Page 38 of Wrapped Up at the Vintage Dress Shop (Vintage Dress Shop Romance #3)

A ny lingering grudges that her colleagues might be holding on to were swept away when Phoebe opened her Tupperware container at the Monday morning meeting.

That was now a regular thing that they did. Or rather she said to Sophy as they were hanging up their coats, ‘It’s probably a good idea to have a quick catch-up on Monday mornings so we can see how the week is going to pan out. If you wanted to head that up.’

‘We could do that,’ Sophy agreed slowly. Then her eyes narrowed. ‘Is this a cunning plan to offload a whole lot of paperwork on me? I thought we decided that I was quite happy being a humble sales associate but with a rental dress side hustle.’

Phoebe allowed herself one, and only one, eye-roll. ‘Even when you stepped up for more responsibility, I don’t remember you going near any paperwork. But you are a people person . . .’

‘You always say that like it’s a bad thing . . .’ Sophy said with a grin.

It wasn’t necessarily a good thing either. ‘So I think your talents are better suited to running a Monday morning meeting because I’ll just end up telling Anita off for having an attitude.’

Anita definitely had an attitude that morning.

There was much huffing and puffing from her when Sophy asked everyone to gather round the pink sofas.

A lot of sighing as Sophy said that as they were now in their busiest period of the year, customers could only take three dresses into the changing room at a time.

‘Cress, could you make some signs? You do have lovely handwriting and a great selection of glitter pens.’

‘I don’t think glitter pens have enough gravitas for that kind of notice,’ Cress said after giving it some thought. ‘But I’m happy to use a more suitable sort of pen.’

‘Oh God, how much longer is this going to take?’ Anita groaned from her prone position on one of the sofas.

Phoebe suspected that she was hungover but refrained from threatening Anita with a breathalyser kit. (There had been an occasion when Anita came into work positively reeking of stale alcohol fumes and Phoebe had seriously considered Amazon Priming a breathalyser device.)

It wasn’t one of Mildred’s sayings, not at all, but supposedly you caught more flies with honey than with vinegar. Monday morning Anita was like a very annoying, very buzzy fly.

Sophy was winding things up now by suggesting that they put the kettle on, which was the perfect moment to hold up her Tupperware container. ‘I have cake, brownies and some very nice shortbread if anyone needs a pick-me-up,’ she said.

They all turned to look at her with varying degrees of suspicion.

‘Have you poisoned them?’ Anita asked.

‘No, because that would be illegal and also completely traceable,’ Phoebe said evenly.

‘But you don’t eat cake or biscuits,’ Bea piped up. ‘No carbs before something or other . . .’

‘Which is why I’m sharing them out,’ Phoebe explained with great patience. ‘I ate two slices of cake yesterday and God knows how many brownies and I swear I had trouble getting my zip up this morning.’

‘Nonsense,’ Cress said, running a professional eye over Phoebe’s figure. ‘You look exactly the same as you usually do. It’s more likely that your zip has got stiff with age. Vintage zips do that. I’ll have a look at it later if you like,’ she offered. ‘But first yes, to cake. Always.’

It was the friendliest interaction Phoebe had had with Cress ever since their falling-out. Two brownies later, and even Anita had perked up, though Phoebe had to remind her twice to wash her hands before she touched any of the dresses.

Birdy’s baked goods set a sweet tone for the week. Phoebe wasn’t going to make cake a regular Monday morning feature but she’d much rather have a happy staff than a staff who were hoping for her early death.

On the surface, life was good. Business was brisk. Her colleagues were pleasant towards her. The weather was getting colder, which meant Phoebe could choose a different coat from her vast collection every morning.

The bulk of her collection was still at Freddy’s flat, along with a good half of her dresses and also her very expensive GHD straighteners.

At some point, they were going to have to have a painful and very unpleasant conversation about Phoebe moving her stuff out.

Which wouldn’t be half as painful and unpleasant as having to go round to Freddy’s flat and remove all traces of herself. Like she’d never been there at all.

There were a lot of traces. Not just her clothes. Her stuff. But all the memories too. Much harder to get a man with a van to deal with them.

On a more practical note, Phoebe was sure that some of the dresses stored at Freddy’s place were third-tier dresses (in her own personal dress ratings system, these were dresses that she hadn’t worn in at least two years) that she might be prepared to part with and sell to the shop.

They needed all the dresses that they could get their hands on.

It was almost halfway through November and they were deep, deep , into party season. They couldn’t keep the dresses on the rails. So much so that Phoebe had made an executive decision to designate more dresses for rental. To her credit, Sophy hadn’t even looked that smug about it.

Phoebe had also rung round every supplier she knew to source more dresses.

After work the night before, she and Marianne (who was having the same problem at her little Kentish Town shop) had gone all the way to Loughton to visit the lock-up of Handsy Harry, a vintage dealer they knew.

They’d had to take Claude with them for protection; there was a good reason why Harry had been given that nickname.

In the past, Freddy had always chaperoned Phoebe’s visits but she hadn’t felt comfortable asking him, even if it was official shop business. It was odd that a few weeks ago, even the thought of Freddy made her spirits lift and now the thought of him gave her a sinking feeling.

Even the dresses she’d selected from the lock-up couldn’t raise her mood, though Harry had been holding on to a whole selection of dead-stock Chelsea Girl dresses from the 1960s and 1970s.

Phoebe was in the basement sorting through her selection, all of which would have to be sent out to be professionally cleaned before they could have them in the shop, when Coco Chanel who’d been asleep in her basket, in front of the heater, lifted her head, her ears twitching.

A second later, Phoebe heard the door open then a tread on the stairs. ‘Are we still super busy?’ she called out. ‘I can come upstairs but I don’t want anyone taking pictures of me.’

The footsteps paused and then a familiar voice said, ‘All right, Kate Moss,’ and Freddy’s legs came into view, then the rest of him.

‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ Phoebe said. ‘It’s quite hard to know who’s here to buy a dress and who’s here to shove their phone in my face and hope it will get a reaction out of me. Yes, I know it’s my own fault,’ she added before Freddy could get on her case about all that again.

She gave her full attention to a John Bates for Jean Varon turquoise chiffon 1970s vintage one-shouldered dress, which was giving Studio 54 vibes, so she wouldn’t have to look at Freddy who’d made a beeline for Coco Chanel anyway.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him scoop her up so he could bury his face in her neck.

They’d always agreed that Coco Chanel, especially when she’d been baking in the sun or in front of an artificial heat source, smelt delicious. Now, it seemed, it was still one of the few things that they could agree on.

‘I didn’t come here for an argument but we need to talk,’ Freddy said grimly, which was at odds with the way he was cradling Coco in his arms like she was a little baby.

‘Oh God.’ Instantly Phoebe’s mind was racing with possibilities each one more terrible than the last. ‘Are takings down now instead of up? Actually I was going to get Bea to ask you if we could open late Wednesday through to Saturdays and maybe open on Sundays too? Just until Christmas.’

‘That sounds like a good idea. I’m sure we could pay some overtime and offer days off in lieu,’ Freddy said but he didn’t sound very enthusiastic about Phoebe’s plans to maximise their profits, which sent her deeper into panic mode.

‘Are we going to have to close? Are you going to sack me? That’s not fair! I’ve been making a real effort, not that you’ve been around to appreciate it, and you probably wouldn’t even if you were because you’re always so determined to think the worst of me.’

‘Phoebe!’ Freddy’s voice and the way he looked at her were both sharp. ‘It’s nothing to do with work. And I don’t always think the worst of you.’

It very much felt that way. ‘You haven’t been on my side for a very long time,’ she said flatly.

‘You make it very hard to do that sometimes, Pheebs, and after all these years I still don’t know why, because you never let me get that close.’ Freddy’s voice was even flatter.

‘I did let you get close,’ Phoebe insisted at a quieter volume.

Freddy shook his head. ‘Physically, yes. Emotionally, never.’ He looked down at Coco in his arms. ‘I didn’t come around to talk about this.’

‘Then why did you come round?’ Once again, the possibilities were endless and none of them were good. ‘Are you seeing someone else? Already?’

The thought of finding someone new hadn’t even occurred to her. Before, even during, and now especially after Freddy, Phoebe considered herself to be one of those people who weren’t really meant to be in a relationship.

‘What? No! That’s the very last thing on my mind.’ Freddy looked at Phoebe like she’d dyed her hair pink or was wearing athleisure wear. ‘Goes to show how well you know me.’

‘I think, maybe, neither of us really truly knew the other one,’ Phoebe said. If she sounded sad about it then that’s because she was.

‘Maybe,’ Freddy conceded. ‘But please stop guessing why I’m here because even though your imagination is quite frightening, you’re not even close.’