Page 48 of Wrapped Up at the Vintage Dress Shop (Vintage Dress Shop Romance #3)
I t was one thing to have good intentions late in the evening, when you were tired and full of nostalgia.
Quite another thing in the cold, cold light of a December day when you were managing a busy shop and a staff who were far too giddy and excited about the impending ball to provide good customer service.
‘And for goodness’ sakes, Anita, I’ve told you a hundred times not to leave dresses that have been tried on hanging up outside the changing rooms. Put them back on the rails!’
The glam squad, Phoebe’s friends Vivienne and Roy, arrived at three.
Even though they’d, yet again, had to lock the shop door and let customers enter on an in-and-out basis, because they were so busy, Phoebe had no choice but to let each member of staff disappear into the back office for at least half an hour to get their party glam on.
Up to that point, Phoebe was still not one hundred per cent certain about her plans for the night but then a delivery from the chichi florist on the corner arrived.
Beautiful white camellia corsages for Sophy and Cress, courtesy of Charles and Miles, respectively.
Anita and Bea hadn’t been forgotten either.
They too had white camellia corsages sent .
. . ‘with love from Freddy’ And Phoebe? Phoebe had as Johnno would say, ‘Sweet F A!’
That was that then. Freddy had made his feelings perfectly clear and there was no point in Phoebe going to the ball. Turning up all hopeful. It was the hope that did her every time.
‘Are you all right?’ Cress whispered to Phoebe as she put her corsage, a token not just of appreciation but affection from Miles, in the fridge in the back office to keep it fresh. ‘I bet Freddy has something special planned for you. Or maybe he’s going to deliver it in person. Or maybe . . .’
‘Or maybe he hasn’t got me a corsage because he’s glad that we’re not together anymore and he decided that if he did get me flowers, it would only give me the wrong idea,’ Phoebe whispered back, as she took her .
. . her disappointment out on the poor defenceless office desk and viciously rammed shut the drawer she’d just opened.
Cress frowned. ‘I’m sure that’s not true. Freddy would . . .’
‘Enough!’ Phoebe snapped, holding one tense hand in front of her to ward off Cress’s effusive sympathy. She was glad that she and Cress were friends again but as Mildred always used to say, no one likes a gusher. ‘I don’t want to talk about it and I certainly don’t want to talk about him. ’
Inevitably, Phoebe was in an absolutely foul mood for the rest of the afternoon.
It had already been agreed that she wouldn’t need the services of Vivienne and Roy.
‘It would just be gilding the lily,’ Roy had gallantly said but Phoebe couldn’t stop bitching about her staff being otherwise engaged when the shop was an absolute madhouse.
‘How long does it take to do a few victory rolls and a bold red lip?’ she kept hissing to herself, except her hissing was loud enough that all her colleagues could hear.
Even though they’d agreed that this wouldn’t be a night that they’d open until late, she still kept the team back long after six thirty because Anita hadn’t vacuumed to her liking and when Sophy cashed up, there was a fifty pence discrepancy.
There was lots of muttering and angry glances thrown Phoebe’s way, which she ignored because even though she hated her hectoring tone of voice as much as they did, Phoebe couldn’t find it in herself to stop.
She’d reverted back to all her bad, old habits.
Cress, in particular, kept looking at Phoebe as if she wasn’t just angry with her but very disappointed too.
But when Phoebe finally, grudgingly, released them from their duties and they could sashay off in their finest evening looks, it was Cress who paused in the shop doorway.
She looked absolutely stunning in a fit-and-flare red satin dress, her curly hair braided and pinned, her lips as crimson as her frock.
‘We’re having predrinks in The Hat and Fan until eight, if you change your mind. ’
‘I’m not going to change my mind,’ Phoebe insisted tightly and she couldn’t really blame Anita for loudly whispering, ‘Well, thank God for that.’
Phoebe’s mind was made up. She marched Coco back to The Sheila and she was going to do what she always did when she was heartsore and unhappy. She was going to reorganise her closets and absolutely not think about Freddy.
But how dare he? How dare he send corsages to Anita and Bea yet he couldn’t even care enough to get one for her?
It was painfully and abundantly clear that even if Phoebe did go to the ball and got him on his own, there was nothing that she could say, nothing that Freddy would listen to.
Freddy had always been such a great listener.
It was one of the qualities that Phoebe most liked about him.
Well, she didn’t like him now. She tore off her work clothes and pulled on the one tracksuit that had survived every wardrobe cull she’d ever had and started pulling out clothes and boxes.
Part of Phoebe knew that you should never reorganise while angry. Then you made irrational decisions and got rid of clothes and accessories that a few weeks later, you realised you couldn’t live without. But another much larger part of her was too angry to care.
She stood on tiptoe to pull down a box that was right at the back of her wardrobe. It was caught on something until she tugged hard and the lid flew off and a shower of paper rained down on her.
‘For fuck’s sake!’ she swore though Phoebe never swore because of all the times Mildred had threatened to wash out her mouth with Fairy Liquid.
Thinking of Mildred, and Phoebe had been thinking a lot about Mildred these past few weeks, the first piece of paper that she picked up from the floor was a list written in Mildred’s careful and precise handwriting.
Three nighties.
My good quilted dressing gown.
My blue slippers.
My washbag (it’s in the cupboard under the bathroom sink). Pack it with soap, toothbrush (in its proper case) toothpaste, deodorant, my nail kit and hand cream. Shampoo, conditioner and hairspray. Brush and comb.
And so it went on.
A list from when Mildred had broken her hip and after a very uncomfortable night in A its pattern almost indistinct after being handled and washed too many times.
And one lost girl who’d been there for the last five years of Mildred’s life because there had been no friends, no family, no one else to care, as Mildred lay dying, then dead.
Phoebe wasn’t ungrateful. Mildred had saved her life in so many ways. What would have become of that snarling, terrified girl if Mildred hadn’t taken her in and given her a crash course in being able to stand on her own two feet?
Now, as she sat on the floor, surrounded by Mildred’s sad legacy, Phoebe realised that she didn’t want to follow all of Mildred’s life lessons to their inevitable conclusion.
Phoebe didn’t want to end up on her own with no family, very few friends, just her own pride and a self-reliance that had been forged from all the bad things that had happened to her.
You needed to build a wall to protect yourself but the wall needed a door that you could open to let the light in. To let other people in.
Phoebe needed, desperately, to open the door.
Just like that, once again, this Cinderella was going to the ball.
It took half an hour, a personal best, to get Phoebe ball-ready. To shed her tracksuit like a snake shedding its skin. Then to style her hair until it was gleaming, paint her face with lip powders, paints and pencils.
Then she carefully removed her favourite dress from its garment bag and padded hanger.
That white, beaded sheath dress, which had once been worn by a debutante and photographed for Harper’s Bazaar .
White in winter was so chic and white felt like a new beginning.
A fresh page to write the next chapter on.
Phoebe packed essentials into a tiny silver clutch bag. Slipped on a pair of matching, three-bar heels and added a white faux-fur cape to complete her ensemble. She was going to be freezing but sometimes you had to suffer to look this good.
Although she was done with suffering, which was why she was going to find Freddy and fling open that door, which had been shut for far too long. She turned on the wood-burner stove and tried to settle a very put-out Coco Chanel who couldn’t believe that she wasn’t coming too.
‘You’ll be toasty warm here and it’s only for about ten minutes until Sadie and Gunther arrive to take you back to their boat.
’ Phoebe stroked behind Coco’s ears as the little dog turned her face away like she didn’t even want to look at her human caregiver.
‘If Gunther makes piggy noises at you, then you have my permission to bite him.’
Phoebe felt a pang of hurt pierce the fizzy mix of nerves and excitement in her belly. ‘I’m going to be two hours tops. I just need to talk to Freddy and maybe, he might just, he might just . . .’
She couldn’t finish the sentence. It was hard enough to even think the words, never mind say them out loud.
Instead she gave a stiff Coco one last cuddle and then stood up, straightened her shoulders (‘you’re slouching, Phoebe, you don’t want a dowager’s hump, do you?’) and prepared to go out to fight for her life.