Vogue | Tony Stark

ELEVEN - AN OLD DIARY

"Are you serious? This is a big deal for me, Mom, you know that."

Estélla pulled open her front door and stepped to the side, giving Tony a brief smile before her face turned to a scowl of disdain in a flash, her phone pressed against her ear as she stared down at the floor and listened.

Tony said nothing and walked inside, kicking off his shoes and shrugging off his jacket while Esté locked the door. He hadn't been round to his best friend's new home since she moved back to New York, though he was unsurprisingly impressed by how chic the West Village townhouse was.

The floors were a stunning herringbone wood and the ceilings were tall with traditional French coving and a tarnished gold chandelier hung by the door, lighting the whole hallway ahead of him. The staircase led up to a gallery, that was as far as Tony could see, though the house seemed to sprawl on forever in front of him with a navy blue wallpaper carrying his eyes through the doors that had been left open ajar.

"I understand that, but could you not make it over for just a couple of days? It's important to me, it's one of the biggest things to happen in my career."

Esté started walking down the hall and beckoned Tony to follow her with a wave of her hand. She continued to what seemed like argue with her mother over the phone while turning on the coffee machine and grabbing two mugs from inside a glass cabinet, her anger and frustration growing more obvious by how hard she slammed the doors closed.

"Alright, no, it's fine. I get it. Love you too, bye."

With a heavy sigh, Esté threw her phone down onto the kitchen counter and shook her head, rubbing her eyes with the pads of her fingers before finally looking up at Tony.

"Sorry about that," she said with a forced smile before carrying on making the coffees.

"It's alright, what's going on?"

Tony asked the question nonchalantly, hands in his pockets while he wandered around the spacious, open plan kitchen and peered at framed artwork from Italy and an extensive collection of red wine stacked in a sideboard by a brick fireplace.

With two hot coffees in her hands, Estélla led Tony through an archway into a cosy sitting room. There was a huge white couch that sat perfectly in the corner, a curved glass coffee table and yet another fireplace with a pile of logs sat beneath the chimney. More artwork was hung on the navy walls and a flatscreen television was mounted above the hearth, a scattering of decorative pillows and soft blankets made the place feel like it had been lived in for years, even if Esté had only been there a handful of months.

The pair sat down on the couch and Esté leant on the armrest, her head resting on her palm as her fingers curled around the handle of her coffee mug, white porcelain with a golden E painted on it.

"My parents can't make it to the Saint Laurent show next week. They said they'd be there because they thought they'd be back in Europe but turns out they have to stay in Australia for a little while longer. I don't usually mind if they can't make it but this is something super important, you know?" Esté said quietly, looking at Tony with tired eyes before shrugging her shoulders, "Anyway, I have something to show you."

Tony could tell that Estélla was upset about her parents not being able to make the show, even though she clearly tried to change the topic straight away. Esté had always been close with her parents and had a relationship with them that admittedly, Tony was jealous of. The Goldwyn's seemed like a family that loved and supported each other though now that Esté was single and thousands of miles away from her parents, she was forced to get used to being alone.

Tony thought about saying something to comfort his friend, to give her some naïve hope that maybe her parents would show up in Paris for her, but he knew his words would have been met with a cold roll of her blue eyes before she changed the topic of conversation again anyway.