Page 69 of Wrapped Up at the Vintage Dress Shop
Anita came down an hour later with a full face of party make-up. Her already doe eyes had never looked so large and lustrous as she fluttered her false eyelashes. She had a gold lamé dress over her arm, which she’d been coveting for weeks. ‘I knew this would look fantastic on me and so I’m now forced to buy it,’ she said glumly. ‘Even with my staff discount, it’s a lot and I haven’t bought any Christmas presents yet.’
‘Nothing wrong with a bit of self-gifting at Christmastime,’ Sophy said as she surveyed her rental empire.
‘Think of it as an investment in yourself,’ Phoebe added. In one hand, she had three different dresses for a customer who was already stripped down and waiting in one of the changing cubicles. In her other hand, she had her phone because she was in the middle of a WhatsApp chat with Birdy. She’d messaged to thank her for giving Bea advice and it had turned into counselling Birdy who was having a Clothes Panic about what to wear to the Vintage Christmas Ball. ‘You do look good in gold, Neeta.’
‘You’re a cursed pair of enablers,’ Anita muttered. ‘I’m going to put it back on the rail and if it’s still here by the end of the day, then God obviously wants me to have it.’
‘He does work in mysterious ways,’ Sophy said. ‘Right I’m going upstairs to force Cress into one of these dresses. I may be some time.’
With Sophy, Bea and Cress otherwise engaged, it was just Phoebe and Anita left to deal with an increasingly busy shop.
There were still quite a few customers solely there to gawp at Phoebe and who seemed to be quite disappointed that she wasn’t making impassioned speeches about vintage dressesand sustainable fashion. But most of the people were shoppers with a slightly desperate look in their eyes even though there were still a good twenty shopping days before Christmas.
‘Ugh! Men shopping for wives and girlfriends are the worst,’ Anita hissed to Phoebe after the man she was serving finally left empty-handed. That was only after making Anita try on five different dresses as he said that she was roughly the same size as his wife.
‘Though she’s got more in the boob department,’ he’d said cheerfully not realising that Anita was clearly wishing that very bad things would happen to him in the very near future.
‘I’m not convinced that he even has a wife,’ Phoebe hissed back. ‘Maybe that’s just how he gets his kicks. Making poor sales assistants try on dresses for his own sick pleasure.’
‘Don’t even!’ Anita pulled a gruesome face, which she quickly had to adjust to a more pleasing smile as she was approached by a customer.
There was a momentary lull just before the lunchtime rush and still no Sophy. ‘I wish she’d hurry up,’ Anita moaned. ‘I’m gasping for a cuppa.’
‘If you promise to stay behind the till until it’s finished, then I don’t mind you having a hot beverage so close to the dresses,’ Phoebe decided, then shied away as Anita tried to put a hand on her forehead.
‘Are you sickening for something?’ Anita asked sweetly. ‘Why are you being so nice?’
‘Maybe you’ve finally worn me down,’ Phoebe said. Or maybe these past few weeks had shown her that when it came to dealing with people, difficult people like Anita, then, as Mary Poppins had it, a spoonful of sugar could be very useful. Although that had never been one of Mildred’s life philosophies. ‘I no longer have the energy to fight with you. Though if you get coffee on anything, I will kill you and I will make it look like it was an accident.’
Anita grinned. ‘I expect nothing less.’
It was after lunch that the shop got really busy. There was no time to make Reels or faff about with jump transitions. It was all hands to the pump. Cress was stuck in her little rooftop eyrie replacing the beading on a 1960s cocktail dress that a courier was coming to collect by five. Downstairs, Bea was on changing room duty, Anita on till, Sophy on the shop floor to mill about and be helpful while Phoebe assisted where needed and refused to take selfies with anyone. Politely but very, very,veryfirmly.
But at five minutes past six, when the shop had emptied out, Bea jerked her head in the direction of the stairs. ‘Time for your close-up, Phoebe.’
‘Maybe now that you’ve got everyone else, then I don’t need to do a reel,’ Phoebe said because even if she wasn’t being probed by a journalist, she still didn’t fancy an ill-informed army of keyboard warriors being rude about her in the comments.
‘You’re doing a reel,’ Sophy said from behind the till where she was just about to cash up. ‘You have to lead by example. Also, Cress said that there’s a black backless satin 1930s dress in the designer room that you’ve been having an affair with for months.’
Phoebe managed to sigh both in annoyance and in longing. Even with a very generous staff discount, the dress in question was still far too rich for her budget. ‘I’ll do it, but only if Coco does it with me,’ she said because even if she was being moredemocraticat work, she was still the boss and that had to count for something.
The infamous jump transition was actually more of a twirling transition. Still in her black day dress and her day make-up, Bea made Phoebe twirl until she was dizzy and worried that Coco, who was tucked under her arm, might throw up.
Then it was time for a quick change into the black satin, bias-cut gown of Phoebe’s dreams. Sparkly clips in her hair and an even more flicky eye and redder lip than usual. And twirling. So much twirling until Phoebe was sure that she had motion sickness.
‘So, you’ll start the twirl in your day clothes then with some nifty editing, you’ll finish the twirl in your evening finery then do a little pose,’ Bea explained as she showed Phoebe footage of her twirling. ‘For music, I was thinking of Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood”.’
‘Perfect,’ Phoebe agreed. ‘You’ve really thrown yourself into this challenge, but tomorrow, no excuses, you’re going to be twirling yourself.’
‘I like to think of myself more as the person who makes the magic happen,’ Bea said, even though it was clear to anyone with eyes that the magic also happened on her pretty face.
‘No getting out of it,’ Phoebe said sternly, though now her stern voice felt more of an effort than something she’d never had to think about before deploying. ‘Also, you might want to bring travel sickness pills.’
‘I hate my life,’ Bea called out mournfully as she went down the stairs while Phoebe put her work dress back on in the changing room off the atelier.
She thought that she had the place to herself but when she emerged, the lights were still on in Cress’s workroom and the woman herself was bent over her sewing machine.
Phoebe tapped lightly on the open door. ‘Did you forget the time? It’s gone seven thirty. You should have gone home an hour ago.’
