Page 24 of Wrapped Up at the Vintage Dress Shop (Vintage Dress Shop Romance #3)
T here was enough time between the shop closing and the party starting that Phoebe was able to go back to The Sheila to get ready.
First of all she put Coco Chanel in the most adorable witch’s outfit.
Complete with a little pointy hat in between her ears and a little black tulle skirt.
There were many things that Coco Chanel refused to tolerate – non-organic dog food, any dogs bigger or barkier than herself, people having the audacity to go past her on a skateboard – but she loved dressing up.
Phoebe, on the other hand, was not a big fan of dressing up. Or rather when you had such a distinctive everyday look, getting dressed up was just something you did every morning. Plus, she had a fear of looking costume-y. It was showing off by any other name.
Then it was a short bus ride to Charles’s beautiful flat with its art deco lines on the top floor of a mansion block in Bloomsbury.
Although it was still comparatively early and the invite had said that things wouldn’t properly get going until ‘witching hour’, the party was in full flow as Phoebe climbed up the many flights of stairs that led to what Charles called ‘his garret’.
Packed into said garret were ghosts and gargoyles, witches and warlocks and, some people really hadn’t understood the assignment, even a Barbie and Ken.
With Coco Chanel tucked firmly under her arm so she couldn’t be trampled underfoot, Phoebe squeezed her way through the hall and into Charles’s living room where she found him and Sophy in the tiny alcove that was the kitchen.
Charles was as impeccable as ever in black tie with tailcoat and spats.
His Halloween concession was a pair of vampire fangs, while Sophy was in her favourite black velvet, Fortuny-inspired vintage dress, which Phoebe had seen on many occasions.
To be fair to Sophy, she looked amazing in it, especially now that she was wearing the right size bra thanks to Phoebe, and she was also accessorising with fangs.
Their Halloween outfits met with her approval. However, the plastic cauldron on the worktop got a dubious look from Phoebe.
‘Halloween punch?’ Sophy asked, holding up a glass of dayglo green liquid.
‘I’ll pass,’ Phoebe decided.
‘Gin and tonic instead?’ Charles was already busying himself by plopping ice cubes into a glass while Phoebe tried to remain upright with a death hold on Coco as the crowd swelled around her. ‘No lime, only lemon, I’m afraid.’
‘Lemon will be fine.’
Although they’d reached an uneasy understanding in the shop that day, Phoebe didn’t really know what to say to Sophy now. If it had been just Charles, they could have talked quite happily for hours about vintage dresses and costume jewellery and the estate sales that Charles was planning to visit.
Out of work hours, Charles was now usually accompanied by Sophy. They were one of those couples who couldn’t seem to function as two separate people anymore, because they’d thrown everything into their relationship.
‘Happy Halloween,’ said a familiar voice behind Phoebe and she didn’t even have room to turn around but craned her neck to see Miles wearing a black T-shirt adorned with a life-size ribcage on it while Cress was behind him wearing a black vintage dress with a novelty print of Mexican Day of the Dead masks scattered all over it.
‘You’re not wearing the dress we talked about?’ Phoebe said, unable to keep the disappointment out of her voice.
Cress shook her head. ‘I wasn’t feeling brave enough for a red dress with a faux ermine trim.’
Miles put his arm around Cress and kissed the top of her head. ‘But you looked absolutely gorgeous in it, sweetheart.’
Cress and Miles were a relatively new couple. They’d barely been seeing each other for longer than a month or so but they also seemed to be joined at the hip.
‘Don’t let love make you weak,’ Mildred had always warned her, usually when Phoebe was pining over Jason Mullins, a boy from school who would later do five years for armed robbery.
‘Most times, it just turns out to be infatuation and you’re left with a broken heart.
Worse, you’ve completely forgotten the capable person you were before they toyed with you and turned you into a simpering fool. ’
So, once she had a gin and tonic clutched in her hand, Phoebe was happy to back away from the four of them.
She slowly made her way out of the flat to a little flight of steps, which led up to a service hatch. Phoebe had to climb over a pair of canoodling wizards but it was quieter and she could finally put Coco Chanel down and adjust her little witch’s hat, which had been knocked askew.
She’d stay for one drink. She wasn’t really a party person and she certainly wasn’t in the party mood tonight.
‘Ah, there she is! Phoebe!’
She looked up from contemplating the toes of her black suede stilettos to the far more welcome sight of her friend Marianne.
Marianne was a statuesque goddess of a woman.
Six feet in her fishnet-stockinged feet with hair currently the same colour red as post-boxes and London buses.
She was wearing a leopard-print catsuit, which wasn’t unusual for Marianne, but in a nod to Halloween she’d added cat’s ears on an Alice band and a tail.
No wonder Coco Chanel barked out a warning.
‘None of your nonsense, little miss,’ Marianne said sharply as she scattered the two snogging wizards so she could reach Phoebe and air-kiss in her general direction. ‘Claude has gone to get us a drink.’
Claude was Marianne’s life partner. The real pussycat of the couple, despite the fact that he was covered in tattoos and piercings, Claude was an absolute sweetheart even if he did tend to clang when he walked.
‘I persuaded Nina to come too,’ Marianne said, sitting down one step lower to Phoebe to reveal that behind her was another of Phoebe’s friends.
‘I’ve come as goth Marilyn,’ Nina said, giving a little shimmy to show off her look, which was a sparkly black version of the famous white halter-neck dress that Marilyn Monroe had worn in The Seven Year Itch .
‘I’m a bit worried that this black spray-in hair dye isn’t going to come out any time soon. I was platinum blonde this morning.’
‘Worth it though,’ Phoebe said, as Nina climbed over Marianne so she could scoop up Coco and sit down next to Phoebe. ‘Sometimes one has to suffer for beauty.’
‘Talking of suffering, what is the deal with you being the internet villain of the week?’ Marianne asked. ‘There was a lot of chat about you being a bully but what did you actually do? More importantly, what did that influencer do to make you behave like that?’
It was all about how you asked a question. Marianne was the first person who didn’t automatically assume that Phoebe was entirely to blame.
‘Even though she wasn’t meant to, she tried on a 1930s wedding dress made of the most fragile silk. Got fake tan on it and then she yanked if off and ripped it,’ Phoebe said and she could feel herself getting angry all over again. ‘I know I’m not an angel but . . .’
‘Oh my God, if someone had done that in my shop, I’d have ripped them,’ Marianne said, though because she looked so imposing, people tended to behave around her. ‘Not that I stock the really bougie pieces.’
‘Your stock is beautifully curated,’ Phoebe insisted because Marianne’s little shop in Kentish Town was always full of the most covetable pieces of vintage fashion. ‘I always know that I’m going to leave with the most gorgeous clothes and no money left for the rest of the month.’
‘Not a single wedding dress to be found though. Not that I want to go traditional,’ Nina said as she wafted her left hand about.
‘You’re about as subtle as a breeze block,’ Marianne said fondly.
‘Bridalwear is very specialised.’ Phoebe perked up because this was one of her favourite subjects. ‘But a good half of my bridal pieces didn’t start life as wedding dresses. For one of my recent brides, she wanted a red wedding dress, so I asked some of my most reliable buyers to—’
‘I probably wouldn’t get married in red. Though you never know,’ Nina mused, flinging her hand out again.
‘You nearly had my eye out!’ Phoebe complained. ‘I know this can be a very emotive topic but—’
‘For crying out loud, Phoebe, look at my hand!’ Nina demanded, holding her hand up for inspection so that Phoebe could now see that on her third finger was . . .
‘Is that . . . ?’ She took hold of Nina’s hand so she could inspect the beautiful art deco, pink tourmaline and diamond ring. ‘Are you . . . engaged?’
‘I am,’ Nina confirmed with a beaming smile that was all teeth and gums. ‘Noah popped the question a couple of weeks ago and I graciously agreed to be his old ball and chain.’
‘Ball and chain, nothing! He’s lucky to have you,’ Phoebe said, because although Nina’s boyfriend, or rather fiancé, Noah was perfectly pleasant, she’d never seen him wear anything other than navy blue. In fact, she was surprised that . . . ‘He clearly has good taste. That ring is gorgeous.’
‘I think that was more Charles’s doing,’ Nina said. ‘Though Noah did remember that pink is my favourite colour. We’re going to do a spring wedding. Can’t see the point of putting it off, which means I’m in the market for a wedding dress.’
‘What were you thinking?’ Phoebe asked eagerly, trying to ignore the strange pang in her chest that Nina’s news had caused.
Even though hers and Freddy’s undefined relationship was even more undefined than usual, even less of a relationship, she didn’t think that they’d ever get married.
If she wasn’t the loving kind, then she definitely wasn’t the marrying kind.
Much easier to think about dresses rather than what it must feel like when someone picked you out of all the people in the world to be the one person that they wanted to spend the rest of their life with.