Page 20 of Wrapped Up at the Vintage Dress Shop (Vintage Dress Shop Romance #3)
P hoebe took a late and very long lunch to walk Coco Chanel who absolutely didn’t appreciate that her human was going through something and needed some thinking time.
She waited until they were right at the top of Primrose Hill before she planted her backside firmly on the ground. Phoebe had to carry CC back to the shop and smile tightly at all the people, so many people, who felt the need to comment, ‘Who’s taking who for a walk?’
When she returned to The Vintage Dress Shop it was busy with afternoon shoppers. Their rail of black dresses was looking very sparse as everyone was shopping for Halloween looks.
Not that that was any of Phoebe’s business anymore. Not her circus, not her monkeys, which wasn’t one of Mildred’s mottos but something Johnno liked to say whenever someone was trying to make him do something that he didn’t want to do. Which had happened quite a lot.
How Phoebe missed him. And how she missed supervising the purchasing of dresses. ‘You might want to restock the black rail,’ she advised Bea who was now on the till while Anita was manning the changing rooms and the shop. ‘Where’s Sophy?’
‘She’s up in the atelier with Birdy,’ Bea said, as she took a dress from a customer and folded it, before wrapping it in tissue paper.
‘Why are they up in the atelier? There aren’t any rental dresses up there? It’s going to be like that Rosie Roberts nightmare all over again.’
Bea didn’t seem unduly concerned. ‘She seems really nice.’
‘Oh! You’re the woman from that TikTok video!’ The customer looked at Phoebe in surprise. Then she held up her phone. ‘Can I get a selfie?’
‘No, you absolutely can’t,’ Phoebe said tersely, because she and Sophy could have role-played all day and it still wouldn’t have prepared her for this.
Then she summoned up a smile that was more of a baring of her teeth as the customer, who seemed like no stranger to fake tan herself, took a hasty step back.
‘I hope you’ve enjoyed your visit to The Vintage Dress Shop. Do come again!’
As Anita and Bea clearly had enough to do, Phoebe went down to the basement and began to pull out more black party dresses, of which they had a huge number. Even without Halloween looming, there was something about a black dress that always made a statement.
Phoebe held up a black lace dress with cap sleeves and a boat neck, a nipped-in bodice and a full skirt that would need a full petticoat to achieve optimum swishiness.
She was tempted to keep it for herself but then, even with a generous staff discount, she shouldn’t be buying any more dresses.
Not when she might be out of a job quite soon, and it wasn’t as if she had that many parties to go to anyway.
There was the Vintage Christmas Ball at the beginning of December, which they always treated as their official Christmas party.
Phoebe organised all the details, as she did for the Vintage Summer Ball in June too, including persuading Freddy to fork out for a glam squad, but that came under managerial duties and she wasn’t a manager anymore.
She couldn’t help the white-hot flame of anger that flared in her belly. It was Freddy who she wanted to singe. Not even Rosie Roberts anymore.
Why was he treating her like this? He hadn’t even attempted to talk things out, just the two of them.
Phoebe didn’t even know if there was a two of them anymore. What Freddy had done, what he was doing, it was going to be very hard to forgive. She’d given him everything that she was capable of giving and even that wasn’t enough.
She thrust the dress away from her as if it were responsible for all her current woes.
‘Phoebe? Are you down here?’ called Sophy from the top of the steps.
‘Where the hell else would I be?’ Phoebe muttered under her breath. ‘Yes! I’m just going through the black dresses so we can restock.’
Sophy’s feet, clad in trainers like that was an acceptable item of footwear to accessorise with a vintage dress, appeared followed by a smaller, daintier pair of feet wearing fishnet stockings and an adorable pair of cotton-reel heel, two-strap, black patent Mary Janes.
‘Phoebe, this is Birdy. She’s been dying to meet you,’ Sophy said as all of her came into view.
Phoebe doubted that very much. She tried to school her features into an expression of pleasant expectation but she suspected that she just looked constipated.
There were legs attached to the dainty feet, a green and blue pinafore dress worn over a black turtle neck and then the face that she’d been peering at on Instagram for most of the morning appeared.
Birdy was a tiny, elfin creature who jumped down the last step and approached Phoebe with her arms outstretched, a huge smile on her delicately pretty little face.
‘Phoebe! I’m so pleased to meet you,’ she said in a gaspy, breathless voice. ‘Can we hug? Is this a hugging moment?’
Phoebe knew she looked more horrified than approachable. She tensed every bone, every muscle, every cell in her body and braced for impact but Sophy quickly said, ‘Phoebe’s not really much of a hugger.’
Birdy, thankfully, came to a halt mere centimetres away from Phoebe. Phoebe wasn’t that tall without her heels but Birdy was a good half a head shorter. She looked like the fragile sort of woman that men liked to protect and who made other women feel like great galumphing hags.
‘Sorry, I’m half Maltese, half Italian,’ Birdy trilled, her big, liquid brown eyes fixed on Phoebe. ‘I’m too much of a hugger.’
‘It’s very nice to meet you,’ Phoebe said stiffly. Behind Birdy, Sophy looked very disappointed at Phoebe’s pitiful attempt to roll out the welcome mat. ‘I hope Sophy’s been looking after you.’
‘Oh, Sophy’s been wonderful,’ Birdy assured her, throwing Sophy a dazzling smile.
Phoebe couldn’t work out what Birdy’s angle was. Clearly, she had to have an angle. Nobody was this nice. This enthusiastic.
‘And you’ve gone through the rental dresses?
’ Phoebe asked but then she couldn’t help herself.
This was probably (actually no probably about it) what Freddy, Johnno and a cast of thousands meant when they said she was her own worst enemy.
‘What were you doing in the atelier? There aren’t any rental dresses up there. ’
‘Pheebs . . .’ Sophy began but Birdy held up one tiny, dainty hand.
‘My fault. Sophy said that you had a Mary Quant dress up there and I begged to be allowed to look at it. I love Mary Quant,’ she added, her huge Bambi-like eyes growing even wider. ‘Did you go to the Mary Quant exhibition at the V&A? And the one at the Fashion Museum?’
‘Of course,’ Phoebe said, still unable to keep the suspicion out of her voice. ‘So, you’re all sorted, both of you?’
Sophy nodded. ‘Birdy’s going to come back on Monday morning when we’re at our quietest to shoot some looks . . .’
‘Yes, we’re quiet but we’re still going to have customers. I . . . we can’t have a huge entourage like last time . . .’
‘Oh, not a huge entourage. Just me and my boyfriend and a ring light,’ Birdy assured her. ‘The shop looks so gorgeous with the rainbow rails and the pink sofas. Perfect for the ’gram. Your doing, I guess.’
Phoebe nodded. Why was this woman still being so nice? What was wrong with her? Was she on drugs? She should definitely have a word with Sophy to make sure that Birdy wasn’t . . .
‘At the risk of sounding like a crazy stalker, just being here and talking to you is giving me such a fangirl moment,’ Birdy said, her hand reaching out for Phoebe’s hand but, catching sight of Phoebe’s bemused expression, then retreating.
‘I’m a big fan. Huge. I always look out for you at vintage fairs.
At the Vintage Summer Ball last year, you gave me a safety pin in the ladies’ when the strap of my dress broke . . .’
Birdy tailed off as Phoebe shook her head. She had a vague memory of dispensing safety pins.
‘And I saw you at Glorious Goodwood having a go at that heinous woman who always tries to pass off 1970s revival 1930s dresses as genuine 1930s dresses,’ Birdy continued.
‘Ugh! I hate that woman.’ Phoebe scowled. ‘If I had my way, she’d be banned from every vintage fair and festival in the country.’
‘I’d love to follow you on Instagram but your account is set to private,’ Birdy said forlornly.
‘Well, I’m not really active on the socials.’ This past week Phoebe had locked down her accounts so she couldn’t be messaged by randoms wanting to abuse her for caring about the welfare of fragile vintage dresses. ‘Anyway, it sounds like you have everything under control.’
She tried to ignore the non-verbal cues that Sophy was furiously giving her from behind Birdy, until she mouthed very clearly, ‘Oh, come on, Phoebe!’
‘Well, I look forward to seeing you on Monday then,’ Phoebe said though at this current point in time she didn’t feel like she’d ever look forward to anything ever again. ‘I hope it’s quite a small ring light.’
‘It’s tiny,’ Birdy said, as Sophy led her back up the stairs. ‘You’ll hardly know we’re here. Oh! It’s been so great to finally meet you properly.’
Birdy was a definite improvement on Rosie Roberts. She seemed to respect the dresses. She didn’t appear to slather herself in fake tan. And most likely she’d be an adequate ambassador for the shop. Or the rental dresses anyway.