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“Thank you.” I kissed his cheek, getting in the back seat before he gave
me another reason to marry him.
Avoiding Bianca was pretty easy considering she was hobnobbing with
Fiona Drazen in the showroom. Fiona needed to change her gown again and
my stepmother was in full salesperson mode. I did what I could about the
Raquel tee, which wasn’t much, and made sure the Rachel was exactly what
the stores had ordered.
This wasn’t what I’d been trained to do.
Non. Again.
Daddy had taught me how to do everything the right way. No
compromises. He’d taken me to a thrift store and told me to find a jacket
with the sleeve set improperly. I flicked through the racks, bringing him
contenders he rejected, until I landed on a tweedy Jones New York jacket
with draglines at the sleeve cap. One, twice, sold for six dollars to the man
tapping his foot impatiently.
Non. Again.
It was late on a Tuesday. Or Thursday. Or over a week when I was ten,
or the first half of eleven. Definitely after Mom died, but before Bianca
started showing up at breakfast. I remember feeling desperate to please him,
so I was sure it was in that window where I was sure I could fill the hole
Mom had left and terrified he’d leave me too. Which he did, even after I
figured out how to set in a sleeve.
Non. Again.
We went back to the sample room with the Jones New York tweed
jacket, and he instructed me to dismantle the entire left side and put it back
together correctly. I did all that, except for the part about it being correct.
Daddy ripped my seams open the way other people cleaned a toilet—with
force and disgust. He handed the jacket back with the sleeve removed.
Non. Again.
This went on. And on. Late one night—with Daddy in his design room,
draping on a form that squeaked when he spun it—the way a jacket fit
together clicked. I forced my little hands to take the turns, pressing the
pedal that had been set onto a box.