The kallah and her mother exchanged quick looks. It was so fleeting I nearly missed it — the mother’s panicky shake of the head, the girl’s pleading eyes

A

gain that English net joke.

“Here, compare these.” Yocheved’s voice trailed through the door of the sewing room, where I was trying to eavesdrop over the rumbling cadence of sewing machines.

I leaned against the wall, tugging at Feuerstein’s muslin sleeve, and pictured the scene. Mother and daughter clustered around my sister, wide-eyed, as Yocheved held up two swatches of tulle, shaking her wrists to demonstrate the difference of how the fabrics fell.

The customers were doubtlessly nodding along, careful to appear enlightened but secretly wondering if there really was a difference between the two identical-looking pieces of white mesh. Not white, of course. Eggshell or vanilla or ivory, or whatever term Yocheved picked to glorify the colorlessness.

I smirked. Tulle was tulle, no matter how delicately you caressed it. Sure, softer and stiffer were personal preferences, but who cared what it was called?

“This sleeve’s good,” I told Olga. She looked up from her machine. I tossed her the muslin and draped my tape measure around my neck.

Turning the page in my notepad to Gluck, I walked over to Yelena. “You have a few minutes now?”

She nodded, releasing the foot of the serger. Her face stretched in a yawn, and I noticed dark rings under her eyes.

“You work too hard.” I told her.

“Da, khorosho. Yeah.”

I smiled at her compassionately. “New gown. Ready?”

With her notebook open next to mine, I started talking. She peered at my sketches as I spoke, replicating it in her own pad and adding Russian scrawls all around.

“Ugly,” she muttered.

I winked at her. These seamstresses, they slaved away creating kallahs’ dreams, with no right to an opinion. How pathetic was that?

Over the rumble of galloping needles, I heard my name being called. I looked up from Gluck. Yocheved was standing at the door, motioning me to come over.

“I guess we’ll continue later,” I told Yelena.

The scene in the reception room was exactly how I’d pictured it. Middle-aged mom with an oversized bag, spiffy kallah with long, beautiful hair.

“Mina.” Yocheved gestured to the pair, introducing me. “The Levinsons. First daughter.”

“I have four daughters-in-law,” Mrs. Levinson supplied, almost defensively.

I smiled.

And here it came — the brag book.

Ugh, was what I thought as the mini leather album was pushed into my hand. Not the pictures — I didn’t doubt that the kallah had looked stunning at her vort, that her chassan was tall and handsome and probably also smart. It was the word. Brag book. Point-blank bragging, no effort to pretend otherwise. This, if nothing else, was what irked me most about millennials.

Dutifully, I oohed over the accordion pages of the little book. The truth was, I liked seeing those albums. They gave me an idea of how a girl wore her dress. Unlike Yocheved, who got stuck at defining her tulles, I cared about posture and fit, and honestly, I had a knack for it. I knew how to match a figure to a style. I knew how to make every kallah look good.

And Yocheved knew I knew this. That’s why she had me on her staff.