Page 42 of Wrapped Up at the Vintage Dress Shop (Vintage Dress Shop Romance #3)

A nita and Sophy lived in Hackney. During the walk up Chalk Farm Road to catch the bus from Camden, Phoebe almost cried off. Her shoes were pinching and simply putting one foot in front of the other was agony.

Then Bea tucked an arm into hers, which helped, and as soon as they finally reached the stop, the bus came and they were able to squeeze on.

It wasn’t until they went past the stop where Phoebe had got off a week before to visit Birdy that she noticed that Anita and Sophy were getting a bit twitchy. They were sitting behind Phoebe and Bea and having a fierce whispered conversation until eventually Sophy tapped Phoebe on the shoulder.

Phoebe turned around, half dreading being given her marching orders, which actually would have been very rude. ‘Pheebs, Anita and I have another flatmate,’ Sophy announced with some trepidation. ‘Please, don’t be funny about this.’

‘You’re allowed to have other flatmates,’ Phoebe said exasperatedly because really, she wasn’t that bad. ‘There’s no law against it.’

‘He works in a vintage shop in Shoreditch,’ Anita revealed.

‘Antik,’ Phoebe said with a very slight lip curl because it was a ridiculous name and also . . .

‘That’s the one and he says that you’ve had several run-ins with his boss before,’ Anita said. ‘But that’s not George’s fault.’

‘Of course it isn’t,’ Phoebe agreed.

They all settled back in their seats but Phoebe couldn’t help herself.

‘Unless George also sews fake Biba labels into nasty 1990s dresses that don’t even look vintage,’ she said and felt Sophy’s huff of annoyance ghost the back of her neck. ‘Sorry, I just had to get that off my chest.’

It turned out that George, an absolutely beautiful young man with the flawless complexion of a person with a very rigorous skin regime, was thrilled to meet Phoebe.

‘The woman, the phenomenon, the legend,’ he breathed, slinking down the stairs like a catwalk model, before Phoebe had even taken her coat off. ‘Big fan of your work. But hear you’re not a big fan of my boss Katy.’

‘Do you want me to be polite because I’m a guest in your house or do you want me to be honest?’ Phoebe asked.

‘The latter. Always the latter,’ George said with a wicked smile and though it had taken Phoebe three goes before she’d warmed to Birdy, when it came to George, she suspected that they were going to be instant friends.

‘She’s a monster,’ Phoebe said baldly as George put a hand to his heart and gasped in delight. ‘I don’t know how you put up with her.’

‘You can’t say that about people!’ Sophy tutted, pushing past Phoebe in the narrow hall. ‘Shall we order some food? I’m starving.’

‘But she really is a monster,’ George insisted, putting his arm around Phoebe’s shoulder to lead her into a small living room, its furniture IKEA standard issue and its walls painted renters’ magnolia but livened up with vintage film posters and brightly coloured cushions.

‘FYI, Sophy and Anita too, I’m very cross with you for keeping me and Phoebe apart all this time. I’ve been begging for an introduction.’

Anita made the sign of a cross. ‘Oh God, what have we done?’

‘It’s like matter and anti-matter colliding,’ Sophy added. ‘I don’t know how we’ve managed to keep them apart this long.’

Neither did Phoebe or why, because George was utterly charming and they didn’t stop talking, only pausing the conversation briefly to eat the promised Korean fried chicken with a kimchi mac and cheese on the side.

As both of them had worked in vintage shops for pretty much their entire careers, they had loads of mutuals in common.

They’d been to the same vintage all-dayers, must surely have shared the same air at Glorious Goodwood and had both briefly dated a rockabilly called Nelson who’d very quickly proved himself to be ‘a total wrong ’un’, Phoebe remembered darkly.

‘The wrongest wrong ’un,’ George echoed until Anita said that they were monopolising the conversation.

So they threw it open to the floor where, apart from Cress who’d spent most of her career repairing ecclesiastical robes and hassocks at an obscure religious museum in Chelsea, they’d all worked in retail and had the war stories to prove it.

Phoebe couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed so hard, clutching her ribs, tears streaming down her face, as Sophy described disturbing a couple in a changing room who weren’t just having sex but also livestreaming it to their OnlyFans.

After dinner, talk turned to the Vintage Christmas Ball, which was only a week away, on the first Saturday in December.

In the past, Phoebe had tried to impose a first-look policy where she’d yay or nay her staff’s outfit choices as they were ambassadors for The Vintage Dress Shop and the eyes of the vintage community, and everyone that Phoebe knew, would be on them. It had never gone down that well.

Now Anita treated Phoebe to a winsome smile. ‘I have three different options. I need your opinion.’

‘You’ve never wanted my opinion before,’ Phoebe pointed out but Anita just shrugged.

‘That was because you issued a decree. This would be more of a freeform discussion.’ Anita was already on her feet and heading towards the door, but she stopped to shoot a sly smile at Phoebe. ‘I mean, we both know that you’re dying to have a good nose in my wardrobe.’

It was the absolute truth. Despite Anita’s many other failings, she was always impeccably turned out and had at least three black shop dresses that Phoebe coveted.

Anita’s room was a good size. ‘I’ve lived here the longest so of course I’ve got the biggest bedroom.

’ But apart from the bed, every available inch of space, including built-in wardrobes, two chests of drawers and a free-standing clothes rail were given over to her huge collection of vintage dresses, separates, coats (the coats!) and accessories.

Phoebe sat down on the bed, Coco Chanel in her arms and took it all in. It was a lot. And very, very messy. ‘Honestly, Anita, I’d have expected you to be better organised and wire hangers? Surely I’ve brought you up better than that, haven’t I?’

Because they weren’t at work and also because Phoebe was too full of carbs, the words lacked her usual bite.

‘Every year I promise myself that I’m going to do a winter and summer edit, then store what I’m not wearing, and every year I can’t be arsed,’ Anita admitted, flopping down on the bed next to Phoebe, not even caring that she was crushing a 1950s red taffeta ball gown.

‘Well, let’s do it now. It won’t take that long,’ Phoebe said eagerly.

‘But it’s Saturday night!’ Anita promised as Bea also squeezed into the room, but Phoebe wasn’t going to put up with such feeble excuses and between the three of them it didn’t take that long to sort Anita’s clothes into seasons.

Then to sort them further into keepers, donators and ‘fit for nothing but the knacker’s yard,’ said Cress who’d also come in to help.

Phoebe was glad that, for once, it wasn’t her saying the hard things.

‘What do you do to your clothes, Anita? What have you done to this blouse?’

Cress held up the blouse in question. In a former life it had been a pretty pintucked, short-sleeved white cotton blouse with sweet pink piping on the cuffs and collars. In this life it was a wrinkled rag with torn armholes and missing half its buttons.

‘It’s my deodorant,’ Anita insisted. ‘I swear, it rots clothes.’

‘Well, use a different one then,’ Cress said sternly because in the eighteen months since she’d come to work at the shop, she’d transformed from mouse to a mouse with quite the attitude when she was riled up.

As Phoebe knew to her cost. It was all very well making new friends but she also had to maintain her existing friendships. She was still cross with Cress, or more hurt than cross, but now wasn’t the time, not when Cress was sitting down next to her to scritch Coco behind her ears.

‘We can send the really damaged stuff off to the charity we use,’ Phoebe said because any dud stock from their suppliers or pieces that even Cress couldn’t resuscitate got boxed up and shipped to an ethical textile recycling charity so it wouldn’t end up as landfill.

‘The clothes you’re not going to wear, I’d sell.

I’ll have the three black dresses, which were always going to be too small for you, for the shop.

Let Sophy have dibs on the other dresses for her rental thing and then, I don’t know, don’t you swap the dresses you’re tired of with your friends? ’

‘Did someone say my name?’ Sophy poked her head round the door. ‘And what are you saying about my rental dresses?’

‘It was nothing bad,’ Anita said, from her cross-legged position on the floor, which was now no longer covered in a fine coating of clothes. ‘Phoebe, of all people, is telling me that I should get rid of the dresses that I no longer wear.’

‘Oh my God, the hangover has addled your brain,’ Sophy said, squeezing her way into the room.

‘My brain is far from addled,’ Phoebe snapped but it was a very tame kind of snapping. ‘Clothes swapping is the lifeblood of the vintage community. There’s no point in hoarding dresses you’re never going to wear. It’s not fair on the dresses. They deserve to be worn.’

‘This from the woman who has point-blank refused to sell dresses to customers on occasion,’ Cress said, but she said it affectionately and nudged Phoebe with an elbow.

‘Only when I suspect that their intentions aren’t honourable,’ Phoebe protested, as George was the last person on the premises to force his way into Anita’s room. ‘Maybe in January, when we’re not so busy, we could have a little unofficial clothes swap at work.’

‘A lot can happen between now and January,’ Sophy said. ‘In fact, come Monday morning, when you’re firing on all cylinders again, you’ll forget that we shared Korean fried chicken and retail horror stories.’

Was she really that much of an ogre? Phoebe wondered.

Although she already knew the answer. Yes, yes she was.

Prided herself on it. Because when you made yourself vulnerable, you made yourself weak.

Mildred had been quite vocal on the subject of how people would prey on your kindness and take advantage.

So, yes, Phoebe was nobody’s fool but she liked to think that she was only an ogre during work hours. ‘I’m sure come Monday morning, I won’t have forgotten at all but I will be taking my managerial duties as seriously as ever,’ she said.

‘Too late. We’ve seen your softer side now,’ Anita said.

She levered herself upright with a groan.

‘Now, let’s go through my options for the ball.

I was considering the red taffeta gown but is red too Christmassy?

I don’t want to look like I’m wearing fancy dress, though one of my other options .

. . hang on . . .’ she dived into her wardrobe, which was now much better organised but still, alas, had dresses hanging on wire hangers ‘. . . is this gold dress, which is more slinky but I’m not sure I can dance in it. ’

‘What’s the other option?’ Phoebe asked and once she’d advised Anita to wear a black strapless dress shot through with gold lurex thread, she then went through Sophy’s options.

Or rather it was one option: a stunning, 1930s halter-neck, bias-cut mossy green silk dress very reminiscent of the dress Keira Knightley had worn in Atonement .

‘Charles bought it for me,’ Sophy said, which wasn’t a surprise because Charles had absolutely exquisite taste. ‘But is it too much?’

‘It’s just enough,’ Phoebe assured her, ignoring the pang of envy at not just the dress but that Sophy had Charles.

A man who didn’t just have an unerring eye for picking out vintage clothes but who seemed to adore Sophy without rhyme or reason.

Although she and Sophy were on much better terms, Sophy could be annoying. Very, very annoying indeed.

Much more annoying than Phoebe and yet Phoebe had no man. Not that she wanted just any man. She wanted one particular man even though he was too intimidated to buy her vintage dresses, but he did have a knack for picking out delightful vintage pyjama sets.

Phoebe didn’t even know why she was bothering to check her phone.

Of course Freddy hadn’t messaged her. He could manage without her very well.

And she could manage without him. After all, here she was on a Saturday night, bonding with her workmates.

Or maybe they were her out-of-work-hours mates too.

It was hard to know. By the time they’d drunk the red wine and eaten the crisps that they’d ordered on Uber Eats and planned an ambitious charity clothes swap for the New Year, which would involve renting out a church hall, sorting out a bar and possibly a raffle, it was very late and the thought of having to put her shoes back on for the journey from Hackney to Primrose Hill made Phoebe want to cry.

Also, she’d had enough to drink that she couldn’t be sure that she’d avoid detouring via Freddy’s flat and begging him to take her in. To take her back, no matter how much she’d tried to harden her heart.

‘It’s too late to be waiting for buses and too expensive to get an Uber. You might as well stay the night,’ Anita said when both Phoebe and Bea made very unenthusiastic noises about being on their way.

And so it came to pass that in a pair of Primark pyjamas borrowed from Sophy, Phoebe, Bea and Coco slept in Anita’s bed while Anita slept with George (‘but keep your hands to yourself, Neeta, I know what you’re like’) and Sophy and Cress doubled up as they’d planned to all along.

It wasn’t how Phoebe had ever thought she’d spend a Saturday night but it hadn’t been terrible. Not in the slightest. In fact, it had been the most fun Phoebe had had in ages.