Page 72 of Terms Of Un-Endearment
I stop long enough in the bathroom to sniff Piper’s body wash. The label says it’s lemon verbena. I’ve already committed the smell to memory, but now I have a name for it. Although, I’ll probably always just call it Piper. The two are inseparable in my mind.
I walk through to my room where Frankie is dumping clothes in my washing basket, already giving me instructions on how to keep my room tidy, along with reminders that she was the one who picked up after me on days the housekeeper had off.
But I only half listen. My mind is back on my conversation with Sybil and what comes next.
Going back to Aus means I keep the financially comfortable life I’ve always had…the only life I’ve ever known. On the downside, it means, at best, putting off my Bombora dream, and at worst, giving up on it completely. More than that, it means giving up the people who are most important to me: Frankie and my friends who are family too.
I reckon I’d like to add Piper to that list of people I don’t want to leave behind.
Chapter 25
Piper
The one thing that gets me through the rest of the day is the idea that Archie and Frankie—I hope—will have “dinner waiting” when I get home tonight. That’s the touch point I come back to over and over while Anna and I anxiously wait for the right opportunity when she can show me the mockups of Valente’s Fall capsule collection on her work computer.
Even after Arianna returns to her own office, we wait for everyone else to leave, too. Anna won’t take any chances getting caught showing me the designs, but once our office is empty, we lock the door, and she pulls up the file. As soon as she opens the first photo, I gasp.
“That’s my design,” I say. “Did the senior design team send you this?”
Anna nods. “In a secure file. Corporate monitors our work emails to make sure we’re not sharing designs that haven’t been released yet. I could get in trouble just for showing you this.”
“You mean to make sure no one steals them?” The irony isn’t lost on me. Valente doesn’t want the work they’ve stolen frommeto be stolen from them.
With each swipe, my stomach cinches tighter, like someone’s yanked a drawstring from the inside out.
Obviously, I didn’t invent Japanese boro. And I’m not the only designer using the process of layering fabric to mimic the patchwork garments Japanese working-class people wore out of necessity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. But I don’t know any other designers besides me, who used New York Cityandboro as inspiration for an entire line of clothes.
Valente’s mockups aren’t exact copies of the designs I included in my portfolio, but they’re undeniably close. Different colors, slightly different styles, but some of the names are the same. Like the City Lights Patchwork Coat. It’s longer than the one I designed, but still a duster-style coat pieced together with deep navy, charcoal, and black vintage fabrics. They’ve used more muted colors than the bright yellow, white, and silver patches my duster included, but they’ve included the same hidden inner lining with a graffiti-style print made from repurposed scarves and deadstock fabric.
The kicker, though, is the handwritten MetroCard tag with the story of the inspiration behind the piece.Worn on a rainy walk through SoHo.The exact words are included on my portfolio page and in my handwriting in my sketchbook from last year. Dated and everything.
The taste of acid creeps up the back of my tongue, and I grip the edge of the table to stay grounded. “What do I do? How do I get my portfolio back?”
Anna scoffs. “You don’t. It’s in production and your designs weren’t copyrighted. They did it to me, too, with their first ready-to-wear line.”
“Your designs were included in that line?”
“Not included. Theywerethe line.” Anger simmers in Anna’s voice even as her face stays neutral. “When I realized what they’d done, after the line was public, I talked to an attorneyfriend about holding them accountable. That’s how I know it’s impossible. Valente has the upper hand, and they know it.”
“Oh Anna,” I say, watching how her shoulders slump as she relays the details. “Those designs were what made me want to work in their ready-to-wear division,” I say, which pulls a sad smile from her. “Did you tell Luca Valente?”
“Of course.”
“And?”
“To quote Luca Valente himself, ‘I gave his designers permission to use my ideas when I shared my portfolio.’ Even if I hadn’t, he pointed out that there were at least seven differences in every garment.”
I know what she’s referring to. We talked about it in a class I took at Parson’s. For a design not to be considered a copy of someone else’s, there have to be a minimum of seven differences. But those differences can be as small as the way a stitch is done.
“Are you serious?” My stomach turns as I scroll through all the pictures and look for what Luca and his team have changed. They’ve stolen years of work from me. Basically, everything I started working on my Freshman year at Parsons. “There’s got to be something we can do. Sue or something.”
“Even if we had the money to sue, they’ve already covered all their bases.” Anna takes her laptop back from me and closes the file.
I think of Malcolm and his army of lawyers. If I still had a relationship with him, he’d be able to stop Valente. Money and power go hand in hand, and he’s got loads of both.
But the idea of him helping me only makes me more bitter. Money shouldn’t determine who will win or lose before a battle is fought.
“We have to dosomething,”I say, without conviction. I want to fight but Valente is a Goliath, and I don’t know how to use a slingshot.
