Page 31 of Wrapped Up at the Vintage Dress Shop (Vintage Dress Shop Romance #3)

P hoebe wasn’t sure if Sophy was going to show up for work the next day. In fact, she hoped that she wouldn’t, but she was there on time, face looking like a bulldog chewing on a slow worm, as Mildred, most confusingly, used to say.

‘I’m back on managerial duties,’ Phoebe announced once everyone, even Anita eventually, was assembled. ‘Normal service has been resumed, except Anita if you keep being late, I will dock it from your wages.’

She still wasn’t any closer to figuring out how that could be done, but Anita didn’t know that and Phoebe needed to establish her absolute authority once more.

Maybe that was why Bea raised her hand. ‘Permission to speak.’

Phoebe gave a gracious nod of her head. ‘Permission granted.’

‘I’m not telling you what to do, I’m just a member of staff, but I do manage the shop’s socials . . .’

‘And you do a very good job,’ Phoebe said because she wasn’t just there for the nasty things in life like punishing Anita for her poor timekeeping or crushing Sophy’s ridiculous notions. When someone was worthy of praise, she was happy to give it.

‘That video that someone took of you yesterday, it’s doing really big numbers, so like, maybe, this is just a suggestion – I wouldn’t dream of telling you what to do – but perhaps you being on the shop floor isn’t a great idea,’ Bea said, with a cringing smile.

She held out her phone to Phoebe, who took it gingerly.

She’d already seen it yesterday and she really didn’t want to rewatch herself in all her full-nostrilled glory reading the riot act to Sophy, Anita and Bea.

But, even with a night to sleep on it, though Phoebe hadn’t done much sleeping but kept reliving the scene with Freddy that had followed, she still thought they deserved all her fury.

But taken out of context by . . . Phoebe checked the numbers with a jittery little heart flip .

. . over fifty thousand people on TikTok, she just came across as slightly demented.

Actually, a lot demented.

‘I have quite a lot of things to do in the atelier, anyway,’ Phoebe said, even though she didn’t. She clapped her hands. ‘Now, let’s get to work. Please don’t get any ideas about rearranging the dresses according to decades or fabrication.’

There was a stony silence. Sophy’s features were set so tight that it looked painful. Cress wouldn’t make eye contact with Phoebe. Anita was sullen and sulky, but that was just a normal Tuesday morning for Anita, and Bea still looked as if she wished the floor would swallow her up.

It set the tone for the rest of the day.

The atmosphere in the shop was horrible. Despite what some people thought, Phoebe wasn’t without any feeling. She didn’t like working under these conditions but everything she’d done was in the best interests of the dresses. It always was.

So, she was happy to spend the day in the atelier. It helped that she had a bride come in for a first fitting, but even she seemed to pick up on the fact that the relations between Phoebe and Cress were as frosty as the ground first thing on these November mornings.

Once the bride had gone, Cress stalked off back to her workroom (Phoebe hadn’t even known that Cress knew how to stalk) and Phoebe was left to do an inventory of the designer dress room, not that it really needed inventorying.

Usually the dresses calmed her but when Phoebe wasn’t thinking about how everyone she worked with hated her, and how strangers on the internet who didn’t even know her hated her, she thought about how Freddy hated her.

But before he’d hated her, apparently, he’d loved her. Not that he’d told Phoebe that and even if he had, she wouldn’t have known what to do with the information.

Certainly, she’d never done anything to make Freddy love her. On the contrary, she knew she was hard work for very little reward and she often wondered why Freddy had stuck around for as long as he had.

But even if it wasn’t love, what she and Freddy were .

. . had been . . . nice. Phoebe had never had time for relationships before Freddy.

She couldn’t really see the point of them but somehow Freddy had just fitted into her life.

Probably because he had the patience of a saint.

That was what Johnno always said about Freddy, because if Phoebe was high maintenance then Johnno was . . . beyond even high maintenance.

He lived his life in a state of chaos. Missed appointments, lost weekends, the time that he’d been on his way to the bank with a week’s takings and had left them on a park bench. Freddy had been there to sort it all out.

Which was why Johnno had always said that Freddy had the ‘patience of a cathedral full of saints. You’ve got a good one there.’

‘I haven’t got anything,’ Phoebe had said. ‘I don’t have Freddy and he certainly doesn’t have me. People don’t belong to each other.’

‘Whatever you say, kiddo.’ Johnno had grinned and that had been the end of that.

And now it was the end of Freddy and Phoebe. It had been a whole day since she last saw him and she was going to have to get used to days, weeks, months, without him.

Maybe, in time, they’d be able to have some kind of working relationship but right now, when Phoebe thought of how Freddy had looked at her the day before, his hands shoved in his pockets, his eyes and voice cold, it made her shiver.

This unhappy train of thought was completely derailed by a terrible sound.

Not Sophy making good on her promise to start playing Christmas songs in the shop. Nor some horrible Instagram person loudly talking into her phone about fit checks.

It was the sound of a pug screaming. Again. Over that was the sound of Coco Chanel barking and who could blame her?

Phoebe stuck her head over the banister of the twisty stairs to see Coco on the third step from the bottom and Peggy Gug on the bottom step, both making their feelings known.

‘Coco!’ Phoebe said sharply. ‘I’ve brought you up better than this.’

Coco turned to look at her, her eyes wide and imploring (in a way that always made Phoebe acquiesce to whatever Coco had set her heart on) then turned back so she could tell Peggy off for her impertinence.

‘Hi, Phoebe!’ Birdy came into view with a wave and a happy smile.

How many bloody rental dresses did she need anyway?

‘Hi,’ Phoebe said in a tone that she hoped wasn’t at all encouraging but Birdy was already halfway up the stairs, Peggy on her heels as Coco took one look at the advancing guard and came scampering up to the atelier to hide behind her mistress.

‘I was just passing,’ Birdy said airily. ‘Did you see the first couple of pieces of content I posted?’

‘I saw one of them. Things have been quite busy,’ Phoebe said vaguely.

Birdy turning up unannounced and so cheerful was quite annoying. Phoebe didn’t know why it was but then everything was annoying her today. Including the adorable black and yellow tartan pinafore dress Birdy was wearing with a black polo neck and black stompy boots.

‘Yeah, I saw that video that was posted. But you know what I always say?’ Birdy asked cheerily as she ran a hand over an oyster silk 1920s flapper wedding dress. It was quite a respectful hand so Phoebe couldn’t tell her not to touch.

‘What do you always say?’ Phoebe asked, because it was clear that Birdy was going to be here for a while.

‘Never read the comments and if you do, remember that if those people aren’t paying your bills, then pay them no mind, as the great RuPaul says,’ Birdy imparted, which was quite close to Mildred’s advice that someone else’s opinion of you was none of your business.

‘I don’t care what anyone thinks of me,’ Phoebe said, which wasn’t strictly true. She cared, even now, what Freddy thought of her. She also cared that Sophy and Anita probably wished her dead and that Bea and Cress would probably help them hide the body, but she’d never admit that to anyone.

‘Well, that’s one of those ideas that’s good in theory . . .’ Birdy mused, which was more perceptive than Phoebe had given her credit for, but then she turned and sighed rapturously. ‘Aw, look at them! I knew all that yapping was just them saying hello.’

Peggy Gug had managed to get her plump self up on one of the sofas and was stretched out, back legs splooted, while Coco Chanel was sitting on Peggy’s bottom.

‘Coco doesn’t yap,’ Phoebe said but Birdy had her phone out to document this canine meeting of the minds and didn’t appear to have heard her.

‘We should definitely arrange a doggy playdate!’ she exclaimed. ‘Let’s swap numbers.’

‘Oh, Coco doesn’t play with other dogs,’ Phoebe said loftily even as Coco gave her a quite bombastic side-eye then started licking Peggy’s ear.

‘They seem to like each other,’ Birdy said, unthwarted. ‘What’s your number?’

Even Phoebe couldn’t refuse to give Birdy her number. Though she did say suspiciously, ‘I’m trusting you not to post it on the internet because the last thing I need is a whole load of rude people blowing up my phone.’

‘I’m hurt that you’d even think that,’ Birdy said with another keen look at Phoebe. ‘I’ll be in touch. Come on, Peggy, we’ve things to do, places to be.’

Her tone was now brisk and business-like and though Phoebe still didn’t know why Birdy had popped in and why she was being so friendly, she knew that she’d behaved like quite the beast.

Phoebe gave Birdy a five-minute head start then went downstairs herself. The shop was briskly busy. It was lunchtime and half-term and Sophy, Bea and Anita were barely coping.

With some difficulty Phoebe fought her way through the space, her face slightly averted so no one would recognise her and thrust their phone in her direction. As she approached the till, Sophy, who was standing behind it, actually turned her back on Phoebe, which was very immature behaviour.

‘Are you three all right to take a late lunch?’ Phoebe asked. ‘Bea, I can do the website orders if that would help.’

Phoebe wasn’t going to apologise but she could be benevolent in her absolute authority.