A Nightingale in Parkleigh Square

Chapter Sixteen

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"S o this is our haul ," said Bradley. "What do you think? We can dress them up, I have some ideas already."

Nina looked at the delicate design on some of them, lined up on the table from their assistant's scavenger hunt by the river yesterday. Some were unique, but several were duplicates — while the natural patina was interesting, it would have to be scrubbed from most of them and replaced by a chemical one that looked more like pearlescent frost — and less like grunge from a city lake. Her imagination transposed them — long ones as icicle-like shapes, globes as snowballs, frost tipping the unusual cowbell shape of some of the ink jars, like Christmas bells of pure crystal.

"It has potential," she said. "These globe jars are really intriguing, I think we could make something with them — so many ideas come to mind just looking at them."

"What are we going to do about covering the jar and bottle mouth part? The whole screw spiral thing?" pondered Molly. "That part definitely needs disguised."

"Clear marble topper, lots of little crystal beads glued around the rim .... decorative metal caps sold for covering hardware? There are lots of decorative strategies," said Nina, reviewing a list in her mind — in reality, a junk drawer for decorative remainder pieces back in Queens.

"This is great, but we're going to need more," said Molly. "I can scout the rest of the recycling bins, and I know your mudlarking friend promised to bring by some more from another treasure haul, but we'll still need more to fill all those branches. And what do we do with the random pieces? Anything?"

The bottoms of jars, cleanly-broken like glass plates with irregular rims — twisty jar necks without bases. Lots of interesting pieces that looked too much like broken glass and not like something they could upcycle easily.

"Maybe we need a different plan for these," said Nina.

In her studio, Reina studied one of the jar bases, with a pretty pattern like a daisy beveling it when held to the light. "I like them," she said. "I could use some of them in my work. I'm making a piece already, actually, that uses round pieces like these. But only decorative ones."

"What about the others?" said Nina. "Maybe you just break them down and melt them. We can't really use them, because we need them to look a little more finished."

"What if we polished some of them? Made the edges even?" asked Reina. "I could turn them into big snowflake medallions by melting some glass crystals in a pattern on one side." Five — six of them would be good for that," she said, sorting through the pile. "These old bottlenecks could be fused into something interesting, like more icicles, or I could make you a multi-pointed star by fusing them to a bigger one as a base. Or I could make them into finials for your tree toppers."

"That would be amazing," said Nina. "Can we afford that?"

"Yeah, sure," laughed Reina. "It's not my costliest work, just a little nipping and tucking with heat. I'd use bits I've shaved off other projects, so it's not like I'd be dipping into my imported materials."

"Give us some job quotes, because I think that would be perfect for what we're doing," said Nina, who especially liked the idea of the multi-pointed star.

"Okay, I'll send you a few ideas by tomorrow," the artist promised, as she sorted the rest of the colored glass and the decorative pieces into different containers on her work table.

"Great. If you need to see any more of the scrap glass, I'll be across the street for another fifteen minutes or so until our lunch break ends."

"Back to the grindstone, eh?" joked Reina.

"Yeah, that's how I would definitely typify stringing Christmas trees with lights from giant spools," said Nina.

Back in the Display by Design studio, Nina shed her coat. "Good news, Reina thinks she can help us make more from less," she said. "Any interesting glass that doesn't fit the mold, she can turn into customized ornaments at an affordable rate, so long as we pick a simple pattern."

"You have to try this egg roll, Molly." Bradley held open a paper carton from the insulated pack he usually carried to the work site. "Ms. Fong's are even better than Lin Wu's down the street from Display's HQ. It's like I was eating a garden turned into a delicious snack roll."

"Where did you get these?" Molly asked, putting down her sketchpad and taking a bite. "Oh, wow. That's totally accurate."

"Our neighbor, the Asian woman who's always tidying up outside? It's her recipe. She gave me and Ki lunch yesterday, just to be nice. She even gave me some leftovers to take. It was, like, the nicest experience I've ever had with a total stranger."

"I would never eat food from a stranger, so I'm amazed," said Molly. "Well, I ate the bread, but it was delivered by the kids, and that makes you lower your guard, right?"

He offered one to Nina, who tried it, crunching down on a sweet and savory vegetable filling. "That is good," she said.

"I'm telling you, way better than the takeout on our street." He dug into a pile of cold cabbage and rice with a plastic fork. "Sorry, I'm going to eat the rest of this to be greedy, but I usually eat a sandwich at the pub, something we don't have time for today if we're going to make more headway on stringing those lights."

"Speaking of the pub's party, the theme is ugly sweater, so I'm making my own with some craft supplies and hot glue," said Molly. "I'm taking orders from my coworkers if they need a similar helping hand."

"Yes, please," said Bradley. "Just a reindeer face on a cheap hoodie would do for me."

"What about you, Nina? Frosty the Killer Snowman with red button eyes? How about 'Merry Kissmas' with mistletoe berries made from beads?"

"Uh...I don't know if I'm going," said Nina, casually. Her heart was beating in a weird pattern inside her chest.

"What? Why not? It's exclusive to the rugby crowd that uses the place, we've been invited purely because we're so awesome," said Molly. "What's not to embrace?"

"I have some stuff to do. It's work related, so I'll just go back to the B&B afterwards," said Nina, with a shrug.

"What is it? Probably no big deal, just something you and I could finish after the party," said Molly.

"No, it's ... it's just something I want to handle, so I'm skipping the party," said Nina. "You and Bradley go and have a great time, it's more your crowd than mine. I've eaten lunch there, what, once, maybe twice?"

"I can't believe you," said Molly. "It's a Christmas party, we're not going to get another invite this year, it's not like we're back home and showered with chances to get festive and fun this year."

"I said I'm fine with it. What's to argue?" said Nina. "Have a glass of wassail for me or whatever, all right?" She reached for her computer tablet. "I'm going to check my messages and grab one of those popcorn packs to snack on before we start on the lights again."

****

N ina's face blushed warmly as she exited the cab outside the restaurant. She had changed into her favorite dress, a soft pink one, in the washroom after Molly and Bradley went back to the studio. Now she was outside a restaurant with an expensive-looking exterior that even had its own doorman.

Why am I nervous? It wasn't a job interview, it was just dinner. For all she knew, she was reading the situation with Vincent completely wrong — he might've asked her here because he wanted to chat about Broadway shows, right?

He was waiting at one of the candle-lit tables inside, where the maitre d escorted her. "Hi," he said. Like a gentleman, he stood up, briefly, as the maitre d pulled out her chair — Nina felt like she was a character in a dinner scene from an old movie.

"Sorry if I'm late — I had to — you know, all the crazy stuff in an average day at work —"

"No, it's fine —"

"— I was putting away stuff and locking up some of the rental equipment —"

"— really, don't worry about it, it's fine," he said, before she could apologize more. "I've been the last one to leave the workshop more times than I could count, too."

He smiled, and Nina relaxed a little, even though something inside leaped to life, like two crossed wires sparking electricity. "So this place is really nice," she said, glancing at the menu but not picking it up yet. She was definitely sure the prices were three figures a plate. "Are those moldings real gold leaf?" The decorative surround for each chandelier's base reflected its light — even the friezes and sconces were gilded.

"Probably just the fake stuff. Who could tell this far away?" Vincent answered, which coaxed Nina's smile to become a real one.

"You're probably right," she answered. "It's the decorator in me. I have to figure out what's what — I guess I'm always gauging what's the standard that matches whatever the place has."

"I have something similar in me," he said. "It's hard to shut off, isn't it?"

She laughed. "Yeah, very," she admitted.

He put aside his menu. "I don't know why I look at that, I know it's insanely expensive and half the dishes are really tiny, so I order the same thing every time — tortellini with a salad."

"You don't like the food?"

"No, I do, it's delicious. It's just small. That's how elegant restaurants do it, unfortunately," he said, grinning. "I don't come very often, only to bring high-profile clients or when I'm with Simone or one of her designer friends."

"I'm definitely not part of that crowd," she said. "You could have picked another place, I wouldn't have cared."

"Like Mongolian barbecue? Argentinean sticky ribs? Big plate of spaghetti with one meatball?"

"Yeah, sure, any of those," she joked back.

"Okay, I'll remember," he said. "Since this is the place I usually book for special dinners, it's become my go-to, but I should change that."

Categorizing her as one of the special dinners triggered another slight blush. Nina tried not to let it show. "You know, I think tortellini sounds great," she said. "I love Italian."

"Since they don't have the giant meatball and pasta plate here, it's the closest option to fine un-authentic Italian food we have," he said.

They both ordered it, and the house's salads for a first course, although Nina preferred hers eaten at the same time, a definite 'no' at a place like this one. The salad was fairly small, mostly decorative pickled bits atop some arugula.

"How's progress on the interior coming?" he asked.

"Good. I mean, we're into the trees now, which is the main decor for the party, so it's the most important part. Getting it right is a scary challenge."

"You shouldn't have any problems," he said.

"Simone's not that easy to impress, is she?" challenged Nina, one eyebrow lifting skeptically. Somehow she found it hard to believe the designer — who looked impeccably elegant in person and on her webpage profile — had lower standards for her brand's stores than she did for the outfits her team created for it. "She's a legend in the fashion world. I can't picture her cutting anybody slack who doesn't give one hundred and ten percent."

"I'm not going to deny it, but you way underrate your work as it is," he pointed out.

"We got lucky," said Nina. "Sometimes when you change everything, you screw it up completely. That was a bigger risk than we meant to take. Natalia was pretty clear about their standards from the beginning. When you tweak the rules, you get into danger."

"Like in design," he said. "The risk is worth the reward, though."

"It's a different jungle where you're surviving," she answered, with a shake of her head. "If I make my customer happy by giving them what they want, I win nine times out of ten. I only have to change the plan if I know what they want is going to be a total disaster, but you're competing with people who push the envelope with everything they do."

"If they do what Simone tells them, too, you mean," he said.

"I meant when you're doing your own stuff, not hers," she said. "She probably has exacting standards for her designs."

"What do you think happens if we flout them?" He sipped his water.

"The fashion world dies?"

He laughed. "It's something like that, I think."

The tortellini was actually pretty good, even if it was small — six tiny little pastas were arranged on a ring of sauce, with cherry tomatoes and pickled julienne radish. Vincent made a joke about its appearance being a little like a pasta wearing a wig, with the little shreds sprinkled delicately over the top like strands of white hair covering a pasta 'face'.

"In case you were thinking it, but didn't want to say it," he added, afterwards.

Nina laughed. "Okay, I won't deny it," she said. "Most places I eat don't exactly decorate their food. Except for the pizza place, it makes a chocolate chip smiley face on the cinnabun pizza if it's your birthday."

"Hey, I like that policy. I wish the pizza place near my flat would do the same."

"It's a Picatto thing. That's the street where our business is," she said. "All the businesses do that kind of stuff, sometimes it's like a second family."

"Do you live near family?" he asked. "I know New York is a place that makes a lot of being a native, but it's also full of newcomers — it seems like a contradiction, but it isn't."

"Yeah, but most of them are living in one of the old neighborhoods, the one where most Puerto Ricans settled a long time ago," she said. "I got my own place after I started the business, because I could afford it and I wanted to live closer to work. Of course, weekends and celebrations on my old block are pretty mandatory. My dad's mojo pork and al pastor tacos, lots of lime granitas. Sometimes with alcohol if the kids are having ice cream instead."

"I haven't been to a block party in a long time," he said, with a wistful smile. "In New York, when I was in college, the closest I had was a bar where we used to go for holidays, and pack into this little nook in it that we called our table. They made the greatest onion rings."

"What about when you were back in — Kansas?" she said, after she was sure she named the right place.

"My home state, I can't believe you remembered," he said. "Pit barbecues there, sometimes with Kansas City style burnt ends and something that they only made in the suburb town I grew up in, Rockerville, a dish called 'sour slaw'. It had pickles, red cabbage and onion, relish, sauerkraut, the whole shebang under the dressing."

"Sounds like they were into some serious barbecue," said Nina, with a smile.

"I wouldn't call us a party town. But I remember that we did close down the back room of the local bowling alley one night after the Super Bowl and that was — waaay past eleven p.m."

Nina couldn't stop herself from laughing. "You know, all this talk about food is just going to make us hungrier," she said.

He lowered his voice to a confiding tone. "I have a line on a dessert here that's actually normal size, if you're interested," he said.

"Is it chocolate?" she asked.

"Definitely," he answered.

***

T o the sound of 'Rockin Around the Christmas Tree' for the hundredth time, another party guest came through the pub's doors, letting in a burst of wet, cold air. "Happy Christmas, mates!" he called out to the crowd in general — the reply a general chorus of greeting.

"Tony! Have a drink, man —"

"Happy Christmas, you daft punk."

Attention for the newcomer immediately died as the next darts player cued up their shot. The dart whistled to the board, stuck in the cork just outside the five point margin. Groans followed.

Molly let her arm flop to her side. "That looked so easy to make," she complained. "Why is it so hard?" She shook her wrist — it was like carpel tunnel was developing in it or something from all those lousy throws.

"Keep trying, you'll get better," coaxed Tandy.

"I think the problem is you have no hand eye coordination," said Bradley, sipping his punch. Molly shot him a narrow-eyed glance.

Bradley said to keep his sweater design simple, and Molly had delivered — pompom reindeer and snowmen in a conga line, with little pipe cleaner arms. It was all creatively-engineered from a stash of craft supplies they had brought in one of their bags.

For her own ugly sweater, Molly had glued a green felt Christmas tree to a sweatshirt and decorated it with colored pompom ornaments, topped with a star-printed bottle cap from a bottled beer on the pub's imports menu, added because it was certain to score a couple of laughs.

"Don't let him mess with your mind. Have a sausage roll," said somebody, who was passing around one of the snack plates for the party — a party which was a mess of loud jukebox songs, drunken impromptu carols, and lots of junk food and hot toddies, exactly the way Molly liked her Christmas parties.

"I want to be a legitimate player in the field, all right?" she answered. "I'm smart, I'm calculated, I work with my hands professionally. How can I not do this?"

"Maybe because you're not very good, love?" suggested someone else, looking both sympathetic and amused, which made Molly want to roll her eyes. Could anybody ever really be both?

The next shot was a bull's eye, and the roar of reaction was accompanied by some arrogant whooping by the lucky player. Molly pretended not to see it. At least the rest of the party was fun, even if she was being crushed at the bottom of the pack competitively.

"At least our job doesn't depend on this, right?" said Bradley, who was also losing, although not as badly.

"You mean the bull's eye isn't Natalia Gaborelli's tiny heart?" said Molly. "Good point. I'd aim harder." She took a bite from one of the sausage rolls, which was a more savory version of 'pigs in a blanket', apparently. Did the pub's main barman make them? She was almost willing to bet it — he was pretty good at noshes.

"It was really true that our work was kind of a viral sensation online the day after the windows were unveiled," said Bradley. "Some pretty nice things were posted. It wasn't like we only got away with things."

"I liked some of those comments, it's true," said Molly. "Actually, I thought it was some of our best work, even being kind of a last-minute switch — not that we can roll like that every time, it would kill us."

"This has still been a good gig," said Bradley. "I wouldn't have thought it possible those first few days, but it's actually turned out way better than I pictured."

"Same here," said Molly. "I wish Nina had come with us to celebrate. She feels pressured, now I'm feeling pressured, we're all working to beat ourselves at this point and we don't even know the score."

"Better than your darts game, I'm pretty sure," said Bradley. Molly made a face.

"Thanks for ruining my mood," she said. "You know, I was hit in the head last year by that big plaster Jupiter when we were putting up the solar system display at a job, that's probably why I can't hit the board."

"Do you want that to be your cover story?"

"No." She scowled. "But I don't have a better one at the moment."

It was almost her turn — the jukebox was cranking out 'Last Christmas' at full volume again as the latest player passed her the darts. She missed her first shot, putting another hole in the wall beneath a reindeer-head novelty stocking. Several observers groaned.

"I'm just warming up, okay?" she said to the crowd in general. She toggled the next one between her fingers, trying to loosen up her elbow at the same time.

Ted, who had been setting a tray of mini quiches on the table, wiped his hands on the bar towel over his shoulder — the only one in the pub not in an ugly sweater tonight, but his usual flannel over a tee. "Stand aside," he said to the observers behind Molly, who sensed it the moment he came behind, before his hand touched her elbow, fingers cupping around to stop her movement.

"Hold it still," he said. "Bring it up like this —" His hand moved, drawing her arm upwards.

"What are you doing?" she said.

"Look, do you want help or not?" he said.

"Yeah, but —"

"Do you want to make this shot?" he asked.

"Who are you, the darts champion of the village or something?"

"I'm pretty good," he said.

"Do you have that in writing?" she said.

He turned his head. "Hey, Danny — am I good?" he called out to the customer at the table who was sampling the mac and cheese muffin bites.

The customer snorted back a laugh. "Good?" he echoed. "Are you having me on?"

"I knew it," said Molly. "You're pulling a prank on me, aren't you? I swear, what is it with you and meanness?"

"What are you talking about?" he protested. "What meanness, I'm a totally decent bloke."

"Give me back my elbow," she said, trying to nudge him away.

"Trust me," he said, holding her back with the slight touch of his hand — not backing off yet. "Let me show you."

She looked over her shoulder. "One shot and that's all," he said.

Molly found the blue in the depths of his eyes were level with her own, in a sapphire calm that matched the tilt of his jaw with his head lowered close to her own. Something about it was slightly hypnotic, like watching the waves roll on a placid lake. Something in the depths challenged her, too — stirring that competitive edge to come alive.

"All right," she said. "You have your shot."

She turned back to face the darts board, letting Ted guide her arm into place. He raised her hand at the level of her eye, concentrating her fingers forward near the dart's tip. His body rocked back, moving her rhythm in line with his own, changing the balance of her weight.

"Fix your eye on it," he said, quietly. "Watch the dot. Just keep your eye there, and pretend that your hand is throwing it through that window view you have of it. Count it off — one, two, three."

He moved her hand in time to the count, bringing it to a short stop on three. He let go and stepped back. Molly positioned herself, trying to copy the same posture as before.

"One, two, three." She let it fly on the third, without the usual extra forcefulness of her previous throw. It sailed into the board's cork, thudding into the ten point mark.

The group cheered. Jubilantly, Molly turned to Bradley, who high-fived her.

Ted watched from beside the table, with a satisfied smile. He was too far away for a high five, so she tried to send her thanks in a glance, not sure if he noticed before he slid the pan of quiches onto one of the big plates.

"More layers to keep the wassail in its place, mates," he announced. More cheers followed. He caught Molly's eye as he turned to go, and she smiled at him — not meaning to, necessarily, it just happened.

She missed her next shot.

***

V incent unlocked the Billington's service door, and held it open for Nina. "Let me lock it behind us," he said, as it swung closed. "We don't want anybody wandering in to spoil the unveiling."

"Like anybody else cares," she said. "Nobody but Simone's guests will ever see it, except whatever shoppers are there for the big after New Year's grand opening."

"You'll see the joy in customer's faces right before you pack it all up," he said. "Then you'll go home with the memory of it for a souvenir."

"Yeah, only two weeks later than I planned," she said. "But we're flying back home after the party to be there for the holidays, then we'll be back to clean up and arrange to have the trees taken away."

"It seems sad to talk about it being cleared away at this stage," said Vincent. "You just started. It feels like it's halfway over and the party is still a week away."

"I guess time works faster than we'd like," she said. "It felt like we were going to be here forever when we started and it was all going wrong ... just as it started getting better, it was like time sped up, rushing us to the conclusion. It feels like a jury is going to come out and read our verdict any day now."

They walked through to the main room, where Vincent switched on the lights to the store's show room floor. The winter-clad mannequins and the white tents cloaking the Christmas trees were flooded in the glow of electric chandeliers. They both stood by the stairs, looking at the scene, before Nina lifted one of the central tree's curtains. "Want to see our progress?" she asked.

"Yeah, I do," he said, sliding inside with her. She reached down to switch on the battery generating power for the tree's twinkle lights, which they had finished stringing only a few hours before — there were no floor outlets in the Billington and long cords would be unsightly and hazardous, so they had opted for special rechargeable outlet packs from an electronics supply rental company.

"How many have you finished?" he asked.

"Five. Tomorrow we'll finish the others. Molly's picking up the ornaments, and we'll be workshopping for two days to finish all the rest of the decor. That just leaves choosing the tree toppers."

She plugged in the cord. The white lights twinkled throughout the branches draped in faux snow crystals, nestled in the soft green.

Vincent gazed up as he circled it, letting out a soft whistle of appreciation between his lips. "Wow," he said. "It's beautiful just like that."

"It needs more," she corrected him. "I like it simple. But once it's all dressed — hopefully — it'll be ten times better if we do our job. Like, it can stun you when you walk into a room."

"So what's the rest of the plan?" he asked. "Can you tell me or will that spoil the effect? I don't think it would, but you're the one who knows best."

"Think winter. Lots of nature, snow, ice," she said. "We thought Simone would like it, since she's embracing the simple in her winter fashions this year — and since she liked the window scenes, at least she didn't hate them, it seems like the right choice."

"Simple, but still breathtaking — that's the plan, I'm guessing," he said.

"Do you think we can pull it off?" She was joking, but still felt some doubts, especially in front of this massive tree. Would it look good covered in their ornament choices? Or would it somehow look cheap?

"I think you can do anything, judging from what you've done so far," he said. "I'm impressed, so I doubt that'll change with this stage of the design."

"Nice to think we'll make at least one person happy," she said. "Of course, Simone might be different — Natalia is hard to please, but I kind of expect that. This party will be even more important to Simone, though."

"It's a major moment in her career," he said. "She's wanted to open a second exclusive store for years, and expand the line beyond internet retail, but the trends weren't with her. To her, the experience of knowing customers can be fitted for clothes in person, and can touch and examine the clothes, that seems like true couture. Not just retail."

"Most people just settle for a website," said Nina. "It's cool to know that some things are still physical." Shopping was just a finger's tap, not a personal experience anymore, but maybe it needed to change just a little bit.

"That's a big endorsement from our generation," joked Vincent. "I'll tell her you said so."

"Yeah, sure, if it'll help us gain some credit with her," she joked back.

She stood back to admire the tree aglow, since she hadn't had time earlier when the lights were first tested. "We've never done anything this big," she said, softly. "Anything this grand. We've had lots of jobs, and we've made a lot of customers happy, but we've never created anything on this scale. It's scary."

"Why? Because you think you could fail? It happens, but so does success. There's a lot of shades in between that give us room to move up or down, too."

"Because it's one chance," she said. "You don't get a second one in a business like this." She turned. "Like if you were auditioning for Simone's team with a portfolio that truly sucked."

"All right, you have a point," said Vincent.

She walked around the tree to the controls again. "What did you audition with? Interviewed, however you put it when you pitch to a famous designer like her." She was curious — she had no idea what type of clothing he designed. The suits he wore, maybe — or the costumes that the flamboyant designer wore.

"A line of evening wear for men with a masculine flair," he said. "I spent six months designing each outfit, and tailoring the suit I had modeled for the first showcase. I impressed myself, I don't know about Simone — but she did hire me, so maybe it was as good as I hoped and not just my potential striking luck."

"If you're Simone Van Stewart, you probably don't settle for potential," said Nina.

"Thanks," he said.

She switched off the tree's lights. Vincent parted the curtains. "Do you want to see what I'm working on these days?" he said. "It would give you a better picture of what it was like."

"Can I?" she said.

"All the designs in progress are upstairs in the studio," he said. "Mine, Len's, everyone from Simone's design staff between here and Paris."

"I'd like to see it, yeah," she said, still surprised he asked.

They went upstairs to the work space Nina remembered from before, when she had first seen the Van Stewart winter fashions that inspired the decor's changes. Some of the chaos had become order now that the workshop was fully arranged, but each work space was still colorful with sketches, swatches, and garments in various unfinished stages.

A Christmas tree of metallic silver in one corner, covered in twisty blue curls and metallic orb-shaped baubles — exactly the kind Nina expected for a funky creative design space, even if Van Stewart was the last name in sophistication. It was perfectly paired with a female mannequin wearing a linen jumpsuit inspired by a soft peacock-feather print in vivid sapphire and teal.

"This is the summer formal line we're contributing to. Simone drew the initial concepts, and the rest of us are contributing pieces inspired by the same theme." He showed her the sketches pinned to the board. Beside it, a dressmaker's form wore a dress partly-pinned, watered silky chiffon in shades of sunset rose and orange. Its halter neck fastened with two opal-style buttons tacked in place, with pins holding the bodice and asymmetrical wrap skirt together.

"This one is yours?" she guessed, as he unpinned a couple of sketches from the board. "It's really nice." The cut was flattering, the flow of the fabric invitingly soft — she could picture herself wearing it to a party, realizing the sunset colors were meant to invoke the feel of a sunset party by the shore — or on a fancy yacht, maybe. With the price tag this dress would fetch, she knew she wouldn't be wearing it to a block party anytime soon.

"Yeah. And this one, but it's not in the production stage yet," he said, showing her another design for a prairie-style blouse and soft bohemian skirt in muted pink paisley and roses. "One casual, one formal. Len's working on most of the female ensemble, I'll be designing the rest of the men's apparel, along with a couple of colleagues at our Paris HQ. All my sketches for it are still in the drawing stage, but you can see the concepts on the table, with the summer casual jacket."

She looked at the different sketches, which had been lightly colored in, representing different versions of men's casual and formal wear, including a summer suit and a sage green 'untuck' shirt.

"It's a surprising question," he said, sitting down in his swivel chair, "what you asked about how I got this job."

"How so?" she asked, putting down his sketches.

"Nobody ever wonders how I got the job, they just assume I knew somebody in the fashion industry already."

"That's probably a pretty common assumption," she said. "I mean, when I first met you I thought — I mean, you're a guy, it's the fashion industry —" Suddenly, she was blushing again, this time with embarrassment. She had been wrong — right?

His laugh sounded genuine. "You and everyone else," he said. "It's pretty much the common belief about any guy who works in garment design."

"Not all of them," she said. "Like — Calvin Klein. Or — J. Peterman."

He laughed again. "Great reference," he said. "I think I'll use that one in the future, actually. People don't realize that garment design was a masculine field in the beginning, when it was pretty much all tailors in the world of couture."

"Average guys?" she said.

"Pretty much an average creative guy's career," he said. "Like in The Royal Tailor . It's as much left brain as it is right brain — lines and angles and scale mixing with the defiance of those proportions, so geometry and artistry are equal partners. That part becomes pretty obvious when you actually start cutting and sewing patterns."

She sat on the edge of his work table, a desk as cluttered as all the rest. "How did you get into it?" she asked. "Not many guys get sewing boxes for Christmas when they're kids, or whatever tools you need to start."

"I didn't, either," he said. "I fell into it, gradually, from other things, the way you do when you're creative. As a kid, I made my G.I. Joe action figures superhero costumes from felt and glue, then I did the same for my sister's Barbie so she could be Batgirl — I made my own Halloween costumes. That's when my grandmother gave me one of her old books on basic sewing techniques, so I didn't have to use glue and safety pins all the time."

"You made your own costumes?" she said.

"Yeah, all kinds," he said. "I designed them. I drew my own superhero costumes, like cosplay on steroids. In junior high, I made some for the school's fall play that were actually pretty good."

"Do you have those sketches here?" she teased.

"No, I left them back in my childhood room with my Goosebump books," he said, laughing. "I still have some of the costumes. Some I let my cousins use, they probably donated them to Goodwill by now."

"That's still a pretty far leap, from Halloween to a job with Van Stewart," she said. "Unless you were designing your own wardrobe in school?"

"Not exactly," he said. "But I did make my sister's prom dress. She picked a pattern, then let me choose the fabric and modify the design, because it wasn't going to be a good fit for her. It turned out really well actually. She got a lot of compliments. People actually asked me to make other clothes based on it."

"You knew just by looking that it wouldn't turn out right," said Nina. "You always knew how to do that, I guess?"

"Sort of. It's math, once you understand about contours and angles and ratio, it's easy to see when certain differences won't complement each other. Like — what waistline doesn't look good on someone and which one will. That's the real key to design, knowing what compliments each type of person and what doesn't."

Nina could see the casual relaxation in his body, mirroring his voice's own. He was as much at home in this field as she was in hers — like it was a wellspring tapped into by his creativity, pouring out gorgeous dresses like the one on the dressmaker's model, and the well-tailored suit jacket he was wearing right now.

Did it show in her face as she was listening how much it impressed her? If so, should she do something about it?

"Anyway, I took some courses in college, and made some more bespoke garments, which is when my professor recommended me for a two-year design program and internship starting after graduation," he said. "But I didn't meet Simone's team until I had already worked for a couple of small New York designers, then roughed it as a fabric buyer for one of the design houses in Paris."

He put the sketches into a portfolio of others, closing it — she glimpsed evening gowns and rugged winter coats in the mix, flying between the covers. "What about you?" he asked. "How did you find your way into your field? Did you always want to create worlds in department store windows?"

She laughed. "It's not like many kids dream of that, is it?" she said. "No. Like you, I just found a door for my creativity to follow through. I studied design, I liked creating impressions and moments that evoke emotion in people — instead of doing it in people's houses, or grand hotels, or in apartments for sale, I found a job where I would do it over and over on a small scale in the neighborhoods I've always known. I got lucky, found some other talented people who were open to trying it as well."

"Right now you're doing it in London, and that's not by force, so someplace besides home must be part of the goal," said Vincent.

"Okay, true, yeah, we wanted opportunities outside our usual scope," she said. "After a certain point, you get curious about what's beyond it, curious about what it would be like to be there."

"Someplace new calls you," he said. "It happens. I get it."

It happened to him, she knew — he went from Wichita to New York and beyond. She hadn't been so ambitious, but maybe it was different for her. First was owning a white collar business, a first in her family — then the decision to live somewhere besides her family's neighborhood, which were both big steps in her world.

"I like a challenge," she said. "I don't get many of them where I am, except the normal kind that come from being in business — not the creative kind, when you start reaching for bigger things." She picked up one of his sketches lying nearby, sharp lines reconstruction of a Nehru-style jacket as a tunic in leather with metallic buttons.

He inhaled, deeply. "It's deciding between the reality and vision that makes it hard," he said. "Which is going to be better, and worth it. You know deep inside it won't be the fantasy, unless the experience is a total disaster, of course."

She laughed. "That's it," she said. "You already know why I'm here."

"I understand only because I've been there," he said. "I'm glad I do, though. There were times ... when I wished I had somebody to be sympathetic, when I first came to Paris."

"It was probably lonely at the start," she said. "It's a long ways from New York, from Kansas."

"Lonely in a city with no friends, only the goal of what I came to do," he said. "So it's something I can understand well."

Their eyes met. Nina's breath slipped away, as did the drawing she held. She felt Vincent's hand gently take her own as he leaned up from his chair. His other hand circled her neck, cupping it as he drew her face to his own, slowly.

The kiss made contact, becoming sweeter, more intense as she leaned into it. It ended with a soft touch, parting. Knowing he could see everything in her eyes, Nina still couldn't look away.