text: [FN] The sewing machine hummed along rhythmically, white thread stitching white fabric together. Colorful hands painted with tattoos guided lace and silk where it needed to go; a yellow duckling wrapped in filligree on one hand and an exaggerated cartoon style needle and thread, bobbin and pincushion on the other; the fingernails, shortened by nervous teeth, worked a heavy dark blue fabric through the machine. Nine hours. She scowled at the old fashioned alarm clock, willing it to turn back. Time manipulation still wasn't part of her repertoire. Unfortunate. Nine hours... She had been working at this set of dresses for six weeks straight now; last minute jobs weren't something she normally made a habit of taking on but the client had been willing to pay an exorbitant sum of money, easily making it her most lucrative project ever. The wedding was in two days and this dress still had to be fit to the final bridesmaid, but Allison had never missed a deadline and wasn't about to start now. She clicked the machine off and pulled the elastic from her auburn hair, letting the tension in her scalp bleed away then leaned back and straightened her shoulders, hearing them pop as she did so. "Hey there quazimodo. How's it coming?" Allison grabbed a roll of thread, spun toward the door as quick as she could and launched it toward the voice with fervor. It sailed wide and thunked into the wall a foot from her intended target. A chuckle and grinned at her. "Nice throw A-Rod." Danny stood in the doorway holding a plate with a peanut butter and jam sandwich in one hand and two cups of coffee in paper take-out cups from the cafè around the corner snugged into a cardboard carrying tray in the other. "One cream, one sugar. The left one." She reached. "No no. My left." Allison accepted the coffee and sandwhich with a smile. "Thanks babe, it's like you're inside my brain." Her stomach grumbled at the sight of the food. She hadn't even realized she was hungry. He looked at the incomplete pile of dark blue fabric dangling from the machine as he sipped on his own coffee. "Looks like you'll be done today?" "Yeah, maybe mid afternoon." She told him between bites and sips of coffee. "I'm going to call Angela to come and do a quick test fit later. Could you tidy the kitchen and sweep the floor please?" "Aye m'lady, I could." He smirked. "Thank you for the coffee and food, love. I need to get back to work." Allison had worked late into the previous night and been up before dark this morning. She was tired and her patience was gone but she felt much better with some food and a bit of caffeine in her. "It would appear that I've been dismissed."he said with mock disappointment. He frowned outwardly but a hint of a smile played in his eyes. Allison scrunched her brow and stuck out her tongue at him before spinning around and returning to her task. She sent a text to Angela when she had a better idea of when she would be completed and then returned to her work for the rest of the day, from time to time breaking long enough to stretch and again when Danny brought another cup of coffee and a plate of fruit. At 5:32 and fifteen seconds precisely, there was a knock on the door. Danny's footsteps echoed through the apartment and then a woman's voice drifted down the hall, faint but distinct. Right on time. She pulled the finished dress from the sewing machine and held it in front of her just as a smiling pixie face with a head of short blue hair poked itself around the corner. A loud sqeak erupted from Angela. "So pretty!" Her eyes were wide and she gasped as she stepped into the room. The deep blue, almost black fabric seemed to ripple with light, like a shadowy ocean floor. "Can I try it on?" She was almost giddy. "That's why I called you." Allison respond with a bit of sarcasm in her tone. "Oh, right!" Angela laughed a bit sheepishly. "Here." Allison hung the dress on a wall hook and stepped past her to close the door. "You look exhausted." Angela commented as she pulled the t-shirt that she was wearing off and then removed her jeans before pulling the dress over her head. "Well, it's been a bit of a rush job and I wanted to finish early in case there were any problems." And a rush job it had been. Four bridesmaid dresses in a week and a half. Sixteen hour days. Four thousand pounds of coffee. But the end was in sight now. Tomorrow she would inspect the dresses for imperfections and that would be it. Done. Fini. Terminado. "Yeah, sorry about that. I really am sorry about springing this on you last minute." "Its alright. I can take a few days off after this. How is Denise anyway?" "Still in the hospital. It was a pretty bad accident." Denise was the bride's mother in law and one of the best seamstresses in the state. The wedding had been on short notice to start with and so Angela hadn't been upset nor surprised when they offered the job to someone like Denise. But she was old school. Traditional. She didn't enhance her work the way Allison could. "She says she's going to escape if they don't release her today and she probably would. The surgery went really well but they want to make sure everything is healing." Angela pulled the dress over her head and smoothed the rumpled bits along her hips. "It fits great. How does it look?" "Pretty damn good. Now for the final touch." She reached for a short, loose thread hanging inside the collar and pinched it between her thumb and finger. Her lips became thin and tight. Her eyebrows furrowed a slightly. The thread began to shimmer and then a faint silvery luminescence traced it's way along the stitching of the dress as she had intended to reveal an intricately embroidered flower motif, with an old world Ukrainian flair. The glowing thread had a slightly iridescent quality, shimmering as Angela moved around the dress. "It looks like the bottom of the sea." She marvelled, running her hand over the fabric. "That is so cool." "Want to see the rest of them?" "Of course I do." Allison opened a closet and took out three identical dresses, hanging them from pegs on the wall and then grasped a loose thread on each infusing and illuminating the thread to reveal the embroidery that she had spent so many sleepless nights on. The first was of a red fox on the skirt. It's tail was coiled round it's legs while the head tilted ever so slightly, as if looking at a particularly interesting blade of grass or an unaware and unattended chicken. The fur was finely detailed and and the light rippled as she watched it, blowing in the faintest of breezes. The thread in the fur was a deep red and the glow was only faintly visible, giving the animal a subtle bit of color. The second dress was a raven perched upon a branch. Allison had sewn a deep yellow thread into the eye that was almost lifelike when it luminesced. It to looked at you, into you, and through you no matter where you stood. The final dress had, sewn into it, a group of waves cresting in a traditional Japanese style. The whitecaped crests of the waves shimmered and Angela was reminded of a vacation to to the Oregon coast that she had taken with her family years ago. All that was missing was the smell of the salt air, and the drying seaweed. The sound of the crashing waves. The call of the gulls on the rocks. Angela was silent as she studied the dresses, leaning in close and inspecting the stitches and glowing thread. "These are amazing. Diane is going friggin' love them!" She gushed. "Let me guess. Kaylee." She pointed at the first dress. "Meghan." The second. "Tatsuki." "Yup! And I hope she does. If I'd had more time I could have done more." "Oh shut up." She gave her friend a reproachful look. "You're always so modest and these are perfect." Angela got a twinkle in her eye then. "Soooo... can I see the brides dress?" Allison grinned. "Hell no. You'll wait like everyone else. I'll give them a once over tomorrow then bring them to you guys Saturday morning." "Perfect. I'll text you the address when I get home." "Well you just got here so you aren't leaving yet. I'll get Danny to make us some coffee or tea or something." "I'd love that." Allison opened the door and yelled down the hall, "Dammit Dan! Make us some coffee!" A terrible British accent called back sounding more than a little bit like Mrs. Doubtfire. "Coming right up deary!" They laughed together and Angela called out the door. "Thank you! You're a dear and I love you!" "Hey lady, get your own man." Allison giggled. There was more banter and more laughter as Angela changed back into her own clothes. The dress was hung in the closet next to the others. The floor was swept. Four paper coffee cups were gathered up along with two porcelain ones and a number of plates. Odds and ends of scraps of fabric and rolls of thread were returned to their proper homes or thrown out. "Coffee's ready." Andy's torso was leaning half in the door. "Thanks love." Allison grinned. She pulled a now stuffed bag from the garbage can as Angela set the broom back into the corner. "So just out of curiosity, do you know any single guys with a snappy suit ready to go on short notice?" Her tone was coy, probing. "Wait, what? What happened to Marcus?" Allison was downright shocked. They'd seemed to be perfectly pleased with each others company. She supposed you never could tell what might be going on with people. "Well, things were going great... until they weren't." Offering no further explanation but a furtive glance away, not making eye contact as she pulled her shirt over her head. "Oh geeze. I'm so sorry." "Don't be. We weren't right for each other. Though I do find myself dateless for the wedding now and it's pretty short notice." She pulled her hoodie on and zipped it up while Allison tied off the garbage bag and added a fresh one to the bin. "OK, well let me think." "I was going to ask if maybe your brother, Antony, was free?" "You didn't hear, did you?" "Hear what? Its been a few years since I've talked to him." "He was engaged with a baby on the way. She died giving birth and his daughter passed a week after the birth." "Oh my God. Is he doing ok?" "He's.... healing... I think. He went camping this weekend out to some lake they liked to hike to. Looking for closure I think." "That's so awful. I can't even imagine." And she couldn't. Angela had never really lost anyone close to her so far as Allison knew. Even her grandparents were still healthy enough to make trips to Florida for the winter. Allison felt a welling of emotion constrict her throat. She was supposed to have a niece and new sister now but the world was indifferent to the wants of decent people. It wasn't fair. Seeing her brother lately, she knew the grief was swallowing him as much as he tried to put on the brave, stoic face. Change the subject she thought and forced herself to speak. "Let's not talk about that right now though. We need to find you a date." Allison gestured toward the door. "Shall We?" She switched off the light and closed the door behind them, leaving the fox and the flowers and the raven and the waves to cast their pale glow.