Olivia Bennett: The Allegra Biscotti Collection

“Look, you’ll never know whether or not he’s going to like you unless you come.” Holly closed her locker. “AndI know how badly you want to know. So see you later, right? ”

“Right,” Emma found herself agreeing. Holly always had that effect on her.

“I mean, could there be a better excuse to skip work than getting to hang out with Jackson?” Holly smiled.

“Can’t think of any,” Emma said, as they made their way together upstairs toward first period. “Besides, how bad could it be to miss one measly afternoon at Laceland?”

Later that afternoon, as Emma stepped into the elevator of the century-old building that was home to Laceland, her mind was thirty blocks south in Washington Square Park. As the day wore on, she had realized that as much as she would trade a pair of Alexander McQueen shoes—that is, if she magically owned a pair—for the chance to hang out with Jackson, she couldn’t break her promise to her dad. She was wired that way.

Now that she was here, it was blindingly obvious that she had made a crucial mistake. Jackson is probably talking to Lexie this very minute, Emma thought, a pit of regret growing in her stomach. Sometimes she wished there was a manual for all this boy stuff. Lexie and Ivana seemed to have it. For all she knew, they had written it themselves.

It was too late now.

The old elevator wobbled up past a handful of other textile importers, a zipper maker, an umbrella company, a hanger supplier, and a hosiery wholesaler, and then jerked to a stop on the eleventh floor. Emma walked down the windowless, dingy gray hallway and entered the reception area of Laceland.

The cavernous raw space with sixteen-foot ceilings had rows and rows of shelving, blocking out most of the light from the windows. Although the place was scrubbed once a week by a cleaning crew, a thin layer of dust blanketed Laceland from all the fabrics and trimmings that had passed through the warehouse over the past four decades, which was how long her dad’s family had owned the business. Emma always stifled the urge to sneeze whenever she arrived.

“Honey! You’re here. Hall-e-lujah!” Marjorie Kornbluth stood up from behind the Formica-covered reception desk, reaching for her purse.

“Excited to see me?” Emma teased.

“Am I ever! The phone hasn’t stopped ringing all day,” Marjorie complained in her scratchy, low rasp. “I need a real cup of coffee, not the black muck your father makes.” She brushed past Emma in a cloud of eau de coffee and hair spray—her signature scent—and hurried into the waiting elevator, leaving Emma to take over her post.

“Have fun!” Emma called after her.

Even though that was usually the extent of their conversations, Emma adored Marjorie. She was a Laceland institution. She might actually have been working there longer than Emma’s parents had been married. Marjorie was one of those ladies who seemed to be stuck in another era— when false eyelashes, sparkly shadow, and pink frosted lipstick were all the rage.

Every day, no matter what time of year, Marjorie wore only simple, black shift dresses. Her short bobbed hair was dyed platinum blond and had been that way forever. The only thing that had ever changed about her was the appearance of the tiniest lines on her pale, pale skin, increasing ever so noticeably over the years to hint at her true age, which Emma guessed to be close to seventy.

Emma flopped down on the chair, which was still warm from Marjorie’s body heat. She waited for the phone to start ringing, but not a single call came in. She was already bored. She could start her homework or…she could text Holly. Just to say hi. And to ask how things were going. Things like Jackson maybe.

“Why is nothing right? Why?” Isaac Muñoz leaned over the side counter of the desk, waving several sheets of paper. “I need the originals of these purchase orders. Nothing is matching up. Nothing! The Chantilly lace is in the Shetland lace box.

“Where’s Marjorie?” Isaac demanded when he finally noticed Emma, not Marjorie, sitting behind the desk. He was wearing tight jeans and an even tighter white tee.

“In search of decent-tasting caffeine,” Emma explained calmly. Emma was used to Isaac’s hysterics. The warehouse manager only operated at one speed: overdrive. Ever since her dad had laid off staff and Isaac had had to do two or three other jobs on top of his original duties, he had been even more tightly wound than usual. But Isaac somehow managed to keep Laceland chugging along— almost single-handedly—so everyone just sort of dealt with his freak-outs.

“Well, I need help. Now. You’re drafted. Let’s go, Rose Junior.”

Emma pressed a button to forward the office phone directly to voice mail and followed Isaac back toward the freight elevator.

“Isaac!” Emma gasped. “There must be a million boxes of lace here!”

“Unloading boxes is good for your health,” Isaac said. “Makes you strong.” He rested his portable speaker on the windowsill and pressed play. The deep voice of a guy rapping in both Spanish and English against a funky electronic back-beat filled the air.

With long, smooth movements, Isaac ran his X-Acto knife along the tape seams on the first box—lengthwise and then crosswise—and then moved on to the next one.

“Grab the packing lists, and check to make sure everything we ordered is inside,” he instructed.

Emma redid the elastic on her ponytail and pulled the sheet of paper from the box. “First up, amigo , organza lace.”

Two hours and twenty-five boxes of lace later, Emma wound her way toward the back of the warehouse and around some tall filing cabinets her dad had used to create a wall. She slipped into her favorite place. Her design studio.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t exactly as fancy as the word “studio” made it sound, but it was totally her space, and she loved it. A thrill ran up her spine every time she walked in. She turned on the huge industrial light above her high, extra-wide metal worktable, illuminating a half-dozen vintage cookie tins full of her tiny treasures—fabric flower pins, crushed velvet ribbons, metallic sequins, and buttons in every color of the rainbow in all different shapes she’d been collecting since she was a little girl—along with her beloved Faber Castell colored-pencil set and a small stack of new unlined sketch pads bound in colorful fabrics that she picked up all over the city, from quirky little shops in Chinatown to art-supply stores.

Her eight-foot-high inspiration wall towered above the other side of the table. It was a much bigger version of the inside of her locker at school. The wall was plastered with magazine clippings—outrageously out-there editorial fashion spreads; printouts of her favorite pieces from the fashion shows in New York, Paris, Milan, and London that she had seen online; swatches of fabrics; sketches of designs she planned to make; and on-the-go snapshots of street fashion.

Off to the side sat her most prized possession—an old Singer sewing machine. For Emma’s fourteenth birthday last spring, Grandma Grace, who had taught Emma everything she knew about sewing, surprised Emma by giving her granddaughter her beloved machine. It was still in its original console, which Emma loved because it meant the base of the sewing machine was flush with the table it sat in, giving her a flat surface to sew on. The Singer was so much better than the eBay bargain machine she’d been using for years. Emma promised to take good care of it and use it often.

She perched on the rickety wood stool and looked next to the table at the three dress forms she had been lucky enough to salvage on 37th Street over the past few months. It would’ve taken her years to save up to buy just one new dress form since they cost five hundred dollars or more.