Scene 13 (Rewritten)¶
Absolutely — here’s your typo-corrected / consistency-polished Scene 13 with only the small fixes applied (spelling, ellipsis consistency, quote style, a few paragraph breaks, and optional italics for Celeste’s internal beats). No substantive rewrites.
Scene 13 (Rewritten)¶
[Celeste]
Mara didn’t bring the stays out with ceremony.
She laid the materials on the cutting table the way a surgeon lays out instruments: in plain sight, deliberately spaced, nothing decorative about the order. Canvas folded into a clean rectangle. Linen tape pressed flat. A small bundle of reed boning tied with string. A tin of grommets that looked comically minor for the amount of authority they were about to carry.
Charlie arrived a minute late and tried to apologise with his body: small shoulders, a quick glance, a quietness that wanted to pay for the inconvenience in advance. Mara didn’t accept payment in the form of shrinking.
“Don’t do that,” she said, without looking up.
Charlie froze mid-breath. “Do... what?”
“Arrive like you’re already wrong.” She lifted the canvas and shook it once. The sound was flat and honest. “You’re here. That’s the point. Now, pay attention.”
He stepped closer, careful not to crowd. I watched his gaze take inventory without touching. He was good at that: reading surfaces, anticipating what mattered, trying to solve problems before anyone gave him the chance. Mara didn’t reward pre-emptive heroics. She nodded toward the ledger, still on the table, heavy with a quiet insistence.
“Open it.”
Charlie did, flipping to a clean page as if the paper might bruise. His pen hovered, waiting for permission.
“Title.”
He wrote: STAYS — ATTEMPT 1. Underneath, he added the date without being asked. Mara approved it by continuing.
“These aren’t costume stays,” she said, tapping the canvas with two fingers. “They’re working stays. People keep confusing the two. Costume stays hold a silhouette for a photograph. Working stays hold a person for a day.”
Charlie’s pen moved, quick, neat enough to read. When he wrote, he looked calmer. It was as if structure allowed him to be present without having to perform.
Mara laid out the pattern pieces. Nothing flamboyant — clean shapes that looked simple until you imagined them curved, tightened, forced to behave over bones and breath and movement.
“Your first attempt will fail,” Mara said. She said it the way she might say it will rain on Thursday. Not cruel. Not kind. Just factual.
Charlie blinked. “Is that... normal?”
Mara’s eyes flicked to him. “If someone tells you their first stays were perfect, they’re either lying or they don’t move in them.”
For a moment I saw that old instinct — the urge to vanish so nobody could watch him be imperfect. Mara caught it immediately.
“Charlie.” She said his name like a hand on a shoulder: firm pressure, not comfort. “The garment fails. You document it. We fix it. That’s the work.”
He nodded once. A small, stiff motion. But it was a yes.
Mara slid the chalk toward him.
“Mark your seam allowances. And don’t be stingy. The first mock-up gets room to tell the truth.”
Charlie’s fingers closed around the chalk, and he began.
The workshop was quiet in the good way — scissors snipping, chalk whispering, the soft drag of canvas against the grain of the table. Outside, somewhere beyond the walls, the faire was waking: faint voices, the clink of something metal being unloaded, a distant laugh that didn’t belong to anyone in our room.
In here, it was trade. Mara moved around him, watching without hovering. Every now and then she corrected a hand position with two taps of her knuckles against the table. Once, she stopped him entirely.
“No. Your stitch length is too eager.”
Charlie looked up, confused.
“You’re trying to impress the seam,” Mara said. “The seam doesn’t care about your feelings. It cares whether it holds.”
His ears coloured. He adjusted, shortened his stitch, slowed down. I filed the sentence away because it was Mara in a nutshell: brutally useful.
When the pieces were cut and aligned, Mara gathered the mock-up, folded it once, and pushed it toward him.
“On,” she said. “Over the shirt.”
Charlie’s eyes flicked — not to the curtain rail, not to some imagined private corner — but to the laces in his hands, as if they were a moral problem disguised as a practical one.
“It’s... back lacing,” he said carefully.
Mara’s expression didn’t change. “Of course it is.”
He swallowed. “I can’t—”
“I know,” Mara said, already reaching for the lace. Not impatient. Simply done with pretending the obvious was negotiable. “Stand here.”
She indicated the marked mat beside the table — the one used for checking balance and fall, where garments were judged the way tools are judged. No screen. No hush. No clearing of throats. Just the place where fabric told the truth.
Charlie stepped onto it, shoulders too high, trying not to occupy space.
“Drop your shoulders,” Mara said. “And breathe like a person.”
He obeyed, a fraction at a time.
Mara held the mock-up open and guided it around his torso with the same practical decisiveness she used on a dressform. Her hands didn’t linger; they placed. She checked the centre-front line, smoothed the canvas once to stop it lying, then took up the laces behind him.
“Policy,” Mara said quietly — not to frighten him, not to soothe him. Just to make it real.
Charlie’s jaw tightened. “Door—”
“No,” Mara cut in, and Charlie flinched, thinking he’d said the wrong thing.
Mara’s tone stayed level. “No door theatre. No curtain theatre. This is a workroom, not a confessional.”
She glanced at me, and the look was pure correction. Pay attention. Standards first.
Then, to Charlie: “Here’s the policy. You’ll use it like any other tool.” She nodded toward the ledger.
At the top of the page, in her handwriting, sat the rule in plain language:
POLICY: Fittings for prototype testing are scheduled; privacy maintained; no unscheduled access; documentation is factual; no commentary.
Mara returned to the lacing. “We’re doing a job,” she said. “We’re not doing a story.”
Charlie’s throat moved. He nodded once, eyes fixed on the ledger as if it were a lifeline he could hold with his gaze.
Mara began to lace — not yanking, not cinching, not performing authority. She took up slack in small, even increments, the way you tension rigging: feel, adjust, feel again. The canvas settled. The garment found him.
“Tell me before it hurts,” she said. “Discomfort is data. Pain is failure.”
“Yes,” he managed.
“Don’t give me yes,” Mara said automatically. “Give me locations.”
Charlie let out a breath that sounded like relief disguised as compliance.
Mara made one last pass, then stopped.
“Good enough for a first truth,” she said. She stepped back. “Now move.”
Charlie lifted his arms.
The top edge shifted — flattened cleanly in front, but fighting at the side-back. I watched the pull gather like weather.
“Again,” Mara said. “Higher.”
Charlie raised his arms fully. The left side-back seam took the load and complained at once — a diagonal crease forming from the waist toward the ridge of the shoulder line, not pretty, not dramatic, just wrong.
Mara’s gaze sharpened.
“Reach forward. Like you’re taking something from a shelf.”
Charlie did, and the left waist tie point became an anchor for everything the garment didn’t know how to carry. The canvas creased into a hard line. The lacing tugged. The top edge tried to roll.
Mara didn’t touch him. She didn’t need to. She watched the physics.
“Where.”
Not a question. It was: give me data. Charlie blinked — startled by the demand, then steadied by it.
“Left waist tie,” he said, voice firmer. “It’s taking too much. It feels like everything’s hanging off it.”
“Good,” Mara said immediately, as if accuracy itself was the safety mechanism. “Bend. Like you’re lifting a tray.”
Charlie bent, careful. The top edge rolled — subtle, insidious. The kind of failure a costume could hide for ten minutes and then betray you on day one.
I saw Charlie’s expression flicker — disappointment, and then, almost instantly, relief... as if some part of him had been afraid the garment would behave fine, and he’d be expected to pretend that meant it was fine.
Mara saw it too.
“Write,” she said. “Before your feelings invent a different story.”
Charlie moved to the ledger, pen still in his hand. It trembled once, then steadied as the page gave him rails.
He wrote:
MOVEMENT / STRESS: overhead reach; forward reach; bend/lift simulation FAILURE POINTS: left waist tie load concentration; top edge roll; diagonal crease from left waist toward side-back; seam stress side-back left
Mara watched him write, then leaned in.
“Now,” she said. “Tell me what you think it means.”
Charlie opened his mouth, then shut it. He stared at his own notes as if the paper might supply the answer if he stared hard enough.
“I think the tie point is wrong,” he said finally. “Or not, um, supported enough. It’s acting like an anchor for everything.”
Mara nodded. “Load path. Good. And the roll?”
Charlie frowned, thinking like an engineer again. “The top edge is fighting torque. The tension’s uneven — so the edge curls to accommodate the pull.”
Mara’s eyes flicked to me, not for praise — more like see? this is why we keep it clean. Then back to Charlie.
“And the side-back seam?”
Charlie tapped the paper once. “It’s underbuilt. If it’s going to be working stays, that seam needs to expect repeated bend. Reinforcement, or a different finish. The fabric’s telling us where it wants more structure.”
Mara straightened. “Good.”
Charlie looked up, uncertain, waiting — as he always did — for judgement to arrive disguised as feedback.
It didn’t.
Mara stepped behind him again and began to unlace, quick and methodical, as if removing a tool from a test rig.
“Attempt one has served its purpose,” she said. “Now we do attempt two.”
Charlie’s shoulders sank with the weight of it, and then he lifted them again deliberately, as if choosing not to collapse.
Mara slid a narrow strip of twill tape toward him.
“This goes here.” She pointed to the area he’d described. “Secondary anchor. Spread the load. And we move the tie point.”
“How much?”
Mara shrugged. “Twelve millimetres to start. It’s not magic. It’s iteration.”
Charlie wrote:
FIX APPLIED (PROPOSED): move tie point 12mm; add secondary anchor tape; reinforce side-back seam; adjust top edge binding cut
Mara watched him write the word “proposed.”
“Good,” she said. “That word keeps you honest.”
Charlie’s gaze drifted back to the top of the page — to the policy line. Not to Mara. Not to me. To the rule.
I watched something in his posture ease: not confidence, exactly. Trust. The kind that doesn’t come from being liked, but from knowing the room will behave predictably.
Mara clapped her hands once.
“Right,” she said. “Attempt two starts now.”
Charlie didn’t argue. He didn’t apologise. He picked up the chalk without being told.
“Attempt two,” he said quietly — to himself as much as to anyone.
Mara’s eyes flicked up, and in them was a kind of satisfaction that didn’t need praise.
“Now,” she said, “you’re making stays. Real ones.”
And then, as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world — as if the world had always been designed for women and we were merely returning it to its proper logic — Mara added, already sorting tape and canvas into a new pile:
“Later, we’ll give it a front closure. I’m not building dependence into a work garment.”
Charlie’s pen paused. Finally, he underlined front closure once, neatly, and got back to work.
[Celeste]
Mara didn’t bring the stays out with ceremony.
She laid the materials on the cutting table the way a surgeon lays out instruments: in plain sight, deliberately spaced, nothing decorative about the order. Canvas was folded into a clean rectangle, and the linen tape was pressed flat. A small bundle of reed boning was tied with a string., next to a tin of grommets that looked comically minor for the amount of authority they were about to carry.
Charlie arrived a minute late and tried to apologise with his body: small shoulders, a quick glance, a quietness that wanted to pay for the inconvenience in advance. Mara didn’t accept payment in the form of shrinking.
“Don’t do that.” She didn't look up.
Charlie froze. “Do... what?”
“Stage your arrival like you’re already wrong.” She lifted the canvas and shook it once. The sound was flat and honest. “You’re here now. That’s all that matters. Don't be late next time. Now, pay attention.”
He stepped closer, careful not to crowd. I watched his gaze take inventory without touching anything. He was good at that: reading surfaces, anticipating what mattered, trying to solve problems before anyone asked him to. Mara didn’t reward pre-emptive heroics. She nodded toward the ledger on the table, heavy with a quiet insistence.
“Open it.”
Charlie did, flipping to a clean page gently, ever so gently. His pen hovered, waiting for permission.
“Title.”
He wrote: STAYS — ATTEMPT 1. Underneath, he added the date. Mara approved it by continuing.
“These aren’t costume stays,” she said, tapping the canvas with two fingers. “They’re working stays. People keep confusing the two. Costume stays hold a silhouette for a photograph. Working stays hold a person for a day.”
Charlie’s pen moved, quick, neat enough to read. The longer he wrote, the calmer he looked. Mara laid out the pattern pieces. Their clean shapes looked simple until you imagined them curved, tightened, forced to behave over bones and breath and movement.
“Your first attempt will fail,” Mara said calmly. She said it the way she might say it will rain on Thursday. Coldly factual.
Charlie blinked. “Is that... normal?”
Mara’s eyes flicked to him. “If someone tells you their first stays were perfect, they’re either lying or they don’t move in them.”
For a moment I saw that old instinct: the urge to shrink so nobody could watch him be imperfect. Mara caught it too.
“Charlie.” She said his name like a hand on a shoulder: firm pressure. “The garment fails. You document it. We fix it. That’s the work.”
He nodded: a small, stiff motion. Mara slid the chalk toward him.
“Mark your seam allowances. And don’t be stingy. The first mock-up gets room to tell the truth.”
Charlie’s fingers closed around the chalk, and he began. The workshop was quiet, with busy sounds: scissors snipping, chalk whispering, the soft drag of canvas against the grain of the table. Outside, somewhere beyond the walls, the Faire was waking: faint voices, the clink of something metal being unloaded, a distant laugh. In here, it was trade. Mara moved around him, watching. Every now and then she corrected a hand position with two taps of her knuckles against the table. Once, she stopped him entirely.
“No. Your stitch length is too eager.”
Charlie looked up, confused.
“You’re trying to impress the seam,” Mara said. “The seam doesn’t care about feelings. It cares whether it holds.”
His ears coloured. He adjusted, shortened his stitch, slowed down. I filed the sentence away because it was Mara in a nutshell: brutally useful. When the pieces were cut and aligned, Mara gathered the mock-up, folded it once, and pushed it toward him.
“On it goes,” she said. “Over the t-shirt.”
Charlie’s eyes flicked, not to the curtain rail or some imagined private corner, but to the laces in his hands.
“It’s... back lacing,” he said carefully.
Mara’s expression didn’t change. “Of course it is.”
He swallowed. “I can’t—”
“I know,” Mara said, already reaching for the lace. “Stand here.” She indicated the marked mat beside the table: the one used for checking balance and fall, where garments were judged the way tools are judged. Charlie stepped onto it, shoulders too high, trying not to occupy space.
“Drop your shoulders,” Mara said. “And breathe like a person.”
He obeyed, twitching, a fraction at a time. Mara held the mock-up open and guided it around his torso with the same practical decisiveness she used on a dressform. Her hands didn’t linger; they placed. She checked the centre-front line, smoothed the canvas once, then took up the laces behind him.
“Here’s the policy. You’ll use it like any other tool.” She nodded toward the ledger. At the top of the page, in her handwriting, sat the rule in plain language:
POLICY: Fittings for prototype testing are scheduled; documentation is factual; no commentary.
Mara returned to the lacing. “We’re doing a job, not a story.” Charlie’s throat moved. He nodded once, eyes fixed on the ledger as if it were a lifeline he could hold with his gaze. Mara began to lace: not yanking, not cinching, not exerting authority. She took up slack in small, even increments, the way you tension rigging: feel, adjust, feel again. The canvas settled. The garment found him.
“Tell me before it hurts,” she said. “Discomfort is the data we're after. If there's pain, it has failed.”
“Yes,” he managed.
“Don’t give me yes,” Mara said automatically. “Give me locations.”
Charlie let out a breath that sounded like relief disguised as compliance. Mara made one last pass, then stopped.
“Good. Enough for a first set of facts.” She stepped back. “Now move.”
Charlie lifted his arms. The top edge shifted: it flattened cleanly in front, but was fighting him at the side-back. I watched the pull gather like clouds on the horizon.
“Again,” Mara said. “Higher.”
Charlie raised his arms fully. The left side-back seam took the load and complained at once: a diagonal crease forming from the waist toward the ridge of the shoulder line. It was not dramatic, just wrong. Mara’s gaze sharpened.
“Reach forward. Like you’re taking something from a shelf.”
Charlie did, and the left waist tie point became an anchor for everything the garment didn’t know how to carry. The canvas creased into a hard line. The lacing tugged. The top edge tried to roll. Mara didn’t touch him. She didn’t need to: she was watching physics in motion.
“Where.”
Not a question. Give me data.
“Left waist tie,” he said, voice steady. “It’s taking too much. It feels like everything’s hanging off it.”
“Good,” Mara said, as if accuracy itself was the safety mechanism. “Bend, like you’re lifting a tray.”
Charlie bent carefully. The top edge rolled. This was the kind of failure a costume could hide for ten minutes on a pose session and then betray you on day one of actual wear. I saw Charlie’s expression flicker: disappointment, then relief. There was no pretending the garment was fine: it wasn't. Mara saw his face.
“Write,” she said. “Before your feelings invent a different story.”
Charlie moved to the ledger, pen still in his hand. It trembled slightly, then steadied on the page. He wrote:
MOVEMENT / STRESS: overhead reach; forward reach; bend/lift simulation
FAILURE POINTS: left waist tie load concentration; top edge roll; diagonal crease from left waist toward side-back; seam stress side-back left
Mara watched him write, then leaned in.
“Now,” she said. “Tell me what you think it means.”
Charlie opened his mouth, then shut it. He stared at his own notes as if the paper might supply the answer if he stared hard enough.
“I think the tie point is wrong,” he said finally. “Or not, um, supported enough. It’s acting like an anchor for everything.”
Mara nodded. “Load path. Right. And the roll?”
Charlie frowned, thinking like an engineer. “The top edge is fighting torque. The tension’s uneven, so the edge curls to accommodate the pull.”
“And the side-back seam?”
Charlie tapped the paper once. “It’s underbuilt. If they're going to be working stays, that seam needs to expect repeated bend. Reinforcement, or a different finish. The fabric’s telling us where it wants more structure.”
Mara straightened. “Good.”
Charlie looked up, uncertain, waiting, as he always did, for judgement to arrive disguised as feedback. It didn’t. Mara stepped behind him again and began to unlace, quick and methodical, as if removing a tool from a test rig.
“Attempt one has served its purpose,” she said. “Now we do attempt two.”
Charlie’s shoulders sank at first but then he lifted them again deliberately, as if choosing not to collapse. Mara slid a narrow strip of twill tape toward him.
“This goes here.” She pointed to the area he’d described. “Secondary anchor. Spread the load. We move the tie point.”
“How much?”
Mara shrugged. “Twelve millimetres to start. It’s not magic. It’s iteration.”
Charlie wrote:
FIX APPLIED (PROPOSED): move tie point 12mm; add secondary anchor tape; reinforce side-back seam; adjust top edge binding cut
Mara watched him write the word “proposed” and nodded. Charlie’s gaze drifted back to the top of the page — to the policy line. Not to Mara. Not to me. To the rule. I watched something in his posture ease: not confidence, exactly. Trust. The kind that doesn’t come from being liked, but from knowing the room will behave predictably. Mara clapped her hands once.
“Right,” she said. “Attempt two starts now.”
Charlie didn’t argue. He didn’t apologise. He picked up the chalk without being told.
“Attempt two,” he said quietly to himself.
Mara’s eyes flicked up, and in them was a kind of satisfaction that didn’t need praise.
“Now,” she said, “you’re making stays. Real ones.”
And then, as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world, as if the world had always been designed for women and we were merely returning it to its proper logic, Mara added, already sorting tape and canvas into a new pile:
“Later, we’ll give it a front closure. I’m not building dependence into a work garment.”
Charlie’s pen paused. Finally, he underlined front closure once, neatly, and got back to work.