Suede to Rest Read Online Free PDF

wasn’t what I’d learned at the Fabric Institute that had landed me the job at To The Nines, it was what I’d learned while growing up surrounded by material. During my interview with Giovanni, I mentioned that I’d learned to identify fabric from the feel of it when I was ten years old. He gave me an impromptu test, handing me a dozen swatches from a stack behind his desk, and I proved my knowledge. It wasn’t until after I started working for him that I learned the swatches of fine fabrics by his desk were for appearance’s sake, and that most of our inventory was as polyester as my name.
    I crossed the concrete floor to the white laminate cutting station, and placed the keys in the drawer below the dusty cash register. A small teal notebook sat in the drawer, the word
Resources
written across the fabric cover in red marker. I hoisted myself up on the flat surface right by where a metal yardstick had been mounted for measuring cuttings of fabric, unwrapped my burger, and paged through the notebook. Someone, probably my great-aunt, Millie, had logged details of various bolts of fabric in the inventory.
Red velvet, Spain, 12 yards. Burgundy georgette, Lyon, 50 yards (slight imperfection at selvage). Assortment of toile, Paris. Bolt of blue silk taffeta, 17 yards, India.
    Additional pages were filled with similar entries. I imagined my relatives visiting exotic countries, purchasing fabrics to sell in the store. What it must have been like for them to run this place together in the late forties, when Christian Dior had shown his New Look to Parisian high society, when ready-to-wear started replacing true couture, when the idea of homemade glamour appealed to women everywhere. My great-aunt and great-uncle had made that dream a reality for women by stocking something better than the kind of cheap poly-satin blends we used to make dresses at To The Nines.
    If I had access to fabrics like these when developing a concept for Giovanni, it would have been a whole different job. Sure, I established the direction our design team would go each season and outsourced the materials to make it happen, but with inexpensive, flammable cuts of fabric that would show wear after one use. I could look at a roll of poly-satin and know exactly what kind of dress it should become. But these fabrics were different. Being in the same room with them, even in what I could only imagine to be damaged condition, was like being on a magic carpet that would take me to another time, another place, another reality.
    I cut a couple of yards from a bolt of royal-blue suede and draped it over the wrap stand like a tablecloth. I leaned over the fabric and ate my burger and most of the fries, then balled up the wax paper, the brown carry-out bag, and tied the blue suede around it like a hobo sack. Fabrics were known to absorb whatever nearby scent lingered in the air, and I didn’t want the place smelling like a fast-food joint. A small plastic bin was nestled under the register, overflowing with fabric scraps and faded pieces of paper. I hopped down from the cutting table, rested the blue bundle on top of the bin, and carried it out back. Outside, it had grown dark. Weird shadows took on distorted forms. I scampered to the Dumpster, lifted the lid, and turned the trash can upside down, shaking out the contents. When I pulled it out and lowered the lid, I saw a strange man watching me from end of the alley.

Three
    He started toward me. I turned around and ran to the back door, tripping over my own feet in the process. I face-planted on the gravel like I had earlier. I scrambled for footing, coughed a few times, and grabbed the doorknob. I glanced behind me to see if the man had gotten closer. He hadn’t. He stood at the end of the alley, silhouetted by headlights from a car idling in the lot behind him. I shut and locked the door behind me, flipped the switches on the control panel to off, and backed away slowly, continuing to