Misery

“You cannot be serious,” I muttered, sweeping my hands over the fabric dumped on my cutting table. “I tried to give it back,” Mira said quickly, shifting her weight from foot to foot. “I told them the collection was strictly five colors. I don’t know how this mistake was made.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. Mira wasn’t the problem, she’d only been here a few months, but she followed instructions better than most paid assistants I’d worked with. The problem was the fabric. “A beige marble wash on crepe,” I said, staring at it like it might apologize. “This is horrendous.” Mira hesitated. “We could… maybe use it for lining?” I shot her a look. “Not unless you want our models to look like they’ve been dunked in Nescafé.” Her lips pressed tight, but a laugh escaped anyway. I rolled my shoulders back and turned toward the mannequin waiting in the center of the room. Midnight-blue silk was pinned into a sharp bodice, its shape still raw but already whispering the intention behind it. That was the collection. That was the vision. Not beige marble anything. Rain tapped against the windows, the sound competing with the hum of the iron Mira had abandoned on the side table. The studio smelled like starch and wool, the kind of scent you couldn’t wash out of your hands no matter how many times you tried. I adjusted a seam on the mannequin and felt Mira’s eyes on me. She was learning me—my silences, my thresholds. I could sense her waiting to ask something. “Go on,” I said without looking up. “Do you ever get scared?” she asked, tentative. “Like what if the showcase doesn’t go well?” I pierced the fabric with a pin, quick, precise. “That isn’t an option.” Her silence stretched. I glanced at her then, softening just a fraction. She was young, still fresh enough to believe in fear. “The trick,” I said, “is to treat it like blood. Everyone has it. But if you show it, you’re dead.” Mira nodded slowly, as if committing it to memory. She looked at the ruined fabric on the table. “I’ll call the supplier again. Make them fix it.” “Good.” When she left the room, I allowed myself a moment. Just one. My hands flattened against the mannequin’s bodice, and I exhaled. The showcase was two weeks away. Two weeks until critics, buyers, editors and all the vulturessat in the front row with sharpened pens. My name was on the line. My name, and everything I had carved into these pieces with sleepless nights and bleeding fingers. Failure wasn’t an option. I stepped back, surveying the dress like it was a soldier I was sending to war. My studio was quiet again, except for the rain. New York moved loud and fast outside, but inside, my work was the only rhythm I could hear. The bell over the door chimed. I froze for half a second. Walk-ins weren’t common. My prices didn’t exactly invite casual browsers. I pulled the pins from my mouth and straightened my posture. “Hello?” a voice called out, soft but curious. I moved toward the front, professional smile already stitched onto my face. A woman stood by the racks, running her fingers lightly over one of the coats. She was young, maybe college-aged, with an umbrella dripping water near her boots. Definitely not my usual clientele. “This is beautiful,” she said, turning the sleeve between her fingers. “Thank you,” I replied, polite but cool. Her eyes lit. “Did you make all of these yourself?” “Yes.” “That’s… incredible.” She sounded like she meant it, not like someone trying to flatter. I watched her for a moment, gauging. She didn’t look like she could afford anything here. Still, she was looking with genuine interest, and for reasons I didn’t name, I let her linger. When she finally left, umbrella in hand, I returned to the dressform. The quiet folded back around me. Another day. Another interruption. Another reminder that in this city, eyes would always find you, even before the right people did. And somewhere, I knew, the right people were coming. Friday night, and for once, my hands weren’t covered in thread or starch. I’d even let Mira drag me to dinner, which felt almost irresponsible given the showcase looming over my head. But I needed to be reminded that I was more than my studio. That I had a life, or something resembling one. Carmine’s on 6th was Mira’s choice, loud and warm, the kind of place where the lights made everyone look flushed and the waiters had perfected the art of pretending they weren’t eavesdropping. She’d organized it like a summit: four of her closest friends meeting me for the first time. They were already at the table when we walked in. “Angela!” Mira announced, tugging me toward them. “Guys, this is the genius I told you about. Be nice.” The introductions were a blur of air kisses and laughter, but I took stock quickly. Two women, two guys, though to call the guys “men” in the classic sense felt wrong. They were the kind of unapologetically stylish, razor-tongued gay men who could reduce a stranger to dust with one comment about their shoes. “Angela, you’re late,” said one of them, Max, twirling a martini glass in his fingers. His hair was slicked back within an inch of its life. “Mira told us you were punctual. I’m disappointed.” “Blame the beige marble crepe,” I said, sliding into my chair. He raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like a venereal disease.” The table erupted in laughter. Next to him, Jordan leaned forward. He was softer than Max, bigger curls, round glasses, the kind of warmth that balanced out Max’s bite. “So, Angela, do you only design, or do you also… wear?” He gestured vaguely at my outfit: black turtleneck, cigarette trousers, ankle boots. Functional. “I wear what doesn’t get ruined with pins,” I said dryly. “That explains so much,” Mira muttered under her breath, earning herself a sharp nudge from me. Across from me, the two women, Gia and Simone, were already sharing a basket of bread. Gia was petite, with a sharp bob and sharper eyeliner. Simone was statuesque, the type of woman who entered a room like she was doing it a favor. “So,” Simone drawled, breaking a piece of bread. “Tell us. Are you seeing anyone?” The table went quiet. I raised an eyebrow. “Are you interrogating me, or auditioning for Vogue’s personal section?” “It’s a valid question,” Max said. “You’re young, successful, allegedly a genius, there has to be someone.” “No.” “No?” Gia leaned forward, scandalized. “Not even a situationship?” Mira snorted into her water. “Not even a text thread with a man who can’t spell ‘your’ correctly?” Max added. I shook my head, unimpressed. “I don’t have time for that.” “Translation: she’s been hurt before,” Simone said knowingly, like she was reading tea leaves in my silence. “Translation: she has standards,” I corrected. The waiter arrived with wine, mercifully cutting off the interrogation. Glasses were filled, plates promised. The table buzzed with chatter again, Gia talking about a disastrous date with a hedge fund manager, Jordan recounting the tragedy of buying vintage boots half a size too small. I sipped my wine, letting the noise wash over me. For the first time in weeks, I wasn’t staring at fabric under harsh studio lights. I was staring at people, real people, who laughed and teased and lived lives that weren’t stitched together by deadlines. “Okay,” Max said suddenly, pointing his martini at me. “If Angela won’t tell us about her love life, we’ll guess.” “Oh God,” Mira groaned. “No, this will be fun,” Simone said, already grinning. “I bet she’s into older men. The brooding, salt-and-pepper type who owns a brownstone in Brooklyn Heights.” Gia shook her head. “No, no. She gives me ‘secret bad boy’ energy. Like she’s the one who ends up with the tattooed drummer who disappears for weeks at a time.” Jordan squinted at me thoughtfully. “I think she dates no one and then writes angry letters to Vogue editors in her free time.” “That’s actually closest,” Mira said before I could stop her. I set my glass down slowly. “Mira.” “What?” she said, wide-eyed. “They deserve to know.” “Know what?” Max demanded. “That Angela doesn’t date,” Mira declared, as if she were dropping national secrets. The table gasped in mock horror. “No dates?” Gia asked. “No s*x?” Simone leaned forward, scandalized. “No hope,” Max whispered dramatically. Jordan reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “Sweetheart, are you… okay?” I rolled my eyes. “For the record, I’m perfectly fine. And my s*x life, or lack of it, is not a group project.” “Then we’ll make it one,” Max said firmly. Mira laughed so hard she nearly spilled her wine. Dinner spiraled into stories then, Gia’s endless carousel of men, Simone’s enviable rotation of power lunches, Max’s dramatic retelling of an elevator flirtation that ended with a spilled latte, Jordan’s earnest attempts to convince us he’d found ‘the one’ on Hinge. They teased me, of course, but somewhere between the second glass of wine and the tiramisu, I let myself relax. I even laughed, real laughter. Later, when Mira and I left the restaurant, umbrellas bobbing against the drizzle, she glanced at me with a smirk. “See?” she said. “You needed that.” I gave her a side-eye. “I needed a room full of people dissecting my nonexistent s*x life?” “You needed to be reminded you have one,” she shot back. I couldn’t argue. As we crossed 6th, rain streaking through the yellow glow of taxi headlights, I thought about what Simone had said. About older men. About bad boys. About all the things I wasn’t chasing, all the things I told myself I didn’t need. I didn’t know then that the next time I walked into Carmine’s, it wouldn’t be Mira dragging me. And I didn’t know that someone, someone who didn’t fit into any of their categories, was about to walk into my world.