Scene 4-Trial ShiftFinal¶
Charlie arrived ten minutes early. I watched as he stood outside Wardrobe like it was a church he wasn’t sure he was allowed to enter. He didn’t pace. There was no phone in his hand. He didn’t look around for someone to rescue him from the act of being in a wait-state. He just waited, folded scrap of paper in one hand, fingers worrying the edge until it softened. Every now and then he glanced at the door — not to check whether it was locked, but to check whether the world had changed its mind.
Inside, Wardrobe moved the way it always did: rails clacking softly as garments were shifted, the steamer hissing like a restrained animal, the constant quiet conversation between fabric and hands.
Mara spotted him through the small window in the door. She didn’t react. She never reacted, not visibly. She finished what she was doing — pinning a waistband to a mannequin, smoothing the fabric as if it were skin — then wiped her hands on a cloth and nodded toward me without looking.
“Open it.”
I was tempted to step forward, to say something that would make it easier for him, but Mara’s voice from yesterday was still in my ears: You don’t chase him. You don’t sell Wardrobe like a lifeline.
I opened the door and stood aside. Charlie’s gaze snapped to mine the moment the door moved. He stepped forward, then stopped, like he didn’t trust his feet.
“You’re early.” It came out neutral, the way you’d say it’s Tuesday.
He nodded once. “I... I didn’t want to be late.”
“Good.” Correct response. “Come in.”
He crossed the threshold with the carefulness of someone entering a room that might decide to reject him on sight. Mara didn’t greet him. She didn’t smile. She didn’t soften. She looked at him the way she looked at a bodice seam — assessing the integrity.
“Rossignol.”
Charlie froze slightly. “Yes.”
Mara’s eyes dropped to his hands. “Clean?”
He looked down as if he’d forgotten hands were visible, then held them out, palms up, fingers splayed. They were clean. Nails trimmed short. The skin at the fingertips was slightly rough.
“Good.” Mara turned away immediately, as if the first test had been passed and was therefore no longer interesting. “Shut the door.”
He did so quietly.
Mara walked to the centre table and picked up a garment bag. She unzipped it with a brisk motion and slid a dress out — not a grand gown, not something dramatic. It was a simple working dress in sturdy fabric, with a seam splitting near the side closure. The tear was held together with hurried, ugly stitches. Mara tossed it onto the table.
“This came in yesterday. Tourist. Sat down too hard. Someone panicked and tried to fix it.” She tapped the seam with one finger. “Have a look at that.”
Charlie leaned in, careful not to touch until he was sure he was allowed. His eyes did what his eyes always did when something made sense: they became steady.
“The tension’s wrong,” he said, quietly. “It’s pulling.”
Mara’s gaze flicked to him. “Why?”
“They stitched too tight,” he replied seriously. “And they didn’t match the grain. The fabric’s fighting.”
Mara moved to the next question. “What do you do?”
Charlie swallowed. “Unpick it. Start again.”
“Do it.”
He hesitated. “With... a seam ripper?”
Mara’s mouth tightened. “It’s called a lame.”
Charlie blinked. “Right. Sorry. A —”
“Don’t apologise,” Mara said. “Just learn.”
He nodded. Not a performative nod. It was acceptance. Mara pointed at the far end of the table.
“You can sit just there. Tools are in the tin. Thread is in the drawer. If you use something, put it back when you're done. If you break something, you tell me straight-away. If you don’t know, ask. Once. Remember the answer.”
Charlie’s jaw moved, like he was swallowing fear. “Okay.”
Mara’s eyes slid to me. “Celeste.”
I looked up.
“You’re on rails and pins. Not him.” Her tone left no space for negotiation. “Do not hover. Do not translate. You have your own work.”
“Understood.”
Charlie’s gaze flicked to me — quick, skittish. The look I gave him spoke of nothing except the simple fact of my presence in the room. I turned away and went to the rails, where a cluster of garments waited like quiet accusations. Wardrobe did not stop for anyone’s nerves.Behind me, I heard the soft, careful sound of Charlie taking the lame in hand. A pause. Then the tiny snap of thread giving way.
Mara moved around the room as he worked, doing her usual circuit: checking labels, touching fabric, straightening hangers. But her attention had shifted. It wasn’t on the dress.
It was on him.
Not his body. Not the shape of him. His behaviour. He didn’t hunch over the work like a guilty child. He didn’t look around to see who was watching. He wasn’t breathing quickly. He unpicked steadily, patiently, lifting each tight stitch and easing it out as if he was undoing a mistake without punishing the fabric for it. That, I realised, was what Mara was looking for.
Not skill alone. Temperament.
After a few minutes, Mara stopped behind him.
“Why are you going so slowly?”
Charlie’s shoulders tightened, but he didn’t flinch away. He looked up briefly, then back down at the seam. “Because if I do it quickly, I might tear the fabric.”
Mara’s voice was flat. “And if you tear the fabric?”
“I’ll have to patch it.” He hesitated, then added, like a confession. “And a patch will show.”
Mara’s eyes narrowed slightly. “And you don’t want it to show.”
“No, I don't.” Simply.
Mara walked away again, as if that answer had been a key turning in a lock.
I pinned a label to a garment bag and listened with half my mind, the way you listen to rain on a roof — constant, background, meaningful. Charlie’s tools made small sounds: metal clicking, thread whispering. His breathing stayed even. After he’d unpicked the seam completely, he didn’t immediately reach for thread. He smoothed the fabric with his palm, slow and light, as if calming it. Then he looked up and spoke, voice soft but clear.
“Mara?”
Mara’s head turned. “Yes.”
He held up the dress slightly. “The original seam allowance is... narrow. If I stitch it the way it is, it’ll hold, but it will be under stress. If I reinforce it from the inside with a strip of fabric — like a facing — then that strip will take the load.”
Mara walked over and looked. Charlie did not move his hands to demonstrate on her body. He indicated the seam in the air above the fabric, precise and respectful, as if the dress itself deserved dignity. Mara’s eyes sharpened. “Where would you put the strip?”
Charlie pointed to the inside layer, fingers hovering, not grabbing. “Just here. Along the closure line. It won’t show. It would stop it from tearing again.”
Mara stared at him for a beat longer than necessary. Then:
“Do it.”
Charlie let out a breath. Reaching for the drawer, he selected a strip of fabric, measured it twice before cutting once. His movements were economical, careful in a way that made you trust him without having to decide to. Mara watched him for a few minutes, then spoke, this time to the room, rather than to him.
“This is how you sew,” she said, sharply, as if instructing an invisible class. “Not with fear. Not with speed. With respect.”
I kept my eyes on the rails, but the words settled in my chest. Not just about thread. About everything.
A little while later, Mara brought over a small tin and set it down near Charlie’s elbow.
“Needles,” she said. “Choose the right one.”
Charlie glanced at the tin, then at the fabric, then back. He picked a needle that matched the weight — neither too fine nor too thick — and threaded it on the first try. His hands didn’t shake.
Mara noticed. Of course she did.
“Do you sew at home?”
Charlie’s mouth tightened. “Sometimes.”
“Who taught you?”
Charlie hesitated. “My mum. She... she does alterations sometimes. For neighbours. For a bit of pin money.”
Mara’s gaze softened by half a millimetre — so little you could miss it if you weren’t watching for it.
“Right, then,” she murmured. “So you know what this line of work is about.”
Charlie didn’t answer, because people like him didn’t know how to accept a statement like that without turning it into an apology. Mara didn’t give him the chance. She tapped the table.
“When you’re finished, you’ll bring it to me. And if it’s still puckered, you’ll unpick it again.”
“Okay.”
No sulk. No protest. Just work.
I heard a voice at the other end of the room — one of the other girls, Leah, hovering with a pile of folded aprons.
“Mara,” Leah said cautiously, eyes darting to Charlie and away again. “Is... is he -”
Mara didn’t look up. “He’s working.”
Leah’s mouth opened, then shut. She glanced at me, searching for cues. I gave her none. Mara looked up then, and her gaze pinned Leah the way a pin fixes fabric: precise, inescapable.
“Do you have a problem with someone doing their job?”
Leah flushed. “No.”
“Good.” Mara’s voice was mild, which made it more dangerous. “Then focus on yours.”
Leah scuttled away like a mouse escaping a cat. Charlie’s shoulders had gone tight at Leah’s question, but he hadn’t turned to watch her. He hadn’t sought sympathy. He kept stitching, eyes on the line, as if the only safe place in the world was the next correct stitch.
That was... telling. And, in a strange way, promising.
A while later, Mara moved to the far side of the room and pulled a curtain partway across a doorway. Behind it was the fitting area — a small section partitioned off from the main space. Not hidden, exactly. Controlled. She spoke without raising her voice.“Rossignol.”
Charlie looked up immediately. “Yes?”
“Stop what you're doing,” Mara said. “and bring me the dress.”
Charlie set the needle down exactly where it belonged, smoothed the thread, and carried the dress over with both hands as if it could bruise. Mara took it, examined the seam with her fingertips, turned it inside-out, then right side out again. She tugged lightly near the closure.
The seam held. It lay flat. It looked as if it had never been damaged.
Mara did not smile. But she nodded once.
“Acceptable.”
Charlie’s breath stuttered, then steadied again. He didn’t glow. He didn’t grin. He simply stood there, waiting for the next instruction like someone who didn’t trust praise to survive sudden movement. Mara looked at him.
Not the dress. Him.
“What happens if you make a mistake in here?”
Charlie blinked. “I... I fix it.”
Mara’s eyes narrowed. “And if you can’t fix it?”
“I tell you,” he said quickly. “Straight-away.”
“And if you don’t tell me?”
Charlie swallowed. “Then I’m... out.”
Mara leaned slightly closer. Her voice dropped, not to intimidate but to make the next part land.
“Yes,” she said firmly. “You’re out. This room stays safe because we keep it that way. By being truthful.”
Charlie’s eyes widened a fraction — as if the word safe had been unexpected, as if he’d assumed the rules were only about fabric. Mara held his gaze.
“Do you understand me?”
“Yes.”
Mara straightened. “Good.”
She turned her head slightly. “Celeste.”
I looked over.
“Show him the inventory shelf,” Mara said. “Then you go back to rails. He's not to follow you. You point. He listens. You don’t chat.”
I nodded. “Come on,” I said to Charlie.
Charlie glanced at Mara as if to confirm he was allowed to move, then followed me at a respectful distance — not crowding, not trying to be close. I stopped at the shelves and pointed out the labelled boxes: hooks, pins, tapes, ribbons, boning, eyelets. I kept my voice low and factual. Not teaching. Not nurturing. Just orienting. Charlie’s eyes tracked everything. He didn’t touch unless he was told. He was absorbing the room the way he absorbed my instructions in the toilets: as if someone giving him structure was a form of oxygen.
When I finished, I stepped back.“That’s it.”
He nodded once. “Okay.” And then, because he couldn’t help it, because his brain was precise and his honesty was inconvenient, he asked, quietly: “Does she... hate me?”
His voice was steady, calm. He was data-gathering. I kept my face neutral.
“Mara doesn’t hate people,” I said. “She hates time-wasting.”
His shoulders loosened a fraction, as if he’d been holding his breath since he walked in.
“Right.”
Mara called across the room again. “Rossignol.”
Charlie turned instantly. “Yes.”
“Pins,” Mara said. “Sort by size. If you mix them, I’ll know.”
Charlie moved without hesitation, took the tin, and began to sort, methodical and silent. I went back to the rails.
Wardrobe resumed its normal rhythm around him, as if the room had tested him and decided — provisionally — that he was not a contaminant. After another half hour, Mara’s voice cut through the steady hiss of steam.
“Rossignol.”
Charlie looked up.
Mara’s eyes held him. “Come back tomorrow at seven-thirty.”
Charlie went still.
“Tomorrow?” he repeated, as if the word had weight.
Mara lifted an eyebrow. “If you want.”
Charlie swallowed. He glanced down at his hands, then up again. The choice was there, hanging between them like a garment on a hook.
“I do. Want.”
Mara’s gaze didn’t soften, but something in her posture eased — like a seam that had finally stopped fighting.
“Good. Don’t be late.”
“I won’t.”
Mara turned away as if an important matter had been settled. Which, it had. She’d tested him. And, for the first time in a long time, he hadn’t been found wanting.
Scene 3¶
Wardrobe¶
[Publish]
Scene 3 ✨ ✨
✨ First Day ✨ Charlie arrived ten minutes early. I watched as he stood outside Wardrobe like it was a church he wasn’t sure he was allowed to enter. He didn’t pace. There was no phone in his hand. He didn’t look around for someone to rescue him from the act of being in a wait-state. He just waited, folded scrap of paper in one hand, fingers worrying the edge until it softened. Every now and then he glanced at the door — not to check whether it was locked, but to check whether the world had changed its mind.
Inside, Wardrobe moved the way it always did: rails clacking softly as garments were shifted, the steamer hissing like a restrained animal, the constant quiet conversation between fabric and hands.
Mara spotted him through the small window in the door. She didn’t react. She never reacted, not visibly. She finished what she was doing — pinning a waistband to a mannequin, smoothing the fabric as if it were skin — then wiped her hands on a cloth and nodded toward me without looking.
“Open it.”
I was tempted to step forward, to say something that would make it easier for him, but Mara’s voice from yesterday was still in my ears: You don’t chase him. You don’t sell Wardrobe like a lifeline. I opened the door and stood aside. Charlie’s gaze snapped to mine the moment the door moved. He stepped forward, then stopped, like he didn’t trust his feet.
“You’re early.” It came out neutral, the way you’d say it’s Tuesday.
“I... I didn’t want to be late.”
“Good. Come in.”
He crossed the threshold with the carefulness of someone entering a room that might decide to reject him. Mara didn’t greet him. She didn’t smile. She didn’t soften. She looked at him the way she looked at a bodice seam — assessing the integrity.
“Rossignol.”
Charlie froze slightly. “Yes.”
Mara’s eyes dropped to his hands. “Clean?”
He looked down as if he’d forgotten hands were visible, then held them out like a child might do, palms up, fingers splayed. They were clean, nails were trimmed short. The skin at the fingertips was slightly rough.
“Good.” Mara turned away, as if a test had been passed. “Shut the door.”
He did so, quietly.
Mara walked to the centre table and picked up a garment bag. She unzipped it with a brisk motion and slid a dress out: not a grand gown but a simple working dress in sturdy fabric, with a seam splitting near the side closure. The tear was held together with hurried, ugly stitches. Mara tossed it onto the table.
“This came in yesterday. A tourist sat down too hard. Someone panicked and tried to fix it.” She tapped the seam with one finger. “Have a look at that.”
Charlie leaned in, careful not to touch until he was sure he was allowed. His eyes did what his eyes always did when something made sense: they became steady.
“The tension’s wrong,” he said, quietly. “It’s pulling.”
Mara’s gaze flicked to him. “Why?”
“They stitched too tight,” he replied seriously. “And they didn’t match the grain. The fabric’s fighting.”
Mara moved to the next question. “So, what do you do?”
Charlie swallowed. “Unpick it. Start again.”
“Do it.”
He hesitated. “With... a seam ripper?”
Mara’s mouth tightened. “It’s called a lame.”
Charlie blinked. “Right. Sorry. A —”
“Don’t apologise,” Mara said dismissively. “Just learn.”
He nodded. Not a performative nod: acceptance. Mara pointed at the far end of the table.
“You can sit just there. Tools are in the tin. Thread is in the drawer. If you use something, put it back when you're done. If you break something, you tell me straight-away. If you don’t know, ask. Once. And remember the answer.”
Charlie’s jaw moved, like he was swallowing fear. “Okay.”
Mara’s eyes slid to me. “Celeste.”
I looked up.
“You’re on rails and pins. Not him.” Her tone left no space for negotiation. “Do not hover. Do not translate. You have your own work.”
“Understood.”
Charlie’s gaze flicked to me: quick, nervous. The look I gave him spoke only of the simple fact of my presence in the room. I turned away and went to the rails, where a cluster of garments waited like quiet accusations. Wardrobe did not stop for anyone’s nerves. Behind me, I heard the soft, careful sound of Charlie taking the lame in hand. A pause. Then the tiny snap of thread giving way.
Mara moved around the room as he worked, doing her usual circuit: checking labels, touching fabric, straightening hangers. But her attention had shifted. It wasn’t on the dress.
It was on him.
Not his body or the shape of him: his behaviour. He didn’t hunch over the work like a guilty child. He didn’t look around to see who was watching. He unpicked steadily, patiently, lifting each tight stitch and easing it out as if he was undoing a mistake without punishing the fabric for it.
That, I realised, was what Mara was looking for. Not skill alone. Temperament. After a few minutes, Mara stopped behind him.
“Why are you going so slowly?”
Charlie’s shoulders tightened, but he didn’t flinch away. He looked up briefly, then back down at the seam.
“Because if I do it quickly, I might tear the fabric.”
Mara’s voice was flat. “And if you tear the fabric?”
“I’ll have to patch it.” He hesitated, then added, like a confession. “And a patch will show.”
Mara’s eyes narrowed slightly. “And you don’t want it to show.”
“No, I don't.” Simple fact.
Mara walked away again, as if that answer had been a key turning in a lock.
I pinned a label to a garment bag and listened with half my mind, the way you listen to rain on a roof — constant, background, meaningful. Charlie’s tools made small sounds: metal clicking, thread whispering. His breathing stayed even. After he’d unpicked the seam completely, he didn’t immediately reach for thread. He smoothed the fabric with his palm, slow and light, as if calming it. Then he looked up and spoke, voice soft but clear.
“Mara?”
Mara’s head turned. “Yes.”
He held up the dress slightly. “The original seam allowance is... narrow. If I stitch it the way it is, it’ll hold, but it will be under stress. If I reinforce it from the inside with a strip of fabric, like a facing. then that strip will take the load.”
Mara walked over to have a look. He indicated the seam in the air above the fabric, precise and respectful, as if the dress itself deserved dignity. Mara’s eyes sharpened. “Where would you put the strip?”
Charlie pointed to the inside layer, fingers hovering, not grabbing. “Just here. Along the closure line. It won’t show. It would stop it from tearing again.”
Mara stared at him for a beat longer than necessary.
“Do it.”
Charlie let out a breath. Reaching for the drawer, he selected a strip of fabric, measured it twice before cutting once. His movements were economical, careful in a way that made you trust him without having to decide to. Mara watched him for a few minutes, then spoke, this time to the room, rather than to him.
“This is how you sew,” she declared sharply, as if instructing an invisible class. “Not with fear or speed. With respect.”
I kept my eyes on the rails, but the words settled in my chest. This was not just about thread. but about everything. A little while later, Mara brought over a small tin and set it down near Charlie’s elbow.
“Needles,” she said. “Choose the right one.”
Charlie glanced at the tin, then at the fabric, then back. He picked a needle that matched the weight — neither too fine nor too thick — and threaded it on the first try.
His hands didn’t shake. Mara noticed. Of course she did.
“Do you sew at home?”
Charlie’s mouth tightened. “Sometimes.”
“Who taught you?”
Charlie hesitated. “My mum. She... she does alterations sometimes. For neighbours, for a bit of pin money.”
Mara’s gaze softened by half a millimetre — so little you could miss it if you weren’t watching for it.
“Right, then,” she murmured. “So you know what this line of work is about.”
Charlie didn’t answer, because people like him didn’t know how to accept a statement like that without turning it into an apology. Mara didn’t give him the chance. She tapped the table.
“When you’re finished, you’ll bring it to me. And if it’s still puckered, you’ll unpick it again.”
“Okay.”
I heard a voice at the other end of the room — one of the other girls, Lucy, hovering with a pile of folded aprons.
“Mara,” Lucy said cautiously, eyes darting to Charlie and away again. “Is... is he-”
Mara didn’t look up. “He’s working.”
Lucy’s mouth opened, then shut. She glanced at me, searching for cues. I gave her none. Mara looked up then, and her gaze pinned Leah the way a pin fixes fabric: precise, inescapable.
“Do you have a problem with someone working?”
Lucy flushed. “No.”
“Good.” Mara’s voice was mild, which made it more dangerous. “Then focus on yours.”
Lucy scuttled away like a mouse escaping a cat. Charlie’s shoulders had gone tight at Lucy’s question, but he hadn’t turned to watch her. He hadn’t sought sympathy. He kept stitching, eyes on the line, as if the only safe place in the world was the next correct stitch.
That was... telling. And, in a strange way, promising.
A while later, Mara moved to the far side of the room and pulled a curtain partway across a doorway. Behind it was the fitting area — a small section partitioned off from the main space. Not hidden, exactly. Controlled. She spoke without raising her voice.
“Rossignol.”
Charlie looked up immediately. “Yes?”
“Stop what you're doing,” Mara said. “and bring me the dress.”
Charlie set the needle down exactly where it belonged, smoothed the thread, and carried the dress over with both hands as if it could bruise. Mara took it, examined the seam with her fingertips, turned it inside-out, then right side out again. She tugged lightly near the closure.
The seam held. It lay flat. It looked as if it had never been damaged. Mara did not smile.
But she nodded. Once.
“Acceptable.”
Charlie’s breath stuttered, then steadied again. He didn’t glow. He didn’t grin. He simply stood there, waiting for the next instruction like someone who didn’t trust praise to survive sudden movement.
Mara looked at him. Not the dress. Him.
“What happens if you make a mistake in here?”
Charlie blinked. “I... I fix it.”
Mara’s eyes narrowed. “And if you can’t fix it?”
“I tell you,” he said quickly. “Straight-away.”
“And if you don’t tell me?”
Charlie swallowed. “Then I’m... out.”
Mara leaned slightly closer. Her voice dropped, not to intimidate but to make the next part land.
“Yes,” she said firmly. “You’re out. This room stays safe because we keep it that way. By being truthful.”
Charlie’s eyes widened a fraction — as if the word safe had been unexpected, as if he’d assumed the rules were only about fabric. Mara held his gaze.
“Do you understand me?”
“Yes.”
Mara straightened. “Good.” She turned her head slightly. “Celeste.”
I looked over.
“Show him the inventory shelf,” Mara said. “Then you go back to rails. He's not to follow you. You point. He listens. You don’t chat.”
I nodded. “Come on,” I said to Charlie.
Charlie glanced at Mara as if to confirm he was allowed to move, then followed me at a respectful distance — not crowding, not trying to be close. I stopped at the shelves and pointed out the labelled boxes: hooks, pins, tapes, ribbons, boning, eyelets. I kept my voice low and factual. Not teaching or nurturing: orienting. Charlie’s eyes tracked everything. He didn’t touch unless he was told. He was absorbing the room the way he absorbed my instructions in the toilets: as if someone giving him structure was a form of oxygen. When I finished, I stepped back.
“That’s it.”
“Okay.” And then, because he couldn’t help it, because his brain was precise and his honesty was inconvenient, he asked, quietly: “Does she... hate me?”
His voice was steady, calm. He was data-gathering. I kept my face neutral.
“Mara doesn’t hate people,” I said. “She hates time-wasting.”
His shoulders loosened a fraction, as if he’d been holding his breath since he walked in.
“Right.”
Mara called across the room again. “Rossignol.”
Charlie turned instantly. “Yes.”
“Pins,” Mara said. “Sort by size. If you mix them, I’ll know.”
Charlie moved without hesitation, took the tin, and began to sort, methodical and silent. I went back to the rails.
Wardrobe resumed its normal rhythm around him, as if the room had tested him and decided — provisionally — that he was not a contaminant. After another half hour, Mara’s voice cut through the steady hiss of steam.
“Rossignol.”
Charlie looked up.
Mara’s eyes held him. “Come back tomorrow at seven-thirty.”
Charlie went still.
“Tomorrow?” he repeated, as if the word had weight.
Mara lifted an eyebrow. “If you want.”
Charlie swallowed. He glanced down at his hands, then up again. The choice was there, hanging between them like a garment on a hook.
“I do. I want to.”
Mara’s gaze didn’t soften, but something in her posture eased — like a seam that had finally stopped fighting.
“Good. Don’t be late.”
“I won’t.”
Mara turned away as if an important matter had been settled. Which, it had: she had tested him.
And, for the first time in a long time, he hadn’t been found wanting.