Under the Shade of the Sycamore (Love’s Journeys #4)

1. Chapter One

Chapter One

“Why did I get a strawberry fruit bar? I hate strawberry. Kylie likes strawberry. I like the raspberry fruit bars.”

I turned from slapping together two bologna sandwiches to give my little sister Keira a look that could wrinkle polyester. It was too early for twin drama.

“Can’t you just switch bars?” I asked, returning my weary gaze to the lunches I was packing as the girls bickered over…

well, everything. I’d always thought twins were close as peas in a pod, and they were at times.

Like say fifty percent of the time. The other fifty percent of the time they fought like alley cats.

“She’s being a turd,” Kylie, the youngest of the two by ten minutes, replied with a toss of long black hair over her shoulder. “She’s just mad because Paulina Rencourt has a two hundred dollar dress to wear to the spring dance.”

That comment made me turn from bologna and bread to stare openly at my sisters. Both identical ten year olds stared back at me with matching dark brown eyes just like mine and Mom’s, Keira with a look of shame on her lean face.

“Seriously?” I asked, a slice of white bread in both hands. Kylie was feeling pretty smug I could tell now that the cat was out of the bag. “I made you both dresses for the decade dance. To your specifications.”

Keira huffed. “They’re handmade, Kinder. Why do we have to wear handmade clothes all the time?! It’s embarrassing! I hate being poor!”

With that she bolted out of the tiny kitchen in our cramped two bedroom low-income apartment to exit with all the flair of a fashion supermodel in a fine pique. Not that I’d worked with a supermodel. Ivy, my bestie, was my model slash living dress form.

My gaze flew to Kylie. “Do you hate the dress I made for you too?”

“No, I love it. I’m not a buttery cow like Keira is. The bus will be here in three minutes.”

“A buttery cow?” She shrugged. “Never mind.” I hurried to finish the sandwiches, toss them into their lunch bags, and walk Kylie to the door. “Tell your sister I’m sorry she hates her dress. I can redo it. There’s still time.”

“Her dress is fine. She’s just…well, you know, it’s almost the black day anniversary.”

I knew. I’d never forget. “Okay, yeah, that’s…yeah. Well, go take her lunch to her. Tell her we’re all feeling down. And can you please swap fruit bars with her?”

“Sure.” She took off with a smile on her face.

A smile I was pretty sure she was wearing because her sister had been acting up and she’d been sweet.

They seemed to enjoy playing good twin and evil twin.

Keira was generally the evil one but there were days it could switch.

Or, on the very blackest of days, they were both in Cruella mode.

Those were the days Mom and I tried to keep our heads down and the bloodshed between the two to a minimum.

Still, even on those days when both were in a mood as Mom called it I still loved them madly. Even when one did diss my dress.

The twins were gone for about fifteen minutes when Mom entered our little place, covered in grit and grime from the foundry job she worked.

Third shift because it paid more and we could balance someone being home for the girls between us.

Being ten they were pretty much old enough to take care of themselves but Mom preferred someone older than eighteen be here to supervise the chaos that could erupt at any given time.

“Hey honey,” she sighed as I hurried to close up the folding couch I slept on.

The twins had a bedroom as did Mom. My space, such as it was, was the living room.

A room packed with racks of clothes I’d sewn on the old Singer my grandmother bequeathed me after she had died ten years ago.

On the exact day that we’d lost Dad five years later.

Both of those losses were like millstones around those of us who remained.

It sat tucked into a huge walk-in closet in the living room.

There was only room for me and the machine atop its stand but I made it work.

Mom and the twins liked to joke that I was in the closet when I was working.

I’d always yell back ‘Not anymore!’ which made us all a laugh.

It was cramped, and the walls were covered with sketches of past and future designs, but it was what it was.

We all had gotten used to stepping over bags of old clothes and bolts of discounted material as we made our way to the sofa. “Did they get onto the bus okay?”

“Yeah, they’re good. You look tired.” I commented, folded my blanket then tossed it artfully over the corner of our beat-up sofa. One could have an artful eye for home décor even if one did sleep on a secondhand sofa from Goodwill.

“Long night. Are you able to stop at the market on the way home from the mill to pick up some things? Just bread, milk, some cereal for the girls. Oh, and some pasta.”

“Yep, happy to do so.” I nudged the rack of my outfits to the side to clear a bit more room at the end of the sofa.

“Oh, and Millie in billing cleaned out her closet. She’s wondering if you’d like to look through her old skinny clothes?”

“Yeah, I’d love to.” I’d just recently run out of my supply of thrift shop finds.

My passion was working with repurposed clothes and fabrics to create bold streetwear.

Not that a lot of people in Perkins Hollow, North Dakota were into my creations.

None actually. We were a farming community of about ten thousand which ran highly conservative so the queer boy who liked to sew pretty dresses was scorned, bullied, beaten up, and called bad names.

And yet, Kinder Graham was still sewing.

Fuck them all. Someday I’d be looking down at the prejudiced asses who had made my life hell and snicker.

I’d open a shop in LA or New York. My clothes would grace the elite, the rich, the rock stars and movie stars these hateful bigots all worshipped.

My family would be living in a mansion on Park Avenue or on an estate in the South of France.

And all the assholes who had made fun of me could go fuck themselves.

“You should go to bed. I’ll unpack your pail. ”

“Thanks. That double shift yesterday was brutal. I love you.” She went to her toes and pressed a kiss to my cheek then handed over the keys to our car as well as her empty lunch box.

Shoulders slumped she made her way to her bedroom.

While she still held the beauty of a former beauty pageant contestant life and loss had aged her.

Her short black hair was threaded with silver now, her slim build dangerously close to being too thin, and her skin dry and patchy from the hot air of molten steel where she worked far too many hours to make ends meet.

I also worked full time at a local feed mill but my minimum wage pay barely paid the cable bill.

Yet, somehow, she did her best to flash that killer smile that had not only won her many pageants but the heart of my father as often as she could.

Even when I knew it was forced. For the twins she would say if I questioned her on her fake happiness.

So I also had started smiling when I wanted to scream at the injustice of it all.

For the twins. They deserved better. Somehow I’d someday make sure they had it all even if I had to step on other people to make that happen. Keira was right. Being poor sucked.

I smiled at her as she glanced back before closing the door.

She was always exhausted. Always so sad.

Always working just to put food on the table and whittle away at the medical bills my father’s accidental death had left us buried under.

Taking the spare hour I had before I reported to the feed mill at nine I emptied the trunk of the car then toted the two garbage bags of clothing up the stairs to our second floor home.

The lure to dive into the treasures was strong but I opted to hold off until this evening.

Instead I ate some yogurt with granola, made some coffee, and sat down to watch an old documentary about Claude Barrons and his fashion empire.

The instant coffee was bitter but the show was fascinating as always.

It went back to the now renowned head of the Barrons Fashion Institute’s past, to his upbringing in Lyon, the lone son in a family of silk merchants.

The man grew up around exquisite textiles the lucky bastard.

At the age of twenty he moved to Paris to study at a prestigious fashion school.

At thirty he worked under major couture houses.

By forty he opened his own une école de mode which drove the one he had attended out of business.

His marriage to an American businessman failed after ten years and he now lived alone in a luxury 3 bedroom apartment in Chaillot district Paris 16th within walking distance of the Arc de Triomphe.

He and his dog, a little Chihuahua, who was dressed to always match Claude were the sole inhabitants of the luxury penthouse.

The Barrons name was synonymous with emotional storytelling through fabric the narrator said, a statement of fact that was also the tagline of the Barrons empire.

Also, and this is just a part of why I admired him so much, the man was fucking hot.

Even at fifty he oozed elegance mixed with aloof appeal.

Stylish salt-and-pepper hair, perfectly trimmed beard to match his hair, lean, on the short side, always dressed impeccably even if he were just out walking his dog.

When the dog wasn’t being toted about in a hip pouch.

Older men just did it for me, always had, so my attraction to the famed designer wasn’t shocking.