Page 30 of Wrapped Up at the Vintage Dress Shop
It went without saying that Coco Chanel wore it much better.
‘To think I promised Sophy that I’d be nice to her,’ Phoebe muttered. She didn’t know how she was going to be civil, much less nice, to this pretentious, up herself, look-stealing little diva.
Chapter Twelve
Phoebe took a late and very long lunch to walk Coco Chanel who absolutely didn’t appreciate that her human was going through something and needed some thinking time.
She waited until they were right at the top of Primrose Hill before she planted her backside firmly on the ground. Phoebe had to carry CC back to the shop and smile tightly at all the people, so many people, who felt the need to comment, ‘Who’s taking who for a walk?’
When she returned to The Vintage Dress Shop it was busy with afternoon shoppers. Their rail of black dresses was looking very sparse as everyone was shopping for Halloween looks.
Not that that was any of Phoebe’s business anymore. Not her circus, not her monkeys, which wasn’t one of Mildred’s mottos but something Johnno liked to say whenever someone was trying to make him do something that he didn’t want to do. Which had happened quite a lot.
How Phoebe missed him. And how she missed supervising the purchasing of dresses. ‘You might want to restock the black rail,’ she advised Bea who was now on the till while Anita was manning the changing rooms and the shop. ‘Where’s Sophy?’
‘She’s up in the atelier with Birdy,’ Bea said, as she took a dress from a customer and folded it, before wrapping it in tissue paper.
‘Why are they up in the atelier? There aren’t any rental dresses up there? It’s going to be like that Rosie Roberts nightmare all over again.’
Bea didn’t seem unduly concerned. ‘She seems really nice.’
‘Oh! You’re the woman from that TikTok video!’ The customer looked at Phoebe in surprise. Then she held up her phone. ‘Can I get a selfie?’
‘No, you absolutely can’t,’ Phoebe said tersely, because she and Sophy could have role-played all day and it still wouldn’t have prepared her for this. Then she summoned up a smile that was more of a baring of her teeth as the customer, who seemed like no stranger to fake tan herself, took a hasty step back. ‘I hope you’ve enjoyed your visit to The Vintage Dress Shop. Do come again!’
As Anita and Bea clearly had enough to do, Phoebe went down to the basement and began to pull out more black party dresses, of which they had a huge number. Even without Halloween looming, there was something about a black dress that always made a statement.
Phoebe held up a black lace dress with cap sleeves and a boat neck, a nipped-in bodice and a full skirt that would need a full petticoat to achieve optimum swishiness. She was tempted to keep it for herself but then, even with a generous staff discount, she shouldn’t be buying any more dresses. Not when she might be out of a job quite soon, and it wasn’t as if she had that many parties to go to anyway.
There was the Vintage Christmas Ball at the beginning of December, which they always treated as their official Christmas party. Phoebe organised all the details, as she did for the Vintage Summer Ball in June too, including persuading Freddy to fork out for a glam squad, but that came under managerial duties and she wasn’t a manager anymore.
She couldn’t help the white-hot flame of anger that flared in her belly. It was Freddy who she wanted to singe. Not even Rosie Roberts anymore.
Why was he treating her like this? He hadn’t even attempted to talk things out, just the two of them.
Phoebe didn’t even know if there was a two of them anymore. What Freddy had done, what he was doing, it was going to be very hard to forgive. She’d given him everything that she was capable of giving and even that wasn’t enough.
She thrust the dress away from her as if it were responsible for all her current woes.
‘Phoebe? Are you down here?’ called Sophy from the top of the steps.
‘Where the hell else would I be?’ Phoebe muttered under her breath. ‘Yes! I’m just going through the black dresses so we can restock.’
Sophy’s feet, clad in trainers like that was an acceptable item of footwear to accessorise with a vintage dress, appeared followed by a smaller, daintier pair of feet wearing fishnet stockings and an adorable pair of cotton-reel heel, two-strap, black patent Mary Janes.
‘Phoebe, this is Birdy. She’s been dying to meet you,’ Sophy said as all of her came into view.
Phoebe doubted that very much. She tried to school her features into an expression of pleasant expectation but she suspected that she just looked constipated.
There were legs attached to the dainty feet, a green and blue pinafore dress worn over a black turtle neck and then the face that she’d been peering at on Instagram for most of the morning appeared.
Birdy was a tiny, elfin creature who jumped down the last step and approached Phoebe with her arms outstretched, a huge smile on her delicately pretty little face.
‘Phoebe! I’m so pleased to meet you,’ she said in a gaspy, breathless voice. ‘Can we hug? Is this a hugging moment?’
Phoebe knew she looked more horrified than approachable. She tensed every bone, every muscle, every cell in her body and braced for impact but Sophy quickly said, ‘Phoebe’s not really much of a hugger.’
Birdy, thankfully, came to a halt mere centimetres away from Phoebe. Phoebe wasn’t that tall without her heels but Birdy was a good half a head shorter. She looked like the fragile sort of woman that men liked to protect and who made other women feel like great galumphing hags.
