Tom Dolby - The Trust

Genie was sitting in the living room and working on a needlepoint pillow while watching television. She looked up, just enough to catch Patch’s eye.

“I’m worried about you, Patchfield,” she said.

“What about?”

“You don’t look well. You’re too thin. You’re always sulking around in that ratty wool cap. What’s going on?”

He sat down. “It’s the usual. I mean, after everything that happened…” His voice trailed off. He had filled Genie in on the Society’s retreat, and how he had little choice but to become a member. She had been upset with him, but she also understood the precarious position he was in. “I thought what happened in December would be the worst of it,” he continued. “I thought joining would solve everything.”

“Solve what?” Genie asked as she raised an eyebrow in suspicion.

“All my problems. I thought it would get me a TV deal, or at the very least, give me some new opportunities even if Chadwick Prep didn’t work out. Big surprise: it didn’t. It’s the same with my friends. Phoebe’s not painting, Lauren hates doing her jewelry, Nick hasn’t organized any parties. Hey, at least I get to spin records at the Dendur Ball.”

“The Dendur Ball?” Genie looked curious. “Imagine that. They’re doing that again.”

“Have you been before?”

“No, I haven’t. By the time they started it, I was no longer running around with that crowd. But, your-well, Esme, she cut quite a figure at the last ball.”

“I know. I saw the photograph of her. I could barely recognize her.”

“Those were the best days,” Genie said sadly. “She was so happy then. Before everything happened.”

“Did she and Dad go to things like that often?”

“Oh, yes,” Genie said. “She and your father and the Bells, actually. Parker and Georgiana had only been married for a few years. The four of them were such a group: your father and Parker, Esme and Gigi. They were the talk of the town.”

“And then I came along.”

“Oh, dear, that had nothing to do with it. Your mother had a decline. You know that. It’s all… what’s the word, hereditary. I read an article about it. You can’t help what you’re born with.”

Patch sat down in an armchair and sighed. “Do you think she’ll ever get better?”

“I don’t know,” Genie said. “I certainly hope so. For your sake. I know how devastating it is. I can’t even remember what it was like to have her in our lives. It feels like she’s already dead.”

“Genie!”

“Patch, we have to be realistic about it. It’s not your mother that we visit in Ossining. She’s a shell, a reminder of the person she used to be.”

“So what do you think I should do about all this Society stuff? My TV show project has tanked for now, which totally blows. And my friends are all being threatened.”

“You take care of yourself first,” Genie said firmly. “I know Nick watches out for you, but I don’t know those other friends of yours. I’m sure they’re good people, and I know you’re a fair judge of character, Patch.” She gripped his arm. “But still, you have to be careful.”

After a few weeks everyone at Giroux New York had thankfully put the awkward incident of the stolen earrings behind them. Sebastian Giroux had first called it “a misunderstanding,” as if Lauren had been some drug-addled starlet who had simply thought she had paid for something when she hadn’t. No, Lauren insisted, someone had planted the earrings in her bag. While no one particularly cared how or why this could have happened, they accepted it as a reasonable enough explanation, and the matter was dropped.

Several weeks before the incident, Sabrina, the store’s creative director, had set up a small office for Lauren in the basement, on the same corridor as Sebastian and the other designers. On the door was a placard that read: L. MORTIMER DESIGNS. Lawyers had drawn up papers specifying the exact relationship of her company to Giroux New York. Lauren would be licensing her designs to Giroux, and they would be in charge of the manufacturing. Sabrina handled the dealings with the factory in Red Hook, and Lauren visited the plant to view and critique prototypes.

Lauren dropped by Sebastian’s office for a meeting with him and Sabrina to discuss the Egyptian jewelry plan. She didn’t really want to do it, but Mrs. Chilton had upped the ante on her a few days after her initial request: she had, as promised, hired Lauren’s mother to do some decorating in their apartment. Diana had let Lauren know how important the job was to her, and Lauren could see it for herself. Her mother was getting up early in the morning to source materials and prepare sketches. For the first time in a while, Diana Mortimer was actually excited about her job. Lauren wanted it to stay that way.

Lauren knew, then, that she had little choice but to do the job for the Dendur Ball, even if it would lower her to the level of making a reproduction.

“I tried to get out of it,” Lauren explained to Sebastian and Sabrina. “I mean, I don’t want to create some tacky thing that looks like you could buy it at a museum gift shop.” The whole thing depressed her, but she felt as if she didn’t have a choice in the matter.

“Let me guess,” Sebastian said, laughing. “Letty Chilton strong-armed you. The woman can be very persistent. God, what her daughter has put our salespeople through recently!”

“Really?” Lauren was curious, but she wanted to stay on point. “I guess I’ve warmed up to the idea. It could be fun.”

“The jewelry of that era is very beautiful,” Sebastian said. “Can you imagine that they could create that kind of thing thousands of years ago? It’s really quite incredible.”

“What are the materials?” Sabrina asked.

“We would use enamel and semiprecious stones,” Lauren said. “Nothing too expensive. Carnelian, lapis lazuli, turquoise. This would be a simulation, basically. But the important thing is that it has to look real. It will be really stunning to have all the young women wearing these, while the real thing is in a case just yards away.”

Lauren handed Sabrina a manila envelope with the specifications from the curator at the Egyptian wing.

“Now, we need to talk about something more important,” Sebastian said. “The jewelry is a hit. We’re actually selling even more abroad than we are in New York. I told you that Colette picked it up?” Colette was a boutique-style department store, similar to Giroux, in Paris. It sold everything from limited-edition books to one-of-a-kind fashion to the latest DJ mixes to designer waters. Lauren knew that to have one’s designs represented there was an enormous honor.

Lauren nodded. “That’s fabulous.”

“It’s better than fabulous. They want to do a window display for spring this year featuring your pieces.”

“Oh my God. Wow.”

“There’s a catch, though,” Sabrina said.

Lauren groaned quietly. There was always a catch.

Sebastian continued: “They want the designs to be Colette exclusives. They would only be sold in the store on rue Saint-Honore and online.”

“Can we do enough volume there?” Lauren asked. “Does it make sense to do a line just for one store?”

Sebastian and Sabrina laughed.

“My dear, you take care of the designing,” Sebastian said. “We’ll worry about the business side of things.”

Lauren smiled weakly as she flushed a little bit. She resented when Sebastian-or any adult, for that matter-assumed that just because she was in high school, she wasn’t interested in the details. She wanted to learn all about fashion, not just about how to make jewelry or how to cut an A-line dress, but about merchandising, marketing, shipping, sales. Maybe she would have to wait until college to get that type of knowledge.