There was only one small sliver of space where Anneke could walk, because the ground was covered in fabric pieces, patterns, sketch paper, pin holders, and halfway-finished dresses. As she crossed the floor and stepped around the mess, the dress took on a life of its own. While she was stiff and uncertain, the dress rippled around her, the skirt surging with her strides as light danced off the pleats.
I couldn’t contain my awe any longer.
“Sophie,” I breathed. “Look! The dress is alive.”
It was like a spirit possessed the dress: the skirt sank, rose, fell, and twisted, sometimes wrapping tightly around Anneke’s legs to show hints of her shape, other times billowing out to completely conceal her.
“That’s stunning.” Sophie watched from where she was looping a measuring tape around a model’s waist. “It shows the dress in a completely different way.”
“We should have them all walk.” I spoke so fast that I nearly started stammering. I didn’t care. I was too excited. “We’ll see the gowns the way people see them in real life: in motion. When women wear dresses, they aren’t simply standing still. They’re walking or strolling or dancing. That’s how we should present the gowns.”
“Girls!” Sophie clapped her hands. “Everyone start walking like Anneke. Single file.”
They fell into one moving line. I watched, holding my breath. They walked rigidly at first. Then their bodies surrendered to their natural gaits and the dresses glided with them, the skirts swinging forward and backward against their legs, their movements revealing all sides of the gowns. They drifted, a row of gray and champagne-colored figures. Each one led to the next in a dreamlike sequence that built to the finale dress, with its huge overlay skirt.
“It takes my breath away,” Sophie said. We stood, Sophie on one side of the girls, I on the other, watching them for a few moments longer.
A thought burned in my mind:We might just pull this off.
By the time the girls left our fitting, the light had taken on an orangish twilight hue—we’d worked through the day. We continued into the night, long enough for the sun to start streaking the sky, and only went to bed for a few hours before the debut.
I lay down next to Sophie, my limbs so achy that relaxation was impossible. I thought she was asleep, but when I brushed against her, she stiffened.
“Sophie,” I whispered, even though there was no need to be quiet. “Are you awake?”
“No,” she whispered back.
“Do you think...?” Slowly, I rolled from my side to my back. Even though I couldn’t see anything in the darkness, I didn’t shut my eyes. “Everything is much more complex than I thought it would be.” I didn’t know what I was saying. I tried to cling to the fierce moment of confidence I’d felt earlier. But now, on the cusp of the debut, a dark sense of doom settled over me. “Do you think... do you think it will all be worth it? Everything we’ve been through? Do you think our collection will be successful?”
I couldn’t see her, but I felt the bed give beneath her as she rolled over to face me. Her hand found me in the dark, touching my shoulder and following it down to my arm, where her fingers closed around my wrist. She held it tightly, securely.
“I’ve never met anyone like you, Emmaline Watkins.”
It wasn’t much of a reassurance—she didn’t say that we would succeed. But even if I didn’t believe in myself, it seemed like she did. That alone abated my firestorm of worry.
She released my wrist and turned back over, the curve of her back against the length of my arm. A few seconds later, her breathing deepened as she fell asleep. I paced my breathing to hers. I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep, but before I knew it, darkness—one much deeper than the darkness in the room—overcame me.
Chapter Twenty-One
THE DAY OF THE FASHIONdebut began with a shower of rain and a clap of thunder. For the second time, we packed our collection into a hack. It was much smaller than the one that had taken us to the train station after we left the Fashion House, and there was no room for us in it. We had to follow behind in another hack, using the last of our money to pay for it. I watched Sophie count the bills out into the driver’s hand, realizing that we had just enough to get to the debut but not enough to go anywhere afterward.
We sat next to each other in the hack, watching as we passed businesses with signs in their windows reading GONE TO THE EXHIBITION. Once we neared the exhibition square, the hack slowed to a crawl, caught in traffic. The exhibition was in full swing. A man holding a black umbrella was giving a speech on the steps of the parliament building, and a crowd had gathered around him. Farther back, behind the crowd and in the center of the square, street musicians played, and people danced while holding tankards of beer.
Slowly, the hack inched its way past the exhibition and cameto a stop in an alley just a few blocks from the square. When I stepped out of the cab, a blast of cold wind greeted me. I twisted, trying to angle myself so my hair blew away from my face. I was hemmed in on both sides by brick buildings with sooty windows.
“This is it, Sophie?” I asked.
“We’re in the back,” Sophie said, stepping out of the hack.
I walked up to the unpainted door. Its doorknob was covered with grime. I twisted the knob and pushed, but the door didn’t open. The hack driver noticed my struggle and motioned me aside. He grabbed the knob, leaned his shoulder into the door, and shoved hard. The door sprang open, squealing on rusted hinges.
“Glamorous,” I muttered. Taking a breath, I stepped inside. I knew we didn’t have endless funds to get a beautiful venue. But the building’s drafty, brick-walled interior and musty smell made me cringe. A long narrow stage was built against one of the walls. Red curtains, their color dulled by dust and sun, hung limply on a rod. The curtains were supposed to cover the ladders on either side of the stage leading up to a suspended platform, but they didn’t quite manage it. Old theater chairs were scattered haphazardly across the floor, cotton tufts bursting from their seams.
“Come help.” Sophie pushed her way past me.
“It’s... dismal,” I said. I pictured Charwell Palace in my mind, how all its opulence accented Madame Jolène’s vision.
“We didn’t have any other choice,” she responded, garment bags draped over her arm and partially dragging on the floor.I took a deep breath and surveyed the wooden stage, battered theater chairs, and smudged windows once more. I pictured our gowns moving along the stage, lone silhouettes of beauty against the theater’s drabness. The sight was more pleasing than I’d first thought. The building and collection would contrast each other—and it felt fitting for the setting to be so humble. I didn’t come from much. This was part of the story our collection told.
