Chapter 6 #2
“You’re saying even the Victorian era had high-fantasy nerds?”
“Bingo. And you’re the girl who always has the latest George R.
R. Martin or N. K. Jemisin in her bag when she comes by to ogle my window displays, so I’m guessing a fantasy angle is both right up your alley and historically accurate.
” He stood back, making a picture frame around me with his fingers. “You’ll be a dish.”
I could feel my cheeks heat. “I’m hardly a clotheshorse.
” I wasn’t running myself down; really, I wasn’t.
It was just something I’d learned to do, reflexively: get in the yes, I know I’m not exactly slender!
and get it in with a chuckle before someone else (the barely listening doctor at my very infrequent checkups, the annoyed saleslady pulling plus-size jeans down from the top rack) got there first. It stung less if I was the one who put it out there, and it wasn’t like I didn’t know people weren’t thinking it.
So it surprised me when Beau tilted his head, giving me a long, thoughtful once-over.
“A clotheshorse,” he said, “is exactly what you are. Long back with a gorgeous arch to it, good shoulders with presence—there’s nothing like trying to tailor a strong silhouette around droopy little pigeon shoulders.
A nice flare from waist to hip; good for most historical fashion shapes.
And there’s what you’ve really got going for you, which is that coloring. ”
I blinked. No one had ever said my fairly average white-girl coloring (medium-brown hair, medium-brown eyes) was anything out of the ordinary. Because it wasn’t.
“What I mean,” he clarified, still sounding meditative, coming back from the worktable with another armload of fabric swatches, “is that skin of yours. I’m trying hard not to creep you out here, because it’s difficult to compliment a woman’s skin without sounding like something from The Silence of the Lambs.
But sincerely, that skin of yours is like a tea rose crossed with a pitcher of double cream.
Skin like that begs to have all kinds of satins and velvets thrown across it.
” He started matter-of-factly holding various strips of silk up to my face, which probably looked less like a tea rose and more like a tomato right now.
“I don’t think there’s a color you can’t wear,” he mused, “but for your Jules Verne party I’m thinking midnight blue. Because I’ve got just the thing . . .”
Right. My supposed costume party. I bit my lip as Beau disappeared into a back room and returned a few moments later with an acre of dark sapphire moiré over one arm.
“I made it in an offseason after taking a class on Historical Stitching and Decorative Techniques on Leather, when I was dying to make something with material I didn’t have to punch through with an awl.
Based on the gown in a Rossetti painting called—” Beau paused mid-flow.
“I’m boring you, aren’t I? Occupational hazard with historical-fashion nuts.
Give us an inch and we’ll talk your ear off about boning channels and double-plait stitching. ”
“You’re not boring me at all,” I said honestly. “People who turn what they love into a living? That’s the dream. I mean, look at all this.” Waving my hand at this exquisite shop he’d created out of what was once an empty, soulless retail space. “You’re what, thirty? And you built all this.”
“Twenty-nine.” That dimple reappeared in his cheek as he showed me to a plush, curtained changing booth. “Though considering the hours I’m putting in getting that premiere gown finished, I’ll look a hundred by the time the red carpet goes live.”
“Can you at least give me a hint what the movie is?” There was a sheeted dress form half concealed behind a screen at the back of the room, but I couldn’t see so much as a scrap of hem.
“Depends on whether you can keep a secret. Can you, czarina?” I mimed zipping my lips, and he leaned in to whisper in my ear, which I enjoyed far too much. “Belle.”
“What, the Beauty and the Beast remake coming out next month? The one that got all the online hate from outraged soccer moms—”
“Because it’s a gritty feminist retelling, yep. The Beast is scary, the villagers are witch-hunting bigots, and Belle has sex in the library instead of singing Disney ballads in it. Cue the hate storm.”
“How’s the movie?” I asked, fascinated. Belle is every book girl’s favorite fairy-tale princess, after all, and the Beast is every book girl’s favorite Disney hero. Sure, he’s a monster, but he gives her a library!
“Who knows? I didn’t hang around the set or anything; I’m just designing the premiere dress for the lead actress. The movie could be terrible and I’d still be over the moon. First red-carpet commission; that’s a bucket list item for any designer.”
“The lead actress, is that . . .” I couldn’t remember her name, only that the movie poster for Belle showed her tiptoeing through a vast shadowy library not unlike the Astral Library, and that she’d also gotten a lot of online hate because she wasn’t a size two.
“Her, yep.” Beau mimed zipping his own lips.
“Not much I can tell you about her because of NDAs but I got the job because her assistant follows me on Instagram. That and because my first question on getting her measurements wasn’t asking how much weight she was planning to lose by premiere night.
Here, step back behind there and you can get changed—”
“Belle. Wow.” I could see his silhouette on the other side of the curtain as I shucked out of the black serge skirt and yellowing blouse. “Look at you, rubbing shoulders with A-listers.”
“Eh, it’s a small movie. Not quite indie, but not a mega-blockbuster either.
Still . . .” His voice sounded dreamy as he passed the armload of blue moiré under the curtain, and I began shimmying into it.
“One dress of mine in the fashion photo gallery with all the Versace and Valentino dresses on the other stars at the premiere, and a guy like me can catapult right up the ladder.”
“You’re already at the top of the ladder,” I said, sliding my arms into the billowing sleeves. “You’ve officially Made It.”
“No, I know how to look like I’ve Made It. If I knock the Belle dress out of the park, I will have actually made it.”
I thought about that as I twisted to get at the fastenings of the blue dress.
If Beau really had Made It as much as I’d assumed he already had, it would be an assistant fitting me into this dress, wouldn’t it?
And there’d be clerks and salespeople all over this shop; he wouldn’t be doing it all solo with bags under his eyes.
“I guess it’s all more fake-it-till-you-make-it than I thought,” I ventured.
“Can be.” His tone turned from wistful to brisk. “Come on out, czarina, and let’s see how that dress fits.”
It’s hard to stand there while a man in skintight breeches laces you into a dress without imagining him unlacing you back out of it, but twenty minutes of tucking and basting and tweaking later, there I was in front of a triple-paned cheval mirror, dumbstruck.
“Oh man.” Beau gazed at my reflection, looking smug. “Am I good, or am I good?”
“You’re good . . .” I agreed, still staring at myself.
“Hair up in a high knot for maximum authenticity, none of this loose-hair BS you see in costume dramas. Real Victorian women pinned everything up. I can loan you some slippers, gloves, a hat—”
I shook my head, still staring. “This is more than enough.” I didn’t want to take too much advantage of his IOU, and there was no way I could pay for extras considering the chokehold on my finances by the mysterious Libby Bibb.
“At least take this. No 1870s lady would ever step out without her handbag.” Beau held up a beautiful jet-beaded bag of the same blue moiré, dangling from a silver chain. “And if you put any pics on social media, tag me.”
“Thank you.” I slid the chain over my arm, realizing as soon as I tore my eyes away from the mirror that it was full dark outside.
He should be closing up soon, and I needed to get back to the BPL before it closed for the night and shut off my access to the Astral Library till morning.
“I’ll just wear it out. Thank you again.
You . . .” I trailed off. He’d made me beautiful, but I didn’t know how to say it without choking up.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a dress that made me look like this, feel like this.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt beautiful.
If I ever had, at all, in my whole life.
“I should be the one thanking you.” He smiled as he walked me to the door, a bit less gleaming of a smile than that cheek-creasing stunner he usually greeted me with, and for an instant I saw that behind that polished tailored exterior Beau Sato-Jones was tired.
Very, very tired. “Not just for a break from red-carpet-dress embroidery, but for giving me something historical to do. I end up working on a lot of costume stuff, movie replicas . . . not that I mind whipping up elf dresses from Lord of the Rings, it pays the bills, and besides, it can be downright interesting seeing which historical eras put their stamp on film costuming. I could talk all night about how Natalie Portman’s gowns from Star Wars were inspired by everything from a traditional Mongolian deel to a fifteenth-century houppelande to a Korean wonsam—” He cut himself off. “I’m droning again.”
I smiled, wishing he could have seen all those embroidered court silks on the woman who’d gone to live in The Tale of Genji. “As far as when you need the dress back—because there’s no way I can afford to keep it . . .” Not when I had Libby Bibb all over my credit score.