“And take Gia with you, after convincing your aunt to hire her? You can’t abandon Sharmin like that; you made a commitment.”
I sighed again. I was completely and utterly stuck. “All right, Mom. I’m texting Nilusha now.”
“Good girl. You can do this, Tahira. All your hard workwillpay off, I know it. Love you, beti. I’m praying for you.”
“Love you, too, Mom.”
After asking Siri the time in Paris right now (a respectable 8:30 p.m.), I sent a text, asking if Nilusha had a minute. A FaceTime call from her immediately showed up on my screen, and I turned my chair for a glare-free video before answering.
“Tahira, darling!” Nilusha, as usual, looked fabulous. Black turtleneck, small purple glasses frames, hair in a perfect messy bun. Honestly, I could only dream of looking that flawless while recovering from surgery.
My voice stuttered. “I h-hope...I mean, I’m sorry to bother you...I just...I need advice.”
“It’s absolutely no bother. I feel terrible that we can’t work together this summer, so I’m always here for you. I’m sooverbeing stuck here in France.”
“Being stuck in Paris can’t be that bad.”
Nilusha laughed. “True, true. I was able to go to Les Puces de Saint-Ouen yesterday. Didier pushed me in a wheelchair. Those little shops arenotaccessible, but it felt good to get out. You should see theantique brooch I found.Wait.Who is the young man digging behind you? Where are you?”
I turned, and yup, it was Rowan. Wearing big headphones, so I doubted he could hear me. Also, terrible ripped denim cutoffs and a misshapen, pink T-shirt.
I settled back in the chair. “I’m in the garden at my aunt’s house. This is where I’m staying for the summer. Don’t mind him; he’s just the garden dude next door,” I said to Nilusha, lowering my voice, just in case.
“The gardener? How verybougie.”
Her expression when she said “bougie” made me laugh. I really liked Nilusha. “No, no. Not thegardener. He’s eighteen. He lives next door, he’s just...garden oriented.”
“Oriented?”
“Interested in gardens, obsessed with plants. He basically lives out here—he’s like a grumpy garden gnome or something. Except, you know. Taller.”
Nilusha laughed. “Well, it looks like you’re as fortuitous as me this summer. I have Didier the handsome French nurse, and you have the garden-oriented boy next door.”
“The grumpy, judgy, garden-oriented boy. Anyway, I have a boyfriend back home.”
She shrugged. “Situations evolve. Okay, sweetie, tell me your problem. Are you having issues in that teeny town of yours?”
I told her about Lilybuds and the rejection of my rebranding proposal. Nilusha listened carefully, asking questions along the way. It felt weird at first telling her about my failure, but she was so easy to talk to and encouraging.
“Sweetie, I understand why you’re upset. It sounds like you did an incredible amount of work for this project.”
“I did. I hardly slept last night. It was all for nothing, though. If she’d only wanted a coat of paint and maybe bring in some T-shirts orsomething, why ask me to put together a proposal for a whole rehaul of the store? She could have gotten Addie McLaughlin to do it.”
I think Nilusha could hear my disdain for Addison in my voice because she snorted. “Do I want to know who Addie McLaughlin is?”
“No. I wish I didn’t.” I was sulking. I was angry. I needed to stop—I was talking toNilusha Bhatt.
“Look, Tahira, I get why you’re upset, honestly, but you need to see this from your aunt’s perspective. Rebranding is amassiveendeavor. She must know her client base, and what they want, or she wouldn’t be afloat as a small business. This is the most important thing to remember as a designer—yes, we’re artists. But we’re also in the business of making customers happy. Without them, we have nothing.” She smiled, tilting her head. “Finding the balance between art and customer satisfaction was the hardest lesson I learned when I was starting out. Push the envelope, be innovative. But don’t forget to know your market.”
“Yeah.” She was right. I didn’t want to be one of those artists with my head so far up my own butt that I thought my vision was 100 percent flawless. But still. This stung.
“What about this small capsule collection?” Nilusha asked. “That sounds like an opportunity. You can do all the market research, buying, and merchandising from scratch.”
We talked about the potential experience from building this trendier line, and she even offered to look through the wholesalers to help me pick pieces.
“I would love to see the sketches you did,” Nilusha said. “Is your sketchbook handy?”
“You want to see them now?”
