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Behind Mrs. Sutton’s back, Miss Reid gave Sylvia a nod of approval.

“We all hope those days will return soon,” said Sylvia, handing the cloth back to Mrs. Sutton. “So that will be one suit in a lightweight wool crepe and one blouse, off coupon. Miss Reid, perhaps you could show Mrs. Sutton the selection of sketches that would suit her?”

“Yes, Mrs. Pearsall,” said Miss Reid, stepping out from behind the desk. “I’ll just fetch our book.”

When, finally, Mrs. Sutton had selected her items, paid her deposit, and handed over her coupons to be cross-checked against the Board of Trade’s records, Sylvia bid the woman goodbye and shut the shop door. She waited a beat or two and then turned around to Miss Reid.

“We need more sketches,” said Miss Reid.

She let out a weary sigh. “I know. I was certain for a moment that Mrs. Sutton was going to insist on a chevron top. What’s wrong with that anyway?” she asked.

“If she hadn’t wanted sleeves, lapels, or a button band, nothing. However, none of our patterns will suit,” said Miss Reid.

“Surely it can’t be that difficult to cut a dolman top or something like it,” she said.

Miss Reid folded her arms over her chest, and Sylvia put her hands up.

“I know, I know. You sew, you don’t design. You’ve told me,” she said, rubbing her forehead just above the hairline so that she didn’t take the powder she wore every day off of her skin. Cosmetics were becoming increasingly difficult to find, and wasting any felt like a shame.

“It’s ridiculous that we can only offer our customers three suits,” she muttered, exhaustion settling over her.

She’d thought that running the shop wouldn’t require too much from her, but over the past two and a half months she’d realized just how naive that had been. She was there every day. She and Miss Reid had settled into a routine, with Sylvia greeting customers and managing the business, and Miss Reid sewing away. Each night, she found herself going home later. She couldn’t even recall the last time she’d accepted an evening invitation.

She sighed. “I’ll think of something.”

Sylvia felt a light pressure on her forearm and jerked back a little before realizing that Miss Reid had touched her.

“We will think of something,” Miss Reid corrected her.

Sylvia stared at the seamstress, stunned at the show of reassurance from the usually ornery woman.

Swiftly, Miss Reid withdrew her hand and straightened her shoulders. “Now, no more dillydallying. I have fabric to cut.”

She dipped her head, allowing them both a graceful exit from an unusual display of compassion neither of them were completely comfortable with.

Sylvia waved goodbye to Miss Reid that evening at six o’clock. Then she shut and locked the shop door, pulling the blackout curtain over its glass pane.

The next part of Sylvia’s day was only just beginning.

Back in her mother’s office, she opened the desk drawer and extracted a bottle of whiskey she had borrowed from the bar at home. She was in the shop so many evenings these days that it made sense to bring refreshments in.

It wasn’t as though she was trying to avoid going home. There was simply so much to do every day. Orders, invoices, coupon checks, bookkeeping—all of it fell to her by simple virtue of the fact that there was no one else to do it. However, she didn’t mind. She’d forgotten that there could be comfort in the black-and-white surety of numbers.

That evening, however, she had grand plans of turning her attention to the last frontier in the office: a bookshelf stuffed with old notebooks and sketchbooks, the odd piece of loose paper sticking out.

Sylvia poured herself a whiskey, took a sip, and began.

She grabbed as many books as she could with one hand and hauled them over to the now-clear surface of her mother’s desk. Opening the cover of the top one, she found herself looking at drop-waist dresses and coats with long lapels and low single buttons. Opera coats with exaggerated collars and simple boxy-cut suits. Notes in her mother’s familiar handwriting about fabric and finishing accompanied each drawing. She ran her fingers along the lines of a long cocoon coat. These must have been some of her mother’s sketches from her first years of running the shop. While Mrs. Shelton’s Fashions never would have catered to flappers and jazz girls, the silhouettes of the era had penetrated every level of fashion.

The next book contained more separates, mostly skirts and blouses. Maggie had clearly been focusing on the everyday wear that most of her clients had come to her for.

The third book had a few evening gowns dotted throughout the pages, and even a tennis outfit.

Sylvia set it aside and shuffled through a few loose sheets of paper that had been stuffed between books, groaning when she realized they were invoices from five years ago. She would have to file them away with the rest of the paperwork she had organized and check them against the system she’d re-implemented.

She reached for the fourth book. There was no question of throwing out the sketchbooks. They were the legacy of Mrs. Shelton’s Fashions, a way of tracking the history of the shop and her mother’s many ideas. She had to admit it was impressive that the dress shop her mother had set up in 1920 was still operating.

Without thinking, she opened the cover of the sketchbook in front of her and immediately stilled. While the other books had been filled with her mother’s intricately detailed sketches full of technical details written in the margins, this was something different. The lines were sketchier, giving an impression of the body rather than fashion plate–like accuracy. But it was the suit on the first page that really gave her pause.