That Girl Failure or Success?

That Girl Failure or Success?

Cattia held the cheque in her hands mentally counted off the zeros and wondered if she had failed or succeeded. She looked around her plush office. It was a far cry from the small back bedroom in her parent’s terraced house that had been built for millworkers years before. But that had been where her first dress design had been imagined and the pattern cut out on her father’s evening paper left in their outdoor lavvy as toilet roll.
She leaned forward from her leather office chair, placed her arms on her bespoke desk, put her throbbing head on her arms and let her mind drift back to her friend Emily and their school days.
They had come from very different families. Emily’s dad and mum were driven by success. Half the time she didn’t know which country they were in. Cattia’s parent, both linen mill workers were proud of their daughter’s academic ability and knew she would do well. They often told her success was not measured solely on what you did or how much money you earned. They smiled indulgently when she applied to all the top universities to study maths and finance. They could smirk, Cattia thought, but one day, soon, she’d be a millionaire. She’d buy them a big house; they could both stop working and enjoy life.
Cattia was delighted when she was accepted to the university of her choice. Then shocked into a state of numbed disbelief when she didn’t get the high grades she was predicted. And then shocked beyond her comprehension when Emily whom she had cajoled and propped up in class projects and helped with coursework, was accepted.
Emily’s parents shrugged and said they expected nothing less.
Cattia’s parents said not to worry. It was no big deal. She was young. She had plenty of time to make her millions. In the meantime, she could get a nice wee job in a dress shop. Wasn’t she always going into shops, taking dresses off rails and matching them up with jackets and scarves, her mother pointed out. Any clothes shop would be lucky to get her.
Emily had gone off to university; got her degree and left under a cloud. Where was she now?
Cattia got up from her seat and looked out the large glass window of her office building. It was a prime site that overlooked the Embankment. She knew exactly where Emily was. She had kept track of her. She was the same place she was every day. She was down under the bridges drinking wine from a bottle with the rest of the addicts.
She, on the other hand, at 25 had just sold her internet-on-line fashion business. She glanced at the cheque lying on her desk. She couldn’t decide if she was a success or a failure. She was a multi-millionaire several times over. But it didn’t make her feel like she thought it would. Unlike Emily, she wasn’t happy with her life.
She slumped down at the desk. She had never went to university or graduated as she had planned. It irked her. No! It more than irked her. It enraged her. She felt small and inadequate every time some Emily look-alike or some smart assed business man boasted about the string of letters after his name and the ‘connections’ he had from his college days. She had had no connections. She had clawed her way up the slipper pole of business on her own.
She recalled the day the letter with her A Level grades had fallen through the letterbox. Failing her exams was the last thing on her mind. She had never pictured herself as a failure. Secretly, she had thought that Emily would fail. She had planned on how she would comfort her friend. She always assumed Emily would be OK. Her parents had plenty of business connections. They’d soon get her a job or marry her off to somebody with money. But when she failed them they cut her out of their lives without a second thought, it seemed.
Cattia’s parents had covered up their shock at her exam failure very quickly. There was talk of having her papers ‘checked out’. Cattia knew that would cost money they didn’t have. But it was the shock registered on their faces that had been the catalyst that made her work like a demon at creating her own brand of clothing – a line of fashion with her name on it. She was somebody in the fashion world but inside she was still that girl who failed.
Gemma Hill 2019 ©