Wish

by Alexandra Bullen

  Bridget nodded and gave Olivia’s shoulder a tiny squeeze. “It’s up to you.” She shrugged, smiling coolly and inching past her daughter toward the stairs.

  That afternoon, Olivia stood with her hands on her hips, staring vacantly into the open closet.

  Her second day at Golden Gate had been interminably long and deafeningly quiet, and she’d somehow managed to get by without uttering more than forty-eight words. She’d gotten to each of her classes early, introduced herself to the teacher (Olivia Larsen, I’m new here; nice to meet you = 9 words x 5 classes = 45 words), said, “Excuse me,” when she’d stepped on somebody’s toe, rushing on her way to AP Calculus (two words), muttered a curt and hurried, “Hey,” when she’d spotted Miles in the courtyard (one word), and smiled tightly when she’d clumsily bumped into the mysterious, green-eyed skater boy in the hall (zero words).

  She’d been slowly unpacking since she got off the bus, starting with the boxes full of her favorite books and collection of tattered journals. But the new bookshelves her father was supposedly building were still in pieces in his shop in the basement, and she hadn’t felt much like writing in her journal lately. She’d moved on to the unopened boxes of clothing, stuffing sweaters into the bottom drawers of the clean, white armoire her mother had picked out at Pottery Barn. The last thing she wanted to think about was finding a dress for the stupid cocktail event tomorrow night, mostly because she didn’t want to go, but also because her collection of formal wear, recently unfolded and draped on a few sad wire hangers in the closet, was officially pathetic.

  There was the thick, strapless gown she’d worn to the sophomore semiformal, which had made her feel glamorous at the time, but weighed about two hundred pounds and was way too fancy for the office. There were a few flowery cotton sundresses, sleeveless and not at all appropriate for any place other than the beach. And of course the mauve taffeta number she’d worn as a junior bridesmaid in her cousin Lorelei’s wedding, with puffy sleeves and a high, cinched waist that had made her feel like an Oompa-Loompa on the one occasion she was forced to wear it.

  Olivia groaned and fell back onto her bed, covering her face with a pillow.

  Shopping had been Violet’s number one extracurricular. When Olivia and her mother had gone through Violet’s things, even they had been astonished to discover the amount of clothing she’d managed to amass over the years. She hadn’t been a spree-shopper, coming home weighted down with bags from Saks or Nordstrom. It was all done piecemeal—a soft cotton tunic from that little boutique in Wellesley Center; a pair of enormous sunglasses from a flea market in Harvard Square; the vintage Pucci dress she’d found in a Somerville consignment shop and was planning on wearing to the junior prom…

  It was smooth satin, almost liquid to the touch, and swirled with bright concentric circles. It had originally been astronomically expensive, but had been marked down to just within her budget because of an enormous, side-baring tear at the zipper.

  Violet didn’t care. She’d had to have it, claiming that a seamstress would be able to fix it, no problem. But she’d never gotten the chance to find one.

  Olivia sat up on her bed, her feet landing heavily on the carpet.

  The dress.

  Slowly, she stood and walked across the room to the door in the corner. Before she had time to change her mind, she took the knob in her hand and turned it, pulling the creaky door open and stepping inside.

  The room was flooded with hazy sunlight and stale, trapped air. There was no furniture, only the windows, the built-in love seat, and a sad row of boxes against the far wall. Olivia held her breath and walked purposefully toward the boxes. She knelt beside them, running her hands along the masking tape.

  Carefully, afraid of making a sound, Olivia pulled back the cardboard flaps. Her nostrils immediately tingled at the familiar scent, a mix of sea salt and strawberry-kiwi shampoo.

  She plunged her hands into the first box, digging around pairs of cowboy boots and metallic ballet flats. The second box was accessories, mostly chunky charm necklaces and printed scarves. It was in the third box that she found the dress, folded neatly near the top.

  She let her fingers graze the soft, cool satin, the dizzying print starting to blur behind her clouding eyes. Her fingers caught in the hanging threads by the zipper, poking through the gaping hole down the side. All she needed now was a seamstress.

  Crawling to her feet, she brought the dress out in front of her, held the fabric against her skin.

  Of course.

  Violet had had the answer all along.

  4

  The rain just wouldn’t let up.

  It was a familiar refrain, and everyone from the punky receptionist at school to the perky weather blonde on the six o’clock news seemed to have an opinion about when the rainy season would finally end.

  Before the move, Olivia’s mother had enthusiastically reminded her daughter that they couldn’t be arriving at a better time of year. “You won’t see a drop of rain from March to October,” she’d said.

  So far, it had rained at least once a day. And not always just sprinkles. Heavy, sky-splitting downpours, the kind that made wearing jeans or getting out of the car a gamble.

  Olivia had left her stoop and started down Dolores just as Friday evening’s downpour was getting under way, a single, fat drop splattering on the sidewalk beside her boot. Almost an hour of sloshing through puddles of murky curb water later, she’d decided that searching for a seamstress in the rain wasn’t one of her most brilliant ideas. After trudging from one soaked corner to another, scanning the hodgepodge of window displays—a cute little antique furniture shop, a watch repair store, and about ten yoga studios in a six-block radius—she was fairly certain that she wasn’t going to find a tailor in her neighborhood.

  She was pulling the collar of her black Windbreaker tighter around her neck when a dim light in a dark corner storefront caught her eye. It was in a building on the corner across from the manicured median of palm trees, a building she walked past every day on her way to the bus stop. A burgundy awning jutted out from the dirty concrete wall, and Olivia had always assumed the space was empty. There was even a laminated sign in the window, one that she could have sworn used to say for rent. But as Olivia walked closer, ducking under the awning, which flapped wildly in the wind, she saw that the sign was actually a handwritten note:

  Mariposa of the Mission.

  Olivia cupped her hands to the glass and peered inside. The glare from a yellow streetlight floating overhead made it hard to see anything, and she could just barely make out the hulking shadows of garment bags and sewing machines. It looked like an abandoned dry cleaner’s, minus the mechanically rotating shirts.

  Olivia blinked, her eyes traveling across the room. In the far corner, lounging on a threadbare divan, was a small, dark-haired girl. She glanced up from the paperback book open in her lap, and looked pointedly through the window at Olivia, almost as if she’d been waiting for her.

  Olivia quickly dropped her hands to her side and hopped back, startled. Was it possible that all this time, the very thing she was looking for had been around the corner from where she’d started, just a few hundred feet from her own front door? Why hadn’t she seen it before?

  Olivia took a deep breath, remembering the dress she’d stuffed inside her purse, and pushed carefully through the heavy glass door.

  Tinny chimes rang out as soon as she stepped onto a straw welcome mat, and Olivia let the door shut quietly behind her. The girl in the corner had gone back to her book, and Olivia stood awkwardly at the entrance. Half-dressed mannequins haunted every corner of the small space, staring down from high perches with blank faces. Folds of fabric were layered on low wooden tables, and hidden in each nook and darkened corner were miniature glass butterfly figurines of varying shapes and colors. A soft yellow light fell in shafts from two tasseled lamps, cutting rays of swimming dust across the floor.

  Olivia cleared her throat, but the girl continued reading, he
r thick, dark brows furrowed to a bushy point. “Excuse me,” Olivia gingerly began. “Do you—?”

  “We’re closed,” the girl said, noisily flipping a page. She was remarkably tiny, with sticklike limbs that were swallowed by the round crimson cushions of a vintage love seat. The love seat itself was missing two legs, and had been propped up on one end against a broken, boxy record player.

  “Closed?” Olivia quietly repeated, her shoulders sinking. She glanced back through the darkening window, already imagining a night of mauve taffeta travesties, the itchy lining, the horrific swishing sound it made around her knees when she walked. She was reaching one hand to the door when a sharp voice called out from behind her.

  “Wait!”

  Olivia looked back to see that the girl had abandoned her book, which now lay open facedown in her lap. It was one of those steamy romance novels usually buried deep in the dollar bin outside used bookstores, with a half-naked couple swooning across the cover.

  “I’ve seen you before,” the girl said, staring at Olivia with tight, beady eyes. “You live nearby?”

  Olivia nodded and swallowed. “Yeah,” she answered, her mouth dry and her tongue slow. “We just moved in down the street. I was just, um, on my way home and I thought…I mean, I was just looking—”

  “Looking is allowed.” The girl smiled, revealing a crowded row of what looked like baby teeth and pulling herself up to her feet. She spoke with a slight and indistinguishable accent, cleanly articulating each syllable and sound. Olivia wondered if she was foreign, or just one of those people who talk funny to be different.

  “I know that,” Olivia said, suddenly defensive.

  The girl reached behind a patchwork quilt that was hanging from a clothesline strung across one corner of the room, and pulled an old broom from where it had been leaning against a wobbly chest of drawers. Much like the girl, all of the furniture in the shop appeared arthritic, like it might buckle or fall if you sneezed in its general direction.

  “I’m Posey,” she said, lazily swatting the broom across a patch of dusty red tiles.

  Olivia took a step closer. “Olivia,” she said, her hand hanging awkwardly between them. Posey hesitated before extending her own hand, which was so small and spindly Olivia worried it might shatter into pieces. From close up, Posey’s brown eyes were flecked with bits of yellow-orange, and blinked curiously through dark, crooked bangs. There was something about the way she stared that made Olivia uncomfortable, like she suddenly wanted to put on another layer of clothes.

  “Nice to meet you, Olivia,” Posey said, spotting a toppled pile of fabric swatches at her feet and bending over to straighten it. As she stood, the corner of her shoulder bumped up against a table leg, and one of the small butterfly figurines tottered from side to side. Posey hurried to keep it from falling, delicately steadying its trembling wings to stillness.

  “I like your butterflies,” Olivia said, realizing immediately how lame it sounded. “I mean, they’re nice. I like butterflies, you know; they’re—”

  Posey smiled. “Thanks,” she said. “They were my grandmother’s.”

  As Posey carefully lifted her hand from the ornament and went back to sweeping the floor, Olivia recognized a familiar flash across her eyes. They were my grandmother’s. It was the look of someone who had lost something she’d never get back.

  “Was this her shop?” Olivia inquired.

  Posey nodded. “She started doing alterations for people in the basement,” she explained. “Pretty soon, she had a following. There were articles in magazines, the Style section of the paper…”

  “She must have been talented,” Olivia ventured.

  “She was,” Posey said, the lost look in her eyes lingering as she continued sweeping the same superclean spot on the floor. “I’ve tried to keep it going without her, but…” Her voice trailed off as she gestured with her eyes at the empty, run-down shop, before vigorously tossing her head from side to side, as if to shake out something that hurt too much to remember.

  “So what can I do for you?” Posey asked abruptly, tilting the broom back against the corner and settling her petite frame onto a wooden rocking chair.

  “Oh,” Olivia said, dropping one hand into her bag and searching for the soft folds of fabric inside. “I have this dress, and it has a really big rip up one side…”

  Posey gestured for Olivia to spread the dress out over her knees. She searched the material lovingly with her hands, her small, agile fingers quickly landing on the torn zipper. “It’s a beauty,” she said. “Vintage?”

  Olivia smiled uncertainly. “I really have no idea; it’s—it was—my sister’s.”

  Posey nodded, staring past Olivia, or through her.

  “Great style,” she remarked approvingly, hoisting herself up and laying the dress over the back of an empty chair. “Definitely a dress for someone who knows how to have a good time.”

  “Yeah,” Olivia said. “That was Violet.”

  She hadn’t meant to sound so sad, but she could tell as soon as the words escaped that they had landed hard.

  Posey smiled, her eyes now light and twinkling. “Come back next week,” she said, folding the dress back up and placing it on top of her book. “Is Thursday good for you?”

  Olivia anxiously chewed at the inside of her cheek and crossed her arms. “That’s the thing,” she said. “I kind of need it by tomorrow.”

  Posey froze, one hand still resting on the couch, the other curling into a tight little ball in her lap.

  “I know it’s short notice,” Olivia apologized. “My mom is making us go to this reception thing, and I don’t really have a choice. It’s not really a big deal. I mean, I’ll just be standing in a corner all night, probably, so it doesn’t matter what I wear. I just thought, I don’t know, if there was any way…”

  Posey looked up with her head tilted to one side. Her eyes held Olivia’s for a long moment before shifting across the room. In between two bare windows was a child-size wooden desk, scratched and complete with a built-in seat. The surface was bare except for a single spiral-bound notebook, lying open with a pencil beside it. “Leave your address,” she said softly. “I can drop it off tomorrow.”

  It wasn’t until Olivia exhaled a heavy sigh of relief that she realized she hadn’t been breathing. She hadn’t thought the dress was so important, but something about the look in Posey’s eyes sent a flood of raw emotion washing over her body, like standing under a bitter-cold waterfall, with the sun at your back.

  Olivia nodded once and walked to the desk, writing her address in careful print at the top corner of the open page.

  She turned to the door. The sky was streaked with a cloudy pink trail, the sun disappearing behind a row of pastel houses at the top of the hill.

  Olivia turned back to wave good-bye, but Posey was already lost again in her book. She wanted to say thank-you, or something like it, but feared the words would be too plain, too loud to mean what she wanted them to.

  Olivia smiled and stepped out onto the sidewalk, where the air was moist and thick enough to bottle.

  At last, the rain had stopped.

  5

  “Olivia, are you in there?”

  Olivia sat wrapped in a fluffy white bath towel at the foot of her bed, staring dumbly at the garment bag lying open beside her.

  “Your father went to get the car,” her mom continued from the hall. “Meet us out front in a minute?”

  “Sure,” Olivia said flatly. “I’ll be right there.”

  Just as Posey had promised, a floppy garment bag with Olivia’s name safety-pinned to one side had arrived on her stoop that afternoon. Olivia reached for the zipper and pulled it down slowly, careful not to catch any loose fabric in its wake. She tugged the front flap open, angling the hanger to free the material, and gasped. Sinking backward onto the bed, Olivia dropped her eyes to the floor, then brought them back up for a second look, which only confirmed what she had known from the moment the dark, heavy fabric had peeked
through the side of the bag.

  This was not Violet’s dress.

  First of all, this dress was black. All black. No spiral satin prints, no contrasting colored circles. The empire waist had become a drop, and the narrow, delicate straps had been replaced with a thick halter, plunging into a deep V at the neck. It wasn’t that the dress was ugly—it was simply, in fact, not hers.

  Olivia sprang to her feet. “It must be a mistake,” she concluded out loud, opening the bag wide and angling the gown back in place. She was tugging the stubborn zipper back across the front, when a crumpled piece of paper fluttered onto the floor.

  She bent down to pick it up, unfolding what looked like a business card. The words Mariposa of the Mission were typed on the front, above a stark, rudimentary graphic of a small golden butterfly. Olivia flipped the card over and saw that a note had been scrawled on the back. She stared at the sloppy, childlike handwriting, her eyes blurring the six little words and setting them swirling. Part of her hoped that if she stared long enough, they might morph into something not so devastatingly useless, like a shopping list or a recipe for lasagna.

  OLIVIA: TRY IT ON FIRST. POSEY.

  She balled the card up in her palm and tossed it at the wall.

  “Do you need any help?”

  Olivia jumped in place. Her mother was still standing on the other side of the door. “No,” she called out. “I’m fine.”

  Silence, then the staccato clatter of high heels disappearing down the hall.

  Olivia sat down on her bed and put her head in her hands. She could say she didn’t feel well, which was certainly the truth. But even before she’d fully played out the scenario in her mind, she knew it wasn’t an option. Her parents wouldn’t buy it. They’d see it only as a sign that something was wrong, which would initiate a chain of events involving probing but meaningless questions from her mom, and sidelong, uncomfortable glances from her dad.