“
Mrs. Harris’s coach should be here any minute. I trek toward the curb, but just as I reach it, the latch on my bag drops open again, and the contents spill into the snow. Cursing, I bend to retrieve my things, but a violent gale whips me backward into the slush, snatching petticoats, chemises, and knickers into the air.
“No!” I cry, scrambling after my clothes and stuffing them one by one back into my bag, glancing over my shoulder to make sure no one has caught a glimpse of my underthings dancing across the street.
A man snores on a stoop nearby, but no one else is out. Relieved, I scuttle through the snow, jamming skirts and books and socks into the bag and gritting my teeth as the wind burns my ears.
A clatter of hooves breaks through the howling tempest, and I catch sight of a cab headed my way. My stomach clenches as I snap my bag closed once more.
That must be Mrs. Harris’s coach.
I’m really going to do this.
But as I make my way toward it, a white ghost of fabric darts in front of me.
My eyes widen.
I missed a pair of knickers.
Panic jolting through my every limb, I sprint after it, but the wind is too quick. My underclothes gust right into the carriage door, twisting against its handle as the cab eases to a stop.
I’m almost to it, fingers reaching, when the door snaps open and a boy about my age steps out. “Miss Whitlock?” he asks, his voice so quiet I almost don’t hear it over the wind.
Trying not to draw attention to the undergarments knotted on the door just inches from his hand, I give him a stiff nod. “Yes, sir, that’s me.”
“Let me get your things,” he says, stepping into the snow and reaching for my handbag.
“Uh—it’s broken, so I’d—I’d better keep it,” I mumble, praying he can’t feel the heat of my blush from where he is.
“Very well, then.” He turns back toward the coach and stops.
Artist, no.
My heart drops to my shoes.
“Oh…” He reaches toward the fabric knotted tightly in the latch. “Is…this yours?”
Death would be a mercy right about now.
I swallow hard. “Um, yes.” He glances at me, and blood floods my neck. “I mean, no! I’ve never seen those before in my life!”
He stares at me a long moment.
“I…” I lurch past him and yank at the knickers. The fabric tears, and the sound of it is so loud I’m certain everyone in the world must have heard it.
“Here, why don’t I—” He reaches out to help detangle the fabric from the door.
“No, no, no, I’ve got it just fine,” I say, leaping in front of him and tugging on the knot with shaking hands.
Why. Why, why, why, why, why?
Finally succeeding at freeing the knickers, I make to shove them back into my bag, but another gust of wind rips them from my grasp.
The boy and I both stare after them as they dart into the sky, spreading out like a kite so that every damn stitch is visible.
He clears his throat. “Should we—ah—go after them?”
“No,” I say faintly. “I—I think I’ll manage without…
”
”
Jessica S. Olson (A Forgery of Roses)