Suede to Rest by Diane Vallere Page A

told me to get a bigger discount because of a defect to the fabric. I hung the bolt on a fabric roller and pulled five yards out. When I asked him to show me the defect, he took a needle to the fabric, lifted a thread from the center, and pulled it across the width of the garment. “There’s your defect. Now go get that discount.” When I refused, he sent me home without pay. I didn’t return for a week, and five dresses in the blue fabric were in various stages of completion on our small army of bust forms when I finally did go back. I covered the visible flaw with a carefully placed trim of tiny blue sequins that cost twice as much as the fabric, paying the invoice the day we received it. Giovanni never said a word, and I never really knew which one of us won the battle of wills.
    Tonight, I lost myself in the sketch. Though I only had the blunt pencil to work with, I imagined a woman with brilliant platinum hair parted on the side, in a gold gown with a sweetheart neckline, embellished on the shoulders with spirals of matte gold and silver sequins. The gown, fitted at the waist, accentuated an hourglass figure: snug around the hips, cascading to the floor in a pool of fabric. It was the kind of dress that would give a store like Land of a Thousand Fabrics a great reputation again, for having the kind of materials you couldn’t find at the smaller fabric stores. It was the kind of dress that would have looked good on me if I lived the kind of life that let me dress up in fancy clothes instead of worrying about the damage a glue gun could do to cashmere.
    Giovanni would never approve such a gown. He could cut four cocktail dresses from the same amount of fabric, and the amount of time it would take to hand-sew the sequins on in the elaborate decoration I’d designed would shut the workroom down for a week. It was a special dress, inspired by the ones hanging in the back of my closet in Los Angeles that had never been worn.
    A sound by the back door tore me away from the sketch. The kittens, standing at the edge of the table, both looked up as well. One of them let out a tiny squeak. I ran to them, scooping each up under her belly, and set them inside the nest of fur. I moved the box to the floor inside the register stand and crouched next to it.
    There was a light tapping on the back door, then a voice. “Poly, are you in there? It’s Vaughn McMichael. I just heard about tonight.” There was a stretch of silence. “If you’re in there, can you open the door and let me in? I feel a little silly talking to a door.”
    I giggled under my breath, but waited another moment.
    â€œI don’t suppose it matters or not, but I have food,” he said. “And wine. And I can’t be sure, but the Senior Patrol might be in the neighborhood and I’m not sure how my standing here is going to look on their report.”
    At the mention of the Senior Patrol I straightened up. I pushed the ledger back into the drawer of the wrap stand and walked to the back door, lifting the bar lock that slid into place and unlocking the dead bolt. It took a couple of minutes until I got it all open, but when I did, Vaughn stood on the other side of the door, a take-out bag from the Waverly House in one hand, a shopping bag from the grocery store in the other, and a flat blue box, wrapped in soft ivory paper with a white ribbon around it, tucked under his arm. His eyes dropped to my body, clothed in the bulky black zip-front hoodie over the slinky black nightgown, and back to my face.
    â€œI wasn’t sure if I would find you here, but I didn’t know where else to look. May I come in?”
    I stepped back and let him pass, then closed and locked the door.
    â€œYou’re practically moved in, aren’t you?” he asked as he looked at the clothes hanging across the store.
    â€œIt’s been a rough night. I didn’t plan to come back here, but I didn’t know where else to