Chapter 14
TESSA
Fern has brought a cheaper version of my veil to a meeting about whether I deserve to keep my job.
It's folded beside mine on the Bellquay Rooms meeting table. From the doorway, they look almost alike. Then the light reaches the silver threads in ours, and the other one looks like something rescued from a shower drain.
I decide to keep that observation to myself until it becomes useful.
Peggy wheels our covered rail into the room while Matvei checks the short passage behind us.
The showroom doors are closed today, hiding the place where I sat behind the fitting screen on Thursday.
Nobody is carrying returns through the lobby.
I still check the empty desk before I follow Peggy inside.
The photograph taken through that screen is with Alison. So are the booking records Peggy sent after Monday's call about Flora. We haven't heard that they matched anything. Knowing Alison is looking at another murder doesn't make this room feel bigger.
I sit in the chair beside our rail, facing the door. Matvei stays just outside it, where I can see him, and I set my bag under my feet.
Esther arrives with Fern's proposal beneath her arm.
She's the client whose October anniversary dinner is supposed to pay for eighteen costumes and a very welcome part of our rent.
Her haunted wedding idea involves dead bridesmaids, a ruined bouquet and enough silver to keep Peggy finding beads in her bra until Christmas.
I liked her immediately when she described it. This afternoon she doesn't smile until she sees the covered rail.
Fern moves her own veil closer to Esther's chair.
“Before we try anything, we should address the concerns.”
Peggy locks the rail's wheels. The little clicks sound very loud in the small room.
“I watched the whole farm video,” Esther says. “The man grabbed her. I'd like to see the costumes.”
I could kiss her, which would probably give Fern another concern. Instead I unzip the cover over the ivory gown, easing it away from the beaded shoulder so nothing catches.
Fern opens her folder before I can lift the hanger.
“There's also the other photograph. I wouldn't have raised it, but your guests will see the suppliers' names.”
She slides a printed copy across the table.
There I am in my red devil dress, leaving the bathroom at The Ninth Masque.
The caption is there too, with its little joke about our private fittings.
She's brought it on paper. Somebody had to choose that image, put it through a printer and pick it up, all for a meeting about a woman's Halloween party.
My fingers tighten around the hanger until the hook digs into my palm.
I remember the happiness on my face. Bogdan hadn't given me his name yet.
I was going back to Peggy with a secret I wanted to keep smiling about, and somebody had been close enough to capture it.
At the time, I'd thought the worst part of finding Lincoln at a club would be having to listen to his set.
I don't know whether he took this. I only know he shared it afterward. I make myself keep that difference clear as I lay the gown over the rail again.
“Why did you bring that?” Esther asks.
“So you can make an informed decision.”
“You sent it to me yesterday.” She puts one finger on the caption. “Who wrote this?”
Fern's smile barely moves. “It was a joke.”
Peggy comes to stand beside my chair. The edge of her sleeve touches my shoulder, and I press my heel into the floor, using that little bit of contact to keep myself from snatching the page.
Esther waits. She's still looking at Fern.
“I wrote the caption,” Fern says. “Lincoln sent me the picture. He said she wouldn't mind.”
For a moment all I can hear is Peggy's breathing beside me.
We've waited days for someone to stop hiding behind a shared login. I've imagined the admission arriving in a call from Klim, with something I could point to while I decided what to say. Fern gives it to us across a table and reaches for her water as though she's cleared up a delivery date.
“You posted it,” I say.
“Yes. On the production account. I took it down when it became a problem.”
Her glass leaves a wet circle on the paper beneath it.
I watch the circle spread while the rest catches up with me.
She stood in our borrowed fitting room pretending someone else had done this.
She brought a replacement dress before Melanie even arrived.
Then she watched me wonder what people were saying and waited for me to lose the sale.
“You told Klim you didn't,” I say. “You told us several people used that account.”
“They do.”
Peggy draws out the chair beside me and sits. Fern's smile vanishes. Peggy puts her phone on the table, screen up.
“Send me Lincoln's messages.”
“I'm not handing you my phone.”
“Then forward the exchange. Include what you sent him.”
Fern turns to Esther and picks up her water glass. “He told me it was fine. This is being made to look malicious.”
“Let them see what he said,” Esther replies.
The water trembles close to the rim before Fern sets it down. I feel an ugly flash of satisfaction. She wants Esther to believe her more than she wants to keep Lincoln happy, and for once those wants aren't both aimed at us.
She opens her email on the tablet and finds the exchange. Peggy waits until the message arrives, then moves her phone between us.
The original photograph sits beneath Lincoln's name. His message says I like attention. Farther down, Fern has sent him a screenshot of the published post, caption included.
Should make the cheaper package an easier sell.
Lincoln's answer is a laughing face.
My throat burns. It isn't the bathroom that makes me want to cry. I liked what happened there. I like the man I met. It's the ease of this, two people deciding that embarrassing me would help them get something, then laughing before they went on with their afternoons.
Peggy saves the exchange with its attachments. I ask her to send me the same copy, and my phone vibrates inside my bag a moment later.
Fern starts to reach across the table. Peggy picks up her phone before the hand gets near it.
“That was about the budget,” Fern says.
“It was about my budget,” Esther replies. “You could've discussed it with me.”
I stand because I don't want Fern looking down at me for another second.
My knees feel loose beneath my skirt, but they hold.
The ivory gown waits on the rail, its dark silver embroidery curled around the waist like brambles.
I spent two evenings sewing tiny torn leaves into those stems so they would lift when Esther moved.
She hasn't seen them move yet.
I pick up the printed photograph. The thick paper resists the bend beneath my fingers. Fern paid for a nice copy. I fold it once with my face inside and slide it into the outer pocket of my bag.
“That's enough of my dress,” I say. “Let's look at yours.”
Esther puts Fern's proposal aside.
The gown is a sample with the back partly open for adjustment. Peggy helps Esther step into it over her slip behind the meeting room's folding screen, which stands flush against the far wall. I stay at the rail, drawing the matching waistcoat and bridesmaid's bodice into the light.
Fern hasn't left. Her cheaper package lies in a glossy folder beside the wet ring from her glass. For the first time, she has nothing to add.
When Esther steps out, the pale velvet moves softly around her shoes. The sample is loose at the shoulders. I take up the excess with two clips and step back so she can see herself in the long mirror beside the door.
She touches the embroidered waist.
“I thought the flowers would look dead.”
“They will in the candlelight. Turn toward the lamp.”
Peggy switches off the bright ceiling lights, leaving the table lamp on.
Matvei remains visible through the open doorway.
As Esther turns, the raised leaves cast little shadows over the velvet, deepening the silver into dark branches.
The beads catch here and there between them, like drops that haven't dried.
She turns back, watching the dress change again.
This is what the drawings couldn't show her. I made the leaves lift away from the cloth because a flat embroidered border would look pretty in the photographs and vanish across a dinner table. Her guests will see the brambles when she moves past their candles.
I take our veil from its box. Fine netting slips over my wrist, cool and almost weightless. Fern's sample crackles when she moves her folder off it. Esther glances toward the sound, then holds still while I settle ours against her hair.
The silver threads fall beyond her shoulders. I arrange the last fold and leave her face clear. In the mirror, her mouth opens a little.
Peggy brings the waistcoat beside her. Its embroidery climbs from one lower corner instead of copying every branch on the dress.
Behind it, the bridesmaid's bodice carries a single broken stem.
Together they look like people who belong at the same terrible wedding, with Esther exactly where she wanted to be, at its center.
She laughs at her reflection. The sound loosens the sore place in my throat.
“Keep all eighteen,” she tells Peggy. “I'll deal with you directly on the costumes.”
Fern shifts in her chair. Esther catches the movement in the mirror.
“Send me the separate coordination invoice. I won't need the alternative package.”
Peggy puts the booking sheet on the table. Esther signs after she changes, with our silver veil resting in its box beside her elbow. The pen makes a small tearing sound where she presses hard on the last letter.
I want to keep that sound somewhere.
Fern leaves with her own samples and the folder.
We retain the gown, matching pieces and veil for the final alterations.
By the time Esther goes, Peggy has restored the lights and confirmed our next fitting.
The room looks ordinary again, except the awful print is in my bag and we still have our order.
Peggy pushes a paper cup toward me. The tea has gone lukewarm, with the ginger bag left in too long. I drink anyway, grateful for something to do with my mouth before it gives me away. Ginger stings my tongue, its peppery scent rising faintly as I lift the cup again.
“We kept it,” she says.
I nod, then have to put the cup down because my eyes fill.
She comes around the table and hugs me. I bury my face against her shoulder, laughing once because I'm furious about crying after Fern has finally gone. Peggy holds on without telling me how well I handled it.
For a minute I let her.
Then I take out my phone and open the forwarded exchange. Bogdan answers my call while Peggy folds the garment covers beside me.
“Fern posted it,” I tell him. “Lincoln supplied it. We have their messages, including her saying it would help sell the cheaper costumes.”
He goes quiet. I can hear a door closing at his end.
“Send them to me.”
I forward the complete email and wait. Peggy stops folding and looks at me.
“I'm looking at it. Are you still at Bellquay?”
“With Peggy and Matvei. We kept all eighteen costumes.”
“Good girl.”
The praise makes me throb beneath my skirt before I can make a joke about it. I sit on the edge of the table, wanting his hand at the back of my neck and his mouth against my throat when we're alone.
He tells me Klim is with him. I put the phone on the table and switch to speaker at his request so Peggy can hear too.
“Lincoln doesn't perform at either club again,” Bogdan says. “Tell both managers. Replace any bookings. Keep the exchange with the account records.”
Klim confirms it. There's no raised voice, no discussion of whether Lincoln draws a crowd. Bogdan owns the rooms where my ex likes to feel important, and he's just closed them to him.
“Fern's independent,” I say. “She'll still be at other events.”
“I know. Matvei stays with you. She doesn't get to choose that.”
I look at our guard through the doorway. He turns as if he knows we're talking about him, then returns his attention to the passage.
I pick up the phone and take him off speaker while Peggy carries the empty covers to the rail.
“The client liked the dress?” Bogdan asks.
I tell him about the leaves and the little shadows. The words come too quickly at first.
“And the other seventeen?” he asks.
I explain how the smaller pieces belong with hers, slowing down because he actually wants the answer.
An old boyfriend once gave me a silk scarf before taking me to dinner. Pale pink, expensive, already folded the way he wanted me to wear it. When I tied it around my handbag, he unwound it and put it over the neckline of my dress. He said I'd look more expensive if I showed less.
I thanked him. That's the part I dislike remembering most.
Now I'm sitting on a rented meeting table in a skirt that rides up when I cross my legs, telling a mafia boss how I made a dead bride beautiful. He lets me finish.
“Tell me what you want for dinner,” he says.
I picture myself in the dark-queen dress I've been making for the ball. He hasn't seen it yet. I want to walk into a room wearing it and see his face when he looks up.
“Surprise me,” I tell him.
“Bring your queen's dress on Friday. We'll have your fitting at the house. Leave the evening free.”
I agree before he can change his mind, though he gives me no reason to think he will.
When the call ends, the forwarded photograph is still on my screen. Fern printed it because she thought the smile on my face would cost me something.
I close it and add Friday's fitting to the calendar.
Lincoln can tell another room how much I like attention.
On Friday, I'm going to have all of Bogdan's.