A Custom Fit Crime

by Melissa Bourbon

  He’d been there for a long time. “For about ten years now.” We both knew Michel Ralph Beaulieu from our days at Maximilian. Back then he’d been everywhere, making the rounds and ingratiating himself with every designer he could. When he’d gone off on his own, we’d seen his success as a sign of what could happen for each of us. Our own lines. A show at Fashion Week. A real future as a designer.

  I was developing my own line, and I saw myself as a designer. I no longer cared about showing at Fashion Week. I was content right where I was.

  She frowned, but not even that marred the perfect, Botox-free silk of her skin. “Don’t you think a lot of his stuff is imitation?”

  I’d definitely seen similarities between Beaulieu and Jean Paul Gaultier, whose brilliance was drawn from the world around him, from different cultures, cinema, and rock music, for starters. His designs were worn by icons like Madonna and Lady Gaga, and he brought something utterly new to the fashion world.

  “Beaulieu’s stuff seems more Prêt-à-Porter.” Orphie stretched her long legs out on the settee, stifling a yawn. I hid my own, suddenly reminded that it was now nearly two thirty in the morning.

  “I do some ready-to-wear pieces, too, Orphie,” I said. She’d glanced at some of the clothing on the portable rack. I preferred couture, like any designer, but Bliss didn’t have much use for stagelike costuming or artistic statements through clothing. My Country Girl in the City collection was unique, practical, and truly represented my hybrid perspective. It wasn’t boudoir or urban jungle or mishmash like Beaulieu, and it wasn’t Japanese punk or metropolis like Midori, but it was me, and I was proud of it. Everything I created was a combination of body, heart, and soul. Like with most designers, what I created always expressed who I was as a person. Emotions, complications, layers . . . it was all woven into every seam, every cut, every tuck and pleat. I had an appreciation for sewing with care, for reenvisioning couture. Intricately crafting a garment from the design stage to the last seam was all part of what made sewing such an enjoyable experience for me.

  “Orphie,” I said, sinking down on the love seat opposite her, the coffee table that had been repurposed from an old door between us. My lookbook and another bowl of felt beads I’d been working on for my collection’s accessories sat in the middle of it. Another yawn came. I plumped a pillow under my head, and it suddenly felt as if we were back in Manhattan in our minuscule loft apartment. “What’s going on?” She’d called out of the blue, telling me she was coming for a visit, but she hadn’t said why. Now it was time for her to fess up.

  “You said your mom’s getting married to that cowboy sheriff,” she said drowsily.

  I tried to follow her lead, but I could feel sleep slip over me like a veil. “Right.” My mother and Hoss McClaine were getting hitched, and it was going to be a really eclectic Southern wedding. I’d been charged with making her dress, which I had done, and my sister-in-law Darcie’s bridesmaid dress, which was mostly done. I was maid of honor and hadn’t even started on that design. On my list of things to do was something for Will Flores’s daughter, Gracie. After that I’d be done, but I hadn’t come up with the right design for either dress yet. And I only had a matter of days.

  Orphie’s eyes had begun to drift closed, but she pried them open again, her gaze falling on the red and black suitcase she’d set by the steps to the little dining area. “And you have the photo shoot. I haven’t seen you in ages, and I figured you could use a little help with all of it.”

  She was a true friend, and she sounded sincere, but there was a tenseness in her expression and I knew there was something she wasn’t telling me. Southern women had several rules they lived by, one of which was being well versed in doublespeak. True, Orphie wasn’t Southern—she was as Midwestern as they came—but she’d picked up some tricks from me over the years, and I suspected there was a little subtext under her statement that she’d come to help. “Orphie?” I said, stretching out her name, my voice lilting on the last syllable.

  “Harlow?” she replied.

  “What’s going on? You did not drive ten hours and arrive in the middle of the night to help me with my sewing, although, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you’re here.”

  She sighed, sitting up and propping her elbows on her knees. I mirrored her, but then she got up and trudged, as much as a five-foot-ten-inch lithe woman can trudge, over to her suitcase. She plopped it down flat, unzipped it, and lifted a book off the top of the neatly folded clothes.

  I recognized that book. Hard black cover. Crisp white interior pages. Maximilian logo embossed on the front. I jumped up and backed away as if it were a coiled snake. “Orphie, what are you doing with that?”

  “I never told you the reason I left Maximilian,” she said, her voice slow and tired.

  I didn’t like the sound of that simple statement. The fact was, she’d just up and quit. Packed up one day and left, with no explanation. “Family,” she’d said later when I’d pressed her.

  “Why’d you leave?” I asked, not entirely sure I wanted to hear the answer.

  She strode to me, book outstretched in her arms. “This is why,” she said solemnly. “You’re one of my closest friends, Harlow. And . . . and I need your help.”

  Oh Lord. So Orphie hadn’t come to help me with Mama’s wedding to the sheriff, and she hadn’t come to be my assistant for the D Magazine photo shoot. Which left only one possibility. Had she come here because . . . was it possible that . . . oh no. Could she have stolen one of Maximilian’s prized design books, the thing that held his ideas and sketches? I stared at her, trying to make sense of that absurd thought and wondering just how on earth she thought I could help her.

  Chapter 2

  Orphie and I had lived together for almost two years, which meant I had a good take on how she operated. Or at least I thought I had. I never would have pegged her as the kind of girl to steal a design book from her boss, so maybe I didn’t know her at all. In which case, I just needed to be up front.

  “What in tarnation are you doing with Maximilian’s design book?”

  Her lower lip quivered and her eyes teared up. “It . . . it was a horrible mistake,” she finally blurted. “I . . . I was so frustrated with everything we were doing for him. All the long hours and endless sewing, and for what? We never got any credit.”

  “But look at us now,” I said, cupping my hand over hers.

  “Look at us now? You are barely making ends meet, and I’m nowhere close to doing what I’m meant to be doing.”

  “Orphie, I’m being featured in a pretty big magazine, and you? You’ve got your own line and it’s fantastic! We’re both doing great. It’s not New York, but neither of us liked New York all that much.”

  My words had been meant to cheer her up, but a tear slipped down her cheek and she lost what little control she had over her emotions. Her chest heaved and she dropped her head to her hands. “You d-don’t understand, Harlow,” she said through her sobs.

  I sucked in a deep breath, steadying my mounting anxiety. “Then tell me.”

  Instead of launching into some sort of explanation, she got up again, made another trip across the room to her suitcase, but this time, she came back with a dress. It was a halter design with a full skirt, full of playfulness, yet the fabric and cut held a subtle hint of seduction. She draped it over the arm of the love seat, the skirt fanning out to show the full design of the crepe de chine.

  I fingered the hem. “It’s gorgeous,” I said. It had a familiar look to it. Similar to . . . My gaze strayed to Maximilian’s book. “Oh no.”

  “Oh yes,” she said. She flipped open the book, licking her middle finger and dragging it across the lower right-hand corner, turning the pages. She stopped, turning the book around on the table to face me.

  The pencil sketches on the page showed angular models, legs crossed, tiny pointed toes, and a dress from different angles, almost identical—my eyes slid back to the garment she’d brought from her suitcase—to the one lying acros
s my couch.

  “Orphie, tell me you didn’t.”

  “I can’t,” she said, her voice scarcely more than a whisper. “It’s one of his older books,” she said, as if that made a difference. She paused, swallowed, and seemed to realize how ridiculous that statement had been. “I took it without thinking, and once I had it, I panicked and—”

  “And that’s why you left,” I finished.

  “Part of me wanted to return it, but . . . but . . .”

  I understood. She’d been at war with herself over doing what was right and doing what she thought might get her some success. Even if it wasn’t earned.

  “It’s not too late, you know.”

  Her eyes opened wider as she looked at me. “I think it is.”

  “It’s not.” My mind raced through the possibilities. “We can just mail it back. Anonymously.”

  But she shook her head. “Believe me, I thought of that. But if we mail it from here, or anywhere near Texas, they could blame you. If I mailed it from Missouri, they’d blame me. Anywhere in between, they’d figure out I’d driven from there to here and that would be that. No. I can’t just mail it back.”

  “Who’s they, Orphie? It’s not like there are fashion police out there waiting to apprehend . . .”

  I trailed off, not sure how to end the sentence. She did it for me, her eyes welling with tears. “Waiting to apprehend thieves? What if they are? Maximilian is a big name in fashion, even if the book is a few years old. I haven’t even had a chance to try to make it as a designer and I could lose everything.”

  “People make mistakes,” I said. “You had a lapse of judgment, but you want to make it right. That counts for something, Orphie.”

  “Does it?” she asked, more to herself than to me. She cast a sorrowful gaze down. The bones of her shoulders curved in as her back hunched before she added, “I’m not so sure and it might be too late for that.”

  Chapter 3

  The next morning came all too soon. Orphie was keeping something from me. I knew it in my bones. But she wouldn’t spill whatever it was, and we’d eventually fallen into a sleepy silence and drifted off—me on the couch and her on the settee. We were awakened when Mama showed up, plowing through the front door and dropping an oversized shopping bag on the floor by my red cowboy boots.

  My eyes flew open, sleep instantly leaving and adrenaline rushing in. “What time is it?”

  “Time for you to be up and at ’em,” Mama said. “What in heaven’s name are you doing on the couch?” she asked, but then she laid eyes on Orphie and her furrowed brow smoothed. “Well, bless my soul. Is this—?”

  Orphie had pushed herself to a seated position, grinning sheepishly at my mother. “Orphie Cates, Ms. Cassidy. I showed up a little early.”

  “It’s Tessa,” Mama corrected, and before Orphie knew what was happening, my mother caught her up in a big ol’ Southern hug. “You’re every bit as beautiful as Harlow said you are. Even sleepy-eyed, isn’t she, Harlow Jane?”

  I nodded, padding toward the kitchen. Orphie could be wearing a tattered bathrobe and have an avocado face mask smeared all over her skin and she’d still look like a million dollars. “Yes, ma’am,” I said, wishing I could look half as good when I rolled out of bed. I could feel my hair standing on end and the puffiness beneath my eyes. Good Lord, it was nine o’clock. Time really was a-wastin’.

  Nana came in through the Dutch door in the kitchen just as I pressed the brew button on my single-cup coffee machine. She kicked off her shoes to pad around in her pristine white socks, which was her habit. “Mornin’, darlin’,” she said.

  As if in response, the gingham-checked drape on the coil rod beneath the sink rustled. Loretta Mae was in the house whispering her own form of good mornin’ to us.

  A moment later, Nana was in the front room throwing her arms around Orphie, too. “As I live and breathe, we’ve heard so much about you over the years. I don’t know how Harlow would have survived Manhattan without you,” she drawled.

  “Didn’t take her long to hightail it home after you left,” Mama added. “So I reckon we should thank you for that.”

  It was true, Orphie had suddenly quit Maximilian, packed up her belongings, and vacated the little loft we’d shared, and I’d come home to Bliss not long after. The truth was, though, that Meemaw had passed and I’d found out that she’d deeded me her little farmhouse the very hour I’d been born. It felt right to come home to Texas.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” Orphie said, pulling free from the Cassidy clan. She gathered up issues of Vogue and Marie Claire that had ended up on the coffee table the night before, slipping them back in the magazine rack near the sitting area, finally turning back to face my mother and grandmother. Mama and Nana looked like two peas in a pod. They stood in front of Orphie, their arms folded in front of them, skeptical looks on their faces. They were small-town women, but were savvy enough to know that a long-lost friend showing up in the middle of the night was cause for suspicion. “What brings you to Bliss?” Mama asked.

  Cut to the chase, that was my mama’s modus operandi.

  Orphie lowered her gaze to mine and I felt as if she were sending me silent pleas to help her somehow. “I haven’t seen Harlow in ages, is all, and she told me about your wedding—congratulations, by the way! And the big magazine story? That’s beyond exciting for a designer. I just had to be here.”

  I knew the truth, and I’d known Orphie long enough to know that the zip and enthusiasm in her voice were sincere but also laced with her worry. They did the trick with Mama and Nana, though, softening their expressions instantly. They both dropped their arms to their sides, nodding and letting their skepticism slip off their faces and allowing smiles to slide on. “Isn’t that sweet of you?” Mama said. She looked at me. “Isn’t that sweet of her, sugar? Came all the way from—” She turned back to Orphie. “Where do you live now?”

  “Springfield. Missouri,” she added, in case we didn’t know our geography.

  “All the way from Missouri. That’s a good friend.”

  I nodded, smiling, but my gaze was pulled to her suitcase still sitting undone in the corner by the French doors. Maximilian’s book might as well have been a beacon. I wanted to snatch it up, wiggle my nose, and have it disappear from here and end up back in Maximilian’s hands.

  But that wasn’t going to happen.

  Nana walked into the workroom, picked up the garment on top of my work pile, and held it up. It was a straight skirt with a scalloped edge. She looked at me, a silent question passing from her to me as she said, “Harlow tells us these two designers she’s with in the magazine article are some highfalutin bigwigs.”

  “They are,” I said as I picked up a length of lace and handed it to her, along with the pincushion and a spool of thread. “Midori brings in specialty fabrics from Japan and puts design elements together that are . . .” I was speechless for a second. “She’s in a class by herself, that’s all. And Michel Ralph Beaulieu? People just love his clothes—”

  “Regardless of how good they actually are,” Orphie said, and I knew she was referring to his derivative nature.

  “He’s a little abrasive,” I added, “but he does quality work.”

  “I hear he refused to use models from the DFW Metroplex,” Orphie said.

  I’d heard the same thing, and the modeling community in Dallas, such as it was, wasn’t happy about that. “True. But Midori’s the same way. She has her go-to girls and no one else can wear her clothes.”

  “At least she chooses locals,” Orphie said. “Beaulieu’s a New York snob. I heard he won’t work with anyone who hasn’t walked a major runway.”

  “He doesn’t sound like my kind of people,” Nana said as she dragged a stool from the cutting table to the threshold of the workroom and perched on the edge of it. She draped the skirt over her lap, threaded the needle, and expertly stitched the lace behind the hemline.

  “He wasn’t all that bad when I met him in Dallas.�
� I pointed to a scallop on the skirt. “Gather it at each point.”

  She nodded. “Lovely design, ladybug,” she said.

  Orphie grinned, her tired eyes lighting up. “Ladybug,” she said, her voice reminiscent.

  She and I knew almost everything about each other, including childhood nicknames. The only thing she didn’t know was the reason behind the ladybug nickname—namely that the Cassidy women tended to hang around after they’d passed. Family legend said that my great-great-grandmother, Cressida, had fluttered around as a ladybug, sticking close to me when I’d been a child learning to sew with Meemaw.

  “Did you make your dress yet?” Mama asked me. Her wedding was just days away, and the devil was in the details. Rehearsal dinner at Babe’s Chicken House, ceremony at the Baptist church, and reception at the new bed-and-breakfast opened by sisters Hattie Barnett and Raylene Lewis.

  “Not yet, Mama, but I will.”

  She sent me a scolding look. It wasn’t that I was procrastinating; I just hadn’t figured out what to make quite yet. Somehow designing for myself was overly challenging. I didn’t think I could make my own dreams come true, and I wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted beyond what I already had. Maybe that was what held me back. Regardless, my mind was blank in regards to my own dress.

  Thankfully, like any supercharged bride-to-be, Tessa Cassidy was on to the next task on her list. “I’ve decided that I don’t want a traditional veil.”

  Uh-oh. Mama making fashion decisions meant I’d been coerced into designing a cowgirl wedding gown that she’d be wearing with embellished cowboy boots. All of which, I knew, Hoss McClaine, her fiancé, would adore, but which fashion bloggers everywhere would eschew.

  “What do you want instead?” I asked, afraid of the answer.

  She reached for the shopping bag she’d left by the front door and took out a bundle wrapped in tissue paper. I knew what it was before she had all the paper undone.