Chapter 6 - The Story They Tried to Tell

The previous evening’s launch received wider coverage in fashion news that afternoon. The reports described a collection shaped by her personal vision and months of work by her design team. Nora read them without seeing the blue-and-silver print in any of the photographs. The absence was a relief. But it did not tell her whether the company intended to remove the artwork permanently or simply wait for public attention to pass.

Then an industry account posted a statement attributed to Victoria. It referred to a disgruntled restaurant employee who had attempted to disrupt a private dinner with an unfounded ownership claim. No name appeared, but enough details matched the confrontation for people familiar with the incident to identify Nora. The statement offered no evidence concerning the assignment. Instead, it described Nora's behavior in the restaurant as proof that she was unreliable.

Nora felt an immediate urge to reply. She wanted to post the photograph of the tray, the bruise on her arm, the original drawings, and the false email address. She wanted to place every fact in front of anyone who had accepted Victoria's version. Amara advised against publishing the documents during an active investigation, particularly material containing private account information.

“You can tell people you dispute the claim,” Amara said. “But don't let her turn a question about licensing into a fight over which woman sounds angrier.”

Nora gave permission for her attorney to issue a short factual response. It stated that she had created the textile artwork, licensed it for evaluation only, and disputed a purported assignment executed through an email address she did not use. It confirmed that the disputed garments had been held from presentation pending review. Nothing more.

The precision mattered. Nora was frightened by the reach of Victoria's influence, but she did not want to make accusations she could not yet establish. She had already learned how quickly authority could be abused in a room where no one wanted to question the wealthiest guest.

At the restaurant, Helen arranged a formal interview. Nora attended with a worker advocate recommended by Amara. The dining-room recording played without sound. Victoria threw the bills. Nora returned them. The manager approached, stood close, and gripped her arm. She swatted his hand away. The manager's claim that Nora had attacked him first was visibly inconsistent with the footage.

Helen apologized for the contact and for the restaurant's initial failure to investigate before dismissing her. She said the manager had been removed from guest-facing duties during the review. She offered to reinstate Nora while the employment issues were resolved. Nora thanked her but declined to decide immediately. The restaurant had provided an income when freelance work was uncertain. She would not pretend the loss of those wages didn't matter. Still, she needed to know that returning would not mean working under someone who could fire and touch her because a wealthy customer demanded it.

“Do you think I was wrong to answer Victoria?” Nora asked.

Helen considered before speaking. “You were direct. The better question is whether a direct answer justified what followed. It didn't.”

That was the first time anyone with authority at the restaurant had said so plainly.

The news from the fashion company was less reassuring. Its lawyers maintained that the financial records proved an assignment had been purchased. They acknowledged the email discrepancy but suggested that Nora might have used a second address. Amara asked them to provide any correspondence in which Nora had supplied that address or authorized the new payment account. They produced none.

Nora worked through her own records, looking for anything that could explain the second address. She found an old intake form completed by the sample department. Her legal name and primary email had been entered correctly. In a note below, she had asked that all contractual matters be sent directly to her, not to intermediaries. The instruction had been ignored when the assignment appeared.

June finished her work at the venue and received confirmation of her final invoice. She confirmed that the disputed garments had not been sent to the runway during the late-evening show. She also mentioned that the production supervisor seemed frightened by questions from company lawyers. Nora told June not to speculate about the supervisor's involvement. People could be pressured into bad decisions without understanding the larger scheme. The evidence needed to identify who had known what and when.

Near the end of the day, a woman named Marianne Cole contacted Amara through the company lawyers. Marianne was the sample-department coordinator who had originally handled Nora's submission. She wanted to speak with independent counsel before providing an account of the assignment. She had not been named in the company statements, but her administrator account appeared in the electronic-signature audit.

Amara arranged an interview attended by Marianne's own lawyer. Nora wasn't present. She did not want a frightened employee to feel that telling the truth required satisfying the person harmed. The lawyers agreed on a process for preserving messages and distinguishing firsthand knowledge from assumptions.

When Amara telephoned afterward, her voice had changed. Marianne admitted that she had created the signing invitation. She claimed she had been instructed to use a substitute address already set up for the transaction. She denied personally signing the assignment and said she did not know where the purported payment had gone.

“Who gave her the instruction?” Nora asked.

“She's provided a message naming someone in Victoria's office. We need to verify that it hasn't been altered.”

Nora waited while Amara continued.

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“Marianne also kept the original question she sent before making the invitation. She asked why Nora's real email couldn't be used. The answer said not to involve the artist until after the launch.”

For several seconds Nora said nothing. Someone had known that she was being excluded. Someone had expected the fashion event to happen first and any objections to come afterward. What remained unknown was whether that decision had been made in Victoria's name or by Victoria herself.