The Dress Shop of Dreams

by Menna Van Praag

  Then she remembers the way they met: a letter. A letter is perfect. She’ll write it now before she chickens out. Gently lifting Walt’s arm from around her waist, Milly slides off the sofa onto the floor. She sits on the cream carpet for a moment, glancing about for paper and pens in the moonlight. Walt’s notebook lies a few feet away on the floor, illuminated, almost glimmering in the light. She picks it up.

  Turning the pages very gently, Milly traces her fingers over the jumble of letters and numbers. She thinks of Walt’s dead mother and the cryptic memento she left him. What on earth is it? What does it mean? She’d love to be able to decipher it for him, to bring a piece of his mother back. She’s sorry that Walt’s parents are gone, sorry for him and sorry that she’ll never meet them. She’d love her parents to meet Walt. They’ve worried about her since Hugh’s death and she’d like them to see her happy again. They’d also long ago given up on grandchildren, and Milly, seeing how Walt loves babies, is rather keen to give them hope on that front, too.

  Holding the notebook, Milly stands and walks across the room. She lifts a pad of paper, the pages embedded with rose petals, off the bookshelf. It’s the paper she wrote her first letter to Walt on, which might bring luck. It’s also her best, reserved for such special occasions. Milly picks a pen, one with magenta ink to match the roses, from a tiny china pot. She walks back to the sofa and sits on the floor with the notebook and paper in her lap. The notebook will infuse her words with power and potency. So, as the moonlight fades and the sun slowly rises, Milly writes, the lines of her letter ebbing and flowing with the rise and fall of Walt’s snores.

  Etta slept with the Saint a month after he told her she was beautiful. Right up until the moment they fell onto his bed, her dress already unzipped, Etta promised herself it wouldn’t happen, they were only friends, they would resist. But really she had known from the moment they met that—if he wanted her—she would give him everything, every inch, every part and piece of herself. And when she finally did, making love with the Saint was the most heart-expanding, mind-eclipsing magical night of her life. Every moment, every touch—even the fumbles and the first initial flash of pain as he pushed inside her—was infused with delight and joy.

  When Etta thought about that night afterward, and she did so often, she tried to compare it with other experiences in her life, though the similes never quite matched up. Sex with the Saint was like falling into a pile of enchanted dresses; like chocolate cake, cherries and cream; like sunlight on bare skin; like dancing, singing and laughing. Except that it wasn’t, not even, not hardly, nothing she’d ever known before could touch it. Etta was sometimes shocked to remember that she’d been so consumed with pleasure and passion that night, she hadn’t even had the decency to think of Joe or to feel guilty. Not even a little. Not once.

  When they woke the morning after, his head pressed to her breasts, his foot clasped between hers, Etta told herself that it was the first and last time. But she knew that it wasn’t. Given the chance, she knew she’d do it all over again, that night and every night for the rest of her life.

  During her lunch hour Milly usually wanders around town eating her sandwiches and window-shopping, leaving her assistant, Cheryl, in charge of the Craft & Curiosity Shop. Since meeting Walt she’s often gone to Blue Water Books and shared the hour with him. They sit behind the counter, eating and talking, watching customers wandering in and out. But today she’s got something else to do; today she has to post a letter.

  Milly had considered simply giving Walt the letter, then scampering off to be somewhere else while he read it. But that’d be silly. She also thought of leaving it at his house, or in the bookshop, but finally decided on posting it to the radio station, just as she did with the first one. It might bring her luck, she hopes, since the last time she sent a letter there it brought Walt to her.

  In addition to the letter, Walt’s notebook nestles in Milly’s handbag. He’d left it at her flat that morning as he rushed off to work. Intending to restore it to him later, she’d spent the morning trying to make sense of something, anything, in the pages full of puzzles. She dips into it now and then as she walks through town.

  Drifting in and out of shops, buying a few things here and there, a hopeless attempt to postpone the posting, Milly finds herself, like a lovesick homing pigeon, at the corner of All Saints’ Passage. But she’s not ready to see Walt yet, she hasn’t let go of the letter. It still sits in her overflowing handbag, underneath boxes of vitamins, face cream, fragrant tissues, an empty can of ginger beer and an empty packet of chocolate mints—fortification for the job at hand.

  Before turning out of the street, Milly stops at a bin to empty her bag of clutter. When she looks up again she sees the window full of dresses. They shimmer and sparkle, sequins and beads glimmering, flashing and winking, inviting her in. Milly shakes her head. Now is not the time for beautiful dresses. But she still remembers the way she looked in that mirror—the image seared like the sun on her eyes, she only has to blink to see it. Would it hurt to step inside again? Would it invoke fate too strongly to try the dress just once more, to touch the silk and lace between her fingers?

  Dinah Washington belts out “Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby” as Milly steps inside. She doesn’t see Etta until she’s standing right beside her.

  “You came back.”

  “Yes,” Milly says, surprised she’s so memorable since it’s the last thing she imagines herself to be. “I thought … I hoped maybe I could try on the dress again, if it hasn’t been sold.”

  “Oh, absolutely,” Etta says. “It’s been waiting for you.”

  “Really?” Milly smiles. She’s missed it, too, though is rather embarrassed to admit it.

  Ten minutes later, clothes and handbag discarded on the floor, Milly stands in front of the mirror staring at herself wearing the red dress of silk and lace. Milly had thought her memory of the dress had been gold-tinted, a wish fulfilled in fantasy. But it wasn’t. If anything she’s more beautiful now than she was before.

  “You’re glowing,” Etta says softly.

  Milly nods, still unable to believe the way she looks: like a prom queen, an actress, a supermodel.

  “It’s too fancy, too fabulous,” she murmurs. “I’ll have nowhere to wear it.”

  “What nonsense.” Etta laughs. “And anyway, what does that matter?”

  “Well …” Milly struggles on, feeling she should at least seem to put up a fight against such a frivolous, unjustifiable expense.

  “Well, what?” Etta asks.

  “I’ll take it,” Milly blurts out.

  “Perfect,” Etta says. “Just let me make a few adjustments.” She pulls a needle laced with red thread out of her pocket and begins sewing six little stitches at both the hem and waist. To see her own beauty, this woman needs more than just the usual single star. “I can always do alterations after this,” Etta says while she sews. “Bring it back anytime, free of charge.”

  “Oh, okay,” Milly says, wondering if Etta’s suggesting she’s going to get fat. “Thank you.”

  Etta looks up from the hem of the dress, a clutch of dark red silk in her hand. There is so much she could say to Milly, she’s not sure where to start. She sees into Milly’s quiet heart. Unlike many of her customers, she has no great dreams, but some of them are impossible nonetheless. It’s a shame, Etta thinks, that such a sweet young woman won’t get the simple joys she so desires. At least, not yet. But perhaps she’ll be all right in the end. Etta can’t see that far ahead, she can only hope.

  “Remember,” she says, standing, “if life is ever less than lovely, put on this dress and it’ll help you to remember that you are loved. And that will see you through everything.”

  “Okay,” Milly says, though she’s hardly listening.

  When she walks out of the shop, she swings her new bag back and forth, high into the air. The most beautiful dress in the world is wrapped up, safe and snug, sparkling in gold tissue paper. She can’t wait to show i
t to Walt. It’s then that she remembers the letter. Perhaps she should post it now then nip into Blue Water Books and debut the dress, before it’s too late.

  Milly hurries out of All Saints’ Passage and stops in front of the bright red postbox sealed into the wall of Sidney Susset College. She sets the new bag carefully on the pavement between her feet, then rummages around in her chaotic handbag for the letter. When she picks it up the envelope is so thin, so insignificant between her fingers she wonders how it can hold such a weighty message within. When she drops it into the mouth of the postbox, Milly holds her breath. She glances at her watch. She still has ten minutes left of her lunch break, just enough time to visit the bookshop.

  As she walks, Milly sticks her hand in her bag for the notebook, so she can give it back before she forgets. When her fingers don’t immediately touch it, she doesn’t worry. She pauses on the pavement to take a closer look. It’s only after tipping the contents of her bag into the street that she realizes Walt’s notebook has gone. She has lost it. Somewhere among all the shops and supermarkets, she has lost it.

  When he started working at the radio station a decade ago, Dylan was always the first in the office at six o’clock. Nowadays he feeds his father breakfast, makes the day nurse a cup of coffee and aims to arrive just in time for the post. Unlike most people in media, Dylan didn’t consider it his dream job. He hadn’t captained the school radio station, hadn’t done stints as a producer, interviewer or anything like that. He’d fallen into it at university after his best friend, who presented a Saturday morning show called Bangers, Mash & Beer, was still too drunk from the night before to go in. Dylan, knowing absolutely nothing about anything, covered for him. That first show was slightly disastrous but Dylan had done well enough to hold it all together. When the producer asked if he wanted to cohost the show for the rest of the term he’d shrugged and agreed. After leaving university, unable to find a job, he’d started temping at BBC Radio Cambridgeshire and stayed. He’d never met anyone he loved enough to settle down with, no one he loved enough to introduce to his father, and now he finds himself pushing forty and wondering what he’s done with his life.

  Years ago, like most introverted teenagers, Dylan had dabbled in poetry. He’d even written half a novel that he didn’t have enough life experience to finish. He’d completely forgotten about both those things until recently, when he started writing all these letters. Dylan loves writing them. He puts his whole heart and soul into each one. He finds the writing lifts his spirits, so at the end of the day he’s invigorated instead of drained. Slowly, the letters have been encroaching into his working day. He used to wait until lunchtime and evening to write them; now the letters linger on his desk, in his drawers, in boxes on his floor and he replies to them whenever he can.

  This morning Dylan walks through the lobby just as the postman is dropping the daily pile of post with the receptionist, a pretty woman with a flirtatious smile. They dated for a few weeks a while ago but, like the rest of Dylan’s relationships, it never went anywhere. She hands him his own post, along with the stack of Walt’s fan mail, and winks.

  “Have a good day,” she says as he walks away, riffling through the letters.

  “Yeah, you too, Helen.”

  Dylan throws the words behind him, hardly hearing them himself. He recognizes one of these letters—the envelope embedded with red rose petals—and opens it as he’s walking upstairs. Before reaching his office door, before he’s even finished the first paragraph, Dylan realizes that this letter is one he shouldn’t be reading. But, now he’s started, he can’t stop. He drops his bag to the floor and stands in the middle of the room until he reaches the last line.

  This isn’t fan mail. This is a letter from Walt’s girlfriend, someone Dylan didn’t even know existed, writing to tell him what is in her heart. It’s like holding her diary in his hands. Her words are so sweet, so gentle, so true, that they bring tears to his eyes. He feels his own heart contract with longing. Very carefully, Dylan folds the letter again and slips it back into the envelope. He stands in his office without moving. Then he goes to his desk, sits and scrambles about for a piece of paper and a pen. Quickly, before he can change his mind, before he can fully acknowledge that he really shouldn’t be doing what he’s about to do, Dylan begins to write back.

  Sebastian, in his long career as a priest, has heard every confession he could have possibly imagined and a great number he couldn’t. But, among all the adultery, coveting and stealing, he’s never heard anything unforgivable. Sebastian has always hoped that absolving other sinners of their own crimes will help him forgive his own, which is why he hears confession as often as he can. For the most part, these are silly minor sins. Every Sunday his middle-class parishioners tell him they’ve sworn, taken the Lord’s name in vain, thrown snails from their gardens over their neighbors’ walls … Even when the crimes are bigger, adultery, fornication, some sort of sexually deviant act, Sebastian still found them easy to pardon.

  “Say thirty-five Hail Marys every night, stop sleeping with your wife’s sister, and you’re absolved. The stain on your soul is cleaned.” Done. If only Sebastian could believe the same about his own sin. But, after fifty Hail Marys every night for the last fifty years, he still hasn’t forgiven himself. Sometimes he wonders how many confessions he’ll have to hear, how many souls he’ll have to save, before he’s off the hook. But he knows the answer to this: an infinite amount. Because who is he to decide that? Only God can decide such things and, as yet, Sebastian hasn’t had any sign that he can step down from his penance and live out the rest of his life in peace. And he’s been looking, every day he looks and hopes and prays. Then this Sunday, something strange happens. It’s not a sign, sadly, but a strange little gift from God (in lieu of the one Sebastian wants) perhaps, to throw things into perspective.

  The man steps into the confessional after Mrs. Allen, who let her dog poop in the park last weekend without picking it up. Sebastian doesn’t know the man personally, but he knows he’s the one that comes every Sunday to sit without speaking. It’s been the case for the last twenty years and, every week, Sebastian says his line: May the Lord be in our heart to help you make a good confession and the man says nothing. Sometimes he sits for five minutes, sometimes ten. Sometimes he sighs. Sometimes he opens his mouth. Every week he leaves without saying anything.

  Sebastian waits. It’s not his place to urge, to prod and pry. He is only supposed to listen, even to someone who doesn’t speak. While he waits, the priest mumbles a prayer, an Our Father, something to bring solace to this clearly troubled soul. It’s then that the strange thing happens.

  In the silence, even though Sebastian can only really hear the man’s slow breathing, all of a sudden he hears something extraordinary: a confession, the words a whisper in his own head. At first Sebastian wonders if the man did speak aloud, though he’s quite certain he didn’t. He feels the man next to him, still silent, separated only by wood and wire. He presses his hands together and whispers his own prayer, for help, answers, assistance. He tips his head back and looks heavenward. Nothing happens except that Sebastian is now absolutely certain that he silently absorbed this man’s confession, as if he’d just snatched the thoughts from his head. Which is a shocking enough experience in itself, and would count among the most startling events of Sebastian’s life so far, if the confession itself hadn’t been even more alarming than the method in which it was delivered. It wasn’t murder, but it seemed close enough.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The night Etta at last made love with the Saint, when they had finally, reluctantly, pulled themselves apart to lie side by side, he had given her his confession. A little later they sat together on a bench in a secluded park beside the river. They sat a few inches from each other, their hands resting on the wood, nearly touching, just a moment apart. Etta could feel the warmth of his skin in her fingers as if she was already holding his hand but they hadn’t yet touched.

  “I have something to
tell you,” he said.

  “Yes?” Etta turned to him, smiling.

  “I’m sorry, I’m more than sorry,” he said, “I should have told you before. I meant to, I meant to every day, but I knew I’d lose you when I did. I was selfish, I—”

  “What is it?” Etta asked, thinking, with her own stab of guilt, of Joe. “Are you married?”

  He laughed. But it wasn’t a bright, light sound. It was low, bitter and heavy with regret. “I suppose I am, in a way, at least I’m going to be.”

  “You’re engaged?”

  It was nearly a minute before the Saint spoke again. To Etta it felt like forever, time that opened up a pit for her to fall into, every second an infinity of despair and dashed hope.

  “No,” he said softly. “I’m going to be a priest.”

  Strangely, Etta wasn’t too shocked. She wasn’t sure why. Surely she should have been. It wasn’t as if she’d predicted it, as if she knew. Etta wasn’t psychic, unlike her mother, grandmother, sisters and nearly all of her other female relatives, back to the dawn of time. She had a different gift. Etta could see when something was right and when it was wrong. She could feel if it fit. And, if it did, then she accepted it, surrendering to the rightness of life and embraced it as she did the seasons and the sunrise and the sunset.

  But even though Etta could feel the pure rightness of Sebastian’s choice reverberating right down to her bones, for the first time in her life she had trouble embracing it.

  “Yes,” Etta said, at last. “Yes, I can see that.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorrier than I’ve ever been about anything …”