The Last Fitting · ARTHUR IVERSON
Mina wanted the sleeves off. Her mother had brought the photograph again.
It stood against her bag on the little table in the fitting room: Evelyn in 1992, on the steps of a church Ada didn’t recognize, holding the hand of a man whose other hand displayed both their rings. The sleeves rose from her shoulders in crisp gathered heaps. In the picture they looked deliberate and joyful. On Mina, under the lamp that showed every pin and loose thread, they looked as though somebody else was standing very close behind her.
“Would the rest stay up?” Mina asked.
“Not without changing the support. But we can do that.”
“And the neck?”
“We can lower it.”
“How much?”
“Let’s look.”
Ada waited for Mina’s nod before lifting the temporary strap. The bodice moved to where it belonged, and Evelyn made a small, involuntary noise of approval.
“There,” she said. “That’s much better.”
Mina studied herself. Ada had learned not to answer that look too quickly. Sometimes it meant a client wanted a different shape; sometimes it meant she’d finally seen the shape she’d ordered and wasn’t sure who she was supposed to be inside it.
“Is it pulling?” Ada asked.
End of excerpt
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