Brillance d'Étoile
by
Owlcroft

The annual lavish get-together of the Fashion Association of New York was less than two weeks away now and Lydia always looked forward to it as an opportunity for exchanging information, networking, and general schmoozing. Although it made a rather unfortunate acronym.

For this year's dinner/dance, she'd designed a dark charcoal suit for Beetlejuice with almost imperceptible light gray stripes; this to be worn with a dark purple shirt. It was time for him to try it on one final time but he was still in his lab, working on something he was reluctant to talk about. Lydia was just opening her mouth to call him when she heard a familiar poof of air and there he was, grinning widely and holding out a hand.

Whatever he held was . . . silver? A fabric of some type, but smooth and gleaming, like liquid silver.

"I call it Brillance d'Étoile – Starshine. Look how it has that iridescence, see, when it moves? And the way it sort of glitters? That took forever to get right." The grin dimmed just a little as he looked at her hopefully. "You like it?"

She took it from him and marvelled at the soft weave, the flow of the material. "Oh, Beej," she breathed. "This is this what you've been working on for . . . how long now?"

"Six weeks." He tilted his head and the grin dimmed a bit more. "Do you like it? Is it okay?"

Lydia flew to him and threw her arms around his neck, still holding the swatch of Starshine. "Like it? It's . . . amazing! It's unbelievable! It's . . ." she pulled back from him to hold up the fabric again. "It's perfect. If you can produce three yards of it, I'll make a belted tunic and wear it over black silk palazzo pants to the association dinner. Oh, Beej!"

The grin came back full force. "You know, there's lots more you can do with this. You can make those little roses – rosettes? – and make a brooch or do them smaller and make earrings. I've got a polymer . . . like a clear liquid plastic, that I can dip them into and when it dries the shape is set. I could even make a bigger rosette for a necklace. What do you think? Or maybe a star-shape with rays shooting out? You just cut tiny spear-shapes and I'll polymerase them and you've got a star, right?"

"Right? Right! I think you're a genius! A star on a silver circlet – that would be stunning. Let me get some of this down." She snatched up her sketchbook and her pencil scurried across the paper.

Beetlejuice held his latest product up to the light. "So I was thinking about shoes, too. Shoes were fur at first, then hide, I guess. Then they figured out how to make leather and now shoes can be plastic and stuff. So why don't women have shoes to match their clothes?"

Lydia shook her head but went from sketching to scribbling, realizing this was one of those rare chances she had to capture whatever ideas he had scampering through his mind when he got creative.

"Why do they have to be leather or plastic all in one piece? Why not have a flexible form," he held up his hands a few inches apart, "that you can slide fabric over – cloth that matches your shirt? Or your dress, whatever. Why not have a handbag form that you can swap the fabric off to match your outfit? Maybe with snaps or velcro or something."

Lydia was making notes as fast as she could write.

"Hats, now. Women used to wear the most amazing hats. Look at the 1890s! Or go back another hundred years to when people in France were wearing jewels and ribbons and feathers and pineapples in their wigs – well, maybe not pineapples. Hmm. Maybe they were. Anyway, women stopped wearing great hats but maybe if somebody" – looked at Lydia with a wink – "made them available again, they would. To match their clothes or set them off or just to attract attention."

Even as she sketched furiously and made multitudinous notes up and down and across the pages, Lydia realized the creative train had slowed down and was entering the depot.

Beetlejuice eyed the fabric he held critically. "Or maybe a hair ornament. Used to be de rigueur for evening wear. You know, you have to be careful sewing this. Make sure the needle goes exactly where you want it because the hole it makes is permanent. And if you want the workshop to reproduce this, I've got plenty of the . . . the lattice they'll need, the structure of the fabric. But the rest of the stuff – well, we better start putting in the orders now."

Lydia nodded, then thought to ask, "How pricey are the materials you used?"

"You'll have to make this a top-of-the-line item. It's got to be expensive because the materials are expensive." He smiled at the swatch of fabric he now held in his cupped hands. "But it's worth it, isn't it?"

"It's exclusive to Scarab House," she told him. "And you made it – so, to me, it's priceless."

ooooo

FANY's gala was another success that year. The food had been decent, the wines were excellent, the music was fine, the company was a mix of fun and tiresome. Lydia had met up with most of the contacts she'd wanted to talk to, and Beetlejuice was off with a crowd of new friends, laughing and making them laugh. He was having a good time and, from all appearances, so were they.

Lydia was starting to relax and enjoy herself when she overheard her company mentioned.

"Scarab House is certainly making a name for itself, but my dears . . . have you seen that poor woman's escort? The soi-disant sense of humor, the bonhomie . . . it's so out of place. And that laugh!" The speaker shuddered. "No decorum, no dignity whatsoever. And his appearance – the ensemble is acceptable, but it's like a pearl in a pig's ear; so déclassée."

The wife of the pig's ear turned slowly to see Henriette, famous American couturiere looking at the laughing Beetlejuice. Henriette was a fierce competitor with Scarab House for the mid- and upper-scale market, but she and Lydia had managed to be fairly amicable to one another. Until now.

The group that Henriette had collected around her stirred uneasily and one nodded to her and winked, then jerked one shoulder toward a fuming Lydia. "Oh, my dear," the faux French designer turned to say in what everyone knew was her fake French accent, "mille pardons. Je ne savais pas . . ."

"You know, Henriette, or, since you appear to know my husband so well, perhaps I should call you by your real name? Well then, Harriet, I don't know what that fancy French word means and I'd bet you don't either, but," said Lydia, calmly but dangerously, "there are people who happen to think my husband is intelligent and funny and charming and sensitive and . . . and absolutely as attractive as can be. So just who the . . . who are you to say he's day-class-say?!"

As Henriette waved her hands meaninglessly, smiling condescendingly at the same time, Lydia looked around for Beetlejuice and, having spotted him, waved him over. "Beej, what does day-class-say mean?"

"Um, it's pronounced déclassée, and it means . . . common, less important than it used to be, low in status. 'Ce restaurant est tellement déclassée', or 'c'est un quartier tres déclassée" – this restaurant is so low in class, this neighborhood is really rundown. See?" He extended a hand to his wife. "But I was looking for you to ask you to dance. I just paid that guy ten bucks to play a cha-cha. Will you?"

Lydia immediately took his hand and stared coldly back at the female group watching them take the dance floor.

Beetlejuice, as he was being pulled away, told Henriette and her group over his shoulder, "Bon soir, mesdames. Cela a été tout ton plaisir. Je vous assure.''

Most of the women smiled and simpered at that, but one narrowed her eyes and tried to translate what he'd just said. When she finally made it out to be 'the pleasure's been all yours', it was too late to make a response.

As Lydia and her husband set up for the cha-cha, she started to smile and the smile grew until it lit her face. When the music began, they were the cynosure of admiring eyes, blazing across the dance floor as only two people who've danced together for years can.

ooooo

Once finally home that night, Beetlejuice tried to plead fatigue and suggested they go straight to bed. He yawned widely and blinked as if sleep was sneaking right up on him. "Gee whillikers, babes! That hobnobbing and socializing really takes it out of a guy. Don't know when I've been so tired." He smiled at Lydia hopefully.

She smiled back. "Really? Gee whillikers?" The smile faded as she shook her head slowly. "Beej, I just wanted to ask if you'd heard what that . . . that . . . that –"

"Poseur?" he suggested.

"Yes! What she said about you." Suddenly, all the anger began to come back; Lydia took a deep breath and tried to keep hold of her temper.

"Um, I could probably make some sort of guess. Did I cause a problem, do something wrong?" He looked down at his feet and scuffed one boot thoughtfully.

"No! You were fine! You were having fun tonight and people around you were having fun, too." Lydia fumed and clenched her fists. "What nerve she had! That old . . . poseur."

Beetlejuice smiled a little. "Your accent's getting better." The smiled disappeared. "So, what was the old biddy's problem then? I know she's a competitor of ours."

Lydia savored the word 'ours' and slid an arm through one of her husband's. "She was just envious of our Starshine, is my guess, and maybe she's noticed her sales are dropping."

He looked at her solemnly. "You sure she was thinking about the material, heart? Not me?" He frowned when she looked away. "I sort of did hear something, you know, about a pig. I have really good hearing. With these ears." He gestured toward his head.

She sighed and turned to face him, putting her free hand on his chest, right over his heart. "Henriette – Harriet – is just a nasty, conceited loudmouth with no sense of . . . of decorum or dignity."

Beetlejuice quirked a tiny smile. "Yeah, I heard that part, too. Although how a pig is supposed to be decorous or dignified . . ."

"Beej, I meant what I told them." Lydia patted his chest gently. "You are brilliant, intelligent, attractive, desirable, generous, supportive, and . . . and all kinds of other things, too. I always said you were beautiful –"

"Yeah, but that's sort of a joke between us, right?"

"No! You are incredibly attractive, my own darling, so very good-looking."

He looked at her, disbelieving. "You are talking about me?" He shook his head and took her in his arms. "You're the one who's beautiful. Anyone would think so. Anyone would want you. But me? Dearest, I know what I look like and, yeah, I like to pretend I think I'm a dreamboat. But I'm more like a nightmare tug."

"That is just not true. Besides, are you telling me you agree with Harriet?" She looked at him smugly, seeing that he had no reply to that and she'd just won the argument. "It doesn't matter what someone looks like; it's what they are inside. And you are not a pig's ear, you're the pearl." When her husband simply looked at her with dubious eyes, she added in a whisper, "You are my starshine," and kissed him.