Chapter Two
Three Years Later
Evie
Evie Jefferson took off her sky-blue bobble hat and shook out her long, curly blonde hair. ‘Good morning, Bonnie.’ She bustled through the narrow entrance to her boss’s apartment. A pre-war, three-bedroomed place in Greenwich Village, with large windows and plenty of natural light, the apartment doubled as the space for The Perfect Match Couture, Bonnie’s bridal business.
‘Good morning, Evie.’ Bonnie spoke without moving her jaw, a pin between her teeth.
‘Use a pincushion, would you?’ Evie scolded. ‘I’ve got visions of you swallowing a pin one of these days.’ Bonnie’s eye-roll didn’t surprise Evie in the slightest.
‘Nonsense,’ Bonnie said through gritted teeth. ‘There’s a fresh pot of coffee in the kitchen. Help yourself.’
‘Thanks.’
Evie hung her coat on the wrought-iron stand in the hallway. She shivered, an aftershock of the November winds this morning. Even after twenty years of living in New York, she still couldn’t get over the level of cold compared to the south coast of England where her family had emigrated from. And it wasn’t even winter yet. The heating in her tiny basement apartment wasn’t up to much either. Three small radiators did their best to omit heat, but no matter what the temperature was, it was home now. It was all hers and sometimes she wanted to pinch herself at how her life had taken a complete U-turn, just when she needed it to.
Going through to the kitchen, she rubbed her hands together as they gradually thawed, and then poured a steaming mug of black coffee that she took back with her along the hallway. She leant against the doorjamb of the once dining room, now workroom, sipping the black coffee, abiding by the rules of the workplace: no food or drink would be consumed in the workroom, which saw no plates, no grand meals, no drinks. Instead, the enormous Hogwarts-style dining table was covered in huge swathes of fabric and a myriad of accessories as Bonnie worked away.
‘Is that the Carrington bridesmaid dress?’ Evie nodded to the dress on the mannequin beside the table. Bonnie was kneeling in front of it, taking pins from her mouth and putting them in the appropriate places.
‘It certainly is. What do you think?’ Bonnie stood back to admire the shimmering silver bridesmaid dress that would join the other three for the Carrington wedding come December.
‘It’s gorgeous. And you were right about the buttons down the back, they really add to it.’
Bonnie twirled the mannequin around for the full effect as Evie finished her coffee, her power tool for a full day as a wedding gown designer’s assistant.
Evie went back to the kitchen and stacked her cup in the dishwasher in the expansive, eat-in space that could most likely fit her entire apartment, and then she joined Bonnie and set to work. Bonnie was at one end at the enormous table, and at the other, Evie began preparations for another consultation that morning with a new bride-to-be. She gathered the folders of swatches—fabrics for the dress, colour samples—she took out a portfolio of photographs of the dresses Bonnie had designed and made over the years and took everything into the living room at the front where they welcomed clients. She fanned out bridal magazines on top of the walnut coffee table stretching in front of the couch and switched on the two table lamps to give the room a soft glow ready for some lucky woman to dream up her perfect wedding day.
‘Thanks for taking charge of the new bride-to-be, Evie.’ Bonnie checked her watch. ‘The Carringtons will be here any second for the final fitting, but once I’ve finished that, I’ll come and join you.’
‘Sounds good to me,’ Evie assured her. ‘Don’t forget the bag and the ring-bearing cushion I made out of the leftover material. They’re in the top drawer of the chest.’
‘You’re the best.’ Bonnie smiled. ‘What would I do without you?’
‘I like using the offcuts to make something, shame to waste them.’ She’d made a small cushion out of the leftover satin and embroidered the wedding date in ivory, all ready for the youngest member of the Carrington clan to carry down the aisle. Evie loved her job and she didn’t think it was possible to love anything quite so much. She’d been lucky to find it and she’d never let it go.
‘Actually, you’ve reminded me of something,’ said Bonnie, retrieving the bag and the ring cushion from the chest.
‘What’s that?’
Bonnie swiped the screen on her iPhone, tapped in her passcode. ‘Okay, if you could sit at the table, perhaps with the bag and the ring-bearer cushion in front of you, clasping one, with a needle and cotton in your other hand.’
‘Whatever for?’
‘Publicity, dear girl. Publicity.’
Evie wasn’t sure she liked where this was heading.
‘Come on, Evie. I need to get some action shots and you’ve resisted me long enough.’ Bonnie ushered her over to the table and practically pushed her onto the chair. ‘People want to see the faces behind the dresses and the accessories. It makes it so much more personal, I think.’
‘But you’re much more photogenic than me,’ Evie insisted, but to no avail. Bonnie was right, she’d avoided it until now, but with good reason. If her photograph appeared on Twitter, Facebook, their website, it could be only a matter of time before her past caught up with her.
Reluctantly Evie posed at the table, pretending to sew, and then pinning ivory silk around the mannequin and posing there as though in the middle of making a dress. In turn, Evie took photos of Bonnie sitting at the desk with a design in front of her sketched by her own hand. Bonnie looked completely at home pretending to work, much more so than Evie who was beginning to have palpitations at the thought of her picture being seen by people far and wide.
The Carringtons’ arrival saw the end to the impromptu photo shoot and Evie was greeted with compliments for her accessories, the extra mile she’d gone for the customer. As the bride had her final fitting with Bonnie, Evie greeted another bride-to-be for her first appointment and the risk of the photos was all forgotten as she immersed herself in one of her favourite parts of the job. Brides rarely came alone for the initial visit and there was always much excitement, much buzz on the initial meeting and this client, Megan, had brought her sister, Annalise, along with her. It always made Evie wonder who she would ask if she ever had the opportunity to get married and choose the way her perfect day would unfold. She loved hearing stories about proposals, engagements, especially those somewhat out of the ordinary. Last month, she’d met a newly engaged woman who’d been proposed to underwater on a scuba diving trip off the Greek island of Rhodes; the week before it’d been a proposal in a log cabin in the Swiss Alps she’d heard about.
Evie ran through some preliminary details. When was the big day? Where would the wedding take place? How big was the wedding party? What sort of gown did she envisage? Some women came in knowing the style, the material, and other times it was a blank canvas and they left it in A Perfect Match Couture’s hands. However it happened though, this was how the dream began and forging a client relationship with these women was the most important thing. It’d taken Evie a while to get used to it, but she’d taken Bonnie’s lead and now she was comfortable doing this; she felt she’d found her place in the world after two years in a dream job. One day she hoped to move to the design side, but for now she was learning from the ground up and loving every minute. She was learning everything from how to establish good client relationships, advertising for the business, sourcing and maintaining good relationships with suppliers. She knew the difference between tulle, silk, Venice lace and Chantilly lace. She’d worked with silk Duchesse satin, organza, chiffon and beaded silk, and Bonnie had trusted her to get involved with the sewing quite early on, recognising a flair for it when she toyed with offcuts and made added extras.
