Who What Wear

by Olivia Bennett

  Emma glanced at the photo with a jolt. He was right. That was exactly why she’d snapped the photo—to capture the small details and show them in a whole new way.

  Emma looked at the photo again. She found herself flashing back to that old pink dress of Holly’s. That was something else she thought needed a different focus, a new angle that would make people stop and look. Should that be how she approached the rest of her new holiday collection, too? She would have to think about it more, figure out how to make it work, but she was fairly sure Jackson’s comment might have just sparked something great.

  “Yeah, that’s why I like the photo, too,” she said. She almost forgot to be nervous and smiled at him.

  He tilted his head away and kind of slid his eyes back toward her. It was hard to tell if he was smiling or what, but he looked happy.

  Emma’s skin tingled, and she tried desperately not to stare at him. For a second, it felt as if the two of them were alone in the hall.

  But only for a second.

  “Jackson,” Lexie said. “Let’s go. I need to get something out of my locker before homeroom.” Lexie shot Emma a suspicious look as she led Jackson down the hall. Emma turned to watch him go, but Jackson never looked back.

  IN DEMAND

  You got here just in time, honey! I was about to pass out from severe lack of caffeine. I was almost desperate enough to attempt to choke down that toxic black sludge your father calls coffee.”

  Emma grinned as she and Charlie stepped out of the wheezy, old elevator. She needed a second to let her brain transition from the street-level cacophony of the Garment District to the cavernous, echoing, dusty halls of Laceland, her father’s wholesale lace business. “No need. We’re here to rescue you,” she said.

  Her father’s long-time receptionist, Marjorie Kornbluth, stood behind the Formica-covered desk. She quickly checked her frosted lipstick, platinum-blond bob, and fake lashes in a tiny mirror, though Emma didn’t know why she bothered. None of those things could move or had changed a bit, as far as Emma could tell, since way before she was born.

  “I won’t be long,” Marjorie promised in her scratchy voice, snapping her mirror shut and tucking it into her black-leather satchel handbag. “I know you have a lot to do, Allegra.”

  Emma’s grin widened. It was a relief to be here at Laceland, where everyone knew the truth.

  “Oh, hey, yeah,” she said. “When you get back, can you maybe give me a mini-lesson on how to deal with smocking? I have an idea to remake this kids’ dress Holly gave me, but I want to figure out how to put it back together before I take it apart.”

  “Anything, honey. But trust me, you don’t want me teaching you until I get some decent coffee in me.” Marjorie winked.

  One of the most surprising parts of Emma’s Allegra adventures so far had been discovering that Marjorie wasn’t just the most efficient receptionist this side of Broadway. She was also a skilled seamstress. She’d been a lifesaver when Emma was rushing to finish her first pieces for Paige. She owed Marjorie a lot. Not to mention her father, who paid her to help out around here, which in turn paid for most of her materials.

  Charlie plopped into Marjorie’s chair.

  “I’ve got the phones,” he said. “You go do the creative-genius thing.”

  “Really? You never do anything useful while you’re here,” Emma said.

  “So not true,” Charlie told her, feigning hurt. “I’m totally useful as an endless source of entertainment and moral support.”

  Emma laughed. “If that’s what you call sitting around reading weirdo manga comics and listening to your iPod, then sure. You’re way useful.”

  “You’re going to answer phones?” Marjorie asked, looking Charlie up and down. “Color me skeptical.”

  “No, seriously. I can totally do this.” Charlie cleared his throat, then grabbed the phone and spoke into it in a crisp British accent. “Good afternoon, Laceland. How may I be of service? Shipping and receiving? Please hold, madam.”

  Emma laughed. “Bravo! You must’ve inherited some of your mom’s acting genes after all.”

  Marjorie pursed her lips. “I suppose it’ll do. But no funny business, all right?”

  “Nevah!” Charlie exclaimed in an even more pronounced accent, crossing his heart with one finger. “Your job is safe with me.”

  Marjorie chuckled as the elevator arrived. She disappeared into it, leaving behind a trail of her signature scent: eau de coffee and hairspray.

  Emma shrugged and headed down the narrow hallway leading into the heart of the warehouse. She found her father in his office leaning over a bunch of lace samples with his warehouse manager, Isaac Muñoz. “Hi,” she greeted them. “Need some help with that?”

  “Hi there, Cookie,” Noah Rose replied. “I think we’re good. You might as well just head straight to your studio.”

  “Really?” Emma hesitated, feeling vaguely guilty. “I don’t mind...”

  “Go, go, save yourself!” Isaac told her and wriggled his slender fingers dramatically to shoo her off. “Do you think your father would offer if he didn’t mean it? Please!” He slapped one hand to his carefully gelled hair in mock horror.

  Emma giggled. Her father and Isaac were quite the odd couple. Noah Rose looked more like a linebacker than a guy who sold delicate, frilly lace for a living. He was easily twice the size of Isaac, though Isaac was at least twice as tightly wound as his boss and never stood still for more than half a second.

  Emma scurried off to her sanctuary, her studio. That was a grand name for the small space tucked into the back corner of the warehouse behind a wall of filing cabinets. But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that it was all hers.

  Holly’s old, pink smocked dress was draped over one of the stools in front of the huge metal worktable with its colorful collection of vintage cookie tins crammed full of ribbons, buttons, and all kinds of other treasures. Emma took the thick, plush, but slightly scratchy fabric between two fingers, rubbing it thoughtfully as ideas flitted through her head. She searched her inspiration wall until she found a photo.

  She’d found it in a box at the very back of her closet shelf. The snapshot was taken on that warm winter day in the park. She and Holly grinned at the camera, their happy seven-year-old faces smeared with a rainbow of candy colors from the half-eaten lollipops they were clutching. Emma was wearing a kimono hoodie and fitted cords, and of course, Holly wore the pink smocked dress. The two friends looked so joyful and carefree that the photo made Emma smile every time she saw it. But it also made her sad. Would her friendship with Holly ever be the same again?

  Eager to get started, she tacked the pink dress onto the front of one of the three dress forms she’d scavenged on 37th Street. Then she grabbed a fresh notebook and a handful of her Faber-Castell colored pencils; sat in front of her most beloved possession, the old but reliable Singer sewing machine that had been a birthday gift from her Grandma Grace; and started sketching.

  Isaac bustled past a little while later, pausing to peer into her studio. “I thought you were making grown-up clothes, not kiddie stuff,” he said, breaking her out of her creative fog.

  “I am.” Emma stood and circled around Holly’s dress, analyzing it from every angle. “This is the inspiration for my next collection. I’m working with the idea of little girls playing dress-up.”

  The idea had formed during science class that day. As Mr. Singh droned on about something environmental and boring, Emma had carefully pulled her sketchbook onto her lap to keep herself awake. She’d sketched out different ideas for reworking the pink dress, thinking about the way Holly had wanted to wear it everywhere and how much fun it had been to play dress-up at her apartment on Saturday. Then Emma had thought about Jackson’s comment on that photo in her locker. About showing something old and ordinary in a new way. That was kind of her thing, anyway.

  “I’m using typical little-girl clothes to add an unexpected twist to what are otherwise sleek and chic grown-up pieces,” she ex
plained to Isaac.

  “Fab.” Isaac nodded. “And so appropriate somehow for a fourteen-year-old designer, no?”

  “Yep.” She grinned at him. “I thought of that, too.”

  Charlie wandered in at that moment. “You thought of what?” he asked, as he tossed his backpack in a corner.

  “It was all kind of inspired by Holly,” Emma explained. She cast a critical eye on the pink frock. Yeah, she would definitely need Marjorie’s help if she wanted to recreate the smocking. “See that photo?”

  She pointed, and Charlie wandered closer. “Is that you and Holly?”

  “Uh-huh. We were seven.” Emma grabbed a swatch of charcoal-gray wool bouclé and held it up, debating whether it was sophisticated enough to counterbalance the sickly sweet pink. She pulled some plaid flannel scraps out of a bin under her desk and tried pinning those to the dress form as well.

  Then she glanced over at the photo again. Despite her excitement about her new direction, Emma couldn’t help sighing.

  “What?” Charlie demanded.

  “It still feels weird. Keeping such a huge secret from Holly, I mean. Especially now that the two of us are sort of back on track, friendship-wise.”

  Charlie flopped onto a wooden stool. “Seriously? Does that mean she’s finally realized that Ivana Abbott is a waste of space?”

  “Sadly, no.” Emma made a wry face. “But she’s been really cool about...” She stopped herself, realizing she’d been about to mention her crush on Jackson. Charlie didn’t know about that. Even though she usually told him everything, she’d never quite gotten around to mentioning it.

  Probably because she knew Charlie would mock him. Make fun of Jackson for hanging out with the shallow soccer boys. And she just didn’t want to hear it. Not now. “Um, I mean, she was really cool when Rylan Sinclare was acting like a jerk the other day.”

  “Rylan Sinclare?” Charlie glanced up from fiddling with his iPod. “You mean that high-school snob who thinks she rules the school? Man, that girl’s a freak. I heard she makes all her friends text her every morning to tell her what they’re wearing. They’re, like, never supposed to wear the same color as her, or something. Where’d you have the misfortune of running into her?”

  “Holly’s. Rylan is friends with Jen, remember?”

  “Oh, right.” He shrugged. “Sorry, guess I haven’t been keeping track of the high-school social register. Whatever.”

  “Anyway,” Emma said, “if I can make this big-girl, little-girl idea work, I think it will be really cool. Especially for the holiday season when everyone likes to dress up.”

  Charlie reached for Emma’s sketchbook. He flipped through pages of rompers, baby-doll dresses, empire-waist dresses with edgy sashes, soft ruffles, and textured tights in high, strappy heels.

  “Are all these new designs?” he asked. “They look good. Very Allegra. But I thought you only needed like six pieces for the pop-up shop.”

  “I do. But I keep having more ideas.”

  “You need to narrow them down soon if you’re going to finish in time.”

  Emma raised an eyebrow. “Oh, come on. You’re suddenly turning into the voice of responsibility?”

  Charlie grinned. “What can I say? I like to keep you on your toes.”

  A phone buzzed, and Emma dug through a pile of fabric on her worktable. “The Allegra phone. I think I set it down here somewhere.”

  “Got it.” Charlie pushed aside a stack of zippers and grabbed the cherry-red phone. Without bothering to check who was calling, he flipped it open and pressed it to his ear. “Allegra Biscotti International,” he said in his crisp British-secretary voice. “How may I direct your call?” He listened for a second and then spoke again in his normal voice. “Yeah, she’s right here.” Tossing the phone to Emma, he said, “Paige.”

  “Paige? Hi,” Emma said into the phone, suddenly nervous. What if the editor was calling to tell her that the powers-that-be at Madison had decided not to include Allegra Biscotti in the pop-up after all?

  “Emma. How’s the new collection going?” Paige called out.

  “Fine so far,” Emma said. “I—”

  “Great, great, fantastic.” Paige sounded even more frazzled than usual. “Listen, something else just came up.”

  “Something else?” Emma echoed cautiously.

  “One of the vice presidents of Madison’s parent company was just here. Some corporate suit from up on the top floor. I have no idea what he does, but his signature is on all my paychecks. His daughter saw your designs on the magazine’s blog, and now she wants Allegra Biscotti to design a fabulous one-of-a-kind dress for some insanely opulent party she’s throwing.

  “It’s going to be at that super-luxe new members-only club in Chelsea that everyone’s talking about—Chateau. You know it? Anyway, Daddy Dearest must’ve laid out a fortune and a half to book that place, and he’s ready to pay big bucks for this dress, too.”

  “Um, okay?” Emma always had trouble keeping up when Paige started talking a million miles a minute. “When’s the party?”

  “That’s the crazy part. It’s late next month—actually, the same weekend as the pop-up shop.”

  “What?” Emma shook her head even though she knew Paige couldn’t see her. It was going to be hard enough to finish six pieces in time for the grand opening. No way could she design an extra dress on top of that! At least not without dropping out of school and giving up sleep. And she had a feeling her parents weren’t going to go for either of those options.

  “I already said yes,” Paige informed her. “I didn’t have a choice, if you know what I mean.” She sighed loudly. “Oh, and I almost forgot. The party girl goes to your school. Her name is Rylan Sinclare.”

  WRINKLES

  R-Rylan Sinclare?” Emma stammered, wondering if they had a bad phone connection. No, hoping they had a bad connection.

  “Do you know her?” Paige asked.

  “Yes. No. Sort of. Not exactly,” Emma stumbled.

  “Hmm. Well, figure it out, because we’re meeting with Rylan and her mother on Friday afternoon.”

  “A meeting?” If Emma had felt overwhelmed by the thought of layering another project on top of her other work, like adding a wool vest on top of a puffy down jacket, she was absolutely stunned now. Design a dress for Rylan Sinclare? The Rylan Sinclare? The girl would tear her apart—without the aid of a seam ripper.

  “Yes, of course.” Paige was beginning to sound impatient. “How else are you going to make a custom dress for her?”

  Emma clutched her phone tighter, ignoring Charlie’s curious stare as he listened to her side of the conversation. “Um, okay, yeah, I get that,” she said. “But how am I supposed to pull this off? I mean, aren’t they going to be surprised when I show up to meet her? Especially if she recognizes me from school?”

  Fat chance that will ever happen. Rylan probably didn’t know she existed. Well, not unless she happened to remember the weird girl in the weirder outfit she’d made fun of at Jennifer’s apartment the other day.

  “Don’t worry about that,” Paige said. “I’m already working on a plan. But I’ll have to fill you in later, okay? I’m way late for my next meeting. Ciao!” The line cut off.

  “What was that all about?” Charlie asked as Emma hung up and dropped the phone back onto the worktable.

  “Allegra just got commissioned to design a party dress for a rich private client,” she whispered, still trying to make sense of it all.

  His eyes went wide. “Rylan Sinclare? For real? She’s your first client?”

  Emma nodded and then quickly filled him in on the details—or at least as many as Paige had shared with her. By the end, Charlie was shaking his head.

  “What a waste,” he declared, kicking at the leg of the battered stool he was sitting on. “Allegra’s designs are too good for Rylan and the rest of the superficial squad at Downtown Day.”

  “I don’t know,” Emma mumbled, still too shocked to really take this all in. “Rylan
’s a snob, but she does know how to dress.”

  Charlie didn’t seem to hear her. “I know!” he exclaimed, jumping to his feet and pacing restlessly across the room, dodging dress forms. “This could be your chance to get back at her for all the stuck-up crap she’s ever done. I mean, she’s a total label Mabel, right?”

  “A what?”

  “Yeah, I just made that up.” Charlie stopped and smiled, looking pleased with himself. “A label Mabel is, like, a person who cares more about the label than anything else. Like, she’d wear a plastic tablecloth if some foo-foo designer slapped their label on it. You know the type.”

  Ivana and her followers flashed in Emma’s mind. They fit the definition.

  “So all you have to do is have Allegra design the ugliest dress in the world.” Charlie waved his hands around, looking more excited by the second. “Like, I’m talking full-out repulsive, maybe gold lamé with pink fur trim and a matching sombrero. As long as it’s got the Allegra Biscotti label on it, she’ll wear it!” Then he gasped. “Ooh! Or even better—you could totally go all Emperor’s New Clothes on her! Just think of the reaction when she walks into her own party wearing nothing but her unmentionables.”

  Emma couldn’t help laughing at his enthusiasm. She relaxed, at least a little. “Okay, picturing that just might help me survive,” she said. “But I hate to break it to you—it’s not going to happen for real. Allegra’s rep is at stake. Besides, I’d never do that to someone, not even Rylan Sinclare.”

  “Yeah, you’ve always been too nice,” Charlie said. “It’s one of your worst qualities.”

  She grinned. “Thanks, pal.”

  “You’re welcome, pal. So you’re going to design Rylan some fabulous Allegra dress?”

  “I don’t have a choice,” Emma said. “Anyway, it shouldn’t be too hard to fit it in. I mean it’s not like I have to design and sew a whole collection in a few weeks. Hey, what’s one more dress?”