The next day, I went to the fabric district.
The apprentice evaluation required you to take a piece from pattern to finished garment on your own.
I wanted to make a short jacket. Whether the shoulders, sleeves, and waist sat right would show your basic skill at a glance.
In the end I picked a gray-blue twill, two and a half meters, four hundred twenty dollars.
The money was what I'd saved altering classmates' uniforms.
Back home, I set the fabric at the very back of my desk and pressed a note on top of it.
【For the evaluation. Do not touch.】
My mother saw it when she brought in some fruit.
「What are you making?」
「My piece for the apprentice evaluation. If I pass the first screening, I still have to go to a neighboring city for the final round.」
She nodded.
「Give it a try. It's fine if you don't pass.」
Then she asked,
「Constance's recital dress is a little short. Can you take a look at it tonight?」
「After I finish drawing the pattern.」
That afternoon I went to school to borrow a dress form.
By the time I came home carrying the roll of pattern paper, Constance was already standing in the living room in her recital costume.
Below the pink hem, there was now a band of gray-blue fabric.
My mother crouched on the floor pinning the length, and looked up at me.
「Deidre, come look. Does joining it like this work?」
I pinched that band of fabric.
It was the exact piece I'd bought that morning.
「I wrote that it wasn't to be touched.」
「I know. I only cut off a little.」
My mother held up her hands to show less than a foot.
「Constance has dress rehearsal the day after tomorrow.」
「The color was just right, and I figured you still had so much left.」
The layout for the jacket's front and back panels had been calculated exactly.
Short that length, the back panel wouldn't fit.
「I bought that fabric to the exact yardage I needed.」
「Then just buy a little more, isn't that easy?」
「Different dye lots have color differences.」
My mother looked down at the hem.
「It looks the same to me.」
Constance immediately went to pull out the pins.
「Mom, I don't need it.」
My mother held her still.
「Don't move. What if you get stuck?」
She turned to me.
「I'll go buy some tomorrow. Whatever it cost, I'll pay you back.」
「Four hundred twenty.」
She froze for a moment.
My father happened to come in just then, and after he heard it, he said,
「Your mom didn't know how much you needed. She's already said she'll pay you back. We're family, don't blow it up like this.」
「I wrote that it wasn't to be touched.」
「She didn't read it clearly. Just buy more, and it's settled, isn't it?」
Constance said quietly,
「Sis, I'll take the band off the hem and give it back to you.」
「It's already been cut. The length isn't enough.」
「Then what do we do?」
「I'll figure it out myself.」
The moment those words were out, both my parents relaxed.
Because I would figure something out, the matter counted as solved.
The next day, my mother really did buy back a new piece of fabric.
「I looked for ages. Close enough, right?」
I laid the two pieces by the window.
The old fabric leaned gray, and it was twill.
The new fabric leaned blue, and it was plain weave.
My mother looked at them for a while.
「If you don't put them side by side, who's going to tell?」
「My piece has to be handed in as one whole garment.」
She was a little put out.
「Then why didn't you write the shop name and the fabric number down clearly yesterday?」
The note had already said not to touch it.
But as long as I hadn't spelled out every consequence, if something got taken, half of it was still my fault.
The original shop had already sold out that dye lot. Only half a meter of scrap was left.
On the way back, my mother sighed.
「If I'd known it would be this much trouble, I wouldn't have used it.」
「And you, too. Something important like that, why didn't you buy a little extra?」
It wasn't that she didn't regret it.
It was just that her regret still needed me to carry a share.
The short jacket couldn't be made anymore.
I took the pattern apart and added seams at the side waist and under the sleeves, so both colors would stay.
The structure got more complicated, and out of seven days only four were left.
In the small hours, my mother knocked on my door.
「Constance's dress is loose at the waist. Take it in for her while you're at it.」
「I'm racing to finish my piece.」
「Just a few stitches, it won't hold you up long.」
Constance said from behind her,
「Mom, I'll get it fixed at a shop tomorrow.」
「Fixing it outside costs money again.」
The costume ended up in my hands after all.
I sewed for ten minutes.
When I sat back down, the sleeve-cap curve I'd just worked out was already gone from my head.
I erased the line and drew it again.
On the evening of the fourth day, the piece was finally done.
The shoulder line wasn't pretty enough, and the left cuff was a little off.
But every single line I had calculated over again myself.
I took the photos and sent them, along with the pattern, into the evaluation inbox.
Twenty-three minutes before the deadline.
The next afternoon, the reply came.
「You've passed the first screening. Please come to the studio this Saturday at two in the afternoon for the final hands-on round.」
Right then, a Saturday schedule popped up in the family group.
Morning: go with Constance to try on her recital costume.
Afternoon: go with Justin to buy his competition shoes.
Evening: retake the family portrait.
At the very bottom there was one more line.
「Deidre: on call all day.」
