The One Who Got Away is Back

Present 14 ♡ Too Good To Be True

Sometimes the universe conspires to help things go your way. As rare as such a phenomenon is, I was the kind of person who could appreciate it with my whole heart.

When Monday morning came, I woke up early and went through the routine I had all the years I worked at Tropicana. I thought back to the time I was getting ready for the interview that would eventually turn into a full time position, back when I was still in NYC. I was already an employee at the fashion house where I did the dream internship I scored from the big fashion showcase, the one where I made Miguel wear a gown.

At first I had loved it. I was an independent adult living in the big city and I had a dream job at an amazing, world renown company.

Except it was shit.

If I thought my Catholic boarding school for rich kids had bullies, that was nothing compared to the people who worked in the fashion industry. Every single person around me was vain, and they'd all gone to the same school where someone taught them how to make the same sneer when I was around. As soon as I stepped into the building, I got the sneer from the receptionist and she must have passed the memo along. No one respected me, even when I came up with cool designs that fit within the company's portfolio. Even when I had innovative ideas.

The problem was, while I had the preferred height and skin color for anyone in association with fashion, I certainly didn't have the build for it. And more people than I could count with fingers from both hands and all my toes made sure to let me know that my weight and frame were a problem I had best fix if I wanted a future there.

As if the way a person was made was a problem.

People weren't clothes. We couldn't get snipped and sown back into a new, perfect shape. We weren't supposed to be a one size fits all.

I felt horrible. I cried so much that my three roommates didn't want to hang out with me. They just thought I was such a drag and ignored me altogether.

So in a city as big as NYC was, I was completely alone.

Except for my boss, whom I had greatly admired since a childhood surrounded by expensive and exclusive items that belonged to my mother. He was everything I thought a designer should be. Avant-garde, bold, cultured. When he stepped into a room, we all stood to attention, eager to hear what he was going to say. He had a unique eye for color, playing with complementaries and contrasts in ways I'd never imagined could work. But his most attuned sense was touch. Every fabric, every trim, every embroidered detail had to feel just perfect. It was like watching a fashion magician work.

He was the one who made me a full time employee, despite the fact that I hated the place. The biggest vote of confidence I ever got from a stranger was from him. The only person in the building who actively asked for my opinion—and implemented my good ideas—was him.

Until one day, after I came up with a clever way to put together a gown for the upcoming collection, when he offhandedly said, "I knew the daughter of Grace Winterbourne would be a great addition to the team."

I looked up from my work, stupefied out of my mind, and asked, "You know my mother?"

"Oh, yes. Very well." The way he smiled told me he knew her intimately. And then he gave me a look. Or I should say, The Look. The one that tried to measure if I lived up to my mother's talents. And suddenly he was a lot closer to me as he said, "You may not look that much like her, but you definitely do have her eye, don't you? Do you find me attractive as well?"

I remembered having the wits to murmur something like oh, look at the time, my boyfriend is waiting for me. But after that the relationship changed. We both avoided each other like the plague, and with that I lost the only person who made being there worth a damn. I started looking for new jobs anywhere I could find them within a distance I could easily move to.