More of what, Freesia couldn’t say. Family strife. Chaos. Her mother had predicted it. It’s why Freesia had roamed the world, never staying in one place for any length of time. A storm. That’s what you are, child. One that stirs and whips and gets people all twisted.
Maybe that was why she had stayed in Devon; she couldn’t bear to see the same thing happen to her own dreams.
* * *
At half past five the same evening, Natalie and Allison ran into the shop as fast as their legs could carry them. A total sixteen-year-old ambush of “like”s and social media jargon and name-dropping—the actress, Rachel Lee Copeland, who’d been a bridesmaid last year at a local wedding, her LA stylist, Romy Jane, and “some bestie named Jon Yu,”—and squeals. Lots of squeals. Everything so breathy and bouncy, the ambush was like a basket of ping-pong balls dropped from the ceiling.
“They want you in New York. Something about nightly participation and an incubation artist, whatever that is,” said Natalie.
“And avant-garde,” added Allison. “I had to tell her what that meant.”
“Shut up. Did not.”
“Girls…” Charlotte’s verbal reflex barely triggered a lift of her head from running the day’s receipts.
Natalie handed her phone to Freesia, queued up to the shop’s account, and clicked on the private message from Yu’s exclusive profile: Struck. Must know Iro’s story. Emerging Designer Week in New York. Friday. Come as my guest.
With six million followers, Yu followed only forty-eight accounts, one of them the Match Made in Devon. By way of explanation, Rachel Lee Copeland had added, “Your designs speak to his humanity.”
“What are you going to say?” asked Allison.
Freesia glanced at Charlotte, who had put down her papers to come closer and get a piece of all the fuss. Freesia would be leaving a squall—a newborn Maddie, Charlotte and Nash on the outs, a shop barely afloat—but the thought of her designs finding prominence and recognition, affording her the platform to speak her point of view, her truth…
You are a gift.
An idea came. Inspired, definitely. Impulsive, maybe. She texted a return message and pressed send before the dalliance was fully formed in her mind. A way to be less of a storm, to be worthy of Charlotte’s defiance of Camilla Day’s words: Watching my teen nieces for Spring Break. Cannot come without them.
Freesia shared a glance with Charlotte. Her brow knitted.
The phone buzzed a response in her hand.
No problem. Assistant will send details.
Freesia shared her screen with the twins. Ping-pong balls met fireworks. And dancing.
Charlotte glanced at the screen. She pressed a palm over her heart. Her eyes welled at the same time she puckered up in thought.
Freesia was inside a hug before she knew it. She felt a little peaked, her stomach the way it might feel if Elliot Davis or the entirety of New York fashion society had called her Iro a swirl of whipped cream floating in a swimming pool. Why, at the intersection of her dreams and ambitions, had she brought Devon, Mississippi with her? She and impulsivity weren’t friends. It was as if a greater force were pushing her to do this, to try on an extra layer of family, to root out a base because she had searched the world but had yet to find the place she belonged, to dip her toes into a simulation of motherhood. Freesia had always wanted a family of her own, but powerful examples of motherhood had been distant in her life, and for fleeting moments at a time. Freesia may have had the dreams and the stamped passport and the gown in the window, but Charlotte was every bit the mother Camille was not. Everything Freesia feared she’d never be.
After all, Freesia was a tempest. And tempests can damage even the strongest roots.
7
Charlotte
If Charlotte had her way, the Silver Swarm wouldn’t have been outside the bridal shop for the send-off to New York. For such an event, Bernice unearthed a shirt that read Who’s ever heard of a northern gentleman? Taffy brought homemade cheese straws and peanut brittle for the short road trip to Jackson’s airport. Hazel was giving the girls last-minute tips on the most vulnerable part of the male anatomy for a strike should the occasion arise. Frances took pictures with her 1908s Minolta and, in her soft-spoken tone of sweetness and light, reminded them all of Elvis’s famous words about New York: “Those people in New York are not gonna change me none.”
“And they didn’t,” added Frances. “Not one iota.”
The chaos was ripe for interrupting. On occasion, there was such a thing as too much Southern.
“Can’t hang out here all day like a hair in a biscuit.” Charlotte gave Freesia a smile and a shrug. Sometimes Southern couldn’t be dialed back. “Time to load up.”
Natalie climbed into the minivan. She’d been ready five hours prior and doing a teenager’s job hiding her annoyance with the delay of a steady round of goodbye hugs from her surrogate grandmothers. Allison? She had yet to get off the bench in front of the shop.
Charlotte sat beside her. “Taxi’s leaving. Well—closest thing we have in Devon. Bet the cabs up there don’t have fish crackers on the floorboard.”
Not even a hint of a smile. Charlotte had to strain to look. Two hair clips snuggled close to Allison’s part did nothing to prevent her sleek hair from curtaining her face. Her hands were clasped in her lap.
“I don’t want to go.”
“Don’t let Hazel scare you. She had a run-in with a handsy Navy man on shore leave way back in nursing school and forgets to come back to the present day sometimes.”
“It isn’t that. Dad needs me.”
“Your Daddy can survive without his Alli-Cat.”
“But we had plans for Spring Break. To train Rhett to run out to meet the mail truck so we didn’t have to walk all that way and to fix up the tractor to win some money at the antique show and ride the teacups at the fair until we were both sick. And someone has to take care of Milkshake or she’ll die.”
It all came out like the afterburn of several bouts on the teacups, rushed and sick-like. When Freesia had extended the invitation, Allison had been excited. Charlotte had to figure out what bug got up inside her craw before she ruined everyone else’s fun.
“Milkshake isn’t going to die.”
“How would you know? You’re never home.”
Never. Always. Conversational blackmail, the currency of the desperate. Still, it scattered her. Her decision was changing these girls, her family.
“I’m there more than you think. Daddy couldn’t get Tibbs to eat if he rolled around on a buffet and presented himself as a popsicle. I check on Milkshake, too.” Charlotte gave Allison a shoulder nudge. “If you tell me you’d forsake seeing the Statue of Liberty for some broken-down tractor, I’ll call up Doctor Morgan right now and set up an appointment to get your head examined when you get back.”
Allison absorbed the impact. Balanced herself. Nothing more.
Charlotte’s attempts at humor—her buffer, her go-to for protection—landed like so many dud sparklers at a funeral. Kids had a way of upending the most formidable armor. She remembered Freesia’s words. That girl knows your arrangement has nothing to do with the baby.
“Remember when you were doing that group 4-H experiment on unpasteurized milk? Every boy in that group drank milk at home from the source and had tunnel vision when it came to the benefits of raw milk. No one wanted to include your position about pathogens and the greater responsibility of the dairy farmers to put out a product free of live organisms, so you broke off from the group and did your own project because you felt strongly and they wouldn’t listen.”
Allison met Charlotte’s gaze. Her wounded eyes, the hint of striking features to come, so very much like Alex in that moment. Charlotte smiled.
“This is my project, Allison.”
“You won’t break off from the family, will you?”
The conversation was like navigating the west pasture at midnight, no moon, in a fog bank. Better have your work boots on. H
er analogy was turning into a steamy old cow pie.
“Did you or did you not go to homecoming with Toby that next fall?” said Charlotte. “I’d put money on it that he asked you to homecoming because you stood up for what you believed.”
“Yeah?”
Charlotte nodded. “Also, that boy always had a good head on his shoulders. Good taste.”
This time, her attempt at humor sparkled. She was rewarded with a faint smile and a shoulder bump. Likely the best she’d get.
From the gaggle of silver-haired women clustered near the idling van, Bernice’s voice rose above them all. She turned toward the storefront, arthritic hands raised like she was directing the parting of the Red Sea.
“We should rename it ’Fore You Get Her Knocked Up’.”
“Don’t be so old-fashioned. How about ’Fore You Get Knocked Up’.” Hazel, resident gun-toting feminist, largely in her own mind.
Dear Lord.
“Are you sure about this?” Allison said. “Grandma’s friends don’t seem like much help.”
“We’ll be fine. We’ll keep Bernice locked in the office.” Charlotte stood. At her offered hand, she tugged Allison to her feet. “You, young principled lady, have an appointment with the Statue of Liberty.”
At the passenger door, Allison paused and turned.
“The other boys never spoke to me again,” she said.
Charlotte gave Allison a smooch at her temple. “Your daddy may be a man of few words, but he’ll always have words for us.”
After a gaze held with Freesia—an unspoken exchange where she reassured Charlotte she would take good care and Charlotte reaffirmed that she trusted Freesia with her most precious cargo—and a fanfare of waves and well-wishes, the minivan pulled away, headed north.
Charlotte pressed her lips together to keep a sad smile at bay. She wanted more for Natalie and Allison than a cradle-to-grave life in Devon. A soft, mesh cage would always be the safest place for butterflies, but that wasn’t really what butterflies were made for. Opportunities were good. New York was good. Charlotte just hoped Allison wouldn’t look back on this moment as a voice ignored. She reckoned the only thing worse than a woman not finding her voice until she was neck-deep in the choices that came before was a woman who found her voice early and was made to swallow it because others knew better.
* * *
That night, Charlotte zipped into a midnight blue slip of a bridesmaid dress that the shop was phasing out in favor of spring and summer colors. The dress had been on the clearance rack for some time, simplistic enough to be passed over a hundred times in favor of adventurous cuts and bodices with more bling. But darned if Charlotte hadn’t walked into the office shortly after the Yankee send-off to find it hanging in the office. Pinned to its sleeve: cash and a note in Freesia’s handwriting.
With the right dress, a woman can conquer the world. Shoes in the box under your purse.
Charlotte put her critical eye to the full-length mirror in the hallway just as Alex rounded the corner, Maddie asleep in her arms, mid-bite into a sandwich.
“Cleavage alone should get you a free drink. Isn’t that one of ours?”
“Freesia bought it for me.”
Alex nodded, the measured silence behind it every bit the divide that had grown between them. She had already mastered the mama-sway, that subconscious, barely-there movement that always seemed to comfort fussy babies. The old Alex might have made a snarky comment like “….so you could be Devon’s first well-dressed escort?” The new Alex, the one who was trying desperately to hold onto the relationship they had once had long ago, when as young girls they had huddled together under a carousel blanket on the night Daddy drove away, offered a docile, “Pretty.”
“Nash is taking me out tonight. Sent Earl Frizeal down from the barber shop with a red rose, invitation and all.”
“Dress like that and an empty house? You’ll be home before Nash has a thought to drive anywhere else.”
“It’ll take more than one great dress, Alex.” Charlotte turned and evaluated her reflection somberly. “Took us years to get to this place.”
“Just make sure it doesn’t take you years to untangle. Men don’t have that kind of patience.”
“This was a good idea. This time apart.” Charlotte’s voice sounded like someone else’s. The dress, the heels, it was all someone else. “You’ll see.”
Alex simply swayed. Swayed and chewed. She wasn’t convinced.
The doorbell rang.
“At least he had the good sense not to lay on the horn this time.” Alex disappeared around the corner of her bedroom.
Charlotte descended as fast as her almond-colored satin-and-mesh heels could maneuver the two half-flights. She checked her cleavage one final time, picked up her purse from the entry table and corrected her slouch. It felt like she’d swallowed a swarm of butterflies.
She opened the door.
Nash stood in the porchlight, spit shined and gussied up. He wore his good luck black and charcoal graphic shirt that depicted a barely readable headline from a 1930s New York Times: Widespread Rains Break Dry Spell and Nine Point Program Adopted by President Hoover for Drought Relief. Over this, he layered an open flannel shirt she had given him last Christmas and a gray blazer that hadn’t seen the light of day in years. Through the loops of his new denim, he wore his belt that matched his polished boots. The buckle read “Buckle”—an on the nose joke that never failed to amuse him. He sported closely-shorn hair, a clean-shaven face, and a dropped jaw and a smile that made her feel like the prettiest woman he’d ever seen.
The butterflies? Like a thunderclap sent them scattering.
His lips positioned themselves to say all sorts of things that never came out. Eventually, he blew out a breath and settled on, “That dress should come with a warning.” A palm to his strong chest underscored the possibility of heart failure.
Charlotte mirrored his smile and spun around. She couldn’t say what had gotten into her, but she promised herself she wouldn’t overthink the night.
His gaze eventually rested back on hers. “Still the prettiest girl around.”
For a man who rationed words, it was more than enough. “Thank you. You look very handsome.” Sexy as all get out, but Mama had always told her to feed a man’s soul, not his ego.
Course, Mama’s advice wasn’t exactly foolproof. Charlotte caught herself again, following that rabbit trail of marital bliss Mama had laid out for them. As far as Charlotte was concerned, Stella Irene and Elias had died in love, deeply so, but Alex had hinted at things far more sinister than Daddy’s week away in Georgia with Freesia’s mother, Camille. Charlotte couldn’t say she wanted to know the details. She was holding onto hope right now, and fast learning that where love was concerned, that particular grip was most like tempered steel, strong but brittle.
Nash reached for her hand and led her to the passenger side of the truck. The woodsy-citrus scent of his cologne, rarely worn but his signature since their wedding, laid out a welcome path. His gait relaxed, as though they had all the time in the world. She’d have minded had the night been cold, but the mild air gave her a chance to look up and see stars and look back and see Alex at Maddie’s window. All of it seemed so perfect, so right, like it had always been and always would be, like maybe her marriage had never really gone astray, that she had imagined it all and been too hard on him.
She could count on one hand how many times he had opened the door for her in the past five years—the time she passed a kidney stone didn’t count—but this time, he did.
“Where are we going?”
“A surprise.” His dimple flashed.
Had she not been firmly in the seat, Charlotte might have drizzled down to the gravel. A detour home wasn’t the worst idea Alex had ever had.
At the main road, he steered them toward town. Charlotte’s heart dipped a bit. She felt silly for entertaining thoughts of sex right now. She had to stay focused. Just because he polished up like an old penny didn�
��t mean that he hadn’t once been stuck somewhere unpleasant. He had splurged for the new car scent at the wash. The least she could do is be all in with whatever he had in mind.
They talked about Gabe’s camping trip with Nash’s father—where they’d headed, how his mom had given them the directive not to come home until they had a cooler full of iced-down catfish. Margaret Strickland was nothing if not the queen of grit-encrusted Mississippi fare—green tomatoes, okra, catfish. The woman had a solid reputation to uphold at their annual picnic, always held the week after the fair left town. Nash wove his story around an easy country tune about growing up on a Tennessee lake. Right about the time he mentioned a call from the twins, who had landed safely in New York, he parked in front of Crazy Rs.
At which point, two independent and simultaneous bursts of irritation recircuited Charlotte’s body and popped her perfect bubble of nostalgia: the twins had called him, while she had been fine with a text from Freesia—had Charlotte been at home, where she belonged, she would have been there to hear their first impressions of the Big Apple; and seriously? Crazy Rs?
The dive was as ubiquitous to Devon as Taffy’s Diner. The grill and pool hall got townspeople in a bad state, and the next morning, the diner nursed ’em back from a hangover. A symbiotic relationship, Frances had once called it. Having once demonstrated a rockabilly dance atop the inside bar, Bernice had called the phenomenon “disgrace and hotcakes.”
Charlotte glanced down at her dress and wondered if spilled beer would lift free of the fibers. Nash circled the hood and she gave herself a pep talk.
All in, right?
The sound of a compressed airhorn belting out a five-trumpet Dixie theme song from a nearby Dodge Charger blasted through the truck cab from the open passenger door, masking her answer.
8
Alex
Though she had done away with her bullet journaling ways, and her compulsion to organize had undergone a transformation in motherhood, Alex still found comfort in the art of the mind dump. Her tired baby brain played havoc with her short-term memory. Ambitions to start her own consulting firm outdistanced her present reality. And becoming a lactating machine tethered to a newborn necessitated her creativity to multitask.
The Butterfly Dream: Match Made In Devon Bridal Shop: Book Two Page 6