Page 58 of Wrapped Up at the Vintage Dress Shop
They’d barely been on the bus for five minutes when Phoebe’s phone chimed. As ever, her heart did a weird backflippy thing in the hope/dread that it might be from Freddy. But it never was.
It wasn’t this time either.
It was from Birdy.
Such a treat to spend some quality time together and eat lots of cake. So glad you came round and, I refuse to take no for an answer, we ARE going to be friends.
Phoebe pursed her lips but it was more to hide a smile than because she was bristling at Birdy’s peremptory tone.
I had a lovely time. Thank you for inviting me. Are you going to the Christmas Vintage Ball at the Bloomsbury Ballroom? If not, you should. I’ll text you the details.
Her phone chimed again.
Please do! I hear you on the whole showing off thing (BRUTAL, btw) but I feel like Coco and Peggy might have afuture as fashion-forward dog influencers. Let’s hatch a plan next time we see each other. Birdy xxx
The idea was ridiculous but not unappealing. It was a pity not to share Coco’s grace, beauty and style with the wider world.
I’ll get Coco’s people to call Peggy’s people, Phoebe messaged back. And she was still smiling even when someone with appalling body odour sat in the seat behind her.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Any lingering grudges that her colleagues might be holding on to were swept away when Phoebe opened her Tupperware container at the Monday morning meeting.
That was now a regular thing that they did. Or rather she said to Sophy as they were hanging up their coats, ‘It’s probably a good idea to have a quick catch-up on Monday mornings so we can see how the week is going to pan out. If you wanted to head that up.’
‘We could do that,’ Sophy agreed slowly. Then her eyes narrowed. ‘Is this a cunning plan to offload a whole lot of paperwork on me? I thought we decided that I was quite happy being a humble sales associate but with a rental dress side hustle.’
Phoebe allowed herself one, and only one, eye-roll. ‘Even when you stepped up for more responsibility, I don’t remember you going near any paperwork. But you are a people person . . .’
‘You always say that like it’s a bad thing . . .’ Sophy said with a grin.
It wasn’t necessarily a good thing either. ‘So I think your talents are better suited to running a Monday morning meeting because I’ll just end up telling Anita off for having an attitude.’
Anita definitely had an attitude that morning. There was much huffing and puffing from her when Sophy asked everyone to gather round the pink sofas. A lot of sighing as Sophysaid that as they were now in their busiest period of the year, customers could only take three dresses into the changing room at a time.
‘Cress, could you make some signs? You do have lovely handwriting and a great selection of glitter pens.’
‘I don’t think glitter pens have enough gravitas for that kind of notice,’ Cress said after giving it some thought. ‘But I’m happy to use a more suitable sort of pen.’
‘Oh God, how much longer is this going to take?’ Anita groaned from her prone position on one of the sofas.
Phoebe suspected that she was hungover but refrained from threatening Anita with a breathalyser kit. (There had been an occasion when Anita came into work positively reeking of stale alcohol fumes and Phoebe had seriously considered Amazon Priming a breathalyser device.)
It wasn’t one of Mildred’s sayings, not at all, but supposedly you caught more flies with honey than with vinegar. Monday morning Anita was like a very annoying, very buzzy fly.
Sophy was winding things up now by suggesting that they put the kettle on, which was the perfect moment to hold up her Tupperware container. ‘I have cake, brownies and some very nice shortbread if anyone needs a pick-me-up,’ she said.
They all turned to look at her with varying degrees of suspicion.
‘Have you poisoned them?’ Anita asked.
‘No, because that would be illegal and also completely traceable,’ Phoebe said evenly.
‘But you don’t eat cake or biscuits,’ Bea piped up. ‘No carbs before something or other . . .’
‘Which is why I’m sharing them out,’ Phoebe explained with great patience. ‘I ate two slices of cake yesterday and God knows how many brownies and I swear I had trouble getting my zip up this morning.’
‘Nonsense,’ Cress said, running a professional eye over Phoebe’s figure. ‘You look exactly the same as you usually do. It’s more likely that your zip has got stiff with age. Vintage zips do that. I’ll have a look at it later if you like,’ she offered. ‘But first yes, to cake. Always.’
