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I nod. The Ruby Blue family is a tight knit one.
“Raven tells me you have good ideas. She was the one who decided to send me over here so we can work together on this line.”
I’m surprised to hear that. Raven keeps doing things for me that change my life. I don’t know what I did to deserve it. She’s just an amazing person. I’m so glad my brother found his true love and that he’s so happy.
“I only have a few bare bones to begin with,” Rachel says, flipping open a sketch pad closest to her and pushes it toward me. “I’m thinking monochrome with pops of color. Like those grayscale images where they saturate only the red umbrella or a green leaf.”
I nod. “I see what you’re doing.” I page through the pad, looking at different model poses.
“It needs to be modern, but I don’t know how to pull it off so it’s fresh.”
I nod, still paging. While I look at the sketches and hear what she’s saying, I try to envision something that might work.
“Why don’t we do something like this?” I ask and reach for a pencil. On one sketch with a woman wearing a long, geometrical print dress, I draw large, colorful flowers. To another, I add a broach with an intricate design. And to a third, I add a shawl with a medieval-type print on it. When I’m done, I push the pad toward Rachel so she can get a better look at what I’ve done.
She stares at the pictures without saying anything, and my stomach drops.
“We don’t have to do that at all; I was just thinking—”
“Michelle was right,” Rachel interrupts me. “Youarethe resident artist. This is fantastic.”
I laugh. “Thanks, but I was more referring to the mesh between old and new.”
“I mean everything,” Rachel says. “I would never have thought of this. And you see it so clearly in your mind.”
I don’t know what to say, so I explain my reasoning for the designs instead.
“I was thinking about the Palace of Versailles, with its hall of mirrors and gilded paneled walls in between. Or the Sistine Chapel, with its incredible painted ceilings, balance with geometric shapes on the floor. Or even Westminster Abbey, with the black and white floor but the gothic ogival arches overhead. It’s—”
“Modern meets vintage. Geometry meets art.
I laugh. “Something like that. I think if we find the balance between the two and reflect that in the line, it can be something special. We’ll bring two worlds together, something like looking back to the past and toward the future at the same time.”
“Can’t know where you’re going without knowing where you’ve been.” Rachel nods her head. “Let’s keep with that idea and see what we can add to these designs. I’ll take this one, and you do these. We’ll see what we come up with.”
She pushes another pad to me, and I flip open the cover. Another series of half-dressed models face me, and I get to work. Rachel and I work in silence, with only the scratch of our pencils and the flipping of pages.
When Michelle pops her head in, I’m yanked back to reality from a world far removed. I got lost in the art. It feels electric.
And I think it’s thanks to Mason that my creativity is coming back. He’s unlocked a part of me I thought I lost forever.
“You guys are so quiet,” Michelle says. “I brought sustenance.”
She produces sandwiches from a deli.
“Is it lunchtime already?” Rachel asks, and when I check the time, I realize we’ve been drawing for hours.
Michelle nods and hands out the sandwiches and coffee she got for us. While we eat, she pages through the art we’ve been doing.
“Oh, my God,” she breathes while she pages. “You’ve already created a whole line.”
“It’s just a basic concept so far,” I say. “We might have to change some of it to—”
“You’re not changing a thing,” Michelle says. “This stuff is amazing.”
“It’s modern geometry combined with renaissance art,” Rachel says.
“I see that.” Michelle nods, impressed. “Where did you come up with the idea?”
