Page 24 of Snow Place Like LA
Angel looked at me with wonder. “I’ve heard you talk about fashion before, and you’ve always sounded—I don’t know—passionate about it. But I’ve never heard you sound like this.”
“It feels a little foolish, honestly. My parents barely even kissed in front of us growing up, and here I was obsessing over the moment you sign on for happily ever after. It felt like make-believe. As fictional as magic. But even my cynicism is no match for the way wedding attire makes me feel swept away. I never thought I’d actually leave home, but when I did—when I actually did—I decided maybe make-believe could be real after all. So when I went to fashion school, I made a plan. I’d graduate, get a job as a patternmaker or sewer for someplace like Vera Wang or Monique Lhuillier until I could break out on my own.” I huffed out a breath, running my fingers over the hair on Angel’s thigh. “It didn’t work out.”
“Why not?” He sounded curious, not dismissive, which was nice. But the curiosity was uncomfortable too.
I abruptly sat up, gathering a blanket around myself like a fortification. “I don’t know. It just didn’t. Fashion school was too expensive and the people there were shitty about bridal wear anyway. It was too commercial, too easy, too obvious—you know, all that stuff snobby people say.”
“But it got to you,” said Angel softly.
I hugged a pillow. “I guess. And the loans.”
“You don’t need a degree to make wedding dresses, Luca. Look at the gorgeous one you made for Bee forDuke the Halls.”
“A degree helps though,” I mumbled. I was looking down at the pillow I was hugging. “Or at least being at school helps. The professors recommend you for internships, the internships get you a job, you eventually leave a fashion house to start your own. It doesn’t work without school. The system. The connections.”
“As an art school kid, I get it, but I hate the thought that you can’t do something without going back to some expensive, pretentious hellhole.”
“Angel,” I said with affection, “welivein an expensive, pretentious hellhole.”
He stroked my arm. “You know what I mean. Although—God bless my hometown—I’d say it’s more parvenu than pretentious.”
“I don’t regret leaving school,” I said and plucked at the corners of the pillow. “The only thing I wish—well, it’s stupid.” I’d made my choices. There was nothing left to do but live tragically with them, like a young, stubbled Miss Havisham.
Angel put his hand over mine on the pillow. “Tell me, babe.”
I leaned my head back against the headboard. “It’s so stupid. Too stupid to say out loud.”
“Luca, remember that time we fell in love filming a movie about a time-traveling duke obsessed with chili cheese fries? Stuff other people might call stupid is fun and romantic to us.”
“Well, this won’t be,” I said and looked away. The stack of magazines next to my bed had already been field-dressed—the promising pages torn out and stuck inside the scrapbook I used to keep track of inspiration and trends. The whole pile mocked me.
I took a breath. “Here it goes, I guess: I got offered an internship at Prada right before I left school. They wanted to expand their bridal platform and the designer leading the initiative liked my work at our school’s year-end showcase, probably because I was the only one who did bridal wear. But the internship was unpaid and I couldn’t afford to get to where they wanted me anyway, much less pay for rent and living expenses for six months—and they were probably only half-offering because no one else gave a shit about bridal wear at the show and they needed an easy intern pick to go back to headquarters with. Or maybe as a favor to my professor. I don’t know.”
“Luca,” chides Angel. “You’re telling me thatPrada—the Prada that even my father, Teddy Ray Fletcher, has heard of—offered you an internship and you’re acting like it was some kind of fake pity ask? I don’t think Prada does that.”
“I guess not,” I said glumly. “They were really nice when I emailed back and told them I couldn’t do it. They said I could reapply if my circumstances ever changed.”
“Luca!”
I shoved the pillow to my face for a minute and let out a muffled groan. “It killed me to say no,” I said as I lowered the pillow. “But what could I do? I couldn’t afford to live in Milan! Hell, I couldn’t even afford togetto Milan! Just saying the wordMilancharges my bank account an overdraft fee.”
I slumped back against the headboard. Angel was preternaturally still next to me.
“Milan?”
I managed a sad but nobly resigned nod. “That’s where Prada wanted me. And even if they still wanted me, it’s not like things have changed. I could maybe afford a plane ticket now, but I can’t afford not to work for half a year. I can’t ever afford that, not unless I become a kept man.”
“Do you...” Angel’s voice was careful. Careful enough that I turned to look at him. “Do you have a problem being a kept man?”
I was almost offended. “Me? With my bone structure and how much I love a long brunch? Obviously not!”
Angel closed his mouth. Shifted. Lifted his hands and then lowered them.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay. Don’t be mad.”
I froze.Don’t be mad?
My three least favorite words! After, of course,bowl of olivesandto be continued!
