“I know, I know—help me out, Celine, I’m struggling here,” Francine complained. Then continued her first thought. “You have shown them to me. Relentlessly.”
Celine lifted her hands up to make it easier for Francine to undo the buttons on the side. When the dress slid down her hips, she picked a violet one from the pile on the floor. It was patterned throughout the bodice with silver thread, and a fringe of glass beads ran along the hem—one of the few dresses in her closet Madame LeBeau approved of.
“I’ve only shown you my own sketches. The real costumes are ten times more dazzling.”
This was the third night she was sneaking out to catch the latest revue without Anaïs as an excuse. And every time the showgirls sauntered up on stage, their costumes seemed to have doubled in sparkles. Her thoughts took an abrupt pivot to Monsieur Baudelaire’s competition.
“Did the letter come yet?” Celine asked. She wandered to her vanity table and slumped into the chair, her energy depleting.
Francine shook her head. “I’ve waited by the door for hours,” she supplied softly. “Nothing so far.”
“You don’t think maman has taken it? She has been oddly quiet today.”
“I doubt it, Mademoiselle. She has been busy with the preparations for dinner. She wants it to be perfect for Jacques.”
Celine snorted. “You’d thinkshewas the one dating him.”
But even the dry humour couldn’t keep her mind off that letter. Per her application’s specifics, all contestants wouldbe receiving their answer whether they had been accepted at Maison Baudelaire or not by today. If the messenger hadn’t delivered it yet…
No, no, Celine couldn’t think like that. Shewouldget in. She was proud of the gown she had submitted and knew Monsieur Baudelaire would like it as well.
At least she hoped he would.
She picked up a tin of pomade to touch up the finger waves curling around her temples.
“Celine.”
Her bedroom door flew open, startling her into messing up the wave she was moulding against her forehead. The pomade tin slipped from her fingers and rattled among the necklaces and magazines scattered across her vanity.
Her mother laughed softly by the threshold. “I’m sorry I startled you, my darling,” she said, seemingly in good humour. She looked at the nurse. “Francine, do check the door. I heard someone ring the bell.”
Francine caught Celine’s eye for a brief second, then her plump frame hurried out of the room to carry out the request. Celine returned to her mother. “I was just about to come downstairs, maman.”
“You don’t seem ready.”
“It is only my curls. They look a bit smushed on this side.”
She tilted her head for her mother to see. Madame LeBeau clicked her tongue. “I told you not to bob your hair. Those flapper girls you admire so much will be popular for only a season, mark my words.”
Without being asked, she approached the mirror and took the pomade tin into her palm. She frowned at the length of Celine’s hair—barely brushing the nape of her neck. The style had yet to become popular; most girls still wore their hair long and pleated away from their face. Celine, by comparison, hadchanged her entire look, starting with her bob and make up, right down to the way she spoke and acted.
She flitted her eyes to their reflection on the mirror, staring at her mother’s sylphlike frame as she moved behind the chair. The smooth skin of her face was streaked with only a few, almost invisible lines of concentration on her forehead. Celine glanced at the stern brows and sharply defined lips. Her mother’s inky black hair was pinned up to lift her entire face. Her evening dress that revealed only the elegant arch of her pale collarbone and her long neck, which was decorated with a silver pendant to hide a single line of age she had been so miserable to discover recently.
Celine had always admired her mother. It was because of her affinity with beauty that she had agreed to Celine pursuing something designing-adjacent. As a socialite herself, Madame LeBeau believed her daughter’s main concern should be to attend fashionable gatherings, rather than work behind them. The dresses were for her to wear, not make.
It was better than nothing, Celine thought. If anything, being a model placed her in close proximity to the designers she adored. She was the first to see their new lines, the first to see the new trends and make a mental note. She’d been to their ateliers more times than she could count, up on a platform, measured and traced over with chalk, and though she had been itching to run something through their shiny sewing machines, she had been too content with seeing the process firsthand to brood over the fact that her mother would rather Celine shave her entire head than have her daughter work in a shop.
“There,” Madame LeBeau smiled when she was finished, and rested her warm palms heavily on Celine’s shoulders. “I believe Jacques will find it looks beautiful.”
Celine forced a smile. “Maman,” she ventured, “I have been meaning to ask—suggest— you something. Can we talk?”
“Hmm? What is it?”
Celine took a deep breath. Mentions of fashion in their household had become a forbidden topic ever since Celine had expressed her wish to enter the fashion academy and Madame LeBeau had squashed that dream with three syllables:For-get-it.
But now that a new opportunity had presented itself, Celine couldn’t remain quiet anymore. If she was accepted, she would enter Monsieur Baudelaire’s competition whether her mother supported her decision or not. Though it would be much easier participating if she didn’t need to sneak out of the house every day.
“You know how you and papa are hoping this union with the Ménards might restore our family name?”
