The Rules of Backyard Croquet

by Sunni Overend

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Go away,’ she groaned.

  ‘Who is that?’

  Apple beat around for a lamp switch without knowing if there was one. ‘Who’s that?’ she mumbled back.

  ‘You’re in my bed. You answer first.’ The stranger half laughed, and it was a laugh Apple would have recognised anywhere.

  Her eyes flew open at the same moment light filled the room.

  Charlie stood, pants half off at the end of the bed, one hand on the switch of a lamp.

  His expression began to morph when he saw her. Apple was about to leap out of his bed, when she remembered she was naked. She clutched the sheet.

  ‘What . . .?’ Her heart was pounding so hard it hurt. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ He didn’t seem angry, just surprised, curious. Apple blinked, wishing she could see better.

  ‘Jill,’ she said quickly. ‘Jill, she told me to stay. She’s outside there, didn’t she tell you? What are you . . .? Why aren’t you away?’

  ‘It’s 4 am.’ Charlie glanced back at the window. ‘I missed the party. I came back to surprise Jill, but my flight was delayed.’

  Apple stared, gripping the sheet, feeling foolish and trapped as Charlie slid his pants back on. She had no words, yet so much she wanted to say.

  ‘I’ll stay over at the house,’ he said. The light went out. Apple stayed where she was, propped on her elbow in the dark.

  She stayed that way for quite a while, staring without seeing, wondering whether to run after him, set free the trapped words, but couldn’t. Her being there, with his family, in his home, in his bed – this was already an invasion in the extreme.

  She got out of the bed and crossed the room to the window. In the dim garden lights, Charlie was walking across the lawn to the big house. Apple’s heart ached as she watched him pause to gather empty bottles and glasses before continuing on his way.

  She sank onto the banquette, still watching until he was out of sight. Then she gathered the sheet around her and put her head onto a small, hard cushion. She didn’t belong in Charlie’s bed.

  The drapes hadn’t been closed and it felt too early when Apple woke, adrenaline pumping the moment she opened her eyes, hand gripping the sheet as her gaze sped over the unfamiliar room.

  She felt nausea and a headache – and realised she had no clothes. Her underwear was presumably still downstairs. She covered her eyes as she wondered what Charlie must have found in his bathroom after she’d been sick in it, stripped in it and showered in it.

  She fashioned the sheet like a toga and hurried downstairs, her heart pounding.

  There was her dress . . . clean. As if she’d stayed in a hotel, it had already been laundered and was hanging at the bottom of the stairs beside her shoes and purse and a note from Jill reading, We’re breakfasting on the terrace!

  ‘Shit.’

  She tugged the dress on. Her underwear still in the bathroom and still wet. She swore again as she wrung them in a towel before stuffing them into her purse.

  Apple crossed the lawn to the big house, wondering if Charlie would think she’d planned it all just to see him. She didn’t know he’d come – surely he’d realise? He didn’t want her in his life, that was clear, and he’d have to know she’d never try to wheedle her way back in, not like this.

  She passed the pool, swearing quietly as the wind whipped the skirt of her dress up, the breeze cool on her bare bottom. She held it down then saw Jill and Alison waving in the sunlight.

  ‘Good morning!’ Alison called.

  Apple tried to wave with her free hand as the other clutched her skirt.

  Jill was grinning, and still wearing the dress Apple had made her. ‘Guess what?’ she said as Apple neared.

  Apple knew exactly what. ‘What?’

  ‘Charlie came back last night! To surprise me! We’d already gone to bed!’

  Apple returned Jill’s hug then sank reluctantly into the chair that Alison was patting. ‘That’s so thoughtful.’

  ‘I know! I had to put my dress back on to show him. He loved it.’

  ‘I’m glad.’ Apple tried to tuck her dress between her legs. ‘Thank you for leaving my things out.’

  Jill beamed. She broke open a muffin and gave Apple half.

  Apple let go her skirt, clamping it between her knees. ‘I . . . I saw Richard, in Manhattan. The new store, it looked so beautiful,’ she said for something to say.

  ‘Well, if I ever get a chance to go over there, I might agree with you.’ Alison sighed. ‘Dick and Charlie have left so much behind for me to do. What a relief Jill’s party is out of the way.’

  ‘Out of the way?’ Jill frowned.

  ‘You know what I mean, sweetie.’ Alison squeezed her hand.

  Apple sensed movement at the door . . . but it was just the curtains billowing. She stood. ‘I should get going.’

  ‘Not yet,’ Jill protested.

  ‘I have work to do.’

  ‘On the weekend?’

  ‘Would you like a coffee?’ Alison said. ‘The machine’s on.’

  The thought of Charlie appearing to find her blithely breakfasting with his family made Apple feel heavy with shame.

  ‘Thank you, no. Thank you for being so lovely. Congratulations on graduating. The party was wonderful, thank you.’ She pecked Jill’s cheek.

  ‘Gerry wanted your phone number, so I gave it to him.’ Jill grinned and Apple felt more shame, not wanting Charlie’s mother to think that she was amenable to Jill’s young friends.

  ‘Oh Jill, he’s way too young for me.’

  Jill looked offended, and Apple regretted it. She would have hugged her, but she heard someone inside.

  ‘Bye, then.’ She stumbled over the threshold into the house, then hurried through a lounge and down a hall. Two wrong turns later, she found herself in the foyer and ran for the door.

  Beyond the grounds, out on the footpath, she let go of her skirt, and didn’t stop jogging until the block finally ended along with the boundary of Clement Hall.

  29

  ‘This is what you need,’ Jackson was saying into the phone.

  ‘That gap isn’t filled. Your department for homegrown designers doesn’t have anywhere near enough bridge brands, or, let’s be honest, luxury ones. March can adequately fill both these gaps. Did you see the teaser range? It sold out to boutiques in under a day, then to their customers in under a week, and you know that’s next to unheard of for a new designer.’

  Apple put her headphones on and dialled up the music, sliding a pin into a piece of calico, then pulling it out again, pinning and repinning. It was the Monday following Jill’s party. Jackson’s calls to retailers had resumed, distracting Apple from the lines of the pegged skirt she was trying to perfect, the shape not adequately structured, the drama not quite there. She added a dozen more pins and pieces, then felt her shoulder nudged.

  Jackson’s face was tight.

  ‘Another rejection?’ Apple paused the music. ‘What did they say?’

  ‘I could kill these mice for their lack of confidence, vision.’

  ‘Was it the styles?’ Apple flipped her headphones down. ‘Did they not like them? Or is it the price point?’

  ‘It wasn’t the costing, I nailed that feasibility study. And it’s not the styles. It’s our lack of mainstream presence.’

  ‘That’s where they come in – that’s what the department stores are for!’ Apple tossed her headphones on the table. ‘So they’re not ordering?’

  ‘No, and we need them to. You know how well the teaser did in boutiques, but the department stores are being tight as fuck. They seem to want brands they can trust to deliver beyond one collection, and though we have proven sales and props from influencers, we don’t have a shopfront, we’ve never shown, they haven’t seen enough of March to be convinced we’re for real.’

  There was knocking on the iron security door. ‘Yoohoo! Is this March studios?’ Ginny’s laughter was mu
ffled.

  ‘Shit, Mum’s coming for dinner,’ Apple muttered, clambering up to answer the door.

  ‘Hello!’ Ginny walked in, looking around, beaming. ‘How elusive and exclusive, hidden down this little lane. Can you believe this is my first visit? I love it – the little Morris parked inside, so chic that vintage green with those trendy stools, and the concrete, and the plants . . . Oh Apple, it’s so cool.’

  All Apple could think about was that department stores didn’t want to stock March. There was some sales momentum on March’s online store, but nobody ordered quantities like big retail, nor provided the exposure.

  The front door was opening and Poppy came in, boxes of woodfired pizza in her arms.

  ‘Sorry I can’t stay.’ Jackson looked at her watch, then Apple. ‘I’ll call you later. Don’t worry, not yet. Hi, everyone. Bye.’

  Apple nodded distractedly as Jackson pecked her cheek.

  ‘I love Jackson’s haircut,’ Ginny said when she’d gone. ‘It’s always so perfectly coiffed. Would it suit me?’

  ‘No,’ Poppy said.

  Apple began tucking fabrics and drawings away to make room. Poppy put the pizzas down.

  ‘Hey, what’s this photo?’ she said, showing Apple her phone. ‘Jill Beauchamp posted it this afternoon. “Graduation dressing: One-off frock by March, shoes by Gucci.” Did you make a dress for Jill?’

  Apple frowned at the photo, then kept tidying. ‘Yes.’ No one knew she’d been to the party, and she wanted to keep it that way.

  ‘When?’

  Apple turned to stack things on a high shelf. ‘The other day. It’s nothing, just a sample.’

  ‘Were you there?’ Poppy said. ‘At the party?’

  Apple slumped onto a stool and put her head in her hands. ‘Yes, okay? I went because she begged me, and Charlie wasn’t going to be there, he wasn’t meant to be there. I don’t want to talk about it.’ She took a piece of pizza, sighing as the thin crust flopped and toppings tumbled off.

  ‘You saw Charlie? What happened? Did Jill know about Juanita?’

  Apple stacked capers back on the pizza and took a bite. ‘His family didn’t seem to know.’ She chewed. ‘They were nice.’

  ‘And Charlie?’

  Apple remembered him standing there, blue eyes staring at her in the lamplight of the cottage. ‘I barely saw him. There’s nothing there. Whatever was between us is over.’

  It wasn’t until she’d seen him, his unreadable expression, his turning off the lights and walking away, that she’d truly believed it.

  Ginny slid her arms around Apple, kissing the side of her head. ‘Men are nothing,’ she said. ‘You can have it all without them, and don’t let your loved-up sister tell you otherwise. Look at all this!’ She turned to admire the space. ‘Look at what you’ve built, all on your own. This is as gratifying as any relationship with any other person.’

  Apple swallowed, tried to contain the grief of Charlie’s departure from her life, and the new but real threat that, in spite of it all, her fledgling label might not see out the year.

  ‘More than half of new businesses fail, Mum.’

  ‘That’s why you should be so happy that you’re doing so well!’

  Apple kept her eyes down as she took another slice of pizza, this time picking the toppings off piece by piece and slowly putting them in her mouth.

  ‘Yes.’ She finally looked up, with a smile as hopeful as she could manage. She would try to enjoy tonight, at least.

  Apple was asleep when her phone rang. She groped around in the dark, trying to find it. ‘Hello?’

  ‘It’s me.’

  ‘Jack?’ Apple blinked. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I’ve just found something. For March.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Exactly what we need. We need to take part in Fashion Week.’

  Apple switched on the lamp and pushed her hair from her face.

  ‘Obviously. But we’re hardly established enough.’

  ‘I know, but there’s an opportunity,’ Jackson said slowly. Apple heard a glimmer of excitement when she added, ‘I’m surprised we hadn’t heard of it already, but did you know that each year there’s a dedicated event for up-and-coming designers?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, there is, and it would be the perfect way to put ourselves in front of all the buyers, to prove our worth, our style, our commitment.’

  ‘Well, obviously.’ Apple was repressing hope. ‘What’s the format?’

  ‘“Future Salon powered by AAKL Group will be held during Fashion Week,”’ Jackson said, ‘“with the aim of showcasing emerging designers through exposure to industry heavyweights on a global scale. Of the top six designers selected for the Future Salon show, the winning talent will be provided with twelve months of mentorship from a leading business strategist, as well as sustained publicity, marketing and social media care. Future Salon has launched the careers of . . .” and then it basically lists all our country’s top designers . . . and it says that a video of the runway will be featured on Vogue’s homepage for a month . . . says a lot of buyers watch it, apparently.’

  Apple’s mind was ticking. ‘They select six?’

  ‘“Six designers will be selected to show.” It’s competitive, but we can do it.’

  ‘Yes.’ Apple began to smile. ‘We can.’

  In the months that followed, they spent every spare moment they had working on the Future Salon application. March hired a graphic designer to build them a clean, simple digital portfolio and, a day before the deadline, a Future Salon submission was ready and sent.

  Then they waited.

  Online orders for autumn and winter trickled in. The orders were adequate but not explosive, and Apple tried to stay calm as the days ticked by, inching ever closer to Future Salon’s selection announcement.

  Jackson liaised with the seamstresses across town and took orders to the post office. Apple kept on designing.

  ‘A place in Future Salon isn’t unattainable,’ Jackson piped up one afternoon, and Apple was glad that there probably wasn’t a day that Jackson wasn’t thinking about it, too. ‘We’ve done the work and I reckon we’d be in a better place than most start-ups.’

  Apple smiled gratefully from her desk. ‘Yes,’ she said, but if she’d learned anything about the machinations of this industry, it was that they couldn’t be predicted.

  Poppy asked her to lunch on the day the committee was due to make its decision. Jackson had read that the results weren’t always on time, that they were sometimes a day, even two days late, and so Apple accepted Poppy’s invitation – welcoming the distraction.

  ‘Heard anything?’ Poppy said when they sat down.

  ‘No,’ Apple said, adrenaline faint as she eyed the specials board.

  ‘This is killing me.’

  ‘Yes,’ was all Apple could say.

  They ate, and when Poppy went to the bathroom, Apple dialled the studio.

  ‘Anything?’ she asked when Jackson answered.

  ‘Not since last time I checked,’ Jackson said, and there was a wait while she checked Future Salon’s website again. ‘Refreshing . . . nope.’

  ‘Nope we didn’t get a place, or—’

  ‘Nope, still no word.’

  ‘God,’ Apple said, then frantically, ‘Jack, the online orders aren’t enough to cover overheads or the production we’d prefer, our wages, to make the overtime worthwhile—’

  ‘Shh. I know. Wait. Stay calm.’

  Apple did wait.

  All afternoon she busily waited, packing orders and taking them to the post office. When she returned from the last trip of the day, unlocked the iron door to the studio and pushed inside, she found Jackson standing at the workbench, with a bottle in her hand.

  ‘Expensive champagne,’ Jackson said.

  Apple stood in the door. ‘Did we . . .?’

  ‘We did!’ Jackson whooped as the cork thunked the ceiling. ‘We’re in the top fucking six to show at Fashion Week�
�s Future Salon!’

  Apple ran forward, crushing Jackson in a hug. ‘Show me!’

  Jackson looked over her shoulder as Apple stared at the word ‘March’ in the list of six names on the Future Salon website.

  ‘And they sent a congratulatory form email,’ Jackson said.

  Apple’s eyes skimmed the page as she laughed, gurgled. ‘Oh my God . . . yes!’

  ‘What?’ Jackson said. ‘Did you doubt us?’

  ‘Never . . . Maybe . . . for a second.’

  ‘Me too.’

  They laughed and Jackson sloshed champagne into flutes. ‘Before you get too excited, there is one thing.’

  Apple looked at her.

  ‘Future Salon also released their final panel, the judging panel, and it’s, well, it’s amazing: Kelly Porter, head buyer for empirepedestrian.com; Georgie Wright, head of AAKL Group; Evelyn Smith, director and buyer for Conduct Co.; Janet Livingston, editor of Vogue; the buyer from Kingston Collective; and . . . Bernadette Jones, editor-in-chief at Harper’s Bazaar.’

  A familiar angst blossomed as Apple’s gaze fell to her drink. Bubbles rose and popped, and she was silent before she put the glass to her lips.

  ‘We don’t have to do it,’ Jackson said quickly. ‘I’m sure there are other ways—’

  ‘We’re doing it.’ Apple wiped her mouth.

  30

  ‘What are we, sewer rats?’ Jackson asked and a few of the other designers laughed nervously.

  It was autumn, day six of Fashion Week and, within the next thirty minutes, March would be showing in Future Salon.

  ‘Is that honestly it?’ one of the other designers said, peeking out from the dressing space and down a narrow corridor of exposed pipework and fluorescent lights.

  ‘The judges like the discomfort it provokes,’ another said, adjusting the waist of a skirt on her model. ‘They like to see that our work can shine in a raw setting, that we can cope.’

  ‘Bullshit. They just think it looks stylised and edgy for their video. It’s pretentious.’

  Apple scanned her models – every one dressed. She looked each one up and down, plucked lint from a hem, adjusted the padded shoulders of a top, then tapped a model on the arm. ‘No knickers, I can see the line.’