Seams: The Next Decade - Episode 9

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“We should have just respected ourselves and rented a hall.” 

Tariebi looked up from the hem she was mending at Saanyol who was trying and failing to stomp mud off his boots. The tent they were in was the smaller of two tents Louise had rented for her presentation and it was in chaos. Half of the tent was cordoned off by hair and beauty stations and the rest held the thirty six restless models they’d cast a few weeks earlier, waiting in satin robes for their turn with the stylists. Seamstresses from Louise’s studio busied themselves by the mannequin hedged racks, steaming dresses and fitting fixing seams. Not a single person was relaxed.

Tariebi was beginning to feel the fatigue creep on her.  She’d driven down to VGC the night before with Saanyol and an advance crew to set up the tents that were to serve as the venue for Louise’s couture debut. Together they supervised as a utilities team began the back breaking work of wiring the larger 65ft tent and its smaller 40ft twin for power and setting up its mobile air-conditioning system. The advance team worked till morning, finishing at nine and giving way for the carpentry team to take over. It was almost noon now and the runway was only half way done. 

“Where are the electricians with the backup power system?” Tariebi asked. 

Saanyol stopped scuffing long enough to contort his face into a scowl. He’d been front of house with the electricians trying to sort out a malfunction with the stage lighting. 

“They’ve gone to Lekki to get their other backup silent generator. Should be back in an hour, the electricians are retracing the wiring to find which junction box is malfunctioning.”

“Fuck!” Tariebi cursed under her breath and passed the dress she was amending on to an intern. The models could handle themselves and nothing was really dire until thirty minutes before call time. They still had two hours and thirty minutes to make magic. 

She laced her arm into Saanyol’s and led him away from the frenzy backstage. 

Granted, one of the smaller conference rooms at the Oriental would have made their work much easier but the decadent cherry blossom decor on the blush pink marquee tents they had rented were hard to argue against. The interior decorator they were working with had made her name transforming venues for high society Island weddings and she treated their tents with the same meticulous extravagance. The result was steeped in romanticism, a fairytale vale she could see really appealing to the kind of women Louise wanted to clothe.

The tents were Louise’s idea, her homage to the classic New York Fashion Weeks her mother had taken her to when she was a child. A lot of the fashion she created since she started her label had an element of homage to her mother, expressed either in the 90’s silhouettes, the decadent fabrics or showmanship of the presentations. The decision to have the presentation in one of the gardens at VGC was her father’s idea. It was also his idea to outsource the logistics and management for the presentation to Saanyol and Tariebi, insisting they’d done such a good job with her campaign shoot and model casting. The invoice came to 6 million Naira, money Tariebi saw no reason to turn down.  

“Has she called you back?” Tariebi asked as they dipped into the tents to survey the construction still well underway. 

Saanyol showed Tariebi his call log. “No, and she isn’t responding to my messages.”

“She said she wanted to see the choreography and get a final say on who wears what dress. Can you try her number again?”

Saanyol’s scowl deepened. “I’ll do it outside, too loud here anyways.”

Tariebi gauged the half-finished runway scaffolding and surmised the construction crew still had about five yards to go. She pulled the foreman away from his small but busy crew to a quiet corner and pulled out the schematics Director Adegoke’s personal architect had sent her weeks before on her phablet. She could hear Saanyol outside, his voice raised as he threatened someone on the other end of his phone call. She catalogued it as something to deal with later and turned her focus to the foreman. 

“We need the core scaffold ready to hold several people in thirty minutes. The models haven’t rehearsed and we can’t delay any longer. Can you finish the extra ten feet or do we just go with a shorter runway?”

The man seemed unconvinced it could be done in less than an hour but Tariebi pressed till he agreed for forty five minutes. When she dipped back out, Saanyol was no longer outside. He wasn’t in the backstage tent either when she returned there to start teaching the models choreography. She shot him a quick text to check in and called the models into a huddle. There were now two potential choreography routines they needed to learn. 

# 

The models were all in their heels and lined up to start their rehearsal walk when the entrance of the backstage tent slid open. Louise entered, hunched over in a jacket over a hoodie and dark sunglasses with a much taller man in clothes that seemed too casual for his detached expression. Saanyol followed behind them, near apoplectic. Louise shrugged the man off and walked over to meet the girls. Tariebi stepped in to separate both parties and made introductions. 

“Guys, this is Louise Adegoke, creative director of Jardin De Mamie, it’s her work that we’re showing on the runway today.”

Louise acknowledged their ‘Hi’s and waves with a slight nod. The girls fidgeted, waiting for Louise to say something but she just stared glibly at them, unaffected by the growing awkwardness. Her companion, hovering at a respectable distance, moved to join her. She let him lead her to one of the beauty stations where he whispered something to a waiting makeup artist. Tariebi got the girls to start their counts and made her way to Saanyol. Together they slipped out of the tent. 

“I heard you screaming earlier, what happened?”

“She was hungover! She was fucking hungover.” Saanyol cursed, “Had to literally go to their house because that slab of meat with her, decided it was safer to have her sleep it off than join us here.”

“Who is he?” 

“One of her father’s government assigned state secret service agents. Her father apparently has him following her around because she got wasted at a party they went to last week and called her ex-husband’s mother a slut. He thinks she can’t be allowed to handle her own affairs unsupervised till after the presentation.”

“So how did she get drunk?” 

“She gave him the slip, told him she had last minute revisions to go over with the tailors at the studio. She wasn’t lying about the revisions, but apparently she also kept a stash of alcohol in her studio and drank herself under the table.” 

“You think she’ll be able to get through today?” Louise asked, worried. 

Saanyol bit his lip. “I think we need to get back in there.”

Louise had been chaperoned into a station when they returned, a bib over her hoodie. She hunched in defiance as the makeup artist worked on her face, dabbing on foundation. Dark bags drooped under her eyes and her lips were chapped. 

“Can you make it heavier?” Her chaperone asked, ignoring Louise’s mumbled protest. 

The makeup artist switched to a bigger applicator. 

“We’re fucked.” Saanyol whispered to Tariebi. “We can’t do the show with her like this.”

“We have to, I can’t refund 1.6 million naira. Can you?”

Saanyol didn’t respond, there was no need to. 

Tariebi returned to the models who were finishing their first counts and lining up for a go-over. It would take at least an hour plus to get Louise through hair and makeup, an hour in which she could procrastinate about making a definitive decision. 

“Girls, we go again!” She called, snapping to restart the count.

#

By some miracle, the construction team was done by the time the first guests began to arrive. Saanyol had the genius idea to move the cocktail station outside the tent and have the ushers hired for the event keep the guests outside while they scrambled alongside the interior decor team to arrange the seating. The new generator was running quietly some ways from the tents and they had tested the lights twice to ensure every circuit answered when called. She’d wanted to wait a little longer, maybe network for a bit with the guests, but then she saw Louise’s father, the Director, dressed in uniform and ambling up the slope towards the tents. It was the omen she’d been waiting for to engage the craziness backstage.

Saanyol was already there, a rudimentary photo booth set up as he took reference shots of the final model-dress pairings. Louise stood beside him, fidgeting slightly as she directed the girls into the poses she preferred. The chaperone watched in one of the beauty station booths, far away enough that it was respectable, but no less alert about his charge. Tariebi joined the shooting party, and leaned into Louise.. 

“Your father is here.” 

Louise looked up at her with tired eyes. She was panicked, but it didn’t seem to register beyond her eyes, as the rest of her face was sculpted with foundation, concealer and highlighter into a thin nosed, big lipped caricature. 

“How long has he been here?”

“twenty minutes, maybe less.” 

“I mentioned it to Chibuzor that the presentation was happening today. Did he come?”

Tariebi shook her head.

“Kike? Farhad? Panlam?”

“Just me and Saanyol”

Louise’s head drooped. “Oh okay. How many minutes do we have before the show starts?”

“15, you have to give a speech, then we play the fashion film before the first girl walks.”

Louise groaned. “I can’t do this sober.”

Saanyol paused mid-shoot to glare at her. “You know you sound like an alcoholic right? I’ve been there, I would know.”

Louise gave him the middle finger. “Fuck off, I’m serious.” 

Saanyol hissed and returned to his shoot. She glanced meaningfully at her chaperone. “I tried to, you know, find a solution. But he won’t let me out of his sight.”

Tariebi understood. The man seemed polite to everyone but she could tell it was only because he’d been given express orders to be. He hadn’t introduced himself to either of them, had bullied the beauty station into giving Louise a makeover that she would never ask for if she could choose. Sure Louise had made some decisions that damaged her father’s trust in her, but he also wasn’t treating her like an adult. 

“How can I help?” Tariebi asked. 

“He’ll probably notice if you got me wine or something obvious, so maybe Tram, 200 mg. Models take it to lose weight so someone here should have.”

“Okay, I’ll try.” 

Louise seemed to brighten for the first time since she’d arrived at the tents. 

“If you’re getting it, it has to be now. It takes like 10 minutes for the tabs to kick in and I will definitely fuck things up if I have to face all my father’s friends like this.“

Just then Saanyol called the batch of girls he was shooting to join the last model on the floral backdrop for a group photo. They cheesed for the photo and relaxed their plastic smiles as Saanyol gave them permission to return to the lineup. Tariebi followed as they drifted back to the corridor connecting the two tents. 

As they walked she joked with the girls about scoring some Tramadol, and felt herself grow slightly irritated by their lazy deflections as the girls feigned ignorance about what she was asking for. Tariebi dropped the slang and tried another tack, directing her attention to the girl who seemed most street savvy. 

“What’s your name?” Tariebi asked. 

The girl’s tragus piercings and a gold septum ring stood in glorious contrast against her dark skin as she made an annoyed face.  

“Aanu.”

“Can you help? It’s kind of urgent”

Aanu responded with a non-committal shrug. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Tariebi let the group return to their spots on the lineup and chose the next five girls to be shot, taking them back to the photography set up. Saanyol eyed her, sensing something was up. Tariebi gestured for him to drop it. He scrunched his nose at Louise’s chaperone as though to warn her that the man was on to her and invited the most striking of the new batch of models to step on to the backdrop. 

5 minutes later, someone tapped Tariebi on the shoulder. She turned to find Aanu, armed with a novelty water bottle. 

“You said your friend was thirsty?” Aanu said a little theatrically and handed the bottle over. 

Sandwiched between her palms and the bottle’s rubber sleeve was a tiny square of plastic, casing two blue tablets. Tariebi took it and made a show of sending Aanu back to the corridor, then handed the bottle to Louise. With deftness that could almost pass for sleight of hand, Louise had the pills out of their pack and in the back of her mouth, novelty bottle pressed to her lips before her chaperone could clock what just happened. 

She swallowed and handed the bottle back to Tariebi. The effects seemed almost instant, her shoulders relaxed, the tension in her forehead eased. The chaperone watched them more intently, he knew something untoward had happened, but he wasn’t sure what. Tariebi made a show of finishing the rest of the water, and waited to see what results her little enablement would bring. She didn’t have to wait long.  

Louise lingered for a few minutes as Saanyol shot, then muttered ‘fuck it’ and walked back to the beauty stations. Her chaperone tried to intercept her but she elbowed him out of her way to get to the booth of the makeup artist who had worked on her before. 

“Take it off, all of it.” She said, staring at her expertly baked face in the brightly lit mirror. 

Something in her tone must have shifted, because the makeup artist sprang to action, scrubbing lightly with removal wipes. The chaperone seemed frozen, unsure of what was an appropriate response to this new vigour. Saanyol took a peek at what was going on and decided it wasn’t his problem. 

“Do you really want to do this now? We have 6 minutes before you have to go on, there’s no way she’ll be able to do anything useful.” Tariebi asked, joining her at the station. 

“I’d much rather go on bare-faced than look like a clown.” 

The makeup was all gone in three minutes. Louise got off the chair, walked over to the rack and started to undress. The crew and models turned away in deference as she took off her trousers. She slipped into one of the collection’s daysuits, it was slightly baggy on her tiny frame and didn’t exactly match with her black camisole, but at least she was making an effort. She shook her hair out, ground her feet into her converse sneakers and made for the corridor.

Tariebi put her comms receiver to her lips. “She’s on her way, start the introductions.”

#  

The entire show lasted forty minutes, from Louise’s manic introduction to the final encore. Tariebi and Saanyol worked backstage, coordinating with the team in front of house as romantic ballads cooed through the sound system setting the scene for the dream-like choreography. Louise had jumped off the stage after her introduction and joined the audience to watch the show. She squeezed herself between her father and his guests, two white women who Saanyol surmised were the international fashion editors Tariebi had told him about during the castings. 

Her chaperone fidgeted with them backstage, his tough exterior shattered in the face of Louise’s mania. They both ignored him, too busy with maintaining a cadence for the presentation. Rapturous applause was how the guests managed to get Louise back on stage to take her bow, and once she was up there, Tariebi gave the models who closed the presentation strict orders to ferry her backstage. 

“That was fun!” Louise squealed as the models celebrated, helping each other out of their ensembles. 

She was out of the tent before either of them could waylay her and stationed at the cocktail station in minutes. The chaperone followed, relieved to finally have something to do. Saanyol and Tariebi stayed back, there was too much left to do 

“Should we join them?” Saanyol asked, when the models were finally undressed and dismissed. The construction crew had returned to begin dismantling the tents. Three hours had passed since the presentation ended and much of the chatter from the post presentation soiree had died down. 

Tariebi shook her head. Neither Louise nor the chaperone had been back to the tent since then. A bad omen, considering she’d heard the playlist change dramatically from the easy listening playlist she’d agreed on with the DJ to wildly inappropriate death punk at some point during the festivities outside. There had been some screaming as well, mostly from Louise, but Tariebi had felt it was safer not to interfere. That was their world, Louise and Saanyol, not hers. 

“Hello?” Someone called from the entrance of the dimly lit tent.

It was the chaperone, and he was alone. Tariebi sighed and dusted off her hands, and waited for Saanyol to disentangle himself from the work he was doing. They went to meet the man outside the tent. 

“General took Louise home.” The man said unceremoniously. “There was an incident. A guest was hurt.”

Tariebi stole a quick glance at Saanyol. He seemed disappointed but unsurprised.

“Who did she hurt?” he asked. 

“Delaney, her ex-husband,” The man replied, “Other than that, he thinks the event was a resounding success and he was very happy with your work. The balance for your invoices will be paid in 24 hours.”

They watched the man turn on his heel and jog in the direction of the estate. It was obvious from his gait and the ease with which he picked up a sprint that he was more than just a nanny for Louise.

They’d waited with the crews as they took down the wiring and dismantled the tents. The work lasted well past midnight, but another day would have meant the rent they paid for the garden would have rolled over into a second day. 

“You really shouldn’t have gotten her Tramadol.” Saanyol said as they drove out of the estate. 

“We got through it, that’s what matters.”

It was hard to execute a dramatic swivel with a seat belt on, but Saanyol managed. 

“If by ‘it’, you mean Louise attempting to hit Delaney at her own presentation, then I’d say we barely scraped past. It’s already on all the blogs. If she’d succeeded in hurting him do you think her father wouldn’t have found out you helped her get drugs. “

Tariebi switched gears as they punched in the exit code at the barricaded gate. “Tramadol is not ‘drugs’ for fuck’s sake.”

“Tari, please. Louise has a real problem and if we are really her friends, then we can’t keep pretending it is normal to track Uber drivers because we’re afraid if they tried to molest her she’d be too wiped out to remember. She needs help!”

Tariebi checked her rearview mirror before she turned into the Lekki-expressway. The construction company’s haulage truck followed behind them, the glare of its headlights illuminating the insides of her car.

“So what do you suggest we do?”

Saanyol sighed. “We have to tell her father.