Chapter Eighteen
Peeling one of my By Grace Algar stickers off the page in my drawer I stick it across Belinda’s dress bag. I’ll never have personalised bags like Emma Stark, I admit to myself. These thoughts bring me right down as I quietly listen to the sisters jabber on. I down a cool glass of lemon water.
‘Okay, Belinda. Ta-dahh! Here’s your finished gown. May it bring you all the luck and love in the world.’ I pull myself together, paint a smile on my face. I hand Belinda the metal hanger that’s protruding from the open hole in the top of the dress bag and she takes it ever so carefully.
‘Can’t thank ya enough, hun. I love it so much.
It’s perfection. But can I collect it when my sisters are collecting their dresses?
I’d like us all to get a photo with you and then walk out of here together with the dresses?
If that’s okay, hun?’ Belinda drapes her free hand across my left shoulder and pulls me in close to her.
‘Of course.’ I lean my head on her shoulder for the briefest moment then I instantly untangle myself from her.
She’s so open and lovely, I forget that she’s not my friend but a client!
I can’t allow myself to let those lines become blurred again.
Retrieving the dress, I hang the bag back up, then get back into work mode so I can finish up before I eat my own fingers.
‘Now, Amanda. Coffee down, you’re up. Let’s get you in . . . when I can prise Denise out of her dress!’ I remove Amanda’s full-length dress from the hanger on my moveable, retractable rail.
‘One second,’ Denise calls over to me. ‘I’m busy loving myself. It’s so rare I love the way I look. I love you, you big ride!’ she tells her reflection blowing kisses to herself.
Amanda’s dress is velvet. Off-the-shoulder, cobalt blue, with a feathery neckline and a silver link-chain belt across the midriff. It’s sporting a sexy but respectable split, on the right side. She wanted, in her words, ‘safe glamour’.
I had to google it. It didn’t exist so I’d used my imagination.
‘Love it!’ Amanda jumps up, towering above me now in the white block-heeled shoes she’s slipped on in place of her brown Birkenstocks.
‘Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! The old hotel in Howth won’t know what’s hit it when the Kearneys from Ringsend grace them with our stunning presence to dance the night away! ’
Amanda’s more athletic and muscular, so she wanted me to make the dress very feminine. I point her in behind the solid weave, handmade wicker folding room divider that provides privacy for my clients.
‘It’s proper Irish home-cooked food, and because of this beautiful weather I can have the dinner served in their summer garden before heading up to the reception room; it’s gonna be deadly.’ Belinda does a little dance on the spot, then moonwalks across my kitchen.
‘Here. C’mere. Forgot to ask ya. How was your date in the end?’ Belinda asks as I pull Amanda’s grey, pleated skirt and floral short-sleeved blouse off the top of the room divider and fold them neatly.
Shaking my head, I place the clothes on the small stool then shake out Denise’s cream button-up dress. I should never have told Belinda my personal business in the first place. Really silly of me. The lines just got crossed because she’s so easy to get on with.
‘Wet fish?’ Belinda drops a floppy wrist up and down, her silver bangles jingling.
‘Yeah. Wet enough,’ I reply, hoping that’s the end of that. ‘Let’s go, Denise, we need to get the dress off you. Come on, out.’ I snap my fingers, wave at her button-up dress.
‘Grace had a date. But she was only lookin’ for some poor unfortunate, unsuspecting victim to drag to a party – no real interest in him.
Bitta revenge, isn’t that right? Her ex is gonna be there.
’ Belinda prises the phone out of Denise’s hand and snaps some photos, her thumb clicking at a rapid pace.
‘Eh, sort of,’ I mutter, more than a little embarrassed at Belinda’s words.
‘Terrible. Mean. Dirty. No! The poor fella.’ Denise flicks across the photos as she turns and side-eyes me to let me get her out of the dress.
‘No – oh – no, it wasn’t like that . . . I mean I met him before, and he’s really nice . . . I mean, he’s just not for me.’ I pop each pin I remove from between my clenched teeth and mark the area with my invisible pencil nib.
‘Unless you’re really desperate?’ Denise questions.
‘Yeah, unless I’m really desperate, then he’ll do!’ I grin, trying to make a joke of it.
A plethora of voices, all saying a variation of ‘poor guy’, murmur loudly around me. I realise I may look a bit of a bitch.
‘Obviously, I’m joking,’ I say. ‘I mean, he was – is – such a nice guy—’ I’m gratefully interrupted as Amanda steps out from behind my changing screen and we all gape.
‘Saved by the bell. Watch out! Sasha Fierce is in the house!’ Denise rolls her shoulders then breaks into a most unexpected twerk as she steps out of her dress.
‘Giz a sneak peek at Kathleen’s dress?’ Belinda juts me with her hip.
‘Can it wait? It’s hanging in the shower, steaming.
I’m working off the measurements Kathleen emailed over from LA, so I’m hoping it doesn’t need too much altering.
Don’t want to move it as I hot-glued a brooch in the centre last night, and she’s coming in the afternoon, right? ’ I confirm. ‘Two-thirty?’
‘Yeah. Our Baby Spice is on her way. Her highness jetting in from La La Land this evening, for one week only.’ Belinda pushes her palms together, raises them to her third eye. Amanda and Denise copy Belinda immediately.
‘Namaste,’ they chant together and then double over, howling laughing again, slapping one another’s backs. Once again, when I’m with these women, I wish I had a sister. They are filled with such love and affection for one another.
‘I think you’re all going to love her dress. We worked on it together, it’s a copy of a dress Marilyn Monroe wore,’ I tell them as they all look at me with open mouths. Amanda’s is open so wide, her top lip sticks to her teeth.
‘Christ! Like she isn’t ridey enough!’ she says.
‘Oh, not like that,’ but I can’t help laughing at her expression, ‘I would never allow a bridesmaid to upstage one of my brides, and believe you me I’ve had words with women who have tried. No, Kathleen’s dress is the definition of simple elegance and understated beauty.’
‘Right, come on, I want you two to listen to the rest of my speech, I need to see what to cut?’ Belinda interrupts their playful joking.
‘After hearing the first half, might I be so bold as to suggest your throat?’ Denise lowers her voice to a loud whisper and she and Amanda double over. I bite my lip to supress a laugh of my own.
Belinda quips back. ‘Shut yer holes! What?’
‘It’s too sad, Belinda! It’s depressing! Put some funny in it!’ Denise straightens up holding the base of her spine.
‘It’s not a stand-up comedy show! It’s me wedding speech.’
‘Right, everyone, let’s get these dresses bagged up for tomorrow,’ I say, as this time my stomach rumbles like a blender filled with rocks.
‘And that’s our cue to leave!’ Belinda declares as they grab their belongings and move about my flat like a blur.
‘I’m nearly after breakin’ me neck on these stairs, they’re a death trap! You need to get yourself an investor in this business!’ Amanda yells up, and then the door slams and they’re gone.
I sit for a quiet moment, just picturing Emma Stark in her plush store, waving goodbye to her clients.
No dangerous, rickety stairs, no dope-smoking youths outside, ample parking nearby.
The tiny white butterfly flutters around me.
Another rumble of my stomach. I decide to have some of that leftover chicken Donal put in the fridge, with a big bowl of spaghetti.
As I stand to do that the butterfly flutters past me again, but this time it flies through the rusty rooftop door, an escape route from my flat finally uncovered, free at last. Just like that butterfly, I need to free myself from Emma Stark, and I know exactly what I have to do.