Tess tried to play a rhythm on the cutting table with two fingers while writing a price on a tag with the other hand.
“You're going to put an extra nought on that,” Rachel said.
“It's worth it.”
“It isn't.”
“The dress or the nought?”
Rachel smiled. Tess had been happy since Anna left. The feeling showed in small things: a tag written without complaint, a box carried before Rachel asked, the rhythm at the edge of every pause.
A Saturday customer was trying on a red dress for a retirement party. She came out holding the side seam away from herself.
“I'll need something underneath.”
“What sort of something?” Rachel asked.
“To stop this.”
The woman gestured at her middle. Tess looked away, kindly enough that Rachel knew she'd understood.
“Have you tried sitting down?” Rachel asked.
“It'll be worse.”
“Try.”
The woman sat. The dress settled over her knees. She looked in the long mirror, where the chair let her see herself from the side.
“Oh.”
“The fastening is a bit tight at the top,” Rachel said. “We can change where it sits. You don't need to spend the evening unable to eat.”
“It's for my husband.”
“Will he eat?”
“Constantly.”
“Then you ought to as well.”
The woman laughed and put a hand against the waist. Tess brought a different size, quietly, so she could try without being asked to announce something about her body.
By the time she'd chosen, the woman was discussing her husband's habit of introducing her as his better half before explaining her to whoever hadn't asked. Rachel could hear the affectionate irritation in it and missed Martin so abruptly that she wanted to stop looking at the dress.
She kept her hands steady.
Tess wrote the collection time. The woman asked if they could keep the alteration to a week.
“We can,” Tess said, then looked at Rachel.
Rachel nodded.
When the door shut, Tess said, “I like her.”
“Me too.”
“She's going to eat all his food.”
“She should.”
Tess returned the unwanted dresses to the rail and checked her phone. Rachel bent over the red fabric, giving her a little privacy she wanted to resent.
“Eli?” she asked.
The name left her mouth before she decided whether it was a question worth asking.
“Yes.”
“What does he want?”
“Nothing. He's sent a photo.”
“Of what?”
Tess held out the phone.
A man on a low ladder stood outside a coffee shop, one arm lifted with a cloth. Somebody had drawn a face on the dirty window below him. Eli's message said he was being paid for artistic development.
Rachel laughed.
“He should keep that. It might improve the window.”
“I told him not to abandon music for the money.”
“Is he abandoning it for you?”
Tess took the phone back.
“What?”
“I meant the cleaning. To help with your stand.”
“We did that Thursday.”
“I know.”
“No.”
Rachel looked down at the dress.
“Sorry.”
Tess was quiet while she folded the garment bag. Then she said, “He has a life before he met me.”
“Yes.”
“Sometimes I like being told about it without everyone trying to work out where I am in it.”
Rachel could remember that wish. At twenty she'd wanted Martin to have stories of his own, something she could listen to instead of always being offered a flattering reflection. Later the stories came with omissions she had wanted badly enough not to examine.
“He seems nice,” she said.
Tess smiled, a little unwillingly.
“He is. Annoying about strings.”
“I know nothing about strings.”
“He does. He makes sure of it.”
Rachel moved the cutting board so Tess could work at the table. Tess set down the garment bag and took a silver-grey top from her tote.
“What's this?”
“Something I bought.”
“For the concert?”
“For playing.”
Rachel looked at the armholes. The cloth was soft, but the seam was stiff and sat high.
“Try it.”
“Not now.”
“It will be easier to see.”
“I've already tried it. I just wanted your opinion about whether it's going to fall apart.”
“It may need a little work.”
“How little?”
Rachel took the top. The seam would rub under the arm when Tess reached. She could alter it, cut away part, use a softer binding. A small job she'd enjoy making right for someone whose movement she knew.
“Come in Monday with it on. I can mark it.”
Tess considered.
“All right.”
“Have you got shoes?”
“Yes.”
“Which?”
“The ones I wear to play.”
Rachel smiled at herself before Tess could.
“I'll stop.”
“You won't.”
“No.”
Tess laughed and let her put the top aside.
At one, Tess went out for food and came back with a sandwich. She ate near the open door because the day had grown too hot to enjoy anything at the back. Rachel brought a chair from the fitting space and sat beside her with a cup of tea.
“What are you doing tonight?” Rachel asked.
“Ruby's.”
“Rehearsing?”
“No. Eating, I think.”
“Who cooks?”
“Jo if she wants to. Ruby if she has to. Eli pretends he can and then asks where things are until somebody removes him.”
“And you?”
“I'm doing salad.”
“You can do more than salad.”
“I know. I negotiated.”
The pleasure of hearing about Tess's friends was familiar. Rachel wanted every name, every complaint, the place at the table Tess would choose. She used to be given them without asking. Now she had to notice when a question would make Tess begin giving answers out of habit rather than appetite.
“It's nice you invited Anna tomorrow,” she said.
Tess chewed, then swallowed.
“I hope it is.”
“It'll be different for her.”
“Everything's different for her.”
“Yes.”
“She's asked whether she should bring something. I said no. Then she asked if no included cake.”
“Does it?”
“It does. Ruby hates people feeding us as if we're a situation.”
Rachel looked into her cup. She had brought food to that room herself.
Tess glanced at her.
“She doesn't hate the actual food.”
“That would be more convenient.”
They both laughed. Tess took another bite.
“She's got a job as well,” Tess said. “I like that she just did it.”
Rachel remembered Tess at fourteen, asking if she could try drumming properly, not only in a lunchtime room at school. Leonard wanted to know how far the lessons would be and what they would cost. Rachel rang the teacher, offered to take her the first few times, made it an arrangement they could all accept. She'd loved seeing Tess emerge with pink cheeks and opinions about which sticks were wrong.
Tess might remember the lessons without remembering who made them possible.
Rachel took a sip of tea.
“Are you getting everything ready for the tour?”
“Trying.”
“Money?”
“Some.”
“What do you need?”
“A crowd with no taste and a lot of cash.”
“That's most weddings.”
“Will you send us a few?”
Tess laughed, then wiped a crumb from her trousers.
“We have a plan.”
“I'm allowed to ask.”
“I know. I'm not saying don't ask.”
“What are you saying?”
Tess looked toward the road. A man was lifting bags from a car while a woman pointed at a space too small to put them down.
“That sometimes I want to tell you about the good part first.”
Rachel set the cup on the sill.
“Tell me.”
“Jo knows someone in Manchester. Not someone helpful. Just someone we can stay with. She's got a floor and says if we wake her before ten she'll hate us. Ruby says she'll hate us anyway because we'll have to leave at eight.”
Rachel smiled.
“And?”
“There's a place in Birmingham which apparently has a stage too small for all of us. Eli says I should play from the audience and stare at them.”
“Would that work?”
“No idea.”
Tess leaned forward, elbows on her knees. She seemed to see the rooms before they entered them, the impossible stage, her bandmates' bodies crowded around equipment. Rachel recognized the anticipation. She had once stayed up drawing a shop she hadn't yet leased while Celia sat beside her, eating grapes and insisting the changing room needed to be larger.
Tess finished the sandwich. She gathered the paper, brought the chair inside and returned it to the back. Rachel hadn't asked her to. She knew where things belonged here.
For the rest of the shift they worked. The red dress needed opening at a seam. Tess sorted a box of fastenings and told Rachel three were the wrong colour, though she knew Rachel would claim otherwise.
“They're near enough.”
“They're pink.”
“Some people call that red.”
“Some people are wrong.”
Rachel enjoyed the argument. She gave Tess the right box.
At four Tess put on her bag. The silver-grey top remained on the table.
“Monday,” Rachel said.
“Yes.”
“Have a good night.”
“You, too.”
Tess paused at the door, a thought delaying her.
“I'll tell you how tomorrow goes.”
“Please.”
Then she was gone.
Rachel lifted the top. She could see the alteration before marking it, the curved seam, the little difference which would make reaching easier. She folded it carefully and put it on the chair at the back.
Through the window, Tess walked toward the station. She had taken out her phone. Rachel watched until Tess stopped to read something, smiled, then turned the corner where Rachel could no longer see her.