Luz nodded and held the baby slightly into the air. “Who does it belong to?”
Teresita laughed. “It belongs to Priscilla next door. I’m watching him while she’s at Tikas.”
Before Luz could answer, one of the boy cousins, Antonio, ran by in cowboy boots, a dress shirt, and underpants. No trousers. He forcefully hugged Luz around her waist and then aimed a gun-shaped stick at her face. “Bang. Bang, Lucy Luz.” Another boy cousin, Miguelito, this one younger and less loud, came chasing after Antonio with alligator tears rolling down his cheeks. “He took my stick!”
“Did you take your brother’s stick?” Teresita shouted. “Give him back his stick.”
“Bang. Bang,” Antonio said with a sadistic giggle as he darted into the kitchen in a blur of brown boots.
Teresita looked at Luz. “I’m gonna beat that little shit.”
Lizette appeared at the top of the stairs, her eyes done up with blue shadow and her lips in red. She wore one of her best dresses, blue-finned with capelet sleeves and gray floral details along the hem. She smiled like a pageant queen as she came down the stairs, but paused, scowling, when she saw the baby in Luz’s arms.
“Where’d you get that?” she asked.
Luz shook her head. “He isn’t mine.”
“Well, of course not,” said Teresita, taking the baby from Luz. “I’m watching him.”
Lizette redirected her confusion toward her mother. “But aren’t you coming with us?”
“Sorry, jita. Can’t. These kids are running wild and Priscilla isn’t back yet.”
Lizette’s face dipped into disappointment. She resembled a sad clown as she continued down the staircase. Another one of her brothers, this one named Jesús, came running from behind, pushing Lizette to the side and snickering. “Hope you find a good dress!”
Teresita took off after him, the baby balanced on her left hip, slobbering shiny pools across his arms. “What have I told you about the stairs? Careful, careful,” she said.
Lizette raised her eyebrows at Luz. “Let’s get out of here.”
The dressmaker wasn’t far from Tikas Market. The narrow storefront was nestled between a bakery and a shoe repair. When they walked in that afternoon, Luz felt like she was inside a closet that stretched into an infinite darkness. The shop wasn’t busy, but it was designed as if it could handle a high volume of orders. There were three stations with the newest Singer pedal machines and one four-paneled mirror where Luz imagined brides-to-be stood before their reflections and pictured themselves walking down the aisle, gallantly crying as their fathers gave them away.
Lizette approached the glass counter and hastily rang the silver bell. “Hello, hello,” she said, and after no one answered for a while, she became impatient. “You want our business or not?”
The cousins took seats along the front windows, slumping into lazy postures as they waited. The shop had a stale stench, as if mold grew behind the walls. The lighting was dim and gave the room the sensation of being covered in moss. It was cold near the window, and Luz could feel the fine baby hairs along her neck rise whenever a truck lumbered down the street.
She whispered, “Where did you find this woman?”
Lizette shrugged. She bit at a hangnail on her left pinkie. Droplets of blood appeared on her skin. “The dancers all know about her. She makes their gowns.”
“What dancers?” Luz asked, with suspicion.
“The flamenco dancers. I know people other than you, Luz.”
“I know,” Luz said affectionately. “But what would you do without me?”
Lizette rested her head on Luz’s left shoulder. “Why? Are you running away, joining the circus? I can see the show now. The great Madame Luz, clairvoyant nightingale.”
The dressmaker appeared from a door carrying an oversized spindle of white fabric. She walked with a slight limp, as if sidestepping over a roped bridge. Her red hair was pulled away from her round face with metal butterfly barrettes, and she wore an unattractive sack dress with brown printed flowers. She told them she was Natalya, and she spoke with a thick and musical Russian accent.
“What can I help with, girls?” she said, keeping her eyes lowered to the white fabric.
Lizette stood at the front counter and tapped her fingers on the glass. “I’m getting married, and I’d like you to sew my gown.”
Natalya placed the fabric on a low table behind her, and opened her palm to Lizette. “You have idea? Or pattern? What you have?”
“Here,” said Lizette, pulling the folded pattern from her purse.
Natalya cleared her throat as she took the piece of paper. She maneuvered the chained spectacles up from around her neck and placed them on her face. She moved to examine the pattern in the natural light streaming in through the front windows. “Modified from McCall’s?”
“Vogue,” said Lizette. “I like their recent designs better.”
Luz glanced at the pattern. She was surprised at how well it had come together. Lizette often talked about the dress, a gilded gown, as she called it. She had incorporated the usual style, a slim silk or rayon bodice, but she’d added notes for gold taffeta along the sleeves and collar, accented by pearl buttons. And she’d made a note for a hidden zipper beneath the left sleeve, rather than a more usual placement at the dress’s back.
Natalya returned the pattern to Lizette. She walked in her sidelong way behind the counter and retrieved a leather-bound ledger. She flipped several pages, and then ran her index finger over the sheet. She stopped. “I’ll order the taffeta special from my supplier. It won’t be cheap, and will take two months to arrive. You still want?”
“How much?” Lizette said.
“Hard to say. Five or ten dollars.”
Lizette sighed, and Luz thought of something that Diego once told her. Every sigh is a breath stolen from life. She handed the pattern to Luz. “Honest opinion?”
“It’s a lot of money,” Luz whispered, but then she considered the pattern once more. In her mind, she saw Lizette from behind, wearing a crown of red roses. She saw her turn her chin over her left shoulder, her dark eyelashes fanning downward toward the collar of her exceptional golden gown. Luz could see the dress clearly, fully made and sparkling over her cousin on her wedding day. “But I think you’ll have the dress you want.”
Lizette smiled in a sad way. “I can’t afford it, but thank you for checking.”
Natalya raised her gaze, and for the first time since they had entered the shop, the dressmaker really looked at Lizette. “Who made dress you’re wearing?”
“I did,” said Lizette.
“Where you first see it?”
“I made it up from nothing. Not even a pattern.”
“You know to sew like that?”
“Oh,” said Lizette. “Yes. But it’s nothing like a gown. I’m not that good.”
Natalya walked around Lizette, examining the dress’s woolen fabric, the closed seams and delicate brass buttons. She gently guided Lizette by the left wrist into a column of warm sunlight. She told her to spin around. “A princess seam? That’s very tricky. Who taught you?”