a witchcraft mystery 08 - a toxic trousseau Read Online Free
Author: juliet blackwell
customers, three or four at a time: a trio of college students browsing the sale rack; a mother and teenage daughter looking for a retro prom dress; a woman seeking an extra-special sundress for a cruise with her fiancé. None of them needed much help, so Maya and I sorted through my latest acquisitions from the 1940s and ’50s, a special haul I had had to fight for at an estate auction.
The vintage clothes business used to be easy: I would spend a few hours scouring thrift stores and garage sales for inexpensive items that needed a little love and attention, give them a thorough cleaning and the occasional nip and tuck, and sell them at a generous markup. Nowadays, though, the competition was growing ever fiercer as word spread that Granny’s jam-packed attic might just be a potential gold mine. Aunt Cora’s Closet wasn’t an upscale boutique—nor did I want it to be—but findinginventory that was appealing and affordable was getting tougher every day.
After emptying out the plastic bags on the counter, we divided the clothing into four piles: machine washable, hand washable, in need of dry cleaning, and in need of repair.
“Why is the machine-washable pile always the smallest?” Maya asked with a sigh.
“That’s life in the vintage clothes business. It makes a person realize how lucky we are nowadays to have machine-washable clothes, not to mention the machines to toss them into.”
“Well, sure,” said Maya with a rueful smile, “if you want to look on the bright side.”
I chuckled. “Ask me how I feel on wash day, when my hands are raw and my arms ache from scrubbing and wringing out wet clothes. I might well be singing a different tune.”
“I prefer my mom’s dresses. Every label has those three magic words . . .”
“Made by Lucille?”
“Wash and wear.”
“So true! I love you in the one you’re wearing—that’s one of Lucille’s creations, right?”
“Yes, isn’t it great?” The turquoise halter dress was covered in little sprigs of cherries, and on Maya it looked like she was on her way to some sort of fabulous picnic. Like me, Maya used to be a staunch T-shirt-and-jeans gal, but she couldn’t resist her mother’s reproduction fashions.
Lucille had joined Aunt Cora’s Closet as our expert seamstress, an essential asset for a vintage clothes store since so many older garments needed to be altered tofit today’s stronger, healthier bodies. Charmed by some dresses that were too far gone to save, she had started deconstructing them to create patterns she then scaled up to fit the larger dimensions of many modern women. Fashioned out of retro-patterned materials, the dresses were an instant hit with my customers, who loved the way they combined old-fashioned elegance with machine-washable comfort. Although she continued to do alterations on our vintage clothes, Lucille had hired and trained several former residents of the Haight-Ashbury women’s shelter to craft her designs in her spacious sewing loft. One whole corner of Aunt Cora’s Closet was now dedicated to showcasing Lucille’s Loft Designs: By and for Real Women.
The afternoon passed quickly and by twenty to six the customers had departed, the new acquisitions had been sorted, and we’d begun our evening ritual of straightening up the shop preparatory to closing for the day. I planned to go speak with Autumn Jennings face-to-face, but I took a moment to enlist Maya’s help with some background research online. While I was getting better with computers, I still didn’t like—or trust—them. All those electrons bouncing around . . . it made a witch like me nervous. Too many ghosts in those machines.
“Here it is,” Maya said. “The Web page for Vintage Visions Glad Rags. That’s her store, right?”
I nodded.
“It’s in a nice part of town: not far from the Presidio, near Pacific Heights,” Maya pointed out. “Her rent must cost a fortune. Either her business is doing well or she’s a trust-fund
The vintage clothes business used to be easy: I would spend a few hours scouring thrift stores and garage sales for inexpensive items that needed a little love and attention, give them a thorough cleaning and the occasional nip and tuck, and sell them at a generous markup. Nowadays, though, the competition was growing ever fiercer as word spread that Granny’s jam-packed attic might just be a potential gold mine. Aunt Cora’s Closet wasn’t an upscale boutique—nor did I want it to be—but findinginventory that was appealing and affordable was getting tougher every day.
After emptying out the plastic bags on the counter, we divided the clothing into four piles: machine washable, hand washable, in need of dry cleaning, and in need of repair.
“Why is the machine-washable pile always the smallest?” Maya asked with a sigh.
“That’s life in the vintage clothes business. It makes a person realize how lucky we are nowadays to have machine-washable clothes, not to mention the machines to toss them into.”
“Well, sure,” said Maya with a rueful smile, “if you want to look on the bright side.”
I chuckled. “Ask me how I feel on wash day, when my hands are raw and my arms ache from scrubbing and wringing out wet clothes. I might well be singing a different tune.”
“I prefer my mom’s dresses. Every label has those three magic words . . .”
“Made by Lucille?”
“Wash and wear.”
“So true! I love you in the one you’re wearing—that’s one of Lucille’s creations, right?”
“Yes, isn’t it great?” The turquoise halter dress was covered in little sprigs of cherries, and on Maya it looked like she was on her way to some sort of fabulous picnic. Like me, Maya used to be a staunch T-shirt-and-jeans gal, but she couldn’t resist her mother’s reproduction fashions.
Lucille had joined Aunt Cora’s Closet as our expert seamstress, an essential asset for a vintage clothes store since so many older garments needed to be altered tofit today’s stronger, healthier bodies. Charmed by some dresses that were too far gone to save, she had started deconstructing them to create patterns she then scaled up to fit the larger dimensions of many modern women. Fashioned out of retro-patterned materials, the dresses were an instant hit with my customers, who loved the way they combined old-fashioned elegance with machine-washable comfort. Although she continued to do alterations on our vintage clothes, Lucille had hired and trained several former residents of the Haight-Ashbury women’s shelter to craft her designs in her spacious sewing loft. One whole corner of Aunt Cora’s Closet was now dedicated to showcasing Lucille’s Loft Designs: By and for Real Women.
The afternoon passed quickly and by twenty to six the customers had departed, the new acquisitions had been sorted, and we’d begun our evening ritual of straightening up the shop preparatory to closing for the day. I planned to go speak with Autumn Jennings face-to-face, but I took a moment to enlist Maya’s help with some background research online. While I was getting better with computers, I still didn’t like—or trust—them. All those electrons bouncing around . . . it made a witch like me nervous. Too many ghosts in those machines.
“Here it is,” Maya said. “The Web page for Vintage Visions Glad Rags. That’s her store, right?”
I nodded.
“It’s in a nice part of town: not far from the Presidio, near Pacific Heights,” Maya pointed out. “Her rent must cost a fortune. Either her business is doing well or she’s a trust-fund
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