Grace Anne - By Kathi S. Barton Page 0,34

him like he was a kid and she always had something for him to snack on.

“Arnold. He’s my friend and a pain in my ass.” She picked up this sheet of paper with a lot of small pictures on it. “See this? It’s called a contact sheet. I’m supposed to pick one picture out of all these to put on the cover of my catalogue. Why on earth would you need…” He could see her counting. “Fifty-three? He took fifty-three pictures? Christ, why did I… Anyway, he took all these pictures and I’m supposed to pick the best one.”

Trace looked around the little room. It looked like someone had taken a bunch of crayons, melted them down, and poured them all over the walls. He thought maybe it would be something that had to grow on you, as his grandma said, but he wasn’t sure why anyone would want it to. So far as he knew, some of those colors just looked gross together. He looked back at Grace when she cleared her throat.

“You don’t like it, do you?”

He started to nod then shook his head. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but it was really bad.

“I don’t either most of the time. But it’s here to remind me of what I came from.”

“You came from a weird house if that’s how they painted your walls, Miss Grace. It’s sort of sickening.”

He flushed and she laughed before she answered him. “It’s not paint, Trace, but material. It’s all the material scraps that I had with me when I finally had enough money to buy this building. See, I started out just using the leftover pieces to make my designs. I would stay up late at night and sew these small dresses and then think about ways to improve them. Every day I would learn a little more until I was able to present my first design to the previous owner. He loved it and promised me that he’d take it to the next show. He even let me help with the larger design of the dress. It’s that one over there.”

Trace got up and walked to where she pointed. There was a mannequin behind a glass wall and she was dressed in a pretty black and purple dress. Trace didn’t know anything about clothes and less about fashion. If it fit when he tried it on, he figured he looked good. Besides, his dad would have told him if he looked dorky.

“You made this?” He looked back at her when she said yes. “It’s nice. Nothing I think my aunts would wear, but I like it. I bet it looked pretty on you.”

“You’re very kind, and I did wear it. Phillip told me if I wore it on the floor and sold more than a hundred copies of it, he’d take me on as his apprentice.”

Trace looked at the dress again and tried to remember if he’d seen anyone wearing one like it. He couldn’t, but then he didn’t know all that many women. He looked back at her and decided that she’d not sold any if the dopey look on her face was any indication.

“I’m sorry, Miss Grace. I guess you had to work really hard the next time, huh? Is that why you only make underwear here now?”

She grinned at him before answering. “I sold over ten thousand units, Trace. More than any other design he had. And I thought he’d just kick me out of the place, but he said a promise was a promise and helped me design my label.” She stood up and handed him the picture next to the dress. “That’s a copy of the first order we filled. And the amount. I was surprised that he charged so much.” She picked up a magazine next to his chair. “And this is my catalogue that comes out this summer. See the underwear, as you call them? They’re our number one sellers. Pretty underwear is what women want to wear.”

Trace handed her back the catalogue and looked over at the wall again. “You put those scraps on the wall to remind you of the pieces you had to put together in order to make it big then?”

“Very good. Yes, that’s right.” She ruffled his hair and he hugged her. “Not many people get it so quickly if at all.”

He was watching a “set” be put together when he noticed the puppy. It was sitting in the corner all scrunched up in a ball and