The morning smelled of boiled tea and starch—two odors that, in Nora's experience, were more honest than most promises. Her palms were already tacky with adhesive from a late-night repair when the first sun struck the windowpanes of the Riverton Playhouse workshop, catching on stray pins like a scattering of tiny moons. She moved with the muscle-memory of decades: slide the shears along, clip an excess seam, press with the heel of her hand until the underlayer lay obediently flat.
Outside, the market bell rang its second call. A vendor two doors down sold ginger fritters glazed with honey and lemon rinds, which half the troupe treated as rehearsal fuel. That little ritual had nothing to do with costumes, but it told Nora more about the neighborhood than any grant application ever could: people who still bought fried things at seven in the morning, a corner cat named Rattle that had been unnervingly adept at stealing pastry, and a municipal sundial in the square that the children had painted in last summer’s festival. Those details threaded the place together; they were ornaments on the city's sleeves.
Nora frowned at a stubborn sleeve. The actor had insisted the arm needed mobility and aristocratic silhouette at once. She pinned, eased, basted, and cursed under her breath in a language that only seamstresses understand—an economy of swear words precise enough to measure hems by. There was a method: measure twice, cut once; fit twice, boast never. Her hands knew curves and counter-curves as other people knew faces.
"You look like you've been arguing with a ghost," Marta said from the doorway, balancing a tray with three steaming cups and a small plate of fritters. Marta's hair was the color of moth wings and her mouth knew how to fold advice into jokes. She set the tray down with a flourish so theatrical that a stray ribbon fluttered like a tired flag.
Nora lifted her gaze. "Ghosts don't press seam allowances. They flit and haunt."
Marta chuckled. "Then start charging admission."
The banter settled over the workbench like a warm shawl. It wasn't the sort of life that looked glamorous in magazines: dust baffles caught in tulle, pattern weights denting the oak table, a laundry line over the sink strung with tags from old shows like a testament to practical memory. Yet when the opening night of anything approached, people came to Nora because she did things that the world of glossy publicity could not: she engineered movement into costume, turned a fragile corset into something limp enough to breathe in but strong enough to keep an actor upright under bright lamps.
A short, awkward knock announced Jonas's arrival. He came in with that half-breathless smile he wore when he had a new idea or a very bad haircut. He strode past bolts of fabric like a man among fields, eyes bright with the particular hunger of someone who believed theatre could make a town kinder.
"Nora," he said, and she could hear the calendar in his tone before he even lifted the envelope from his coat. "We're celebrating the city's founding month. The mayor wants a pageant, and—well—it's ambitious." He unfolded a leaflet with fireworks printed at the top. "We need you to head costumes. All of them."
Nora felt the floor tilt, not because the offer dazzled—she had left that shining road years ago—but because time had weight. She set a pin into the hem, watched the steel catch the light, and felt the weight of the company that relied on her quiet competence. Jonas was asking not for fame but for responsibility. He offered trust like a raw material.