The Wedding Dress (26 page)

“Really?” Charlotte said, smiling. “You just don’t seem like the beauty pageant type.” Why did it sound like an insult? “I mean, the fuss and pretend. The phoniness.”

“Twenty years as a navy nurse will get the frippery out of you.” She drank her coffee. She didn’t sip. She drank. “You don’t have to look sheepish. I’m not the same woman I was then. Nor the woman I thought I’d be when I reached sixty-five. So tell me, why’d you come? You said you found someyou havething that belonged to me?”

“I was hoping you could help me solve a mystery.” Charlotte took the silk sachet from her purse and handed it to Hillary. Bethany had returned it, sample sachets already made, and Charlotte tucked the dog tags back inside the original. “I found this in a trunk I bought at an auction.”

At first Hillary didn’t show any recognition. But when her fingers touched the silk, they were trembling. Her nose and eyes reddened. “Well, mercy—” Emotion watered her voice and her eyelids fluttered. “I didn’t ever expect to see this again.”

“The dog tags are inside. Did you put them there?”

“I take it you finagled a way to open up that trunk?” Hillary poured the tags into her hand and closed her fingers over them. “I wanted to burn the whole kit and kaboodle the night after his funeral.”

“I read his body was never recovered.”

“He was blown to pieces. There was no body
to
recover.” Hillary reached down beside her chair for a tissue. “I didn’t think anyone would ever get into that trunk after I torched it closed.”

“It wasn’t easy. My friend had to cut it open.”

“Guess I’m not the welder I thought I was.” The soft curve of Hillary’s smile caught the slow drift of a solo tear. She caressed Joel’s dog tags. “I still miss him. Forty some-odd years later, I miss him.”

“You were married before he left?”

“We had the loveliest backyard wedding at my parents’ home—not far from here, actually. Joel was set to leave and I wanted to marry him so bad. I had a year left of college, but he’d be in Nam. I thought we should seal our love with a wedding. I just knew our love was stronger than death.”

“Maybe it is, Hillary. You still love him, right?”

Hillary wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “Our love wasn’t bulletproof. It didn’t keep him alive. I don’t know how it was with losing your mama, but with Joel I found it awfully hard to have closure on a life that never got started. All our dreams were on hold while he did his tour.” Hillary rocked back in her chair. “And there they are now, still on hold. Rusty and dusty on the shelf, lonely ’cause I never look at them anymore. He didn’t want to get married, but—”

“What happened? I mean, you got married, right?” Charlotte pictured Hillary’s and Joel’s names on the brittle cake invoice.

She smiled softly. “I’d already decided to throw him a party before he shipped out. We talked and argued about getting married, but Joel insisted he didn’t want to leave wa>

“You didn’t know it was there?”

“I had no idea. Neither did my parents. Boy, if I didn’t take that gown as some kind of sign.”

“What did Joel say?” Charlotte leaned into Hillary’s story.

“I didn’t tell him. About killed me to keep my mouth shut.” She smiled, a wrinkled nose smile that Charlotte felt in her spirit. “I wanted our last couple of weeks to be happy. Not arguing about weddings and marriage. But”—Hillary speared the air with her finger—“what I didn’t know was Joel had changed his mind about waiting. We were about halfway through his party when he got down on one knee and proposed in front of our family and friends.”

Tim had proposed in front of his family and friends too. But that story was for another time.

“The next week was a blur of wedding preparations. We got married on a Friday night, he shipped out the following Friday, and that was the last time I ever saw him.”

Charlotte sat back—no words she could conjure would fit the moment. Then, at last, “Hillary, I have the dress.”

“If you opened the trunk, then I guess you do. Please tell me you’re not getting married in it.”

“No, I’m not getting married. But the gown is . . . like new.” Charlotte started for another muffin but drew her hand back. “It’s like it’s never been worn.”

“I wore it, Charlotte.” Hillary eyed her, brows raised.

“Did you alter it?”

“Didn’t have to. That was the strangest thing. My mother and grandmother couldn’t get over it. The dress fit like a glove. Like it was made for me.” Hillary cradled her mug against her chest. “The style was timeless. I loved it. Tell me, does it still have an empire waist with pearls and—well, I guess it does if it’s been in the trunk all this time.”

“Yes, it does. It’s perfect.”

“I wanted to burn that dress. But Daddy wouldn’t let me. I was just about to set fire to the trunk, the dress, and the dog tags when he caught me. I was crazy with grief. I didn’t even get to see Joel’s dead body, to kiss his cold, blue lips. I would’ve too. I wouldn’t have cared if his spirit wasn’t really there. After the funeral I fired up the blowtorch and welded the lock. I didn’t want anyone to ever, ever wear such a sad gown again.” Her gaze snapped to Charlotped"1ete. “I never thought I’d find love again. Then I met my husband, Greg, right after I turned forty. He saved me. I tell you, he saved me.” Hillary opened her fingers and peered at the dog tags. “It’s incredibly hard to be wedded to a ghost.”

“Hillary, where did the dress come from? Do you have any idea?”

“The house. The trunk and the dress belonged to the house.”

“To the house?” Charlotte turned slightly in her chair for a better angle at Hillary.

“I found it in the house. I left it in the house. It belonged to the house. How did you find it?”

“I bought it at the Ludlow Auction. Up on Red Mountain.”

“Forty-four years later, that dang trunk makes its way up to Red Mountain.” Hillary squeezed her fingers around the dog tags. “We moved when the house was razed to make room for a shopping center. I never asked Mama what she did with the trunk. I was gone, half crazy by then.”

  “So you have no idea how the trunk wound up at the Ludlow auction forty years later?”

“None whatsoever.”

Dead end. And she’d been doing so well. Charlotte jumped when her phone broke the contemplative moment. She fumbled for it, not recognizing the number that paraded across the screen. “Hello?”

“Charlotte, it’s Jared.” Dr. Hotstuff. “Dixie gave me your number.”

“Jared, is everything all right? Is it Dix? The shop?” Charlotte turned cold in the warm, bright room.

“Dix is fine. She’s too stubborn to get hurt. The shop is fine as far as I know. But again, you left Dix in charge.” He sighed in a way that raised chills on Charlotte’s arm. “I just arrived for my shift and, Charlotte, it’s Tim. He’s been airlifted to the hospital. I thought you’d want to know.”

Chapter Sixteen

 
Emily

 
T
affy slipped the final fitted gown over Emily’s head. She closed her eyes, letting the sensation of warm rain on a hot summer afternoon wash down her arms and swish into a pool about her feet.

“I don’t know that I feel altogether right about this, Emily. Your mother seemed rather insistent about wearing Caroline Caruthers’s gown.”

“I feel perfectly right ped"1wearing Caabout this. I’m the bride. Not my mother. Isn’t this my day?”

“You’re not so naïve as to believe it’s not about families too.”

“No, but this is a simple little thing. I’m not stubborn, Taffy. But this is my wedding day, my wedding dress. I’m. Choosing. This. Gown.” Emily gazed into the seamstress’s mirrors. “I feel loved in this dress.”

“And is your man the one who loves you?” Taffy knelt to measure the hem, coughing over her shoulder. She’d canceled her visit to the Cantons’ due to sickness. So Emily found Big Mike and made the trip to 5th Avenue. “Miss Emily, hold still so I can get this done. And get you on out of here. I don’t want anyone catching us together, getting you in trouble. Plus, I don’t want you carrying my sickness to your mama’s house.”

“I won’t get in trouble.” Emily smoothed her hand over the bodice. Yes, her man loved her. Didn’t he? The dress was beautiful. Shiny, silky, and if possible . . . “Taffy, I do declare this dress appears to beam light.”

“I sewed it with gold thread.”

“Gold?” Emily examined the hem of the fitted lace sleeve. “What on earth? Real gold?”

“I get it here and there. I save it from some piecework I do. Things can be had in this city, even to a colored, if she wants it and knows how to get it. Sometimes I just ask the Lord to bring me what I need.”

“What did you ask Him for while sewing my dress, Taffy?”

“To bring you what
you
need.” Taffy patted Emily’s leg. “Turn so I can keep pinning.” She bent away again, coughing, her chest rattling.

“You should see a doctor.” Emily stepped around so Taffy could finish the hem.

“White girls see doctors. Old colored ladies kneel and pray.”

Emily gazed down at her. “I wish I had your faith and courage.”

“That’s what I’ve been praying for you to have, Miss Emily. Courage and faith.”

Emily peered over her shoulder into the mirror. The back of the gown scooped down her shoulders. The skirt fitted smoothly to her hips and flowed like milk over the stool to a chapel train. She felt as if she could float in this gown. She never wanted to take it off.

“Courage and faith, you say?” Emily gave her attention to Taffy. She’d need both, no doubt, to marry Phillip, the stubborn man. She’d realized since their engagement it would be no small task to bear the Saltonstall name. Women like Emmeline didn’t care a wit about marital vows. They’d alwa The’ys bat their eyes and shove their bosoms at men like Phillip. “. . . He’s too much about himself, too stupid, not to be flattered.”

“Come again, Miss Emily?”

Her cheeks burned. “Just talking to myself.”

Taffy grinned and plucked another straight pin from her lips. “I talk to myself all day long ’round here.”

“Taffy, why do you think I’ll need courage and faith?”

“Because . . .” The woman exhaled as she pinned the last length of hem. She stood to her full height and gazed into Emily’s eyes. “You’ll need it to marry the right man.”

Soft pockets of mud sloshed over Emily’s shoes and dotted the hem of her skirt as she cut through the neighbor’s yard toward her own kitchen door. Big Mike had dropped her off at Taffy’s but he couldn’t stay. Father had a list of chores for him to attend so she rode the trolley home.

“Aye, there you are, miss.” Molly pushed through the kitchen door, her brow arched. “The missus has been looking for you. Decide to take a romp in the mud, did you?”

“I walked from the trolley.” Emily started for the back stairs. “Where’s Mother? Can you launder this before she sees it?” Emily unhooked her skirt and stepped out, stepping around the pantry door in case Father’s man, Jefferson, walked in while she was in her bloomers.

“Leave it in your dressing room. I’ll come for it.” Molly dropped a mound of bread dough onto the work table. “And just where were you this afternoon?”

Emily blushed under Molly’s quizzical stare. The woman knew her better than some of her school friends. “I went to Taffy’s. She sent word the dress was ready for hemming.”

“Why didn’t you tell her to come here? You know how your people feel about you going to the colored neighborhood.”

“She wasn’t feeling well.” Emily walked over to the worktable. “Besides, I had to make sure Taffy made a wedding dress, not an evening gown as Mother insisted. I’m going to figure out a way to wear Taffy’s gown at my wedding, Molly. You watch. When I tried it on today, I actually felt . . . loved.”

“Loved?” Molly made a face. “Are you
not loved
, miss?”

“Mind your tone, Molly.” Since Charlotte’s confrontation with Phillip over her first visit to Taffy’s four weeks ago, he’d become the most attentive and affectionate fiancé. His passions were tempered and controlled, as if he remembered whose lips he kissed. His future wifeto mturAnd justs. Not a subservient mistress who served to quell his lusts. “I’m loved, certainly. It’s just that the dress makes me feel . . . so good. So clean.” Emily struggled to find words to match her feelings.

“Ah, the kind of feeling I get at church when the Spirit moves.”

“What does the Spirit do when He moves?” Emily stood by the kitchen stairs, eyes fixed on Molly. She’d heard of signs and wonders in some of the churches. Her minister passed it off as emotionalism. But Molly was a steady girl, not given to demonstration.

“What does He do? Whatever He wants, miss. Do you know how you sometimes have to take all the linens out of the drawer to get it straight and orderly again? The Spirit sometimes does the same with our sins.”

“Put all your sins on display?” How horrifying. Emily shivered from the idea. And from the cool evening air seeping into the kitchen from the window Molly kept cracked open.

“Only to you. Not everybody. But a person might weep. Or shake. Or blubber for forgiveness. Then in two shakes of a lamb’s tail, the Spirit has righted things and the person is back in business, all clean and orderly inside. Joyful.”

Did Emily feel clean and orderly inside? Joyful? “Don’t tell Mother I went to Taffy’s.” When was the last time she laughed? Really laughed. It was with Daniel that time he—