Violetta Craft's Arc

Chapter 15 of 65

On Monday Violetta pulled the red ribbon off the dresser and looked at it again. She had watched the senior's coat on the runway a hundred times in her head. The coat was black wool, clean lines, nothing flashy. Her own dress had color, hand-stitched overlay, a hard panel technique. On paper she should have won. She picked up her phone and called the number on the back of the second-place envelope. The showcase organizer answered. Violetta asked if the judge who ran the panel would meet with a student. The woman gave her an address downtown and a time on Wednesday at four. The studio sat behind a glass front with mannequins in the window. Violetta went up the stairs to the second floor. The judge met her at a long cutting table and did not offer tea. She asked to see photos of the dress. Violetta held out her phone. The woman scrolled slow. She stopped on the runway shot and turned the screen around. She said the dress was beautiful. She said the dress was also doing four things at once. Three colors, a panel seam, a hand overlay, and a pregnancy silhouette. She said the coat did one thing perfectly. One shoulder line, one hem, one button. She tapped the screen. She said next year, pick the one thing, and cut everything that doesn't serve it. Violetta wrote it down in the notebook she had brought. She asked one more question. She asked how you know which thing. The woman said you know when you can name it in a sentence. Violetta thanked her and walked back down the stairs with her hand under her belly and the notebook against her chest. In the car she wrote at the top of a clean page: one line, one idea, one dress. She underlined it twice. Then she drove home to tell Jordie she knew what had beaten her, and that next year she would not lose the same way.