Chapter 21 - The Day Isabelle Called Me First
Two months later, Isabelle called at 6:43 on a Tuesday morning.
“I need a favor.”
I sat up immediately.
“What happened?”
“Nothing catastrophic.”
My heart resumed functioning.
“One of my students has an interview at Parsons today.”
“Okay.”
“She’s seventeen. Brilliant. Terrified. Her mother works nights and can’t go.”
“What do you need?”
“Could you talk to her?”
I stared at the ceiling.
“Me?”
“You interview young designers.”
“I terrify young designers.”
“You used to.”
That sentence contained more faith than I deserved.
Her name was Maya Thompson.
She met me at Bell & Thread at eight.
She wore a secondhand navy blazer and carried a portfolio against her chest like armor.
“Mr. Laurent.”
“Gabriel.”
She looked horrified by the suggestion.
“Mr. Laurent is fine.”
Isabelle hid a smile behind her coffee.
For forty minutes, I asked Maya the questions I would ask any applicant.
Why fashion?
What problem was she solving?
Which piece failed?
That question frightened her.
“The failed piece?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t bring it.”
“Why?”
“Because it failed.”
“That’s why I want to see it.”
Isabelle leaned against the cutting table.
Maya slowly opened a hidden portfolio sleeve.
Inside was a photograph of a jacket with one sleeve twisted badly.
“I tried a zero-waste pattern,” she said.
“And?”
“It was awful.”
“Why?”
She began explaining.
Within two minutes, fear disappeared.
She talked about grain direction, fabric efficiency, movement, and redesign.
When she finished, I smiled.
“That answer is stronger than pretending everything worked.”
She stared.
“Really?”
“People who never fail either lie or haven’t attempted enough.”
Isabelle raised an eyebrow.
I looked at her.
“I’m aware of the irony.”
Maya laughed.
The interview went well.
She was accepted three weeks later with partial scholarship.
Bell & Thread covered part of the remaining tuition through its education fund.
I offered nothing.
Not because I did not care.
Because Isabelle had built the fund to function without me.
Instead, I connected Maya with a paid summer internship program that now used independent selection criteria.
She earned a place.
Actually earned it.
That distinction mattered.
My leave from Laurent ended that spring.
The board offered two options.
Return as CEO under further restrictions.
Or become chief creative officer while Elena assumed the chief executive role permanently.
Five years earlier, I would have considered the second option humiliation.
I asked Elena what she wanted.
She stared at me.
“Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“I want your job.”
I smiled.
“Good.”
The transition was announced Monday.
Markets barely reacted.
I found that insulting for approximately six minutes.
Then liberating.
Without daily operational control, I returned to design.
Actual fabric.
Actual fittings.
Actual mistakes.
I was better at it than I had remembered.
I was also less brilliant than the mythology suggested.
That was freeing too.
On Thursday, Isabelle asked me to dinner.
Not Bell & Thread.
Not a café.
Her apartment.
I stood outside her door carrying wine for nearly a full minute before knocking.
Daniel opened it.
Every insecurity I possessed woke up.
Then Mae appeared behind him.
“Relax,” she said. “It’s six people.”
I hated that she still read me so easily.
Dinner included Isabelle, Mae, Daniel, Daniel’s new girlfriend Nora, me, and a retired tailor named Arthur who spoke louder than necessary.
It was wonderful.
No one treated me like a billionaire.
Arthur criticized my spring collection for twenty minutes.
Daniel agreed with him.
Nora asked if I always looked that offended.
Isabelle nearly choked on her wine.
After everyone left, I helped wash dishes.
“You set me up,” I said.
“Arthur?”
“Yes.”
“He genuinely hates those jackets.”
“I noticed.”
She smiled.
Then grew serious.
“I wanted you here.”
I turned off the faucet.
“Why?”
“Because this is my life.”
I waited.
“And I wanted to see how it felt having you in it.”
My pulse changed.
“How did it feel?”
She looked around the kitchen.
“Normal.”
I could not decide whether that was romantic.
Then she touched my cheek.
“I mean that as the highest compliment.”
This time, when she leaned toward me, she did not stop.
Our first kiss after the divorce was quiet.
No music.
No camera.
No dramatic rain.
Her hand rested lightly against my jaw.
Mine remained on the edge of the sink until she took it and placed it at her waist.
When we separated, both of us were crying.
“This doesn’t mean we’re remarried tomorrow,” she whispered.
“I was thinking Thursday.”
May you like
She laughed against my chest.
And for the first time in years, I felt something like hope without immediately turning it into a plan.
