Lost in Paris by Elizabeth Thompson (ebook smartphone .txt) 📕

Chanel. For a moment, it was as if Madame was leading me to the inner sanctum of couture, where my dream would come true. I glanced around, half expecting to see Mademoiselle Chanel appear and welcome me with a beatific, Madonna-like smile.

Instead, the stern Madame entered an office, sat behind a desk, and held out her hand, wiggling her fingers. I handed her my sketchbook, praying I’d correctly understood what she was asking.

As she flipped through, I remained standing, waiting for a single word or even the lift of a brow to hint at what she was thinking, but her face remained impassive.

Finally, she closed my book and slid it across the desk. Her gaze raked over me, a slow meander from the top of my head to my feet.

I was determined to let her speak first. Then, fearing I would appear dumb if I remained mute, I blurted my excitement at having a chance to prove myself.

Then, merely trying to lighten the mood, I added that I would always arrive to work on time.

The look on her face made me wish I had remained silent. But she had already moved on, demanding to know where I’d gotten the suit I was wearing.

I was thrilled she’d noticed.

I told her I’d made it specially for the interview. I was so inspired by Mademoiselle Chanel’s creations that I had re-created the design to demonstrate my skills.

Madame rose from her desk. She picked up my arm and examined the hem of the sleeve. She yanked open the jacket and examined the lining, scrutinized the collar.

She muttered about my quality work. For a moment I thought I was hired. Then she accused me of stealing the design from Mademoiselle Chanel.

I was so confused I laughed. The charge was so absurd I expected Madame to laugh, too, but she didn’t.

My heart pounded as I struggled to understand how something I had sewn to showcase my talent, something Madame had conceded was quality work, made me a thief.

I removed the jacket and told her she could have it. I had never stolen anything from anyone. I simply wanted to prove my capability.

Madame shooed it away, saying I’d demonstrated what I was capable of and it was nothing Mademoiselle Chanel wanted for her atelier.

Then she told me about another designer who’d stolen Chanel’s designs and how Mademoiselle had pushed her into a flaming candelabra and set her clothes on fire.

A menacing grin lurked at the corners of Madame’s lips as she told me to imagine what Mademoiselle would do to a brazen nobody who had waltzed into her atelier attempting to pass off a filched Chanel suit as her own.

I started to defend myself, but Madame told me to get out and never return.

I gathered my sketchbook and ran from the office. The sewing machines hummed, but the workers were as demure as the dressmakers’ dummies scattered about the studio. The smell of desperation hung so thick in the air it seemed capable of oozing down the walls.

As I walked toward the door, Madame said I should notice not one person in the room was wearing a Chanel design.

The sewing machines stopped then, and I felt the weight of every gaze on me. I turned to Madame and said I couldn’t tell what they were wearing because their clothing was hidden by ugly grey smocks and frankly grey wasn’t my color.

I left the way I’d entered, with my head held high, consoling myself that I was meant to work somewhere I would be valued, where my talent wouldn’t be set ablaze.

Four

December 31, 2018—8:45 p.m.

London, England

I undo the clasp of the envelope Marla handed me and peer inside. It contains several papers.

“Go on.” Marla points at the bundle with her nose.

I pull out something that looks like a certificate—a deed, maybe? But the writing is in French. A yellowed business card, also in French, is paper-clipped to the upper left corner.

The envelope clunks when I drop it onto the island. There’s something else inside, something metal and weighty. I upend it, and a large old-fashioned brass key clatters onto the island’s marble top.

I look at Marla for an explanation. “Okay, I give up. What is this?”

“I found it when I was cleaning out Gram’s attic. This was in Granny Ivy’s cedar chest. There’s other stuff that belonged to her, but this is the most important.”

Granny Ivy was Gram’s mother. My great-grandmother, Marla’s grandmother, who lived to be eighty-nine years old. I was only six when she died, but as she used to sew my school clothes, she would reminisce about life in England, where she was born and raised. I don’t remember much of what she said, but I like to believe her early influence had something to do with the Anglophile I am today.

Ivy lived with Gram after Ivy’s husband, Tom, passed away, so it makes sense that some of her stuff was relegated to the attic after she passed. That would make it part of Gram’s modest estate, which mostly consisted of her three-bedroom, one-bath College Park bungalow and its contents. It’s the house where I spent most of my time when I was growing up. The only place where I knew safety and stability.

For sentimental reasons, I’d love to keep the house, but Marla made it clear that I’d have to buy her out. She needs money, not memories. Her relationship with her personal finances is about as good as her situation with me. She’s always been reckless and impulsive, living for today without a single thought for the future. Maybe that’s because she allows her boyfriends to piss away what little cash she manages to save up.

“I still don’t understand what this is,” I say.

“Remember Patrick Sterling? Gram’s attorney?” Marla asks.

“Of course I do.” He’s the lawyer who handled Gram’s will. Marla and I met with him when I was in Orlando.

“I took it to him, and he said it’s the deed to an apartment in Paris in