Who What Wear

by Olivia Bennett

  Mrs. Sinclare still looked annoyed. “Well, I guess she liked my suggestions for the dress, eh?”

  “Oh, she knew at once that you are a woman of taste.” Francesca beamed at her. “Speaking of which, that suit. It is splendido!”

  “Thank you, Francesca.” Mrs. Sinclare was actually smiling now.

  Emma breathed out a silent sigh of relief. Go, Francesca!

  Paige stepped forward. “Allegra shipped the muslin for the dress by international overnight, so it’s all ready for you to try on.”

  Emma felt awkward. For one thing, she’d never imagined a situation where she’d be in the same room as Rylan Sinclare in her underwear. Plus, Paige had given Emma and Francesca a script of sorts to work from. She’d instructed Francesca to speak to Emma in Italian, just saying anything that came into her head. Emma was supposed to pretend she understood and “translate” for Rylan. That way, she could ask any questions she needed to or give instructions but make it sound as if it was all coming from Allegra.

  To her surprise, the plan worked pretty well. Rylan gave them a strange look now and then, but she didn’t say much. In fact, she seemed sort of deflated. She just stood there, moving when someone told her to move, lifting her arms or turning as needed.

  Meanwhile her mother was practically purring as she and Paige watched Emma and Francesca fiddle with the muslin.

  “It’s just as I envisioned it,” Mrs. Sinclare said with a pleased little smile. “I can’t wait to see it in the proper fabric. When will that be?”

  “At the next fitting,” Emma said, too distracted by trying to tweak the fit to remember the charade of letting Francesca speak first. “I still need to—er, I mean Allegra needs to—” She shot a helpless glance at Francesca.

  Luckily Francesca picked up the cue. “Of course, Allegra has been telling us all how excited she is to search out just the right fabric for this special dress, taking advantage of this unplanned trip to Europe to go to some of her contacts there for the finest of materials.” She added something in Italian, then glanced at Emma.

  “She says she hopes to have the dress ready in the real fabric by the next fitting,” she told Mrs. Sinclare.

  “Good, good.” Mrs. Sinclare was staring at the muslin. “Now, I love the way this is looking so far. Much classier. But I wonder if it wouldn’t look even better with some sort of collar?”

  Emma winced. Would this woman ever stop?

  “Thanks for opening up today, Dad,” Emma said as she and her father stepped out of the elevator into the dark hallway leading to Laceland’s empty lobby. It always looked abandoned without Marjorie sitting at the front desk. “I hate to make you come to work on a Saturday. It’s just that I still have a ton to do, and there are only two weeks before the pop-up opening.”

  “You’re doing me a favor, Cookie. Your mother was going to drag me to one of those antique book fairs.” Noah stepped around the desk and started opening file cabinets. “I’ll take lint from lace over dust from yellowed books any day! Just promise me we’ll stay long enough so there’s no chance I have to go to that thing. Deal?”

  “Deal.” Emma headed down the hall toward her studio. Just as she reached it, her phone vibrated. She fished it out of her pocket. Charlie.

  Downstairs. Buzz me up!

  “Charlie’s here!” she screamed to her dad, her voice echoing off the sixteen-foot ceilings.

  “Got it!” Noah pushed the button to release the lock on the front door. “I’ll send him back when he gets up.”

  “Thanks,” Emma called back.

  She entered her studio and gently removed the baby-doll dress she’d stitched together the previous day from where she left it on her sewing machine and slid it onto a dress form. Flouncy, soft, feminine, sweet. She loved everything about it. The short hemline and the luscious pink, lavender, blue, and yellow swirls.

  On the next dress form, she had started to cut apart Holly’s dress and stitch in the brown flannel panels. Sewn into the sides of the dress, the brown pieces wound up accentuating the line, almost outlining it, when you looked at it from the front. She loved how the boyish brown flannel played against the girly pink velvet.

  Holly would be so thrilled and surprised when she saw it. That is, if she ever talks to me again, Emma thought. But her eye kept wandering over to the muslin pattern on the third dress form. It was totally distracting. Like a fly on a TV screen. Or a pig at a wedding. Or anything that just...Did. Not. Belong.

  “Which of these things is not like the other?” she muttered, as she glanced from the colorful, stylish pop-up outfits to the blah muslin piece that now had a collar, to boot.

  “Huh?” Charlie said as he wandered in. “Hey, this is pretty cool,” he said, reaching out and touching the beginnings of the princess dress. Emma had begun working on the layers for the skirt, moving them around so she could experiment with which colors played off the best against the others. Should she do pomegranate on top, then burnt orange, then lime? Or should the lime go on top? Or in the middle?

  “Which order do you like for the tiers?” she asked Charlie, moving them around as if shuffling cards.

  “I can’t decide,” said Charlie. “It would be cool if you could mix it up. They all look good.”

  Emma gasped. “Charlie, you’re a genius!” she cried.

  He looked surprised. “Yeah, I know. We’ve discussed this before. Remember?” he said.

  She grinned. “Funny. No, listen, what you said just gave me a brainstorm.”

  “Really? What?”

  Emma was already dashing across the studio to the battered metal box where she kept zippers, elastic, ribbon, and anything else that was too big to fit into the tins on the worktable. She dug into it and pulled out a roll of Velcro. She would make the tiered dress in a way so that whoever wore it could move the two bottom tiers around. They could even wear just one or two tiers instead of all three if they wanted a shorter look. Each tier just needed some Velcro at the bottom. Just like the party dress with the sash that could be worn lots of different ways, this one could, too!

  MISMATCHED

  So no Allegra?”

  “Yes. I’m very sorry,” Paige said smoothly. “It’s just that—”

  Mrs. Sinclare waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, I know. Ms. Biscotti sent a note explaining her absence to my apartment yesterday with lovely flowers and delicious biscotti from Italy. I was dismayed and very concerned, of course, that she has to miss yet another fitting.” Mrs. Sinclare sounded oddly resigned to never seeing the phantom designer in person.

  Emma shot Paige a relieved look. She could hardly believe their ruse was still working. She and Charlie had been updating the Allegra blog every day or two, adding new yet vague references to various fashion emergencies. Francesca had sent the goodies to Mrs. Sinclare. Emma had also sent another text from Allegra to Rylan, letting her know she’d received her notes and was working them into her latest design.

  Rylan stood impatiently next to her mother, while Francesca launched into an Italian-peppered description of all the important things the designer was doing in Europe. Emma held her breath, hoping Francesca wouldn’t contradict anything she’d written on the blog. Luckily, Francesca seemed to have memorized it, though she did embellish a little, adding a glamorous party involving the members of several European royal families, which seemed to impress Mrs. Sinclare.

  “With all that travel, I hope she managed to get the dress done,” Mrs. Sinclare said, glancing at the garment bag hanging on the hook on the back of the office door.

  “Si, of course she did indeed! She would not neglect such an important project, signora,” Francesca assured her earnestly. “The FedEx company, they have been busy rushing your daughter’s lovely dress back and forth across the Atlantic to have it ready in time.”

  “Hmm.” Mrs. Sinclare looked rather pleased by that. “All right then, let’s see it.”

  “Good idea.” Paige walked over to the garment bag.

  Emma had spent
the past couple of days working on the dress. It wasn’t anything like the first one she’d designed, but she’d ended up liking it. A lot, actually. She had been able to salvage enough of the gracious lines of the original while giving in to Mrs. Sinclare’s sleeve and neckline. She’d even stitched a tiny, elegant, stand-up collar that, in a way, restored more of the original neckline. She had given Mrs. Sinclare everything she wanted—well, that is, if the iridescent turquoise could pass for napkin-colored, plus the sash that she didn’t want.

  It wasn’t the original black-and-sapphire, sleek, sleeveless dress that would be hanging in the pop-up shop. But it was pretty. It was more than pretty. And Emma was proud of herself for doing what Mrs. Sinclare wanted and what Rylan wanted.

  She had worked up until the very last minute that afternoon and hadn’t been able to find a taxi for the longest time, rushing in just seconds before the Sinclares did, so neither Paige nor Francesca had seen the new and improved dress.

  Emma held her breath, watching Paige unzip the garment bag and pull out the dress. Paige raised an eyebrow in surprise.

  What was that? Emma wondered. Does she like it?

  “That’s insane!” Rylan’s eyes lit up. “I didn’t think anyone could fix that ugly dress. But Allegra so pulled it off! I love it!”

  Emma couldn’t hold back her grin. Score!

  Mrs. Sinclare circled the dress. She rubbed the fabric between her fingers. And then she spoke. “Well, I don’t love it.”

  Emma’s grin faded. Thud.

  “What are you talking about?” Rylan shot her mother an irritated look. “It’s gorgeous, and it’s got your color. I’ll match the tables.”

  Mrs. Sinclare shook her head, grabbing the dress and shaking it at Paige. “I thought I told you I despised the sash.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Rylan grabbed her own head with both hands. “How can you say that? It’s the sash that makes it super-sophisticated instead of boring!”

  Emma caught herself starting to nod. Rylan got it! Maybe she wasn’t the shallow shopaholic Emma had always taken her for. Maybe she did have more individuality than Ivana and her follower friends would ever have.

  Francesca started to show Mrs. Sinclare all of the different ways the sash could be wrapped, just as Emma had instructed her. “See, it’s so chic,” she purred.

  “Buttons will make it less boring. And maybe Allegra can throw in a ruffle.”

  “A ruffle, Mom? You can’t be serious!”

  Mrs. Sinclare pushed the dress away, scowling at her daughter and everyone else in the room like a caged animal. “Drop the attitude,” she hissed at Rylan. “Pronto.”

  “What attitude?” Rylan’s eyes flashed. “You mean the attitude that I want to wear a dress that I actually like at my own Sweet Sixteen? Or the one that my mother doesn’t consider me in any decision she makes?”

  “We are not having this conversation in front of people,” Mrs. Sinclare warned through gritted teeth. Grabbing her daughter by the arm, she dragged her toward the door. “Pardon us,” she called, her voice lilting with false happiness. “We’ll be back in a moment.”

  She steered Rylan through the office door and shut it firmly behind her.

  “Mama mia!” Francesca murmured.

  Paige spun toward Emma. “Are you for real?” she exclaimed. “How could you make major changes like that without at least checking in with me? I thought you understood—”

  “No!” Emma burst out, feeling completely confused and emotional and overwhelmed by what had just happened. All she’d wanted to do was make a nice dress that would make everyone happy. How was she supposed to predict that Mrs. Sinclare would react that way?

  If she had to stand there and listen to Paige scold her right now, Emma was afraid she might break down completely. And she definitely didn’t want to do that in front of Paige. “I don’t understand! That’s the whole problem, okay? Excuse me, I—I need to get out of here for a second.”

  She rushed out of the office. There was nobody in view in the hallway outside. It was completely empty except for a rack of clothes that someone had left standing askew halfway to the lobby. Emma just stood there for a second, unsure where to go. All she needed was a few minutes alone to figure out what had gone so horribly wrong.

  Remembering that she’d noticed a ladies’ lounge farther down the hall on a previous visit, she headed that way. Her hand was on the doorknob when she heard raised voices inside and realized this must be where Rylan and her mother had gone.

  She almost turned and ran the other way. But she hesitated, a little curious in spite of everything.

  “...and I don’t know where your father and I went wrong with you, Rylan!” Mrs. Sinclare was saying roughly.

  “I try to make you proud of me!” Rylan protested, her voice sounding ragged around the edges. “I just—”

  “Don’t interrupt me when I’m talking to you!” Mrs. Sinclare snapped. “You just don’t appreciate what we do for you. You need to grow up and realize you can’t have everything exactly as you want all the time.”

  “Why not?” Rylan shouted. “You do!”

  “How dare you?” her mother thundered.

  Emma winced as Mrs. Sinclare started ranting again. Her voice was so loud, even through the closed restroom door, that it was difficult to hear much else. But Emma picked up another, softer sound beneath it. Was Rylan crying?

  Wow. So the Queen of Mean of Downtown Day actually had real, honest-to-goodness feelings. Who knew?

  After another minute or two of Mrs. Sinclare’s tirade, Emma was ready to creep off, feeling guilty about listening. But finally Mrs. Sinclare’s tone changed.

  “Stop that crying, Rylan,” she said, sounding more confused than angry all of a sudden. “I don’t know why you’re so upset about this, anyway. It’s just too bad that silly maid ruined your first dress. That one was perfect. None of this messing around with world-traveling designers and such.”

  “Yeah,” Rylan said with a loud sniffle. “Too bad.”

  “Pull yourself together,” her mother ordered. “In the meantime, I’ll go speak to Francesca about ripping the ribbons off the dress.” She sighed loudly. “I just hope there’s not some kind of language barrier holding us back here...”

  Emma barely had time to jump behind the abandoned rack of clothes in the hallway before the restroom door flew open and Mrs. Sinclare marched out. The woman headed for Paige’s office, looking neither left nor right. A second later she disappeared inside.

  Whew. Emma stepped out of her hiding place. She definitely wanted to make herself scarce before Rylan emerged.

  “Hold it right there,” Rylan commanded. Her tears were already gone.

  Emma froze.

  Uh-oh. Too late.

  IN(VITE) WITH THE IN CROWD

  Get in here,” Rylan ordered.

  When Emma didn’t move, the older girl grabbed her by the wrist and gave her a rough yank. That finally started Emma’s feet working. She stumbled forward, caught herself, and then meekly followed Rylan through the restroom door.

  For a second, she found herself totally distracted by her first glimpse of the ladies’ lounge, which like everything else at Madison was gorgeous and elegantly appointed. Cool marble counters held big marble bowls for sinks. Copper faucets gleamed under copper-framed mirrors. It looked more like a luxury hotel room than the home of the local toilet.

  “What did you just hear?” Rylan asked.

  “Um, nothing?” Emma replied. “I mean...what do you mean?”

  Rylan frowned. “Come on, I know you were listening,” she said. “So just tell me. Are you going to rat me out about the first dress? I mean, your mom’s smart so you probably are, too. I’m sure you’ve probably put two and two together by now.”

  Emma’s eyes widened. “Wait,” she blurted out as her mind flashed back to that Saturday afternoon at Holly’s place. “You mean...you mean you ruined your original party dress?”

  “A real genius,” Rylan said
sarcastically. “I know you heard us talking about it that day at Jen’s.”

  Emma was a little surprised. She hadn’t even been sure Rylan had noticed she was the same girl from that day at Holly’s. But that wasn’t really the point right now.

  “So what happened?” she asked tentatively, more than a little fearful of Rylan’s stormy expression but too curious not to ask.

  Rylan looked annoyed. “Oh, just the usual,” she said. “Mother shipped in a dress from some designer out in L.A. that her airheaded friend told her about and insisted I had to wear it to my party. But of course it was horrible. Something my grandmother would wear to church. No way was I going to let anyone at school see me in something like that.” Her eyes narrowed as she peered at Emma.

  “Then I saw those spring dresses Allegra Biscotti designed on Paige’s blog, and they’re hot. I don’t want to dress like my mother. But I don’t want to dress like a kid either. I knew Allegra could design the perfect dress.” She shrugged. “So I destroyed the other dress by tossing it in the dryer with a pair of jeans with a bright red lipstick in the pocket.”

  “Wow,” Emma said, trying to imagine doing anything like that. But she shook her head. She couldn’t. She might take the ugly dress apart and rebuild it as something else, but she’d never have the guts to do something so extreme.

  “Yeah,” Rylan said. “So when Mother found out, she hit the roof. Luckily I managed to blame it on one of the maids.” She smirked. “I talked Mother into trying Allegra instead of going back to Mr. Boring L.A. Designer, and the rest was history.” She bit her lip. “But now, thanks to Mommy Dearest and some color-blind party planner, I’m still going to be stuck looking horrible.”

  “What happened to the maid?” Emma asked.