Page 23 of Wrapped Up at the Vintage Dress Shop (Vintage Dress Shop Romance #3)

N ext day in the shop, without Freddy there to expressly forbid it, no one seemed to mind when Phoebe migrated up to the atelier. In fact, Cress messaged her to say that a bride was in for her final fitting and wanted Phoebe to sign off on the dress.

Things were still quite frosty between Phoebe and Cress. But when Cress showed her the dress she was planning to wear to the Halloween party that evening, Phoebe was effusive in her praise. The frock was a form-fitting deep red with fake ermine trim; a very bold choice for Cress.

‘It’s fancy dress?’ Phoebe queried with genuine fear in her heart. She hated fancy dress as much as she hated fast fashion.

‘Not really. Just Halloween-themed. Charles said that they were leaving it open to interpretation,’ Cress said, her mouth full of pins.

Phoebe wished that Cress wouldn’t put pins in her mouth when she was doing alterations.

Inevitably the day would come when she’d swallow one, but she managed not to point that out.

Just as she managed, with great difficulty, not to say huffily that she was surprised that Cress hadn’t made a special dress for the party and was planning to name it after yet another person who wasn’t Phoebe.

Just the thought of Cress’s plans for a reproduction collection of dresses, which would mean her leaving the shop, and how she and Freddy had hatched this plan in secret, had Phoebe feeling cross and miserable all over again.

If she missed Freddy, then she also missed her friendship with Cress . . .

‘Darling! Turn that frown upside down!’ cried a tinkling voice and, with a genuine smile of delight, Phoebe hurried across the atelier to greet Chika, one of her favourite clients.

‘Let’s crack open the champagne. I’m parched.

Then can you start pulling dresses for me.

I’m going to need at least ten. I’m doing the party season in London, Paris and New York, then Christmas in the Maldives and New Year in St Moritz. ’

Even though she was around forty (it was hard to pinpoint her exact age as she’d had a lot of very good cosmetic surgery and was a big fan of tweakments), Chika had already seen off three husbands, each richer than the last, and been awarded three separate alimony payments, each bigger than the last. She’d currently sworn off marriage but her latest boyfriend was a tech billionaire.

She had a wonderful, privileged life spent travelling to glamorous locations to attend parties and made no apologies for it. She was also terrific fun and always looked fantastic in any dress that Phoebe suggested. Talking of which . . .

‘I hoped you might be in for your winter looks. I’ve already set aside some dresses for you,’ Phoebe said, as Chika threw herself down on one of the chintzy sofas and shrugged off her fuchsia leather trench coat.

Chika was the only woman Phoebe knew who could get away with wearing a fuchsia leather trench coat and look absolutely fabulous in it.

Now, Chika threw a warm look at the bride-to-be who was having one final look at herself in an exquisite 1960s empire-line wedding dress. ‘Darling, you look gorgeous! Even if you decide not to keep the man, you must keep that dress!’

Three hours and two bottles of Moet later, Chika left with eight dresses, including the most exquisite 1970s Jean Varon maxi dress in a champagne silk twill adorned with bright flowers with balloon sleeves, a pleated skirt and a matching cummerbund.

She’d also tipped Phoebe a couple of hundred quid.

Chika’s visits were both enlivening and completely exhausting.

Phoebe felt rather shell-shocked when she came out of the back office after sticking her tip into the petty cash tin.

They could put the money towards the staff Christmas dinner, which they always had the day after the Vintage Christmas Ball when they were all very tired and very hungover and very in need of a festive meal with all the trimmings.

Sophy was suddenly blocking her way with that fixed smile that Phoebe was starting to dread. ‘Are you banishing me to the basement again?’ she asked testily though she really needed a little time to decompress.

‘I thought we’d all low-key agreed that you’re wasted in the basement,’ Sophy said, which was almost validating until she did her creepy smile again, which instantly made Phoebe suspicious.

‘It’s just . . . I was thinking, what with it being Halloween next weekend, that it might be fun to put up some decorations. What do you think?’

‘I think that this is a quality establishment and not a fancydress shop,’ Phoebe snapped.

Because really, had Sophy learned nothing during her time at The Vintage Dress Shop?

Then again, had Phoebe herself learned nothing from her basement banishment?

She took a step back, hands raised in surrender.

‘But, no. It’s not my decision. You must do what you think is best.’

Sophy didn’t seem that happy about getting her own way. ‘They’d be tasteful decorations. No dismembered plastic fingers scattered in with the costume jewellery. I could nip down to the fancy dress shop in Camden and . . .’

Phoebe could bear it no longer. ‘What about if I go to the craft shop in Camden and make some decorations instead? Some retro-style black bats and cats. That sort of thing.’

She couldn’t have Sophy spraying fake cobwebs everywhere, especially on the dresses, and even though the shop was busy, it was nice to escape for a little while.

Also the lovely man in the craft shop gave Coco Chanel a couple of organic dog treats and when Phoebe got back to the shop, she was happy to go down to the basement with the black card she’d bought and draw bats and slinky cats with their backs arched.

She highlighted their features with some glitter pens then supervised their dispersal about the shop.

‘These are really good, Pheebs,’ Anita said with some surprise.

Phoebe shrugged. She’d always liked art when she was a kid but it was just another thing that had made her stand out at school, which was never wise.

Outside of school, all too often she wasn’t living anywhere where she had the space or supplies to draw pictures and by the time she landed with Mildred, she’d long given up such childish pursuits.

‘Anyone can draw a cat,’ she told Anita in an offhand way but Sophy, as usual, refused to read the room.

‘These are fantastic and oh my God, learn how to take a compliment,’ she said lightly so it was very hard to take offence, though Phoebe tried. ‘Just you wait until you hear about my ideas for Christmas. How are you at drawing Santa Claus?’

‘Is that a joke?’ Phoebe asked. ‘Please say that it’s a joke.’

‘You’ll have to wait and see,’ Sophy threatened as she stuck a bat on the front of the display unit that housed their costume jewellery.

‘Is this a stealth way of getting me to quit?’ Phoebe demanded, but it was without any of her usual fire and ice.

They both knew that there was no way Sophy could ever sneak a single decorative image of Father Christmas into the shop, not while Phoebe had breath in her body, and instead they were sharing a joke. As colleagues.

Which was very unlike them and quite unsettling.