LOVING YOU BENEATH THE SURFACE

GOLDEN HANDS

Everywhere went silent after a series of short gasps filled the room. Some even covered their mouths as we all stared at the cloth Emerson was holding with horror in his eyes. The short break was shattered by the sound of Anthony’s shoes as he walked past me and approached Emerson with his hands hooked in the air.

“Boy, that cloth is not what I am thinking, right? It’s just something similar that you found somewhere, right?” he questioned, to be sure that he was not seeing things before he knew the next thing to do.

Emerson just stared at him briefly before slowly nodding his head. He let his head give the response instead of his mouth because it was too heavy to utter.

I was still trying to understand what was going on behind Anthony when a piercing scream came through, making me jump. Everyone flew back at the sound of Anthony’s voice, and I was the most shocked because I had never seen him that way.

“What is happening, Anthony?” I spat out, my hands flying to my beating chest.

He turned to me in fury, grabbed the clothes from Emerson and raised it to show me.

“Do you know where I got these fabrics from? The f*****g Philips fabric collection! Do you know how hard to get fabrics from there? Do you know how hard to snag something like this? I had to beg, plead and lobby for this piece you see in my hand, but what? Tattered this way? Tell me why I shouldn’t erupt like a volcano right now?” he bellowed, his nose flinching and his chest rising at the same time.

The shocking expression on my face deepened as he mentioned the Philips Fabric Collection. I knew how hard it was to get fabrics from there because any fabric in that collection is made in batches, which is just one in the whole world. There would never be any fabrics with that pattern, style or color and for him to get a bundle, it meant he already got everything from that batch. Aside the uniqueness, their fabrics are crazily expensive.

My hand crawling down from my mouth slowly, I gasped. It was serious problem and no one needed to tell me that.

“Who is the owner of the clothes?” I started my question from there and he held the edge of the table beside him for a balance because he was getting too livid.

“Princess Fay” he answered.

Another gasp flew out of my mouth. “You mean the daughter of the City King? Ok! This is more serious than I thought” my voice thinned out with each word.

“He paid a fortune for this, and I made sure to make something worthy of his money. The birthday is in two days, so how am I supposed to get something of equal worth? There’s no way I will get any fabrics from The Philips Collection!” he growled, and a slap on the table followed.

“Who is in charge of this cloth?” he thundered, and one of the ladies slowly made her way out

“I am the one, sir” she answered, with a shaky voice.

His teeth tightly gritting each other as he tried to caution his choice of word, he moved closer to close up the distance between them while the lady stumbled back in fear.

“Why is it in this state?” he continued, maintaining the tempo of his voice.

Her head shook left and right as her gaze was fixed on the ground silently. That only angered him the more, and before we could blink, his leg connected with the plastic stool at the table.

“Are you deaf? Do you want me to drum the words into your f*****g ears?” he shouted, and we all shuddered, including the poor girl.

Tears brimming down her cheeks in full force, she raised her head to explain her part as her fingers held each other tightly.

“I don’t know how it ended up this way. You told me to drop it for the pearling yesterday, which I did. I dropped it at Linda’s table for her to work on it and she haven’t come in this morning. I am surprised to see it this way too”, she explained in tears.

It seemed her answer only made matter worse as Anthony screamed again, scaring us totally. One could see that he was pained and annoyed at the situation and, to be honest, who wouldn’t? His job, reputation and everything was on the line. He would lose favor with the King, his friends and every other person that is connected to the King because everyone would hear of his disappointment, which was never intentional.

I knew pointing out the culprit was important, but it was not necessary at that point. Fixing the clothes or looking for alternative was the next step. I stepped forward immediately in their middle and faced Anthony.

“Listen Boss, I know that you are very angry at the moment, but if you will trust your team, we can find something to do about this cloth before time runs out”. I tried persuading him, and he was professional enough to respect my words.

“Kate, the fitting is in two hours. How are we to do anything before two hours?” he responded with a calm voice this time and the redness of his eyes was so obvious.

He was just trying to be strong, he would have burst into tears if he was a lady.

My hands rose and fell as I tried to calm him down. I continued, “Anthony, we have been in worse situation and we handled it. Take a breath, calm down and we will figure this out together. You trust me, right?” I preached.

His voice dragged low “But Kate.. This is different.”

I admitted, “Yes, a different challenge, but guess what? Our team work is stronger.” I pushed harder.

Emerson understood the assignment immediately and stepped forward.

“I’ll be back with a neater version in the next ten minutes” he declared, and I smiled at him with a finger snap.

“Soft wash, no gel or powder detergent, remember yea?” I winked at him, and he made an OK signal with his right hand before disappearing from the room.

Immediately, I stepped forward and placed my hands on Anthony’s shoulders, pushed him slightly to the chair behind him and tapped him to get his seat.

“Your sketch of the original gown?” I asked and he pointed to his system.

He had always given me access to his system, so I didn’t hesitate before I rushed over to search for it. He had the habit of saving every design with the name of the owners, so I didn’t have to sweat before I fished it out among others.

I took my seat and carefully checked out the design. It was more complex than I had thought. It had a lots of join-ins, although it looked simple. He also had to knot some of the fabrics under the big ball in order to hold it firm, which wasn’t a child’s work.

“I understand why he’s going aflame” I muttered under my breath as I thought about what we could do.

Emerson rushed inside with the dried and neat cloth in exactly ten minutes and I didn’t waste any second.

“Clear the table”, I commanded, and everything was set.

We threw the cloth on the table, widespread and all the nets were poked and torn badly, but I didn’t fret.

“Do we have any left over?” I asked and one of them confirmed that there was.

“Bring it over and someone set the graphics on the cutter for the fairyland characters”, I added, and everyone rushed to do one thing or the other.

The fabric was placed under the graphic cutter and within ten minutes, we had a series of fairy characters’ shapes sitting on the table in the bowl. In the meantime, I had already detached the net and, thankfully, the inner fabric was not affected.

I ran tight stitches on the net in a straight line pattern with two inches apart each line throughout the circumference of the net in order to close the torn parts. We attached each character to every spot that had the torn ridges and by the time we were done, no patch was visible anymore.

If anything, I appreciated their calmness and fast hands. At exactly an hour and fifty minutes, we were done with everything and the dress was worn on the mannequin. I had pushed Anthony out of the room, so he wouldn’t die of anxiousness and did my thing. When the result was out, I sent for him and he couldn’t believe his eyes.

The dress he made had taken another turn, but his design was still intact. It was just like we added a finishing touch. He couldn’t close his mouth as he walked closer to see what we had done to the cloth.

“I can’t believe my eyes! I have always known that you are a genius, but this is more than words can describe. How did you even think about this?” he complimented, walking round the dress in a circle.

“We all did it together. We can’t let our boss get in trouble, you know”, I winked at him with a smile and just then the Princess was ushered into the room.

“The Princess is here” one of the employees announced, and we all turned to see her.

“She was supposed to be in the waiting room, but her curiosity couldn’t make her wait a second longer. Please pardon our rudeness”. Her official apologized, but we were less concerned about that, her liking the dress was the main priority.

Anthony was still about to introduce the dress to her and make her feel at home when she brushed past him and ran to the mannequin.

“I don’t care who owns this dress, I will pay you ten times whatever it’s worth if you give it to me” she declared, running around the dress.

We all glanced at one another as we watched her adore the dress from head to toe, not knowing that it was her own dress.

With a warm smile, Anthony announced to her “My Princess, it’s your dress.”

At that moment, she jumped up in excitement, clapping hard with every jump.

“My offer still stands, I will pay you ten times the original price” she giggled and hugged the dress on the mannequin.

“I can’t wait to get dressed in this” she declared and we all breathed in relief.