Page 21 of A Summer Scandal

‘So,’ he said, unwrapping the waxy paper from around his burger. ‘Is this what you do?’ He nodded towards her temporary workspace, which, now her machine was set up and her accessories displayed, seemed to have taken over half of the living room. ‘Make costumes?’

Violet nodded. She couldn’t speak, because she was experiencing burger nirvana.

‘Oh my God,’ she mumbled.

‘I know, right?’ Cal high-fived her across the breakfast bar. ‘I did tell you.’

‘Yeah, this is me,’ she said. ‘I’ve been working for myself for a while now, I love it.’

His eyes strayed to the dressmaker’s dummy again. ‘Bloody good at it, by the looks of our Lola.’

It had taken Vi quite a while to accept compliments about her work without automatically shaking them off. The fact was that she’d worked damn hard to be good at it, so she wasn’t going to apologise for it.

‘Thanks. I’m pretty proud of it. I make dancers’ costumes, the occasional wedding dress, even, but theatrical and club stuff mainly.’

‘You should be proud.’ He nodded, looking at her again now. ‘And your family? Are they cool with what you do?’

That was an unusually perceptive question; some of the outfits she made were incredibly skimpy and designed to show off the wearer’s body to best effect. Thankfully, her parents didn’t have any issue with it – she’d have had to take their feelings into consideration while she lived under their roof and worked in their garden.

‘Yeah, they’re not stuffy about things like that.’

He huffed under his breath, screwing up all of the empty papers into a ball. ‘What?’ Vi asked.

‘You’re lucky, that’s all.’

It was Vi’s turn to be inquisitive. ‘I guess I am. Why do I get the feeling that you understand?’

He sighed, his face bunched up. ‘It might be easier to show you, rather than tell you.’ Scanning the kitchen, he found the bin and shoved their rubbish in. ‘Come on. It’ll only take five minutes.’

Intrigued, Violet searched around the floor for her shoes.

‘Don’t bother,’ he said. ‘We’re only going across the landing.’

‘You work from home too?’

He nodded, leading her across the landing. ‘You haven’t heard the noise?’

‘I just assumed DIY,’ she said.

He laughed softly, unlocking his front door. ‘Not quite.’

Cal’s apartment looked to be the same layout as hers, a small hallway with doors leading off it. That was where the similarity ended though; his was clear of clutter and kitsch, lots of white and neutral greys to make the most of the light and space. It wasn’t cold – he’d added a few touches of colour to avoid that – but it was a world away from her place across the landing.

‘These places are all about the views, aren’t they?’ he said, nodding at the living-room bay window. ‘I tried to keep it un-distracting in here, because I can’t compete with what’s going on out there.’

‘My grandmother clearly didn’t feel the same way,’ Violet laughed.

He led her through one of the other doors, and she found herself in what would be the spare bedroom in her own apartment, or Della’s yellow bedroom. This, however, wasn’t a bedroom. It was a busy workroom, masculine and far more cluttered than the rest of his place, everything jammed in.

‘What do you make in here?’ she asked, surprised, taking in the cutting equipment, the workbench, and what looked like an industrial overlocker. Rolls of leather. Hammers, scissors, tools. It looked like a beefed-up version of her own set-up, though she was pretty sure there weren’t any feathers or sequins.

‘My family have been leatherworkers for more generations than I can count back,’ he said. ‘Saddles, equine equipment mostly.’

‘Wow,’ she said, glancing around for evidence of a saddle and finding nothing. ‘Can I see? I used to love ponies as a kid.’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t work for the family business any more,’ he said. ‘I branched out on my own, much to my mother’s disgust.’

‘Oh, that’s rough,’ she frowned. ‘So do you have to compete with them for work?’

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