The Fashion Committee

by Susan Juby

  In addition to the magnifique specialty fabrics, the store carried nine kinds of silk, including a stunning silk faille grosgrain, douppioni, lamé, taffeta, and gazar. Heavens! And don’t get me started on the Devoré velvet with beading.

  Jacques and Mischa checked on me. The first time, they opened the door to the shop, which was small, considering the riches contained within, glanced around, and quickly backed out when they saw me talking to the young salesman, who was dressed like a modern Pilgrim, and the owner, Mrs. Lasky. We were discussing whether the metallic silver double organza with hand embroidery might be incorporated as a panel in the front of the skirt. The second time my dad and Mischa looked in, I was in deep meditation over a bolt of zibeline silk, one of duchess satin, and a breathtakingly beautiful hand-painted taffeta silk. Mischa and my dad smiled, and I could see how pleased they were for me. I can’t imagine anyone has ever been as happy as Charlie Dean was right then.

  After I chose the fabrics and picked out the trimmings of threads, boning, boning casing, fabric for the linings, interfacing, and fasteners, I was exhausted but thrilled. I’d managed to stay within the budget, but only barely. I texted my dad. He and Mischa must have been waiting outside because he came right in, went to the counter, and paid for my purchases, peeling bill after bill off a roll of cash, like the biggest spender at the high rollers’ table. It was a lot of money. I reached into my purse to add the few hundred dollars I had saved, and he gestured me away.

  “It’s on me, Charlie girl. You save your hard-earned money.”

  “You must send us pictures, Charlie,” said the salesman.

  “Yes, and you have to come back soon,” said Mrs. Lasky. “I would give you a job in a second.”

  At the salesman’s concerned look she touched his shoulder. “Don’t worry, Roger. I would never replace you. Unless Charlie moves here after she graduates from high school.”

  Roger and Mrs. Lasky waved us out.

  The bags of fabric were satisfyingly heavy in each hand.

  “I’m dying to see what you bought,” said Mischa as we climbed back into the Taurus.

  “You’ll see it when the dress is ready for you to try on.” I kept sliding my hands inside the bags to make sure the fabrics were all real and as exquisite to the touch as they had seemed in the store.

  “The idea that you are making something just for me makes me feel . . .” She gave a little shiver. “Special, I guess. I can see why rich women pay so much for designer clothes,” she said.

  “Beautiful clothes should be a basic human right,” I said.

  I decided then that I would let Mischa keep the gown when the competition was over. I wanted her to find other places to wear it. Maybe her NA group would have a fancy dress dance? Maybe she’d marry my dad in it! Or maybe the dress would just sit in her closet and remind her she was special.

  I slept most of the way home, and so did my dad. I woke briefly as we passed through Ladysmith and saw that my dad was still sleeping. Mischa, on the other hand, was wide awake, steering us safely home.

  twenty-three

  MARCH 18

  Tesla sent me home from Green Pastures with a stack of books and DVDs and a list of websites. She also told me a story about how punk rock style was basically invented by Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood when they dressed the Sex Pistols up as a sort of ad campaign for their store, which was called Sex. Westwood wasn’t a trained designer, but she knew how to get people’s attention by cutting up clothes and putting graffiti all over them and using a lot of in-your-face color schemes. The story was incredibly depressing, from an anti-authoritarian/anti-capitalist/anti-kale perspective.

  Tesla told me I’d be fine, that I had good aesthetic instincts and should trust my gut. Her eyelashes were extremely long, sort of like an alpaca’s. She told me that if I got stuck with my design, I should find a classic piece of clothing and adapt it, which sounded sort of like plagiarism to me. I wanted to touch her, but I didn’t.

  I pedaled home in a daze of guilt and confusion. When I was halfway there, Barbra called.

  My supposedly trustworthy gut twisted as I set my feet down and held the phone to my ear.

  “How’d it go?” she asked. “Was it mostly moving doilies and ceramic milkmaids from side table to cabinet and back again?”

  For a second I didn’t follow. Then I remembered the lie I told about helping my grandma’s friend. I remembered that I am a liar.

  “There was more to it than that. But it wasn’t bad. Turns out, she sews. She’s going to help me with the design for the contest.”

  “That’s good,” she said, possibly insincerely. “What are you up to now?”

  “I’ve got a three-hour shift at the Stop. Then I’m going to see that kid who’s going to be my model.”

  I tried not breathe in the blue smoke gusting out of an old furniture truck as it passed.

  “Everything okay?” she said. “You seem kind of distant.”

  “I’m good,” I said. “Little nervous, I guess.”

  I thought of Tesla striding down the halls of Green Pastures, trailing a glittering wake of specialness dust. What must that be like?

  “John?” said Barbra, and I realized she’d been speaking but I had tuned out.

  “Sorry. Missed that.”

  “Do you want me to come with you to meet the kid? I can provide moral support and snide commentary?”

  I used to want calm, sardonic Barbra to go everywhere with me. I would have worn her around me like a life preserver. But at that moment all I wanted to do was to find a mirror so I could examine myself to figure out why a girl like Tesla would invite me to lunch. Why she would flirt with me and look at me with those wide aquatic eyes.

  “You don’t have to,” I said. “It’s probably going to be a shit show. Kid or her foster mom will figure out that I don’t know anything about anything, and I’ll get the boot.”

  “You’re giving me too much credit,” said Barbra. “I’d love to see that. I’ll drive us in my mom’s car.”

  I told her I loved her, which was the only true thing I’d said to her all day, and then I went to the Salad Stop. After I put on my apron, I went into the washroom, where I spent five minutes staring at myself in the mirror.

  x x x

  BARBRA AND I PULLED UP IN FRONT OF A STUCCO HOUSE. Tired and stained pink paint gave the house the color of a dying salmon. The lawn was a lumpy square of brown stubble with a few aggressive tall weeds poking up here and there. There were no plants in the flower beds.

  Esther opened the door on my first knock. She had on a Chicago Bulls jersey that hung almost to her knees. Her hair was having an uprising, and her shoes looked like they’d been through sectarian violence. I loved everything about it. She looked relaxed, and I felt better about the world until I remembered that I was here to change her or at least her clothes.

  “Hi!” she said, grinning. “We’ve been gardening.”

  Barbra and I exchanged a glance. The plant abuse around here looked like a long-term thing.

  A black woman, probably in her thirties, hair cut close and wearing an old flowered shirt, came to stand behind Esther. She pulled off ratty garden gloves and reached for my hand.

  “I’m Sheryl Robinson,” she said.

  I introduced myself and Barbra.

  There was a moment of silence while I tried to figure out what I should do. The technical term for what I felt was “panicked paralysis.”

  Barbra nudged me with her elbow, and I started talking. Babbling, really.

  “So we’re going to do a, uh, consultation and measurements now. If you’re ready. If you’re done gardening.”

  “We garden every day,” said Esther.

  I must have frowned, thinking about how the place would look if they didn’t garden every day, because Sheryl laughed.

  “You wouldn’t th
ink so, would you, given the lush landscaping situation in the front? We bought the house this August. We’ve been renovating the inside and landscaping the backyard. Next spring we’ll work on the front yard and paint the exterior.”

  I looked around at the living room and kitchen. The walls were freshly painted, and the furniture looked comfortable and good quality. Real art, meaning not pictures from the local decorating store, hung on the walls. I imagined Sheryl meeting the artist and deciding to buy their stuff.

  “Come in,” said Esther. She had herself a nice situation here, and I felt marginally better.

  “I like your jersey,” said Barbra.

  “It was my brother’s,” said Esther. “He’s in jail.”

  I flinched. The comforted feeling disappeared.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” said Barbra. She gave me another quick look, but I didn’t meet her eyes. Sometimes B rolls her eyes when people talk about unpleasant personal matters. I don’t think she means anything by it, but it always makes me uncomfortable.

  “He did a bad mistake. But he’s not a bad person.”

  Sheryl watched us, probably to see how we’d handle Esther’s revelation. “That’s how it goes sometimes,” said Barbra. “One mistake leads to another.”

  “Yeah. He looked after me. Now it’s just me.” She shot a look at Sheryl. “I mean, it was just me,” she said. “Now it’s us.” Her voice wasn’t very confident.

  My thoughts circled in my head like bits of paper eddying in the wind. What was the right outfit for a kid who had been abandoned by her parents or had lost them somehow, whose brother was in jail, and who was experiencing high-octane bullying? Hell if I knew.

  “So,” Sheryl prompted.

  “Right. Yeah, let’s get started. I’ll just get my, um, equipment,” I said.

  We were in the kitchen, and Barbra and Sheryl leaned against the butcher-block-topped island and watched me fumble a measuring tape out of my pocket and pull my sketchpad out of my backpack.

  I stood in front of Esther and tried to look like someone who had measured hundreds of people, if not thousands.

  “I live with my grandparents right now,” I told her, surprising myself.

  “Are they nice?”

  “Really nice.”

  “I’ve been with Sheryl and Edward since July.”

  “That’s good,” I said, deciding on the spur of the moment that the outfit would not involve pants. That way I wouldn’t need to take an inseam measurement. Measuring someone is borderline invasive. You have to touch them and record their physical presence in the world. It’s a pretty specific way to understand someone.

  I stood with my tape measure around my neck, the way I’d seen tailors on YouTube do when they took professional measurements.

  “You know,” I said, “maybe it’ll be faster if Barbra does the measuring and I record the numbers.”

  Barbra and Sheryl cocked their heads at me, like two myna birds.

  “Barbra?” I said. “You ready?”

  “Uh, no,” she said flatly, cutting off that avenue of escape.

  “Is everything okay?” asked Sheryl.

  Get a grip, I told myself.

  “I just thought that working together might save time. But we’re in no rush, I guess.”

  I gingerly wrapped the tape around Esther’s nonexistent bust, getting the worst out of the way immediately, and wrote down the number. Then I measured the distance from the tip of her shoulder to the end of her wrist. Waist. Hips. All in all, I took almost thirty measurements. I’d written out each in my little notebook with space to record each number, like the book said to do. The funny thing is, Esther was beaming through the whole awkward process. I couldn’t say why. Maybe getting measured is like getting a massage or something.

  When we were done, I stood back and tried not to fall to my knees out of relief, like an Olympic shot-putter after the throw of a lifetime. Instead, I put the tape back around my neck. Mr. Tailor Man.

  “Excellent,” I said.

  “I’m a good size?” asked Esther.

  “You are pretty much the best size,” I said.

  “Even though size and weight don’t matter,” said Sheryl.

  “Exactly,” I said. “But if measurements did matter, you’d have the best ones.”

  “That was really interesting,” said Esther. “Like going to the doctor. You’re sort of like a clothes doctor.”

  A clothes quack, more like, but there was no need destroy the illusion.

  “So now you’re going to use the measurements to make me something to wear?” asked Esther.

  “Yup,” I replied, praying she wouldn’t ask any difficult questions, such as “Will it be a dress, shirt, pants, or pillowcase with holes cut in it?”

  “How are you going to do that?” she inquired, which was one of the other worst questions she could have asked.

  I looked around the orderly kitchen. Dragged my gaze past Barbra, who widened her own eyes in response.

  “On a sewing machine,” I said slowly.

  “So you just get a piece of material and start sewing? We’re taking sewing at school and we have to make patterns even just to make a bag with a string at the top. You must be really good if you can just sew something without even a pattern or anything.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I guess I’m pretty good. Once I’ve got the design, I’ll make a pattern. I’ve got this, uh, kid-size doll. I mean, a dressmaker’s form. Because I want to design clothes for kids. As my specialty.”

  “Why?” asked Esther.

  “Kids are small, so it saves fabric.”

  I heard Barbra make a noise, but I didn’t look at her, because if I did, I’d be lost.

  “It would be really fun to make clothes for babies,” she said. “Then you’d really save a lot of fabric.”

  “For sure. But kids your age are the best.”

  “Some kids my age are shits,” said Esther, suddenly morose. “Sorry I swore, Sheryl.”

  “You owe the jar a nickel,” said Sheryl. “Damn.” She pulled a dime out of her pocket and dropped it into a tarnished copper piggy bank on the counter. “I’ll pay for both of us.”

  “You guys do a lot of swearing?” I asked, relieved to change the subject.

  “We’re all working on reducing it. Bad language is a habit, isn’t it?”

  “It sure is for me,” I said.

  “Me too,” said Barbra.

  “My brother said I shouldn’t swear,” said Esther. “But him and his friends swore a lot. I guess I learned it from them.”

  “You could have made a lot of money from your brother,” I said. “If he paid a nickel for every swear.”

  “He didn’t have a job,” said Esther.

  I cleared my throat.

  “Now I have to assess your needs. Can you tell me a bit more about what you like to wear? That’s your brother’s jersey, right?”

  Esther shrugged. She was leaning against the counter in front of Sheryl, and she seemed to shrink. “Yes.” She plucked at the hilariously long red-and-black jersey.

  “She wears it every day,” said Sheryl. “It has a lot of sentimental value for her.”

  “It doesn’t smell like him anymore. Except for sort of smelling like sweat.”

  “It’s that mater—I mean, fabric,” I said. “Lots of exercise clothes hang on to smells.”

  That was one fact about fabric that I knew for certain, since I’d been stinking up gym clothes ever since I started school.

  I went on. “So you like clothes that remind you of your brother. What about yourself? Tell me what you like about yourself.”

  “Nothing,” said Esther in a flat voice.

  “Esther,” said Sheryl. “Come on now.”

  Then something came over me. I’m not usually a speech guy. But some
how words started pouring out of me for this kid who didn’t like anything about herself.

  “Well, Esther,” I said. “That’s some bullshit right there.” I emphasized the word “bull,” just like Booker does. Without making a big deal of it, I dug into my pocket, found a quarter, showed it to her, and then dropped it into the pig. “Going to need the whole twenty-five because I’m going to be swearing quite a bit for the next little while.”

  Esther kept leaning awkwardly against the counter, in this house that wasn’t quite her house yet. I looked at the pretty woman who wasn’t quite her mother but who seemed to want to be her parent.

  “I’ll start by telling you what I like about you,” I said. “From what I’ve seen, you have a truckload of character. I saw how you handled those little bitches at the Salad Stop. You didn’t react. You didn’t back down. Rock solid. Only the bravest, most honest people can stand up to that kind of crap.”

  I looked at Barbra and Sheryl. “Tally?”

  “Fifteen cents,” said Barbra, as though we’d practiced.

  “Okay. So I like your character and your bravery and your rock-solidness. I also like your hair. It’s also cool as hell. That hair has an attitude that is going to take it places. I don’t know whether you plan to go along or not. But I dig what your hair has to say, and you should, too. I only wish I had your toughness when I was your age.”

  A small smile had crept around the edges of Esther’s mouth.

  “Your face is also excellent. It’s not like everyone else’s face, and you should be thankful for that. I don’t even know what to say about your face. Cute is part of the story, but it’s not the whole story.

  “Barbra? Help me out here. How would you describe Esther’s face?”