New Uses For Old Boyfriends (15 page)

“Speaking of red thread . . .” She revealed the ripped Ceil Chapman dress she'd been hiding behind her back.

As soon as he saw the ruched red fabric in the clear dry-cleaning bag, he tried to slam the door, but Lila had anticipated this and wedged her foot in front of the jamb.

“Wait!” she cried. “Let me explain.”

“I already did emergency surgery on that thing in a gas station parking lot in the middle of my workday,” Malcolm said. “I've fulfilled my obligations.”

“You have, and I am deeply grateful. But—”

Malcolm used his deepest, most commanding SRT leader voice. “No means no, Lila.”

She responded in her softest, sweetest prom queen voice. “Oh, come on! Don't you want to finish what you started?”

His jaw dropped. “What
I
started?”

“Okay, what
we
started.”

There was a long pause. Lila took advantage of the silence to add, “There was a wee wardrobe malfunction. My mom doesn't know, and I'm hoping she never finds out because it will probably kill her if she does. Don't do it for me; do it for her. A bereaved, lonely old widow.”

The door swung open. “I'll look, but I make no guarantees. And for future reference, the password is ‘proliferation.'”

Lila grinned as she breezed by him. “The password is ‘Pucci.'”

Malcolm took the dress from her and assessed the damage. “Damn, Alders. What'd you do?”

She flushed. “I didn't do anything!”

His eyebrows shot up. “What'd your
date
do?”

“He offered me a lease and then his ex-girlfriend texted him.” Even though she was telling the truth, she knew she sounded like she was lying. She was all flustered and fidgety again.
Damn
psy-ops.
“I told you before, it was just a friendly dinner. Ben and I had our moment, and it was back in high school. We're friends now. Or something.”

Malcolm crossed his arms and gave her a stony stare. “Friends don't tear each other's clothes off.”

“The dress tore itself.” She held up her right hand. “Sartorial suicide. I'll take a polygraph if you want me to.”

“I don't.”

“Well, that's what happened. I have no idea why.”

“Remember what I said about old thread?” He motioned her inside so he could inspect the dress's stitching in better light. “Silk deteriorates over time. You'll need to go back over the seams with new thread.”

“Sounds like a pretty basic repair.” Lila tried to sound all blithe and innocent. “If you won't do it, I guess I could just take some upholstery thread and—”

“Upholstery thread?” Malcolm's head jerked up.

“Well, yeah. That's what you used to reattach the button, right?”

“Buttons are completely different from side seams.” He exhaled in evident disgust. “Upholstery thread? Come on.”

“Well, I don't know!”

“No shit.” He peeled off the clear dry cleaner bag. “And while we're on the subject, you can't store these in plastic. It's bad for the fabric. So is light.”

“Sunlight?”

“Any kind of light.”

Lila stared up at him. “You're kind of strict.”

“This isn't some department store dress you want to wear for one season. These things are forty, fifty, sixty years old. If you want them to last another sixty years, you've got to treat them right.”

“This is why I need you.” Lila put the back of her hand to her forehead. “Save me from myself, Malcolm. More importantly, save Ceil Chapman from me.”

He exhaled again, loud and irritated. “I know what you're doing.”

“Asking you to work from home?” She craned her neck, trying to see over his shoulder. “Where's your workstation, anyway?”

He shifted his body, blocking her view. “My what?”

“Sewing basket. Whatever.”

His jaw dropped. “I don't have a
sewing basket
.”

“Sorry.” She backed off. “Didn't mean to offend. Where do you keep your testosterone-infused needle and your thread of manly might?”

He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “By the TV.”

She glimpsed a huge sewing machine, complete with a flatiron foot pedal, in the corner of the living room. “Wow. That looks like serious business.”

“It's old-school,” he informed her. “Older than me. Nineteen seventy-two Columbia. It's a workhorse. Sews leather, silk, everything in between. All you have to do is change the needle and you're ready to go.”

“Does she have a name?”

“No.”

“You've spent all these years with her. . . .”

He looked like he was inwardly praying for patience. “It's not a ‘her.' It's an ‘it.'”

“How about ‘Rosa'?” Lila suggested. “Since she's Colombian and all.”

Malcolm didn't deign to reply to that, so Lila picked up the plastic-handled scissors on the sewing machine's tabletop. “And these are your official sewing shears?”

“Four bucks at the drugstore.”

“Oh.” She glanced down at them. “Listen, I'll be the first to admit that I learned everything I know about sewing from
Project Runway
, but isn't cutting important?”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “The
cutting
is what counts, not the scissors. Think of sewing like sports. The player is more important than the equipment.”

Lila laughed. “So now sewing is like football?”

“Most of the game is mental.” For the first time, his eyes softened. “My grandmother was Romanian, and growing up with her was excellent training for the Marines.” He nodded at the sewing machine. “This was hers, originally.”

“She was a master?” Lila asked.

“Oh, yeah. You know how she did it? She never said no. Women from the neighborhood would bring in dresses and ask for impossible things, like making a waistline five sizes larger. She said yes every time, and she always got it done.” He tossed the Ceil Chapman dress onto the sewing table. “She was the one who taught me that I could do anything.”

Lila looked at the sewing machine again, then looked back up at Malcolm and saw him—really
saw
him. She saw past the beer and the baseball and the muscles and the marine, to the heart and spirit that had always been there. The boy who had to become a man too soon, who had the soul of an artist but refused to admit that, even to himself.

When he looked back, she knew that he saw her, too—past her hair and her makeup and her carefully maintained physique. He saw all the flaws and the false starts. Both of them let down their guards in that moment, and they recognized each other as two people terrified of their own power, but slowly, slowly edging toward their potential.

Then they broke eye contact, trying to pretend it had never happened.

“Everyone needs that,” Malcolm continued. “Someone who believes that they can do anything.” He grinned. “Besides, it kept me out of trouble. Between that and running track and cross-country, I didn't have time to get tattoos and smoke a bunch of meth.”

Everyone needs someone who believes they can do anything.

He'd said the words so casually, but Lila realized she'd never had that. She'd been so fortunate in so many ways; she'd always had someone to shelter her and protect her and bail her out of trouble. She'd spent her whole life buffered from reality, first by her parents and then her husband.

But she'd never had anyone who believed that she could bail
herself
out.

She noticed a thin black metal cylinder resting on the corner of the tabletop, draped with a looped fabric tape measure. “Is that a weapon?”

Malcolm followed her gaze, then nodded. “PR-24. Standard-issue.”

“In civilian, please?”

“It's basically a sidearm baton.” He went back to examining the dress seam.

“So you can beat back a riot while you hem your pants?”

“Hey, you never know.”

“You are so . . .” Lila didn't know how to finish that sentence, so she started a new one. “So how
do
you make a waistline five sizes larger?”

Malcolm turned the red dress's bodice inside out and showed Lila the excess fabric edging the seams. “They used to make clothes with much bigger seam allowances. If we wanted to make this bigger, first we'd let out the side seams as much as possible, and then we'd have to add gussets on the sides.”

“Gussets?” Lila searched the mental glossary of sewing terms she'd accrued from six seasons of
Project Runway
.

“Extra fabric that you add to expand the waist or the skirt or whatever. Like . . .” He cast his eyes up, searching for an example. “Remember in
Silence of the Lambs
, when Jodie Foster goes into Buffalo Bill's house and sees those diamond-shaped sewing patterns hanging on the wall?”

“Stop.” Lila made a face. “We're working with Ceil Chapman and Valentino. Can we please not talk about skin suits?”

“I'm trying to drop some knowledge on you.”

She shook her head. “You're such a
boy
.”

“I'm a
man
,” he corrected.

She smiled sweetly. “And you do
beautiful
sewing work.”

He pointed at the door. “Get out.”

She scooped up the repaired coat and obliged, laughing as she went. “So you'll fix the dress?”

Malcolm picked up the TV remote and clicked onto a basketball game. “I'll think about it.”

“Don't think about it—do it.”

He managed to withstand a few more seconds of her shameless begging before relenting. “Okay, I'll do it.”

She raised one fist in victory. “Yes!”

“On one condition.”

“What?”

For a moment, the only sound was the low drone of the televised sportscaster.

Then Malcolm said, “I want a do-over.”

Lila stared blankly back at him.

“Of our date,” he clarified. “The one you don't remember. I demand a do-over.”

Lila parted her lips to protest that this was crazy, this was doomed, this was an unwise pairing of personal and professional interests.

And then she looked at him with the red silk dress in his
hands and the riot gear on his sewing table and the abs that she knew were hidden under his shirt. She remembered Summer's advice:
Live your life. Make mistakes. Don't worry so much about destiny.

“Okay.” She took off her cap and shook out her hair. “I'm game.”

He looked a little surprised by her acquiescence.

“It'll be fun, right?”

“Right.” The cagey smile was back. “We'll do the same thing we did on our date in high school.”

“Refresh my memory,” Lila said. “Where are we going? What're we doing?”

“That's for me to know and you to find out.”

“You're impossible.” She gave him a look. “At least give me a hint about what to wear.”

He glanced down at the slinky crimson cocktail dress. “Your dress will be ready and waiting for you.”

“S
weet Bluette or Labrador Blue?” Lila stepped back to examine the patches of paint drying on the north wall of the empty storefront. “What'll it be?”

Daphne barely glanced at the pale blue splotches. “Oh, sweet pea, I don't care.”

“Well, the contractor wants to start painting this afternoon. Pick a color.”

“Yes. About that . . .” Daphne sat down on a sawhorse, suddenly looking very frail despite her formidable height and fashionable outfit. “I'm not sure you've really thought this through.”

Lila gestured to the carpeted floor and bare walls. The store's front window afforded a partial view of the Atlantic. “We have the perfect retail location for the summer. We have great product to sell. What's to think through?”

“Well.” Daphne cleared her throat. “Don't take this the wrong way, baby—”

“Oh, boy.”

“—but the reality is, you're not qualified to run a business.
Neither am I. We don't know the first thing about finance or marketing.”

“That's not true,” Lila countered. “When I worked for the shopping channel, I learned a lot about how to move merchandise. I can talk about a hideous velvet scarf for forty-five minutes straight. I can
sell out
that hideous velvet scarf in forty-four minutes. That hideous velvet scarf has a waiting list by the time I'm through.”

“But what about the business side?” Daphne pressed. “The budgeting, the bookkeeping, the payroll . . .”

“We won't have a payroll.” Lila was making this up as she went along, but it sounded plausible. “You and I are the only employees. We'll use any profits to pay down your debt and keep the house afloat.”

“Listen to what you're proposing.” Daphne scoffed. “You're proposing that you and I work all day, every day, for free—”

“For profit,” Lila reminded her.

“And sell off the things that are most precious to me in this world? And hope that by some miracle, we'll make enough money in a few months to undo years of financial catastrophe?”

“Well, it doesn't sound very realistic when you put it like that.” Lila sighed and rubbed the small of her back. “But I don't see what other choice we have. Plus, we'll get an online component up and running. But if we have a storefront, we can get foot traffic and word of mouth.” She thought about the recently divorced Bostonian who'd coveted the antique hair comb.

Daphne looked even more defeated. “Lila, I'm proud of what you're trying to do here. It's very independent of you. But if I learned anything from what happened with your father, it's that it's easy to get overextended with a business. And I don't mean to be harsh, but when you were on the shopping channel, you had producers to run everything behind the scenes. You had hair
and makeup people to help you look good. You had an agent to negotiate your contracts. All you really had to do was show up and talk about linens and holiday china sets.”

Lila flinched. “That's not meant to be harsh?”

“We're in way over our heads here and I don't want you to feel bad if we fail.”

Lila put the paintbrush down. “Do you have any better ideas?”

“No.”

“Then let's choose a paint color and move on. Daylight's burning.”

“How can you expect me to choose a paint color when I'm about to lose everything?” Daphne's lips trembled as she folded her hands, the picture of martyred motherhood. “My clothing collection is my life's work. I've curated it like a museum exhibit and you want me to gamble it away on some reckless whim.”

And Lila finally snapped. “Mom, we've been over this. Do you want to keep the house?”

“You know I do.”

Lila moved in to confront her mother. “Then you have a choice. Which would you rather hang on to: your house or a bunch of old clothes you haven't even looked at in decades?”

“How can I possibly make that choice?” Daphne's trickle of tears turned into full-blown sobbing. “That's like asking me which hand I'd rather cut off.”

“Labrador Blue it is.” Lila pressed the round lid back onto the sample paint can, then headed to the tiny bathroom to wash her hands.

When she yanked on the ancient metal faucet lever, the entire spout tumbled into the sink, cracking the white porcelain. Before she could register what had happened, water sprayed everywhere—up to the ceilings, all over the walls.

She threw up her hands in a futile attempt to shield herself
from the cold water. Out of years of habit, her first instinct was to call for her mother.

Daphne took one look at the geyser and started to panic. “What should we do? Who should we call?”

“Find a wrench!” Lila exclaimed. “The crew left some tools in the main room. Look in the corner by the ladder.”

Daphne didn't move. “I'm calling Ben.”

“You can't call Ben—he's in Boston wooing his ex-girlfriend.”

“He's what?”

“Mom!” Lila clapped her hands. “Wrench! Now!”

“Well, call his father, then. Call the contractor. We have to call
someone
!”

“I'm calling you. Go grab a wrench and jump in here.”

To her amazement, her mother did just that.

After a minute of frenzied searching, Daphne approached the faucet, holding a pipe wrench as though it were a weapon. Water continued to splash the walls.

“Your father always used to say, ‘righty tighty, lefty loosey.'”

“Sounds legit. You try that and I'll be over here, looking up plumbing tutorials on YouTube.” Lila gagged as a spout of water went up her nostril.

Daphne commenced hand-to-hand combat with the sink. “Don't get my phone wet!”

“Don't backseat Google.”

“I can't do this!” Daphne shrieked.

Lila frowned down at an instructional plumbing clip with nausea-inducing camerawork. “Okay, tighten that scrolly thing on the nubby thing and twist it toward the other thing.”

“Got it.” Daphne twisted the wrench. “Nothing's happening!”

“Twist again.”

“Nothing's . . . Wait.” Daphne gasped. “Something's happening.”
As she maneuvered the wrench, the geyser receded to a gush, which receded to a trickle, which receded to a tiny
drip
,
drip
,
drip
.

Lila put the phone aside and started jumping for joy. “You did it.”

“I did it!” Daphne started jumping, too. “Careful, the floor's slippery.”

“We did it.” Lila hugged her mother, then gazed around at the sodden drywall and dismembered sink handle. “I don't think they'll be painting this afternoon.”

“Probably not.” Daphne sounded positively giddy. “But lo and behold! I can plumb!”

“Watch out, water heaters of the world.” Lila's grin faded as she continued to survey the damage. “We should probably call Ben's office and tell them they'll need to send over a Shop-Vac and an ark.”

“I'll call.” Daphne reclaimed her phone with an air of calm capability. “In case they need someone to talk them through exactly what happened.”

Lila gave her mother another hug. “Go for it.”

They were drenched, they were desperate, but they were in this together.

*   *   *

“. . . So that's why I look like crap and I'm drinking heavily on a weeknight,” Lila concluded later that night as she pulled up a chair at the Whinery. She knew she shouldn't be out in public with her sweaty face, messy hair, and smudged shirt, but she was too exhausted to care.

Summer placed a glass of Tempranillo on the bar top. “You've earned this. Where's your mom? She's earned one, too.”

“She went home and passed out early. Her nerves are shot,
but she's really proud of herself. I'm proud of her, too. Wait, does that sound condescending?”

“Nah, you're just stating the facts,” Summer said.

Lila waved to Jenna, who was on the other side of the bar chatting with Tyler about various wine distribution issues.

As soon as he noticed Lila, Tyler ducked his head and scurried away.

Lila returned her attention to Summer. “It's kind of funny that after years of obsessing about shoes and makeup and hair, we're bonding over pipe wrenches and broken faucets.”

“Shoes, makeup, and hair can only get you so far.”

“Actual and factual. My mom even said something about helping to paint the store. I've never seen her paint anything but her toenails. She's finally getting on board with Unfinished Business.”

Summer held up her hands as though framing a camera shot. “A mother, a daughter, a pipe wrench, and a pipe dream.”

“We should put that on our business cards. It was so awesome of Pauline to give us all those clothes, and so awesome of you to arrange it. I don't remember this town being so . . .”

“Awesome?”

Lila laughed. “Yeah. Being an adult here is different from being a teenager. When you're in high school, all you can think about is there's nothing to do and nowhere to go, and the nearest movie theater is like a forty-five-minute drive.”

“That's why I'm encouraging Ingrid to go to college out of state.” Summer nodded crisply. “She needs culture and adventure.”

“And you want her to stop harping on the fact that you're living in sin with her brother.”

“That, too. The girl is relentless. And crafty! She'll stop at nothing to get her way.”

“So unlike yourself.”

Summer tossed her choppy platinum hair. “I have no idea what you're talking about.”

*   *   *

After two glasses of wine, Lila knew she was too tipsy to drive home, so she decided to go for a stroll on the boardwalk. On the way out the door, she noticed a patch of bright red in the Ex Box.

“Ooh.” She reached in and pulled out a bold, almost garishly patterned dress that was so long, flat, and square, it looked like a paper doll cutout. “Do you know what this is?”

“Fugly?” Jenna ventured.

“It's a vintage Tori Richard in mint condition.” Lila pointed out the label, which specified that the dress had been made in Honolulu. “My mom loves Tori Richard. This thing has to be twenty or thirty years old. Do you mind if I snag it?”

Jenna lined up a row of glasses on the bar. “By all means, get that thing out of here before it blinds us all.”

“It is a little . . . bright,” Lila conceded. “I'll give you that. But I think it has potential. What if I sewed up the back, opened up the front, lopped off the hem, added some shape, and turned it into a cute little jacket?”

Jenna looked impressed as she poured pink champagne cocktails into the glasses. “You know how to do all that?”

“Well, no, not personally.” Lila ran her fingers over the patterned patches of red and black and white. “I have people for that.”

“You have people,” Jenna repeated, looking amused.

“Yes, I do. I have people, and I have wine, and I have a plan.” She excused herself, traipsed out to the sidewalk, and dialed her phone.

“What now?” was how Malcolm answered her call.

“I need you,” she informed him loftily.

He waited a beat. “Are you drunk?”

“Kind of. Listen, I'm at the Whinery and I need a consult. Any chance your nightly marathon will bring you this way?”

“No.”

“Okay, well, any chance your car will bring you this way? I'd come to you, but, you know. The whole drunk thing.”

His side of the line went dead silent.

“Hello?” she said. “Is this thing on?”

“What's the magic word?” he said.

She screwed up her face and racked her brain. “‘Proliferation'?”

“Impressive. I'll be there in fifteen minutes.”

Ten minutes later, Malcolm strode into the bar, all rugged and hard-bitten in a gray-on-gray ensemble of cargo pants and a T-shirt.

Lila held up the Tori Richard dress and waved it like a flag. “Just the man I was looking for.”

Malcolm glanced at Jenna, completely poker-faced. “Is she sauced?”

Lila practically skipped across the room and pressed the dress into his hands. “Can you make this into a jacket?”

Jenna laughed and told Malcolm, “She's sauced.” To Lila, she said, “Honey, when you start asking Malcolm Toth to do your tailoring, it's time to call it a night.”

Summer, Jenna, and Malcolm all shared an indulgent chuckle.

Lila gasped and spun around on her heel. “Don't you dare laugh at me! I will have you know—”

“Time to go, chief.” Malcolm slung an arm around her shoulders and hauled her out to the sidewalk.

“Oof.” She shook him off, nearly tripping over the curb in the process. “Is it necessary to be so rough?”

“Yes.” He shook his head in disgust. “Because
someone
can't keep her mouth shut after a few sips of wine.”