Chapter 6 - An Unexpected Visitor
The next morning, it wasn't June who pushed open the door of my alterations shop.
A sleek black town car pulled up directly in front of the window, parking across two spaces with effortless entitlement.
A tall, silver-haired woman wearing a tailored charcoal wool suit stepped out, carrying an unmistakable garment bag over her arm.
It was Eleanor Vance herself, the matriarch of Vance Textile Mills and the woman June had spent eight months desperately trying to appease.
She walked into my small shop, her sharp grey eyes immediately taking in the industrial sergers, the bolts of thread, and the press board.
She laid the white garment bag flat on my cutting table without saying a single word.
"You're Maya Miller," Eleanor said, not as a question, but as a verified statement of fact.
"I am," I answered, keeping my hands resting flat on the counter. "How can I help you, Mrs. Vance?"
Eleanor unzipped the bag with a slow, deliberate slide of the metal pull, revealing the Duchess satin gown I had pressed with my own hands.
"My future daughter-in-law told my son that this was crafted by an associate of Valentino in Northern Italy," she said.
"She claimed the invoice was lost in international transit, but when I touched the collar at the rehearsal dinner, I knew the hand of the weaver."
She reached inside the neckline, pulling back the silk lining with practiced fingers that revealed the silver thread I had hidden inside.
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"This satin wasn't milled in Como," Eleanor said, looking directly into my eyes.
"It was woven at my grandfather's mill in Belmont forty years ago, from our vintage private reserve."
