I needed time to think, which meant I needed to go inside and be surrounded by my sewing and design. Nothing helped me process and untangle my thoughts better than touching fabric, sketching, and simply immersing myself in my work.
“I have some homecoming mums to finish,” I said, keeping quiet what we both knew: that there wouldn’t be a homecoming for Shane or Gracie if I couldn’t prove Shane’s innocence.
He caught the door with his hand, squeezed my arm, and leaned down to give me a kiss. “Be careful,” he said, and I knew he wasn’t talking about the mum-making.
I didn’t know if my charm extended to nonclothing items I created, but it was worth a try. Especially if it would help Gracie, my cousin and the girl I’d come to love as a daughter.
Chapter 15
After Will drove off, I took a deep breath and walked into Buttons & Bows. There was no cinnamon. No scent of apples. No clanking in the kitchen. Meemaw had been outside moving the rocking chairs, but I hadn’t sensed hide nor hair of her since Will had come back from returning Thelma Louise to Sundance Kids.
Of course I knew she was around. She couldn’t go anywhere. As a ghost, she was trapped, which I knew put a giant hitch in her giddyup.
“Meemaw,” I called, heading into the kitchen. No response. I doubled back and peeked my head into the workroom. Leslie’s sapphire and confetti-colored dress hung from the dress form. My sketchbook lay open. But, I thought, I hadn’t left it open. In fact, I hadn’t even left it in my atelier.
There was only one explanation, and her name was Loretta Mae. She wanted to tell me something.
I hurried to the cutting table and grabbed the book. My sketches were there, from a classic ball gown to a sleek tube dress, and several in between that I’d been toying with.
They’d each been added to. Developed. And colored with watercolor crayons.
Danica’s dress had continued to be a mystery to me, but looking at the fleshed out drawings, I was seeing her in a new light. I hadn’t been able to get a handle on her and what homecoming design would work, but now one clearly stood out as the right design—mainly because it was circled with a red loop and the name Danica was scrawled in my great-grandmother’s shaky cursive.
But even without those clues, it was obvious that the girl would look great in it.
The bubble dress.
Jessica Alba and Kate Beckinsale had both rocked bubble dresses. This modern take on a pouf skirt was more subtle, the tapered hemline billowing gracefully instead of ending in a hard edge. It was perfect. “You’re right, Meemaw,” I said. “This is it.”
I held my breath, waiting and wondering if the sewing machine would start up or if the pipes would moan.
There was nothing but silence. Meemaw, it seemed, had decided to interact with me on a deeper level, first with her more opaque visage, then in the kitchen, and now with offering insight to my designs. I liked this more concrete way of communicating, but I had to admit that I missed the creaks and groans and rustling curtains.
I hurried upstairs to the attic and surveyed the pieces of fabric I had stored there. I zeroed in on the ones with enough yardage and style to make the dress. If I couldn’t find what I was looking for, I’d have to take a trip to Fort Worth, something I preferred not to do at this point. I was out of time.
There were several lengths of cotton, one of which was an electric pink and black cheetah print, but after spreading them out and feeling the weight, I discarded them as options. They wouldn’t hold the ballooning element, just like silk wouldn’t. No, I needed something that could hold its shape.
I scanned the fabrics again, my attention landing on a tangerine microfiber. It had the right weight and wouldn’t turn limp at the hemline. And it was wrinkle-free, a bonus. Fashion designer Robert Cavalli said, “Fashion should be fun and put the woman in the spotlight with a little bit of danger.” That fit what I was trying to do for Danica—the bold and fun color was perfect for her.
Any dress I made for Danica wasn’t going to put the girl in danger, but the tangerine color would certainly draw attention. If it boosted her confidence in the process, it was worth every bit of time, energy, and ounce of creativity I could muster.
“What do you wish for?” I mused aloud, thinking of the possibilities. Danica had no family. She was at the mercy of fairy godmothers like Zinnia James and me to help her get to homecoming. I imagined her greatest desire was to have her family back, and that was one thing my charm couldn’t make happen. Her parents couldn’t come back from the dead, but if family was her wish, maybe she’d develop one of her choosing. The circle of my family had grown to include Will and Gracie Flores, Josie Kincaid, Orphie Cates, and Madelyn Brighton. By default, it also included Hoss and Gavin McClaine.
Of course, Danica didn’t wallow in sorrow, and she seemed pretty practical from what I’d seen. Maybe finding love or going to college would be her biggest dream. If my design could help her with either of those things, I’d be happy.
As I headed back to the workroom, my thoughts drifted to Leslie. She was much more outwardly confident than Danica, but I got the feeling it was all a show. Deep down, she was injured and being alone got to her. She compensated by trying to woo friends, racing around in a sporty car inherited from her parents’ estate while Danica struggled with a fixer-upper that kept breaking down on her.
I couldn’t help feeling that Mrs. James’s foundation to help girls in need had brought Leslie and Danica together. They were both low mileage, as Meemaw would have said. Young and with a lot of time ahead of them to figure out how things worked and who they were. It was true that they had time, but I couldn’t help but hope that maybe Leslie, with her need for friends, and Danica, with her reservations about opening up to anyone, would find a happy balance with each other.
Josie walked in, her baby girl, Molly, in her arms, just as I finished stripping an old design from a dress form in my atelier. The tangerine microfiber lay in a heap on the cutting table, ready to be manipulated into the shape of a homecoming dress.
Right after I’d moved back to Bliss, I’d reconnected with Josie. She’d been Josie Sandoval then, an old friend from elementary school, and had been on the verge of marrying Nate Kincaid. Now she and Nate had a baby girl, a happy marriage, and I had a goddaughter. I took the baby from her and breathed her in. I wouldn’t say my maternal clock was ticking, but it wasn’t nonexistent in a black hole, either.
Josie dragged a chair from the dining room over to just inside the French doors and collapsed into it. She hadn’t quite gotten back to her prepregnancy self, but she was trying, walking every day with the baby in her stroller, putting on a dash of mascara even when she didn’t feel like it, catching naps when the baby slept to keep up her energy.
But I knew that she missed working at Seed-n-Bead, the shop she owned on the square. Even with naps, an infant meant short spurts of sleep and a lot of sleepless nights. The dark circles ringing her eyes were proof she wasn’t getting enough rest.
Bless her heart, she didn’t try to pretend she was. “I’m deprived of sleep and adult conversation,” she announced, and for a second I wondered if she’d read my mind.
Molly heard her voice and turned toward her. She fussed, and after a moment, I handed her back to her mama. Josie tugged up her shirt, offering the baby nourishment. Molly settled down, her little legs moving, her hand gripping the collar of Josie’s blouse, the soft suckling sound growing rhythmic as her body started to relax. “I need some gossip. I need to hear what’s going on in the outside world.”
I picked up the first length of microfiber as I launched into all the details about the mystery of Chris Montgomery’s death, my theory about who Eddy Blake really was, the homecoming mums, and the dresses I was making for Danica and Leslie.
“So, you’re not really up to much of anything,” she said, one side of her mouth quirking up in a small grin.
“Nope, nothing exciting,” I said with a laugh. I stood in front of a naked dress form, ready to begin the draping process. There were times when I mapped out a pattern, measuring and planning and drawing the pieces of a garment on paper to create a blueprint for a design. But there were also moments, like now, when draping was more appropriate. I could picture the bubble dress I was designing for Danica in my head, a hybrid of what I’d started in my sketchbook and what Meemaw had completed. I had details I still wanted to work out, and right now I needed to see the fabric on a figure to watch it come together.
What I’d learned over the years in my schooling, punctuated by Loretta Mae’s lessons, was that simply knowing the principles of patternmaking and design wasn’t enough. To really create a design that can be put together in the desired fabric, that is, to translate a garment from conception to execution, took a lot more than patternmaking skill.
“So he’s really the same person, Chris and Eddy?” Josie asked.
“I’m ninety-nine percent positive,” I said, testing the weight of the fabric in my hands. “Now it makes perfect sense for Eddy Blake’s phone to have Teagen and Shane’s phone numbers on it. Not to mention that the home number rang the Montgomery house, not the Blake house.”
“How did he keep it all straight? Did he ever call his children by the wrong names? Or worse, one of the wives?” She gasped. “Can you imagine!”
I hadn’t thought of that, and it wasn’t an image I wanted in my mind.
Josie bit her inner cheek, her lips working. It was her thinking expression. A question was coming. “So do you think either of the wives knew?”
I’d been puzzling over that very question and so far, I had no idea. “That’s something I plan to find out,” I said.
“What if one of them is the killer?” she asked, biting her lower lip. “Harlow, you’ll call Hoss or Gavin if you suspect anything, won’t you?” We fell silent as I manipulated the fabric, watching it take shape in my hands. As I worked, my decision to use the microfiber was validated. The cotton wouldn’t have worked. If I’d doubted it before, I was one hundred percent certain of it now. It would be like a sculptor trying to round the corners of a block of wood instead of using clay, or a painter trying to create a light, ethereal image using heavy oil paint instead of watercolor.
I followed a straightforward process as I draped, beginning with the right length and width of fabric, allowing extra for fullness, flow, and seams. Anchoring the fabric to the core points of the form came next. I pinned the microfiber to the center back, front, waistline, and hips. Then I worked around the dress form, cutting the cloth at the control seams as the elements developed.
“That’s for one of Mrs. James’s girls?” Josie asked after a few minutes. She held Molly against her, gently patting her back until the baby burped.
“I’ve been struggling with the design,” I said, nodding, “but it’s finally coming together.”
“Homecoming,” she said, the one word sounding a little melancholy.
“What gave it away?” I joked, looking at the mums still hanging from the stair banister.
“I never went to homecoming,” she said.
“Me neither.” I was more a behind-the-scenes kind of girl. I’d made dresses for my friends, sending them off with their dates and their mums while I moved on to my next design. Nothing had changed as I’d gotten older. I still preferred to be the one making the clothing, not strutting down the catwalk wearing the garments.
As I worked, the design became clearer in my head, the lines flowed, the proportion and balance and detail came together bit by bit. The color and feel of the fabric inspired me. If I closed my eyes, I could see Danica’s face, smiling, the dress accentuating her eyes, the curve of her hips, and softness of her form. I let my fingertips manipulate the fabric until I had the look I wanted—the perfect balloon dress for Danica Edwards.
I stood back to survey it once more before I trued up the pattern I’d drawn out as I draped, perfecting the fit based on Danica’s proportions and measurements, and duplicating the first side.
“It looks good,” Josie said. “Really good.”
That melancholy in her voice was still there. Even after nearly fifteen years, she still regretted not attending the dance. The realization reinforced my decision to make the dresses for Danica and Leslie. They wouldn’t have Josie’s regret.
My thoughts strayed to Gracie. With Shane still under the veil of suspicion, she might be the one with that regret.
Chapter 16
I’d done triage on Danica’s mum, the rest were finished, Leslie’s dress was complete, and I’d made good progress on Danica’s bubble gown. All in all, things were moving along. I checked the wall clock. Four o’clock. Gracie would be here any minute to work on her own homecoming dress. I’d offered to help, but she wanted to do the whole thing herself.
The dress hung from the privacy screen in my workroom, the spaghetti strap bodice complete. She’d used a creamy embossed jacquard and had structured it using darts. The only thing she’d let me help her with was the fitting. She’d had to know it would fit her perfectly before she added the base of the skirt, and it did.
Each day she went home with a bag of materials, and the next day she returned with the same bag full of the flouncy pink, rose, and red rosettes she’d spent hours making the night before. Attaching them to the skirt was slow and painstaking, but she was determined to finish the dress and go to homecoming . . . with Shane.
The mum she’d been working on had miniature rosettes attached to three of the wider ribbons hanging in front, the perfect complement to the skirt of the dress.
I took a closer look at the dress, once again impressed with Gracie’s natural talent. As if on cue, the front door of Buttons & Bows opened, the string of bells jingled, and Gracie waltzed in. She smiled at me, released her fingers from the bags she held long enough to give a finger wave, and then zipped past me. She dropped the bags and immediately got to work by moving her dress from the hanger onto the open dress form. She threaded a needle, pulled up a stool, opened the bag, plucked out the first full-sized rosette, and got to work.
I knew Shane was back home. Gavin had questioned and then released him, but he was by no means out of the woods. Still, with the new information I’d given to Hoss, he’d already tracked down Eddy Blake’s birth certificate from the Hood County records department. So far, though, he’d found nothing to show Chris Montgomery had ever been born. After he dug a little deeper, maybe Shane could be officially cleared.
I opened my mouth to ask her how Shane was, but closed it again. Something was off. She was too perky, too focused. Gracie normally bounced from room to room, chattered about anything and everything, gave love to Earl Grey, my little teacup pig, and generally brought a lightness to the room.
There was no lightness at the moment, despite the smile that hadn’t left her face.
For the second time, I opened my mouth to ask about Shane, but once again, I was tongue-tied.
The third time I tried to broach the subject, I went forward with a different approach. “Gracie, I discovered something today. I’m not quite sure—”
Her head snapped up. “About Mr. Montgomery?”
I thought about beating around the bush, but decided being direct was better. Hemming and hawing about the truth wouldn’t dull the pain once it all came out. “Yes.”
She dropped her hands to her lap, yelping when the needle she held pricked her finger. She stuck her finger in her mouth. “What did you find out?” she asked. “Shane’s meeting me here. He sounded really upset. What’s going on, Harlow?”
I’d told the story to Will and to Josie, but this time there was an emotional element to it. I hesitated, thinking Will should be here, but Shane was coming, and he was upset, and I knew that Hoss McClaine had already called the Montgomery family in and broken the news, looking for evidence to support the
notion. In a small town, the story of Eddy Blake and Chris Montgomery would be all anyone talked about for days. Weeks. Months. Maybe even longer.
Shane might be Gracie’s boyfriend, but I wanted to be the one to prepare her for the official announcement the sheriff was sure to make. I knew he’d find hard proof that Eddy and Chris were one and the same. The birth certificate was a start, but it would take a lot of cross-referencing of information to prove it completely. Something I couldn’t wait for.
I dragged the second stool next to her and sat. “I believe that Mr. Montgomery had a pretty big secret,” I said.
She turned the rosette she was holding over in her hands, stopping and fingering a spot of blood on one of the fabric petals. “Ruined,” she muttered, and then heaved the rosette into the trash can.
I cupped my hand over hers. “We’ll figure it out,” I said.
She bit her lower lip, her chin quivering. Her eyes grew glassy, but she fought against the tears threatening. “What was the secret?”
There was no easy way to say it, so I plunged ahead. “Gracie, I’m pretty sure that he had another family.”
She stared. “What do you mean?”
“Another wife. A child.”
She stared, slack-jawed. “Like one of those bigamists?”
“Kind of.” I took the needle and thread from her, plucked a rosette from the bag, and moved closer to the skirt. I started to sew it on as I told her the full story, hitting the highlights without bogging it down with the extra details of how the Levons and Blakes were friends, how Shane’s parents first met, and the phone numbers on the cell phone.
By the time I was done, her mouth gaped open and the tears she’d held back spilled to her cheeks. It might be young love, but her emotions were deep. “Poor Shane,” she said softly.
A Killing Notion: A Magical Dressmaking Mystery Page 12