by Janet Bolin
Opal turned toward us. Bright red spots burned on her cheeks. She stepped into her place again, though.
Mona didn’t wait to be called. She leaped forward—not off the stage, fortunately—and gyrated in a circle while waving and smiling at the audience.
“Ahhhhh.” Antonio drew the syllable out. “The lovely Mona.” He licked his lips. “Her Distinguished Dressing cocktail dress is skimpy and very, very tight.” He fanned his face. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m a red-blooded male, so of course I like it. But because she makes my blood run faster, Mona has committed the threadly sin of lust.”
I was afraid that Mona might take offense, but wiggling her hips, she blew about a thousand kisses to the audience. This time, they didn’t try to contain their laughter.
“Play it for laughs,” I whispered to Ashley. “No matter what he says.”
She nodded and turned her head to give me an exaggerated wink. “I’m fine.”
But how could I help being concerned about her? She already had too much stress in her life. I had to protect her.
“Ashley,” Antonio called, “turn around and show us the back of your jacket.”
Smiling, Ashley spun and gave me another wink.
“Now, see there?” Antonio pointed at Ashley. “I told Ashley to create something that a successful fashion designer might wear to a business meeting. And she embroidered pictures of different items of clothing all over the back of her jacket. She’s obviously copying designs created by actual designers. So what threadly sin did she commit?”
No one answered.
“Don’t all speak at once,” he joked.
Dora Battersby yelled, “None!” I couldn’t see her in the darkness, but I smiled toward the back of the crowd.
“Envy!” Antonio crowed. “At her young age, Ashley has not yet found her own creative feet, and envy made her copy the work of others.”
Fortunately, Ashley’s back was still toward the audience. The corners of her mouth trembled.
I raised my chin and winked at her.
She tossed me a watery smile. Then, disobeying Antonio’s earlier instructions, she crossed in front of me and disappeared behind the curtains.
“Shame!” Dora hollered, echoing my thoughts. I wanted to run after Ashley and undo the damage that Antonio had tried to inflict on the girl, but I was the last person onstage to have committed one of Antonio’s seven threadly sins, and I wasn’t going to wimp out now. I’d rush to Ashley in a minute.
Behind me, Naomi whispered, “I’ll go.” She followed Ashley out of view.
What was the seventh deadly sin, anyway? My mind went blank. Behind the curtains, chair legs scraped against the stage floor.
“Willow!” Antonio called.
Play it for laughs. Stepping forward in the poufy dress and bloomers, I waved at the audience, even though I couldn’t see them.
“Willow,” Antonio repeated, “by now you must have figured out by the process of elimination which threadly sin you’ve committed.”
I shook my head. Dramatically, I waved my arms out to my sides, drawing attention to the cutesy, ruffled dress.
“C’mon,” Antonio urged. “You know what it is. Tell us.”
The audience was silent, waiting for my response.
Without thinking, I blurted out, “Adultery?”
The audience roared.
Antonio let out a wolf whistle. “Is that it, Willow?”
“It can’t be.” I hollered to make myself heard. “I’m not married.”
More laughter. Antonio murmured into the mike, “You don’t have to be. Talk to me after the show, Willow. Maybe we can arrange something.” He added a nasty chuckle.
Everyone could have heard him, but no one laughed, and I made a very rude face of distaste that he couldn’t completely see, but the audience could. I shouted, “In this dress, it’s more like childery!”
Dora called out, “Bravo!”
After the laughter died down, Antonio spoke into the mike again. “No. Look carefully at the dress that Willow has made. Doesn’t it make her look fat?”
Dora shouted, “No!”
Again, Antonio acted like no one had spoken. He went on, “By making a dress that will allow her to eat most of the food we’ll be serving at the reception after the show, which, by the way, you’re all invited to, Willow has committed the seventh threadly sin, which is . . .” He paused dramatically, then proclaimed, “Gluttony!”
I pranced in a circle, billowing the monster dress out and showing off my long, slender legs. To make certain everyone appreciated my ruffled bloomers, I raised the hem of the dress and dipped in an exaggerated curtsey.
The audience howled.
With a gesture a kid might use to encourage her playground gang to follow her, I skipped toward the gap between the curtains.
I’d succeeded. I’d played it for laughs, and I hadn’t let Antonio’s jibes get to me. I’d also, perhaps, stolen the show.
Antonio tried to regain the audience’s attention by growling into the mike, “I’ll definitely speak to you later, Willow.”
But people were still laughing and clapping.
I pulled the blue velvet curtain back, turned toward the audience, widened my eyes in fake amazement, and made a show of patting my heart.
Loretta flew at me, nearly knocked me down, continued past me between the curtains, and elbowed Antonio aside. She made a shooing motion at him.
He didn’t shoo. A superior grin playing across his face, he took two steps away from her, then faced the audience.
5
Loretta bent toward the mike. “Antonio was joking about the sins.” Anger threaded through her words. “Here at TADAM, we admire the ladies who invented Threadville and keep it going, and we’re grateful to them for all they’ve done for us tonight and during the weeks leading up to the show. None of them have committed any sins.”
Antonio budged past her and leaned over the podium. “Rats,” he complained. “I was hoping for a little adult—”
Before he could complete the word, Loretta turned off the microphone, then gave an abrupt hand signal to someone near the main doors of the conservatory.
Overhead lights came on. Laughing and calling greetings to each other, people stood.
I searched the back of the audience for Dora.
She waved wildly at me. She was flanked by two tall and handsome men.
Oh no. Not only Haylee’s heartthrob, but mine, too.
And I was wearing the world’s most ridiculous dress. I needed to disappear.
Arms folded and feet braced, Antonio and Loretta glared at each other.
I dove between the dark blue plush curtains and nearly plowed into Paula.
She glowered at me as if I’d planned the entire fracas and executed it on my own.
Although I looked about two years old, I managed to restrain myself from sticking out my tongue. If she wanted to blame someone for the way the show had ended, she should have a good look at her husband.
Antonio had set us up. He had designed outfits that he could describe as seven threadly sins. He’d done it on purpose. We’d spent hours creating clothes for his fund-raiser, and then we’d ended up taking the brunt of his unkind jokes. Loretta had attempted to spin his remarks, but she hadn’t erased his cruelty.
Someone had again moved the chair that his jacket was on, and I saw it only after I crashed into it and knocked the jacket onto the floor. Did he really have to keep his candies that close? He may have slipped through the curtains between the show’s segments for more candies when I was in my dressing cubicle, but he’d definitely been onstage during the entire awards ceremony.
Maybe, before Loretta stormed out to the podium, she had taken pity on him and moved the chair in case what she was going to say would cause him to duck backstage for a distracting piec
e of candy.
I picked the jacket up. My toe must have nudged something—I couldn’t see what—that had been underneath the chair. Clattering, the thing rolled away and disappeared beneath the red polyester curtains hiding the briefcases and other props. I wasn’t about to get down on my hands and knees and show off my bloomers to search for a piece of candy that Antonio probably wouldn’t want after it had spent time on the floor.
Hurrying toward the cubicles, Mona brushed past me. We had very little time to change before the reception.
Opal came backstage and patted my arm. “It was bad enough that he made fun of my granny squares, but you don’t look fat and never will.”
I grinned at her. “Don’t worry. I had fun out there.”
She eyed me skeptically. “Well, that’s a plus.”
Behind Opal, Edna held out her hand. “I’ll hang that jacket up. I’m already in my Glitzy Garb outfit. You two go change.”
I handed her the jacket and hurried toward my cubicle.
Clay had been at the show.
Maybe he would also attend the reception. I was glad I was supposed to ditch the ballooning confection that Antonio had said made me look fat and would allow me to indulge in gluttony.
Shifting her weight from foot to foot outside her cubicle, Macey asked me to guard the gap between her curtains while she changed into her evening gown. It would make me have to rush into my own gown, but I agreed. Was she afraid that Antonio would join her in her cubicle to “adjust” her clothing?
Brushing against cubicles and causing some of the gleaming red curtains to part company with each other, Antonio sauntered toward me. Women in cubicles gasped and pulled their curtains shut.
Antonio was wearing his suit jacket again. Crunching on candies, he stopped next to me. “The lovely Willow!” His breath was minty. “Need help getting out of that dress?”
“No.”
He leered. “Need help committing adultery?”
“No.” I tried to smile.
“You do realize that you can commit adultery even if you’re not married. You just need a married man.” He puffed out his chest.
Behind him, near the stage, his wife squinted toward us. She wouldn’t be able to hear his murmuring, but I was certain she could guess that he was flirting—if that was the word—with me.
I tossed my head. “No, thanks. Gluttony is my thing.”
He laughed, then looked at the dressing cubicle I was guarding. “Macey, are you in there? Do you need help? You did a great job out there.”
“I’ll help her if she needs it,” I said quickly.
With an appraising look at my lips, he pulled a round, white candy from his jacket pocket. “Need something for your gluttony?”
I backed into the curtains around Macey’s cubicle. “No, thanks.”
“You’ll be well fed at the reception. See you there.” Finally, with a mocking salute and a crunch of molars against candy, he strolled toward the curving ramp that would take him to the conservatory’s main doors.
I would go to the reception, but I would stay only long enough to be polite, then I would leave TADAM to its own devices. And vices, too. I wanted nothing more to do with Antonio.
Eyes smoldering and without saying a word to anyone, Muscle Shirt barged out of the doorway near the ramp, sidestepped Antonio, strode past me and the dressing cubicles, and disappeared through the gap in the stage curtains next to Paula and Loretta, who appeared to be arguing.
What a fun group.
Antonio was no longer in sight. He must have headed down the ramp toward the main doors.
“He’s gone,” I whispered to Macey.
She asked in a small voice, “Who?”
“Antonio.”
She came out of her cubicle and had me zip up the back of her gown, then she insisted on standing outside my cubicle while I changed. “I don’t want to walk into the reception by myself,” she explained. I remembered being insecure when I was her age, but I had a feeling that this was more than insecurity. She was frightened, probably for a good reason. Antonio might be lurking in the conservatory or on the way to the TADAM mansion, and the man was a little too persistent about giving attention where it wasn’t wanted.
As it turned out, Macey didn’t have to go to the reception with only me. By the time I was wearing the russet velvet gown again, Mona, Ashley, Haylee, and all three of Haylee’s mothers were waiting with Macey outside my temporary dressing room.
The area behind the stage curtains was now illuminated only by light coming over the top of the curtains from the part of the conservatory’s main room where the audience had been. Loretta and Paula were gone. Maybe they’d followed Muscle Shirt out between the stage curtains.
We started down the ramp. Walled shoulder height in stone with lush and fragrant greenery rising beyond the walls, the ramp wound downward in a curve toward the main doors.
Edna walked with determination, nearly stomping on the ornate, hand-painted floor tiles. “I’m not going to help that man with any more fund-raisers.”
I agreed. “He did that deliberately.”
Naomi was never fond of conflict. “He probably thought he was being funny. But teasing often isn’t anywhere near funny.”
Haylee was less tolerant. “I thought he meant to hurt people’s feelings.”
“C’mon, girls,” Mona said. “He was just being a man.” The way she pronounced the last word was almost a caress.
“Well, I thought he was flirting with you, Willow, and Macey,” Opal said. “That’s how some men try to get attention.”
I pressed on the wood and glass door to the outside. “He was despic—”
Loretta spoke from right behind me. “Don’t take what Antonio says seriously. He means well.”
Where had she come from, and how much of our conversation had she heard? The look I gave her wasn’t very friendly or accommodating.
After we all filed outside, Loretta locked the conservatory’s double doors. “He was trying to make the fashion show into something everyone would remember,” she said. “He just got carried away. He appreciates all you’ve done.”
How odd. When she’d said basically the same things to the audience about ten minutes ago, she’d seemed angry at Antonio, but now she was apologizing for him, and she showed no sign of her previous rage. Maybe I’d misread her earlier.
I glanced over my shoulder at the conservatory. Although I was still annoyed by Antonio and his mean stunt, the magic of that glass confection calmed me. All the lights inside it were out, and the sparkling pinpricks on its bubbled antique glass were the reflections of stars.
We teetered in our heels along the sidewalk leading out of the park and turned right. At the next intersection, which was fortunately close, we turned right again and went halfway down the block to the Victorian mansion that was now the home of the Threadville Academy of Design and Modeling.
Loretta said, “I hope you’ll all make use of the vouchers we gave you toward night school classes. The vouchers are worth a lot, and although you’re all experts in your fields, you might learn something at TADAM.”
Mona turned to Loretta. “Paula doesn’t look happy.” Mona occasionally lacked subtlety.
Loretta’s response was breezy. “I’m sure she was just overwhelmed, trying to make the show a success. We’ve all been working hard at that.”
Wriggling, Mona tugged at her tight, stretchy dress. “Would you say Paula’s good for Antonio? Does she make him happy?”
I succeeded in not laughing. Mona had been through at least two husbands and was always on the lookout for an available man, even if the availability was mostly in her mind.
Loretta retorted, “I don’t know. It’s none of my business.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Edna told Mona. “He’s married.”
“Married, schmarrie
d,” Mona scoffed. “As if I’d let a little detail like that bother me. I could have had Gord if I’d wanted.”
Opal, Haylee, Naomi, and I all chimed in, “No, you couldn’t have!” Gord had become smitten with Edna when he’d first encountered her, and I could never imagine him giving Mona more than an amused glance. But maybe Mona would interpret an amused glance as a declaration of true love.
Mona stared straight ahead. “Ooooh, now there’s someone who can park his lasso on my bedstead anytime.”
Gord, Clay, and Haylee’s heartthrob, Ben, were waiting with Dora on the front porch of the TADAM mansion.
“Who,” I asked innocently, “Edna’s mother?”
Mona slapped at my arm. “I’d take either Clay or Ben, but Clay never seems to see anyone besides you.”
I wasn’t sure about that. Maybe he just didn’t notice Mona.
She wiggled her hips again. “That Ben who owns the Elderberry Bay Lodge, though—he makes my toes curl.”
And that was good? My high-heeled sandals were making my toes curl, and I wasn’t exactly fond of the feeling.
“They’re both too young for you,” Edna stated with finality, if not with tact.
Mona smoothed her long, platinum hair over one tanned shoulder. “Maybe Ben needs an older woman to help him get over the death of his wife. Older women can be so nurturing.” She frowned at Edna. “And it’s not like I’m as old as you are.”
Edna was slightly over fifty, Mona was in her mid-forties, and Ben and Clay were in their late thirties.
And, of course, most of us had different plans for Ben.
Maybe he did, too. As we climbed the stairs to the porch, he greeted all of us, but his warmest smile was for Haylee.
Yes!
Gord grabbed Edna and gave her a big smooch. “You’re lovely,” he said.
“Not too greedy for sparkles?” she teased.
“Never.” He put an arm around her and led her into the mansion. “You sparkle all by yourself.”
Loretta followed them into the vestibule, with Mona right behind her, pestering her about where Antonio would be. The front door closed behind them.
