Tailor Made

Chapter Three

Aria’s first classes were interesting, sure, but she just couldn’t focus on them. Clubs would begin normally starting today, and new members were encouraged to go to the one they signed up for, decide if they enjoyed it, and sign up officially. All Aria had to do was last until 3pm and then she’d be able to run down to the Reilly building and start learning about sewing. And see Chris, said a small voice in her head.

Admittedly the previous night she had trouble getting him out of her head to fall asleep, and had ended up imagining the club mysteriously being empty aside from Chris and her so they could work together on a project, getting to know each other.

Aria didn’t really speak to anyone between her classes of History, Biology and Math, and thankfully the teachers had decided against any of the ‘getting to know you’ games Aria had come to expect in new classes. Half the students knew each other anyway through previous years.

The upside to being quiet was her teachers already thought of her as a model student, coupled with jumping on a few easy questions at the beginning to win their favour, she was able to coast and daydream for the rest of her lessons. Finally classes ended for the day after a study period which seemed to last an eternity, and she was one of the first students out of the door when the bell rang.

Unfortunately Reilly was a fair walk from her class, so by the time she arrived the room was already filled with people. This didn’t stop her from pausing and drinking in the sight though. She was worried it would look frilly and vintage, like a couple of old ladies lived there, but instead it was sleek like an art studio.

In fact, the Couturier’s club was housed in Reilly alongside the Visual Arts club, and Reilly itself seemed to be a giant studio cut in half. The art and fashion studios couldn’t access each other from the inside, but that just made it feel more special and secluded. Between the high ceiling and smooth concrete underfoot, it felt like a huge room.

The draping red velvet curtains were pulled back from the windows at the moment, making the towering square windows visible, which were letting in a dazzling amount of light. One whole side of the studio were ceiling-high cupboards, and when Mathias, Chris’s friend who Aria barely remembered, opened one, she could see rolls upon rolls of fabric stored away. On her left side was a line of about five individual sewing desks, each with a machine on top and a cheerful yellow wheelie-stool. Behind each desk, mounted on the wall, were spools of thread in every colour, small buckets to hold scissors, pens, and measuring tales. There were rulers of every variety: long, short, right-angle triangle, unusually curved.

After the individual desks there was a large bookshelf with predominantly white, red, and orange books. Apparently when books were published on fashion, those were the most common colours. Down the far end of the room were a few large tables with a few chairs circling them, for group projects she guessed. The tools of those tables were instead stored underneath in shelving built in to the table. To the side of those tables was a line of mannequins of all body types and sizes with their measurements printed on their crisp, white forms. Right at the end of the studio, while the rest of the walls had been white, there was a vivid red feature wall which housed bathrooms, and someone had strung a cord of fake roses around the arch of the doors, helping the studio to feel almost magical.

Aria breathed a happy sigh, feeling that finally something was going right.

A voice said from behind her; “Lovely isn’t it? Man, I’ve missed being here. Three months away from this room was too long.” It was Chris, he had just entered the studio from behind and had paused to admire it alongside her. He grinned down at her and said “Come in. If you think it’s amazing to just look at everything, wait until you get to start working in this environment. Elise and I worked pretty hard to get the grant money to fix it up like this.”

“Elise?” Aria asked, her heart sinking slightly. Girlfriend?

“One of the only continuing members besides Mathias and me. She’s excellent, and will be teaching all the new students. She’ll get you up to speed in no time,” Chris explained. He encouraged her inside.

In the studio there was Mathias, as was aforementioned. He was sitting at one of the desks looking through some drawings that seemed to be designs. Two desks down was a slight girl with black hair bent over her work also scribbling a design, with a cheerful looking male student chatting to her. Everyone else in the room was female. This was more what Aria had expected in gender ratios. A group of about five young women were sitting at one of the far tables chatting loudly, to which Chris said, “These ladies all sound like they have a bit of previous experience so I’ll be working with them to figure out where they’re at.” Aria wilted a little at that; her daydreams had been shattered.

Chris led Aria down to the desk where the girl and the guy were chatting, and Aria’s heart jumped when she realised the girl was Nora.

But she was different from normal. She was making appropriate eye contact with the guy speaking to her, and not entering personal space bubbles. She was quiet, polite, and not randomly yelling ant anyone. The guy looked up as Aria and Chris approached, and went to sit down at the large table with the others.

“And this is Nora,” Chris introduced Aria. “She’s new to the club too, but it looks like she’s nearly as skilled as me. Maybe she’ll have a hand in teaching you as well.”

“We’ve met, actually. We’re roommates,” Aria explained.

At Chris’s questioning gaze, Nora raised her head and nodded with a small smile. She glanced at Aria before looking back at her work, and Aria couldn’t help but feel she was trying to tell her something important. Aria had absolutely no idea what.

“Elise will be back here in a few minutes, she’s just grabbing supplies,” Chris said, “Do you mind waiting with Nora and seeing what she’s doing? One day this is the sort of thing you’ll be capable of if you work hard.” He headed over to the far group.

Once Chris was gone, Aria tried to start chatting.

“Hey hey! I didn’t realise you picked this club, pretty crazy that we’ll be seeing each other this much, right? Hope we don’t get sick of each other,” Aria smiled. “Also, it’s so weird to see you acting normally around people, what’s up with that?”

Nora didn’t respond.

“Is something wrong? I almost miss that bonkers attitude of yours, it feels strange to see you so quiet. Are you shy? I bet everyone here would love how you are. Let’s go introduce ourselves to the group properly, I’m sure they won’t mind the brief interruption-”

Nora shot up, and with a burning glare that made Aria shrink back slightly, she grabbed Aria’s arm and dragged her towards the bathroom.

As Aria was bring pulled along, she heard Chris talking to the girls around the table saying “Do you know how to do pleats? Darts? Do you know the difference between the warp and the weft? Anything? Come on, just a yes or no!” he pleaded while the girls glanced sidelong at each other.

Once they were in the bathroom Aria wrenched her hand from Nora’s grip. “What are you doing?! Don’t-” but Nora cut in.

With Aria’s back against the wall, Nora slammed her hand next to Aria’s face, her dark, intense eyes close to Aria’s. “Don’t,” Nora said. “Don’t say anything. Don’t talk to anyone here about me, because you don’t know me. In this club room, we have nothing to discuss. You learn from these people all you want, but I’m working alone. Interrupt me again and there will be consequences.” And with that, Nora stormed back out.

Aria was shaking. She’d seen Nora flip between hot and cold a lot in the last two days, but now suddenly the girl was like both fire and ice. Who even was she? What was it she didn’t want Aria to say to the others?

Aria leant against the wall for a few more minutes as she willed her thumping heart to calm. When she returned to the clubroom, Nora was sitting back at her desk, and quite calmly met Aria’s gaze before returning to her work, as if nothing had transpired between them.

Aria sat down at the furthest desk possible and tried to avoid looking at Nora. Was Nora dangerous? Aria had heard of people who flipped quickly between hot and cold with little regard for the consequences of their actions. But it just felt so strange and sudden. Aside from a few details, Aria thought the two of them had been getting on ok. Aria had figured Nora was eccentric, sure, but what was all this about now?”

A girl entered the room and made her way down to Aria while Aria was thinking over the situation. “Hey,” the girl said, tucking some stray hairs aside as she spoke, “Are you Aria? I’m Elise.”

Elise was tall, but still had a bit of baby face. Her brown hair was cropped into a pixie cut with a voluminous fringe falling over the left side of her face. Despite the boyish cut of her hair, she seemed more feminine with her long eyelashes, and her dark eyes which took away from the youth of her face.

Aria was still concerned about Nora, so she glanced over at Chris, hoping for some sort of support, but he busy looking exasperated with the girls he was trying to gauge. She looked back at Elise and said “Yes, that’s me. So I’ll be working with you until I get a hang of the basics?”

In the brief time Aria had looked at Chris and back, Elise’s face had hardened a fraction and there was far less warm the second time she spoke. “Yes, I always take the newbies, much to their displeasure.” Aria wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but Elise moved on, launching into what was probably an oft-used introduction speech. “Here in the Couturier’s club we’re used to getting people who have never done a stitch in their life, and we believe in starting extremely simple to build skill. I know you’d probably want to start by making something fabulous like dresses and other garments, but no. We will be starting small as possible. And before you argue, wanting to make garments right off the bat is like wanting to run a marathon when you haven’t even learned to walk yet. I’ll try to keep it interesting for you, but if you feel we move too slow, you’re free to find another club.”

“Oh,” Aria said, startled by her tone, “No, I don’t mind taking my time working up to the big projects. I think I’d feel a bit scared wasting fabric at this stage, so small is good.”

Elise looked sceptical to Aria’s response, “Well, good. We mostly use machines for sewing in this club; hand-sewing is simply too time consuming. However, occasionally there are some bits that are too fiddly for machines, so we like to start you with a basis in hand-sewing. Besides, you’ll gain a much better idea for what your machine is doing if you can do it by hand.”

Aria nodded, but felt a bit worried. Elise seemed like the kind of person who would get angry at her for making mistakes.

“First up, we’ll make a stuffed bear out of some simple cotton. This will teach you all the basics of fabric understanding, patterning, and finally backstitch and running-stitch. It’s a really simple project, and we already have a bunch of patterns if you want to make something else. And later on we can even make clothing for it to practice other techniques. It seems a bit dorky, but working small scale first can really help.”

Aria tried to hide her giddiness as they looked through animal patterns. One more stuffed animal to cuddle! No, no, she was an adult. This was for learning only. Of course.

Aria didn’t believe in bears being the ultimate plush toy. She always imagined them luring her in with cute faces, only to try and eat her while she slept. Nor were they the comfiest to snuggle. She chose a dog pattern instead.

Over the next hour Elise led her through so many lessons, tips, and notes that Aria felt her head wanting to burst. After choosing some orange, white, and black cotton for the dog, Elise taught her how to choose the correct side to be the ‘outside’, how to draw a neat pattern and add seam allowance, and how to cut out the pattern. Aria didn’t realise there was a wrong way to cut fabric, yet somehow Elise’s snips were far smoother than anything Aria could do. Aria’s lines ended up jagged until Elise told her to slow down and place the fabric between the scissors with each cut, rather than the haphazard manner she was accustomed to.

Elise was a great teacher, marred only by the fact that she was extremely critical. Every time Elise pointed out a mistake, she explained it with such a deadpan expression; as if she expected no better from Aria. Between Elise and regularly stabbing herself with the pins and needle, Aria’s frustration was mounting. She glanced at Chris for assistance, but he seemed engaged in some project he had started with his larger group, and didn’t look up once. Aria looked over to Mathias, but he gave what looked like a minute eye roll, and returned to his own work. It wasn’t exactly the picture-perfect welcome Aria had been working for.

Chris joined them just as Aria was starting the first line of stitching on the dog’s face, and said “Sorry Elise, looks like you’ll be having a lot more students than we first thought. These girls,” he began, but the five of them had already stood up and walked out of the clubroom without so much as a glance at any of them. “Oh,” Chris finished lamely.

Mathias and the other male student from earlier joined them. “Let me guess,” Mathias said, “All those girls told you ‘yeah sure, I know a bit about sewing!’ when you said you take the intermediate students, and you found out they had no clue the difference between whipstitch and cross-stitch.”

Chris sighed.

“There’s a group every semester,” Mathias murmured.

“That’s super weird,” the new guy said, “Why would they all lie like that?”

Elise c****d an eyebrow at him. “You said the same thing,” she reminded him.

He shrugged innocently, “I didn’t want to the only newbie.”

Elise rolled her eyes. “Ignoring that I just taught the only honest newbie for the last hour. Well, Jarod, I don’t think those girls were as interested in learning as they were about the perks of the club,” she said dryly.

“What, free fabric?” Jarod asked.

“…Sure.”

“So with them gone,” Chris said, “we’ve only got three newbies. You, Nora, and Jarod. You three together are the future of our club!”

Aria glanced around her. Mathias, Elise, and Nora, each appeared to dislike her for reasons she could not guess. Her only solace was Chris, and maybe this other new guy, Jarod, if she was lucky. She looked sidelong at Nora who was staring straight ahead resolutely. “Yay…” Aria said without much enthusiasm.