Page 54 of Cashmere Ruin

“A whole six months later, and only because she caught you doing it again. Otherwise, she never would’ve seen it.”

I have to suppress a shiver at the memory. I may be an adult now, but Eleanor’s banshee screams will stay with me until the day I croak. “Your point?”

“My point is that you’re good at this. Better than that—you’regreat.” He boops May on the nose as he says it. Because of course there’s only one place for her to be whenever Uncle Charlie’s around: nestled inside his giant kangaroo pouch. Where do they even sell sweatshirts like that? Andwhy? “You’re an amazing seamstress.”

“Now, you’re just trying to extort a pizza out of me.”

“If I was trying to do that, I’d also add in how you’re an amazing mom. So… you’re an amazing mom.”

I make a face at that. Compliments are already like cold medicine to me—you take them because you have to—but being called a good momof all things…

It just doesn’t feel right.

Nor the seamstress part, if these sketches are anything to go by.

“If I fold on the pizza, will you stop?”

“Nope,” he replies, popping thep. Then he starts sifting through the mess of papers on the floor. “See this one? And this one?”

I squint at the sketches he picked out. “I don’t know. They just feel… old.”

“Vintage, maybe?”

“No, like, reallyold. Great-grandma’s closet old.”

“I don’t think great-grandmas had V-necks, Apes.”

And ifthatisn’t the kind of image no one wants in their brain… “You know what I mean,” I sigh. “They’re… tired. Nothing we haven’t seen already.”

“So try again,” he encourages me. “You’ll come up with something.”

Something else for the shredder’s lunch, maybe.

God, why am I getting so testy about this? When I started sketching, I told myself it was just a way to pass the time; that I wasn’t actually going to enter the contest. After all, I have a newborn to care for. I have responsibilities.

And I certainly don’t have the talent. So why bother?

I gather up my sketches, wishing the penthouse somehow had a fireplace. Alas, into the shredder they go. “Let’s just do something else, alright? How about that movie you wanted to see?”

“It’s not a movie,” Charlie says with a trademark eye roll.Seriously, teenagers.“It’s an art documentary.”

“Since when are you into art documentaries?”

He shrugs. “Just exploring my options.”

I shake my head with a smile. Sometimes, I forget that not everyone knows what they want to do in life by their seventh birthday. This, at least, has always been easy for me: there was never anything but clothes in my head. Nothing but fixing broken things, or turning scraps of plain fabric into something beautiful.

But Charlie’s at that age when you start wondering.Exploring, like he said. Last year, it was video games; six months ago, it was pro skating. A week from now, it’ll be something else entirely.

I envy him. You forget how wide open the world can seem sometimes. How vast. How beautiful.

“Alright. Put it on.”

As we settle on the couch, I pick up May from his pouch. Buttons takes advantage of the transition to trot close, ever vigilant. “How about you, Nugget? Wanna watch a movie with your uncle?”

May makes a cooing noise.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

---