“This red cheongsam dress, in particular, is stunning. Now I’m going to challenge you.” She gives me her full and undivided attention. “Do you think you can find a way to add some of your own flair into the dress?”
Her almond-brown eyes widen. “What do you mean?”
“When I look at this sketch, I see a design that’s beautiful, but I don’t see you in it. I want to be able to immediately glance at it and say, that’s a Lea Wong original.”
“Oh.” She hunches. “I thought I’d done that. I interlocked the letters L and W into the pattern.”
“That’s fantastic, except I wouldn’t have known that unless you told me.” I flip back to the page with the sketch in question. It’s a long sleeveless garment with a high collar. “The red on red makes the letters difficult to decipher. They are also really small.”
Her ears and neck color. “I wanted it to be subtle.”
“It still can be. You can make a minor tweak to it. Maybe you change the color of the interlocking letters to be yellow so it contrasts with the red.” I nod toward my tablet. “Why don't you try playing with the design in a CAD program. It’ll make it seamless when you want to make any changes to it. Just the tap of your pencil.”
“Can you show me how? I’ve been afraid to mess around with it on my own.”
I raise an eyebrow. How can this girl, who’s so good at everything, be afraid to play with a design program? I guess she’s human after all.
“Of course.”
I give Lea a crash course, then give her free rein to do what she likes. Unsurprisingly, she takes to it quickly, and by the end of the lunch hour, has figured out how to do things that took me a whole semester to learn.
“Keep my tablet until the end of the day. See if you can come up with three different variants on the cheongsam. We can meet again at four, before we leave for the day.”
“Won’t you need your tablet?”
“No. I’m heading down to accessories to see about shoes, a veil, and a handbag.”
Lea clutches the device to her chest. “I’ll be ready,” she promises.
We part ways. As I walk past the sewing room, Emily and the other ladies are hard at work. Like a high-end couture maison, they wear white lab coats to keep the gowns they’re fabricating clean. Every time I pass through here, I have to stop and pinch myself. Being here is my literal dream come true.
The accessories of the atelier are kept on the first floor in a wall-to-wall closet-style room. Sonya mentioned that they needed a way to be able to see everything at once. Speaking of Sonya, I suddenly realize I have no idea what Clarissa’s preference for shoes is going to be. When I’ve seen her in the office, she’s in Converse or ballet flats. However, a wedding day is a totally different affair.
Backtracking, I trek across the corridor to Sonya’s office. The door is propped open. She has her phone pressed against her ear but waves me inside.
“Clarissa, take a deep breath. It’s all going to work out. Look, I have Minerva right here.”Humor her, she mouths to me.
I have no idea what I’m walking into.
“What Sonya said—everything will be as smooth as a piece of mulberry silk.”
“See, bestie? Don’t worry about anything. Take the rest of the day off. Why not ring Patrick and see if he’s up for a trip to Kew Gardens. Maybe you’ll even run into that gardener, Old Jim.”
Sonya spends another minute calming Clarissa down, then finally disconnects the call.
“What an utter nightmare.” She rubs her temples. “Apologies for blindly bringing you into the fold like that, but Clarissa’s panic levels have just hit an all-time high.”
“Is she all right?”
“She will be. Sit, please.” Sonya sighs. “I love Clarissa, but she is being too generous when it comes to accommodating everyone’s requests. Take today, for instance—Clarissa has agreed to change her wedding venue to Patrick’s estate, Rainridge Manor, to appease his mum. But doing that means, she’s going to have to find a new date for the traditional ceremony. Rainridge Manor is a popular wedding destination, and it’s usually booked up pretty far in advance.”
“Oh no.” My heart begins to ache. As if Clarissa’s life weren’t already chaotic enough, I can just picture the stress of having two families to appease.
“It gets worse,” Sonya deadpans. “Clarissa’s parents are also being insistent with her dress.”
I gulp. I think I know where this is heading and it’s about to add to my stress tenfold.
“I hate to do this to you, but we need to move up dress one’s completion and begin on a new dress two.”
