But I didn’t say anything, because for once in my life, I needed to choose the right words instead of just blurting out a bunch of them and hoping some would be the right ones. I had to think first. Talk after.
“He did take an interest in me because of my talent,” she insisted, even though I hadn’t said a fucking thing. “Our relationship was an extra thing on top of our professional relationship. Completely above board.”
He was responsible for the trajectory of her career, had a lot of influence in a competitive industry, and was way older than the intern. But sure.
I managed a nod.
“One day, out of the blue, HR called me in and started saying all this stuff about the authenticity of my work and told me my internship would be concluding early. I argued. Paul contacted HR and appealed it too, but it was no use. I had to leave. After that, things with Paul and I were harder to make work. His job is very busy, and I wasn’t just down the hall anymore. Things mostly fizzled out.”
“Mostly?”
She shifted uncomfortably. “There was one time I went back into the office to see him and we were … um. Intimate. On his desk.”
Whatever she saw on my face had her quickly launching back into her story. “The following week, I noticed some looks on the Bossi site that I’d styled—all by myself, completely original looks—but Paul was credited as the stylist.”
That was what she’d said in her “Get Ready with Me” video—that someone had been claiming credit for her work and she wasn’t going to let them get away with it. She promised her next video would be a livestream where she confronted the industry guy who had stolen her work. She told her viewers she had to put on her “best beat” to do this. I knew from listening to my sister, that beat meant makeup. Watching the video, I expected her to drag khaki across her cheeks like a soldier, but instead she pulled out several tubes of red lipstick and got people to vote on which one was best for a confrontation. After coating her lips with the chosen red, she kissed the camera in her usual sign-off. It was a cute video. Lyssa was always cute—messy as hell, but cute.
“Then you went and confronted Paul,” I prompted. “On the livestream.”
She sighed. “Yes. As you know … it didn’t go well.”
The second video, the livestream, started with her talking her way past the front desk and jabbing buttons in the lift at Bossi. When the steel halves slid apart, she stormed past open-mouthed fashionistas, a woman on a mission. I really thought she was going to get the retribution she’d dressed for. I hadn’t watched the stream when she published it, I’d watched it after our Holli-ford family call, but I could see from the comments left by people who had watched it live, they thought the same thing. They were typing things like go off vengeance queen, and petty icon.
Lyssa stormed up to a large office with massive pull-down blinds that I don’t know how anyone reached without a hook on a stick. Either Paul had really long arms, like a sloth, or the blinds were electric.
In the livestream, Lyssa didn’t slow down when she got to his assistant’s desk, nor did she spare a glance for the people on the sofa waiting for meetings. She shoved through Paul’s door, leaving it open behind her so the whole office could hear every word just as clearly as those watching the livestream.
“Et tu Brute?” She had demanded.
A tall, white, All-American motherfucker rose to his feet behind his desk, buttoning his shiny suit jacket. “Good afternoon, Ms. Luxe. Did we have an appointment?”
“You know we didn’t, Paul.”
His thin lips stretched in an expression that I think was supposed to look sympathetic but made me want to punch him in the mouth.
“Mmm. It’s Bossi policy for all former employees to have their security access revoked upon termination.” Like this was a casual meeting, he strode to the front of his desk and leaned against it. He didn’t even look at the phone in her hand, recording him. “We appreciate your contributions to the Bossi family, Lyssa, but originality and integrity are core Bossi values, and we stand by our decision to conclude your internship.”
You couldn’t see Lyssa’s face because she had the camera pointed at him, but you could hear her hotly accuse him of stealing her work and getting her fired.
Paul deflected her accusations calmly. He reminded her she was young and new to fast-paced professional environments. He suggested she had been overwhelmed when she landed the Bossi internship and found herself surrounded by more experienced stylists. He eventually concluded that industry pressure and her own imposter syndrome had led her to borrow too heavily from others, and not understand that her outputs were being directed by more senior stylists. He came across as measured. Reasonable. Even compassionate.
And a total fucking dick.
In response to Paul’s claim that Lyssa lacked the emotional maturity to work in a high-pressure environment like Bossi, she inadvertently confirmed what he was saying. She launched into a blistering verbal tirade almost too fast to follow, pulling framed images off his wall and smashing them. She called him a motherfucker a lot—that was clearly audible—but I also heard villainous cad and pigeon-livered lackwit. Then, my favorite of all her old-timey insults: bull’s pizzle.
When the security guard arrived, Paul stayed them with a raised hand.
He offered to extend Lyssa’s access to workplace counseling beyond her employment period to support her mental health during a period of acute crisis.
(This statement really activated her comment section in his favor.)
In response, Lyssa told him to choke on his own dick.
Then she pointed out an inconsistency in one of her looks that he claimed to have styled himself. After that, Paul’s expression didn’t change, but his tactics did. He told the crowd assembled at his office door—his assistant, some frightened looking models, the security guard, and everyone watching the livestream—that Lyssa had a crush on him, she was obsessed with him, she had thrown herself at him, and, finally, the haymaker: that she had tried to get him to leave his wife for her.
That’s when all the fight went out of her.
The view from her camera swung to the floor as security escorted her out of the building. The stream cut out, and shortly afterward she’d shown up on the Holli-ford family Zoom call looking shell-shocked. That expression was why I told her to come to New Zealand—I just wanted to get that look off her face. It was what I’d been trying to do every day since she’d gotten here. When she wasn’t hunched over her phone, when she was teasing me or fixating on content creation, that look went away. But it was back now as she confessed to me that her lover was married, and according to the internet, she was to blame for ruining his marriage.
