Apart at the Seams

by Melissa Ford

  I force myself to smile broadly even though the contents of my stomach are lurching into my throat. “I’ll see you on Thursday,” I say brightly, and then step inside, running up the stairs and letting myself as quietly as possible into my apartment, where I make a beeline for the bathroom.

  I don’t have time to think about his possible forelsket, that euphoria that comes from falling in love, since this is not koi no yokan or mamihlapinatapei or any of those other untranslatable words attached to untranslatable feelings.

  DESPITE MY exhaustion and the comfort of the town car, I stare stonily out the window while I hold the stack of garment bags. I wouldn’t even allow the driver to place them in the trunk. I told him that it didn’t bother me to ride across town buried under seven garment bags.

  The morning after the party, I woke up with a hangover. I swallowed two Tylenol and chugged water the rest of the day, only attempting the Saltine crackers that Tabitha stuffed into me midway through the day. With only two and a half days left to finish the outfits, I didn’t have time to physically fall apart. I pretended that I didn’t feel queasy while I finished seams and added the final touches.

  I have no idea how Noah will act when I see him. He texted the next morning to see if I was okay, and I wrote back a one-word answer: fine! I didn’t want him to worry, and I didn’t want him to write again. Sure enough, nothing else came from him, and I put the evening out of my mind while I rushed around getting the outfits finished. But now they’re done, and I have nothing to do except stare out the window until we get there, replaying what I can remember from the conversation in my head.

  It’s mostly just the part where he said he liked me at the end.

  When I get to the studios, Julie Courtland once again meets me downstairs and helps me carry up the outfits. She’s talking a mile a minute, trying to coordinate David Lear’s suit and all the writers’ clothing for the show and any possible talk-show spots they’ll need to do in case they win. It’s a long shot that any writer who’s not Diablo Cody will be asked to be a guest on a nighttime talk show, but since it’s the Nightly and half of America watches the show, there’s always that small chance that some comedian is going to want at least Noah for a spot.

  This is the final fitting before we machine stitch it and complete the hems. I bite all the lipstick off my lip as each writer tries on their outfit and I check the fit. There’s no time for anything but minor changes at this point. I have Dave and Ophelia waiting back at the loft to immediately jump into finishing off all the seams. But I breathe easier and easier as each outfit falls perfectly across each body; the shoulders neatly filling the jackets, the dresses accentuating every curve.

  We keep all the writers separate, meeting with them individually in the room so that even I have no clue how the outfits will look when they all stand together. I’ll only know on Emmy night along with the rest of America. Noah is the last one to go, strutting in front of the mirror as if he’s in the opening of a 1970s disco-themed movie.

  “This is the most amazing suit of all time. I’m not a huge fan of suit jackets, but this feels amazing. Like pajamas.”

  “That’s an awfully expensive set of jammies,” I comment.

  “Jammies? Are we eight? This isn’t Garanimals pajamas. This would be sophisticated sleepwear. Like what James Bond wears to bed.”

  Julie’s cell phone goes off, and she ducks out of the room to answer it, leaving me alone with Noah for the first time since our coffee in the diner. He doesn’t ask about my hangover; in fact, he doesn’t bring up that evening at all. He acts as if the only times we’ve seen each other are these meetings at the Nightly. He’s pleasant without being overly friendly, the sort of banter you make with a co-worker when you both end up in the staff kitchen at the same time.

  I wonder if I imagined the whole exchange in the diner, his assertion that he likes me. I was drunk at the time. It’s possible that I misheard him or that things got conflated in my head due to the alcohol. He had thrown a bunch of random, untranslatable words about love at the end of the conversation, but was I reading too much into that? Maybe they were just that: words. Examples of other phrases that English lacks. Maybe he gets off on collecting words in the same way that I collect old issues of Vogue.

  “So what happens now?” Noah asks, taking off the suit jacket and handing it back to me. “Is this the last time I’m going to see you?”

  “Oh no, I’ll be back next week with the finished suits. Everything hemmed and machine stitched and ready to go.”

  “Good,” he says simply. “I had been thinking of reasons why I’d have to see you again, but since you’ll be back here anyway, I’ll just save those for later.”

  I laugh self-consciously, wondering if I should bring up the fact that he said he likes me. But he plows ahead, changing the subject.

  “I forgot to tell you, I was able to get you four tickets to see a taping. You needed four tickets, right?”

  “Yeah,” I say, “I wanted to bring Ethan, and my friend Rachel and her fiancé. That would be great.”

  “There’s one catch,” Noah warns. “The tickets are for September first.”

  My heart sinks. There is no chance that Francesca will let me duck out of the loft, even for only a few hours, that close to Fashion Week. I could be bleeding from my eyeballs and she would still tell me to come in. It also doesn’t help that earlier this week I had to run home for a few hours when Martina called to let me know that Ethan wasn’t there to take care of Beckett and she needed to go home. I had gotten to the apartment at the same time as an extremely apologetic Ethan, spending just enough time to hear him explain how he had lost track of time before turning around to go back to the loft. Even though I was gone for under an hour, Francesca held it against me as if I had been missing for half the day. “Is there any other date? Like maybe later September?”

  “No, I’m sorry. I was only able to get these because we had a cancellation. It’s hard to get sets of four tickets. I could maybe get some in the winter. Like January?”

  “I’ll figure something out,” I insist. I deserve a night out with Rachel and Ethan. I’ve worked insane hours for the last few weeks; there should be some perks to having these connections, as Ethan would say. I’ll just have to come up with something really good, an excuse that takes me out of the loft for three or four hours. I’ll make up for it by coming in early and then working really late. “I’d love the tickets.”

  “I’ll let our line wrangler Hillary know to expect you.”

  He smiles at me, just a kind, brotherly smile, and I step out of the room to give him privacy while he changes back into his street clothes. I’m definitely reading too much into things, I decide. He just gave me show tickets so I could have a date with my boyfriend. Would someone who has a crush on me want to bring me to the studio with my significant other so I could rub his face in it?

  Chapter Eleven

  EXTRICATING MYSELF from the loft in order to utilize the Nightly taping tickets Noah procured for us eight days before the start of Fashion Week is easier than I could have imagined. I perfectly timed the Emmy outfits to be completed by the morning of September first, over two weeks before the Emmys themselves. I don’t ask Francesca as much as I tell Francesca that I’m personally delivering the outfits and will be back later in the day since I’m planning to stay through the night if need be. Heading off Francesca’s protests by overpromising on the night hours is key to not only slipping out to see a Nightly taping a few days before Fashion Week but doing so without one sigh or Italian curse word thrown my way.

  I mean, sure, she doesn’t know that I’m staying for a taping, and she never will if I can help it. I don’t even tell Tabitha what I’m doing. I just call for the car service and gather up my seven garment bags.

  I text Julie when I’m a few blocks away, and she meets me outside as usual. Despite all the stress t
his job has caused for the last few weeks, I have a small pang of disappointment when I realize this is the last time this will happen; the last time I will show up at the Nightly for a fitting, the last time I will see these outfits until their debut on the Emmys, the last time I will meet Julie outside and carry garment bags up the dingy stairwell to the second floor. Though Julie doesn’t seem sad at all at our imminent good-bye.

  “Thank God, I can take something off my to-do list. Seven writers’ outfits ready to go, done. Right?”

  “Sure,” I tell her.

  “It must be such a load off your mind. Now you can just relax.”

  “Well, I have Fashion Week coming up in eight days,” I point out.

  “I still have David’s outfit,” she tells me as we hang the labeled garment bags on a rolling cart she’s left in the conference room. She states this as if waiting on one outfit is on par with helping produce a whole spring line. She adds as an afterthought, “It’s late so I’m pretty stressed out.”

  I thought all the writers would be hanging out in the conference room, waiting to unzip their garment bags and coo over their outfits. But the room is empty; the rest of the office buzzing in the rooms down the hallway as they frantically make any last-minute adjustments to tonight’s show. It makes the drop-off feel anticlimactic.

  I go outside and cross the street to a sketchy-looking coffee shop mostly teaming with people clearly either going to see the Nightly taping or planning to linger around outside with the hope of getting someone else’s ticket. I order a small decaf coffee and stand by the window, watching for Rachel and Adam, who are coming from their apartment.

  I dump my half-finished coffee when I spot Ethan coming down the street toward the studio, his hands jammed into his pockets. He looks cute, like he’s walking to a class in college, a navy t-shirt from NYU and jeans plus his Yankees cap. The crowd moves around him, and I see Rachel and Adam right behind him. Ethan’s face lights up when he sees me, and he leaves the others to meet me halfway up the block and give me a kiss. “I missed you today. I was setting up the dark room. Purchasing chemicals.”

  “Oh!” I say, wondering if he took Beckett with him, and whether that’s really a safe place for a curious toddler. “I thought you were going to be home with Beckett.”

  “No, I told Martina that we needed her after all,” he says.

  I’m annoyed because I switched my hours for the next two weeks with Martina to place her strategically for times when we already knew Ethan had stuff planned. This means going over our weekly hours, and all these extra ones are paid as overtime. This was the whole reason my mother offered to come: to give us that coverage without making me spend an arm and a leg to get it. But what can I do? What is done is done, and it’s too late to bring out my mother or to get back those hours from Martina. I swallow down my frustration and plaster a smile over my face.

  “So, you got lots of stuff done?” I question. “And the computers are all set up? You won’t have to go in again this week?”

  “Adobe Photoshop updated. Virus software updated. It was a productive day. Though, yeah, I may swing through the school again tomorrow. Checked in with Martina. Everything is good with Beckett, and she’s still staying those evening hours. Though my event got canceled for tonight, so we can grab dinner.”

  “Sweetie, I have to go after this,” I tell him. “Francesca needs me back at the studio.”

  “Oh,” Ethan says flatly. He immediately changes tactics and tries to look seductive. “What if I need you, too?” He wraps his arms around my waist and bends down to nuzzle my neck.

  I want to point out that Beckett needs me; Ethan wants me. And I want the two of them, too, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s eight days before Fashion Week. I would never make Ethan feel guilty for setting up the dark room or loading virus software when he’s just doing his job.

  “It’s only for two more weeks. Then Fashion Week will be behind us.”

  Ethan gives me a doubtful look, and I try to smile patiently at him. “Plus, Francesca doesn’t exactly know that I’m seeing the taping,” I admit. “When I go back after this, I’m probably going to have to stay for most of the night to make up the hours. That’s sort of the trade-off for doing something cool like going to the taping. You want to do cool things, right?”

  Ethan doesn’t say anything. He shrugs as a response, and his disappointment is palpable. It instantly sets me on edge, especially once the others catch up. He acts as if I’m thrilled to be spending my entire night attaching zippers instead of sleeping or cuddling Beckett. As if I’m the one out of the four of us who wanted to go to a taping.

  We head toward Hillary, who is holding the clipboard containing the VIP guest list. “Hey Hillary,” I say in my brightest voice. “Noah set aside four VIP tickets for us to today’s taping.”

  My phone buzzes and I quickly glance at the screen. Are you almost back? Francesca is freaking out because that skirt still isn’t finished.

  My heart sinks. I forgot about the skirt. I had meant to finish the beading on it before I left so a samplehand could baste stitch the seams before the model showed up this afternoon, but I forgot about it until now. I pretend I didn’t see the text and rack my brain for a really good excuse that could explain why it took me several hours to return to the loft when I knew there was an emergency underway.

  My hands are shaking, and I dig them deep into my purse under the pretense that I’m searching for a pen to cover up my tremble as Hillary leads us inside the building. What if Francesca finds out that I skipped out on work and I get fired? This was a stupid idea—to risk messing up Fashion Week work just as everything is falling into place for me careerwise.

  I check my phone again while I’m waiting for everyone to go through security. There’s a second text from Tabitha. How far away are you?

  I have to write back something. I’ll be there soon. I’ll explain when I get there.

  Explain what?

  Rachel, who has a half-eaten granola bar in her bag despite the fact that I told her not to bring in any food or her camera, holds us up at security. I feel my phone buzz again, and I explode at Rachel in my frustration. “For fuck’s sake! I told you no food, drinks, cameras, or recording equipment.”

  “It’s a granola bar,” Rachel tells me. “I’m sorry.”

  The others are staring at me, unsure of why I would get this angry over a forgotten granola bar, but then we’re through security and it feels too late to duck out of the studio and slink my way back to the loft. I sit down on the sofa to wait, trying to think up a really good excuse. I bumped into George Clooney at the studio when I was dropping off the outfits. Francesca, you can’t expect me to turn down the opportunity to hang out with George-fucking-Clooney?

  I close my eyes and lean back against the velvet couch. “George Clooney has sat here. And Hugh Jackman. And Brad Pitt.”

  The fact that I won’t be able to tell her anything about what George Clooney is like in person probably doesn’t bode well for that story being believable. I get up and start pacing around the room, looking from object to object as if it holds my excuse. I snap at Ethan for sitting on the edge of a chair. This is really all his fault. I should have turned down the tickets, told Noah that this just wasn’t a good time. But I feel such pressure to give Ethan something cool in exchange for the hours I work.

  Noah comes in, wearing his usual jeans and the grey sweater. I kiss his cheek quickly, wondering if he paused from the pre-show craziness to see the finished version of his suit, and then watch as Ethan shakes his hand. They’re polite, kind, blandly interested in one another. It matters to me that they like each other, and I don’t know why. Because Noah has become a friend over these last few weeks? Because I hope all of us can hang out in the future? Because there’s still some part of me that turns over those words in my head, wondering what they mean: I like yo
u, Arianna. You are liked.

  Maybe Noah wants to like Ethan, too, because he gives him a photograph from Ken Regan; the absolute perfect gift. Noah also chats comfortably with Rachel and Adam, as if he’s on an interview couch, politely answering all of their Barbara Walters-like questions without the waterworks. In fact, the whole interaction feels like Noah is the fifth character on our remake of Friends. A skinny, male Phoebe.

  Noah leaves to finish getting ready, and Hillary brings us to the theater, where Grayson nods at me as a greeting. Inspiration strikes while I’m shivering on the cold set, and I quickly tap out a quick message to Tabitha. Tell Francesca I’m getting a prescription at a walk-in clinic, and I’ll be there as soon as I can.

  I’m debating whether to shut off my phone when it buzzes, and I check the screen. Except it’s not from Tabitha. It’s a note from Noah, who’s already at his spot at the producer’s table. He doesn’t look my way as he hunches over the script, still holding his phone. Love the suit. Had to peek inside the bag before I came down. You did an amazing job.

  Thank you, I reply. Did you know we’re in the same room? You’re allowed to walk over here and talk.

  I do know that you’re about ten feet away. But I’m feeling shy.

  Shy? Why would you feel shy?

  He doesn’t write back, and I glance over at him while David runs through his crowd warm-up. After the show, Noah ducks out as quickly as possible; not even looking back at me as he disappears in the direction of the stairwell. I almost tell the others that I’ll meet up with them in a moment, but I’m not sure Grayson would let me follow Noah upstairs to the offices. Instead I tap out a final message to him as we walk out of the building. Outfits are done and taping is viewed so . . . good-bye?

  And then I say a real good-bye to the others, booking it toward the subway, my eyes on the ground, barely taking in the cigarette butts and gum wrappers on the sidewalk. I get back to the loft in record time, but before I walk through the doors, I slow down and gingerly walk through the room, clearly in discomfort.