Diane Vallere - Style and Error 01 - Designer Dirty Laundry

by Diane Vallere

  “Thank you,” I said. I set the laptop bag on the end table.

  “It occurred to me that you saw it in my office at the store, and that’s why you were so mad when you left. But then I thought if you had seen it, you would have asked me why I had your laptop. So, I don’t know why you stormed out.”

  I needed to distract him, and for a brief second regretted not being able to play the T-shirt and panties wild card. I stepped back and let him pass.

  He stepped closer to me, close enough that we were sharing the same air. He brushed his warm finger under my chin and tipped my head back. “I heard about what happened last night. Are you okay?”

  I looked directly into Nick’s root-beer clear brown eyes and lied my heart out. “I’m fine.” I walked to the sofa. He followed. We both sat down. Nick was waiting for some kind of explanation, and there was the smallest possibility I owed it to him.

  “I’m curious. Were you this crazy when you were a kid Kidd?” Logan hopped up onto the spot between us. “Or when you worked for Bentley’s?”

  “What’s your point?”

  “I’m not sure I would have trusted your taste level or strategic thinking if I’d known,” he said.

  “I don’t recall you complaining when I wrote your orders.”

  “Back then I just thought it was good business. I had no idea you were nuts.”

  I sank deeper into the green velvet cushions, ignoring the broken spring that dug into my left butt cheek. “Do you ever think about your childhood? About whether or not you’re the you you started out to be?”

  “I’m not sure I follow.”

  “I worked at Bentley’s for nine years. I started as a sales associate and left as a buyer. I was promoted every two years into some really great positions. Only, none of them was enough. I should have been thrilled every single day to get up and say I was a buyer for a store of their caliber, but I wasn’t.”

  “Is that the real reason you changed your life?”

  “I was about to drive back to Manhattan after helping my parents move. I didn’t want to leave. I met Patrick that morning, in the parking lot outside of the grocery store. He told me about the trend specialist job and, well, and now here we are.”

  I leaned back against the cushions of the sofa and stared at my fingers, still pruney from dealing with the water in the basement. “I didn’t expect it to be easy to start over, you know? But I thought it would be fun.” The phone rang in the background. I expected Nick to ask if I was going to answer it. He didn’t. After four rings the faux-wood machine clicked on.

  “Ms. Kidd, this is Brittany Fowler from Full Circle. We need to talk.”

  I kicked my heels against the sofa like a ten-year old, then stood up and went to the kitchen. I hit the delete button, then turned off the machine. “I have to get some new things around here,” I said to Logan, who stared at me from the floor.

  Nick stood up and walked into the kitchen. “Can I do anything? To make things easier for you?”

  “There is one thing,” I said. Before he had a chance to answer, I continued. “The Gala? With everything that’s been going on, I misplaced my invite. Can I go with you?”

  “Not that you don’t have a charming way of inviting yourself along, but I already have a date for the Gala.”

  “I didn’t mean to imply it would be a date,” I started.

  “Good, because I’m going to be busy that night. I guess you’ll have to find your invite.”

  “You’re one of the finalists!” I blurted out. His clear brown eyes caught mine and held them for an intense couple of seconds. “Can’t you get me in?”

  “Kidd, maybe you should sit this one out.”

  I thought about what Nick had said at the hoagie store. When it’s important, you figure it out. If I could focus on one problem, I would. Unwelcome tears coated my eyes. I wanted to blink them back but blinking might have caused them to spill down my cheeks and I wanted that even less. I tipped my head back and stared at the ceiling, doing little more than establishing tracks of tears that ran from the outside corner of my eye into my hairline.

  “Something else is bothering you. What’s wrong?”

  “It’s the house. The basement floods.”

  “I find it hard to believe you ended up with a flooded basement after one thunderstorm.”

  “You don’t believe me? Come on,” I said. Several joints popped when I stood and I glared at him to keep him from commenting. He fell into step behind me. My dad’s hip-waders sat in a puddle on the kitchen floor next to the door to the cellar. I pulled the door open and hit the light switch, shocked to see the water level had risen again.

  It couldn’t be! I had spent too many hours lugging water up the steps and outside. I threw on the lights and stepped halfway down the staircase. The water-logged boxes of vintage fashion magazines my mom had left stacked by the walls of the basement had busted open. The issue that glided past me was the same cover Patrick had hanging on his wall of his office. It, like dozens of other volumes, floated across the floor like dead fish. I watched it bump up against the wall. That’s when I saw a green garden hose, dangling through a broken window, pouring water into the room.

  “I’ll be right back.” I pushed past Nick, through the garage, and around the side of the house. A green hose was screwed into the outside spigot by the back door, the water turned on to full force. I closed my palm over the round metal valve and twisted it several times until it was off. I followed the length of the hose to the back of the house, only to find the other end threaded into a broken window at ground level. It all meant one thing.

  My flooded basement wasn’t an accident. Someone had wanted me out of commission.

  Chapter 13

  I returned to the garage, pulling the heavy door down and throwing the locking mechanism. Nick stood by the cellar. I would not make eye contact with him. I would not let him see how much that had gotten to me. I was smart. I should have spotted the broken window and the rubber hose earlier. And because I didn’t, I was going to have to deal with a flooded basement. Again.

  Nick’s attitude changed. If it wasn’t for the crinkles in the corner of his eyes, I’d have broken down right then and there. The crinkles kept me in check. Because I didn’t believe a person like Nick, with root-beer barrel eyes that crinkled in the corners would be laughing at me if things weren’t going to be okay. He draped his arm around my shoulder. “It’s just a house, Kidd. It isn’t a sign. It isn’t a message. Sometimes with old houses, things go wrong.”

  I only wished I could believe him.

  My cell phone chirped from the nightstand table. How had I ended up in bed? Nick had come over to check on me. I remembered that much. He’d helped me drain the basement for the second time that day. After we were done he’d guided me up the stairs to the bedroom. A glance under the sheets at my undies confirmed Nick had seen me in my panties two times in one afternoon. A flood of more important thoughts pushed that one to the side. The broken window. The garden hose. The vandalism.

  The fact that someone who would do these things knew where I lived.

  The sun headed toward the horizon but there was enough light to see. I climbed out of bed and followed Logan to the bathroom. My reflection matched my condition: gray around the edges. I dressed in jeans and a heavy gray cowl neck sweater. After pulling on navy blue Wellies, I went outside to the back of the house.

  When I looked at the broken window from the inside, it was like my vision had a zoom feature. All I could focus on was the break, the jagged edges, the hose snaked through the hole. Now, I wanted to find something else.

  The window was about two feet wide by one foot tall, broken in the corner. It was at ground level, surrounded by a metal semi-circle window well. The inside ground of the well was covered with small pebbles and mushy leaves. A rock sat to the side. Maybe it had been used to break the glass. Maybe not. At this point, it was hard to say. The surrounding ground had been tamped by footprints, probably my own, that would
n’t tell me anything.

  I returned to the kitchen and sat at the table, staring out the back window. Someone had been right outside that window while I was passed out at Tradava.

  I should call the cops. Report the vandalism. Maybe it wasn’t connected. Maybe it was a neighborhood prank, a couple of juvenile delinquents getting their kicks by messing with the new resident on the block. And that would be a totally reasonable reason to call the police. I would not mention the competition. I would not mention Patrick. I’d say enough to get a patrol car assigned to the neighborhood, to look out for my well-being. Detective Loncar probably wouldn’t even learn of it.

  I went back inside and dialed 911.

  By the time the squad car pulled alongside of the curb, I was convinced I’d made a mistake. It wasn’t an act of vandalism by bored high schoolers, and Nick was wrong about it being a freak old house thing. Someone was sending me a message. I was preparing myself to lie like a rug when someone knocked on my door. It was Detective Loncar.

  “Why are you here?” I asked, looking behind him for a couple of fresh-from-the-academy cops.

  “Ms. Kidd, you called 911?”

  “I did.”

  “What seems to be the problem?”

  “Isn’t this a little minor for you?”

  “When a person of interest in a homicide calls the cops, word gets around. Especially when that person appears to be avoiding the cops.” He pushed his elbows behind his back and tipped his head from side to side, as though he was cramped from spending too much time in the car. Come to think of it, he’d arrived pretty quickly. Was he in the neighborhood? Had he picked my call up off of a scanner? Was this tantamount to illegal entry?

  “Person of interest? I’m a suspect?”

  “You sure have been acting like one,” he said. “May I come in?”

  “I’d like to wait for back-up.”

  The detective stopped his limbering up routine and coughed. He covered his mouth with a balled up fist, then patted down the outside of his windbreaker. From an inside pocket he pulled out a cough drop and bit the end of the wrapper, pulling the lozenge into his mouth.

  “Back-up?”

  “You’re not going to force your way in, are you?” I asked.

  “Ma’am, that’s not the way this works. You called me, I’m here. If you got a problem, you have to tell me. I’d suggest you do, because the call’s been documented, and I don’t think you should make a habit of placing 911 phone calls for no reason.”

  “Boy who cried wolf, and all that,” I added, to show I was following.

  “Making false 911 calls is a misdemeanor.”

  Our standoff by my front door ended right around there.

  “Follow me.” I walked the detective around the side of the house to the broken window with the hose fed through it. “When I came home this morning, the basement was flooded. I know it rained but not enough to flood it like it did. After I drained the basement I noticed the hose dangling through the broken window.”

  Loncar stooped down by the window well and looked at the broken glass. He stood back up, pushing his palms against his thighs until he was upright. He turned to the left, then the right, shielding his eyes even though he wore dark sunglasses. A breeze ruffled his crew cut and for a brief second I thought, he’s taking me seriously. He’s going to help me. I made the right decision, calling the cops to report the vandalism.

  “You said ‘when I came home this morning.’ You didn’t spend the night here?”

  And then I thought, dammit.

  “I, no, um, well, I didn’t say that—”

  “Ms. Kidd, if you were here, I’m guessing you would have heard the glass break, or you would have heard the water in the basement before it filled up to two feet of water. So I’m assuming you weren’t here.”

  “No, I wasn’t here.”

  “What time did you get home?”

  “I think it was around nine.”

  He looked at his watch. “It’s four thirty now.”

  “I drained the basement, then I had a visitor, then I drained the basement again, then I took a nap.”

  “And then you called in your emergency.”

  I nodded.

  “Ms. Kidd, may I suggest in the future if you feel something is an actual emergency, you rearrange your schedule in order to make the call on a more timely basis?”

  “I didn’t know it was an emergency until it flooded a second time.”

  “And then you took a nap.”

  “You don’t believe me, do you?” I asked suddenly.

  “Your credibility is not at stake here.”

  He took a couple of pictures of my broken window and garden hose and jotted something illegible from my upside-down perspective in a small flip-top notepad. “Anything else you want to tell me, ma’am?”

  “Aside from the fact I’m too young to be called ma’am?”

  “Are you going to tell me this has something to do with Patrick’s murder?”

  “Absolutely not,” I said in a voice that suggested I’d greatly improved my lying skills. “But I do think it’s a good idea to send a patrol car around regularly. You know, in case whoever did this comes back.”

  He flipped the notebook shut. “Be smart, Ms. Kidd. Lock the doors and get that window fixed.” He pointed to the broken window with the corner of the notebook, then tucked it into his back pocket. “And if you suddenly determine it is related to Patrick’s murder, call me.” He pulled out his wallet and extracted a business card. I didn’t want it, but I took it anyway. It was the polite thing to do.

  I followed him to the front yard. I wasn’t sure of the protocol for 911-slash-homicide-detective house calls, and wasn’t sure if I should have offered him a cup of coffee while lying to his face. Too late to make a good impression, I stood by the garage door while he backed his car out of the driveway and drove away.

  I pulled the sleeves of my sweater down over my hands and wrapped my arms around my body. As the sun dropped, so did the temperature, leaving a chill in the air that rivaled the one in my bones. I went back inside and double-checked every lock on every entrance. I angled the green velvet sofa against the front door and sunk into the well-worn cushions.

  Someone was making life very difficult for me and I didn’t know why. What did I have that someone wanted? I rubbed my hands over my face and took a deep breath, realizing how badly I needed a second shower. I dropped my hands to the cushions by my side and stared into the kitchen where the computer sat next to a pile of newspapers.

  Patrick’s computer held the key. It must. It was the only thing I had that someone else might want. And for some reason, he’d made sure to loan it to me. Those conversations with him were starting to haunt me.

  Patrick had asked me to meet him in the parking lot outside of Tradava the day before I started.

  “I would have come to your office,” I said.

  “I enjoy the chance to get out every now and then.” He handed me a plum messenger bag. It had a cross-chest strap and I couldn’t imagine Patrick in his dandy attire ever wearing it.

  “My former employee’s idea of a gag gift,” he said.

  “Is there something specific you’d like me to review?”

  “My current projects are saved on the computer. I’ll expect you to be versed in them and offer your opinion when asked.”

  I took the bag and fought the urge to duck under the cross-chest strap in his presence.

  “Samantha, there is something I need to discuss with you before you start.” He sat on the bench next to me and we looked out over the sea of cars in the lot. “Working at Tradava will be very different for you after your life at Bentley’s. Are you prepared for that?”

  After all of our talk about choosing our paths, his question surprised me.

  “Different, how?”

  “At a large store you can become somewhat invisible. At Tradava, people will see you. Our store team looks to us to give them a taste of the glamour of our industry, ev
en if we don’t see it ourselves. Your problem solving skills and creativity will serve you well here. You will be noticed.”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it? Be someone in a smaller environment, or be no one in a larger environment. Big fish, small pond, or small fish, big pond.”

  “The eternal argument.”

  “Have you argued that argument?” I asked.

  “Countless times.”

  “Have you won?”

  “To myself, I have. To the industry, I can’t be certain.”

  “Does that bother you?”

  “Only on rare occasions.” He stood from the bench and shielded his eyes, then turned to face me. “I look forward to seeing what you bring to the trend office, Ms. Kidd. I trust you’ll be able to figure out a thing or two on your own.”

  I stood up too, and shook his hand.

  That was the last time I saw Patrick alive.

  I carried the laptop bag from the kitchen back to the sofa and stared inside. Aside from a stack of Patrick’s business cards wedged into a small pocket, the interior was empty. But the more I thought about that conversation, the more I thought Patrick had expected me to figure something out. I pulled the stack of business cards from the pocket and dealt them one by one onto threadbare sofa cushion. When I flipped them over, on the back of the last one, was written LiVo72. I went into the kitchen and typed the code into the password field. The file opened up. It was the easiest thing I’d done in two days. And now it was time to discover what was so important that Patrick had hidden it in the first place.

  Chapter 14

  The file on the Designer Competition sprung to life in front of me. The first column said ENTRANT. Under it was a list of names. The first name was CLESTES, followed by fragmented commentary: This is the work of a stylist, not a designer. The addition of a textile artist does not carry the collection. There is no DNA. Maries likes use of color and architectural elements. I continued down the page. MICHAEL DUBRECHT: Needs time to develop. Interesting ideas. Is this talent or a fluke? Maries disagrees. Thinks there is nothing there. AMANDA RIES. Fresh perspective. Innovative use of fabrics. Strong sense of design, proportion, color. New. Commercial. Ageless. Timeless. ORIGINAL. Shows much promise. This collection will be BIG. Maries says this collection could rewrite fashion history. I suspect she is right. Keep separate from Clestes to avoid clash. The last line on the file said NICK TAYLOR: disqualified.