stand a chance.”
“So, what then?”
“I’m wracking my brain trying to figure it out.”
Aaron took a shot from midcourt and missed, Jin grabbing the ball on the rebound. He swerved left and right to avoid his friend’s vigorous attempts to get it back.
“Consider this for a minute,” Aaron said with a lunge. “Is there any way you could work something out with Helene to make it seem on paper like you were back together?”
“You’ve got to be kidding.” Jin dodged Aaron’s attempt to steal the ball.
“Desperate measures.”
Helene was out of his life forever. He’d never speak to her again. Let alone involve her in something as important as his inheritance of LilyZ. To think, there was a time when he thought he’d always be with her.
When he’d first met Helene Carlson, she was working for an advertising agency with several clients in fashion. She introduced Jin to a New York party world he had never been a part of, preferring to keep his nose down and his mind on work and graduate school. Ironically, the same qualities she said she had liked about him.
With her swinging blond ponytail that was always in motion, Helene was fun and Jin got temporarily swept into her orbit of nightclubs and red carpets. Until the late-ni
ght revelries got to be all the same, and not worth the tired mornings. By then they were already married. Busy with the constant job of cleaning up the disasters his father had created, Jin couldn’t keep up with his wife’s social life. However, Helene wasn’t done with that lifestyle, and continued to stay out until all hours most nights of the week.
Word trickled back to Jin that Helene wasn’t spending her time away from him alone. When confronted, she claimed innocence but when photos of Helene with other men appeared on fashion gossip sites, Jin had had to face the truth. That time, she hadn’t denied the accusations. He’d ended their marriage certain he’d never trust anyone ever again.
Jin had had two people in his life show him how easy it was to betray marriage vows. His father and his wife. And both had managed to put a cherry on top. Wei with his will and Helene by having an affair with LilyZ’s lead designer, Javier Ferrer.
Aaron hustled Jin’s attempt at a basket. The ball tipped the rim but didn’t go through the net. Aaron was able to retrieve it on the bounce and regain possession.
It was a fair question Aaron had asked, but Jin couldn’t bear the idea of even calling Helene again, so that was out.
What did make sense was the idea of marrying someone in name only. He knew he’d never marry again for love and he also knew he wouldn’t lose LilyZ. Something had to give.
What would in name only actually look like? Some sort of marriage arranged for mutual benefit.
Jin took a shot at the basket and made it. “He shoots. He scores.”
It wasn’t that weird. People got married left and right for all sorts of reasons.
Aaron overtook the ball and dribbled away from him. “Show-off.”
Jin stole it from him and did a quick-footed spin away.
If Jin was really going to consider this, he could call his cousin Ling in Hong Kong. He and his uncle Fu owned the manufacturing end of LilyZ. Perhaps they employed a young woman who might want to have a career in the States.
In the distance, Jin saw Mimi among the throngs climbing up the steps from the subway station by the basketball court. Aaron must have texted her that they were here.
He had no trouble picking out her face in the crowd with the alabaster skin and plump lips that he’d seen develop from those of an awkward teenager into a full-blooded woman. She and Aaron both had the same light brown eyes as their mother. Mimi’s hair was tousled and tumbled down her shoulders. She spotted him and lifted her fingers to give him a gentle wave.
Once he saw Mimi coming toward them, he realized he’d never be able to go through with an in name only situation with a stranger. It had just been hypothetical thinking. Because if he was ever to do something like that he’d be sharing his life, his mother’s life, and the life of LilyZ. He surely wasn’t going to do that with someone he didn’t know.
Perhaps that’s why, as soon as he’d conjured the idea, he wanted to be sure Mimi never knew about it. It was too preposterous, too dishonest. Despite what he’d gone through with his father and with Helene, he wouldn’t destroy the sanctity of real love for people who still believed in it. People like Mimi. She’d missed the mark completely with that idiot Gunnar. But he knew that she and Aaron thought in terms of the happiness their parents had shared before death took them too young. Mimi and Aaron hadn’t grown up like Jin had, witnessing how little the marriage contract meant to some people.
“Hey, you guys,” Mimi called out as she approached the court. Her hips swung side to side in that va-va-voom way as she walked, her sloping curves sashaying. Jin liked that she always wore fitted outfits and never hid her hills and valleys under sloppy clothes.
“Hey, Mimi.”
“Sis.” Aaron got control of the ball while Jin focused his eyes on Mimi. Was there something different about her lately, or something he hadn’t noticed before?
He wished that she was more successful in love than he had been. She was the total package. Men should be lined up around the block.
“Are you done, do you want to walk home together?” Mimi asked as she reached the chain-link fence separating the court from the New York sidewalk.
Jin and Aaron moved to the bench where they had their bags. Each located their water bottle and took in big gulps. Then found their towels and wiped the sweat dripping down their faces. Jin mopped up his hair as well and when he pulled the towel off noticed the side-eyed way Mimi had watched the whole maneuver.
“I’ll walk part of the way with you but I’ve got a cocktail reception thing tonight at Boutique Charli.” New York Fashion Week Spring was upon them, when the international fashion industry converged on the city. Buyers, media, VIPs, celebrities and invited members of the public gathered for event after event that showcased the latest creations.
The major design houses mounted elaborate runway shows and extravagant parties. Exclusive ready-to-wear labels like LilyZ tended toward private showings. Boutique Charli was an influential shop in Chelsea and Jin had to make everyone he encountered believe it was business as usual for LilyZ. That while they didn’t have a collection to show this season, which he could blame on Wei’s death, they were still on track.
To redeem the lies he’d be telling, Jin needed a new designer. Immediately. Of course, it couldn’t be just anyone. He’d interviewed five people in the past two days and none of them were right.
Even though shooting hoops with Aaron had helped clear his mind, his to-do list came flooding back into the stress points of his temples.
After he bid farewell to Mimi and Aaron, he went home to shower and dress. When he arrived at the Boutique Charli party he was distracted, and it wasn’t as easy schmoozing with the crowd as he’d hoped. He accepted the cocktail a waiter offered and struggled with the chitchat he needed to do.
A runway model trotted toward him. He couldn’t remember her name. With a kiss on each cheek she almost choked him with her flowery perfume.
“Hi Ji-in.” She somehow made his name stretch out to two syllables. “You remember me from the De La Costa show.”
He didn’t, but smiled politely. Looking ready to swallow him whole like a snake would, she had no reason to know that women were off-limits in Jin’s life. That he’d never put himself out there and chance getting burned again.
A typical rail-thin, six-foot-tall fashionista, the model wore a blouse made of peach-colored rayon. Styled after a man’s shirt, it had buttons down the front. On one side the shoulder was cut out completely, revealing the wearer’s bony clavicle and her bare arm down to the elbow. The other side of the blouse was a regular cut with silver trinkets shaped like bunnies sewn down the line of the sleeve. Jin knew that rabbits were part of Milan label Fortnight’s theme this year so guessed it was theirs.
Fashion was so subjective. That blouse could look ridiculous to one person and be the height of couture to the next. When Shun Zhang started LilyZ, he’d never had aspirations to see his clothes on the catwalks of Paris or in wild editorial spreads of fashion magazines. His intention was to create expertly made clothes that a woman could wear for decades so Jin’s grandfather chose the finest fabrics and used time-consuming craftsmanship.
Shun had an innate sense of how to foreshadow or interpret a trend but work it subtly into his collections, so that his clothes never went out of style when the fashion winds blew in a different direction. Customers responded and LilyZ became a multimillion-dollar enterprise.
To uphold those traditions, Jin needed a designer. While he himself occasionally generated ideas that ultimately became finished pieces, he was not a designer and couldn’t develop a sketch into a pattern and then into a sample and finally to perfection. What he needed was somebody talented and trustworthy to come into his troubled company and turn it around. Somebody like... Mimi!
Looking at the model’s rabbit trinket shirt, Jin thought of that smashing pink dress Mimi was in the other day. She had a real knack for sensing what
would look good on someone. It wasn’t just that she was a woman with hips and an ample bosom, a shape that was still outside the norm for the industry. No, what Mimi had was real artistry in merging a classic look with a mood, creating something that made a statement with delicacy and grace.
If only everything was happening a few years from now. If Mimi had more experience, he could hire her as his designer. She was part of the family already and, as a unit, they could take LilyZ as far as it could go. He could count on her.
But a company of LilyZ’s standing couldn’t name a junior designer to lead. He, and she, would be the town’s laughingstock.
Unless? An idea popped into Jin’s mind.
It was too crazy.
But what if it wasn’t?
Copyright © 2019 by Andrea Bolter
ISBN-13: 9781488064951
Crazy About Her Impossible Boss
First North American publication 2019
Copyright © 2019 by Ally Blake
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