First Sight Read Free Page A

There would be more interviews after that, to talk about the collections she was showing, for both men and women, and she had just introduced a new perfume in September, which had been a major hit with the youth market. Young women all over the world were clamoring for it. Everything Timmie touched turned to gold, and was blessed with the sweet smell of success. In her business life, things had always been like that. In her personal life, she had been far more challenged. But to look at her, all one saw was a beautiful woman with a mane of thick red curly hair and big green eyes, who was totally unaware of how striking she was.
    They stood up, waiting to leave the plane, and David took her alligator bag from her, and groaned as he always did when he held it. “I see you brought your bowling ball with you again,” he teased, and she chuckled. He looked like a young male model, and Jade was as meticulously dressed as Timmie wasn’t. If one had to guess, anyone would have thought that Jade was the designer and Timmie the assistant, although Timmie was capable of looking smashing when she chose to. Most of the time, she wore her own designs, mingled with vintage pieces she had collected over the years, and some fabulous Indian and antique jewelry she bought mostly at Fred Leighton’s in New York, or at an assortment of jewelers in Paris and London. She loved unusual pieces, thought nothing of mixing real with fake, and on her no one ever guessed the costume pieces. She never hesitated to wear a diamond necklace with a T-shirt, or a gigantic vintage Chanel ring, from Coco Chanel or Diana Vreeland’s collections of costume jewelry, with a ballgown. Timmie O’Neill was beautiful, in a strikingly natural way, but more than anything she had style, in a casual, mix-and-match bag-lady sort of way, as she liked to say herself. She was no bag lady, but she liked to think so. In fact, she didn’t like to think of herself at all. She just got up and dressed in the morning, and let things fall into place. It always worked well for her, although Jade frequently said that if she had tried to put herself together as Timmie did, they wouldn’t have let her in the back door of their hotel. But on Timmie, it all worked.
    She looked striking and casually stylish as they finally filed off the plane, and David located the VIP woman to help them. He was happy to put Timmie’s immensely heavy alligator bag on a rolling cart. It was full of notes and sketch pads, a book in case she wanted to read, a bottle of her latest perfume, and a ton of what Timmie called “debris” that was always floating around her purse. Keys, lipsticks, lighters, an ashtray she had stolen at Harry’s Bar, or that they had actually given her when she tried to steal it, a new gold pen someone had sent her, and a dozen silver pencils, all of which weighed a ton as she lugged it all around. David always said you could open an office and start a business with what Timmie carried in her purse. It gave her a feeling of security to carry everything she needed with her. She didn’t want to rely on having to find some essential item while she was away on a trip. So she took it all with her, as though she might never go home again.
    They followed the VIP woman to baggage claim, where Jade and David would wait for their bags. There was a mountain of them, as Timmie always packed too much, and they had the entire collection with them packed in special trunks. The airline had been warned, and the trunks and boxes containing the ready to wear collection came out first. David had arranged for a truck to get it all to the hotel. He had offered to ride the truck with it, so Timmie could go ahead, but she said she preferred to wait. She wanted to make sure nothing got lost. It would be a disaster if it did. She left Jade talking to David, as they waited for the bags. Timmie walked away, watching people, and lit a cigarette. She had quit for years, but started again eleven years ago,