“The blue lace offsets your eyes.” The dressmaker smiled politely as one of the customers in her shop wandered through the aisles of fabrics and dresses.

The customer smiled, “Perhaps another time.”

The dressmaker frowned internally. How long was she supposed to keep saying the same message until someone gave her the right response. She was getting very irritated at the man who had blackmailed her into letting him use her shop basement as an “office” and who was constantly requesting things.

As the day crawled forward & the dressmaker felt more and more foolish as she repeated the same lie over and over, two men and a woman came through the door. She eyed them with just a hint of hope as she waited for them to pass the lacey dresses so she could say her line.

The woman passed them while chattering in French and the dressmaker called out, “The blue lace offsets your eyes.”

The trio was instantly in front of her and the woman asked with venom dripping from her words, “Where is he?”

The dressmaker fainted.