“The thing is,” said Steph, “that I’m in something of a pickle. You see, I’m a fashion designer, or at least that’s what I want to be. It’s what I studied. And recently a job became available at one of the country’s hottest new fashion labels, WelBeQ, which is located in LA. So I sent in my resume and as you can imagine I was over the moon when they offered me the position. Assistant to the head designer at WelBeQ. So a week passes, and we’re already making all the necessary arrangements, when suddenly I get an email that they’ve changed their mind, and that they’re going in a different direction. I ask them what happened, but total radio silence. They won’t respond to my emails, when I try to call them I can’t get anyone on the phone. Complete blackout. So I’m shocked, right? Of course I am.”
“What is a welbeck, Max?” asked Dooley, interrupting Steph’s story.
“A famous fashion brand,” I said.
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“Me neither,” I said.
At the sound of our voices, Steph smiled and glanced in our direction.“Oh, will you look at those two cuties! Are they yours?”
“They are,” said Odelia. “The big one is Max, and the smaller one is Dooley.”
“They’re absolutely adorable,” said Steph. “Aren’t they adorable, Jeff?”
“Very adorable,” said Jeff, and pronounced adorable the way the French do.
“My husband is French,” Steph explained. “We met in Paris, when I studied at the fashion academy there.”
“Oh, so you’re also a fashion designer?” asked Odelia.
“Oh, no,” said Steph with a laugh.
“I’m a banker,” said Jeff. “Not one ounce of designer blood.”
“We like to joke that he’ll bankroll me so I can start my own label.”
“But I’m not a very good banker, I’m afraid,” said Jeff. “I’m a poor banker. I don’t have the money to bankroll Steph’s career. But maybe one day.”
“Jeff works for the Capital First Bank in Manhattan,” Steph explained.
“As a lowly employee,” said Jeff. “Not the bank’s manager, unfortunately.”
As it transpired, the couple had met in Paris, but had soon moved to New York, where Jeff found a well-paying job with the main branch of Capital First Bank. But even though they lived in the fashion capital of the country, Steph’s dream was to move back to France and work for one of the big labels in Paris.
“But you’re not originally from Paris, are you?” asked Odelia.
“Oh, no. My parents live in Hampton Cove,” said Steph. “Ian and Raimunda Stewart? They run the Stewart Winery, one of the biggest on Long Island.”
“Oh, right!” said Odelia. “Of course. I did a piece on your family’s winery once.”
“I know,” said Steph with a smile. “My mom framed it and put it on the wall of her office. She does the winery’s PR, while my dad runs the company, along with my brother Kevin.”
“But you’re not bitten by the wine bug?”
“Absolutely not. I don’t know why, but I always wanted to be a designer. And lucky for me Mom and Dad have supported me from the start to follow my own heart and carve my own path, and not feel obligated to follow in their footsteps.”
“Okay, and so now you want to move to LA and start to work for WelBeQ and for some reason they first hired you, then changed their mind,” said Odelia.
“That’s right. And the worst part was that they wouldn’t tell me why. So I finally decided to drop it, figuring maybe it just wasn’t for me. And then yesterday, out of the blue, I get a call from someone who works in the HR department at WelBeQ. It wasn’t an official call, and she wouldn’t give me her name, but she read my emails, and said she was under strict instructions from the legal department not to respond. But she must have felt sorry for me, which is why she called.” She took a deep breath. “Turns out someone launched a smear campaign against me.”
“Someone did what?” asked Odelia, her astonishment obvious.
“A smear campaign. In the final round, there were only two candidates left for the job: me and a guy called Edmundo Crowley. And so when they selected me, someone sent them a bunch of pictures of me, passed out drunk on the couch, Zoe on the floor next to me.”
“Zoe?”
“Our baby girl,” said Steph. “She’ll be nine months next week.” A brief smile flitted across her face. “For the record, I never, ever passed out drunk—ever. These pictures are obviously doctored. They were sent from an anonymous email account, and the story they were trying to convey was that I’m an unfit mother, an alcoholic, that I was a troublemaker, and probably a drug addict.”
“Did she send you the email?”
“She did. It’s disgusting—and completely fake, of course. But from their point of view I can understand why they decided to go with the other candidate.”
“Who sent the email? Any idea?”
“I have a pretty good idea who sent it,” said Steph, her expression hardening.
“Crowley,” said Jeff. “He is the candidate Steph was competing against.”
“He’s the one who got the job when they ditched me,” Steph clarified. “And I’m pretty sure he’s the one who launched this campaign against me to damage my reputation. I mean, who else can it be?”