The Secret Lives of Dresses (16 page)

“Helping out, yes. Making it into a tourist trap, no.”

“Well, I know this is a lot of change for you, all at once. But let’s just sleep on it, m’kay? We can talk more about changes tomorrow.” Camille tilted her head. “What
is
this music?”

“It’s the Andrews Sisters.”

“I thought so! My mama used to listen to them. But don’t you want to play what the young people listen to, to draw them into the store? My Lionel loves Maroon 5, and Tyffanee loves that Justin what’s-his-name.”

“Well, no. They can listen to modern music anywhere. The Andrews Sisters provide atmosphere, get people in the right mood.”

“If you say so . . . I still think kids like their own music. But I came here to help you, so what can I do?”

“Can you sew?”

Camille laughed. “Sew? I haven’t sewn in years. Why would I sew? I can buy a new dress for less than the cost of the fabric!”

Dora gritted her teeth. “But what if you can’t find what you want in the store?”

“Honey, my trouble has always been finding
too
much of what I like. Well, you know, not at Target or places like that, mass-market places, but in the nicer shops. I’m known as something of a tastemaker in Fayre, you know.”

Dora took another look at the plastic-doll pink of Camille’s tracksuit.

“You know Mimi asks that people working in the store dress in vintage, right?”

“Oh, honey, that doesn’t apply to me—how could a real woman fit in these little doll clothes? I think they promote a negative body image, don’t you?” Camille held up a dress from the nearest rack, which happened, by chance, to be one of the racks of larger sizes. Mimi made a point of hunting down as many large-size dresses as she could, and the dress Camille held up was a gorgeous light wool sheath and at least a size 48. Camille looked disconcerted. She put it back hastily.

“Mimi won’t mind,” she said decisively. “She’d hate for me not to be expressing my own style.”

Dora considered. “Well, if you’re not dressed in vintage, you probably shouldn’t wait on customers. And you are in comfortable clothes, so why don’t you bring a box up from the basement for sorting? Some of the racks are looking a little thin, and we should be well stocked before next week. You can grab anything that says ‘Holiday’ on it.”

Camille looked momentarily aggrieved that she couldn’t continue talking about turning Mimi’s shop into a seething craptorium, but she just nodded. “Be right back!”

There was a blessed few minutes of quiet as Camille made her way into the basement. Dora finished picking out a new set of buttons for another dress and had threaded a needle before she realized Camille had been quiet far too long.

“Camille?” she called out. No answer.

Dora flipped the “Back in Five Minutes” sign on the door and locked it before rushing down the basement steps.

Camille was sitting in the middle of the concrete floor, two boxes splayed open around her. She was holding a pair of scissors.

“What the hell are you doing?” yelled Dora.

Camille jumped. “Dora! You scared me!”

“I thought I asked you to bring up a box for sorting?” Dora was scanning the pile of dresses Camille had dumped on the floor. Camille, scissors, and vintage dresses was a scary combination, but it didn’t look as if anything had been damaged. Sprawled across the top of the pile was a gorgeous patterned-silk afternoon dress. Dora remembered Mimi buying it.

The woman selling it was one of Mimi’s favorite pickers. She was retired, and she and her husband drove all over in their RV, visiting grandchildren and all her husband’s old Army buddies. He’d hit the golf courses, and she’d hit the thrift stores and charity shops.

“I love this one,” she’d said, picking it up out of a large rolling suitcase and handing it to Mimi. Mimi preferred it when pickers brought clothes in suitcases. She hated the mess of armfuls of hangers.

“I had a dress like this right after Arnie got out of the service. Wore it to darn near every party, until it got a cigarette burn in it—I just cried. That was when we all smoked,” she said, glancing apologetically over at Dora, who was reading a book and trying to look like she wasn’t trying to listen. “Glad that’s gone out of fashion. It was all burns in the clothes and ashes everywhere and never having matches or a lighter when you wanted one. Such a hassle.” Mimi had held the dress up to the light. Even Dora could see it was flawless. It didn’t have tags but it looked as if it had never been worn.

“Judy, it’s even still got the belt. You have such a good eye.” Mimi hung it carefully on a rolling rack.

Judy laughed. “I’m just glad you’re here to give me an excuse to buy these things, even if I just have them for a little while. I do love pretty clothes . . . and I’ve tried to give them to my daughters-in-law, but . . .” She shrugged. “Different strokes, I guess.” She picked up one of Mimi’s postcards from the counter and fanned herself with it. The air conditioning was on, but Judy looked hot and flushed.

“Dora, run down the street and get us a couple of iced teas, will you?” Mimi pulled a five from her pocket and dropped it onto Dora’s book.

When Dora got back, Judy and her suitcase were gone. Mimi was hanging up the rest of the dresses Judy had brought. Dora put the iced teas in their styrofoam cups on the counter.

“Arnie came by early, and Judy had to go,” Mimi explained. She turned back to the rack and straightened out a black jersey gown. “Look at this, Dora. I think it’s Halston, although there’s no label, so I can’t be sure. We’ll have to put it on a mannequin; it looks like nothing on the hanger.” Mimi fished a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose.

“Mimi . . . are you crying? What’s wrong?” Dora had hardly ever seen Mimi cry.

“Oh, honey. It’s Judy. . . . She’s sick, and they’re giving up the RV and going to live with their son in Ohio. I just don’t think we’re going to see her again.”

Dora didn’t know what to say, so she settled for giving Mimi a hug. Mimi hugged her back, then straightened up. “Waterworks don’t get any work done.” She blew her nose again, decisively. “People just get old, that’s all there is to it.” She pushed the rack away from the counter. “I’m going to go wash my hands. . . . Would you get me a packing box? I think I’ll put these away for a little while.”

“Sure.” Dora had helped Mimi pack Judy’s beautiful dresses. Somehow, it made Dora even angrier that it was Judy’s box that Camille had messed up.

“Sweetie, those boxes were much too heavy for me and my back.” Camille gestured with the scissors. “I thought I’d open the boxes down here and just take up a dress or two at a time.”

“That would be fine, except that the floor is not so clean, and we don’t want to have to dry-clean those dresses.”

“Mimi had things dry-cleaned? A bunch of old clothes?”

“Camille, there’s a difference between an old kitchen chair and a Chippendale, and these dresses are Chippendales, not Salvation Army fodder.”

“Chippendales? The bachelorette-party guys?” Camille looked confused.

Dora sighed. “Never mind. Why don’t you go upstairs? I’ll bring these up.”

Camille looked at her watch. “Oh, it’s almost one-thirty—sorry, sugar, I have to run, it took me forever to get a manicure appointment at Hetty’s. She said the new girl had to take me, and she only had this one time.”

Hetty must have realized that none of her longtime staff would have Camille as a customer anymore; Dora felt bad for the new girl.

“That’s fine, don’t worry about coming back after—your nails will be wet, and I’d hate for you to get all smudged. Why don’t we just meet back at the house for dinner?”

“If you’re sure I can’t help . . .” Camille didn’t look too discouraged at being told to take the afternoon off.

“No, no, go! You don’t want to miss your appointment. Say hi to Hetty for me.”

Camille lumbered up the stairs, and Dora bent to gather the spilled dresses. They didn’t look too dusty, and it seemed Camille hadn’t nicked any of them opening the boxes with scissors.

Dora heard the bell jangle as Camille went out. She was almost at the top of the stairs when she heard the bell jangle again.

“Dora? Where are you?”

Dora’s cousin Tyffanee was standing by the register, toying with a mood ring from the basket on the counter. Her overblond hair was stick-straight, hanging stiffly to her shoulders. She was wearing three layered tank tops, in different colors, with the topmost one bearing a logo in gold paint that Dora didn’t recognize. Her denim mini was so artfully aged that it must have been brand-new, and so short that the bag of the pocket was peeking out from below the hem. A hot-pink hoodie with the Greek letters of her sorority topped off the whole look, with the fuzzy raised epsilon split exactly in half by the zipper.

“Where’s my mom?” she asked, sulkily.

“She’s gone for a manicure at Hetty’s,” Dora answered, moving around Tyffanee to lay her armful of dresses on the worktable behind the counter.

“Dammit,” said Tyffanee, without much heat. “I told her to make an appointment for me, too. I totally need a wax.”

Dora looked at Tyffanee’s smooth, deeply spray-tanned legs, emerging like tree trunks from her short pink Ugg boots, and decided not to think about what Tyffanee wanted waxed.

“Do you know when she’s coming back?” Tyffanee dropped the mood ring and started fidgeting with the hanging logo tag on her oversized handbag instead.

“She’s not coming back here this afternoon,” Dora said, trying to keep the relief out of her voice. “I told her I’d meet her back at the house for dinner. Are you . . . are you staying?”

“As if!” Tyffanee snorted. “There’s no way I’m staying under the same roof as Mom if I can help it. I’m staying at the Kap Ep house over at Trinity—soooo much more fun.”

Dora felt as if she should say something, express some sort of parental-restriction eye-roll sympathy, but she didn’t have the heart for it. Tyffanee, though two years younger, had always made Dora feel as if she were the younger cousin. Tyffanee had, after all, been the one to show Dora the “good parts” of Camille’s romance novels, had regaled Dora with stories of drunken high-school partying before Dora had even had her first beer, and had a serious boyfriend while Dora had still been reading Nancy Drew.

Tyffanee, thank goodness, looked disinclined to hang around the shop. “Tell Mom I came by like she asked, okay? And that I’m staying with Sheryn?”

“Would you like to come over for dinner tonight?” Dora felt she had to ask, although she couldn’t think of anything she wanted less than having dinner with Camille and Tyffanee.

“Dora, no offense, but I so totally do not want to have dinner with you guys tonight. Anyway, there’s a party.”

“Oh, no problem, I understand.” Dora tried not to look as relieved as she felt.

“Mom said you were interested in making this place sparkle a bit, and since I did really well in my Fashion Merchandising class last semester, she wanted me to take a look today, but I guess I missed her.”

“Fashion Merchandising?” They didn’t offer that at Lymond.

“Totally! I got a B-minus in that class, and everyone knows that professor only gives A’s to anorexics! It’s nice of you to want to help Mimi out, although I don’t know what on earth we could really do here, you know? I mean,
Celebrity Style
totally declared vintage
out
last month. What people want now is labels they know. Anyway, I’ll probably see you tomorrow. But if Mom asks, tell her we had a long talk about what changes we could make, ’kay?”

Dora felt a black rage settle over her shoulders like a heavy coat. A scathing remark was rising in her throat, but Tyffanee was halfway out the door, already on her cell phone, her voice trickling after her, sickly sweet and singsongy. “Hey, bitch! Wassup? Let’s grab some mochas and head over to the . . .”

Dora turned back to the dress she’d laid aside, pulling her threaded needle from Mimi’s pincushion. Sewing the buttons on, she imagined all the things she could say to Camille that night. Souvenirs of Forsyth! T-shirts! B-minuses in Fashion Merchandising!

The rest of the afternoon was quiet. With no customers, Dora spent her time alternately sewing and fuming.

Right after four, the phone rang. It was Maux.

“I’m just calling to check in with you—not up on you, I promise.” Dora could hear a loud clanging noise in the background. Maux raised her voice to be heard over it. “How’s it going?” The noise stopped.

“It’s going okay. I sold a suit. Camille came by and raised a fuss, but I warded her off with some garlic and a cross.”

“I missed Camille?” Dora could hear Maux’s eye roll even over the phone. “Were there any other visitors?”

“Tyffanee. Did you know she got a B-minus in her fashion class last semester?”

“I can believe it, but, then, I’ve been reading a lot about grade inflation at our leading universities. . . .”

“Con said he might come by, but I haven’t seen him.” Dora regretted mentioning Con before it was even out of her mouth.

“Con? Oh, Mimi’s architect friend?” Maux sniggered. “I just call him Beefcake, myself. That’s one high-quality exhibit of a man, right there. Not my type, of course.” The clanging noise started again, even louder. Maux paused, and it subsided again. “So when did you see him that he said he was going to stop by?”

“Well, I forgot the book Barbara Ann brought for Mimi in his truck on Saturday, after the movie, and so he brought it by the house yesterday. . . .”

“Hold on, there, girlie. Movie? Truck? And Beefcake came by the house? Sounds like you learned more at college than you let on!”

Dora was about to protest when the clanging resumed. It was deafening now; Dora had to hold the phone away from her ear. “Goddamn it! I’ll talk to you later, Dora,” Maux shouted, and then there was a dial tone.

It was just like Maux to call Con Beefcake. Sure, he was tall, and he did have nice eyes that crinkled at the corners when he smiled, and he had excellent hands. . . . Dora shivered, thinking of him tying her apron strings. Con was so nice, Dora just wished being around him didn’t make her think about one thing: Gary.