Her mind was whirling, as she took another sip of the wine and opened the bottle of pills. The phone rang but she didn’t answer it. She had nothing left to say to anyone. She had made up her mind. It stopped ringing, and then rang again. She saw that the call was from Ed Chin and she didn’t care. She didn’t want to talk to him either. She kept the vial of pills in her hand, and put her glass down on the coffee table, and finally picked up her cell when he called again.
“Sydney, are you okay?” He was worried about her. He had seen the look of desperation on her face when she left work.
“Yes, I’m okay,” she repeated mechanically in a rough voice. The wine had had little effect. She wasn’t a drinker, and alcohol usually hit her pretty hard.
“How’s Sabrina?”
“Terrible. What would you expect?”
“We pulled everything for modification. I confirmed it before I left the office. And Paul wants to make it up to you however he can.”
“He can’t get her job back,” Sydney said in a tone of deep despair. “And I can’t afford to quit. Isn’t that a joke? I’d be worth more to them now dead than alive. I’m not doing anyone any good.” Her thoughts sounded disjointed and very dark.
“Don’t talk like that,” he said, feeling a wave of panic rush over him. His best friend and first lover had committed suicide when they were in college, and he had gotten her drift. “They need you, you’re their mother. They have no one else.”
“I just cost my daughter her job. She loved that job. And I can’t even help her. I’m dead broke. I’m just a headache for them now.”
“Every firm in New York is going to want her as soon as they hear she was fired. She’s one of the hottest young designers in the States. What are you doing right now?”
Planning to kill myself, she thought, but didn’t tell him. “Nothing, I’m having a glass of wine.”
She sounded dangerously bad to him. “I’m coming over.”
“Why?” She didn’t want him interfering with her plan. “You can’t. I’m busy.” But Ed wasn’t going to let it happen. Not a second time in his life. He had been at the library, studying, when his lover had committed suicide, because he didn’t have the courage to tell his parents he was gay. He had preferred to die instead. They were twenty, and it had marked Ed forever. He hadn’t been in a committed relationship since. He was too afraid to.
“I’ll be there in five minutes,” he said, and hung up on her. He was there seven minutes later. He didn’t live far away, and he had run as fast as he could to get to her apartment. He could see how devastated she was when he got there. She still had the bottle of pills in her hand, and he took them away and shoved them deep into his pocket. “You can get drunk if you want, but you can’t kill yourself. You’ll only make it worse for them. You have to stick around and help them. They’re not old enough to lose you,” he said sensibly, worried about his friend. “This will blow over. She’ll get another job. I’m not even sure they can enforce a noncompete, firing her like this, because they can’t prove she sold us anything. She didn’t. A good lawyer will get a big severance package for her because of this. This wasn’t her fault. Why don’t you stick around and help her with that?”
Sydney looked at him remorsefully, and he saw sanity begin to return. “I’m sorry I dragged you over here,” she said, apologetic.
“You didn’t. I came because I wanted to. Why don’t you go to bed? I’ll sleep on the couch tonight.” He went to the bathroom then and flushed the pills so she couldn’t take them while he was sleeping. He didn’t trust her. She still looked ravaged, although she had calmed down a little. She melted into his arms then and started to cry, and he held her while she sobbed. It was all too much for her, and he was her only friend now. He put her to bed with her clothes on, and lay down next to her. He held her until she fell asleep, and then went and lay on her couch. And when he woke up, she was sitting next to him, looking battered, with dark circles under her eyes.
“I’m sorry. I think I kind of lost it last night. I wasn’t even drunk. I just had a few sips.”
“I know,” he said gently. “Sabrina’s going to be okay.” He tried to reassure her.
“Do you mind if I take the day off today?” she asked and he shook his head.
“I’m not leaving you alone. I don’t trust you. You’re coming to work. I need to be there.” He was her self-appointed bodyguard now.
“I’m fine. Really.”
“I’m not convinced. Tell me that when you’re dressed and have makeup on, and you’re sitting at your desk.” She groaned when she stood up to go and take a shower, and then she turned to look at him gratefully.
“Thank you…you saved my life last night. I was going to do something stupid.” He nodded with tears in his eyes, remembering his friend.
“I know you were….” He pointed at the bathroom then and she padded off to take a shower.
He handed her a cup of coffee when she came back wearing jeans and a black sweater. She looked better, but still not great. Sabrina called a few minutes later. They had offered her her job back, but she was so upset about their unfair accusations that she had decided to get a hefty severance package with a noncompete, so she could look for a new job.
“Maybe this is for the best in the end,” Sabrina said, sounding better than her mother. “I’m going to stick it to them, Mom.”
Sydney laughed, relieved to hear her daughter in fighting mode. Sydney looked a lot better when she and Ed left the apartment half an hour later.
“I’ll treat you to a cab,” he offered generously, and hailed a taxi. As they headed downtown, she didn’t say anything, but she reached over and held his hand, and he leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. “You scared the shit out of me last night,” he whispered to her and she nodded. She had scared herself too. All she’d wanted was to die, and if he hadn’t come over, she probably would have. It was a sobering thought as the cab wove through traffic, and the two of them sat silently in the backseat, holding hands.
Chapter 6
When Sydney got to the office the day after Sabrina had been fired, Paul took her to lunch and laid out his plans for her. He was deeply apologetic over what had happened. He renewed his offer of a line of her own, a full signature line for Sydney with profit sharing. He also had a new project he wanted to discuss with her to convince her to stay. He said it was a line of extremely well-made leather goods, copies of expensive purses at great prices, and he was going to put her name on them too. He said they were the best copies he’d ever seen. They were made in China, and he was offering her a share of the profits on the new line of purses too. He said it was an opportunity for her to make some real money. Lady Louise was well known for their high-quality leather goods at impressively low prices, and they sold out every time. She told Ed about it after her lunch with Paul.
“He wants me to be in charge of the line and put my name on them. I don’t know anything about leather goods. I’ve never dealt with bags before,” Sydney said, looking intrigued but nervous. He was luring her into areas she wasn’t familiar with that he said were big money makers.
“How do they look?” Ed asked her, curious about the purses. Paul hadn’t mentioned the project to him yet, but he knew that the purses they brought in from China always did well and had a high-priced quality look.
“I don’t know. He said he’d show me this afternoon. He already has samples at the warehouse. He’s having someone drive them in.”
Paul called both of them to his office later, and they were startled when they saw the bags laid out on a table. They looked like expensive designer bags, the real deal, and even better than the ones they usually sold.
“Who’s been making these?” Ed asked him, checking out the silk linings, and Paul mentioned a firm they’d never used before. Ed examined them closely, and so did Sydney. The workmanship was beautiful. There were four different styles, in shapes they all recognized by a familiar high-end brand. Ed opened them and looked for signs
that they were real designer bags and not copies, but there were none. He looked impressed and pleased when he nodded at Paul. “They’re great,” Ed complimented him. Paul was going to call them the Sydney Smith line for Lady Louise, and he quoted an unbeatable price for the purses that their customers wouldn’t be able to resist.
“I need you to go back to China and sign them up for production. We have to get them from the supplier. We don’t have the machinery to make leather goods like that in our factories,” he explained to Sydney, and Ed confirmed it. The bags were a more sophisticated product than they’d made so far, even though they were cheap.
“When do you want us to go?” Ed was worried. “I’ve got production meetings here for the next month, lookbooks to oversee, and we’re already up to our ears getting ready for the presentation of the fall line.” They worked almost a year ahead, like every other major design firm. “I can’t go back to China yet.” He looked panicked at the thought and overwhelmed by his work.
“I need Sydney to go over in the next two weeks,” Paul said practically. “I don’t want to wait. The bags are already manufactured, so all we have to do is pick the styles and colors we want and import them. They won’t do modifications on these styles, and we don’t need them to. The bags are gorgeous. Sydney can handle it. The company that makes them is a couple of hours out of Beijing. We’ll get her a translator and a driver. She can manage without you this time,” he said confidently, but Sydney wasn’t so sure. He was giving her a lot of responsibility, and going to China without Ed was going to be difficult. He knew the customs so much better than she did. But the opportunity Paul was giving her was so enormous that Sydney didn’t dare turn him down. It was a challenge she’d have to meet.
She and Ed talked about it on the way back to the design floor, and he looked worried about her.
“Think you can do it? It’s a lot of paperwork to export them, and he wants you to make sure that what they’re manufacturing is as good as what we’ve just seen. We don’t want a bait and switch, where the product they ship is inferior to the samples we saw. I haven’t handled the bags before and I don’t know this supplier.”
“They do beautiful work,” Sydney commented. They looked like some bags she had herself, and had sent to storage. They were almost too good to be true, and Ed said they were the best copies he’d ever seen. Paul swore by them and loved the price, and said he was doing Sydney a favor, giving her the project, and Ed agreed. With profit sharing, the bags could be a windfall for her.
Paul had told her she only needed to stay in Beijing for two days, and they would have it all set up for her. Translator, driver, good hotel. She had an appointment with the manufacturer. All she had to do was inspect the bags, pick the ones they wanted, fill out the customs documents, arrange for shipping to New York, and get back on a plane.
She left a week later, and everything went smoothly on the way to Beijing. There was a car waiting for her at the airport to take her to the hotel, and the translator appeared the next morning to join her at the meeting. The bags they showed her were of the same high quality she’d seen in New York, in the same familiar shapes, with only the shoulder straps slightly different from the ones they’d copied, by a well-known designer. It was going to be a fabulously successful line, and the wholesale price was incredibly low. Lady Louise was going to make a fantastic profit on the new bags, which was what Paul loved about them. And having her name on them was an incredible opportunity for her.
She got back on the flight to New York on schedule. They had promised that the bags would arrive within two weeks. They were shipping them air freight. She reported everything to Ed as soon as she got home. The trip had gone without a hitch. She had bought two hundred of the bags, which was a lot for a new item they hadn’t tried out yet, but the price was so low, she could afford it on the budget Paul had given her. And she was sure they would be a huge hit, and they would be buying many more in future.
She had signed all the purchase orders since Ed wasn’t with her, and the customs documents. Going to China on her own had given her new self-confidence, and Paul said he was impressed with how efficient she’d been.
She called Sabrina and Sophie the night she got home. Sabrina had just interviewed at a firm where she’d always wanted to work, and had signed an excellent severance package, with her lawyer’s help and some heavy negotiation and legal threats against the employer that had fired her. They had accused her prematurely with no proof and damaged her reputation. They had given her two years’ salary with no restrictions and no noncompete clause, a vital benefit for her. She was thrilled. And Women’s Wear Daily had printed an apology to Sabrina, after being threatened by her lawyer.
“I think you did me a favor, Mom,” she said on the phone, and Sydney was relieved. They had snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. She shuddered thinking that she had almost killed herself out of remorse and guilt the night that Sabrina had been fired. So much had happened to her in recent months, and suddenly it was all too much. Costing Sabrina her job had been the last straw.
Sophie didn’t answer when she called her, and as soon as Sydney hung up, Veronica called her. She had heard from her contractor that Kellie was doing a major remodel on the house before she moved in, and thought Sydney should know.
“It’s her house now, she can do whatever she wants,” Sydney said. “To tell you the truth, I don’t really want to know about it. It just upsets me to think about the changes she’s going to make. There’s nothing I can do. And I don’t want progress reports on it once she gets started,” she warned Veronica.
“I thought you’d want to hear about it,” Veronica said again, sounding miffed. She was the only person from Sydney’s past life who still called her, but she only called when there was something upsetting to relate. She was the constant bearer of bad tidings. And she managed to slip in, with her pseudo sympathetic voice, that everyone was saying Andrew had left her nothing and she was broke, which upset Sydney too. “They probably think that because you went back to work. But what else are you going to do? You might as well keep busy since you have no husband and no house to run anymore.” Their conversations always took the same negative turn to unhappy issues for her. And Sydney guessed that if it was true that people were talking, the rumor had probably been started by one of her stepdaughters.
“I like working,” Sydney said, which sounded stupid, even to her.
“I read somewhere that Sabrina got fired from her job,” Veronica said in a snotty tone, to get even for Sydney not wanting to hear about the remodel of the house.
“Not really. She had a disagreement with them, and they acted hastily. They recanted the next day. In the end, she quit. She’s interviewing with other firms now.” Sydney wondered why she always felt compelled to justify herself to Veronica. Both of her own daughters were perennially unemployed, and one was getting a divorce. Why wasn’t she explaining that? Why was Sydney’s misfortune always her focal point of interest?
“And what have you been up to?” Veronica persisted.
“I just got back from China, for the second time,” Sydney said, feeling pleased with herself for what she had accomplished.
“I guess you don’t have time for your old friends anymore,” Veronica said, sounding insulted, as though Sydney had slighted her, when in fact she was working and trying to keep her head above water.
“Not at all. My ‘old friends’ haven’t called me since Andrew died,” Sydney tossed back at her. It was true. She’d been very hurt by it at first, but was too busy to think about it now.
“They probably don’t want to intrude,” Veronica suggested.
“Or you were right the first time, when you said they wouldn’t want a single woman around. I haven’t heard from a soul.” And she no longer cared. She had enough on her mind. But she didn’t like the idea that they were saying she was broke. It made her sound like a loser, but if Kyra and Kellie were saying it, there was nothing she could do to stop them, and, in fact, it w
as true.
Veronica promised to call soon and hung up then. Sydney hoped she wouldn’t, but didn’t have the guts to say it to her. Somehow whatever mood she was in, it always made Sydney feel worse whenever Veronica called. At least she didn’t drop by in New York. She never came to the city.
For the next two weeks, Sydney worked closely with Ed on preparing the presentation of the new clothing line for the fall. And she was working on inspiration sketches for the Sydney Smith line they were developing. They still had a long way to go. Her line of signature purses would be presented first, and would be a good test of how strong her name was.
She had Thanksgiving dinner with Sabrina and Sophie at the restaurant at the Greenwich Hotel, close to where the girls lived. It was their first Thanksgiving without Andrew, and predictably hard. Sydney was happy to get into bed that night after dinner when she got home, and grateful that the day was over. She bounced back and forth between missing him acutely and remembering every happy moment they’d ever shared, and at the opposite extreme, being angry at him for the life of financial insecurity she led now, constantly worried about money and trying to pay her expenses and bills on what she earned because he had left her nothing else. It reminded her of when she was first divorced twenty-two years before, trying to make ends meet, but at least this time she didn’t have two little girls to support. She had managed well on her salary then, and Andrew had come along and made everything easy for her when they got married. He had led her into a life of luxury she had never aspired to, but had gotten accustomed to, and then on his death he had tossed her into the deep end of the pool, without a penny. And the only asset she had was an apartment in Paris she couldn’t find a buyer for.
Fall from Grace Page 9
