Page 88 of The Big Easy & Other Lies
“This is it,” I said. “This is definitely it. I’ll do it in blue, but I still need to figure out the bodice.”
She squinted at the damask in my hand. After a moment, she nodded. “Genius,” she said. “I think you’re totally right.”
Bran’s head popped up at the top of the stairs. “Can you use this?” he asked, holding up a tulle dress that reminded me of the exact shade of the Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue perfume box. The boned organza bodice had a distinct forties pinup vibe to it and fed into a satin underskirt buried beneath the clouds of tulle.
“Stupid question?” he asked when I didn’t respond.
I jumped up and grabbed it from him, hugging it tightly. “This is amazing,” I said. “I’ve poked through these piles for years and never seen anything like this. If I didn’t love you so much, I’d hate you. Where did you find it?”
“Your auntie,” he said. “She came in the shed and asked what I was looking for. And then she told me to check the closet in the back bedroom.” He cleared his throat. “Uh, that was your mom’s junior prom dress.”
I shot him a sharp glance and held the dress away from me to study it. Of course it was. I could picture her in it right away. I loosened my grip, handling it as gently as I would fragile glass. “Thank you,” I said, fighting a break in my voice.
“I only went where your auntie pointed,” he said, shrugging off the thanks. He smiled at Chloe. “Doing okay?”
“Doing great,” she said.
“Wanna come help me?” he asked.
“Only if Cam doesn’t need me anymore.”
I shooed her down the stairs. “Go supervise. I’m going to ask Livvie to grab me some dye, and then I’m going to make myself a pattern.”
I followed them down and stuck my head in the den. “Delphine?” I called quietly. “Do you need anything?”
She only grunted and waved me away. I headed back to the landing and considered the dress Bran had brought me. I could think of nothing more perfect than to use this in the designs that got me into SoHo. My mom had just sent me the solution to the damask punk dress. For a moment, I let that wash over me, careful not to let any of my happy-sad tears land on the sky-blue fabric.
More than ever, I needed my other two looks to be worthy of inclusion in this mini-collection. The second look would be a semi-casual hybrid of the white skirt from Broken Dreams with the front cut away and tapered back over blue and yellow plaid leggings, but now the top would be a fitted black jacket with a double row of military buttons flanked by a column of three buckles to either side. The marriage of romantic layers against the punk jacket perfectly reflected the aesthetic I wanted. But I still needed a third look. To show the versatility of the collection, casual made the most sense. Not that any of it was commercial or sportswear friendly. But it wasn’t supposed to be. This collection was designed to push way past whimsy into the fantastic, something you’d see in a dreamscape where King Louis XV ordered the set design of a music video for The Clash.
I flipped through the Rococo Punk sketches until I found the one I wanted, a miniskirt with a rectangle top in a bold print. This was the one. I’d seen a paper technique on several “green” blogs that would look amazing if I could pull it off. I thought back to the box full of hundreds of seed packets in the guest room. If I could empty them and then overlap the yellow covers...oh, yes.This was going to work!
I stared at the damask.
Maybe.
Two hours later, I had transitioned to probably. Livvie had come back with an order of po-boys for everyone, and we all sat out on the porch watching a drizzle fall. Upstairs I had a bathtub full of indigo water and part of the damask soaking in it. A new pile of cloth had grown by the sewing machine with the finds Chloe sent up with the boys. Rhett had even brought up a box of vintage buttons so eclectic and amazing that it earned him a kiss on the scandalous side.
I raised my Diet Coke in salute to Livvie. “To the best personal shopper and biggest shoe junkie east of the Mississippi.” We toasted while she grinned. “I’m buying y’all lunch on Monday with the change,” I added. Minutes before, I’d tucked away a bag containing the blue boots plus a pair of black platform boots fastened with giant snaps down both sides, and a pair of stacked-heel yellow vinyl T-strap bargain bin beauties. And I still had twenty-three leftover dollars sitting on my nightstand.
I ate my po-boy, tired but happy. Rhett nudged me with his shoulder. “How are you feeling?”
“Better,” I said. “Boudreau’s po-boys with the coolest people ever will do that, though.” I laid my head on his shoulder. “Thanks for coming.”
He brushed his cheek against my hair. “I wish I could do more. When I saw Angelique this morning, it was all I could do not to choke her when she smiled and said she was surprised your costume was so plain last night.”
“She saw me?”
“I guess so,” he said. He paused and listened to Bran tease Livvie about casting a spell on some St. Ignatius sucker the night before.
“I know you don’t want to hear this,” Rhett said after a moment, “but I think you should do something about Angelique. I hate that she did this.”
“Iamdoing something about it,” I said. “I’m putting up something even better than what she stole.”
“He’s right,” Livvie said, joining the conversation. “It’s not enough to school her. This is worse than cheating on a final. She stole youridea.”
“Thanks for being mad,” I said. “But I have this vision that kept me awake until three this morning and then sent me to sleep happy.”
Livvie looked especially interested in this.
