Chapter 18
TESSA
Lincoln is wearing my coat.
For a second, I think he's taken it off our rail. Then he turns beneath the Bellquay Rooms runway lights, and the copper lining sticks to his trousers instead of falling away from them.
It's a copy. A bad one, which somehow makes me angrier.
The pointed collar, the slanted row of buttons, the split tails with their copper undersides. I drew those tails on the back of a gas bill while Peggy ate cereal beside me. Now Fern is straightening them over my ex's ass.
Peggy stops with a box of order cards against her stomach. Her gaze travels from him to the original hanging between us.
“Oh, she really does want to die poor.”
I take the box before she crushes it.
Beyond the tall windows, October sunlight reaches the little pumpkins lining the sill.
The tables are dressed for today's showcase, with velvet runners, bowls of sweets and appointment sheets headed October 9.
Paper hands climb the pale walls. Somebody has hung a row of plastic cleavers over the refreshments, which feels less like decoration than a suggestion.
Our table stands beside the same three-sided fitting screen. I leave its opening wide enough to see the lobby doors. The memory of that photograph makes my stomach tighten, even with Matvei watching the entrance and another guard covering the far side of the showroom.
There were two cars on the way here. I liked seeing the second one behind us every time we turned.
Fern spots me looking and smiles. Lincoln follows her gaze, then opens his borrowed coat as if he's offering me a view I might miss.
I miss exactly none of it.
I've spent five nights sleeping beside Bogdan. This morning he put my workbag in the car himself, wearing an open-necked shirt and the expression that makes men hurry to find whatever he's asked for. I can still feel his kiss at the corner of my mouth.
Lincoln couldn't even remember which mornings I worked.
“That's the design from your latest preview,” Peggy says quietly.
The photograph on our booking page showed the coat from three angles. I was pleased with how clearly people could see the construction. Fern has found that helpful too.
She approaches with Lincoln beside her, carrying one of her glossy package sheets. I set our order cards down and slide the original coat forward on the rail.
“We should combine the demonstrations,” Fern says. “People will appreciate seeing both price points.”
She puts her sheet on our table. There's a picture of Lincoln in the coat beneath a price that wouldn't cover our fabric. The wording above it promises a complete haunted-house staff look.
Our staff tailcoats were supposed to be the thing people remembered today. We've made the first run for Bogdan's clubs. The Ninth Masque staff will wear theirs for the Halloween supper, then keep them on when the club opens. This showcase is our chance to sell the design beyond his businesses.
I touch the little dent in my middle finger where the needle rested while I finished the last cuff. It's tender under the nail.
“Did your supplier get the back pleats from our photographs too?” I ask.
“They're tailcoats, Tessa. You didn't invent them.”
Lincoln rests his hand beside hers on the table. He used to stand like this when we were together, blocking the easiest way past him so I'd have to look up before leaving.
“Don't take it personally. Some customers don't have a rich boyfriend covering the difference.”
My face gets hot. I hate that he can still do that, make my skin betray me before I've decided whether he deserves an answer.
Around us, people are sorting samples and testing their card readers. Two neighboring vendors have stopped pretending to be busy. Lincoln knows it. His voice carries just far enough.
Peggy slips Fern's price sheet from under his hand and tucks it beneath our box of order cards.
“Let's do it,” she says. “Same platform. Five minutes. Tessa, put me in ours.”
I turn toward her. She's already unbuttoning her cardigan, her mouth tipped up in the way that once persuaded me to sneak into a hotel pool with a bottle of prosecco. We were both broke and spectacularly unwelcome.
I loved her then too.
Fern glances at the original on our rail. Peggy waits with her cardigan folded over one arm, and the neighboring vendors keep watching. After a moment, Fern gestures toward the little platform.
Lincoln gives me a wink before he follows her.
I want to sew his eyelids together.
Instead I help Peggy into the coat after she leaves her cardigan beside my workbag.
She wears a black slip dress beneath it, with sheer tights and ankle boots. The coat reaches the backs of her knees, its fitted front framing her waist. She rolls her shoulders while I settle the collar, testing the extra room hidden beneath the arms.
A lace point catches the orange bat comb in her hair.
She turns too quickly. The comb slides free and dangles from the lace, taking a loose curl with it. I catch the coat's collar before she pulls the thread.
“Hold still.”
The bat's wing has hooked through an open loop. I ease it backward and the whole comb comes away in my hand, light resin over short, smooth teeth. None of her hair has to be unwound from it.
“Excellent staying power,” she says.
“You put it into three hairs and optimism.”
I set it on our table while she fixes the fallen curl. The orange is bright against the black cloth. For a moment I think of the blue crystal comb Beatrice borrowed, and my hands slow over Peggy's collar.
I want Alison to call and tell us she's found the man who killed her. Every unknown number on my phone makes me hope for it. Then I have to answer in case it's somebody asking about a fitting.
Peggy catches my eye in the small tabletop mirror. Her smile fades, and she reaches back to squeeze my wrist before letting me finish.
I turn up her left cuff.
Inside it, just below the fold, a tiny copper bat spreads its wings across the lining. I embroidered it where the turned-back cuff will show it, near the wrist instead of the elbow.
Peggy lifts her arm closer to the mirror.
“You added him.”
“One in every staff coat.”
She strokes a wing with her fingertip. That silly little bat took longer than I expected because I wanted both wings to match. Seeing her smile at it makes the last hour at the sewing table feel less ridiculous.
Across the room, Lincoln pushes his sleeves up. The lining inside his left cuff is plain copper. Fern has copied every detail visible in the preview and missed the thing I finished afterward.
Peggy picks up her orange comb and slides it back into her hair above her ear. It sits clear of the collar this time.
“Ready?” she asks.
My pulse is still beating in the tender pads of my fingers. I take one last look at the pleats, then straighten.
“Very.”
Ethan raises his camera as we approach the platform. His event badge hangs beside the strap, and Matvei stays near the open doors while a venue attendant checks another arrival's badge against the registration list.
Peggy brightens when Ethan lowers the camera to smile at her. He has a second lens in the bag at his hip and a little strip of tape holding a torn edge of his badge flat. He looks like a man halfway through a working day who has just found the best part of it.
I can understand why she likes him.
Fern stands beside the platform with a second package sheet. She gestures between Lincoln and Peggy, introducing the two options to the small gathering of buyers. At the words affordable alternative, my fingers close around the platform rail.
Peggy climbs the two shallow steps and turns slowly. Copper flashes beneath the black tails, then disappears when she faces the room again. A woman near the front leans sideways to see the back.
Lincoln turns too. His tails cling together.
I take the empty tray from our display table and put three of our boxed sample accessories on it. I carry it up the steps to Peggy, who holds it on her palm, elbow bent, leaving her other hand free.
“The club staff have to work in these,” I say. “Reach over your head, Peg.”
She lifts the tray. Her coat moves with her, the front staying flat over the dress. When she lowers it, she looks at Lincoln with sweet expectation.
He raises both arms in a showy stretch. The cheap coat pulls across his shoulders and climbs to his ribs, leaving its tails bunched over his backside.
Somebody laughs. Lincoln lowers his arms quickly and tugs the hem.
“I won't be carrying drinks.”
“Then it's a perfect fit,” Peggy says.
This time more people laugh. I feel it in my chest, the first warm expansion after holding everything in since I saw him.
I take the tray back and set it on the platform edge. The demonstration would be easy to spoil now. I could keep him there while I pointed out every crooked seam, make the crowd enjoy him being uncomfortable.
Peggy opens our coat instead, showing me the small buttons concealed inside its waist. She's bringing them back to our work. I love her for that too.
I move the inside tabs to the next setting, taking in the waist so the front sits closer over her slip dress. Then I fasten the tails to the hidden loops at her hips. The long coat becomes a short bustle jacket, copper folds fanning behind her.
She puts a hand on her hip and turns for the mirror at the side of the platform. Her legs look endless.
It was worth every pin I dropped making those loops.
“Staff shift over,” I say. “Party starts.”
Ethan's camera clicks as Peggy looks over her shoulder at him. The performance changes in that little turn. Her smile goes softer, and for a second she forgets the buyers watching from below.
Fern taps the price on her package sheet. “You could dress twice as many people for the same budget.”
A man at the front keeps looking at Peggy's jacket. “Could I see how that fastens? We'd need to use them all evening. Something people can sit down in.”
I step down with Peggy and let him examine the loop while she keeps the jacket on. “The loops release for sitting. I'll show you.”
I undo one side, letting the tail drop, then lift it into place again. The copper lining settles into folds. Fern's paper makes a sharp flapping sound as she lowers it.
More people come closer. Lincoln leaves the platform before anyone asks him to turn his version into anything.
At our table, Peggy takes down contact details and gives each buyer an appointment card. Three slots on her sheet fill. She circles the last opening for a buyer who's gone to fetch her colleague, then puts Fern's price sheet underneath the leg of our wobbling display stand.
I laugh so hard I have to sit down.
The relief makes me lightheaded. I take the water from my bag and a cracker from the little packet beside it, letting the dry salt soften on my tongue. Nearby, a vendor is opening bags of cinnamon sweets. The smell drifts over our table without turning my stomach, which I count as another victory.
Peggy releases the loops, then pulls a chair close while I eat. The coat's long tails fall over its back.
“Still all right?”
I nod. Beneath the table, my hand rests briefly against my dress. She follows the movement, then looks back at my face without saying anything that might carry.
I'm glad she knows. There's pleasure in having one person beside me who understands why I'm eating crackers at a costume showcase without making me feel like I've become somebody fragile.
My phone lights up with Bogdan's name.
“How did it go?” he asks when I answer.
I tell him Fern brought the coat and Lincoln came wearing it. His silence is so complete that I check the screen before I continue.
“We filled three fittings,” I say. “Peggy was magnificent.”
“Is he still near you?”
I look across the room. Lincoln is shrugging out of the copy beside Fern's table, with his back to us. Matvei stands between that aisle and ours.
“No.”
“Good. I'll see you at home.”
Home. I let the word sit there for a second, with his voice still in my ear.
My shoes are beneath his bench now. There's a drawer with my underwear in it, and when I wake in the night I can reach for him without wondering whether he wants me to stay.
Tonight I want to find him awake, climb into his lap and let his hands slip beneath this dress while I tell him how we won.
My nipples tighten beneath my bra at the thought, and I shift in the chair, eager for the ride back.
“Save me something nice,” I say.
“I will.”
After I hang up, Peggy steals a cracker. Ethan approaches with his camera ready.
“One of you both for the showcase gallery? Stay there. It's better with the coat and the rail behind you.”
Peggy wipes salt from her fingers, then drapes an arm around me. I lean into her as he takes the picture, letting myself enjoy having something worth smiling about. When he lowers the camera and comes closer to kiss her, she catches his sleeve and keeps him there a moment longer.
I give the appointment sheet far more attention than it deserves.
“I want to photograph you properly,” he tells her. “At Afterglint. Just a portrait session for you, without somebody waiting for the next costume.”
Peggy's fingers stay on his sleeve.
“When?”
“Tomorrow afternoon. Bring something you feel beautiful in.”
She looks toward me, and I know that look. There will be six rejected outfits on the workshop floor before we find the one she means when she says she hasn't made an effort.
“Take the red dress,” I tell her.
“Yes,” she says to Ethan. “I'd like that.”
His smile widens. He scrolls back to the platform shots and offers her the camera. She bends over it while I put my water away. Tomorrow's sitting will need to go on the work calendar for her escort. For now, she gets to enjoy being asked.
Peggy reaches for me without looking up.
The photograph fills the little screen. Copper fans behind her, the orange bat bright in her hair, one bent knee turned toward the light. She's looking straight into the lens with that soft smile I saw on the platform.
Her smile is so open it makes me protective. I want somebody to deserve that look from her.
“You like it?” she asks me.
I rest my cheek against hers so we can both see.
“That's the one, Peg.”