“No. I didn’t.”
“Then how...?”
“Your mother finished it. I told her you wouldn’t have anything to wear at our debut and she sewed down the embroidery and finished the hem. I told her I’d bring it for you.”
I unlaced the garment-bag ties and stared at the dress. Mymother, who hadn’t even wished me luck when I left, had finished the gown for me.
“Hurry up.” Sophie cut into my thoughts. “I’ll help you change.”
I quickly unbuttoned my dress and slipped out of it, letting it fall to the ground. When I touched Cynthia’s dress, I slowed. The gown’s beauty and the fabric demanded reverence. It slipped onto my body as though it were dressing me, not the other way around. The silk clung to my frame and it seemed to seep into my skin, as much a part of me as my bones and marrow.
We didn’t have a mirror behind the stage, so it was impossible for me to see myself. But it didn’t matter. I understood the dress better than anything else. It was everything I imagined: couture beauty that transformed me as much as it would have transformed Cynthia.
The gown was all of that but also so much more. My mother’s hands had finished it. She’d dressed me for the day, even if she didn’t understand my dreams.
“It came out well,” Sophie said, pulling her new dress up. She paused to examine me, her dress around her hips. She was like a mermaid, the dramatic lines of her lacy black gown emerging just below her navel, her long locks covering her chest, her arms drawn up in front of her.
Sophie pulled the rest of her dress on, and one of the girls buttoned her into it. Incremental rows of black lace created the skirt and built into a plunging V neckline. I thought she would wrap her hair into a topknot like she usually did, but instead she shook it out, letting it fall down her back.
“Should we start, misses?” one of the models asked.
I nodded and suddenly, after all the busyness, I didn’t have anything to do. Everything dulled except for my throbbing pulse. Sophie stepped out and welcomed the guests, but I couldn’t focus on her words. She returned backstage and I motioned to the first girl, Anna, and she walked forward into the stage light.
Everything was different on the stage. In the fitting rooms at the Fashion House and my bedroom in Shy, each design element had seemed so exaggerated. But as I watched from behind the curtain, Anna’s ombre gown suddenly seemed slimmer to me, its details swallowed into a blur of fabric and flash of beads.
Anna walked the stage’s length, back straight, hands at her sides, head erect. I heard the audience gasp collectively, and I smiled. There weren’t many people, so the sound was almost a whisper, but I knew.
They saw it.
Theyfeltit.
I was so enthralled with the ombre dress floating across the stage and the audience’s response that I didn’t notice Anneke until she walked past me.
My favorite look was going out.
Anneke moved casually, as though the stage was simply a cobbled city street. I fought the urge to run over to her and lay out the small train for the millionth time. She stepped out of the shadows and onto the flickering stage.
When I was young, my mother would read me the Bible verse “For he spake and it was done.” For the first time, I understoodthe scripture. My gown was suddenly alive, ignited by the lights, the audience, and the stage. The smoky gray charmeuse rippled like water and waved like wind through grass. The leather bodice glistened, sleek and durable.
It embodied the best parts of Shy, the parts that would always be mine. Everything—the fear, the uncertainty, the heartache, the homesickness—had been for something much more meaningful and powerful than I could understand. I only wished my mother could be here to see it.
Anneke moved down toward the audience, but I saw only my gown, drifting like an untethered ghost across the stage. She was up there for an eternity and, at the same time, a split second.
Once she was back behind the curtains, everything sped up. I hurried the girls out one after another. It seemed like I only blinked before Sophie and I were stepping out onto the stage. Suddenly I was standing right in the stage lights, staring off into the blackness just beyond them.
The sound of applause started slowly, almost carefully, and then mounted faster and faster, louder and louder. There were only a few people, but they rose, dark silhouettes outside the lights. They clapped, stomped, and cheered. The acceleration of sound and excitement built inside me until I thought I would burst. Sophie held my hand and tried to say something, but everyone was still clapping, so she simply curtsied, pulling me down with her. We straightened together, leaning into each other.
We stood out there for a few moments longer and thenretreated to the backstage area. Our models surrounded us, smiling and cheering. I hugged Sophie and, as I did, a face came into view.
I drew back from Sophie.
“Tilda?”
Chapter Twenty-Two
THE APPLAUSE STILL RANG OUTin the theater, but all I saw was Tilda’s pinched face. She wore a cape over her maid’s uniform.
“What are you doing here? Why are you backstage?”
