“Listen, Holls,” she began.
“Holls!” someone squealed. “OMG, did you ask her? Is it true?”
Emma hardly had time to recognize Kayla’s voice when suddenly Ivana and all her Bees were swarming around them. “Holly—” Emma began again.
“Apparently it’s true,” Holly told Ivana and the others, her voice ice cold. “Guess the joke’s on me.”
“Bummer.” Ivana shot Emma a curious, calculating look. “But don’t beat yourself up, Holls. It is pretty hard to believe.”
“H-Holly, listen,” Emma stammered. “I—I meant to tell you. It’s just, it’s kind of complicated...”
“You got a job.” Holly shrugged, not meeting her eye. “What’s so complicated about that?”
Emma cast a desperate look at Ivana and her friends. If only they weren’t here, she’d just forget her promise to Paige and tell Holly everything. About Allegra and Madison and the pop-up collection and all the rest. That was the only chance to fix this.
But she couldn’t. Not with sharp-eared Ivana and the Bees hanging around, drooling for juicy gossip. How could she make Holly understand that she’d never meant to hurt her?
“Can we go somewhere and talk about this?” she begged. “Please?”
“There’s nothing to talk about. I mean, it’s obvious I don’t count in your life anymore.” Holly slammed her locker door shut. “Later, Emma.”
Emma stood there helplessly as Holly walked away with Ivana and the Bees.
TRENDING DOWN
Emma tapped her purple lace-up boot impatiently as Ms. MacMaster droned on and on. Something about descriptive words in the first-person narrative, although she wasn’t really listening. She’d spent the entire English class trying to catch Holly’s eye.
Normally, that wasn’t hard in this class. Holly sat right across the aisle. She usually entertained herself by making funny faces at Emma anytime the teacher’s back was turned. Mostly to keep them both awake.
But not today. Today she was staring straight ahead, eyes on the board, doing a fairly good impression of someone who found the correct usage of pronouns and adjectives utterly fascinating.
Emma glanced down at the sketchbook in her lap. If she couldn’t get Holly’s attention, maybe at least she could get some work done on the dress design. But when she put her pencil to the paper, it refused to move. What was the point? She couldn’t make a dress out of Mrs. Sinclare’s—or anyone’s—requirements. Maybe she wasn’t meant to be a designer. Designers must have to deal with clients all the time.
She glanced around the classroom, hoping for inspiration. Most of the class looked just as excited as she was about today’s lecture. They were yawning, snoozing, or staring blankly into space. All except one person. Ivana. She sat right behind Holly, her cool, calculating eyes trained on Emma.
Emma blushed and spun around to face front again. This wasn’t the first time she’d caught Ivana staring at her today. Ever since she’d found out about Emma’s “internship,” Emma seemed to have gone from completely invisible to the number-one object of Ivana’s attention. What was that about? Emma didn’t know, but it was one more wrinkle she definitely didn’t need.
Charlie held out a hand to stop Emma before she could step past the filing cabinets into her studio. “Wait,” he ordered. “Before you go in, I’m officially declaring this a No Angst Zone.”
“A what?” Emma stared at him.
“You can’t let this Holly stuff throw you off,” Charlie said.
“You’ve got a ton to do, and it’s too important to risk it all over your latest meltdown.”
Emma frowned. “My friendship with Holly is important, too. Way important,” she argued.
“Look. You can’t fix this thing with Holly until she stops being so mad.”
“Do you think she will?” Charlie had known Holly for almost as long as she had.
“She will.” Charlie paused. “Eventually.”
Emma hoped Charlie was right. She didn’t want to think about any other possibilities.
“And you’ll deal with it then. Right now, focus on designing.” Charlie grinned at her. “Deep cleansing breath?”
Emma inhaled deeply and then blew his face. “How’s that?”
Charlie wrinkled his nose. “Smells like barbecue potato chips,” he said. “But it’ll do.”
When they stepped into her studio, Emma nearly tripped over the bulging shopping bags filled with the fabrics she’d bought at Allure. “Dad brought everything here!” she exclaimed. “Wait until you see what I got.”
Charlie peeked into the first bag. “Brown flannel?” he asked. “Are you making pajamas?”
“The brown flannel is going to be worked into this pink velvet dress,” she said, motioning to the dress already adorning the dress form, “to transform it into a fabulous grown-up-sized smock dress. But that’ll have to wait. I need to figure out what to do about Rylan’s dress.”
“What do you need me to do?” Charlie asked.
Emma glanced at him. This new, helpful Charlie was kind of weird, but why not go with it? “I guess you could unpack those bags and organize the fabric and other stuff so it’s ready to go,” she said. “Most of the pop-up sketches are in my sketchbook. If you check the notes in the margins, you should be able to figure out which fabrics and notions go with which pieces.”
Charlie grabbed a notebook out of the small stack on the worktable and flipped it open. “This chicken scratch?” he said, peering at the page. “What’s ‘jersey’ mean?”
“It’s the cotton jersey—that black kind of knit fabric.” Emma shrugged. “Just do your best.”
As Charlie dug into the first bag, Emma forced herself to turn away and sit at the worktable with the Rylan sketch. Opening it to the page with Mrs. Sinclare’s notes, she stared at it for a long moment, wishing she could just make the original dress instead—the one both she and Rylan loved. It would be so easy. Rylan would have a great dress to wear to her Sweet Sixteen, and Emma could go back to focusing on the pop-up collection, knowing she’d created something beautiful.
But no. Mrs. Sinclare was the client, at least according to Paige. Emma had to find some way to make her happy. What would Allegra Biscotti do? she wondered. If she was a worldly-wise hot designer, she would...
“What’s all the noise?” Charlie asked, looking up from a pile of zippers and thread.
Emma pushed away her sketchbook and stood. “Let’s go see.”
In the reception area, Marjorie was on her feet, doing her best to stare down the impossibly tall, impossibly gorgeous figure wrapped in a long coat of sand-colored cashmere, rising on five-inch stilettos and with flowing hair held back from her face with a sparkly dragonfly-shaped clip.
“Francesca?” Emma blurted out.
“What’s she doing here?” Charlie whispered.
Emma ignored Charlie’s goofy half-smile and shook her head. Francesca turned and spotted them.
“Emmita!” she cried. Sweeping over, she grabbed Emma’s face in her hands and planted a kiss on each cheek. “I was just explaining to your front-desk lady that I am here to work for Allegra.”
Marjorie looked anxious. “I was just trying to tell this, er, lady that Allegra isn’t here at the moment.”
“Believe it or not, it’s okay, Marjorie. Francesca knows all about Allegra. We met at Madison.”
“Yes, that is correct.” Francesca beamed at Emma as she finished. “Signorina Paige, she has now sent me over to do whatever you need from me.” She glanced around the reception area. While slightly more refined than the rest of the warehouse, it was far from Madison’s luxe waiting room. Francesca scrunched up her nose in obvious distaste.
“This place, it is charming in its own way. Like something from one of your American movies!” Francesca declared.
“Like Freddie Krueger’s world in A Nightmare on Elm Street?” Charlie joked.
“Never mind,” Emma put in. She wasn’t sure quite what she was supposed to d
o with Francesca. “Maybe you can start by recording that voice-mail message?” she suggested. She glanced at Charlie. “Can you take her somewhere to do that? Maybe the showroom. It’s quieter and less echoey in there than anywhere else in this place.”
“Of course,” Charlie said without taking his eyes off the Italian beauty. “Come with me, Francesca. I’ll grab the phone, and we’ll do this thing.”
The two of them disappeared down the narrow hallway, Francesca’s cheery chatter fading away as they went. Marjorie shook her head.
“This is an interesting turn of events,” she said. “What’s someone like that supposed to do around here?”
“Um, I’m not sure,” Emma admitted. “I’d better go call Paige and find out.”
Marjorie nodded, looking ready to say something else. But at that moment the phone rang. Emma hurried back to her studio. Grabbing her cell, she quickly dialed Paige’s number.
“Um, Francesca’s here, and—” she began uncertainly when Paige answered.
“Thank God, she made it,” Paige broke in. “I swear, that girl could get lost in a studio apartment. Not to mention being hopeless with a coffee order.”
“Okay,” Emma said. “So what am I supposed to do with her?”
“But that was the plan.” Paige sounded surprised. “Weren’t you paying attention? We’re killing three birds with one stone here, remember?”
“Which birds exactly? I mean, I know we needed her to help out with that meeting—”
“Right, that’s number one,” Paige said. “Number two, she’s a handy public face for Allegra Biscotti whenever else we might need her—for voice mail, client phone calls, whatever. Number three, if she’s over there working for you, she ceases to be a problem for me here, without alienating her father and risking him pulling his advertising from the magazine. Which would be mucho no bueno, if you catch my drift.”
“Yeah.” Emma didn’t bother pointing out that she was rather sure that last part was Spanish, not Italian. “But does she think this is, like, a real job? Because I don’t really have any money for an assistant or anything.”
Paige laughed. “Don’t worry. You don’t have to pay her,” she said. “Just treat it as an unpaid internship for now. Francesca doesn’t need the money. Her family is loaded. Like, Arab-sheik loaded, practically. No, she just wants to feel like she’s part of the New York fashion world. This way, she does that, you get a little free help, and Madison stays in one piece. Win-win-win.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Emma said.
“Good. Listen, I just got called into a meeting. Talk later.”
“Bye,” Emma said, though she was pretty sure Paige had already hung up.
She stood there for a second staring at her phone. Maybe Paige was right. Emma already knew she’d never be ready for the pop-up opening in time without leaning on Marjorie’s help with construction and sewing. Maybe Francesca could share that load. Paige had mentioned that Francesca had some fashion-school training, right?
“Emmita!” Francesca burst into view. She’d taken off her coat somewhere along the way, revealing a figure-hugging mauve cashmere skirt with a cashmere T-shirt in a barely darker shade of mauve tucked in, and a wide, still darker mauve suede belt wrapped around her teeny, tiny waist. “Is this your studio? It is so charming!”
Charlie followed and tossed the Allegra phone back to Emma. “Message done,” he said. “Most of it’s even in English.”
“Thanks.” Emma set the phone down beside her other one. “Listen, Francesca. If you really want to stick around and help—”
“Oh, I do!” Francesca clasped her hands together, making her armful of heavy bangle bracelets clink. Emma wondered if they were real gold. Probably, considering what Paige had told her.
“Okay, cool,” Emma said. “I need to work on some sketches right now. While I’m doing that, maybe you could finish unpacking and sorting the fabrics I just bought for the collection.”
“Hey!” Charlie protested. “I was doing that.”
Emma shot him a surprised look. She’d expected him to be glad to be relieved of fabric-sorting duty, but he actually looked put out. And an annoyed Charlie was an annoying Charlie, as she knew from previous experience.
“I know,” she said, thinking fast. “But, um, I was hoping you could do it together.”
He grinned. Emma thought he looked ridiculous and made a mental note not to leave the two of them along for too long.
“Charlie? Please would you fetch me some water with gas? Or how do you Americans call it? Bubbles? Grazie!” Francesca chirped. “With a hint of fresh lime.” She dumped one of the shopping bags onto the worktable, almost knocking over Emma’s water bottle.
Charlie caught it just in time and set it aside atop a filing cabinet. “Gassy water it is. Em? Chips and soda all right for you?”
“Fine. Thanks.”
Charlie hurried out; Francesca turned her attention to the fabrics, humming under her breath as she started sorting them; and Emma went back to work. The party-dress design frustrated her every time she looked at it. She knew how perfect the original dress she’d designed would look on Rylan. Actually, it would look great on anyone with its totally simple lines and flirty skirt and, mostly, the amazing sash that turned it into different dresses based on how you tied it all up, like a present. With Mrs. Sinclare’s changes? Not so much.
“Aargh!” Emma exclaimed as she crossed out yet another attempt to make the new and not-so-improved design work.
“What is it, Emmita?” Francesca looked up from folding a piece of soft dove-gray flannel.
“Just this stupid design,” Emma said with a sigh. “I can’t get it right. I wish I could just make the dress I want to make.”
“Let me see.” Francesca hurried toward the stool where Emma was sitting while she sketched. As she did, her hip brushed against one of the dress forms. It toppled over with a crash. “Oops!” Francesca said with a giggle. “Mi scusi, I am so clumsy when distracted.”
“It’s okay.” Emma quickly righted the dress form. When she turned around, Francesca was peering at the dress sketch.
“What is so troublesome to you, Emmita?” she asked. “This dress, it is molto bello.”
Emma shook her head, assuming from Francesca’s tone and expression that molto bello was a compliment. “No, it isn’t. You don’t have to be polite.” She hurried over and flipped back to the original design. “This is the dress I want to make.”
“Oh, it is beautiful!” Francesca exclaimed. “You are so talented, bella mia!”
“Thanks. But—”
“Chow’s here!” Charlie sang out, hurrying into the studio and dropping a couple of greasy bags onto the worktable.
Emma blanched. “Watch the fabric!” she cried, yanking the bags away from a gorgeous piece of silk and dumping them onto a folding metal chair on the far side of the studio instead. “You don’t want me to have to forbid you from eating in here, do you?”
Charlie ignored her, digging into one of the bags. “That place we usually go to on 8th Avenue was closed, so I got fries from the truck on the same block.”
Emma accepted the soda he handed her. Then he reached into the bag again. “No bubbly water, sorry,” he told Francesca. “I got you a Diet Sprite.”
“Diet? Eh, okay,” Francesca responded, catching the soda as he tossed it to her.
“So how’s it going?” Charlie asked Emma.
“I’m still stuck on Rylan’s dress,” Emma admitted.
“Really?” Leaving the snacks behind, Charlie stepped over for a look at the latest sketch. “Ouch! Yeah, I’m no Allegra Biscotti or anything, but that’s not looking too hot to me. Still, if it’s what Rylan’s crazy mother wants, you should—hey!” he interrupted himself as there was a rustle from behind them.
Emma glanced back just in time to see Francesca squirting gobs of ketchup all over the fries Charlie had set out. “What is it?” Francesca asked, another packet poised to squeeze.
Emma looked at the ketchup, then fries, and then fabric—all side by side. Anxiety level = 10. She swallowed a giant gulp of air and tried to tune out potential disaster about to happen. She really needed to focus to get this design out of the way so she could go back to the fun pop-up stuff. Sinking onto the wooden stool, she began sketching yet again.
“How’s it going back here?” Marjorie stuck her head into the studio a half hour later.
Emma glanced up from another failed attempt to mesh her vision with Mrs. Sinclare’s. “So-so,” she said. “Charlie hasn’t killed Francesca yet, and she’s only knocked over the dress form twice so far.”
Marjorie looked amused. “Where are those two?”
“Francesca went to the bathroom for a mascara touch-up,” Emma said. “Charlie’s off getting himself some fries with no ketchup.”
Marjorie nodded and walked over to glance at Emma’s sketchbook. “And you? How are you doing?”
“Not so hot.” Emma rubbed her temples. “This design is making me nuts!”
“Tell me.” Marjorie perched on the next stool.
So Emma did. She outlined the whole Rylan project, including the meeting and Emma’s problems incorporating Mrs. Sinclare’s notes into the design. Marjorie nodded sympathetically through all of it.
“That’s a tough seam to sew,” the receptionist said at the end. “And you’re right, by the way. That woman has no eye whatsoever if she thinks those comments will work in any way with your lovely design.” She cast a dismissive glance at the sketchbook and the napkin now tacked to Emma’s inspiration wall. “But you can’t change people or their personal taste—or lack thereof.” She shrugged. “All you can do is be true to yourself, trust your instincts, and let the rest fall into place.”
“Yeah.” Emma thought about that. “I guess you’re right.”
She stared at her sketch. Suddenly she knew what to do.
NEWS OF THE DAY
This can’t be right,” Emma muttered a couple hours later. She pulled out the pin she’d stuck through the muslin pattern piece.
Who What Wear Page 8