Every Girl Gets Confused by Janice Thompson Page B

with a thick Spanish accent. The guy had to be in his seventies, but he had been Nadia’s top choice to help Dahlia with dress design and production. I’d met a few guys over the years who sewed, but not many of them had the masculine swagger thing down. Eduardo was as swaggerly as a fella could get in his golden years.
    And talk about golden! I hadn’t seen that color hair since Queenie’s favorite televangelist was forced off the air for accosting a woman in an airport. Eduardo’s silver hair had a gold sheen to it. No doubt he paid a pretty penny for that ’do.
    While Eduardo proved his masculinity with every move, one of our other new seamstresses offered a counterbalance in femininity. Hibiscus was as light and flowery as her name. The twenty-something was straight out of fashion school, a petite little thing who flitted around the sewing room as light as a feather. She rarely bothered with makeup. Her clothing and hairstyle reminded me of the hippies I’d seen in a documentary about the sixties. Her free spirit provided great fodder for Eduardo, who took delight in everything she did.
    Unfortunately, Dahlia didn’t. Poor Dahlia. OCD drove her every move, especially now, with so much work on her plate. She had no room for flightiness.
    And then there was Jane. Quirky, over-the-top Jane. She’d only been working for Cosmopolitan for six weeks, but she’d already changed her hair and makeup a couple of times. Oneday a platinum blonde, the next a redhead. One day thick eyeliner and dark cherry lipstick, the next soft peach.
    No, nothing ever stayed the same with Jane. Except for her choice in lunch foods. Every day with a peanut butter sandwich and chips, which she consumed even now with reckless abandon. She seemed to get emotional as Dahlia scolded her about the crumbs from the potato chips, but she quickly cleaned up after herself and got back to work, clearly delighted by the very process of sewing.
    I sometimes watched the designers at work and wondered what it would be like to be so in the zone that you didn’t care what went on around you. You simply dove into your art and created, created, created, lost in a world that no one could penetrate.
    Me? I could tell they didn’t even realize I was still in the room, so after a few more bites of food, I headed out to the shop to check on Madge and Twiggy, who were working the front desk. Madge, who often was terse, appeared to be in a more aggravated state than usual.
    â€œHouston, we have a problem,” she said.
    â€œWhat sort of problem?”
    â€œYou’re not going to believe it. Remember that bride with the pierced eyebrow and purple hair?”
    â€œHow could I forget her? Nothing we did was right.” I groaned as the memories flooded over me. “What about her?”
    â€œShe’s taken her story to the media.”
    â€œW-what?” Ack. “Madge, what is she saying?”
    â€œShe said that our shop is poorly run and that we owe her.”
    â€œBut she got her dress, and we even knocked five hundred dollars off the price,” Twiggy said. “Didn’t we?”
    Madge nodded. “We went above and beyond. She’s nuts.”
    â€œAnd she got the dress on time, in spite of the ten thousand changes she asked for along the way,” I added.
    Madge crossed her arms. “I know. I remember it well.”
    â€œSo what’s her beef?” Twiggy asked. “What does she really want?”
    â€œA new dress. She’s saying that the dress doesn’t look like the original design.”
    â€œBut that’s the point,” I argued. “She didn’t want the original design. She started with the Loretta Lynn but wanted to add a zillion things to it. And she wanted the bodice altered completely. Dahlia did exactly what she asked.”
    â€œDahlia went above and beyond, just like she’s doing now with all of the other orders.” Twiggy looked a