The greenhouse resonated loudly by midday. It thrummed, not with noise but momentum.
The patterns transformed. The fabrics traded hands. The machines stuttered like the blood racing through the veins. He moved under the filtered sunlight, casting himself over his world like a conductor over an orchestra, and then his team synchronized with him as though everything he did was held in time with their actions.
At the embroidery table, Mara, a woman with steady eyes and a very careful hand, adjusted her glasses and lifted her face from her hoop.
He said, "Luc, we've run out of gold thread again."
He pointed toward the lofted storage without hesitation. "Check the top shelves near Station C. If it's not there, Chester will have a backup."
Mara nodded and was already heading off. Her efficiency matched her silence. Luc valued both.
He turned to another team in huddled clutches of three interns working together over swatches for a cocktail dress line.
One, Rafi, he barely reached twenty years of age, and he could be nigh unbearably shy, held his sketch up as if offering it tentatively to Luc for approval.
Luc studied it for a breath longer than ordinary. "Raise the waist seam two inches higher. And take out the embellishment at the hip: It's distracting."
Rafi nodded so fast that his glasses almost slipped off. "Yes, sir."
He had rarely but fondly created the pat on the shoulder. "You have good instincts. Trust them more."
Lily watched from across the room at the mannequins swathed in works-in-progress versions of the beautiful designs Luc had imagined as of that morning.
Someone called her name.
"Lily? We're ready for your fitting."
Not a question. Just the next step to take.
She ducked behind a linen drape, and as two of the gal pals guided her into the gown, she felt layers of soft lavender and shadowy black swirl the prototype of the first article around her. It clung to her like dusk and promise wound around her.
They readjusted the shoulder bow, then worked at fastening the corseted waist, tugging and pinning everything with delicate precision.
When they put the mirror out for her, Lily cast a little glance behind her at Luc, and there he was, arms folded, watching with an appraising gaze.
He belonged there.
Yet that somehow unsettled her more than anything.
She recalled Cameron mentioning that the team never knew who he was really. And then came a small thought. Would they still follow him if they knew who he really was?
If they saw Cameron underneath the mask? Would they feel betrayed? Or grateful?
Would they even care?
The assistants tugged lightly at the hem and brought her back to the moment.
"Needs less weight on the train," one murmured.
"Try organza instead of satin," said the other.
She stepped down from the platform, testing her gait in it. The fabric swished like water. She couldn't deny it, it was exquisite. More than that, it felt like becoming something.
Stepping off the fitting platform and adjusting the big petal-shaped bow on her shoulder, Lily looked up to see Chester pacing near the rolls of fabric, tapping something quickly into his tablet.
She called out softly, "Hey."
He looked surprised as he lifted his gaze to see her. "Oh. Ms. Parson."
Slightly tilting her head, she asked, "Can I ask you something?"
Chester clicked off his tablet and tucked it under his arm. "Of course."
She looked at the view of busy people.
"All of these people... they work for him?"
Chester followed her gaze and nodded. "Yes. Every last one of them."
"They're so... devoted," she said, almost to herself. "It feels more like a cult than a company"
He smiled then, with fatigue yet kindness in his eyes. "They're not devoted because they're blind, Lily," he said. "They're devoted because they remember what it is to be disposable. And Luc didn't just give them jobs. He gave them their dignity back."
Lily was now looking at him full-face, her interest piqued. "Where did they all come from?"
Chester breathed out slowly. "Rue de Rêve."
She blinked. "Wait... All of them?"
"Well, most of them" Chester nodded. "Some from Faith's branches of which she supervises herself. Others from global outposts. Different departments. Different countries. All of them used to work there, that is, until the company bled them dry.""
Pointing gently at Mara, who was now back at the table, embroidering with nimble and precise strokes, he continued.
"Mara was a floor supervisor in the Berlin branch. An excellent worker. Never missed a deadline. But on one occasion, she was ten minutes late."
"Ten minutes?" murmured Lily.
Chester's voice darkened. "And it so happened that that very day, Faith paid a visit. Mara pleaded...actually pleaded to keep her job because she had a sick mother at home. Faith humiliates her publicly, made her lick the heel of her stiletto in front of the entire floor team, and then fired her anyway."
Lily's stomach twitched.
Now he shifted his focus, discreetly pointing at Rafi, who sat quietly sketching by the lighting station.
"Rafi worked in Seoul. Assistant designer. A very humble kid, genius eye. He sketched on his break using a color that excited him. Hope passed by, snatched his sketch away, tore it in half without saying a word, instructed the guards to drag him out of the building, and fired him there and then."
Lily shook her head, barely able to believe it. "Why?"
"According to Alex, who happened to be with Hope at that time, she said,"Chester revealed bitterly, "Because he chose the wrong color."
Lily turned her gaze back to Rafi, whose quiet posture now seemed to carry the weight of humiliation too deeply buried to show. "That's insane."
Chester shrugged. "That's Rue de Rêve. If you were sick, you were lazy. If you were creative, you were a threat. If you pushed back... they made an example out of you."
There was an intensity to her gaze now as she considered him. "So Luc found all of them?"
"Not all at once," Chester said. "But one by one. After every show, after every press scandal, every managerial tantrum, someone would leave or get discarded. And Luc would find them. Pick them up, brush them off, and tell them: 'You're not broken. They were blind.'"
Lily swallowed, glancing toward Luc, who was now giving fabric instructions at another station. "They'd follow him into a fire."
"Perhaps they already have,"Chester supplied in a soft voice.
For a moment, Lily remained silent.
Would they still follow him if they knew who he really was? The thought returned as a whisper.
The answer didn't seem so obvious now.
Maybe it was not entirely the mask they believed in,
But the man behind it.