Page 74 of Wrapped Up at the Vintage Dress Shop
That morning of her eighteenth birthday, there’d been a card propped against Phoebe’s mug on the little kitchen table, which Mildred always laid for breakfast. There’d alsobeen a present, the little string of pearls that Mildred had been given by her parents on her eighteenth birthday, which had touched Phoebe so much that she and Mildred had shared a very stiff, very rare hug.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ Mildred had said as she cracked the top of the boiled egg (‘four and a half minutes, Phoebe, for the perfect soft-boiled egg.’) ‘I don’t have the energy to take on another waif and stray and I do worry about you having to fend for yourself.’
Phoebe had hardly dared let herself hope because hopes dashed were the worst kind of pain. ‘I’d be all right,’ she said, because somehow she would be, eventually.
‘You probably would, thanks to my expert guidance.’ Mildred allowed herself a small smile. ‘But we rub together fairly well so if you wanted to stay, then I’d be happy to have you.’
‘Thanks, I’d like that too,’ Phoebe said casually because Mildred had told her, countless times, that nobody liked a gusher.
And that had been that. Once the foster allowances had stopped, she paid Mildred a small sum for rent and housekeeping, and they’d continued to rub together fairly well for the next couple of years. Then Mildred had slipped over one winter and broken her hip and it been a quite a fast decline after that.
Phoebe pushed away her plate now. The ravioli had been so unappetising that she didn’t even offer the last pieces to Coco. Once she’d done the washing up and put a conditioning mask on her hair and a nourishing skin mask on her face, she opened her wardrobe door and rummaged on the top shelf until she found her jewellery box. Not that there was much jewellery in it, most of it was costume pieces. Not even the high-end, semi-precious stones that Charles dealt in but glass beads and plated metals.
But in a flat velvet box was the strand of pearls that Mildred had given her. Phoebe didn’t wear them that often eventhough Mildred had said that pearls should be worn. That leaving them to their own devices would make the pearls dehydrate and lose their lustre.
Phoebe didn’t want the pearls to lose their lustre. She didn’t want to lose her glow either and she decided then that, like Cinderella before her, she would go to the ball. She’d dance with Freddy then she’d lead him upstairs to one of the little boxes that overlooked the ballroom so they could be alone together.
Freddy would talk and Phoebe would try not to bristle. Then she’d try even harder to talk to Freddy, to explain who she really was and where she’d come from. Why she was such a difficult person. In short, to be vulnerable with him in a way that she’d never allowed herself to be before.
But she wasn’t looking forward to it. Not one little bit.
Chapter Thirty
It was one thing to have good intentions late in the evening, when you were tired and full of nostalgia.
Quite another thing in the cold, cold light of a December day when you were managing a busy shop and a staff who were far too giddy and excited about the impending ball to provide good customer service.
‘And for goodness’ sakes, Anita, I’ve told you a hundred times not to leave dresses that have been tried on hanging up outside the changing rooms. Put them back on the rails!’
The glam squad, Phoebe’s friends Vivienne and Roy, arrived at three. Even though they’d, yet again, had to lock the shop door and let customers enter on an in-and-out basis, because they were so busy, Phoebe had no choice but to let each member of staff disappear into the back office for at least half an hour to get their party glam on.
Up to that point, Phoebe was still not one hundred per cent certain about her plans for the night but then a delivery from the chichi florist on the corner arrived. Beautiful white camellia corsages for Sophy and Cress, courtesy of Charles and Miles, respectively. Anita and Bea hadn’t been forgotten either. They too had white camellia corsages sent . . . ‘with love from Freddy’ And Phoebe? Phoebe had as Johnno would say, ‘Sweet F A!’
That was that then. Freddy had made his feelings perfectly clear and there was no point in Phoebe going to the ball. Turning up all hopeful. It was the hope that did her every time.
‘Are you all right?’ Cress whispered to Phoebe as she put her corsage, a token not just of appreciation but affection from Miles, in the fridge in the back office to keep it fresh. ‘I bet Freddy has something special planned for you. Or maybe he’s going to deliver it in person. Or maybe . . .’
‘Or maybe he hasn’t got me a corsage because he’s glad that we’re not together anymore and he decided that if he did get me flowers, it would only give me the wrong idea,’ Phoebe whispered back, as she took her . . . her disappointment out on the poor defenceless office desk and viciously rammed shut the drawer she’d just opened.
Cress frowned. ‘I’m sure that’s not true. Freddy would . . .’
‘Enough!’ Phoebe snapped, holding one tense hand in front of her to ward off Cress’s effusive sympathy. She was glad that she and Cress were friends again but as Mildred always used to say, no one likes a gusher. ‘I don’t want to talk about it and I certainly don’t want to talk abouthim.’
Inevitably, Phoebe was in an absolutely foul mood for the rest of the afternoon. It had already been agreed that she wouldn’t need the services of Vivienne and Roy. ‘It would just be gilding the lily,’ Roy had gallantly said but Phoebe couldn’t stop bitching about her staff being otherwise engaged when the shop was an absolute madhouse.
‘How long does it take to do a few victory rolls and a bold red lip?’ she kept hissing to herself, except her hissing was loud enough that all her colleagues could hear.
Even though they’d agreed that this wouldn’t be a night that they’d open until late, she still kept the team back long after six thirty because Anita hadn’t vacuumed to her liking and when Sophy cashed up, there was a fifty pence discrepancy.
There was lots of muttering and angry glances thrown Phoebe’s way, which she ignored because even though she hated her hectoring tone of voice as much as they did,Phoebe couldn’t find it in herself to stop. She’d reverted back to all her bad, old habits. Cress, in particular, kept looking at Phoebe as if she wasn’t just angry with her but very disappointed too.
But when Phoebe finally, grudgingly, released them from their duties and they could sashay off in their finest evening looks, it was Cress who paused in the shop doorway. She looked absolutely stunning in a fit-and-flare red satin dress, her curly hair braided and pinned, her lips as crimson as her frock. ‘We’re having predrinks in The Hat and Fan until eight, if you change your mind.’
‘I’m not going to change my mind,’ Phoebe insisted tightly and she couldn’t really blame Anita for loudly whispering, ‘Well, thank God for that.’
Phoebe’s mindwasmade up. She marched Coco back toThe Sheilaand she was going to do what she always did when she was heartsore and unhappy. She was going to reorganise her closets and absolutely not think about Freddy.
But how dare he? How dare he send corsages to Anita and Bea yet he couldn’t even care enough to get one for her? It was painfully and abundantly clear that even if Phoebe did go to the ball and got him on his own, there was nothing that she could say, nothing that Freddy would listen to. Freddy had always been such a great listener. It was one of the qualities that Phoebe most liked about him.
