Page 11 of Everything About You
Waiting for Yvette to get back to me on my idea is excruciating. Maybe even more excruciating than not having one at all—if
I’ve gone out on a limb and suggested something too far in the wrong direction, that could be terrible. This is a situation
where I can’t afford to take one step forward and three steps back.
Rhodes is working through errands all day, so I don’t see him for the rest of the afternoon.
Finally, right before I think I’m not getting a response, which could be a response in itself, Yvette walks in and nods, even
going so far as to lift her chin. “Good idea, Milo.”
I’m on cloud nine. I could ride this high all the way to Versailles.
My idea—a pop-up café inspired by Renard’s malbouffe motif, called Café 57—is going to be actualized.
My idea is going to be all over Instagram and probably on WWD and Vogue , and it will become part of the Maison Dauphine lore forever.
It helps me to move past all the terrible emotions I’m feeling as I head back to the apartment, knowing Celeste won’t be there.
She hasn’t texted me yet, and so I fire off a quick check-in message just to make sure she has made it home safe.
Celeste: I’m home! Sorry, I’m exhausted after traveling. Gran is doing fine at the moment. Hoping she will improve. But I want to
hear all about your day. Distract me!
I make a wish—also hoping Gran improves. And then, with nothing else to do, sitting on the sofa, I fire off several long texts,
regaling her with the events she’s missed to distract her. I don’t go into details about the theme or my idea, because Yvette
has instilled the fear of God in me, but it’s clear there might just be a chance for me yet.
Celeste: I think it sounds like things are going to work out after all.
Celeste: Try to have some fun while you’re there.
I eat some fruit, scroll through social media, and mentally prepare myself for the rest of the week with Rhodes.
But Rhodes doesn’t come in on Wednesday, and he doesn’t come in on Thursday.
He’s responding to emails, but this means I’m left with all the random grunt work for this event. Running around Paris picking
up linens, calling to confirm bookings, sending things to print (which sounds, and is, very official and very stressful),
and anything else the PR department needs me to do. It is at this point that I am relegated to cappuccino maker as well.
On Friday, when we arrive at the office an hour early, I’ve got every detail of the event memorized, and it seems like Rhodes just has his signature charm. I haven’t seen him doing much for the event—all his errands have been related to magazine requests—so I’m not sure he’s at all prepared.
I am stuck in the back of a black town car with him to Versailles, which is unfortunate because this is going to be at least
a forty-minute ride, if the GPS is accurate. Forty long minutes with this guy who unknowingly demands all the available oxygen
circulate to him, leaving me to suffocate.
He’s staring out the window, phone in his hands on his lap. His jaw is particularly pronounced at the moment, clenched and
bulging when he narrows his eyes on something as we drive past.
My emails are going off, plenty of things being confirmed, whether directly to me or to Yvette, with my email address just
copied for awareness. Rhodes isn’t on all of them, and while part of me believes this is a good thing—that I’m involved and
trusted—part of me resents the fact that he’s had it so easy the last couple of days.
Everybody just loves Rhodes.
Okay, Milo. Relax. Deep breath.
Everything has to go right.
I scroll up to an email Sophie sent me at five a.m., when it was 11 p.m. in New York.
Hi Milo,
Attaching a couple of sample requests. If we can accommodate, would be great. Some of these editors are making big asks, but we’ll be shooting September issues soon, so should try to send as much as we are able to.... I’ve sorted them by priority.
(Also, LOVEEEEE the Café 57 idea. Another win for Milo in the Teams chat. You didn’t need my help after all! Best of luck
at Versailles tomorrow. Or today, for you, I guess!)
xx Sophie
I’m not sure how to tell Sophie I don’t think it’s entirely true that I didn’t need her help, and that her kindness on Tuesday
made a huge difference.
It’s silent as we drive toward the Arc de Triomphe, and I want to ask Rhodes where he was the past two days, but I also don’t
want to be the first to speak or to express any interest in his whereabouts or agenda.
We’re both in light blue button-downs and khaki linen pants, provided to us as uniforms for today.
Of course, since it’s Rhodes, he’s wearing a navy leather belt bag across his chest, and he’s also wearing a gold chain. His
shirt brings out the striking cerulean in his eyes, and it’s physically frustrating how good-looking he is.
And I mean physically frustrating. I’m only human, and my pants might be a bit tighter momentarily when I catch myself taking
in the way his pants stretch across his muscular thighs, or how the cotton of his shirt shows off his pecs and biceps.
I catch myself, though, and take several breaths, looking out the window to find things that I don’t find arousing, though my mind keeps getting caught up in what Rhodes might look like in one of those tight little Armoury United kits like his brother.
“Café 57 is clever,” Rhodes says, turning to face me.
“Thanks,” I say.
“The year of the malbouffe disaster.” He laughs and then wiggles his brow. “First your Waitlist campaign, and now malbouffe . Does somebody like controversy?”
“I don’t,” I say. “The best campaigns push the boundaries a little. People like it when you surprise them. Even the most extreme
brand loyalists.”
Rhodes holds up his palms. “I was only messing around. Though, to be fair, the idea is centered around a controversy.”
It’s no secret I don’t respond very well to anything less than praise, and I don’t know if he even means for this to be a
criticism, but it feels like a cheese grater being dragged across my brain.
“Café 57 is an elevated experience that pays homage in a clever way.” The buzzwords feel a bit overdone as they tumble out
of my mouth, but it’s true. “If it weren’t for malbouffe , we wouldn’t have L’or des Fous. Anyway, people like this kind of stuff. In the eighties, when Philippa Granger was creative
director, she did an entire cheeseburger campaign.”
He scrunches up his nose. “Well...”
“Well, what?”
Rhodes frowns. “That campaign was horrendous.”
“Nobody had ever seen anything like it at the time.”
“Philippa Granger’s campaign caused one of the most controversial periods Maison Dauphine has ever gone through,” Rhodes says.
“None of the shareholders wanted to see the models eating giant cheeseburgers—getting grease and ketchup all over their faces and the clothes. Do you not remember that the head of the beauty division quit over that campaign?”
I shrug. “I do know from research that it generated the most sales of any campaign, historically and until the early 2000s.
It was such a huge hit in America. That campaign is in, like, every eighties advertisement coffee table book.”
“A huge hit in America,” Rhodes echoes.
I grit my teeth. “Do you have thoughts?”
“I only think that campaign was a marked departure from the sophisticated image Maison Dauphine had worked hard to earn. L’ors des Fous was the first step in reestablishing the house as a serious luxury brand, so bringing up the whole malbouffe thing again...”
“Well, I’m sure Philippa Granger would love to hear from you. In fact, I’m sure all of the stylists, photographers, set decorators,
models... I bet they all would like to hear what Rhodes Hampton thinks about their landscape-changing campaign.”
Rhodes stares at me. “Have I struck a nerve? And are you trying to tell me that shock value equals success? Or sales, even
if the DNA of the brand is compromised?”
“You’re acting like this campaign was pornographic or discriminatory or something. It was models eating cheeseburgers. Grow
up.”
“Grow up?”
“Yes, you’re so offended by... what? Women eating?”
Rhodes barks a laugh. “Oh, now I’m misogynistic. Is that right?”
“I can’t seem to understand why else you’re so annoyed by the campaign,” I say. “The photo of Amalia Astor? The one where she’s in the limo with the evening gown and satin gloves, eating a cheeseburger and fries with her Oscars beside her?”
There isn’t a single model or actress who’s associated with Maison Dauphine the way Amalia Astor is. People have aspired,
but there has only ever been the organic, natural chemistry that Philippa and Amalia brought to the house.
Amalia’s film career was taking off in the eighties. She was in iconic cult-classic dark comedies, brooding romances, cutting-edge
coming-of-age films, and avant-garde psychological thrillers. Her portrayal of the bride of Frankenstein won her an Oscar,
and so did her role in an early nineties adaptation of Wuthering Heights .
Her first campaign with Maison Dauphine was in 1983, after she wore one of their feathered gowns to an award show and made
every best-dressed list there was.
The eighties malbouffe campaign—the one that featured her after-Oscars limo photo—cemented her spot as the unofficial face of the house. She would
exclusively wear Maison Dauphine for the Oscars every year, which was unheard-of, and led to new pressure for the house to
innovate in ways that provided new surprises even when everybody knew they’d be dressing her.
That photo changed the game in so many ways.
“I’m familiar.”
“That’s one of the most famous editorial photographs of all time. How many girls have that framed? Black-and-white, matted.
Hung next to their framed photo of Audrey at Tiffany. It’s elegant, even with the juxtaposition of the malbouffe .”
“I’m so happy I have you here to explain this to me. I suppose now that you’ve enlightened me, once I’m done looking down on women, I might decide to change my opinion.”
“You’re the one who brought this up,” I point out. “I would have been fine just sitting in silence.”
Shifting in his seat a bit, he shrugs. “I didn’t know you’d get so worked up over one comment.”
“You said it to get back at me.”
Rhodes laughs. “To get back at you? Why would I want to get back at you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because Yvette stuck you on messenger service to hear my idea, and then she liked it. She liked my idea
so much they allocated a pretty decent chunk of the event budget to it. And fairly last-minute, as well.”
“Yvette didn’t stick me on messenger service.”
“She literally did.”
Rhodes unzips his crossbody and pulls out a pair of sunglasses, sliding them over his face. “Milo, please.”
“Rhodes, please.” I scoff. “I had a good idea, and you can’t stand that now I might be ahead, so you’re trying to knock Café
57.”
“Ahead? All right, whatever you say.”
It’s infuriating . He’s so sure he’s going to win.
My jaw is clenched, my palms are sweaty, and my forehead is hot and clammy.
“I’m not just some moron, you know. They chose me.” And, without even thinking through the implications: “ I earned this.”
Rhodes removes his sunglasses again, and those eyes—less gorgeous ocean, and now jagged, burning ice—bore right into mine.
“What did you just say?”
“I’m not going to let you treat me like I’m an idiot. I deserve to be here. My ideas are good.”
His lips part, and he goes to speak before he chuckles, glancing over and then back at me.
“Where in the world is all this coming from? And are you actually implying I didn’t earn my way here? Are you implying I don’t
deserve to be here?”
“Maybe I am,” I snap. The tension between us feels impossibly constricting, like the car is closing in on us, and with each
nanosecond of suffocation I just want to explode. “No, you know what? I’m not implying anything; I’m saying it outright. This
is ridiculous, and you and I both know it. You didn’t earn your way here.”
“You’re impossible. And you have no idea what you’re talking about.” He looks out the window. “Here I was feeling bad about
us competing against each other. And the funniest bit? I bet you think you’ve got my number—you think I’m entitled and that
I fancy myself a genius and everyone around me a bumbling idiot. You think all I care about is myself and winning. Isn’t that
right? But it’s rich, since that sounds a bit more like you.”
Before I can argue, Yvette is calling me.
After I walk her through some things for a magazine request, I hang up and Rhodes has his AirPods in, so we sit in the silence
for the rest of the drive.
I use the quiet to calm down and improve my mood before we get to the event—after all, this is going to be my big moment.
Whether he likes it or not.