by C. E. Murphy
Steve passed it off with a wave of his hand. “The modern world’s a faster place. Besides, you were nearly at journeyman status when you started working for me, and you know it, Lara. Your portfolio was a lot stronger than most college sophomores’ would be. You were doing body work on suits within eight months, and you know some of the others were still doing hems after eighteen.”
Lara winced, but nodded. She was meticulous and always had been; the work came very close to making music in her mind, as if someone was whispering truth just out of her hearing. When errors were made, they reverberated sourly just as falsehoods did, and so she’d learned almost at the same time she’d begun sewing that it was far more worth doing well than quickly. Her coworkers hadn’t always learned the same lesson.
“All right.” Steve brushed the suit’s shoulder once more. “Choose the fabrics you’d like to present to Mr. Mugabwi and we’ll discuss them before he comes in again. Meanwhile, keep being a genius.”
Lara laughed and waved as he left, then settled back down to work with a smile on her face. Gleaming pinheads marked the buttons’ eventual locations; it was now only a matter of judging which buttons looked the most striking against the fabric. This was Lara’s favorite part of her work, even more than the choosing of fabrics or the discussion of design: the fine details, most of which were invisible to the untrained observer, that finished a suit or gown to impeccable specification.
A knock on her office door pulled her out of her reverie as the last button went on. Pins in her mouth, she mumbled, “Mmm?,” then extracted them from between her lips to blink at Cynthia Taylor. “Yes?”
“Someone’s here to see you.” Cynthia, at barely seventeen, was the only daughter interested in her father’s business. She worked as a receptionist after school during the brief hours the bespoke shop was open to the public, but Lara was certain she would someday be a master tailor.
“Me?” A glimpse out the frosted windows said evening had fallen while she worked. Lara sat back on her heels and moved a cup of tea to be certain she wouldn’t spill it. “I don’t have any fittings scheduled this evening. I should probably already be gone. So should you, for that matter.”
Cynthia rolled her eyes. “You should have told Dad that when he came by earlier. We’re going to be late for dinner again, and Mom’s going to kill us. But if we weren’t still here, I wouldn’t have been able to open the door for this man. I don’t think he’s a client. He’s not wearing the right kind of clothes. But he did ask for you specifically, so maybe I’m wrong!”
“I don’t know how anybody could even know to ask for me. I’m only a journeyman. Well.” Lara climbed to her feet, brushed nonexistent dust from her knees, and put the tea on her desk. “Do I look suitable enough to be presented to a potential client?”
Cynthia pursed her lips, taking the question seriously enough that Lara bit back laughter: the girl’s critical examination was better suited to a woman three times her age. “You’ll do,” she said after a moment, then lost her serious demeanor and dimpled. “You look wonderful. But you should probably put some shoes on.”
Lara looked down at herself with a quick nod. She’d changed from rain-soaked clothing to a white silk blouse and gray wool three-quarter-length pants, their wide legs nearly a skirt. She’d been working in stocking feet, but she reached for knee-high boots now, slipping them on and adding another inch and a half to her height. “I don’t have a suit jacket,” she muttered. “I didn’t expect to see anyone today. And my hair’s all frizzy from the rain.”
“Here.” Cynthia scurried from the room, then returned moments later with a round hairbrush. “Brush the curls out and tie it back in a chignon and you’ll be perfect, even without a jacket. Perfect,” she repeated when Lara’d done as she’d instructed. “You look like one of those old paintings.”
“Cracked and split?” Lara flashed a smile, patted her hair one more time, and followed Cynthia out of the office.
David Kirwen waited in the lobby, expression animated over whatever news his cell phone shared. Lara stopped in the archway leading from the private fitting rooms and offices, surprise slamming her heartbeat high. She curled one hand around the door frame for support, and wished, for a moment, that she could retreat and try her entrance again, this time knowing who awaited her. Cynthia slowed, peering at her, and Lara gave her a halfhearted smile of reassurance.
Kirwen looked up from his phone and offered a disarming grin. “Miss Jansen. I’m glad I caught you. I only realized after the fact that we hadn’t set a time or place for dinner.”
“I’d noticed that, too.” Lara swallowed against a dry throat and gave Cynthia another smile, this one tinged with embarrassment. Cynthia’s gaze brightened and she turned to give Lara a discreet thumbs-up before scurrying into the back offices and leaving Lara alone with David Kirwen.
He was considerably more handsome dry and smiling than he’d been dripping and cold on the street. That was her first thought: not what is he doing here or how did he find me, but Kelly is right. He really is awfully good-looking. More than good-looking: he bordered on pretty, features sharper and more chiseled than men’s usually were. Men in general suddenly seemed rather blunt and thick when compared to David Kirwen, as if much of humanity were discarded rough drafts to his final sculpture.
A sculpture that could be far better dressed. Lara’s palms itched with the desire to step forward and adjust his lapels, or better yet, to simply strip his clothes away and learn the canvas she had to work with. His stance suggested he would be beautiful in clothes cut to his form; as if he were meant to be dressed by someone like her, who could take the ordinary and trick the eye into believing it was extraordinary. Given the extraordinary to begin with, she could create such a vision that people would stop on the street, an emperor in new clothes.
She actually stepped forward to do that, to touch him and see if the gift she’d been given was real, before she remembered he wasn’t a client. Curiosity lit his eyes, then turned his smile warm and amused. Lara, cheeks afire, stopped where she stood, and Kirwen’s smile grew broader still. “Am I that bad, then?”
“No. No, I just forgot you weren’t here for a fitting, Mr. Kirwen. I’m not used to men dropping by for any other reason.” While true, the statement had a ring of pathos about it, and stung her into a straighter spine and lifted chin. “Really, I’m very sorry about Kelly’s behavior this afternoon. She doesn’t know when to quit.”
“Occasionally we all need someone like that in our lives. I have Dickon finagling us a table at Troquet, so I hope that despite the unorthodox approach you might have dinner with me tonight anyway?”
“I—” Puzzlement took hold. “How did you find me?”
Kirwen laughed. “If I answer, will you say yes to dinner? No.” He passed off the bargain with a wave of his hand. “Your friend mentioned you were a bespoke tailor. There are only a handful of shops in Boston that do that kind of work. I set my assistant on Google while I recorded the evening’s weather report.” He nodded toward a window, where rain still spattered against the pane. “Fortunately, it didn’t require much guesswork as to how it would turn out.”
An inkling of humor worked its way through Lara, though she kept her expression cool. “So you’re a stalker, Mr. Kirwen?”
Dismay shattered across his face. “No, no, not at all. I just wan—Oh. You’re teas—No,” he said again, this time with more dignity. “But my assistant takes stalking assignments as routine when necessary.”
“I’m sure she does.” Lara ducked her head, partially to hide amusement at Kirwen’s story, but more to take refuge in the meaningless phrase. I’m sure she does: people usually meant it sarcastically, or as a way to pass off a topic they were uninterested in. It was one of a handful of things she could say, though, without triggering her own discomfort. Particularly when someone like Kirwen was making light of something but still spoke essential truth. Lara was certain his assistant took stalking, or at least Internet searching, i
n stride. She looked up, smiling. “I’m not sure, Mr. Kirwen. Your assistant was the one who did all the work. Maybe I should have dinner with her.”
Genuine surprise filtered through his expression by degrees, and though they didn’t stand close together, Kirwen fell back half a step. “I imagine that could be arranged, although I don’t think Nat—my assistant—is, um, I don’t think she typically dates wom …” He trailed off, peering at Lara in much the same way Cynthia had moments before. “This is impertinent, Miss Jansen, but would your friend have been trying to set us up on a date quite so enthusiastically if you preferred dating women?”
Laughter bubbled up and broke. “No, but it seemed like your assistant ought to get some benefit from doing your dirty work. She finds me, you get a date, and she gets …?”
Kirwen, hopefully, said, “I could bring her the leftovers from Troquet? Okay,” he admitted as Lara arched an eyebrow at him, “I wouldn’t be impressed with leftovers, either. What, then? Roses? A paid holiday in Bermuda?”
“I was thinking more in terms of a box of chocolates, although if you’re inclined to offer paid holidays to Bermuda, I think Kelly might want to talk to you about a job.”
“Kelly? Not you?” Kirwen smiled. “I thought that kind of job perk would make anyone stand up to be counted.”
Lara shrugged one shoulder, then glanced back toward her office. “I like my job, Mr. Kirwen, that’s all. I’ve never been inclined to say I’d want something that I don’t. Even jobs whose side benefits include trips to Bermuda.”
“How extraordinary,” Kirwen murmured. Lara looked back at him and he shook himself, a hopeful smile reappearing. “Does that mean you’ve said yes?”
“I suppose it does,” she said, surprising herself. Kirwen’s eyes lit up, and Lara, truthfully and teasingly, explained, “Kelly would never let me live it down if I refused.”
His face fell comically. Lara laughed, then gestured toward her office. “Let me get my coat and call her, and we can go.”
Four
Kirwen hailed a taxi outside Lord Matthew’s, and the driver’s gaze locked on him as they climbed in. Almost before the door closed, the cabbie launched into a diatribe about the weather in general and David’s inability to correctly predict it specifically, and ended with a plea for a sunny weekend, because his daughter’s thirteenth birthday party was Saturday and he would go crazy if locked in the house with a dozen teenage girls all day. Lara exited the taxi wide-eyed and bemused to see Kirwen give the man a handsome tip. “Does that happen to you a lot?”
“Only on days I leave the house.” The delivery was wry but honest. “I get blamed for the weather but rarely praised for it.”
“And occasionally asked to intercede, like he just did?” Lara scurried for the door, throwing a rueful glance toward the sky. “I had no idea being a weatherman was so much responsibility.”
“Neither did I, when I started. But it sends me interesting places at times. I covered the hurricanes last year.” Kirwen reached over her head to push the door open, its weight coloring his fingertips white. Lara slipped under his arm and pushed the hood of her coat back, trying to shake off the rain.
“I remember. I remember thinking a job that sent you to Florida would be wonderful, except I’d want to go when the weather was good.”
Kirwen grinned. “So would I, but the station doesn’t seem to think sunshine and Disney World make for exciting weather stories. All right, if we’re lucky Dickon’s here before us …” He trotted up the stairs ahead of Lara, coat flapping dramatically, then waved and turned back to Lara with a bright expression. “And we’ve got the best seats in the house. Now, aren’t you glad you agreed to come out with us?”
Dickon waved a greeting from a table beside enormous picture windows overlooking the Common. Even with the gray skies and rain, the polished wood floors reflected light, making the narrow room comfortable, and Lara smiled. “I think I am. I’ve never been here. Is being a famous weatherman enough to get you the best table on short notice on a Friday night, or does it just work midweek?”
“I’ve never tried on a Friday.” Kirwen gestured Lara toward his cameraman’s table, admitting, “I doubt it’s enough. Dickon, this is Lara Jansen. Miss Jansen, Dickon Collins, my cameraman and the only one with sense enough to come out of the rain.”
“Nice to meet you, Miss Jansen,” Dickon said over Lara’s murmured “Lara is fine,” then corrected himself: “Lara.” He stood up to offer his hand. Lara nearly took a step back, astonished at the man’s height and breadth, though he wasn’t fat, only barrel-chested.
Rue crossed his face. “I have that effect, sorry. I look smaller sitting down. There’s a reason they put David in front of the camera, not me.”
“I was just thinking you’d look—” Lara put her fingers over her mouth, and he cocked an eyebrow curiously. “I’m sorry. I tend to redress people mentally as soon as I meet them. It can come across as rude, but I don’t mean to be. I just like imagining people at their best.” She flattened her fingers further over her lips. “I’m not making this better, am I?”
Kirwen, less reassuringly than Lara might have liked, said “It’s all right” to Collins as he pulled Lara’s chair out and invited her to sit. “She was dismayed at my clothes, too. You’re in good company.”
“I’m in your company, anyway.” Dickon sat back down, grinning at Lara. “Probably giving you a hard time isn’t the best way to make a good first impression, is it? But I figure we’re safe, because everybody knows who David is, anyway. It’s too late for a first impression.”
That, at least, was true, if not for the reasons Dickon outlined. Lara glanced at David, who shed his raincoat and sat down beside her. “I wasn’t dismayed. I just forgot you weren’t a client for a moment. You have the kind of build clothing designers dream of. And,” she added to Dickon, “I was only going to say, you’d be very imposing in a well-made suit.”
“I’m imposing out of one.” Collins pursed his lips. “That came out wrong. Maybe I better shut up now.”
“I think that’s probably one of your better ideas,” David agreed. “We’re not really rapscallions, Miss Jansen.”
“Rapscallion,” Lara murmured. The word sent shivers over her skin, not precisely mistruth, but a waiting on tunefulness. “A sort of rascal, a dishonest or unscrupulous person, though that’s a darker definition than people usually mean. Popularly it’s more like youthful wickedness. Mischievous. So I’d say you are that, Mr. Kirwen, but no harm meant.”
Both men gawked at her, Dickon’s smile coming to the fore more quickly than David’s. “Wow, what are you, a walking dictionary? That was kind of cool.”
Lara shrugged, embarrassed and pleased all at once. “I like to be precise with word choice. I have a pile of dictionaries and thesauruses at home so I can compare synonym definitions for precision.” Color climbed her cheeks before she’d finished speaking, and she wished for a glass of water to hide behind until the heat faded. “It’s more interesting than it sounds.”
David Kirwen watched her with interest, though amusement played on his lips. “Actually, it sounds interesting. Whatever made you start doing that?”
“People don’t use language very carefully, and it bothers me. Trying to change them is futile, but at least I can say exactly what I mean.” It was an explanation she’d given before, all true without being all the truth. Lara smiled. “Besides, once in a while I can use it to tease handsome men who take me out to dinner.”
“Handsome,” Kirwen said with satisfaction. “Not well dressed, maybe, but handsome. It’s a start. Is your friend as pedantic as you?”
“Kelly?” Lara glanced toward the stairs, as though Kelly’s name might summon her. “No, but she doesn’t get impatient with me, which is probably better. I wonder if I should call her.”
“I don’t think you’ll have to.” Dickon spoke with a new degree of admiration, and got to his feet as Lara turned to look toward the stairway again.
Ke
lly waved a greeting, thigh-length trench coat already unbuttoned over a figure-hugging green knit dress Lara was certain she hadn’t owned an hour ago. She swept down on them, shook both men’s hands, then seized Lara’s upper arm with bright-eyed anticipation. “You know how it is, a woman can’t go to the restroom alone. Come with me, Lar, please?”
A protest faltered on Lara’s lips as the men laughed, Dickon asking, “What is it about women and bathrooms?” in a mutter he clearly intended to be overheard.
“It allows us to talk about you while pretending we’re attending to nature’s call. Pretending we’re attending, that rhymed. C’mon, Lara. It’s a feminine duty. Please?” Kelly dropped her coat over the back of a free chair and caught Lara’s hand, tugging her toward the restrooms.
“Duty calls.” Careful word choice, made easier by Kelly’s laughing description of what duty was. Lara shook her head and, smiling, followed Kelly. “You look fantastic, Kel. The dress is great. Where’d you buy it?”
“I should’ve known I couldn’t trick you into thinking I’d run home and changed clothes. You know my wardrobe better than I do.” Kelly stopped inside the restroom door and turned to the mirrors, smoothing a hand over her hips nervously. “It’s not too tight? I thought, wow, I look hot, but now I’m kind of all, wow, maybe I’m just fat.”
“Not from the way Dickon stood to attention when you came in,” Lara said drily, then smiled at their reflections. They were each other’s opposites, Kelly tall and lush, Lara petite and conservative. “You don’t look at all fat, Kel. You’re beautiful. The dress is fantastic on you.”
“God, one of the best things about being friends with you is I know you’re not bullshitting when you say that. And Dickon did stand up, didn’t he? I mean, I know you mean that literally, because you’re you, but can I take it figuratively, too? He’s cute, isn’t he? In a big-redheaded-lug kind of way? Lara!” Kelly caught Lara in a hug, then set her back with equal enthusiasm. “Lara, you have a date! You have seized the bull’s horns! Congratulations!”