Chapter Text
July 13th, 1965.
Miranda felt her hands tingling with excitement as she stepped out of the building, letting the hot summer sun kiss her skin, the humid air engulfing her immediately and making her cheeks dewy.
The sweltering heat was the last of her worries as she walked home, her back-length blonde hair cascading down her back, her school uniform clinging to her skin. She bit back a grin and looked at the road ahead, her mind completely occupied with the contents of the letter, excited to spill the news.
As she made it inside she closed the door behind her with a click, her legs quick to carry her to the small living room just off to the side of the entrance.
As she darted inside she saw her mother sitting on the sofa listening to the wireless, knitting the way she usually did, her glasses perched on her nose, the string in her mouth as she threaded it.
Miranda practically smothered her mother in a hug, throwing herself at her without warning and squeezing her tight. Her mum let out a surprised yelp. “O-oh, goodness-” and shortly reciprocated the hug. “What’s all this about then,” she chuckled into her daughter’s shoulder, blinded by hair covering her face.
Miranda pulled back and stood proud, her cheeks flushed red with excitement, her eyes shimmering, a big shy smile running across her face. “I got in,” she bit her lip trying not to give anything away.
Her mother sat upright, narrowing her eyes in confusion. “Got in where?”
Miranda rolled her eyes, still smiling. “Into École de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne, mum, where else.” She stood there bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Here, have a look,” she handed her the opened envelope.
Her mother frowned as she took out the letter and read it. “Well, that’s-” she cleared her throat and folded the letter, put it back, and handed Miranda the envelope, avoiding her gaze.
Miranda stood there, her smile faltering, her head tilted. “Is everything alright?-” she paused to let out a slightly bewildered laugh. “I can’t say this is the reaction I was expecting.” There was a slight sharp edge that came naturally with being seventeen.
“Well what did you expect, Miriam?” Her mum looked up at her now, her gaze firm. “That I get up and start dancing about and celebrating with you?”
Miranda taken aback by the harshness in her tone. “Something like that, yes, certainly not-” she paused to gesture toward her with her hand “-this.”
The look she got from her mother made her gulp and straighten her shoulders. “I thought you’d be happy for me,” she finished, her eyes shimmering now, the sun rays breaking through the window from the side making the building of tears more prominent.
“Happy? Happy for you for what?” Her mom got up now, and after Miranda’s growth spurt she only towered over her mother by a couple of centimeters. She grabbed the letter and pointed at it in her face. “Have you actually read this bloody thing?”
“Of course I have,” Miranda answered without flinching, like it was a complete no-brainer.
“So you genuinely think our financial situation can handle paying for you to play dress-up in Paris? I work myself to the bone day and night to scrape together a meal for you lot and you come in here talking to me about what? Fashion school? In Paris? When you should be thinking of ways to help this family. Or do you want me to work myself into the ground, is that it?”
Miranda stood there watching her mother spit words at her, no more than two inches from her face, still unable to believe what she was hearing. “You- we talked about this, you agreed,” she clenched her fist and stepped back, feeling her heart lurch in panic at the sudden escalation.
“You lot are all ungrateful, spending money that isn’t yours. When did I ever say you could go to fashion school? For goodness sake, you should be thinking about getting married like your sisters so you’d stop being a burden.”
“I don’t want to get married,” she took a deep breath, already exhausted from having this conversation a thousand times over. “I want to go to school, be in Paris, be in fashion. You told me if I got in I could go.”
God, she hated how easily her tears threatened to spill and how quickly her voice started to crack.
“Well unless you start pulling money out of thin air you’re not going. Honestly, how naive are you? How are you not a serious person?” Her mother moved away and started grabbing cushions and aggressively plumping them, picking up clutter that was barely there.
Miranda felt the blood boiling in her veins and the tightening in her throat at the injustice of it, her body still not caught up to the shock of the sudden steep decline from the joy she’d felt twenty minutes ago. Now replaced with a feeling she knew too well.
Dread.
“You should focus on realistic things, Miriam,” her mother’s voice softened, still turned away from her, plumping the same cushion for the third time.
Miranda felt her breath shiver and break as a quiet sob threatened to escape, suddenly overcome.
Her mother turned to look at her, her eyes warm and blue, just like her own. One look into them like this gave Miranda all the comfort she had ever known, and oh how she wished her mother would look at her like this more often.
“You saw what happened to this family when your father passed,” her mother cupped her cheek gently, and despite everything Miranda felt herself lean into it, basking in this rare moment of gentle affection.
The truth was Miranda didn’t remember the fallout of her father’s passing. She was far too young, and she only remembered him being there and then simply not being there the next day, and that was that.
Gone.
And no one ever spoke of him, and she never asked.
“Do not place yourself in a precarious position and live to regret it later-” Miranda felt a tear roll down her cheek and her mother wiped it gently with the pad of her thumb. “You are so beautiful, my darling,” she cooed softly, stroking the long strand of Miranda’s hair and following it to its very end. “-any very wealthy man, I’m sure-” she joked, though it was clearly not entirely a joke “-would be lucky to have you.”
And although it was meant as a compliment it made Miranda’s stomach turn in disgust.
Her mother then plucked the letter still sitting in her hand and waved it. “The sooner you leave these pink dreams behind the better off you’ll be, trust me.”
A pause.
“It’s for your own good.”
The sound of the car door closing snapped Miranda out of her thoughts as Andy got back into the car holding another plastic bag from the gas station and her cup of coffee.
“Alright, here you go…” Andy handed her the coffee and started rummaging through the bag. “You didn’t eat what I got you last time so I just got you some peanuts,” she held the bag up and shook it in front of Miranda.
Miranda responded with a raised eyebrow and shook her head in disgust.
Andy faltered and frowned. “One of these times you’ll have to come in with me to pick something then,” and went back to rummaging through the bag.
And Miranda couldn’t help the slight smile that was mostly from shock at how the girl spoke to her.
“I got us this,” she said, shaking a pack of cards.
“Trivial Pursuit?” Miranda squinted behind her sunglasses as she read.
“Yup, it’s always a good time on a road trip-” she smiled and put the bag between her legs and buckled her seatbelt and looked at Miranda, signaling she was free to drive off now “-you’ll see.”
“The fashion category,” Andy read out loud, smiling proudly, and glanced over at Miranda still driving and not looking at her.
Miranda exhaled a long breath through her nose but didn’t protest, leaning back against her seat, one arm on the wheel and the other resting her head against the window.
“What is the English translation of the term haute couture?” Andy read the question on the card and waited.
Miranda glanced at her when she realized the silence was meant for her to answer and pulled her sunglasses up to her forehead, pulling her hair back. “If you’re going to do this, ask a serious question.”
Andy giggled. “Hey, these are the cards not me,” she raised her hands in surrender, then flipped through to find a better question.
“Okay, this one.” She cleared her throat. “Which legendary British designer was widely credited with popularizing the miniskirt in the 1960s?”
Without wasting a second. “Mary Quant.”
Andy flipped the card to read the answer and smiled. “Correct,” earning her an eye roll from Miranda.
“Of course I’m correct, that was almost as idiotic as the last question,” she snorted.
“Hey, I didn’t know this one,” Andy argued with a giggle.
“You prove my point,” Miranda muttered, looking ahead.
Usually a comment like this would make Andy cower or feel a pang of insecurity surge through her, but all she felt was warmth building in her stomach. She adjusted in her seat at the feeling and gulped and flipped to the next card.
“Who designed the famous cone bra worn by Madonna on her 1990 Blond Ambition World Tour?” She smiled reading it.
Miranda rolled her eyes. “Jean Paul Gaultier.”
Andy titled her head, smiling, and turned the card. “Correct again,” she nodded, impressed.
“And she didn’t deserve it,” Miranda muttered, something about Madonna’s misuse of couture clearly still a sore subject. “Some of his finest work, wasted.”
Andy had to hold in her laugh and nodded, moving to the next card, knowing well the woman’s long-standing feelings about the singer.
“Which famous French fashion editor of the 1960s famously compared the bikini to the atomic bomb?”
Miranda felt her hands tingle at the question as a warm smile spread across her face. “Diana Vreeland.”
July 13th, 1965.
Miranda sat in her room, her eyes sore and tired, both dry and wet from tears she’d cried into the evening, her throat scratching and her stomach grumbling. A knock at the door startled her off the bed, making her clutch her chest as she opened it.
“May I come in?”
A smile spread across Miranda’s face as she stepped aside and ushered her sister in, and as soon as the door clicked shut she practically tackled her in a hug and immediately started crying.
“Oh dear,” Mariah whispered, patting Miranda’s back and stroking her hair gently.
She pulled back from the hug and wiped her tears and laughed humorlessly at herself and gestured for her sister to take a seat as she tried to wipe the snot from her nose.
“What is it this time,” her sister asked in a tone that could come off as bored but between them was simply acknowledgment that they’d both been here a thousand times.
“I got into fashion school,” Miranda whispered, the humming of a headache still persisting at the back of her head. “The one in Paris I told you about. And I can’t go.”
“Ah,” was all that Mariah said, and that was all that needed to be said. That was the sister way between them.
“I’m so tired, Mariah-” Miranda turned to look at her, her sister’s eyes a completely different color, dark and brown. “-it’s been so hard since you left.”
“Oh, I know, it’s miserable without me,” her sister smiled at her sadly, her tone carrying a sadness of its own. “Well, I need to head back and feed the children, just thought I’d swing by and give you a little present first,” she patted Miranda’s knee gently.
And while Miranda loved her nieces and nephews, her sister having four in just four years was a pointed reminder of exactly what she didn’t want her life to become.
she reached into her bag and held out a magazine, and like hypnosis had taken over Miranda grabbed it in both hands, a massive grin breaking across her face.
“It wasn’t easy to find, you’re welcome,” her sister teased, bumping her shoulder.
Miranda’s hand hovered over the cover, stroking it gently. “Thank you,” she whispered more into the void, and she felt tears stinging at her eyes again.
And it’s as if being from the same womb connects your minds.
“Miri-” her sister started, then hesitated and looked at the bedroom door for a moment, then back at her little sister. “Mum will be alright-”
Miranda felt tears building again. She’d thought she’d be all dried out by now. But with a broken smile and a grim nod from her sister she finished with,
“Just go.”
A loud thud snapped Miranda out of her thoughts as the pressure and balance of the car shifted in a way that signified one thing.
“Looks like we’ve got a flat,” Andy pointed out exactly what Miranda was already thinking.
“Shit,” Miranda muttered under her breath as she pulled off to the side of the road and sat back in her seat, already dreading the delay this would add to the trip.
She wouldn’t be the one making the call to a mechanic. Well, she wouldn’t have to.
What surprised her was the sight of Andy unbuckling her seatbelt instead of reaching for her phone.
“What are you do-” before she finished Andy was already out of the car and closing the door behind her, making her way around to the back right wheel.
Miranda honked twice to usher the girl back in and when her head peeked over the window Miranda rolled hers down. “What are you doing? Find a mech-”
“We don’t need one, Miranda, I’ve got this,” Andy smiled politely and went around to the trunk, pulled out the suitcases, and retrieved the spare wheel hidden beneath.
She wasn’t the strongest by any means, but nothing a little wobbling and a well-placed knee hadn’t gotten a wheel on the ground before.
She went back to the glovebox and pulled out the nuts and bolts for the tire, and just gave Miranda a smile as the woman remained in her seat, looking faintly stunned. “You’re changing the tire yourself?” she asked with flat disbelief.
“Yes, it won’t take too long,” she answered efficiently, and something about being in crisis mode, the way she’d trained herself to just handle the situation and handle it cleanly, left Miranda’s mouth hanging slightly open as the girl walked herself back around to the rear of the car.
With a long sigh Miranda made her way out of her seat and walked to the back, the cold wind making her pull her black wool coat tighter around herself as she stood over the girl crouched on the ground.
“Miranda, I’ve really got this, you can wait in the car, this’ll take a bit,” Andy said, craning her neck upward.
“I’m stretching my legs and I need to make sure you won’t ding my car. You don’t look very experienced,” Miranda argued back, her tone a little lighter than usual.
Andy exhaled a chuckle. “Yeah, okay,” she shook her head as she got up with the metal piece set on the bolt. “Just so you know-” she started, smirking, getting a sudden surge of confidence “-I’m very experienced,” and she punctuated that by stomping on the metal piece and effectively removing the bolt from the tire without much struggle.
Miranda chalked up the sudden urge to gulp to embarrassment.
That’s all.
“And it’s done,” Andy announced.
Miranda gave her a long once-over at the state of her clothing, two dark patches of mud on the knees of her jeans and her coat smudged along the sleeve.
“Well. Good thing you weren’t wearing Chanel,” Miranda muttered, and Andy just nodded and laughed gently.
“And good thing we’re an hour from Stanwood so I can change.”
The realization of just how close they were now spiked a wave of anxiety in Miranda’s chest that she really hoped didn’t show on her face. She felt her palms sweat and rubbed them quickly against her coat, and as Andy started heading back to her seat Miranda held a palm out to stop her and took off her own coat.
Andy’s eyes went wide. “Miranda, no, I’m alright-”
“You are not getting that dirt on my seat, Andrea,” she rolled her eyes and threw her coat at Andy like she was a desk at the office. “Put that sheet you call a coat in the trunk,” and walked back around to the driver’s seat before the cold started biting at her skin.
As Andy did as she was told her brain didn’t know what to focus on more, the warmth the actual high-quality coat immediately provided her or being completely and utterly surrounded by Miranda.
As Andy made it back to her seat she saw Miranda sitting at the wheel with furrowed brows, staring ahead. “Ready to go?” she asked gently.
August 13th, 1965.
“I just wish you could talk some sense into your sister.”
Miranda had her ear pressed against the door, eavesdropping having become a bad habit she’d developed over the years.
“Why not let her try? I’m sure we could scrape enough together for at least a semester,” her heart fluttered hearing her sister argue on her behalf.
“Oh, she’s gotten to your head now too,” she could basically see her mother rolling her eyes.
“I just don’t see the harm in letting the girl do something she wants for once, mum,” a rise of irritation in Mariah’s tone.
“Let her get married first like you did, then she can join whatever school she likes.”
“Yeah, between child number one and number four, that’s the sweet spot for her to study abroad, you’re right,” Mariah answered sharply, and Miranda felt her chest clench for her sister.
“Well if you’d married a richer man this wouldn’t be a problem.”
“You made me marry him!” Miranda flinched at the door at the sudden rise in volume. “You do not get to throw that in my face.”
“What other choice did I have? Your sister on the other hand can get whatever man she likes and that’s what this family needs.”
Miranda cringed.
“Wow, thank you, mum, and please don’t miss the implication that you’re selling your daughters like cattle. Let the girl go to school. Me and my poor husband whom you’ve saddled me with will deal with it,” Mariah answered sharply, and Miranda heard the noise of her gathering her things.
“You will do no such thing,” her mother growled.
“Yeah? Watch me,” and the door slammed, the sound hurting Miranda’s ear, making her flinch away from it.
She turned to look at her reflection in the mirror.
She traced her face with her eyes, and while she knew she wasn’t an ogre she never saw herself as beautiful enough to do whatever her mother wanted her to do. And if she knew what about her face made her mother say that she’d change it, just so her mother would stop forcing her toward marriage. If she could see what made her beautiful she’d remove it.
And as she looked at her stack of fabrics and sewing kits she’d spent all her pocket money on to practice and build her portfolio, the same portfolio that got her accepted, a feeling of pity rose at the moot effort she’d put in. The sight of the scissors on top of the stack struck an epiphany and she grabbed them, stood in front of the mirror, and took one long deep breath, feeling courage and fear and anger all at once.
Snip.
She chopped a chunk out of her hair, the first time she’d ever cut it herself.
And as she kept going, the scissors gnawing through it until not a single strand sat below her shoulder, she heard a knock at the window.
She opened it and her sister’s eyes went wide at the sight. “Well, that’s certainly a choice,” but she broke into a grin that Miranda returned.
“Pack your things and meet me at the car when you’re ready to go.”
The big Welcome to Stanwood sign was hard to miss and made Miranda grip the steering wheel.
“Well, we made it,” Andy smiled gently and grabbed the map. “If you take the exit here there’s the only hotel in the area within a reasonable distance, they didn’t have a phone number listed though.”
“Wonderful,” Miranda muttered, and turned into the exit.
The parking lot being full of RVs and cars made both of them uneasy.
Why were so many people in the middle of nowhere Washington.
“Let me go check if they have availability,” Andy said, a little nervously.
“They need to have availability, I’m coming too.”
“We can’t leave Buttercup in the car, what if they don’t accept pets?” Andy reasoned.
“Just do what you did last time, she’s due to wake up now anyway. And for the record she doesn’t sleep like a comatose uncle, she sleeps like a dead one,” she rolled her eyes and went back to the trunk to grab her suitcase.
Andy sighed and opened Buttercup’s crate, the dog squinting and clearly still waking up.
“At least this coat is much nicer, buddy.”
“One room, one king,” the receptionist mouthed off as soon as they walked in.
Andy wobbled slightly and rested one arm on the desk as Miranda stood next to her, Buttercup cradled inside her coat with the other hand. “I’m sorry, what?”
The receptionist rolled his eyes. “We have one room, one king bed, that’s all that’s available.”
Andy’s eyes could’ve jumped out of her skull and Miranda scoffed. “That is ridiculous.”
“Take it or leave it, lady,” he said, bored, not even looking up from the comic book he was reading.
“Excuse me, do you know wh-” Miranda started with a low growl and Andy jumped in to interject, giving Miranda a look that said you don’t want him to know who you are.
“Are there really no two-bed rooms available? Why is it so busy anyway?” she asked with genuine curiosity, hoping to charm the man.
“The West Coast Farmers Summit,” he looked up and gave them both a once-over, “I assume you’re definitely not here for that,” seeming like the only man not interested in women or fashion. “And no, one room, one king bed, that’s it,” he sighed, his tone going a fraction gentler when he looked back at Andy.
Andy glanced at Miranda, who was still drilling holes into the man’s head, and pulled the woman off to the side, wrestling with her other hand to keep the now very fussy dog still inside the coat.
“Well.”
“This is completely ridiculous,” Miranda scoffed, still eyeing the man over Andy’s shoulder.
“It’s either this or the car. There really aren’t any other places nearby,” Andy whispered, moving her head to block Miranda’s view of him so she’d focus on her instead.
When Miranda did make eye contact with her she felt her throat tighten. “You wouldn’t even know I’m there,” Andy tried, aiming for comforting.
It earned her a massive eye roll. “That isn’t the pro-” Miranda stopped herself and cleared her throat. “Completely unprofessional staff,” she shook her head.
“You’re right,” Andy smiled gently but a little painfully as Buttercup started gnawing at her side. “So we take the room?”
Miranda sighed dramatically and looked at the ground. “What other choice do we have.”
And as they both looked out the lobby window into a vast flat field of absolutely nothing they walked back to the reception and took the key.
And as they walked up to the room Andy was blaming Buttercup’s antics for the ache in her stomach and the long drive for the lightheaded feeling and an early onset heart condition for the quickening of her pulse.
August 13th, 1965.
As Miranda picked up her bag and stepped into the living room her mother’s eyes widened at the sight of her and she sprang up immediately, walking to stand in front of her. “What do you think you’re doing.”
“I’ll write you, mum,” Miranda muttered, trying to make her way to the door.
“Have you completely lost your mind?!” Her mother stood to block her path, and Miranda hated how guilty she felt, and as her mother took in the state of her hair she muttered, “you really have,” with full sorrow in her voice.
As Miranda walked around her toward the door,
“If you walk out that door you are dead to me. Do you hear me?”
She froze in her path, clenched her fist, her heart lurching in her throat, her feet cemented to the floor.
“Dead. Like I never birthed you. I don’t want you to write me a thing. If you take another step you are not my daughter.” The voice was rough but broken, coming from behind her in a way she’d never heard her mother speak before.
Every muscle in her body almost turned her around and walked her straight into her mother’s arms to make sure those words never became a reality.
Nothing could be worth losing your mother like this.
And as she turned her head back to look at her mother, Miranda didn’t see a woman worried and angry at the prospect of losing her child. She didn’t see warmth or love behind the anger. She didn’t see the faint affection that had stayed in her mother’s eyes even when she’d hit her hard enough to bruise.
Nothing.
Her gaze fixed on the chopped hair as though a spell had been broken and her mother couldn’t quite see her anymore.
And Miranda realized that as hard as it was to leave, to her mother her death was as easy as just cutting her hair.
“I’ll write you,” she whispered, and turned around and opened the door and made it quickly to Mariah’s car sitting at the curb, putting her suitcase in the boot, looking at her mother through the window one last time before getting into the front seat next to her sister.
Her tears spilled as soon as the door closed and Mariah glanced at their mother, who hadn’t even bothered coming to the door, and shook her head. She placed a comforting hand on Miranda’s knee and tucked a strand of chopped hair behind her ear. “Bravery really does suit you, little Miri.”
And pulled the stick shift and drove off.
“It’s going to be hard,” she muttered, both of them sobering up from the adrenaline as they drove toward the port.
“I know,” Miranda answered, determined.
“Well, if anyone can do it it’d be you,” Mariah said with a sly smile that Miranda returned, and they arrived at the port, the cold wind making Mariah pull her coat tight, feeling a strong sense of responsibility settle over her at the sight of her little sister.
As Miranda went to pull her suitcase out of the boot,
“Don’t.”
Mariah stopped her and shook her head, and Miranda felt a spike of anxiety at the thought of her sister changing her mind.
Mariah dangled the car keys in front of her. “You’re taking the car too.”
“What? No, Mariah, that’s too much, how-”
“Shh,” she shushed her gently. “Let me be a cool big sister. You need it more than I do. I left a stash of francs in the glovebox, should get you by for a while.”
“B-but-” Miranda wanted to argue and Mariah just shook her head, suddenly becoming emotional.
“Everyone will be alright. You just go,” she patted her shoulder with one hand and her cheek with the other.
Miranda pulled her into a very long hug, the sound of the boat horn making them pull apart. “Go, go,” Mariah whispered, broken, tears in her eyes, and as Miranda wiped her own she took the car keys and circled around to the driver’s seat, pulling it up the ramp and into the boat headed for France.
And as she stepped out of the car and made her way up to the deck, staring back at her sister hugging her coat around herself on the dock, one of the last people still standing there, it wasn’t long before the boat started moving. Miranda waved at her sister until she became a dot she could barely make out, then turned and looked ahead at the open water, feeling a shiver travel up her spine at the realization that she had just taken a fork in the road and the consequences would be everlasting.
But free air had never tasted so sweet.