Scene 19¶
Scene 5¶
✨ Second Day ✨¶
[Publish]
Scene 5 ✨ Second Day ✨
[Celeste POV]
Scene 19¶
“The Numbers”¶
(Celeste POV)
Mara didn’t call a meeting. She called me to the cutting table the way she called anyone: with a hand gesture that assumed you’d come, and a tone that didn’t waste time making you feel chosen.
“Bring the ledger.”
Lauren was already there, sleeves rolled up, a pencil behind her ear like she’d been born with it there. She had a small stack of papers in front of her: printed emails, order confirmations, a delivery docket stamped in red. On top sat a single sheet covered in neat columns, the kind of handwriting that made maths look like it had manners. Charlie hovered at the edge of the table, not in the old apologetic way, but like a technician waiting for his next specification. Sarah sat on a stool, arms folded, expression guarded as if she didn’t want to be caught caring.
Mara tapped the stack of papers with two fingers.
“Museum wants another run,” she said. “More sizes. More units.”
Lauren didn’t smile. She rarely did when the stakes went up. She simply slid the top sheet toward Mara.
“And they want delivery dates,” Lauren added. “Not just ‘when it’s ready.’”
Mara’s eyes flicked over the page. She didn’t read like a person, but like a machine checking tolerances.
“How many?”
Lauren didn’t even glance at the page.
“Thirty-six,” she said. “This batch. With a follow-on option if the first run sells through.”
Sarah let out a low whistle despite herself.
“Thirty-six,” she repeated. “That’s not... boutique.”
“No,” Mara said. “That’s work.”
She looked at me then, and I felt the shift: the moment when a room stops being a room and becomes an organism.
“Open the ledger.”
I did. It fell open to pages that had started to look less like notes and more like proof: neat headings, repeated fields, signatures. Charlie’s handwriting, increasingly steady. Mara’s marginal corrections. The blunt, unwavering language of process. Mara pointed to the most recent entries.
“How many prototypes did we run last week?”
Charlie answered before I could.
“Eleven,” he said. “Across the three body types. One full redo on the ‘well-nourished’ block. Two seam-finish changes. And... and the underarm guard adjustment.”
He said it coutiously but clearly, like someone knew his facts. Sequence. Outcome.
Mara nodded, and pointed at Lauren’s sheet.
“And how many finished garments left the building?”
Lauren’s pencil tapped the paper. “Nine.”
Charlie blinked. “Only nine?”
Lauren turned her head slightly toward him. Her voice stayed warm, but it didn’t soften the truth.
“Nine finished garments,” she said, “is nine more than most people manage without a system.”
Mara watched Charlie absorb that. She understood his disappointment. It was to become useful.
“Here’s the problem,” Mara said, and drew a rectangle on the paper with her pencil. A plain box. No drama. “Prototype time competes with production time.”
Sarah rolled her eyes and shrugged. “So you hire someone.”
Mara’s gaze cut to her.
“With what money?”
Sarah opened her mouth, then shut it. She hated the way reality closed doors. The difference was, Mara used doors as hinges.
Lauren slid another sheet forward. This one looked uglier: spreadsheets always do when they tell the truth.
“Mara asked me to tally costs,” Lauren said. “Materials. Hardware. Labour. Waste. The things you forget to count when you’re still pretending you’re just making pretty things.”
Mara’s mouth tightened. Lauren continued, calm.
“We’re profitable on small runs. We’re interesting on larger ones. But only if we stop bleeding time.”
Charlie stared at the sheets as if they were an unfamiliar language.
Mara pointed to him without looking.
“Read the bottom line.”
Charlie leaned in, eyes wide.
“It says...” he swallowed. “It says if we do thirty-six without changing anything, we’ll...” He paused.
“We’ll be exhausted,” Lauren cut in, interpreting what she knew Charlie was unable to say.
Sarah snorted. “Welcome to womanhood.”
Mara’s eyes flicked to her. Not warning this time. Just enough. Mara returned to Charlie.
“So, what do we change?”
Charlie stared at the numbers. His mind tried to make them into fabric.
Lauren, gently: “Speak like the ledger.”
Charlie swallowed.
“We could... reduce prototype cycles,” he said slowly, “and standardise... more of the steps. Templates. Hardware packs. Cutting order.” His eyes lifted, cautious. “Scheduling.”
Mara nodded.
“There,” she said. “That’s the shape of it.”
Then she looked at me.
“Celeste,” Mara said. “You can see it.”
It wasn’t a question. It was an assignment.
I did see it. I could feel my mind doing its favourite thing: taking chaos and trying to compress it into something repeatable. I loved the atelier for its craft, but what I loved more, what I almost didn’t dare admit, was the feeling you got when a system snapped into place and suddenly the world behaved. Lauren watched my face and gave a small, private smile, as if she was encouraging me to say it out loud.
“What do you see?”
I hesitated, then gave it to them straight.
“We need operations,” I said. “Not vibes. Not heroics. Operations.”
Sarah blinked. “Operations.”
“Yes,” I replied. “Inventory. Vendor schedules. Production planning. QA in a way that doesn’t depend on Mara being in three places at once.”
Mara’s eyes stayed on mine. She didn’t smile, but I felt the pressure ease a fraction, as if she’d been carrying something alone and had just heard someone offer to pick up a corner.
Lauren leaned on the table.
“And if we do that,” she said, warm, almost conversational, “we’re not just making garments, we’re building a business.”
A business.
I watched Charlie stare at the papers. I was pretty sure the thought was creating a picture in his head: 'money, security... and I can provide this'. The old script, reaching for purchase.
Mara addressed the room.
“Wardrobe is already a business,” she said. “The only question is whether we run it, or it runs us.”
Silence settled, clean, not tense. Lauren broke it, the way she always did: by turning the moment into something you could actually do.
“Okay,” she said, brisk warmth. “Decisions. Do we accept the museum run?”
Mara’s answer was immediate.
“Yes.”
Sarah huffed. “Of course.”
Charlie looked up. “Can we... can we do it?”
Mara’s gaze went to him, steady.
“We can,” she said. “If we stop pretending labour is infinite.”
Then Mara turned to me again, eyebrows raised.
“You want to go back to school.”
The sentence landed with a peculiar precision, like a pin going through fabric. It wasn't a guess: it was something she’d observed and filed away as a constraint, the same way she filed away that a seam was rolling or a tie point was anchoring too much load.
I felt my face heat.
“Yes,” I said. “Uni. MBA. Or at least the pathway to it.”
Sarah lifted a brow. “You? Business?”
I met her gaze. “Yes.”
Mara didn’t let Sarah’s surprise take oxygen.
Mara looked at the numbers again. Then at me.
“I don’t want a 'business bro',” Mara said. “I want someone who understands this work and can make it survive growth.”
She tapped the ledger.
“You understand our standards,” she said. “You understand our policies. And you’re already thinking in systems.”
Mara tone went flat, as it did when she was being blunt.
“We don’t have the money to send you.”
There it was. The real wall. Not fear. Not doubt. Tuition. My annoyance sharpened, clean as a blade, but I tamped it down.
“I can run circles around most people in a classroom,” I said softly. “I can’t run circles around fees.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Charlie’s head snap up. He didn’t speak: he didn't have to. It was as obvious as thunder after lightning: his instinctive surge of devotion, the script trying to present itself as solution. I can fix this. I can provide.
Lauren saw it too. Her warmth didn’t vanish: it turned into guardrails. She looked at Mara, not at Charlie.
“Then we do what we do,” Lauren said. “We solve it like adults.”
Mara’s eyes narrowed, attentive. Lauren tapped the papers.
“We accept the museum run,” she said. “We price it properly. We track time properly. We stop doing invisible labour. And, we set up a fund: transparent, written, agreed.”
Sarah's head cocked to one side. “A fund.”
Lauren nodded. “Education. Operations. Whatever you want to call it. But it doesn’t happen on hints and hope.”
Mara’s gaze stayed on Lauren for a long second. Then, a single nod.
“Write it.”
Lauren’s pencil moved.
Charlie stared at the page, his face expressionless. Mara glanced at him: not unkindly nor indulgently. Factual.
“And nobody,” Mara said, “gets to mistake money for authority in this room.”
Charlie continued to stare at the page. Finally, he swallowed. “No.”
Mara didn’t accept promises. She accepted behaviour. She tapped the ledger.
“Good,” she said. “Then we proceed.”
Lauren pushed a clean sheet toward me.
“Start with what you want,” she said, voice warm again. “In numbers. Fees. Timeline. Units.”
I picked up the pen.
This was what the atelier did when it wanted something real. It wrote it down, and made it measurable. Outside, the Faire carried on, loud and theatrical and full of people telling stories about themselves.
Inside, at the cutting table, we began building one that would hold.
Yes. This is very close to publish-ready, Robyn — and it’s doing the job Scene 19 needs to do: convert “we’re good at garments” into “we’re becoming a governed organism.” It also keeps the Wardrobe ethos intact: no melodrama, no rescue narratives, standards over sentiment, women steering the room.
What I’d adjust is mostly clarity + cadence + a few voice inconsistencies (and a couple typos). Right now it occasionally slips into (a) slightly over-explained interior inference about Charlie, and (b) one or two lines that feel a hair too “writerly” for Mara/Lauren’s blunt economy.
Below: (1) quick notes, then (2) a tightened copy-edit you can paste in as a replacement draft.
1) Notes (surgical)¶
A. The scene’s spine is strong — don’t dilute it¶
Your best through-line is: numbers → constraint → system → governance → education fund → boundary (“money isn’t authority”). That’s great.
B. Keep Charlie present, but don’t over-narrate him¶
You already do this well with “technician waiting for his next specification.” The later paragraph:
I was pretty sure the thought was creating a picture in his head... the old script...
...is the only bit that risks feeling like Celeste mind-reading rather than observing. You can keep the thematic point, but ground it in what she sees (posture, breath, micro-reaction) rather than “I’m pretty sure...”
C. Mara’s voice: fewer metaphors, more tolerances¶
You’ve nailed “machine checking tolerances.” After that, keep her lines brutally concrete. She wouldn’t say “I don’t want a business bro” unless you’ve seeded that phrase in her mouth earlier. She would say the concept, but plainer: “No consultants. No bullshit. Someone who understands the work.”
D. One typo + one miscue¶
- “coutiously” → cautiously
- “It a guess” → It wasn’t a guess
E. Sarah’s “Welcome to womanhood”¶
It’s funny, and it fits Sarah, but it also risks turning the moment into a wink at the audience. If you want it, keep it—but let Mara shut it down with pure policy energy, not “enough.” (You can still do “enough,” but make it feel like a boundary, not a vibe.)
Scene 19¶
✨ The Numbers ✨¶
[Publish]
2) Copy-edited / tightened draft (your scene, same beats, cleaner signal)
Scene 19 — ✨ The Numbers ✨ (Celeste POV)
Scene 19 ✨ The Numbers ✨
[Celeste POV]
Mara didn’t call a meeting. She called me to the cutting table the way she called anyone: a hand gesture that assumed you’d come, and a tone that didn’t waste time making you feel chosen.
“Bring the ledger.”
Lauren was already there, sleeves rolled up, pencil behind her ear like it had grown there. In front of her: printed emails, order confirmations, a delivery docket stamped in red. On top sat a single sheet covered in neat columns: the kind of handwriting that made maths look like it had manners. Charlie hovered at the edge of the table, like a technician waiting for his next specification.
Sarah sat on a stool with her arms folded, expression guarded, as if she didn’t want to be caught caring.
Mara tapped the stack of papers with two fingers.
“Museum wants another run,” she said. “More sizes. More units.”
Lauren slid the top sheet toward her.
“And they want delivery dates,” Lauren added. “Not just ‘when it’s ready.’”
Mara’s eyes flicked over the page. She didn’t read like a person, more like a machine checking tolerances.
“How many?”
Lauren didn’t even glance down.
“Thirty-six,” she said. “This batch. With a follow-on option if the first run sells through.”
Sarah let out a low whistle.
“Thirty-six,” she repeated. “That’s not... boutique.”
“No,” Mara said. “That’s work.”
She looked at me, and the room shifted... the moment when it stops being a room and starts being an organism.
“Open the ledger.”
I did. It fell open to pages that had started to look less like notes and more like proof: headings, repeated fields, signatures. Charlie’s handwriting, increasingly steady. Mara’s marginal corrections. The blunt, unwavering language of process. Mara pointed to the most recent entries.
“How many prototypes did we run last week?”
Charlie answered before I could.
“Eleven,” he answered, “across three body types. One full redo on the ‘well-nourished’ block. Two seam-finish changes. And... the underarm guard adjustment.”
He said it cautiously but clearly. Facts. Sequence. Outcome. Mara nodded, then pointed at Lauren’s sheet.
“And how many finished garments left the building?”
Lauren’s pencil tapped the paper once. “Nine.”
Charlie blinked. “Only nine?”
Lauren turned her head slightly toward him. Her voice stayed warm, but it didn’t soften the facts.
“Nine finished garments,” she said, “is nine more than most people manage without a system.”
Mara watched him absorb that. She understood disappointment, didn’t soothe it. She used it.
“Here’s the problem,” Mara said, and drew a rectangle on the paper with her pencil. A plain box. No drama. “Prototype time competes with production time.”
Sarah shrugged. “So you hire someone.”
Mara’s gaze cut to her.
“With what money?”
Sarah opened her mouth, then shut it. She hated the way reality closed doors.
Mara treated doors as hinges.
Lauren slid another sheet forward. This one looked uglier: spreadsheets always do when they tell the truth.
“Mara asked me to tally costs,” Lauren said. “Materials. Hardware. Labour. Waste. The things you forget to count when you’re still pretending you’re just making pretty things.”
Mara’s mouth tightened.
“We’re profitable on small runs,” Lauren continued. “We’re... interesting on larger ones. But only if we stop bleeding time.”
Charlie stared at the sheets as if they were written in a dialect he’d never learned. His mind tried to turn them into fabric. Mara pointed to him without looking.
“Read the bottom line.”
Charlie leaned in.
“It says...” He swallowed. “It says if we do thirty-six without changing anything, we’ll—” He stopped.
“We’ll be exhausted,” Lauren finished for him, translating what she knew he couldn’t say.
Sarah snorted. “Welcome to womanhood.”
Mara’s eyes flicked to her—clean, flat.
“Colleague,” Sarah muttered, as if the correction cost her. Mara returned to Charlie.
“So. What do we change?”
Charlie stared at the numbers until they stopped being numbers and started being time.
“We could... reduce prototype cycles,” he said slowly, “and standardise more steps. Templates. Hardware packs. Cutting order.” His eyes lifted, cautious. “Scheduling.”
Mara nodded once.
“There,” she said. “That’s the shape of it.”
Then she looked at me.
“Celeste. You can see it.”
It wasn’t a question: it was an assignment. Because, I could see it. I could feel my mind doing its favourite thing: taking chaos and converting it into something usable, repeatable. I loved the atelier for its craft, but what I loved more, what I almost didn’t dare admit, was the relief you got when a system snapped into place and the world started to behave.
Lauren watched my face and gave a small, private smile, as if she was encouraging me to say it out loud.
“What do you see?”
“We need operations,” I said. “Not vibes or heroics. Operations.”
Sarah blinked. “Operations.”
“Yes,” I said. “Inventory. Vendor schedules. Production planning. QA that doesn’t depend on Mara being in three places at once.”
Mara held my gaze. She didn’t smile, but something in the pressure eased a fraction, as if she’d been carrying the whole weight alone and had just heard someone offer to pick up one end of it.
Lauren leaned on the table.
“And if we do that,” she said, warm, almost conversational, “we’re not just making garments. We’re building a business.”
A business. Charlie stared at the papers. His jaw set in a way I’d learned to recognise: resolve, searching for a role. Mara addressed the room.
“Wardrobe is already a business,” she said. “The only question is whether we run it, or it runs us.”
Silence settled. Lauren broke it the way she always did: by turning the moment into something you could act on.
“Okay,” she said. “Decisions. Do we accept the museum run?”
Mara didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
Sarah huffed. “Of course.”
Charlie looked up. “Can we... can we do it?”
Mara’s gaze went to him, steady.
“We can,” she said. “If we stop pretending labour is infinite.” Then she turned to me, her eyebrows raised a tiny fraction. “You want to go back to school.”
The sentence landed with the peculiar precision of a pin going through fabric. It wasn’t a guess: it was something she’d observed and filed away as a constraint. Heat climbed into my face.
“Yes,” I said. “Uni. MBA. Or at least the pathway to it.”
Sarah lifted a brow. “You? Business?”
“Yes.”
Mara didn’t let Sarah’s surprise take oxygen.
“I don’t want an outsider,” Mara said. “I want someone who understands this work and can make it survive growth.” She tapped the ledger. “You understand our standards. You understand our policies. And you’re already thinking in systems.” Then Mara’s tone went flat, the way it did when she refused to romanticise reality.
“We don’t have the money to send you.”
There it was. The real wall. Not fear. Not doubt. Tuition.
“I can run circles around most people in a classroom,” I said quietly. “I can’t run circles around fees.”
In the corner of my eye, Charlie’s head snapped up. He didn’t speak: he didn’t have to. The old script reached for the table like a reflex: I can fix this. I can provide.
Lauren saw it too. Her warmth didn’t vanish, it turned into guardrails. She looked at Mara, not at Charlie.
“Then we do what we do,” Lauren said. “We solve it like adults.”
Mara’s eyes narrowed, attentive. Lauren tapped the papers.
“We accept the museum run. We price it properly. We track time properly. We stop doing invisible labour.” She paused, glancing at me. “And we set up a fund. Transparent. Written. Agreed.”
Sarah’s head cocked. “A fund.”
Lauren nodded. “Education. Operations. Whatever you want to call it. This won't happen on hints and hope.”
Mara held Lauren’s gaze for a long second.
“Write it,” she said finally, with a nod.
Lauren’s pencil moved. Charlie stared at the page, face blank. Mara glanced at him.
“And nobody,” Mara said, “gets to mistake money for authority in this room.”
Charlie swallowed. “No.”
Mara didn’t accept promises, she expected behaviour. She tapped the ledger.
“We proceed.”
Lauren pushed a clean sheet toward me. “Start with what you want,” she said, warm again. “In numbers. Fees. Timeline. Units.”
I picked up the pen. This was what the atelier did when it wanted something real. It wrote it down. It made it measurable.
Outside, the Faire carried on... loud, theatrical, full of people telling stories about themselves.
Inside, at the cutting table, we began building a story that would hold.
If you want, I can also give you two alternate last paragraphs: one slightly more lyrical (to match your earlier Sciamma-adjacent cadence), and one more clipped (to match the “ledger voice” theme).