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Though the door was open, Allison knocked. Sophie invited her in, her voice muffled around the three pins in her mouth. In front of her, the bottom half of a dress form was draped in silky black fabric. The silver threads woven through it caught the light from her desk lamp, glistening like stars in a night’s sky.
Her curly black hair was bunched at the top of her head with two colored pencils, a scarf tied around it to keep her bangs back. She’d cut the neck off an old Batman T-shirt so it slipped off her shoulder, 1980s style, and her gray leggings had latticework snaking from ankle to thigh. Only Sophie could look so cool in her loungewear.
“What’s up?” At the sound of Sophie’s voice, Monty wriggled outof Allison’s arms and dove into the closest pile of fabric. He turned in endless circles until he was nested in navy-and-white-striped cotton, near enough to lick Sophie’s ankle. She absentmindedly patted his head.
“I need a WCS list for never talking to my father again.” Allison plopped into the oversized armchair beside the door.
“Uh-oh.” Stabbing her needles into the heart of her mannequin, Sophie sat back, giving Allison her full attention.
“Yup.” Allison lobbed her phone across the room.
It was barely in her hands before Sophie was reading. With each word, her copper-colored eyes narrowed further. “Is he fucking serious? Two lines about that ottoman with a mouth, Paula, and you get nothing? Not one question about you?”
“Hence the WCS.” Allison’s cheeks stung from the tears drying on her face. She swiped at them with her knuckles. Even if everything else was changing between them, Sophie wasalwayson Allison’s side when it came to Jed.
“Girl, he needs more than a WCS.”
Allison cocked her head. On the floor, Monty did the same, as if he were part of the conversation. “What would that even be?”
“I don’t know but this assbag needs it.” Sophie scrolled through the email again, her head ticking more violently with each flick of her finger. “One: he doesn’t walk you down the aisle at your wedding.”
“Fuck that. I’m not someone’s property. I’ll be giving myself away whether I still talk to him or not.”
A sketchbook lay on the floor by Allison’s feet, open to a drawing of a midi dress with a modified sailor neckline that exposed the shoulders. Allison picked up the sketchbook and flipped through the other images. Sophie was so talented. And she always imagined her styles on plus-sized bodies. As a fat woman herself, she understood the struggle to find comfortable, stylish clothes in the world they lived in. She wanted to design for the bodies that were afterthoughts. Her ultimate goal was to team upwith disabled, genderqueer, and trans designers to create a totally inclusive line of clothing.
Allison held up the sketchpad and nodded to the dress form. “It looks like your designs are coming along?” She hated how long it had been since the last time she’d asked. She supported her best friend. She wanted her fashion dreams to come true. Allison just wished those same dreams weren’t what was pulling Sophie away from her. Why couldn’t they both get everything they wanted and stay here? Together?
Sophie hooked a thumb at her closet door. “Progress has been made.” Three garments hung along the outside. One was the sailor dress from the sketchpad. The other two were jackets, a military style peacoat and a plaid blazer with patched elbows.
“Whoa.” Allison stepped over Monty and several other islands of fabric on her way to take a closer look.
Sophie liked to say she thrived in chaos. She’d done her best to remain relatively neat while she and Allison had shared a room (neat meaning keeping her explosions of fabric, colored pencils, paper, and sewing tools contained to her half of the dorm room), but now, in a space completely her own, she’d embraced the termmessfully as a concept and a lifestyle.
Allison passed the soft fabric of the sailor dress between her fingers. “What happens now?”
“I finish my sample pieces and hopefully get them into the next trade show in New York to find some buyers.”
Allison’s eyes widened. “That’s a huge step.”
Sophie nodded. “You like that one, huh?”
“It’s gorgeous.” The fabric was so soft it must have felt like wearing a summer rainstorm.
“Good. Because you were my inspiration.”
“What?” Allison spun around. “You look at me and think sailor?”
Sophie laughed. “No. I look at you and think classic with a touch of risk.”
Allison’s cheeks flushed. It was always such a shock to see the versions of herself that emerged through other people’s eyes. Nothing about her style or her life felt risky. Wasn’t that what her mother meant by being too comfortable with the familiar?
Still, she smiled. “Ohhhh. I like that.”
Sophie laughed. “Of course you do. Now sit down and stop changing the subject. We have two scenarios left for Jed.”
Sighing, Allison maneuvered her way back to the chair. She wasn’t even fully in her seat when Sophie said, “Two: he’ll probably cut you out of his will, and we know how cheap that man is, so he must have money to spare.”
“I don’t need his money. Mom and I are doing fine.”
