The Designer's Secret, page 2
“Sure.” Layla hesitated. Normally she would never push back on something Grandma Ruby said, but she couldn’t just pretend nothing was wrong and eat lemon pie. Whatever was bothering her grandmother, they had to talk about it.
Taking a fortifying breath, she aimed for one of her grandma’s soft spots—her love for her grandchildren. “Tyler thinks you’re against her and that you don’t want her to succeed at Sashay Chic.”
“What?” Dismay flooded Ruby’s face. “I only want the best for her.”
“How is keeping Tyler from what she’s always dreamed of, and preventing her from what you’ve always wanted her to do, the best for her? She feels blindsided by the decision about her fashion collection. If what she’s proposing is too drastic, shouldn’t you at least give her a chance to fix it?”
Ruby shook her head. “It’s not that simple.”
“Why?”
“Because you can’t fix a jinx.”
“A jinx?” Layla paused, not sure she’d heard her right. “You mean bad luck?”
“It’s more than that.” Indecision came and went from Ruby’s face. “I have to show you something. I’ll be right back.”
She walked briskly out of the archway leading from the kitchen.
The nearby hall closet opened, and the sound of Ruby sliding clothes hangers aside and moving boxes echoed. Something banged to the floor.
Layla turned toward the archway. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine... Stay where you are.”
Needing to do more than just stand there listening to her grandma rummage through the closet, Layla rinsed the plates and silverware and loaded them into the dishwasher. What was this jinx stuff about, and what was her grandmother looking for?
Ruby returned carrying a thick photo album. She plunked it on the counter near the pie. “What I’m about to tell you, you can’t repeat to anyone.”
“I won’t.” Layla washed her hands and dried them with a paper towel.
Her grandmother flipped through the glossy pages and stopped halfway through the album. “The woman in the picture with me—she’s the problem.”
Ruby pointed to a photo of herself from decades ago wearing a black-and-white dress with a wide belt cinching her waist. She stood next to a blonde woman in a blue suit with padded shoulders. They were both laughing as they looked toward whoever held the camera. From their clothes and the volume and layers in their hair, it had been taken sometime in the eighties.
Layla took a closer look. “Who is she?”
“Charlotte Henry, my former business partner.”
“When did you have a business partner?”
“It was a long time ago.” A wistful expression came over her grandmother’s face. “After your grandfather passed away, I was trying to raise your mother on my own in D.C., but even with two jobs, I was struggling financially. Becoming a widow in my thirties was something I’d never imagined happening. It was hard on your mother, too. She was only ten years old. Her grades suffered, and she started getting sick a lot.
“Someone I knew suggested moving to Bolan, Maryland. It was cheaper to live there. I found a decent job with an office cleaning company, and I was able to rent a house with a nice backyard. It was a small, family-friendly town, but...” Ruby chuckled. “It took a minute to get used to everyone there, and two counties over, knowing everybody’s business. Other than that, the change of scenery did us both a lot of good.”
Layla tried to envision her mother and grandmother living in a place without mass transportation, major events or restaurants of every kind. Or her grandmother cleaning offices instead of running the apparel company she’d built to seven retail stores in Georgia. They had recently downsized to five at Tyler’s urging, in favor of upgrading Sashay Chic’s online retail site.
Holding back questions, she let her grandma continue.
“I met Charlotte working the night shift, and we became friends. I’d planned on doing some work as a seamstress on the side like I did in D.C., but I found out she was already doing it. Instead of competing against each other, we agreed to work together and capitalize on the areas we enjoyed. I had a hand for design, and she was a better seamstress.
“A year later, we had so much business, it grew beyond just a few hours a day. We decided to go after what we really wanted—our own dress shop. With a business loan and our own savings, we were able to buy a small storefront just outside of town that used to be a hardware store. It wasn’t a fancy new building on Main Street, but the past owner had taken good care of the place, and it was ours. We were so excited. This photo was taken the day we opened Bee and Tee’s Boutique.”
Layla’s thoughts went back to the opening of her business four years ago. Making the leap from the partner track at a large accounting firm to branching out on her own had felt like what she’d needed to do, but excitement hadn’t been part of her experience.
Despite having Sashay Chic, and a few of her grandmother’s and father’s connections already on her client roster, she’d spent her first day in business battling nausea, afraid she’d made a huge mistake.
“Why the name Bee and Tee’s?”
“Bee was my nickname and Tee was hers.” Ruby lightly tapped the photo. “About a year after we opened the shop, some investors wanted to help us open another one in Baltimore. I was excited about it. But Charlotte couldn’t see past Bolan. We argued. I told Charlotte her small-town thinking was like a boulder tied to our success, and I wouldn’t let her keep me down. I would do it on my own. She said I was fooling myself if I believed I could manage a shop alone.”
The way Grandma Ruby and Charlotte were smiling at each other in the photos on the page, it was hard to imagine the two women in an argument.
Determination filled Ruby’s face. “I wanted to show her she was wrong, so I wrote up my own proposal for the investors. But they wouldn’t meet with me. I was hurt and disappointed, but I also knew I was destined for more. I told Charlotte I wanted to dissolve our partnership and was leaving in a month. But things got so bad between us, we couldn’t stand being in the same room together. All our time together, she’d been kind and caring. But after our disagreement, she was cold to me. It happened like a flip of a switch. I decided to leave right away instead of waiting. Charlotte’s attitude said good riddance. I left with your mother and started over in Atlanta.”
“Did you ever talk to Charlotte again?”
Ruby’s gaze focused on Layla’s face. “I saw her last week during a layover at the airport in Chicago. After so many years, I was willing to let the past go. But she wasn’t. Charlotte accused me of stealing some spring design sketches from her. I told her she was remembering it wrong. Those sketches were mine. That’s when she cursed me.”
“She cussed you out in public? That’s terrible.”
“No. Charlotte didn’t cuss me out. She jinxed me.”
“What? You...” Layla stopped short of calling the idea of being whammied by a curse ridiculous. That might stop her grandmother from telling her the whole story. “What did she say to you?”
“That she’d wished since the day I left town that the design sketches would only bring me misery, and if they hadn’t, karma was coming for me, and I deserved the worst. At first, I didn’t think anything of it, but remember how my last fashion show before I retired was such a disaster?”
Remember it? Who could forget the event from seven years ago? A model had twisted her ankle so badly on the runway, she was carried out of the venue in tears. Then a ceiling tile had fallen on a photographer and broken his camera. Backstage hadn’t fared any better. The lights had kept going out, making it difficult to get the models ready. To top the night off, the champagne fountain had collapsed at the after-party.
Yes, that show had experienced more than its share of difficulties but...
Puzzled, Layla asked, “How does what happened seven years ago fit with what Charlotte said to you at the airport?”
“I created the designs for my last show at Sashay Chic based on the spring sketches I’d brought from Bolan. Some of them were for clothes Charlotte and I had planned to feature in a small show highlighting one-of-a-kind designs, but I left before we finished organizing it. I hadn’t looked at the sketches until seven years ago. I guess I was feeling nostalgic. I was proud of how far I’d come. And how I’d succeeded despite what Charlotte had said.”
“You should be proud of your success. And since those designs were yours, you had every right to use them in your show.”
“And nothing but bad came out of it.” Resoluteness filled her grandmother’s eyes. “I’m not trying to hurt Tyler. I’m just trying to protect her by not letting her pay homage to those designs. But I can’t tell her or Patrice about the jinx—they’ll think I’m losing it. And if I just forbid Tyler to use the Bolan designs for inspiration, she’ll just keep questioning why and try to wear me down.”
Ruby walked to the kitchen table and sat heavily in the chair. “I just have a bad feeling about it. I know Tyler’s put her heart into her collection, but I could never forgive myself if her debut at Sashay Chic failed because of me.”
Compassion rose in Layla for her grandmother. She could try to change her mind about a curse, but it didn’t matter what she thought if her grandma believed the jinx was true. Honestly, what Grandma Ruby had described sounded like less of a jinx and more of a dispute over...a measurable, tangible loss.
An idea came to Layla. She went to the table, sat down and took her grandmother’s hand. “What if I could get rid of the curse?”
Chapter Three
Four days after talking to Grandma Ruby, Layla drove her blue rental car up a slight incline. At the highest point, the sedan’s headlights cut through the darkness and wisps of fog.
The tree-lined vacant road stretched for miles.
A shorter way? That’s what the map app on her phone had claimed when she’d left the airport in Baltimore. Instead, she’d been driving for hours, and now the helpful guiding voice that had given her the darn directions in the first place had abandoned her and was no longer encouraging her to “proceed to the route.”
But bad directions, and the hours-long flight delay that afternoon in Chicago, as well as having to postpone the start of her vacation from Thursday to Friday, were worth it to settle her grandmother’s debt with karma. Once that was done, she would head to South Carolina. In less than twenty-four hours, her biggest worries would consist of choosing which bathing suit to wear and whether she wanted a piña colada or a lemon drop cocktail at lunch.
As Layla drove through a curve, the fog grew denser, and she eased off the gas.
Another wonderful part of her vacation would be putting the gloomy weather behind her. She’d encountered cloudy skies since Chicago. Funny how she’d ended up stuck at the same airport where her grandma had last spoken with Charlotte Henry. If she’d believed in signs, which she didn’t, she might have considered it a bad omen for the detour she was taking before her beach escape.
Visiting Charlotte in Bolan with a financial offer, on behalf of Grandma Ruby, was the perfect, advantageous, jinx-ending solution. Her grandmother would close the loop on the past. And Tyler would have the fashion collection debut she wanted. At least that’s what their grandma had agreed would happen once the curse-breaking payoff was accepted.
But Grandma Ruby had also claimed, “From the look in her eyes, if Charlotte was on fire in the middle of the desert, that woman would rather burn than accept a thimbleful of water from me. Charlotte’s pride always got in the way of her being reasonable.”
That was harsh. But what was that corny thing her father always said about business disputes? No matter how angry someone was, making money always made sense. And from her experience working with her accounting clients, she agreed. Money was usually a reason for, or a solution to a problem. Charlotte would accept the offer, and the so-called jinx would be put to rest.
As Layla drove through another curve in the road, the windshield started to cloud over. She turned down the air conditioner, trying to match the weather outside the car, and grew warmer under her gray blouse and jeans.
Spring weather was so unpredictable. One minute there was rain, then the weather was cool, and the next—
Something leaped from the shadows.
Layla jammed her foot on the brake. Panic took hold of her as the tires squealed on the asphalt.
Veering toward the side of the road, the sedan bounced over uneven ground. Pitching downward, it came to an abrupt halt.
Flung back by the seat belt, Layla gripped the wheel paralyzed in shock. She stared at the trees only a few feet away illuminated by the car’s headlights.
“I’m okay. I’m okay.” As she whispered the words over and over, she laid her hand over her heart that was beating as if it had grown ten times larger in her chest.
She really was alright, and what was most likely a deer had made it safely across the road. And the car seemed okay, too. The engine was still running, but the front end was angled into a ditch.
Shaky from adrenaline, she dried her sweat-slickened palms on her thighs and put the car in Reverse. As she pushed down on the gas, the car rolled back a fraction then stopped.
“No, don’t do this...” She pressed harder on the accelerator, and the engine revved louder as the wheels spun in place.
Forcing her racing mind to slow down, she put the car in Park and turned it off. Her auto insurance offered twenty-four-hour roadside service.
Layla took her phone from the cup holder in the middle console. A quick search through her contacts brought up the number. She made the call, and...no cell service.
As she peered out the window, visions of everything from a hatchet-wielding stranger to large rabid animals to zombies slipping out of the eerie darkness crept into her mind.
Girl, this is not the time for that. She needed to keep her imagination in check and rely on common sense. The back road to nowhere led somewhere, and someone would eventually come along. She had to make sure they noticed her.
Tapping the flashlight on her phone, she glanced out the side windows. Water pooled under the driver’s and front passenger side doors. But the rear doors opened above mostly mud, and they were closer to the road.
Reclining the seat as far as it would go, she climbed over it. One banged knee and a squashed boob later, she reached the back seat and her luggage. Rummaging through her carry-on, she dug out her socks and tennis shoes, changed out of her flats and slipped on a denim jacket.
Outside the car, she stepped into cold muck. Tamping down dismay over mud and possibly creepy-crawlies oozing into her favorite casual Jimmy Choo’s, she held on to the car and climbed to solid ground.
Okay, this is good. I’m making progress. In the trunk, Layla found the emergency kit. She removed the handle from the car jack. Out-of-control weirdos, animals or zombies beware...
After setting up triangle reflectors, she ventured a few yards up and down the road holding up her phone, hoping for a signal...and got nothing.
Seriously? Could her luck get any worse? It was like she was—
No. This was not about the j word. This was simply a problem she had to fix.
Wait a minute... A few weeks ago, she’d been watching a movie about an apocalyptic future. The couple in the film had gotten stuck on a muddy road, and they’d wedged their clothing under the tires to get moving again. She wasn’t desperate enough to give up anything in her suitcase for the cause, but the rental had carpet floor mats. Would those work?
Hurrying to the car, she retrieved the mats. Treading through water that was a little more than ankle deep, she stuffed them under the front tires with the jack handle.
The sound of an engine reverberated.
Layla scrambled up to the road. Raising her hand, she partially shielded her eyes from the glare of a car’s high beams.
Whoever was behind the wheel dimmed the headlights as they slowed and brought the dark truck to a stop.
The driver’s door opened, and a man stepped out. His booted footfalls echoed as he walked toward her. The truck lights illuminated his wide shoulders, trim waist and long legs.
As he came closer, she could make out his jeans, dark T-shirt and part of his face. “Miss, do you need help?”
The concern in his deep voice alleviated some of her apprehension, and she relaxed her grip on the jack handle. “Yes. My car is stuck in the ditch. I just put the carpet mats under the front tires. I’m hoping that might get me out.”
“That could work.” He walked to the ditch, glanced down at her car then pointed behind him. “I’ve got a tow strap. Between my truck and the mats, we shouldn’t have a problem pulling the car back on the road.”
Relief flooded into her. Just like that, no questions asked, this guy was willing to help. And he didn’t give off any weirdness that made her feel she might have to whack him with the jack handle to make an escape.
He steered his truck toward the opposite side of the road. After backing up a few feet away from the rental, he shut off the engine and got out carrying a flashlight. “My name is Bastian, by the way.”
The combination of his flashlight and hers gave her a better look at him.
His dark hair was cut close on the sides and a little longer on top. A shadow of a beard partially covered his cheeks, angled jawline, and framed his mouth. Brown eyes with hints of green stared down at her.
He had a nice face. And better yet, she still wasn’t feeling any killer, stalker vibes from him.
His expression grew slightly puzzled as if he was waiting for something.
Oh... She hadn’t told him her name. “I’m Layla.”
