The Tailor Shop – Part 1: Three Fittings

"Turn," said Linh. "Slowly. Good."

Sasha turned on the little wooden stool in front of a tall mirror, in a half-pinned dress of deep green silk. The tailor shop was a narrow bright room in the old quarter of Hoi An, with bolts of fabric stacked to the ceiling and a sewing machine whirring softly in the back. Yellow shutters were open to the street. The smell was of warm cotton and jasmine tea.

Sasha was thirty-two, a graphic designer from Melbourne on a month-long trip, who had walked in for a cheap souvenir and ended up choosing a bolt of silk the colour of a rainforest pool. Linh, thirty-five, the designer, wore a measuring tape around her neck and a pencil in her black bob. Her English was careful, and she looked at the dress with total concentration.

"The shoulder is too loose," she said, and adjusted a pin with two light fingers just above Sasha's collarbone.

"I didn't feel that."

"You will feel nothing. That is the idea." Linh smiled. "A good dress is a secret."

Three fittings. Three afternoons in the cool shop, with lemongrass tea and the radio murmuring. Between pins they talked about cities, families, the strange pull of places you visit once. By the second fitting Sasha realised she was lingering. By the third she had stopped pretending she wasn't.

"It is finished," said Linh, standing back. The dress fit like water. "You look beautiful."

Sasha turned to the mirror, then to her. "Thank you. For everything."

"You are welcome." Linh hesitated, tape in her hands. "Sasha, if you stay one more week, I would like to show you the river at night. Not as a customer."

"I'd love that," said Sasha.

Continue the story: Part 2 – Finishing Touches.

Continue the story: Part 2 – Finishing Touches.