Page 44 of Wrapped Up at the Vintage Dress Shop
‘No, you really didn’t think at all, did you?’ Phoebe’s voice sounded as if it had been coated in ice. ‘I don’t find it confusing or hard to find things, because all my brain cells are fully operational.’
Bea winced, Sophy’s chin tilted up and Anita put her hands on her hips. ‘There’s no need to get personal,’ Anita said chippily.
‘I wasn’t getting personal. I was talking aboutmybrain cells.’ Phoebe took a deep gathering breath, which was as much use as running cold water over her wrists had been. ‘I couldn’t possibly comment onyourbrain cells.’
‘This way, at least, a customer can come in and won’t need to ask if we have a dress in a size ten, because the size-ten dresses will have their own rail,’ Sophy said in a stilted fashion like she was grinding her teeth.
‘But this isn’t the sort of shop where someone just wanders in for a random size-ten dress and then wanders out again. Coming to The Vintage Dress Shop is an experience. It’s an adventure. It’s about not knowing what you’ll find but letting the dresses speak to you. Finding a dress that you’re drawn to, that you didn’t even know you’d need until you see it on the rail,’ Phoebe said.
‘Yes, but it’s not much use being drawn to a dress in a size eight if you’re a size twelve,’ Bea pointed out, but she did it very quietly as if her heart wasn’t really in it.
‘So, then you put the dress back and look for another one or, and this is just a wild suggestion,’ Phoebe said in the most condescending tone she could manage, which was actually very, very condescending, ‘you could ask a member of staff to help you.’
‘But it’s very hard to remember the size or the provenance of every dress in the shop,’ Anita protested.
‘It’s not at all hard. I manage it without any trouble at all,’ Phoebe said. She turned around slowly to once again see the havoc that had been wrought while she’d been hemming upstairs and listening to podcasts about flighty heiresses, without a care in the world. ‘This looksterrible.’
‘It’s not that bad,’ Sophy said but her face said something else entirely.
‘And if I had a pound for every time that a customer told me how beautiful our rails look on Instagram I’d be a wealthy woman and wouldn’t have to work with . . . with . . . bloody imbeciles,’ Phoebe snapped. Ok, that was quite a personal remark. ‘Our rainbow rails are one of our USPs, like our pink sofas or the one black dress that we have in the window. In the space of a couple of hours, you’ve destroyed our brand.’ She clapped her hands in a mocking manner. ‘Well done! Good job, everybody!’
‘We were going to put things back before you even saw it,’ Bea said placatingly.
Phoebe could feel her eyebrows shooting up. ‘Oh, and why was that then, Bea?’
Bea muttered something that Phoebe couldn’t quite catch.
‘What was that?’ she demanded.
Sophy sighed. ‘We quickly realised that it looked much better the way it was before.’ Her eyes flashed. ‘Even if it isreally hard to find specific sizes and it’s all very well asking for a member of staff to help, but if that member of staff is you then I pity that poor customer.’
‘Rude!’ Phoebe hissed.
‘I don’t know how you have the nerve to call me rude when you’re the rudest person I’ve ever met,’ Sophy said, stepping nearer to Phoebe and clenching her fists.
Even Anita, who lived for the drama, all kinds of drama, looked alarmed at how quickly the situation had escalated. ‘Oh my God, everyone, calm down! We’re going to put it back the way it was.’
Phoebe snatched up the nearest dress, a black and gold striped taffeta 1950s shirtwaister, and held it in front of her. ‘You’ll do no such thing. You’ve already made a complete mess of the shop. You can’t be trusted to know your teals from your turquoises or your carmines from your crimsons.’
‘You are a ridiculous woman,’ Sophy said and as if she couldn’t bear to be in Phoebe’s presence a moment longer, she stalked out of the shop without even a coat on and slammed the door so hard that the bell nearly had a nervous breakdown.
Phoebe felt like joining it. Instead she gathered up more dresses. Her poor dresses, shoved about without any respect. ‘Bea, you can help me. Anita, I don’t even want to look at you right now.’
‘It was Sophy’s idea,’ Anita said quickly because there was no loyalty among thieves or between completely incompetent shop assistants. ‘Can I go home early then?’
‘You can but I’m docking it out of your wages,’ Phoebe said although she didn’t have any idea how to do that.
All this time there had been customers in the shop. Goodness knows what they must think? Probably they pitied Phoebe for what she had to put up with.
She turned to the nearest one, a woman in an adorable navy blue princess coat, a silk scarf with a navy and pea green graphic pattern, tied just so around the collar. Clearly a woman of discerning taste. ‘I’m so sorry that you had to witness that,’ Phoebe allowed herself a careless laugh though the effort almost choked her. ‘You just can’t get the staff. Now is there anything in particular that I can help you with?’
The woman backed away slowly. ‘I was just looking but I think I’ll come back when things are a little less . . . chaotic,’ she said, keeping eye contact with Phoebe as she sidled towards the door.
Although a very chastened Bea stuck around to help and Phoebe knewexactlywhere every single dress in the shop belonged, it still took a surprisingly long time to restore order.
By closing time, they were still only half done. Phoebe was just turning the shop sign to closed when Sophy returned. She was tight-lipped with two blazing patches of red on her cheeks and stuck around only long enough to grab her bag and coat, have a hissed conversation with Cress who’d just come downstairs, then flounce out again.
Good riddance, Phoebe thought as she slotted a lemon yellow chiffon fit-and-flare dress next to a sherbet yellow maxi with appliqué flowers trailing over the skirt and bodice.
