by Heron, Farah
“Then why don’t you make it instead? You should be putting your best foot forward at all times!”
I sighed, shaking my head. “I know, Mom,” I said.
Samaya shrugged. “You could at least try. I think this is a winner.” She mouthed the words “Janmohammads always succeed,” eyes twinkling.
I exhaled, looking at the design. Samaya might have been right.
But of course, I couldn’t ask Rowan to change the Bloom design now. Not after everything that had happened for the last few days. I was lucky he was letting me back on the team at all. Still, I opened a new page on my iPad to redraw this dress-sculpture design from scratch. I couldn’t help it. Even if this sculpture was never built, I couldn’t get the image out of my head.
28
RUBY TO THE RESCUE
It was almost ten p.m. by the time we got to Bakewell. The whole family was tired and crabby, and to be honest, I was probably the worst of us all. It had been a long day. A long, emotional, exhausting day.
Shar was waiting for us. She showed Mom and Dad to her guest room in the main house while I took Samaya through the backyard lit with Rowan’s garden lights and showed her the tiny house, since she’d be using Gia’s bed.
Samaya laughed when I opened the door. “Seriously, Tahira? How have you and Gia been living here all summer? Hey, if you’re used to small spaces now, can we switch rooms at home? Yours is twelve percent bigger.”
I snorted. “My sewing supplies take up, like, half of my space, though.”
Truth was, I didn’t even mind the tininess of the tiny house anymore. Yeah, it would be great to walk three steps without bumping into pine, but it was worth it to be practically living in the garden, which had become my favorite place in the world this summer.
“You sleep here,” I said. “Bathroom’s back there. Help yourself to any skin care you see. Gia took all her skin care home with her, so it’s all mine.”
Samaya dropped her bag on the daybed. “You going to bed, too?”
“I will in a bit. I just want to . . .”
What did I want exactly? I wanted to find Rowan and put my head on his shoulder. I wanted to tell him how much I hated that fashion shoot in Toronto. I wanted him to see the design I’d done on the way up. But he’d made it clear on the phone that he didn’t like the change of plans that had me back in Bakewell.
I did need to see the garden, though. So, after taking an antihistamine, I went out into the dark night.
Some new boxes and a wheelbarrow full of floristry supplies and chicken wire were near the workbench, along with rows and rows of plastic flats of vibrant plants, ready for the sculpture. The twinkle lights on the roof of the greenhouse were on, and I could also see the chicken wire frame of Rowan’s iris.
I knew I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the sculpture I’d drawn on the drive up. Was it even possible to create it?
I scrutinized the chicken wire iris. Right now, it just looked like a big ball of wire, and I could only tell what they were going for because I’d seen the original sketch. They’d done a great job. Without really thinking about whether I should’ve been doing this, I carefully flipped the frame over. It totally looked like the skirt of my design. I unrolled some new chicken wire and cut off a piece with wire snips from the greenhouse. I rolled it into a loose tube and placed it above the upside-down flower as the bodice for the dress. It did work in terms of the scale, but my tube of chicken wire didn’t have the curves of a real body. I put it on the workbench, nipped in the waist, and tried to mold breasts, but it didn’t go well. I was so terrible at sculpting with chicken wire.
Ugh. This was not working. What I needed was to mold it on a form. Like designing clothes by draping.
I almost pulled my sweatshirt off right there so I could wrap the chicken wire around myself to make the shape, but then I remembered Ruby, my dress form.
Samaya was getting into bed when I came in the house to get Ruby. “What are you doing?” she asked.
I unlocked the casters on Ruby’s base. “Nothing. Just . . . working on something in the garden.”
Samaya snorted. “With your dress form? You’re in your obsessive designing mode, aren’t you? You do that when you’re avoiding real stuff.”
I chuckled as I wheeled Ruby out the door. It wasn’t fair that my sister was so perceptive.
I pushed the dress form over to the workbench, turned on the light on the bench, and inspected her.
Ruby was a professional-grade half-body double with an iron base on casters. She was covered with a thick off-white canvas and was more or less my size, instead of sample size. I unrolled the chicken wire bodice I’d made and wrapped it around her. This was ridiculous—the wire would probably ruin the canvas cover. What was I doing all this for, anyway? I should be getting some sleep so I’d be alert tomorrow.
But I wouldn’t be able to sleep now, anyway. Not when I was so anxious about what was going to happen when I saw Rowan. Not when each time I closed my eyes, I imagined his expression when he’d said, “Am I supposed to just take you back?”
I needed a way to affix the chicken wire at the back of Ruby so I could mold it tight against her body. If this were fabric, I would pin it. I could attach it with floral wire, but that would be annoying to remove once I had my shape. Ah! I had some little clamps in my sewing box that I used instead of pins when sewing leather or vinyl.
I rushed to the tiny house to get them.
Then, clamps in hand, I paused in the doorway of the house to look at the garden. Ruby was lit almost as if by a spotlight from the work light on the bench, and the twinkle lights on the greenhouse shimmered. It was all surrounded by flowers illuminated by Rowan’s garden lights.
It was ethereal. How was I going to leave this place in a week?
I then noticed that Ruby wasn’t alone. Rowan stepped out of the greenhouse. When he saw me, he tilted his head toward Ruby. “This thing scared the crap out of me. I thought there was a ghost in the garden.”
“Oh, hey. Sorry.”
He was in his pajamas. Plaid flannel pants and a long-sleeve gray shirt. A plain one, no cartoon plants in sight. I kind of missed his bright colors, but it was so good to see him.
The look on his face told me he didn’t feel the same. He would have preferred I stayed in Toronto. I almost turned and went back into the tiny house.
“Why is your mannequin here?” he asked.
“She’s a dress form, not a mannequin.”
He didn’t say anything. Just waited for me to answer the question.
I sighed. “Can I show you something?”
He shrugged.
“Give me one second,” I said.
I hurried back into the tiny house to get my iPad, apologizing to Samaya when she grumbled something about trying to sleep.
His expression was blank when I returned. “What do you want to show me?”
“This,” I said, bringing up the sketch of the flower dress on the iPad. I handed it to him.
I let him look at it for a few seconds, zooming in, studying the design. “This looks a bit like my sculpture design. And yours.”
I nodded. “Exactly. On the way here my sister pointed out if we flipped them and put them together, it kind of looked like a dress.” I pointed out the parts that came from his Bloom design and mine, showing him the flowers and extra grasses I’d added for movement. I was getting louder and talking faster as I explained it. “I brought my dress form out to see if I could drape the chicken wire onto it to make the bodice. The skirt part is easy because you did such an amazing job—”
“Wait, Tahira.” He shook his head, looking incredulous. “Do you seriously want to change the Bloom design now? The night before the competition?”
“No, I’m just trying something . . . you know, like, proof of concept . . . I just need to clip the back . . .” I turned the dress form.
“Tahira, look at me.”
My arm dropped and I turned to him. He still had th
at intense look of . . . annoyance?
He ran his hand over his head. “You’re a very frustrating person, you know that?”
He was right. What was I thinking? I really shouldn’t have even been on this team. I definitely shouldn’t have been playing with his sculpture frame the night before the competition. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m getting in the way. Never mind. I’ll try this out later on my own time.”
I turned the chicken wire iris right side up and unlocked the wheels on Ruby with my foot. I rolled her over the uneven grass back toward the tiny house.
As an artist, I was used to some people not appreciating my work, but I still had to push down the stomach sourness that came with every rejection. But this was worse, because the rejection was coming from someone I was most likely in love with. But maybe being in love with Rowan was beside the point right now.
Or was it the entire point?
I squeezed my eyes shut. Samaya was right. This—obsessing over this design—was avoidance. I just didn’t want to face the hard truth about Rowan and me. That my feelings were much stronger than his.
I continued pushing the chicken wire–covered dress form like a fool. No doubt she’d already left dents in the lawn. I couldn’t seem to stop ruining everything.
“Wait, Tahira,” Rowan said.
I sighed and turned around.
“You’re frustrating.” Rowan shook his head. “But you’re a genius.” He looked back down at the iPad. “A literal genius. This is amazing. Also, I’ve never met another person who gets so excited about an idea that they have to build it right away.”
I gave a tiny smile. “You live in a small town. Wait until you’re surrounded by creatives next year. They’re all intense like you and me.”
Still not meeting my eyes, he nodded. “I’ve spent the last two days convinced that you and I were way too different.”
“We’re not different.”
He took a breath. “So, explain it to me. The mannequin would be the frame for the sculpture?”
I blinked a few times, then wheeled Ruby back to him. “No. I’m only using her to shape the chicken wire for the bodice. Here, look.”
I showed him how I was using draping techniques to mold the chicken wire into shape. And then explained how I could attach it to the iris sculpture frame to make a complete dress that could be filled with moss and then plants.
I pulled the chicken wire taut over Ruby’s chest. “The clips will hold it in place while I shape it.”
He took the clips and started attaching them to the back. “Ouch. The edges of the wire are tearing the fabric back here,” he said. “Your dress form will be damaged.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s nothing that can’t be fixed. Right now, this is more important.”
I hadn’t realized the significance of what I’d said until the words left my lips, but it was true. Right now nothing, not my dress form, not even fashion design, was more important than the Bloom. I had nothing to gain from it professionally anymore, but I was more dedicated to this floral sculpture competition than I ever had been.
We worked together, me draping chicken wire and forming the shape, while he clipped, trimmed, and wired to create a woman’s bodice made of strong chicken wire.
“How are we going to take it in here?” I said, pinching the extra under Ruby’s bust. If it were fabric, I’d be sewing darts.
Rowan bit his bottom lip, thinking. And I completely forgot what we were supposed to be doing because he looked so incredibly hot. Stay on task, Tahira . . . Just because he was helping me now didn’t mean he wanted things to be back to the way they were.
He raised his brows. “Staples?”
I laughed. “That could work.”
He grinned as he headed to the greenhouse, returning a few seconds later with a staple gun, staples, and pliers. “These are rustproof, so they’ll be fine once we stuff this with wet moss.”
“Wait, Rowan.” I stopped him. “You said ‘we’ . . . does that mean . . .”
A small smile transformed his face. “I think this is amazing. I think we should do this for the Bloom.”
The smile just for me was back. I wanted to jump for joy.
“But what about the rest of the team?” I asked. “We can’t make this decision ourselves.”
He squeezed his lips together a second, then shrugged. “June and Leanne will agree.”
“But we have to at least ask them.”
He shook his head. “They’ll love it. I don’t want to bug them now. They’re . . . out.”
I grinned. “Together? Where are they?”
He shook his head. “Don’t read into this . . . but they went to hang out after the three of us finished working on the sculpture earlier, and they’re not back yet. Let’s not bother them. They said they were leaving the design up to me, anyway.”
I laughed, giddy. This was excellent. Yes, Leanne and June needed this time alone.
Rowan gave me that secret, just-for-me smile. “Let’s make this happen. You and me.”
I grinned so big I thought my face would split. “Yes. Let’s do it.”
I stepped back to look at Ruby with a critical eye. The bodice piece looked more or less like a metal tank top right now, but I hoped it would be less like casual wear made of chain-link fencing and more like an avant-garde ball gown once it was attached to the skirt piece and filled in with plants.
I squinted and tilted my head. “I’m not feeling that neckline.”
I picked up the iPad and used the eraser tool to delete one of the shoulder straps. “If we go one-shoulder, then we can add big blooms on the strap. It will tie in to the front-to-back asymmetry on the skirt.”
Rowan nodded. “Yes. And the big blossoms can be the nod to the theme, ‘Things in the garden.’”
I nearly dropped my iPad. “Crap.” I turned to Rowan. “I forgot about the damn theme. The sculpture is supposed to be of something you find in a garden.”
Rowan waved his hand. “It’s fine. It’s covered in flowers, and people wear dresses in gardens, right? For, like, weddings and garden parties.”
“Yeah, but this dress is not for gardens. It’s for the red carpet at the Met Gala.” I pictured the finished sculpture in my head. How could I make this work for a garden party? The floor-length hem and the small train were the problem. I inspected the chicken wire iris upside down on the grass. What if it was shorter? I lifted it up a foot off the ground. “We can take some of the length off the top before we attach the bodice. Then it would be tea length, which is totally perfect for a garden party.”
Rowan frowned. “Yeah, but how’re you going to keep it there? You can’t hold it up like that all day. What if the sculpture had legs?”
Legs without a head would be creepy as hell. I wasn’t looking to make a sculpture of a person, just the dress. But the dress needed to be on something.
I smiled at Ruby, an idea coming to me. “We can use Ruby’s base.” I rushed and sat in front of her, inspecting the base. “The body part is just screwed on. We can take it off and figure out a way to attach the skirt at the right height for a tea-length dress!”
Without speaking, Rowan went into the greenhouse to get tools, and we worked together to unbolt the chicken wire–wrapped body from the base, carefully setting it on the workbench. We were left with the iron base: basically a pole, with four legs on casters. After attaching the bodice to the skirt, we stapled a piece of a two-by-four inside the skirt and screwed the base into the lumber.
It was well past midnight when we were done. I was tired. I was sore. But I hadn’t had such an inspired night in a long time. I was creatively recharged.
This was what I loved about designing. About creating. Figuring out how to make an image in my head a reality.
Satisfied, I sat heavily on the garden sofa. Rowan sat next to me. Not too close—there were a good six inches between us—but this was the closest we’d been, both literally and figuratively, in days.
“So,
this is good?” I asked, indicating the now-complete frame. To anyone who didn’t know better, it would’ve looked like nothing but barely shaped chicken wire and wood on a heavy base. But that’s not what I saw. I saw the colors of the blooms and the plants we’d cover it with tomorrow. I saw what we were creating, not what we’d made so far.
And so did Rowan. Because he was an artist like me.
“It’s great,” he said. “We have a really good chance if we can pull this off.”
“We’ll pull it off. We just have to hope others recognize our genius.”
He chuckled. “Same old Tahira.”
“Full of myself?”
“Confident.” He gave me the warmest smile. And I gave one right back. We gazed at each other like that in the dark night, and I didn’t know what it meant, but after spending most of the day convinced I’d never see that expression in his eyes again, I soaked it all up.
“Brilliant, too,” he murmured, leaning in.
I inched even closer to meet him, but then I stopped. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to slide back into how we were before I’d left, but first, I needed to know where we stood.
I exhaled, my hand on his chest. “Tell me what’s going on with you,” I said softly, his face still inches from mine. “I get why you were upset that I left, but you gave me those gorgeous flowers, then you made it clear that you didn’t want me here today. What’s been in your head?”
He blinked. “You, mostly. You’ve been in my head.”
I smiled, running the back of my hand over his cheek. He leaned into my touch. What was I going to do with my sweet Plant-Boy?
“I know we have a lot to talk about,” he said. “I’ll be honest, I didn’t want you to come back. I knew you’d come with another tsunami of big feelings, and mind-blowing creativity, and huge inspiration. I was scared I’d grow even more addicted to you and then just get left behind again when you went on to shine somewhere else. I’m used to looking at stars that are far away, Tahira. Not blindingly bright right in front of me.”
I shook my head. “We’re both brilliant, remember?”