Biting back a smile, Ginny climbed out of bed. “Do you want me to prepare you something or should we go get bagels and cream cheese?”
“Option two. And coffee.” Roksana leapt off the bed, shadowboxing as soon as her feet touched down. “Maybe we’ll get some action today, yes?”
Ginny paused in the act of choosing a dress from her closet to smile over her shoulder. “Yes, I can almost guarantee it.”
The slayer seemed to be holding her breath. “Really?”
“Oh yes. My dress making club is always action packed. There will be backstitching, hemming, maybe even some ruffled embellishment.”
“Very funny.” She flexed her fingers. “Dress making club. This is really a thing? You can buy clothes on the internet.”
“Is that where you buy yours?”
“Occasionally.” She fingered the strap of her bra. “I have to sort through a lot of ball gags and latex suits to find what I’m looking for, but it’s there.”
Ginny laughed. “I just never imagined a vampire slayer having a credit card.”
“I don’t have one. I steal Elias’s—”
When the slayer abruptly cut herself off, Ginny looked up from the mint green frock she’d chosen for the day. “Who is Elias?”
Roksana rubbed at the back of her neck. “Forget I said that. He’s no one.”
“Is he one of Jonas’s roommates?”
The other woman approached with what might have been a menacing expression, if she didn’t have two spots of color on her cheeks. “I told you nothing. You never heard that name.”
“What name?”
“Good girl.”
“Elias?”
“Ginny!”
She giggled at the slayer’s outrage. “You can relax. I won’t say anything.” Her thumb traced the curved top of the hanger. “Maybe Jonas will tell me himself one day.”
“Don’t get your hopes up. He’s the strictest follower of the rules.”
“I guess he has to be, right?” Ginny moved past Roksana and laid the dress out on her bed. “Since he teaches the Silenced how to follow them.”
Roksana was silent for long moments. “He told you that?”
Ginny nodded, silently brimming with pleasure that he’d confided something important in her and vowing she’d never, ever make him regret it. “I’m going to go take a quick shower. Then we’ll go get bagels.”
She breezed from the room before the slayer could respond, though she could feel Roksana’s interested gaze following her from the room. Within half an hour, Ginny had showered, dried her hair and thrown on the green dress, receiving a grunting approval from Roksana. She called downstairs to the office to make sure Larissa had woken up for her shift, breathing a sigh of relief when her stepmother answered the phone albeit in a weary tone. After a reminder to Larissa that she’d be at her dress making club that afternoon, she snuck Roksana downstairs and out the back entrance of the house.
Roksana had drunk an extra-large coffee, scarfed her bagel and started on the second half of Ginny’s breakfast by the time they reached the club.
Embrace the Lace Dressmaking Endeavors met once a week in the basement of the Our Lady of Solace Catholic Church. It smelled like stale coffee, dust and there was a distinct lack of fresh air, but Ginny found the whole operation glorious. If she could pick one sound to hear for the rest of her life, it would be sewing machines chirping away, set against the cutting of fabric. Women with pins in their mouths and sketchpads at the ready? It was heaven. Perhaps the members of the club hadn’t welcomed her with open arms, but because that was the norm for Ginny, she was able to look past their discomfort over her presence and enjoy the atmosphere.
Ginny couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t been fascinated by dresses. Not so much the act of looking pretty as the sensation of feeling feminine. Maybe even a touch dramatic. One couldn’t sweep from the room after a witty rejoinder in a pair of jeans. Dresses—bright ones, specifically—were a tale to tell. In pleated pink tulle, she could be delicate, like Audrey Hepburn. In sunset orange, she could be bold, like Sophia Loren.
Ginny couldn’t remember a lot about her mother, mainly just blurry memories, muted sounds and the few stories she’d been told by her father. Her favorite one was that her mother used to dance around the kitchen to the Foo Fighters with Ginny on her hip. Her least favorite story was the one about her mother going out for diapers and never coming home. More than once, she’d caught her father reading the note Ginny’s mother had left behind, folded beneath his shaving cream can, but she’d never asked the contents.
When puberty reared its head at twelve and Ginny had no one to speak with about the changes happening with her body, she’d expressed those wild mood swings with dresses. The act of making the dresses and focusing that confusing energy had the biggest impact initially, but as she grew older, they became her shield. Sophia Loren didn’t care about whispers behind her back, and neither did Ginny, as long as she was wearing sunset orange with scalloped edges.
Now, as Ginny and Roksana walked into the basement—a few minutes late, thanks to Roksana having trouble choosing between poppy seed and plain—the cacophony of Ginny’s favorite sounded ceased. This was the usual reaction when Ginny arrived to the club meetings, however, the whispers typically followed in short order. Not this time. They gaped at Roksana like a row of codfish along the back basement wall.
“Hello,” Ginny called, her voice echoing off the walls. “I brought a friend.”
“Friends aren’t allowed,” came a sing-song voice. It belonged to Galina, one half of the Russian, middle-aged twins who held dominion over the club when the founder, Ruth, wasn’t present, which appeared to be the case this morning. Among them were Mercedes, a regal black woman and stay-at-home mother who mainly crafted holiday dresses for her children and Tina, a Florida transplant that talked of nothing but how to get bang for your buck at Disneyworld. “They have to sign up in advance and pay the fee,” finished Galina.
Ginny smiled. “Can we make an exception just this once?”
Galina squinted in lieu of a smile. “I’m afraid not.”
Roksana sauntered over to the closest table, kicked out a metal chair—squeeeeeal—and sat in it backwards. “How about my fee is not kicking your a—”
“She can stay,” Galina blurted, her smile on the verge of shattering. “But Ruth will be here soon and as founder, she’ll have no choice but to enforce the rules.”
“Yes of course, Galina,” Ginny said, taking her usual seat at her favorite sewing machine, laying out the fabric she’d purchased the day before.
“These women take dress club very seriously.”
Ginny pursed her lips. “I take it seriously.”
“You would not be unkind about it.”
“No, I wouldn’t.” Ginny fussed with her chiffon. “Look, I know you probably think I acted like a pushover, but I’ve found it’s easier not to engage them.”
Roksana gave an exaggerated hum. “Is it easier?”
Ginny hesitated. “Yes.”
Though…she wasn’t quite as secure in that philosophy as she used to be. Pretending to be Lauren Bacall had been easier when she didn’t have a vampire slayer and immortal beings populating her life. Roksana was so brave, so daring, so assertive. For the first time in a long, long time, Ginny acknowledged the secret wish that she was better at standing up for herself.
She swallowed. “I hope you won’t be bored while I work.”
“Eh, I think everything is boring. I kill—” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I kill vampires for a living. Very hard to top that.”
“I see your point.” Ginny chewed her lip as the words Death Girl drifted toward her from the small group of women. The slayer heard it, too, frowning, and Ginny rushed to fill the resulting silence so they wouldn’t have to talk about the nickname. Or the fact that she never did anything to stop it from being spoken aloud. “Speaking of vampires, would you be willing to tell me more about…you know, Jonas’s world?”
“Uh-uh.” Roksana made a chopping gesture across her neck. “I’ve been sworn to secrecy.”
“By Jonas.”
The slayer’s expression turned suspicious. “Yes…”
Ginny loaded a spool of white thread into her Singer, absently noting the whispers had commenced on the other side of the room. “Weren’t you scheduled to slaughter him and his roommates today?”
She studied her nails. “You’re wondering why I keep their secrets when I’m going to kill them?”
“Wouldn’t you wonder?”
“Perhaps I’m being paid well for my discretion.”
“Oh.” Ginny perked up. “Are you? Because that might make sense.”
Roksana leaned back in her chair with crossed arms. “Perhaps you are not such a pushover after all. Deep down, you are Ginny the Not So Meek.”
She gasped. “I’m going to stitch that onto a dress.”
“Hooray for you.” Roksana twisted slightly in her chair to glance over her shoulder. “Don’t they serve alcohol at this club?”
“I’m afraid not,” Ginny answered, hiding her smile. “Would you need to be drunk in order to let me use you as a dress model?”
“Nyet. You’re crazier than me if you think that will ever happen.”
Twenty minutes later, Roksana stood on the round, elevated pedestal in front of the three-way vanity mirror used by the club, wrapped in persimmon chiffon, her combat boots peeking out from beneath the uneven hem.
“I will get even with you for this,” Roksana swore.
Ginny smoothed and tucked the material, taking a pin from her mouth to secure the adjustment at Roksana’s waist. “It’s an honor to be penciled in on your slaughter schedule.” She stepped back and clasped her hands tightly beneath her chin. “This persimmon color looks incredible on you.”