“Am I not the very picture of a trussed walrus?” Miss Huda was saying. “I look a fool in every gown, you see? I’m either bulging out or pinched in; a powdered pig in silk slippers. I could run away to the circus and I daresay they’d have me.” She laughed. “I swear sometimes I think Mother does it on purpose, merely to vex me—”
“Forgive me,” Alizeh said sharply.
Miss Huda ceased speaking, though her mouth remained open in astonishment. Alizeh could not blame her. A snoda was a mere tier above the lowest scum of society; Alizeh could scarce believe her own audacity.
She felt her cheeks flush.
“Forgive me, truly,” Alizeh said again, this time quietly. “It is not my intention to be discourteous. It’s only that I’ve listened silently all evening while you’ve disparaged yourself and your looks, and I begin to worry that you will mistake my silence as an endorsement of your claims. Please allow me to make myself unambiguously plain: your criticisms strike me not only as unfair, but fabricated entirely from fantasy. I would implore you never again to make unflattering comparisons of yourself to circus animals.”
Miss Huda stared at her, unblinking, her astonishment building to its zenith. To Alizeh’s great consternation, the young woman said nothing.
Alizeh felt a flutter of nerves.
“I fear I have shocked you,” she said softly. “But as far as I can tell, your figure is divine. That you’ve been so thoroughly convinced otherwise says only to me that you’ve been injured by the work of indifferent dressmakers who’ve not taken the time to study your form before recommending its fit. And I daresay the solution to your troubles is quite simple.”
At that, the young woman finally released an exaggerated sigh, collapsed onto a chaise longue, and closed her eyes against the glittering chandelier overhead. She threw an arm over her face as a single sob escaped her.
“If it is indeed as simple as you say then you must save me,” she cried. “Mother orders identical gowns for me and all my sisters—merely in different colors—even though sheknowsmy figure is markedly different from the others. She puts me in these horrid colors and all these horrendous ruffles,and I can’t afford a traditional seamstress on my own, not with only my pin money to spend, and I’m afraid to breathe a word of it to Father, for if Mother finds out it’ll only make things worse for me at home.” She heaved another sob. “And now I’ve got nothing at all to wear to the ball tomorrow and I’ll be the laughingstock of Setar, as usual. Oh, you cannot imagine how they torment me.”
“Come now,” Alizeh said gently. “There’s no need to be overwrought when I am here to help. Come and I will show you how easily the situation can be mended.”
With dramatic reluctance, Miss Huda dragged herself over to the circular dais built into the dressing room, nearly tripping over her abundant skirts in the process.
Alizeh attempted a smile at Miss Huda—she suspected they were nearly the same age—as the young woman stepped onto the low platform. Miss Huda returned the smile with an anemic one of her own.
“I really don’t see how the situation can be salvaged,” she said. “I thought I’d have time to get a new gown made in time for the ball, for I assumed the event would be weeks away—but now that it’s nearly upon us Mother is insisting I wearthis”—she faux-gagged, glancing down at the dress—“tomorrow night. She says she’s already paid for it, and that if I don’t wear it it’s only because I’m an ungrateful wretch, and she’s begun threatening to cut my pin money if I don’t stop whining.”
Alizeh studied her client a moment.
She’d been studying the young woman all night, really, but Alizeh had said very little in the three hours she’d been here.
As the night wore on it had become abundantly clear, however, through a series of offhand comments and anecdotes, that Miss Huda suffered a great deal of cruelty and unkindness throughout her life; not only due to her improper birth, but for all else about her that was judged uncommon or irregular. Her pain she unsuccessfully cloaked in a veneer of sarcasm and poorly feigned indifference.
Alizeh snapped open her carpet bag.
She carefully buttoned her pincushion around her wrist, buckled her embroidered toolbelt around her waist, and unspooled the measuring tape in her bandaged hands.
Miss Huda, Alizeh knew, was not only uncomfortable in her gowns, but in her own body—and Alizeh understood that she would accomplish nothing at all if she did not first manage to activate the girl’s confidence.
“Let us, for the moment, forget about your mother and your sisters, shall we?” Alizeh smiled wider at the young woman. “First, I’d like to point out that you have beautiful skin, whi—”
“I most certainly do not,” said Miss Huda automatically. “Mother tells me I’ve grown too brown and that I should wash my face more often. She also tells me my nose is too big for my face, and my eyes too small.”
It was some kind of miracle that Alizeh’s smile did not waver, not even as her body tensed with anger. “Goodness,” she said, struggling to keep the disdain from her voice. “What strange things your mother has said to you. I must say I think your features fine, and your complexion quite beautif—”
“Are you blind, then?” Miss Huda snapped, her scowldeepening. “I would ask you not to insult me by lying to my face. You need not feed me falsehoods to earn your coppers.”
Alizeh flinched at that.
The insinuation that she might be willing to swindle the girl for her coin cut a shade too close to Alizeh’s pride, but she knew better than to allow such blows to land. No, Alizeh understood well what it was like to feel scared—so scared you feared even to hope, feared the pitfall of disappointment. Pain made people prickly sometimes. It was par for the course; a symptom of the condition.
Alizeh knew this, and she would try again.
“I mentioned your glowing complexion,” she said carefully, “only because I wanted, first, to assure you that we are in possession of a bit of good luck tonight. The rich, jewel tones of this dress do you a great service.”
Miss Huda frowned; she studied the green gown.
The dress was a shot silk taffeta, which gave the fabric an iridescent sheen, and which in certain light made it look more emerald than forest green. It was not at all the textile Alizeh would’ve chosen for the girl—next time, she would choose something more fluid, maybe a heavy velvet—but for the moment, she’d have to make do with the taffeta, which she believed could be repurposed beautifully. Miss Huda, on the other hand, remained visibly unconvinced, though not aggressively so.
