Chapter 3: The Dressing Suite
The heavy velvet curtain fell behind us, cutting off the murmur of the ballroom and plunging us into the quiet, functional chaos of the backstage dressing suite. Racks of spare gowns lined the walls, and the vanity mirrors were framed by harsh, glaring incandescent bulbs.
Julian entered a second later, letting the curtain snap shut behind him. The affable, charming host vanished the moment the fabric settled, replaced by a man whose jaw was clenched so tight a muscle ticked near his temple.
"Are you out of your absolute minds?" Julian hissed, keeping his voice low but vibrating with suppressed fury. He slammed the heavy oak door of the private suite, locking it with a sharp click. "Do you have any idea what you just did out there? The board members from the European textile council were sitting in the third row!"
"You mean the people who think you're a visionary genius?" Maya asked, her voice steady as she placed the cream-colored envelope down on the illuminated vanity glass. She didn't look like a terrified teenager; she looked like an investigator presenting evidence at a tribunal.
"Maya, enough," I said, stepping between them, though my hand rested protectively on my daughter's shoulder. I looked up at my husband, seeing the man I had married twenty years ago stripped of his public armor. "You knew whose work that was, Julian. That lace motif isn't yours. It's mother's work, down to the last bluebird thread."
Julian let out a dry, incredulous laugh, running a hand through his carefully styled hair. He paced across the linoleum floor, his tuxedo shoes clicking with sharp, irritable rhythms. "Your mother gave those sketches to me years ago, Clara. It was a collaboration. A foundational contribution to the firm. You know how the industry works—my name carries the weight to sell the collection. Without my backing, those drawings would still be sitting gathering dust in an attic box."
"She never collaborated with you on the anniversary collection, and you know it," I said, my voice dropping into a quiet register that seemed to hit him harder than shouting would have. "She put those designs away when she realized you were taking credit for her student portfolios back in the nineties. You didn't collaborate; you took them from her desk while she was in the hospital."
Julian stopped pacing. The silence in the dressing room grew heavy, suffocating. He stared at me, his eyes narrowing as the last vestiges of denial slipped away, leaving only calculated self-preservation.
May you like
Maya reached out, her fingers sliding the flap of the envelope open. She pulled out a stack of heavy, yellowed paper covered in graphite sketches and handwritten color notes, all bearing my mother's unmistakable signature in the corner margins.
"There's more in the home office safe, Dad," Maya said quietly, looking directly into his eyes. "I checked the files yesterday when you left the combination on your desk. Every single blueprint for the past five years has an original draft signed by Grandma underneath your tracing paper."
