Page 7 of Palazzo
“Will they let you leave without paying up?” Max asked him, impressed. Two hundred thousand was big money.
“They know me well. I’ll come back in a few days. They know where to find me.”
“Do you live here?” Max asked him, as they walked outside on unsteady legs.
“I live in Rome. I just come here to gamble a few times a month.” Luca pulled out his wallet then, took out a card, and handed it to Max. “Call me sometime if you want to come to Rome. I know a lotof hot women. I’ll fix you up. If my sister hasn’t killed me by then.” He laughed when he said it.
“She sounds tough,” Max said.
“She is,” Luca agreed. Max handed him his card then, and Luca slipped it into his pocket.
“Call if you come to Paris,” Max invited him.
“Where are you staying?” Luca asked him.
“At the Gritti Palace, with my dad. He came here for a party. I’m glad I went to the casino and met you tonight.”
“Me too. I’ll drop you off. I’m staying at a small hotel with my sister.” Luca made a deal with a speedboat driver. “We have a house here, but it’s rented to some Americans.” It didn’t click with Max after all he’d had to drink. He was feeling woozy as they headed to the Gritti Palace, and the driver dropped him off a few minutes later. Luca waved as they sped away. He knew he’d have to face Cosima in the morning, and ask her for big money this time, but he wasn’t worried about it. Tomorrow was another day. By the time Luca got to the hotel where Cosima was staying, Max was already sound asleep, fully dressed on the bed in the room next to his father’s. He’d have to get an advance on his next month’s salary when he got back. He had done it before. He just hoped his father didn’t find out, or he’d lecture him again about the evils of gambling. Max hated working for his father, but Olivier paid him well.
Both gamblers were dead to the world.
—
Olivier hadn’t heard from Max yet by the time he left to meet Cosima at the Saverio store off the Piazza San Marco. He took a boat to thesquare so he wouldn’t be late, and he arrived just as she did, on foot. She was smiling and looked beautiful in a pale blue cashmere blazer with jeans and a white shirt. Her blond hair was long down her back, and she was wearing a beautifully made pair of Saverio loafers that looked like a work of art. She looked casual and chic, and carried one of their signature bags. She was still wearing the diamond studs in her ears from the night before. She led Olivier into the store and let him enjoy all the beautiful new merchandise they had on display. Most of it was their classic bags, and the signature bag she was wearing. There were a few styles he hadn’t seen before, which she explained were remakes of old designs. She let him examine them closely and she could see the admiration in his eyes, as he murmured and handed them back to her like precious objects, and then she took him to the workrooms upstairs. Several of the craftsmen were hard at work, using all the old precise techniques and old-fashioned tools. The bags they turned out were perfection. Even the insides of the bags were beautiful. Then she led him to her grandfather’s personal workshop, which they kept like a museum now. All the tools he had used were there on his workbench. Olivier touched them with awe, and looked at her with amazement.
“I never thought I’d be lucky enough to meet you last night. I had no idea you’d be there.” It had been the high point of his trip, and worth coming just for that.
“You seem to know a lot about leather goods, Olivier,” she said, curious about him. He had handled each piece with such reverence that she was touched, and he looked like he was about to cry in her grandfather’s workroom.
“I’ve admired everything you do for as long as I can remember. I think it’s fate that we met. You inspire me whenever I see something with your name on it.”
“It’s nice to know that it means so much to some people. I feel that way about our work too. It makes it all worthwhile,” all the headaches and worries, and decisions she had to make every day.
“I’m almost ashamed to tell you that I make handbags too. The Johnsons are one of our biggest clients, which is why I was invited last night, and why I went. But I’m not in your category, nowhere near it. We make commercial bags, at a very different price point. They’re good for what they are, but not even remotely in your league,” Olivier said humbly. “Bayard, you may not even have heard about them.”
“I have. I’m not sure I’ve seen them, though. I don’t see other merchandise much. I’m too busy with our own.”
“I would have loved to start a firm like yours, something to be proud of, work that will last for generations. What we do is gone in a few months. They vanish in the night.”
“There’s room for all ranges in the market,” she said. He was a nice person and she didn’t want to offend him. “Not many people can afford what we do,” she said honestly.
“Your bags are what my family’s haute couture clothes used to be. But there’s so little market for it anymore. They sold the business when it began to fail, and I was hungry for commercial success when I established our company. I wanted to leave a viable company to my sons. But one of them is only interested in low-end mass production in China, and my younger son is an artist and isn’t interested in thebusiness at all. So I’m not sure what point there is to it anymore. I’ve thought about doing a small collection of truly fine bags, but I don’t think the stores we deal with would buy them at the prices we’d have to charge. I’ve discussed it with the Johnsons. They’re happy with what we do now, but it’s not much of a challenge for me.” He hesitated for a moment and then added, “If you ever want an investor or a partner in your business, I’d be first in line.” It was a bold statement and she smiled graciously and declined his offer quickly, as he knew she would. He understood that even better now, after seeing the store in Venice, her grandfather’s workroom, and the quality of the bags he’d just seen.
“It’s a family business, Olivier,” she said gently, “I’d sell my soul before I’d give up any part of it or sell a piece of it to someone outside the family. And I’m in the same situation you are. I have a brother who is irresponsible and wants nothing to do with the business, and a sister who is a talented designer and understands our old-fashioned techniques, but she’s young and she’s dying to make fashionable bags for young people at prices they can afford. She really doesn’t want to design for our market. She’s frustrated working for me. We all three own the business equally, but I’m the only one who wants to keep it the way it was, with all the old traditions and styles.”
“You’re doing the right thing. It’s working for you,” he reminded her. “Just like Hermès. They don’t want outsiders in the business either. They’ll never sell any part of it, and they don’t need to.”
“I may need to one day,” she said with a sigh, “but I won’t sell it if I can do anything humanly possible to avoid it.” He believed her, and he understood it better now. She looked passionate and intense whenever she spoke of the business.
They sat at a café for a cup of coffee after he had seen the workrooms and the store.
“Now I’ll understand your work even better when I see it.” She was so fluent in French that they opted for his language and not hers. He spoke some Italian, he’d had to learn from talking to the workers in his factories, but it wasn’t as good as Cosima’s flawless French.
“Do you come to Rome?” she asked him.
“Occasionally. We have factories near Florence. I visit them fairly frequently.”
“I’ll have to watch for your bags now,” she said kindly, but she was interested in his work too. He was clearly very knowledgeable about their business, at any level, whether his or hers. “Let me know if you come to Rome,” she said. It had been fun meeting him. She was glad she’d gone to the Johnsons’ party and so was he.
