Mom made a disparaging sound. “You should be grateful for this opportunity with Sharmin. She didn’t have to hire you. Or your friend.”
Honestly, Iwasgrateful. But this speech was dangerously close to one of those “Children are starving, and you’re upset about losing an internship?” lectures. I’d heard it several times already, and I did my partto help the world’s disenfranchised kids, anyway. I sewed most of my own clothes and avoided fast fashion like the plague.
“Tahira! Hey, Tahira!” a voice behind me called out.
I turned to see our neighbor Kayla rushing toward me, her brown ponytail bobbing behind her. She had a large black book in her hand. “Are you leaving today? I finished that sketch!”
Kayla was thirteen. I used to babysit her years ago and had babysat her brother once recently. He was a nightmare, though—I’d been avoiding Kayla’s mother so she wouldn’t ask me again. A few months ago, I’d helped Kayla with her application portfolio for the specialty art high school that I went to, and she still liked to show me her art.
Smiling, I opened her sketchbook. Kayla wasn’t into fashion illustration, so it wasn’t the same kind of stuff I did, but she was good. She did a lot of fan art of this character with silver eyes from a book series she liked in charcoal or acrylic paint and was already improving so much. I always made a point to give her tips and compliment her work, since her parents didn’t care about her art at all. All they cared about lately was that she took care of her brother.
“This is amazing,” I said. “The shading on the hair is so good!”
Kayla beamed. “Do you think so?”
“Totally. Are you going to add any colors?”
Kayla frowned. “Mom said I have to share my pencil crayons with Evan. He lost half of them. And he chewed one up. Or the dog did.”
I cringed. I’d bought her those expensive art pencils for her birthday. They were way too good for a four-year-old.
“Tahira,” Mom called out, “we need to get on the road.”
I gave the sketchbook back to Kayla and rummaged in my backpack to get something. “Here.” I handed her a tin of Prismacolor pencils. “Hide these from Evan. I want to see the sketch when it’s done—text me a picture.”
“Are you sure?” Kayla said, looking at the tin of pencils wide eyed.
“Of course.” I could always order more. “Just keep them safe from your brother, okay?”
She nodded happily as she waved goodbye and headed back to her house, two doors away.
All my stuff was finally in the car a few minutes later, and Mom was pulling out of the driveway, when my sister, Samaya, came running out to wave goodbye. I waved back as we drove away.
“Did your sister tell you that she got that counselor-in-training position at that math camp at the University of Toronto?” Mom said. “The same one your cousin Abid went to. She just got the email last night.”
I smiled. “Yay! I haven’t seen her today.” I knew how much Samaya wanted that role, but I had been out with Matteo last night, and she’d been in her room all morning. I made a mental note to call her when I got to Bakewell.
The drive was long and mostly uneventful. I pulled out my iPad Pro and Apple Pencil and sketched a new sweatshirt design to pass the time.
“I don’t know how you draw in the car,” Mom said. “I would get carsick.”
I shrugged. I played around with adding puffy sleeves to the sweatshirt silhouette, but I wasn’t convinced it was working as well as it did in my head.
“Sharmin said she got new sheets for your beds yesterday,” Mom said. “She really wants to make sure you girls are comfortable. Show her your gratitude when you get there.”
“Of course, Mom, I know.”
“It’s very generous of her not to charge you rent for the granny flat. You and Gia will be able to keep all your wages from the boutique. You’ll both have lots of savings for college after this summer.”
Mom was still being super enthusiastic about this whole thing, maybe because she thought she had to sell it to me? It wasn’t necessary. I was still a little skeptical, mostly because I didn’t know what toexpect from the store, but for the most part, I was okay with this whole summer-in-Bakewell plan. I could suck it up for two months. I’d get the fashion experience I needed for my application, and Gia and I could chill with no one but my coolest aunty to supervise. I could keep designing and sewing for my FIT portfolio in my free time, and we’d find a fabulous backdrop for photos in Bakewell for my Instagram. It would be fine.
I narrowed my eyes at my sketch. The puffy sleeves definitely weren’t working, so I erased them. Maybe a Juliet sleeve instead?
“Did you end up talking to Nilusha yesterday?” Mom asked after a while.
I nodded. “Yeah. She feels really bad that she had to cancel my internship. She said she would still be my mentor if I wanted. She offered to FaceTime once a week.”
Mom beamed. “Tahira! That’s amazing. See! I told you. It’s all about networking. Even if you won’t be working together, you’ve still made the connection. It’s just as good.”
