I woke up at five thirty in the morning, covered in sequins. When I pulled them from my skin, they left red marks.
I ran to Bitsie’s, still in my pj’s, tail slung over my shoulders like a shepherd carrying a lamb, my rat’s nest of hair pulled in a ponytail. Bitsie would be up already.
I’d talked Woo’s daughter through the measurements over the phone, and Woo explained the specifics of her partial mastectomy from years earlier. I found a tutorial on making a compensation form insert for the bra, but I’d never done work like that, and it raised the stakes for me. Woo had been self-conscious talking about it on the phone. I wanted to help her feel confident. I knew it wasn’t fair to leave Luca out, but I needed to see if Woo Woo’s costume would work, and I didn’t want to handle my panic on camera if it didn’t.
“You walked over here like that?” Bitsie asked, grinning, when I got there.
“It’s nothing they haven’t seen before,” I said, smiling back.
“Why are you splotchy?”
“Sequins. It’ll fade.”
“Oh, of course,” Bitsie said, laughing. “You’ve got a mean case of the sequins! I hear that’s going around.”
“Is Woo Woo up yet?” It was strange how quickly I’d normalized the idea of calling a grown woman Woo Woo. I wondered if anyone in her regular life called her that.
“She’s in the shower,” Bitsie said. “You want coffee?”
“I was hoping we could squeeze in the fitting now,” I said. “And yes.”
“I think Nan wants to do that tonight, when Hannah gets here.”
“I know, but . . .” I was going to make up an excuse; instead, I told her the truth. “I’m nervous. Working from measurements I didn’t take. I’ll feel so much better if . . .”
Bitsie nodded. “Why not knock out a worry when you can? Go for it!”
I went into Bunny’s room and got the top from the closet.
“Gosh, Kay.” Bitsie traced her fingers over the swirls of tiny seashells and champagne-colored crystals I’d stitched to the top. “It’s art.”
The shower was still running. Bitsie knocked on the bathroom door, opening it enough to reach in and hang the costume on the hook inside. “Hey, Woo? Try this on, will ya?”
“What?” Woo shouted.
“Your costume,” Bitsie shouted back. “Try it when you’re done.”
While we waited, Bitsie poured me a cup of coffee, and we sat at the kitchen table. She gave me a rundown of all the things they’d caught up on last night. I was interested, but it was hard to pay attention, like I was waiting for the grade on a final exam. I’d never been so nervous about a costume before. I’d never felt so much ownership over a project, and while Bitsie and Nan were going to love what I made them, because I made it, Woo Woo wasn’t such a biased customer.
We heard the bathroom door open and the sound of Woo Woo’s cane ticking down the hallway. “I don’t want to poke a hole in this tail,” she called.
“We’ll come to you,” Bitsie shouted, and we ran to meet her.
Woo Woo leaned on her cane with one hand, her other arm in the air, palm to the sky. “A pretty girl! Is like a melody!” she sang, twisting her shoulders from one side to the other, her smile wide. Her legs were free through the slit in the back, and the tail fell in front of her. The compensation form worked perfectly and the crystals added light to her décolletage. Her long neck arched gracefully. The flesh between her top and tail had a beautiful soft drape.
I held my breath, hoping Woo Woo liked it.
“Wow,” Bitsie said. “You’re a dream!”
“I feel like a dream,” Woo said, beaming. “You are a treasure, my dear. I want to wear this all the time!”
For days I’d felt like a balloon about to pop. The pressure was finally dissipating. I tested the fit around her hips. I’d left myself some wiggle room in the sequin pattern in case I had to make alterations, but it was perfect on the first try.
“Do you mind if we pretend this hasn’t happened?” I asked. “I think Luca is going to want to film—”
“Of course,” she said. “Thank you for letting me do this without the cameras. I was nervous.”
“Me too.”
“This is more amazing than I could have imagined. I look better than I did when I was twenty!”
“You look regal,” Bitsie said. “Queen of the mermaids!”
“If I swim now, will it dry before the fitting?” Woo asked. She looked like a kid who couldn’t wait to play with her new toy.
She wanted to feel like a mermaid again. I knew it wasn’t fair to let my fear keep her from the pool, but I didn’t want to be there to see it.
“If it doesn’t dry we’ll tell everyone I had to water-test the sequins,” I said, and made my escape as graciously as I could before the pressure started to build again.