Every single night, Maddie
Compton would fix every single piece of clothing she had been able to find in
the second hand stores she visited that week. Sometimes they weren’t even
fashion stores but places where she could buy the fabric she liked the most and
modify it enough to create something no one had ever wore before. She had the
advantage of having a great eye for design and a great taste in clothing. After
all, she read all the magazines she could get her hands on, for free of course.
Maddie was not a wealthy woman
but she pretended to be, going to the most prestigious parties with the elite
of the city. Many loved her designs and praised her for it. She even got some
friends during those parties but the truth was that she had accepted the fact she
couldn’t’ really get too close to anyone. Realizing that she was not who she
said she was wouldn’t have been too hard for someone close to her, so she tried
hard not to overstay her welcome in such events.
She had made some mistakes in the
past, as going out after with a guy she had met at the party. It would normally
be a one-night stand, as she would escape the room as silently as she could and
then leave to her life far away from the skyscrapers and lovely apartments
those people had. Sometimes it was really hard for her, because she really
wanted to be like them. She wanted that life which was certainly much easier
than her own. She wanted to feel people cared about who she was.
Of course, Maddie knew many of
the people she met in those parties were not fully honest with her but it
wasn’t possible that among so many people there wasn’t at least one person that
actually liked what she did. One of her ideas at first had been to find someone
willing to give her money to design dresses for some brand, at least as a test.
They were certainly the type to do that but it came to be much more difficult
than what she had anticipated. Rich people were too in love with themselves.
To be fair, she was too. Maddie
was the kind of woman that always looks at her own reflection on the mirror in
the morning and then several more times during the day. She couldn’t avoid
taking pictures of herself and it wasn’t even to share with friends or family,
it was just to take a look at herself and try to reinforce some weird acceptance
of her own being in her brain. She knew she needed people’s approval to feel
she had made it and that’s why she had gone after the opinions of people who
mattered, the ones that had money and could take decisions.
The young woman had made several
dresses and then she would sell them in the same stores she bought the ones
that she modified and turned into sensations. Many store owners were very
grateful for what she did because many of her designs sold very well with
younger women that wanted something different to wear at an affordable price.
It was the only way for her to make some money, besides working some days in a
call center, helping with pizza deliveries from around the world.
Maddies wanted to live of her
designs. That or get one of those rich men to make her a rich woman through
marriage but that was a lot trickier because she would began their life
together by lying at that was never the best way to initiate a new
relationship. Luckily, none of the guys she had dated had ever asked too much
about her. Most men her age were too focused on themselves and their own
achievements to even ask about what she really wanted out of life.
It wasn’t the life she would have
wanted for herself but it was the one she had and the one that made sense. She
needed to insist on her only talent and if making clothes were the way to go,
she would try it as long as she could. She made a very small amount of money
out of it but it was the only activity that clamed her down and made her feel
the world is not as awful as one would think it is, at least sometimes. The
sound of her machine was the perfect way to distract her brain.
It was the exact opposite of the
parties she attended where most people were vicious and just loved to tear
others apart, especially the women. Maybe it was because they had always been
under appreciated, even when they were such wealthy people, but the ladies
could be savage with newcomers and when the tastes of others didn’t match what
was generally accepted. Maddie had to check all that out before going out to
one of those events, in order to be praised but never mocked.
She was very successful that way.
She even decided to learn a bit more about make up and how to achieve a
complete look that would fool anyone. She would imitate looks from magazines or
inspire herself from those, with her cheap fabrics and dresses and accessories
she practically remade herself. She always laughed alone in her apartment,
thinking that if a policeman found her there he would think she was managing the
least successful pirating ring ever. She did it all perfectly but always in a
very small scale, in order not to attract the wrong attention.
After a very long time trying to
make it, Maddie finally attracted the right person for what she wanted to do.
Her name was Emilia Gobstone and she was one of the wealthiest women in the
city. She had an amazing apartment where many parties were held, having
appeared in numerous occasions in many magazines. She fell in love with Maddie
and one of her dresses and asked the young woman to make her and her daughters
the same dress for a special party in a country club.
Maddie did as asked and Mrs.
Gobstone could not have been happier. The fabric Maddie had used was one of the
best she had ever worked with, spending a very large sum to get it. But she
knew she needed the best to be successful with that particular request. She was
right. The wealthy woman was so happy, that she paid double what they had
agreed on in the first place and asked Maddie to make her clothes for every
event in the fall season that was getting nearer by the minute.
With such a success, she decided
to retire from going to parties and such and focus more on her dresses and
their quality. From the point of view of her craft, she had made the best
choice. However, many people wondered where she had left to and it was then
when they found out who she really was. Everyone made fun of her in social
media, posting pictures they had with her and telling the most awful stories
about her. Some were based on things she had said, but they all twisted her
words and some were only lies.
She finished her work on Mrs.
Gobstone’s dresses and wrote her a letter apologizing for everything. She sent
her creations and the letter one afternoon and then decided to leave the city
for a while, needing some fresh air, something she wouldn’t be able to get in
such a city, which felt a little bit too crowded sometimes. She grabbed a
suitcase, put some of her clothes and just left, trying not to think too much
about everything that had happened in the last few years.
To her surprise, Mrs. Gobstone’s
personal butler found her in her parent’s home, many kilometers away from the
city. He told her his mistress needed her urgently and that it couldn’t wait.
Maddie accepted the ride and, a few hours later, she was in the woman’s
apartment.
There, the socialite gave her a
check to pay for her dresses and told her she wouldn’t be able to hire her
again. However, she could do something else for her, as a personal way to thank
her for her work. The following week, an specialized magazine called Maddie, in
order to arrange an interview.
