Page 70 of Wrapped Up at the Vintage Dress Shop
Things were still a little stiff between the two of them. Almost as stiff as Cress’s neck because she straightened up slowly then winced and put a hand to her nape.
‘I’m working late on something that I can’t do at home,’ Cress said, her words as awkward as her posture. ‘I need touse the overlocker. It’s all right, I can lock up and yes, I’ll remember to set the alarm.’
Even though Cress was the only person Phoebe trusted to lock up and set the alarm, she still felt a momentary panic at the idea. And then she was feeling other unwelcome things.
‘Are you working on a dress for your reproduction line?’ she asked. If her tone was accusatory then Phoebe just couldn’t help it.
Cress sighed, then bent her head to finish the seam she was sewing on what looked like a peony pink organza dress. Then she looked up again at Phoebe standing in the doorway.
‘It’s actually a Christmas present for my cousin’s little girl,’ Cress said, lifting up the needle then holding up a pretty tiered dress, which had little foil stars embossed on the fabric. ‘She’s going through a pink and flouncy phase.’
Phoebe had never gone through a pink and flouncy phase but still she mustered up a smile. ‘Nice.’
‘Oh God, Phoebe, you know I hate confrontation! I hate it more than anything but we are going to chat this out,’ Cress exclaimed.
‘I’m fine with you making a dress for a little girl. I’m not made of stone.’
‘Even if I decide to scale up the measurements and yes, think about including it in my small collection of reproduction dresses, which by the way only exists as sketches in my sketchpad and a really beyond basic business plan?’ Cress snapped. She pointed at the inky blue velvet armchair where she liked to curl up and do her hand stitching. ‘Sit!’
‘I don’t like your tone,’ Phoebe said even as she followed orders and sat.
‘Coming from the queen of tone, that’s quite hypocritical,’ Cress said because it was as if she’d been recently abducted by aliens and had been returned in a much sassier, much snarkier format. ‘Now, I want you to explain something to me.’
‘Explain what?’ Phoebe folded her arms and crossed her legs though it was quite hard to look imposing in a very low-to-the-ground bucket chair.
‘Explain how maybe, a couple of years from now, launching a small capsule collection of reproduction dresses will in any way impact on your life in a negative way?’ Cress asked, her own arms folded, an exasperated look on her pretty face.
‘Because it will stop people buying vintage dresses and new dresses aren’t sustainable. It’s just kind of unethical to design dresses that look like vintage dresses but aren’t,’ Phoebe said, which was just scratching the surface of why she was so hurt at Cress’s plans. She already had two side hustles. Why did she need another?
‘Rubbish! Absolute rubbish,’ Cress huffed like a furious little dragon. ‘This from the woman who literally hates selling vintage dresses to people unless those people meet a series of criteria known only to her . . .’
‘That’s hardly fair,’ Phoebe protested but Cress wasn’t done with her.
‘And also, these hypothetical dresses that only exist as very basic prototypes, would be made sustainably in the UK and what copyright am I infringing by designing a little black dress when there are hundreds, even thousands, of similar black frocks that have been designed ever since Coco Chanel first came up with the concept?’ Cress said. And still she wasn’t finished. ‘You certainly didn’t mind when you asked me to make a replica of your little black dress that was destroyed during your Bastard Moth Infestation of 2019.’
‘But you could have told me!’ Phoebe spluttered. She’d been so angry when she’d discovered Cress’s sketchpad but now she couldn’t properly articulatewhyshe was angry.
‘I didn’t tell you and Freddy didn’t tell you, because for the umpteenth time, there isn’t really anything to tell but also because oh my God, Pheebs, you get so weird and territorialabout anything to do with vintage dresses,’ Cress said as if it was hurting her a lot more to say this than it was for Phoebe to hear it.
Which wasn’t at all true. ‘Weird? Territorial? There’s nothing wrong in being passionate about something.’
‘You take being passionate to a whole new level.’ It seemed as if Cress was finding a whole new appreciation for confrontation. ‘I mean, there have been times when you’ve even argued with me about the correct way to wash vintage clothes as if putting them in a washing machine in a mesh bag on a delicate cycle is an act of cruelty.’
‘I still say that handwashing is . . .’
‘I HAVE AN ACTUAL DEGREE IN COSTUME CONSERVATION!’ Cress shouted so loudly that from the atelier where she’d been sleeping on one of the couches, Coco Chanel gave a little whimper. ‘I’m not going to do anything that is going to damage a vintage dress. This is ridiculous. You’re being ridiculous . . .’
‘I am not ridiculous and you’re going to have your stupid reproduction line and you’re going to leave the shop and I thought we were friends but you kept a secret from me, with Freddy of all people, and you haven’t even named a dress after me,’ Phoebe hissed, which was the ugly truth. Why she’d been angry but mostly hurt.
There was a tense silence. Phoebe angled her body towards the wall so she wouldn’t have to look at Cress though really she should just get up and leave.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Cress rest her elbows on her desk, then put her head in her hands. ‘You’re an idiot, Phoebe. An absolute idiot.’ Her voice was muffled but her tone was soft and gentle. ‘I have no plans to go anywhere for the foreseeable future. I love working here even if my line manager can be a real pain in the arse sometimes.’
‘It’s not funny,’ Phoebe mumbled. It was easy enough to rant and rave about cruelty to vintage dresses but when the cruelty felt personal, it was much harder to talk about it.
It never felt good to get things off her chest. Instead it felt as if Phoebe had crossed a line and soon she’d be asked to pack up all her belongings into bin liners and her caseworker would turn up to take her some place unknown but it would only be temporary because nothing with her was ever for keeps.
‘I know it’s not funny,’ Cress said in the same gentle tone. ‘There’s something about this that feels kind of heart-breaking. Freddy and I are working together on this, yes, but in a fact-finding way and we didn’t tell you because, again, there’s nothing really to tell and you’d only get upset. Which turned out to be the case.’ She got up from her stool and stretched. ‘I don’t want you to be upset especially over something that’s really not worth getting upset about.’
