Chapter 11

Bob Townsend called Sydney at the office the next day and invited her to lunch. She hesitated, thanked him, and said she had to call him back in a few minutes.

Ed heard the exchange when he walked into her office, and Sydney was looking nervous when she hung up.

“That was Bob Townsend,” she volunteered without his asking. “He invited me to lunch.”

“And? The problem is?” He looked pleased to hear it. Bob was one of his favorite people in Hong Kong, and a great guy, as he had told her the night before.

“I don’t think I should go. I’m sure he’s just asking me to be nice, and friendly. But if he has any interest in me at all, I think it’s a bad idea.” She looked determined as she said it.

“Would you like to explain that to me? You’re forty-nine years old. Are we supposed to put you on a barge and set fire to you, to honor your late husband? I think that’s gone a little out of fashion. We’re starting a new business that’s taking off, and he’s a good man. Why don’t you live a little instead of working all the time?”

“It’s not about that,” although still feeling married to Andrew was a part of it, but the problem was greater, as she saw it. “Six months from now I could be in prison for a long time. I don’t think I have the right to drag anyone into this with me.”

“Great, and what about me?” Ed said lightheartedly. “We own a business together. And I don’t think you really believe what you just said about going to prison. If you did, you wouldn’t have started Sydney Chin with me.”

“I couldn’t resist you. But Steve says prison is still a possibility. I don’t think I should be dating right now. And I don’t want to explain it to him. It sounds so sordid, and so sinister. ‘Trafficking in stolen goods.’ It makes me sound like some kind of gun moll, or a gangster.” Ed shook his head at what she said.

“So don’t tell him if you don’t want to. Just go to lunch, for heaven’s sake. You have to eat, although you don’t do that often either. I order you to have lunch with him. He’s not going to propose, so you won’t leave him brokenhearted while you serve life imprisonment. He just wants to share a meal with you. It sounds pretty tame to me. And you’ll have fun with him. I always do.”

She thought about it for a few minutes after Ed went back to his office, and she decided that maybe she was being overly dramatic, and Ed was right. So she called Bob back and agreed to meet him in the West Village for lunch. She hadn’t dressed for a date with anyone, and she was wearing jeans, a pink cashmere sweater, a navy blazer, and flat shoes, and she looked relaxed and young when she met him at the restaurant. He was already waiting at the table and was pleased to see her, as he stood up to greet her. In some ways, he was very British and extremely polite. Ed’s whole family was too. She liked that about them. Their manners were impeccable. Bob looked just as handsome and well dressed as he had the evening before. He was wearing a business suit and Hermés tie for his meetings.

“Thank you for having lunch with me on such short notice,” he said as they sat down. “I was hoping to see you again. I really enjoyed sitting next to you last night,” Bob said with obvious admiration, “and I hope I didn’t come across as too pious. I’ve never been widowed, and I don’t know what it’s like. I’m sure it’s difficult to adjust to. I’ve only been divorced, and there’s always a certain relief to that. No marriage is perfect. But people acquire a patina of perfection in our minds when they die. Maybe your husband has too. Or maybe he really was perfect.” He was being generous about it and was afraid he might have upset her, but she looked happy to see him.

“We had a very, very good marriage, but no, he wasn’t perfect, even in hindsight. And he did some things I discovered at the end that have made life very difficult for me now,” she said honestly. He was easy to talk to.

Being European, Bob assumed he must have left a mistress she’d found out about after he died, who was giving her a hard time now, or the realization had broken her heart. Perhaps he’d even died in another woman’s arms. Stranger things had happened to make a husband look bad after his death, and cast an ugly light on the marriage.

“I assume you mean another woman,” he said cautiously, and she smiled and sighed.

“Two of them, actually.” Bob raised an eyebrow at that. Her late husband had obviously been a busy man, he thought, as Sydney went on when their food arrived. “We were married for sixteen years. We had a very cut-and-dried prenuptial agreement. We waived all community property rights, whatever he paid for belonged to him, and he paid for everything, our house, art, lifestyle. He was a very generous man. But somehow he never thought to update his will once we were married, or temper our prenup over the years. He was young. He died at fifty-six. He was in good health. He must have thought he had time, which he should have. He had a motorcycle accident and died instantly, with the last will he’d written before he ever met me still in force. He had twin daughters who hated me with a passion from the first time they laid eyes on me. They got everything, the house, the art, everything. They gave me thirty days to get out of our home, and the contents of the house went with it. I got my wardrobe and what was in our grocery account, and a pied-à-terre in Paris he’d given me as a gift, which I’m trying to sell now. So from one minute to the next, I had nothing, barely enough to eat and pay rent. He would never have wanted that to happen, but he had done nothing to prevent it. His twins have it all, and they were ecstatic that I got nothing. So that’s the story. He should have been more responsible about writing up a new will, at some point. A major oversight that has changed my life forever. But I got a job, met Ed, and he saved me, and now we have a business together. So I guess things work out in the end, just as you said.”

She didn’t seem bitter about it, nor angry, which amazed him. She could have been. He could only imagine how difficult the last months must have been, with no money, getting thrown out of their home and losing everything. “You couldn’t negotiate with his daughters for the house?”

“They would have burned me at the stake if they could have. They’ve always hated me, with the help of their very unpleasant mother. To be honest, sometimes I’m angry about it now. I have very mixed feelings about the situation.”

“I wouldn’t,” he said clearly, as they ate their salads. “I’d want to strangle them. In fact, I want to do it for you. What sort of girls are they to put you out of your home in thirty days? That’s barbaric. How old are they?”

“Thirty-three, but they’re very spoiled, nasty girls.”

“I’ll say. They sound like raving bitches to me.” He looked at her with new admiration, realizing what she’d been up against in the months since her husband’s death, and how heartbreaking and terrifying it must have been for her. “Is the boat back on even keel now?” It was a good image, and she smiled.

“The Titanic isn’t going down. Although I thought it would for a while. I’m managing, and if the business is a success, all will be fine. I’m working again. It’s just a very big change from the life we led while I was married. But as you said, nothing lasts forever. I just didn’t expect it all to end so soon, and so suddenly. I never thought something like that could happen.”

“Fortunately, you’re young enough to right the ship again,” he said, and she nodded with a serious expression.

“So that’s my sad story.” But she looked like she was doing extremely well. They talked of other things then, and the time at lunch flew by. He hated to leave her, but he said he had a meeting on Wall Street, and asked for the check after two hours. He wanted to tell her that he had enormous admiration for all that she’d survived, and so bravely, and her spirit was still whole and intact. But he didn’t want to embarrass her, so he didn’t mention it.

She thanked him for lunch, and they left each other outside the restaurant. He promised to call her the next time he was in New York. She went back to the office then, and he took a cab to Wall Street. Ed was waiting for her and saw her come in.

“So how was it?” he asked, curious about the lunch, and what had happened. He liked the idea of two people he loved together, and hadn’t thought of it until he saw them talking to each other the night before. Bob and Sydney together suddenly appealed to him immensely.

“It was perfect,” she said matter-of-factly. “He proposed. I accepted. Our lawyers are drawing up the marriage contracts. They’ll send them over by end of business today.” He looked shocked for a minute and then burst out laughing.

“Did you tell him about your court case?” Ed wanted to know about that too, and what she had decided to say, if anything.

“No, I didn’t. I told him I lost everything to my stepdaughters when Andrew died. I figured that was enough Poor Pitiful Pearl for one meeting. I’ll tell him about life imprisonment next time, if there is one. You were right. I had a good time. He’s a really good guy. I’ll have lunch with him again if he asks me.”

“I’m sure he will.” And Ed knew there was nothing pitiful about her. That was one of the amazing things about her. She had bounced back. She was a survivor.

She went back to work then, and sent Bob an email to thank him. It was nice having a new friend.

In May, Sydney had another court appearance, the one that had been postponed in April, in the lengthy process that led up to trial. It was a formality, but it brought the whole situation back to her again. The rest of the time she was busy with life and her new business and could put it out of her mind. But now she had to face the possibility that she could go to prison if she lost. It was hard to guess how it would turn out. The detective they hired had discovered nothing incriminating about Paul Zeller. He had covered his tracks well. At the hearing, they had questioned her again about Paul’s activities, and she had told them again that she knew nothing. She wasn’t in his confidence, didn’t know him well, and hardly saw him once she took the job. But they didn’t seem to believe her.

She was sitting in a small conference room with Steve Weinstein after her appearance, discussing what would happen next, when the assistant U.S. attorney stuck his head in the door and asked to speak to Steve. Steve left the room to consult with him, and came back twenty minutes later. He looked at Sydney seriously and sat down across from her.

“They want to offer you a deal. That means they’re tired of the case, but they’re not willing to let it go. A trial will be costly for both sides, a huge amount of work to prepare, and they’d rather make a deal with you and avoid a trial.”

“What kind of a deal?” She was suspicious, and he explained it to her.

“They’re offering you the opportunity to plead guilty to a lesser charge. They haven’t determined what that is yet, but it would still be a felony charge. Maybe grand theft larceny, something less onerous than trafficking in stolen goods. And they’re offering you a year in prison in exchange for your pleading guilty, and telling them whatever you know about Zeller.” She looked shocked as he said it. “You’d probably get out in nine months.”

“I’ve already told them everything I know about him. And you’re telling me that I’d plead guilty to felony charges, so I’d have a criminal record, and I’d serve nine months to a year in prison? What kind of deal is that?”

“Not a great one,” he admitted honestly. “I couldn’t get better terms from him than that. They’re still determined to make an example of you. But if we go to trial, it could end up a lot worse. The jury could convict you, and the judge could give you five to ten years. That’s a lot worse than nine months to a year.”

“But I’m not guilty,” she said with a look of despair.

“Unfortunately, sometimes that’s beside the point. The problem we have is that as far as they’re concerned, they caught you red-handed, and your signature is all over everything. You have no witnesses to prove you weren’t in cahoots with the seller. Other than Ed’s testimony, we have no concrete evidence that you were acting on Zeller’s orders, and Ed wasn’t present at every conversation you had with him. Your employer is playing innocent and blaming you for everything, and even implying that you might have double-crossed him and taken a kickback from the manufacturer for moving stolen goods. With the evidence against you as it stands now, a trial could go very badly. You might be acquitted, but if they believe the evidence, it’s not likely. By accepting a plea bargain, you limit the damage and you know ahead of time what your sentence will be. I know a year sounds terrible to you, but I’m scared of a five-year sentence or worse, if we lose.”

“Do you think we will lose?” she asked, panicked again. She didn’t want to plead guilty if she wasn’t, and have a criminal record for something she didn’t do.

“Anything is possible,” Steve told her again. “I can’t guarantee anything once we go to trial. A jury is always a wild card. And the judge can be too, for sentencing.”

“What would you do?” she asked him, searching his eyes for what he really thought.

“Honestly, I’m a gambler. I would turn down their deal for now, and see if they give us a better one closer to the trial. The deal they’re offering isn’t good enough yet. I think they want to show us how tough they are. I would wait a little longer. And let’s get the detective on it again. If we get something on Zeller, it will be worth it, whatever it costs.” She agreed with what he said, and he went to turn the plea bargain down and was back in five minutes. She had been sitting in the conference room, waiting for him, feeling extremely anxious. The prospect of going to prison for five years, or ten, or even one year, was devastating.

“Okay, we’re done,” he said, and gathered up his things. A few minutes later, they left the courthouse together. She had her heart in her shoes and she looked it.

She went home directly after court, hoping she had done the right thing turning down the plea bargain, and contemplating what her life would be like if she went to prison. It was still a nightmare, and she still had to face trial for a crime she didn’t commit, and certainly not knowingly. She had imported the bags for Paul, precisely according to his orders, but had had no idea they were stolen and doctored with false linings and added shoulder straps. She realized now that the quality of the leather should have tipped her off, but it didn’t. She had trusted Paul and his sources completely. She felt stupid now more than guilty, and above all terrified for the future and the results at a trial, but not enough to accept a bad plea bargain. And Steve seemed to agree with her, although he was worried.

They were going to try the detective again. It was their only hope of implicating Paul Zeller and getting her off the hook.

She was still depressed the next day when she went to the office and told Ed what had happened.

“I think you did the right thing about the plea bargain,” he reassured her. “You don’t want to go to jail for a crime you didn’t commit.”

“That’s what I think.” Her daughters agreed with her too. She had told them the night before when they called to check in. Sabrina had already heard about it from Steve. They had been seeing each other since Christmas. They were both busy, but managing to spend time together, and their relationship was flourishing.

Two days after the hearing and the plea offer she had turned down, Bob Townsend called her. He was in New York for a few days and invited her to lunch again. But this time, she turned him down without hesitating, and she told Ed Chin about it.

“I can’t, Ed. I’m looking at going to prison if things go wrong. I can’t do that to anyone. I don’t want to get to know him or date anyone until I know what’s going to happen, or till after I’ve been acquitted.”

“So you’re supposed to live in a vacuum until then? How does that seem fair to you?” The thought of it upset him profoundly for her.

“It’s fair to him. I don’t have the right to inflict my problems on someone else.”

“I’m in it with you,” he said simply. “And I’m not complaining. Maybe you should tell him the truth, and let him decide if he wants to see you when he comes to town. My guess is he’ll want to anyway. Don’t carry this all alone, Syd. That’s not right for you.” The trial was set for September, exactly during Fashion Week when they were doing their first fashion show, which was the final irony, but Steve didn’t want to change the trial date. At least not yet. She had no idea how she was going to manage a trial and their first collection, but somehow she’d have to.

Bob called her again that afternoon and suggested dinner instead of lunch, if that worked better for her, and she said it did, which wasn’t really true. She was free for both, but her refusal was about the sword hanging over her head that he knew nothing about. She was planning to tell him, as Ed had suggested, but she wasn’t looking forward to it.

She invited him to her apartment for a drink, and they were going to a French restaurant in the neighborhood afterward. She wasn’t sure if she should tell him at the beginning or the end of dinner. She was going to play it by ear once she saw him.

She could see that he was a little startled at the size of her apartment, while she made light of it and joked about living in a shoebox. From everything he’d seen of her so far, he could sense what her life had been like before, without her going into detail. The kind of clothes she wore, the occasional gold bracelet, the Hermès Kelly bag she’d worn when they had lunch, her whole demeanor, she had gone from the lap of luxury to a tiny apartment, with most of the possessions she had left piled up in boxes. But even the picture frames she had scattered were beautiful. She had led a life of quality, and she had lost it due to her husband’s negligence. It made him angry for her, even if she was gracious about it.

She poured him a scotch and soda, and they sat and talked for a while and he told her what he’d been doing since he’d last seen her. He’d been to Dubai and Saudi Arabia, Shanghai to see his daughter, and at home in Hong Kong, and she told him how establishing the business was going. When they had finished the exchange, he looked at her for a long moment. He had a sense of her that he couldn’t explain, and she felt it too.

“Something’s bothering you, Sydney. Do you want to tell me what it is? And why you keep balking about seeing me?” He was sure there was a reason, and she hesitated for a long moment before she answered.

“There’s something I haven’t told you, about everything that’s happened since my husband died. I needed a job, so I took one at a company that my kids said was owned by a scumbag. It wasn’t all bad, because I met Ed there and I wouldn’t have met him otherwise. And the scumbag was extremely kind to me at first. He gave me a job even though I hadn’t designed in nearly two decades. He said he wanted to give me my own signature line, which sounded fantastic and is a big deal in fashion. And Ed taught me a lot about the business as it is today, to bring me up to date. We went to China together. It seemed like a great opportunity. But it’s essentially a knockoff house. The theories are good, the way the owner explains it. He says he wants to bring high fashion to the masses, and in many instances he does, and the stuff looks great. They copy other designers a lot, and he’s careful about not going too far, and changing it just enough, but they have a bad reputation for copying anyway. It’s not noble but they do meet a need in the market, and people eat up their stuff. But I discovered the hard way that their practices aren’t always legal.

“He showed me some sample bags that looked terrific. They seemed like high-quality leather. There was something familiar about them, although not completely, and we were buying them so cheap we could sell them for next to nothing. He put me in charge of purchasing them, and told me he’d give me a signature line and a percentage of the profits, which was very appealing. He sent me to China to buy the bags. I signed all the requisition, import, and order forms, and he had me sign all the customs documents. I shipped them, and he had me pick them up at customs in New York, to clear them with the broker.

“I’ll spare you the gory details, but all two hundred handbags were stolen. They were by a famous designer, and slightly modified to change them—not in production but after the fact. They had false linings to conceal their real brand. They were flat-out stolen. I had no idea. I went to clear them through customs, and got arrested as soon as I showed up. My name and signature is on everything, and I’ve been charged with trafficking stolen goods. My employer claims he had no idea they were stolen, and has even implied that I was on the take from the shipper and manufacturer to bring them in. I go to trial in September, and if I can’t prove I’m innocent, I could go to prison. They offered me a deal two days ago, but it involves my pleading guilty to a felony, and agreeing to a year in prison for something I didn’t do, and didn’t know. I’m innocent, so I turned down the deal.”

Tears burned her eyes as she said it, and she never took her eyes off his. “We’ve got detectives looking for evidence of my boss’s guilt, but so far we’ve got nothing. So I may really go to prison, possibly for five to ten years if a jury finds me guilty. I don’t want to pull you into it, make you feel sorry for me, or start something I can’t finish until I’m sixty when I get out. Until this is over, I have no right to date anyone. I don’t want to do that to you. This is why Ed quit where we were working when he saw what they did to me, and why we wound up starting our own business, thanks to the Chins. And Phillip Chin very kindly found my attorney.

“Now you know everything,” she said simply. For a long time, he didn’t speak, and just sat on the couch, looking at her and thinking about what she’d said. He didn’t know how to even begin to tell her what he was feeling, as he took her hand in his and held it. Then she saw a slow, gentle smile spread across his face, and wasn’t sure what that meant.

“I promise you, Sydney, if you go to prison, I will bring you oranges, and a cake with a file in it. That is the most horrific story I have ever heard, and the man you worked for should be hanged, or horsewhipped. I cannot believe that your innocence will not shine through, or that you won’t find the evidence you need to implicate him. But I want you to know that whatever happens, I don’t think less of you. I don’t believe for a moment that you’re guilty. And it makes me sick to think of you going through this, and the agony you’ve undoubtedly suffered because of it. But I am not for one moment going to wait ten years to see you and take you out to dinner. And whatever happens, happens. You can’t stop living because of this, and you have to keep believing in some kind of justice.”

She nodded as tears filled her eyes. “I’m trying to. It gets pretty scary sometimes. The four days I spent in jail were the most terrifying of my life. I can’t even imagine what ten years would be like, let alone one.” She choked on a sob as she said it.

“I don’t think that will ever happen,” he said quietly. “But you have to put it in perspective. Think of prisoners of war, and people in concentration camps. You can live through whatever you have to. You’ll find the strength you need if it comes to that. But I don’t think it ever will. I think good will prevail here. I firmly believe that.” He couldn’t imagine all that she’d been through in less than a year. As he thought about it, he leaned over and put an arm around her and pulled her close to him. “We’re not going to worry about it now. Work on your business, keep busy, create your clothing line. Do what the lawyer says. And when you go to trial, we’ll deal with it. You are surrounded by people who love you.” Although they both knew that the treatment she had met at her stepdaughters’ hands hadn’t been just, or loving, or fair.

“I’ve let everyone down,” she said, with her voice breaking. “It’s already been in the fashion press and all over the Internet. They are making an example of me. Can you conceive how my children will feel if I go to prison?”

“They’ll survive it, but I believe none of you will have to. You just have to take this one day at a time, until it’s finally behind you. And, Sydney, I want you to know that I think you are a very brave woman. Thank you for telling me.” It had taken courage too to tell him, and he admired her honesty.

“It didn’t feel right not telling you, but I didn’t want you to hate me for it either.”

“I don’t hate you, but your ex-boss is a different matter. What a sonofabitch this guy is to set you up, let you take the risks, and then take the fall for him. If there is justice in this world, he’s going to be a very, very unhappy person after this. His whole world may come crumbling down.” It was an appealing prospect but there was no sign of it so far. His world was intact, and she might be going to prison.

They walked to the nearby bistro then, and held hands as he commented on all that she had told him.

“Between your husband dying, your stepdaughters, and this monster you worked for, I can’t imagine how you’ve gotten through this year and stayed sane.”

“I don’t know either. But good things happened too. Ed, the business. My kids, I have a good lawyer, meeting you.” She smiled at him and he put an arm around her shoulders again.

“It’s going to be all right, Sydney. I don’t know how, but I just feel it.”

“I hope you’re right,” she said in a sober voice, and he was quiet too. He was shuddering inwardly at what it would be like for her if she was convicted and sent to prison. It just couldn’t happen. He wished it with his whole being. And then they went into the restaurant and sat down. Much to her surprise, in spite of her serious confessions to him, they had a lovely evening, laughing and talking, and didn’t mention the trial again.