Page 12 of Wrapped Up at the Vintage Dress Shop
Chapter Five
Phoebe wasn’t in the best frame of mind to curate an edit from Sophy’s sorry collection of rental frocks. She stalked down the spiral staircase, intent only on finding Coco Chanel because when she was this upset, this riled up, all she wanted was the comfort of Coco’s potato-shaped weight in her arms. She’d even tolerate Coco licking her face despite the fact the dog was an indiscriminatory snacker. Not even an hour ago, Phoebe had had to change course on their walk when Coco tried to eat the remnants of a box of fried chicken in the gutter.
Coco was curled up in one of her fluffiest beds in the back office, snoozing in a shaft of sunlight beaming in from the glass in the back door. She opened one eye as Phoebe approached then closed it again and tucked her body tighter into potato formation. She clearly didn’t want to be disturbed and Phoebe had to respect Coco’s boundaries.
‘Pheebs,’ Sophy said from somewhere behind her. Phoebe rolled her eyes at the wall and sighed, then turned round. ‘Did you want to have a look at these dresses? No worries if not!’
Sophy would love it if Phoebe didn’t exercise any kind of quality control on the shop stock, then before the year was out, they’d be selling who knows what. Nasty separates made of environment-damaging fabric that contained plastics and carcinogenic chemicals, which would eventually end up as landfill. Oh yes, Sophy would love that.
Sophy didn’t look quite so perky when she caught the expression on Phoebe’s face as she headed for the rental rail. She’d finally seen some sense and arranged the dresses by colour like the rest of their stock, so it was easy for Phoebe to rifle through the hangers and find fault with everything except, except . . .
It was worse than Phoebe imagined. Sophy didn’t have much of an eye. The wrong sized bra and the sack-like dresses of her recent past were proof of that, but somehow she’d managed to assemble a not completely hideous selection of frocks to rent.
Phoebe ran one hand over a sweet little panne velvet cocktail dress in a sage green with cap sleeves, a ruched bodice and diamanté embellishment. ‘This isn’t bad,’ she said though it killed her to admit that much, especially as she could even imagine herself wearing it. ‘Is it 1930s?’
‘It’s 1940s, I think, from an Australian brand. It’s part of that consignment of dresses I had shipped over from Melbourne.’ Sophy went a little misty-eyed. ‘When I was working at Clive’s Closet, their dresses were very popular. Couldn’t get enough of them.’ She pulled out a cheery red broderie anglaise dress from further down the rail with the flattering 1950s silhouette of nipped-in waist and full skirt. ‘Here’s another one. Of course, when I was at Clive’s Closet . . .’
The very last thing Phoebe needed was Sophy banging on about Clive and his bloody closet. When Sophy had been in Australia for a year, though she was meant to have emigrated and never come back, she’d ended up working in Clive’s Closet, a vintage shop, where Clive and the other delusional members of staff seemed to think that Sophy was some kind of retro fashion guru. Clearly, Clive didn’t have very good judgement.
Phoebe continued to cast an eye over the dresses. Next to her she could feel Sophy quivering, but she was so upsetabout Cress and Freddy’s betrayal that she was off her game. Try as she might, she couldn’t really find fault with any of the dresses. In fact, Phoebe was quite annoyed that she hadn’t called dibs on some of them to sell in the shop. Not that she was going to share that with Sophy, which would have made her absolutely unbearable to be around.
Even more unbearable than usual.
‘This influencer. What’s her angle? Is she doing party looks?’ Phoebe asked.
‘We didn’t go into specifics,’ Sophy admitted, her smile fading a little.
‘Party looks would be the most useful,’ Phoebe pointed out, because really, she had to do everything around here. She was already pulling out dresses. A silver lamé minidress, a Pucci-inspired shift dress, a black and gold striped lurex maxi. ‘You’ll want dresses that will photograph well. What’s her colouring?’
‘Olive skin, dark hair. She’s one of those people who can wear anything,’ Sophy said a little sadly as she was a pale redhead (‘but the sort of redhead who tans,’ was another thing that she didn’t shut up about since she’d come back from Australia) and there were some colours that she just couldn’t and shouldn’t wear. ‘Also, she’s tall and slim. She could easily be a model.’
‘What’s her name again?’ Phoebe asked, taking her phone out of her dress pocket. ‘I suppose I should look her up on Instagram.’
‘You don’t follow her already?’ Sophy didn’t need to take her phone out of any convenient pocket as it was always clutched in her hand.
‘Of course I don’t. Why would I want to be influenced by anyone else?’ Phoebe asked. ‘I know what works for me and what doesn’t. Anyway, it all seems a bit big-headed to me. All those fit checks. What’s wrong with just looking at yourself inthe mirror? Why do you need validation from loads of people you don’t even know? It’s just showing off.’
Showing off was a terrible thing to do. Right up there with defacing public property and stealing.
Sophy was looking at Phoebe in the way she did sometimes. Like she thought Phoebe had been imported from some faraway planet. ‘When Rosie comes in, I’m begging you to keep those thoughts to yourself,’ she said, and actually grinned when Phoebe narrowed her eyes.
‘I do know how to behave in company,’ she said grandly. ‘I’m representing The Vintage Dress Shop and nothing is more important to me than that.’
‘And don’t we know it,’ Sophy muttered but before Phoebe could take her to task, the shop door crashed back on its hinges, the bell tinkling in alarm, and the already busy shop was suddenly overflowing with people.
People with edgy haircuts and edgy clothing: a man in orange overalls that looked as if they were prison-issue, with bleached and distressed blond hair as if someone had taken a pair of hedge trimmers to it. Two girls wearing matching navy blue romper sailor suits with bare legs (even though the bare leg window had closed a good three weeks earlier) and big red clown shoes. Another person of indeterminate gender who was wearing a greige catsuit and a huge pair of wraparound mirror shades, which obscured most of their face. In the middle of this assorted group was a tall, slim woman with flawless olive skin, long glossy brown hair in perfectly tousled ringlets and a steely, determined air about her as she demanded that ‘we reshoot my entrance once we’ve set up the lights’.
‘The lights,’ Phoebe and Sophy both echoed, for once the two of them on the same page, a page that this wasn’t what had been agreed.
‘Look at them,’ Phoebe hissed as she surveyed Rosie – who was pointedly ignoring Bea who’d come over to introduceherself – and her entourage. All of them were clutching bubble tea in precarious plastic cups and one of the romper suit twins had an open container of some smelly food with a lot of gloopy sauce on it. ‘Just look at them!’
Sophy shot Phoebe a fearful glance. ‘We’re calm aren’t we? We’re cool as cucumbers.’
‘Youhaveto make them wash their hands,’ Phoebe managed to say though she was clenching everything so tightly she was worried that she might have lockjaw. ‘Then get them to go upstairs.’
But Rosie Roberts, influencer, content creator and brand ambassador, had decided that she wasn’t going anywhere.
‘This is great where we are,’ Phoebe heard her say in a very plummy accent. ‘Can we, like, close the shop for the afternoon? It’s not going to work having all these civilians around.’
