Free The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard by Erin McGraw

"We are no more than three years behind the latest fashions."
    "Three years behind the latest fashions in Wichita, perhaps. My sister tells me what the ladies in Philadelphia are wearing. Sometimes she sends pictures from magazines, which I consider unfair. It is quite enough to read her descriptions. I tell her regularly that it is vulgar to gloat."
    "Do you have any of those pictures?" The sudden hunger made my voice coarse, and I blushed, but Mrs. Cooper's glance was understanding. When she left the parlor to fetch her sister's letter, her skirt rustled over the starched petticoat with a sound like wind through ripe wheat.
    "I have to put these letters away when Mr. Cooper is in," she said when she returned. "He does not like to see me mooning over drawings. I tell him that I am not mooning; this is appreciation. He tells me that my appreciation could illuminate the night sky."
    "Mr. Cooper is a wit," I said.
    "He would tell you so. Here," she said, resting her finger on a drawing of a silk afternoon dress whose waist dropped into a point prettily trimmed out in lace. "If a person were inclined to moon, here is a dress worth mooning over."
    "I could make that," I said, though the gathers at the back bothered me. Some trick must have been used to keep the silk from bunching.
    "A waste of your talents," she said. "As soon as this dress entered the county—poof! It would vanish. This is a dress that calls for electric lights and motorcars."
    "Not at all," I said. I had no right to speak so firmly to a reverend's wife, but she did not look reproving. "This is a dress that will bring electric lights with it. The world will hasten to catch up with such a dress. Why, people will thank you for wearing it."
    "You are a salesman, Nell Plat."
    "Electric lights. Dinner parties! Pâté." I had seen the word on the Topeka newspaper's rotogravure and hazarded the pronunciation. "Footmen. Parties with orchestras playing."
    "I don't think even Mrs. Astor could fit an orchestra into her ballroom," said Mrs. Cooper, her laughter a chime.
    "Part of an orchestra, then. Fiddles." I looked back at the drawing, memorizing the fold under the sleeve, the lace insert beneath the high collar. "Let me make this for you."
    "Where would a minister's wife wear such a thing?"
    "Won't you feel better just having it? Just seeing it in your wardrobe?" Though the drawing showed a row of ruffles at the hem, two rows would be nicer and would help the skirt hang properly in the back. "Lilac, I think. A fair color would suit you."
    "I prefer blue," she said.
    Blue was not a good choice for Mrs. Cooper. Though her cheeks were creamy, shadows smudged the cups beneath her deep-set eyes, a slight flaw that a blue dress would only emphasize. "Certainly," I said. I would look for a lilac trim, which would help.
    I spent the ride home worrying about those gathers, and by the time I had helped Jack unhitch the horses, I had a solution. I kept it in the front of my mind through feeding and changing Lucille, through supper, through dishes and breaking the ice over the horses' water trough, the baby strapped to me and gnawing on a radish. My mother-in-law's quilt needed repair; the cotton batting had worked through a worn spot and now stuck out like a toe. She had to remind me about it twice. I had been thinking about two long darts down the back of a skirt, and how fabric might be doubled to give a flounce greater weight.
    Lucille and I had gone straight from Mrs. Cooper's house to Mr. Cates's store, where we bent over the glistening fabric that Mr. Cates brought out from his locked back room. He also kept his liquor there, and, Nettie Harper loved to insist, opium, although none of us would recognize opium if he displayed it on a plate. "This cloth here—it belonged to the first Mrs. Cates. It was her dowry," Mr. Cates said. He had a quick eye for profit and had been known to stretch the truth about his wares, but on this occasion I believed him. The light blue