A Fitting End: A Magical Dressmaking Mystery

“You’ve been here long enough to know that we are presenting Bliss’s daughters to society. These girls, sir,” Mrs. James intoned haughtily, “go through an arduous year of preparation for an upper-class lifestyle. They receive an education in etiquette, good manners, and bearing. They’ve attended rounds of parties and afternoon teas that began last September. A truly prepared Margaret knows how to greet and introduce people, knows the importance of writing proper invitations and thank-you notes, and will be able to host with poise, manners, and social grace, something every man wants for his daughter or his wife. Wouldn’t you agree—”

He snorted, cutting Mrs. James off again; he was clearly lacking in social grace. “I’m talkin’ ’bout girls who don’t have the right pedigree. What about them, hmm?” I imagined him making air quotes as he said this. “They’re just shit outta luck. A little elitist, don’t you think?”

Mrs. James cleared her throat, likely swallowing down her desire to slap the man for his impudence and his language. “That is not your concern.”

“Oh, but it is. All the poor girls who can’t afford the price tag—”

“The pageant is for everyone, not just those girls who are being presented. It’s our town’s show of patriotism. It stems,” she said more forcefully, “from our love of God and country. We have a scholarship fund, you know. Why must you make a fuss?” she hissed.

The man sneered, “It’s not about patriotism. It’s for show, and it’s all a lie. All of it,” he repeated. He said something else, but we couldn’t quite hear.

“Over my dead body,” Mrs. James asserted, but the next thing out of her mouth was calm and controlled. “Our pageant sets the tone of social life that filters down and elevates the whole of Bliss. You will not spoil it, and you will not get what you want.”

“Wanna bet?”

“Enough, sir.” There wasn’t a bit of compromise in Mrs. James’s voice. “It’s quite a good thing you don’t have a daughter, don’t you think?”

“Harsh,” Josie whispered.

“Yeah,” I whispered back.

He spoke with slow deliberation, grinding out his words. “If I did, would she be welcome here?”

He was like Cesar Chavez, representing the little guy, the people with no voice. I liked Mrs. James, but I totally saw his side of things. I wished I could drag him outside, tell him that my family did go back five generations in Bliss, but that hadn’t made me want to participate in the pageant and I’d turned out just fine. Better than fine, in fact.

“You have no right to be here. You cannot come in here and tell me how to run this pageant,” Mrs. James said. “The Margaret Society works on this event all year long. It runs like clockwork, and nothing will stop it from happening. Not you. Not anything. The Lafayette sisters have devoted their lives to it, for heaven’s sake. It’s a tradition—”

“I work here. I have every right to be here. This pageant and ball”—he said it like he could barely stand to utter the words—“is a circus. Do you make them do tricks and show their teeth and the bottom of their shoes?”

“You’re just the golf pro,” she said, her voice dripping with disdain. “That hardly qualifies you to comment on our tradition.”

“Really low blow,” Josie whispered.

He gave a bitter laugh. “I may not come from a wealthy family— Oh, wait. Neither do you. Oh, yes, I’ve done my research. The Heckers were just a mercantile family. Shopkeepers.” He scoffed. “You act all high and mighty, but you’re no better than me. At least I’m honest about it, unlike most of you. You go to your luncheons and get your plastic surgery and play dress up like you’re some kind of Texas royalty, but you’re all frauds, throwing parties and doing whatever you can to make people think you’re something you’re not. If you only knew how easy it is to forge your credentials… Oh, wait—,” he snapped. “You do. You’ve written family histories for all the girls, whether they’re legitimate or not.” He laughed, adding a snide, “Kind of like a lawyer who never passed the bar or a doctor without a license—a Margaret without a pedigree. Might bring down the whole town.”

“We’re done here,” Mrs. James said tautly.

“Are we? I told you, I’d back off if—”

“I said, enough!”

His voice dripped with sarcasm. “You better watch your temper or your face might crack. Then who will put all the pieces back together again?”

Josie and I stood frozen in place as the heels of Mrs. James’s pumps clicked against the vintage hand- scraped hardwood floor of the back stage. We’d eavesdropped for too long and now it would be impossible to pretend we hadn’t heard the knockdown fight between Mrs. James and the country club’s golf pro. Any second, she was going to round the corner of the curtains and see us. My breath was itching to be released from my lungs, but I held it in, nervous as all get-out, afraid one little exhalation would reveal our presence.

I snuck a look at Josie. Her face looked exactly like I imagined mine did—horrified that we were about to be caught. Catching her attention, I held my left palm out flat while pretending to walk my right index and middle fingers across it. She notched her head toward the side door that led right into the parking lot. Could we tiptoe out without them knowing?

She had on a pair of coral linen shorts, a draped black beaded blouse, and suede-and-rhinestone Yellow Box flip-flops, a staple in nearly every Texas woman’s closet. With their rubber soles, they were also quiet—perfect for sneaking out of a room.

I, on the other hand, had started my day with a red gingham dress trimmed with white lace, a jean jacket, and black cowboy boots that may as well have had taps on the soles, they were so loud. We had to give it a try, though. She scurried off the end of the catwalk; then we hunched over and tiptoed across the room, probably looking like the worst spies in history.

Mrs. James and the man’s voices rose again, agitated and loud. “We’re done here—”

He cut her off. “Not until—”

“I said we’re done. You will leave now, sir,” Mrs. James said, a good dose of venom in her voice, “or you’ll regret it.”

Before we heard his response, I pulled open the door and Josie and I snuck out into the muggy late-July heat of North Texas.

Chapter 2

It took me a good long while to shake out of my mind the blowout between Mrs. James and the man she’d been arguing with, but I’d managed, and now, back at home, I got to thinking about Libby Allen’s Margaret dress again.

“You want it like this?” Will Flores looked down at me from the second to top step of his eight-foot ladder, his deep, rumbling voice knocking me out of my reflections. He held one part of a pulley up to the ceiling.

“Looks good,” I said, hiding a crooked smile as I looked over the top of my glasses, thinking he looked just as good as the pulley’s placement. He was like Toby Keith and Tim McGraw, with a little bad boy Pancho Villa all rolled into one package, and there he was, smack dab in the middle of my sewing workroom. I wondered what my great-grandmother would think of her former dining room housing a custom-rigged dressmaking pulley system made and installed by the man she’d intentionally brought into my life.

If I knew Meemaw, she was doing a country two-step, pleased as punch at her matchmaking. He seemed to find plenty of time to come around and repair the things on my to-do list, which had been Meemaw’s doing, too. Before she passed on, she’d made a deal with Will that I’d give his daughter sewing lessons in exchange for his handyman work around the old farmhouse. Things were working out just how she’d planned them.

The front door to the shop suddenly flung open and my new assistant, who happened to be Will’s sixteen- year-old daughter and a budding seamstress in her own right, Gracie, appeared in the threshold. My apprentice. She was a pantheon of fashion, what with her cockeyed gingham cap, Hollister T-shirt, and white capris. A girl after my own heart. “What’s that?” she asked, sidling up to me and peering at the contraption her dad was installing.

“Your dad’s installing a pulley system so I can work on Libby Allen’s Margaret dress without it dragging on the floor.” After Josie Sandoval’s wedding dress and the hassle of keeping the train off the floor, I’d come up with