Page 31 of Wrapped Up at the Vintage Dress Shop
‘Sorry, I’m half Maltese, half Italian,’ Birdy trilled, her big, liquid brown eyes fixed on Phoebe. ‘I’m too much of a hugger.’
‘It’s very nice to meet you,’ Phoebe said stiffly. Behind Birdy, Sophy looked very disappointed at Phoebe’s pitiful attempt to roll out the welcome mat. ‘I hope Sophy’s been looking after you.’
‘Oh, Sophy’s been wonderful,’ Birdy assured her, throwing Sophy a dazzling smile.
Phoebe couldn’t work out what Birdy’s angle was. Clearly, she had to have an angle. Nobody was this nice. This enthusiastic.
‘And you’ve gone through the rental dresses?’ Phoebe asked but then she couldn’t help herself. This was probably (actually no probably about it) what Freddy, Johnno and a cast of thousands meant when they said she was her own worst enemy. ‘What were you doing in the atelier? There aren’t any rental dresses up there.’
‘Pheebs . . .’ Sophy began but Birdy held up one tiny, dainty hand.
‘My fault. Sophy said that you had a Mary Quant dress up there and Ibeggedto be allowed to look at it. I love Mary Quant,’ she added, her huge Bambi-like eyes growing evenwider. ‘Did you go to the Mary Quant exhibition at the V&A? And the one at the Fashion Museum?’
‘Of course,’ Phoebe said, still unable to keep the suspicion out of her voice. ‘So, you’re all sorted, both of you?’
Sophy nodded. ‘Birdy’s going to come back on Monday morning when we’re at our quietest to shoot some looks . . .’
‘Yes, we’re quiet but we’re still going to have customers. I . . . we can’t have a huge entourage like last time . . .’
‘Oh, not a huge entourage. Just me and my boyfriend and a ring light,’ Birdy assured her. ‘The shop looks so gorgeous with the rainbow rails and the pink sofas. Perfect for the ’gram. Your doing, I guess.’
Phoebe nodded. Why was this woman still being so nice? What was wrong with her? Was she on drugs? She should definitely have a word with Sophy to make sure that Birdy wasn’t . . .
‘At the risk of sounding like a crazy stalker, just being here and talking to you is giving me such a fangirl moment,’ Birdy said, her hand reaching out for Phoebe’s hand but, catching sight of Phoebe’s bemused expression, then retreating. ‘I’m a big fan. Huge. I always look out for you at vintage fairs. At the Vintage Summer Ball last year, you gave me a safety pin in the ladies’ when the strap of my dress broke . . .’
Birdy tailed off as Phoebe shook her head. She had a vague memory of dispensing safety pins.
‘And I saw you at Glorious Goodwood having a go at that heinous woman who always tries to pass off 1970s revival 1930s dresses as genuine 1930s dresses,’ Birdy continued.
‘Ugh! I hate that woman.’ Phoebe scowled. ‘If I had my way, she’d be banned from every vintage fair and festival in the country.’
‘I’d love to follow you on Instagram but your account is set to private,’ Birdy said forlornly.
‘Well, I’m not really active on the socials.’ This past week Phoebe had locked down her accounts so she couldn’t bemessaged by randoms wanting to abuse her for caring about the welfare of fragile vintage dresses. ‘Anyway, it sounds like you have everything under control.’
She tried to ignore the non-verbal cues that Sophy was furiously giving her from behind Birdy, until she mouthed very clearly, ‘Oh, come on, Phoebe!’
‘Well, I look forward to seeing you on Monday then,’ Phoebe said though at this current point in time she didn’t feel like she’d ever look forward to anything ever again. ‘I hope it’s quite a small ring light.’
‘It’s tiny,’ Birdy said, as Sophy led her back up the stairs. ‘You’ll hardly know we’re here. Oh! It’s beensogreat to finally meet you properly.’
Birdy was a definite improvement on Rosie Roberts. She seemed to respect the dresses. She didn’t appear to slather herself in fake tan. And most likely she’d be anadequateambassador for the shop. Or the rental dresses anyway.
Chapter Thirteen
Friday was a much better day. And not just because it signalled almost the end of what had been a truly horrible week.
Phoebe had been woken by her phone ringing at some ungodly hour. Her first thought was that it was Freddy calling to apologise. Her second thought was that it was actually more likely to be someone in a call centre on another continent who wanted to scam her out of her life savings, though joke would be on them as her life savings were non-existent. Her third thought when she unearthed her phone from under her pillow and saw Johnno’s name flashing on the screen was that he really needed to figure out the time difference between London and his parents’ Australian sheep farm.
‘It’s not a sheep farm, it’s a sheep station,’ he said when Phoebe told him this. ‘I get so confused with the clocks going back and forward and what have you at this time of year.’
‘They’re going back in a week or so,’ Phoebe said, snuggling into Coco Chanel’s sleep-warm and biscuit-smelling little body, the phone on speaker on her pillow. ‘I love this time of year.’
‘So, I hear you’ve been in the wars. Gone viral and all that,’ Johnno said without preamble.
‘You’ve spoken to Freddy then?’ In the space of a few days, even saying Freddy’s name made something in Phoebe’s chest hurt.
‘Might have exchanged a few words . . . Then I spoke to Soph last night. She’s worried about you.’
