The Dress Shop on King Street

by Ashley Clark

  Her wedding day? Now, that was something.

  Harper took a sip of her tea. There was one other thing she’d been wondering all evening. Now seemed to be as good a time to ask as any. “Millie, what is it doing here? Does Peter know it’s yours?”

  “That seems to be the million-dollar question.”

  And like that, Millie was quiet once more. The two drank the rest of their tea in silence until Millie saw the sketchbook Harper had brought into the room.

  “What’s that?”

  Harper waved the question away with her hand. “Oh, nothing. Just some dresses I’ve sketched here or there.” She picked up the empty teacups and carried them toward the kitchen sink.

  “Mind if I take a look?” When Harper returned from the sink, Millie had turned on a desk lamp and was already flipping through the sketches.

  The thought of Millie looking through her creative work was unnerving, to say the least. No one had seen her sketches since her department chair proclaimed her dress worthless. What good could come from a dead dream? No use feeding the thing. On to bigger and better things.

  “Just a little hobby of mine.” Harper filled in the silence, resisting the urge to snatch the drawings from Millie’s grasp.

  Millie closed the book and set her hands on top of it. “You’re quite good, Harper. You always have had a gift for this.”

  “I’m average.”

  Millie watched her a long moment, then stood with a wobble until she got her bearings, using the chair for stability. “I’m going to sleep now. Thanks for finishing the tea.”

  She handed the notebook back to Harper and kept walking, leaving behind a wake of questions. Hope began to bounce around Harper’s heart like a child’s ball, and she had the hardest time catching the thing.

  She’d already had a chance at the big-picture dream, and that world didn’t agree with Peter or Millie’s hope-filled take on things. She finally stilled herself with the memory.

  As she’d told herself, bigger and better things.

  Strange, though, how she kept finding herself talking about the same old dream.

  “Oh, and by the way, I’ve decided I am definitely going to rent the dress shop from Peter. Lest you think that was all for show this afternoon.” Millie turned and spoke this over her shoulder, as casually as if she were asking Harper to turn off the lights from the entry. “Sleep tight.”

  “Not so fast,” Harper said.

  This was her chance to explain she would commit to helping with the store only until it was up and running. But her heart tugged with the prospect of losing this connection with Millie. Before they had that conversation, there was another thing she needed to ask.

  Millie waited.

  “You knew all along, didn’t you? You were planning to rent it out from the beginning. You act as if you’ve even researched how much the lease will be.”

  Even in the dim light, Millie’s eyes sparkled. “I said I didn’t like the Internet, Harper.” She raised her chin. “Never said I couldn’t use it.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  Fairhope, 1952

  “I’m sweatin’ like a sinner in church.” Millie fussed with the curved collar of her emerald blouse. “It’s hot enough to melt sugar in tea out here.”

  Franklin smirked, offering her one of his sly half grins. “It’s January, Red.”

  Five years into their marriage, and the nickname that first night had stuck.

  “Oh, hush.”

  She was fond of him—very fond of him, actually—and though their lips hadn’t so much as brushed since their wedding day and they’d faithfully slept with an invisible barrier between each side of the bed, she was beginning to long for him in a way she had never quite longed for anyone.

  And over time, that little nickname had begun to stir a new set of feelings toward Franklin, so that when she heard it—her own special name—her heart came alive, garnered by his full attention toward her.

  He could’ve called her anything, and she would’ve felt the same.

  He was, of course, her husband. Only, he wasn’t. Not in all the conventional ways. So she would go on pretending her heart was as steady as ever, that she saw him as a helper and her dearest friend, for she certainly didn’t want to upset the balance of their perfectly beautiful life.

  But some mornings, like this morning, she did look at him for a long stretch of time before he awakened—studying his jawline, his neatly trimmed beard, even the way his chest rose and fell with breaths full of relaxation, and in those moments, she longed to be closer to his breaths, closer still to his heart.

  Oh, she was in for it now. All kinds of trouble.

  She had fallen for him, that’s what.

  “I realize it’s only January, but you could swim through the humidity after that storm last night. Do you not feel it’s unseasonably warm? Why, even the azaleas are blooming early.”

  Certainly he wouldn’t argue with the azaleas.

  He studied her a while. “Fetch your hat,” he said, finally.

  Millie hurried over to the hat rack and started to reach for the new hat she’d made last week. Brightly colored flowers framed one side of the small hat and led down toward several inches of netting. But then she thought better of it and grabbed her red cloche instead.

  She all but leapt to his side, calming herself lest she look like a child. But she was simply dying to get out of the boardinghouse for a few hours, and adventures with Franklin were her favorite thing.

  He took the keys to his old truck from the hook by the entry, then opened the door wide enough for Millie to pass through.

  She rewarded his good manners with a wide grin and a swoosh of her skirt, the outer layer made of dotted Swiss lace she’d salvaged from some old gowns Mrs. Stevens had given her years prior. They walked toward the truck, and Franklin helped pull her up into the seat, which sat far too high above the ground for a woman in heels.

  Mrs. Stevens’s kin brought her to visit from time to time, usually for breakfast, and she never missed the chance to tell Millie and Franklin how proud she was of the way they were running her old inn. Millie’s heart warmed every time.

  “Where are we going?” She was settled near him and fidgeting with the radio before she thought to ask.

  “Do you trust me?” Franklin turned the ignition of his truck and leaned forward, his plaid button-down pressed to the large wheel as he checked for oncoming traffic.

  With his hair slicked back and his thick-rimmed glasses, he could pass for a successful businessman. And maybe he was.

  Maybe somewhere along the way, he and Millie had stopped pretending to be innkeepers, both running from one thing or another, and had actually come into a new life. Together.

  Another five years, and they’d be rollin’ in high cotton.

  “Should I?” Millie straightened her skirt and grinned at him. But something within her stirred with greater meaning.

  Should I? The question offered a quiet refrain. Franklin still didn’t know why Millie boarded the train that day. Oh, she’d thought to tell him. She’d thought to tell him a million times.

  But secrets are funny things in that sometimes you reach a point in life where they’re easier to keep than to break. Such was the case with Millie’s past.

  “I’ll leave that up to you.” Franklin winked, sending a tickle of happiness down her arms. “But in this case, the answer is frozen and full of sugar.”

  Millie grinned from ear to ear. “Ice cream!” She could kiss him right now for how excited she was. She hadn’t enjoyed a sundae, her favorite treat, in ages.

  She and Franklin fell into a comfortable quiet as they bought their ice cream and ate it at the little shop downtown. But on the inside, a swell of gratitude and anticipation overwhelmed her. All she could think was how far her life had come since that ice cream on King Street five years prior. She had fallen deeply in love. She had married the man. Just not in that order.

  This was the life Mama had wanted for her. A life fu
ll of opportunity. And yet, she still felt something missing. The tug of a past that used to be. A silent part of her identity that longed to speak. The colored part of her that she was still proud to be. All of that was the reason she hadn’t opened her heart to Franklin more fully. Every time she started to tell him, she thought about what happened to her daddy. Maybe Mama knew best when she told Millie to keep it all hushed.

  And there was the tug of another thing too—her dress shop dream that had still not come to be, despite her hard work at the store in town and all the mending she did at the inn. She would like to think every stitch brought her closer, but sometimes she wondered what exactly she was sewing.

  A good half hour later, after the sun had set full and good and the moon was a smile from the sky, Franklin pulled into the driveway of the boardinghouse. A blissfully pensive Millie made her way to the little porch swing at the back of the old honeymoon suite. The deck, overlooking the bay.

  The air was thick as ever with humidity, but the ice cream had done its trick, and Millie had finally cooled down.

  Franklin, as he often did, came to sit beside her. “Mind if I join you?”

  She never minded.

  Back and forth they rocked like that, in the easy quiet that only time and trust can bring. The water lapped against the grassy shoreline, and the oak trees stretched their limbs but a yard away from the ground. So many stars were out that night, as far as Millie could see, and you could hardly make out the stars from their reflection on the water.

  Franklin looked at her and stretched his arm around her shoulder. He did not often do that part.

  “Happy anniversary, Millie.”

  Her heart did a dance then, and when she met his gaze, she saw the fire in his eyes and wondered how long he too had felt the insatiable pull she’d come to experience.

  Her pulse quickened, and she had the strangest sensation of floating—up from the porch swing, up toward the stars and moon. For she knew this was a night she would remember, a night when she fell in love with her husband of exactly five years, and a night that love was returned.

  “Millie,” he whispered, searching her gaze as she had just searched his own.

  I love you.

  The words need not be spoken aloud—for any sound, however sweet, might take the sanctity of what passed between them.

  She simply nodded her affirmation and wondered if even the moonlight might not hide the warmth of her cheeks.

  He needed no further invitation.

  Franklin drew her closer, traced the curve of her chin with his finger, then pulled the pins one by one from her hair, gently tossing her hat to the wooden deck beneath their feet.

  He kissed her with the light of a thousand stars, and though her eyes shut from bliss, she could still see light as she’d never seen. The light of a future, the light of a passion, and the light of a fire Franklin hadn’t lit until she was ready.

  But now . . . here . . . everything had changed.

  Millie slipped off her shoes and slid into his arms, and he carried her over the threshold that evening, willing and oh so ready.

  For the next five years. For the next fifty.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Charleston, Modern Day

  Harper lined the two fabrics together at the seams—one a true vintage, daisy print, and one a new lining. Lucy had brought Harper’s sewing machine over from Savannah last week, and the cool metal of the machine warmed her heart with the comfort of familiarity. She ran the fabrics through the vintage machine, careful that the blending of the two different fabrics didn’t cause any puckering.

  Lucy had asked about the rest of her furniture, but Harper told her she planned to drive over in a couple of weeks and sell it to other SCAD students.

  The front door to the storefront creaked open.

  Harper released the pedal of the machine but kept her hold on the fabric. Peter stepped inside. She straightened the thick headband that tamed her curls and offered a smile.

  He rubbed his five o’clock shadow and slipped both hands into his pockets. Then he looked down to the stacks of boxes and gestured toward one with his loafer. “What are these?”

  Harper cleared her throat. In retrospect, she probably shouldn’t have taken the liberty to pile them like a fortress around the repair supplies he was using to get the storefront ready. But those suckers were heavy.

  “Shoes.”

  Peter pulled his glasses from the bridge of his nose and wiped them with the hem of his sweater.

  “I’ll move them.” Harper filled the silence.

  “Nonsense. I’ll do it.” He reached for one of the boxes. “So, shoes, huh? Your own or for the store?”

  “Very funny.” Harper rolled her eyes but grinned.

  “Is the whole business owner thing starting to sink in? Or does it seem surreal?”

  More surreal than you can imagine, considering there was no actual plan to run a real store until Millie’s sudden announcement.

  Harper finished the row of stitches, then loosened her grip of the fabric.

  “It hasn’t sunk in.” She shook her head. “But then again, it’s not my dress shop. It’s Millie’s.”

  Peter crossed his arms. He took one step closer, toward the sewing machine. “Seems like a cop-out to me.”

  Harper just stared at him.

  “Why are you being so evasive?” he asked.

  “I’m not . . .” Harper ran her turquoise necklace back and forth along her collar. Peter was not going to let this go, was he? She didn’t break eye contact. “I’ve been disappointed before.”

  He waited for her to continue, unflinching.

  She fought a compulsion to fill the silence. She lost. “I came here with the intention of helping Millie. Not running the dress store.”

  “And yet here you are, repairing an old . . . whatever that thing is.” Peter pushed a couple of the boxes closer to the brick wall. “This is about your stupid professor, isn’t it?”

  “The piece is fine. The sort of thing I could get from any Anthropologie.”

  The words echoed from the empty chamber of her heart once filled by her dream.

  Before she could say anything, he continued. “What if she was wrong, Harper? Have you considered that? You’re going to allow her words to keep you from following a career that matters to you?”

  Harper fiddled with her earrings. “On the contrary, Peter. I am readily and gladly working alongside Millie to get this dress shop ready. But I am not going to be foolish about it.” She shuffled back and forth on her feet. “And I am certainly not going to pretend the dress shop is my own. This is about Millie.”

  Peter kept his arms crossed over his broad chest. He didn’t seem persuaded in the least. “And yet you are the one ordering and sorting items to sell. You’re the one at the sewing machine.”

  Harper pointed down to the blouse she was repairing. “Oh, this isn’t for the store. This is for fun. I’m taking a break from the real work before I sort through the shoes and start tagging them so they’re rack-ready. I got a ton of them at deep discount from a store that was closing.”

  Peter blinked. “Do you hear yourself right now?”

  Harper laughed.

  “Seriously. Do you realize how ridiculous you sound? You’re taking a break from shoes by sewing a shirt.”

  “That’s right.” Sewing had always been the way she expressed herself, ever since she was twelve and got her first machine. She couldn’t imagine not sewing. Connecting seam to seam, button to button, fabric to dream, was how she made sense of the world. She might hesitate to run a dress store after all the years of struggling, but she would never, never, give up creating.

  It was the whole interacting-with-the-outside-world part that she couldn’t do anymore.

  Harper reached for the blouse and straightened the fabric to begin the next seam. But before she touched the pedal, she looked up at Peter one more time. “I just don’t think I could handle the heartache if this thing fails and I own i
t. You can understand that, can’t you? I’m holding it loosely.”

  He looked down at the floor and slowly nodded. When he raised his head, he met her gaze with a sigh. “I do. But I think you’ve got more fight in you than you admit. Just ask that blouse.” His grin unraveled her for more reasons than one.

  By the glow of the streetlamps and the stars above, Peter, Millie, and Harper strolled down Queen Street to get some supper. Back when his mother was alive and he saw Millie every year or two, they’d eat at Poogan’s Porch when she came to visit. Peter could never bring himself to order the fried chicken outside of her company.

  But if they didn’t speed things along, nobody would be getting fried chicken tonight. They were already fifteen minutes late for their reservation because Millie insisted on going back upstairs and changing her scarf and earrings.

  At least Peter had talked her into comfortable shoes. The walk from their rental to Poogan’s Porch was a relatively short distance, but still, cracks in concrete and cobblestone were inevitable.

  He was nervous enough about their loft being on the second floor of the building, but Millie kept insisting that women all over Europe spent their entire lives climbing flights of stairs in big cities, and she could easily manage the few steps up to their rental.

  And she had Harper to help.

  Peter grinned just thinking of Millie’s tenacity. Most people her age were happy to be sitting in recliners and playing sudoku. Not Millie.

  It seemed that, simply put, Millie never stopped living. He knew no one else who would have the courage to start a store at this stage in her life. And he couldn’t help but wonder if Harper only thought she was the one doing the helping.

  Perhaps Millie had a greater plan in this all along. Peter suspected she was trying to give Harper the experience of owning a store, despite that professor’s criticism. He could be wrong, of course, but . . . well, he knew Millie. And Millie was always up to something.

  “Isn’t that window box darling?” Millie stopped outside a pink single house—the iconic Charleston style—framed by black shutters and wrought-iron planters.