Chapter 10
TESSA
Peggy has lipstick on her teeth, and Ethan is about to photograph it.
I catch her wrist before she steps beneath the runway lights, turning her toward the mirror propped against our table. She bares her teeth at her reflection and makes a wounded noise.
“You let me talk to the caterer like this?”
“He gave you extra cookies. Perhaps he likes a challenge.”
She wipes the red mark away while I straighten the collar of her cloak.
The velvet is plum, with a wine-colored lining that shows when she moves.
Against her short black dress, the high collar makes her look deliciously dangerous.
She's spent the last ten minutes smiling at Ethan whenever he passes our stand. It's ruining the effect.
He stops beside us and lifts a loose thread off her shoulder before raising his camera. Peggy's smile changes when she looks at him. I turn back to the clasp, suddenly feeling as though I'm fastening it in the middle of a date.
Bellquay Rooms is full of pale afternoon light.
Tall windows run along one wall of the former showroom, facing our row of rented tables.
Fern has hung paper bats between the temporary runway lights, but the white walls and wide windows resist every attempt to make the place sinister.
Our black velvet display looks especially expensive against them, which is a small pleasure I intend to enjoy.
Beyond the open double doors, the public lobby holds the registration table and a separate returns desk. Customers have been bringing September rentals back all afternoon. Garment bags hang behind the desk in rows marked for each vendor, ready for collection when the showcase ends.
Matvei stands near the doors. He can see our table and the lobby without having to hover over my pin tray.
Everyone carried their masks in their hands while the venue staff checked them in.
I watched him speak to the guards before Peggy and I unpacked, and knowing he's there lets me think about hems for several minutes at a time.
We need the bookings. These are the people deciding what their guests will wear next month, and a picture of a dress can't show them how it moves. I want somebody to see Peggy cross this room and imagine doing the same thing.
Ethan takes her photograph, then lowers the camera so she can inspect the screen. She leans into his side, with his free arm resting around her waist.
“Send that one to me before you edit it,” she says.
“You like it?”
“I look happy.”
He kisses her temple. “You are happy.”
Peggy doesn't make a joke. She rests there for another second, smiling down at the picture, and I feel a tenderness so sudden I have to busy myself with the cloak.
I've seen her get ready for dates that ended with furious messages from a taxi.
I've helped her search for an earring in a man's bathroom while he tried to persuade us both to stay.
This afternoon she has a boyfriend who keeps her cookie on a napkin beside his camera bag so she won't get crumbs on the costume.
When Ethan moves away to photograph the next display, she follows him with her eyes.
“You're staring,” I tell her.
“So are you. At your phone.”
Bogdan's message is still open beside the pin tray.
I'll be there at six. Keep the evening for me.
I imagine him saying the words against my ear, and my thighs press together before I can stop them.
I turn the phone over, which makes Peggy laugh.
I've been dressed since lunch, but I suddenly want ten minutes with my makeup bag before he gets here.
My fitted black lace dress is good for work.
The boots are comfortable enough for standing.
Neither was chosen for dinner with him, and now I wish I'd brought something that takes longer to fasten.
Peggy catches my arm as I reach for another pin.
“I liked Sunday,” she says. “Seeing you come downstairs together. You looked pleased with yourself.”
“I was.”
“Good.” She squeezes my arm before letting go. “You should get to be.”
For a moment I want to tell her how strange it feels to expect him to arrive and believe he will. Then Fern signals from beside the runway, and I lift Peggy's hem clear of her heel.
She steps into the lights with her shoulders back. I follow along the edge of the platform, keeping out of Ethan's photographs while Peggy opens the cloak. The lining catches the light in deep red folds. Several people lift their phones.
I watch the cloth instead of the audience until Peggy turns.
The lower fastening pulls exactly as it should, holding the velvet away from her feet.
I spent yesterday replacing it because the first version dragged.
Now she moves without having to think about the garment, and I feel ridiculously proud of a hook nobody can see.
At the end of the platform, she lets the cloak close around her and tips her chin toward me. I give her a little bow. Somebody claps, then the people beside them join in, and her grin destroys the dangerous countess again.
Afterward, Peggy takes bookings while I help her out of the cloak. We hang it at our table for customers to try over their clothes. The velvet's warm from her shoulders. I brush it straight, watching a woman bring her friend back for another look.
My cookie has gone soft beside my cup, but the cinnamon still tastes good. I drink some of the warm apple juice and stand with my hip against the table, allowing myself the rare luxury of having finished something on time.
A skull turns toward me across the room.
The cup tilts in my hand, spilling down my fingers. Deep plastic teeth fill the lower half of the face. Black clothes cover the body beneath it, and for a moment the bright showroom disappears behind the picture of Beatrice following a man through a doorway.
My heels press hard into the floor. I can hear Peggy talking about a deposit beside me, but I can't understand the words.
“Matvei.” His name comes out too quietly. I lift my wet hand until he looks at me. “By the tall window. The skull.”
He turns without reaching inside his jacket. Before he crosses the room, he signals to the guard at the lobby door. Peggy stops speaking to her customer and comes beside me.
“What is it?”
“The mask from the video.”
Her fingers close around my elbow. Peggy was with me when I showed Alison the unopened twelve-dollar mask from our drawer. We know a face made in a factory can't tell us who wore it. My legs won't accept that yet.
Matvei speaks to someone at the window display, then gestures toward the stand's open sample case. I look away before I can make another picture out of it. Sticky juice cools between my fingers, and I wipe my hand on the napkin beneath the cookie.
The apple smell is suddenly too sweet.
When Matvei comes back, he stays close enough to speak without making the people at the next table listen.
“He's demonstrating the supplier's stock. The venue checked his identification when he arrived. I've checked the stand and his badge. There are six of those masks in the sample case.”
I look toward the display. A row of empty skull faces lies beside a stack of packaging, with a picture of the same design printed on the lid. There must be thousands of them in shops by now. I could pass one every day until Halloween.
“I'm sorry,” I say. “I saw it and thought of her.”
“Call me again if you need me.” Matvei waits until I nod, then returns to his place by the doors.
Peggy passes me a dry napkin. There's no embarrassment in her face, which almost makes me cry. I'd rather be furious with someone than feel this helpless in front of a table full of beautiful things I made.
I set down the cup and press the napkin between my palms until they stop shaking.
“I need a minute.”
She nods toward our fitting screen. “I'll stay here.”
The portable panels make a little corner beside the display, closed on three sides. I step behind them with my makeup bag. Through the narrow gap at the end, I can still see Matvei's shoulder by the doorway.
One boot has rubbed my ankle since the demonstration. I sit on the folding chair and ease its zipper down, pressing a finger against the sore patch through my stocking. A paper bat has fallen from the string above our table. Its purple wing is caught under the chair leg, bent across the pale floor.
I leave it there and bend over my boot. The ordinary discomfort helps. I can fix this. I take a small bandage from my makeup bag, peel my stocking down far enough to apply it, then put everything back where it belongs.
By the time I stand, Peggy's talking to a customer again. I check my lipstick in the little mirror and go out to help her.
The last hour passes in fittings and departure announcements. At six, the runway lights switch off. I fasten empty covers while Peggy gathers the booking forms, and Ethan carries our cloak to the lobby returns desk after its last try-on. He has another camera case to collect before he leaves.
Bogdan arrives while I'm separating our hangers from the venue's. Through the double doors I see Matvei speak to him, then step aside. His dark coat is open over a charcoal suit, with one hand tucked into his trouser pocket. He finds me among the half-packed tables and comes straight over.
I abandon the hangers.
He takes my face between his hands before I can decide whether to kiss him in front of everybody. His mouth is warm against mine. I lean into him, catching the front of his coat, and the tightness I've carried since seeing the skull begins to ease.
“Matvei told you?” I ask.
“Yes.” His thumb moves beside my ear. “Do you want to go?”
“In a minute. We need the cloak back.”
He takes the empty covers from my arm and offers his hand. I hold it tightly enough that he looks down at our fingers, then back at me.
“I know that man wasn't doing anything wrong,” I say. “It still frightened me.”
“I know. Come here.”
He draws me against his side. I stay there with my cheek against his coat for a moment, letting the warmth of him reach me.
His hand moves over my back while people pass with their boxes, and I shut my eyes.
I wanted to greet him with a kiss that promised a wonderful evening.
Now I'm afraid to let go of his hand in a showroom full of paper bats.
When I lift my head, he bends to kiss me again. I walk into the lobby beside him, holding on.
Ethan is near the entrance with Peggy, his equipment at his feet. He kisses her goodbye, then lifts his cases when the waiting driver opens the outer door. She watches him leave before joining us at the returns desk.
“He stayed to help with all this,” she says, taking a stack of folded bags from beside our rail. “His own stand was packed half an hour ago.”
I smile at her pleasure. A florist has left bundles of artificial autumn leaves on the desk, and garment carriers from several companies fill the space behind it.
Our cloak is zipped into its black cover, with the Hem & Havoc card showing through the clear pocket. Peggy lifts it off the rail for me.
There's a photograph behind the card.
I think it's one of Ethan's showcase prints until I slide it out. The picture catches me bent over my boot behind the fitting screen. My face is turned down, my dress gathered above my knees so I can reach the zipper. Under the chair, one purple paper wing sticks out across the floor.
Three words run along the white border.
Stay in frame.
My fingers go cold around the print. I stop with it halfway between the garment bag and my chest, unable to bring it any closer.
“Bogdan.”
He's already looking. He puts the empty covers on the desk, then moves beside me, close enough that his coat shields the photograph from the lobby.
“Put it down here,” he says. “Peggy, stay with her.”
I lower the print onto the clear pocket. Peggy's hand finds mine beneath the desk's edge while Bogdan calls Matvei over. The outer door opens again. I flinch before I see that a departing vendor has caught it with a box.
Nobody took that photograph with my permission. I wasn't posing. I was hiding for a minute because I couldn't bear the sight of a cheap costume mask, and somebody watched me through the gap.
“I haven't posted anything from behind that screen.” My voice sounds flat. “I didn't know anyone could see me.”
Bogdan looks toward the showroom, following the angle between the open doors and the panels.
“We'll call Alison now,” he says. “You won't have to carry this home.”
I find her number with Peggy still holding my other hand. Bogdan remains beside me while I tell Alison what I've found. My voice steadies when she asks where the photograph is. I can answer that. I can tell her when I went behind the screen and where the garment bag was waiting.
She tells me to leave both items where they are.
When I end the call, Bogdan has Matvei keep the returns rail in place while the venue manager saves the day's records.
The remaining vendors continue packing. I hate hearing their zippers close, imagining this picture slipping into one of their bags instead of mine.
By the time Alison arrives, the windows have darkened and the caterers are wheeling their empty trays through the lobby.
She looks at the photograph before asking me to show her the fitting screen.
Bogdan walks with us. From the doors, the chair is visible through the gap, with the paper bat still beneath its leg.
Alison crouches to look along the same angle. I stay beside Bogdan, holding his sleeve.
“Do you recognize the photograph?” she asks Peggy when we return to the desk.
“No. Ethan brought the cloak over, but the bag's been here with the others. Fern was here too. People have been collecting things all afternoon.” Peggy looks at me. “Ethan helped carry the returns. He might remember who was beside our rail.”
“I'll speak to everyone who handled it,” Alison says.
She takes the photograph and garment bag with her. Before she leaves, I give her the time of the false alarm as closely as I can remember it. I'd gone behind the screen because of that mask. Whoever photographed me might have seen the whole thing, including how frightened I was.
The purple bat is still under the chair when Bogdan helps me collect my makeup bag. I leave it where it fell.
At the doorway, I look back once. Whoever took that picture had a clear view of me. Through the same narrow gap, I'd been able to see my guard.