One Winter’s Day: A feel-good winter romance

by Laura Briggs

  Natalie shrugged. “I do my best,” she answered.

  This was more than her best: it was a labor of love that had stitched perfect ruches and embroidered a single silvery-white vine from bodice to knee on the surface of the smooth, ivory satin that felt like liquid between her fingers. She had worked all night just to finish the final details, but it was worth it to see the bride’s approval for her efforts. The dress ended in a long train, a glimpse of a silver lacy underskirt spreading out from beneath its hem, while a single band of that fabric trimmed the top of the bodice.

  “I love it,” said Nadia. “Maybe I can buy a white satin wrap that matches it, do you think? Just to wear when we leave the church.”

  “I think we can do better,” said Natalie. “Wait here a second.” She rose and opened the second garment box on her sofa. Here was the second piece of her design, the one she had kept secret when making the sketches, the final touch that had eluded her until it was almost too late to create it. She had kept it secret for that reason, but now its moment of unveiling had arrived.

  “This is the finishing touch your dress needs,” said Natalie. “Fit for a snow bride, I hope.”

  The outer garment was a pelisse-like coat with an empire waist in a Regency-era style, made of sheer embroidered white lace. Silvery threads were woven through its fabric, with little pearl and crystal beads adorning the pattern’s flowers. In the center of each flower, tiny ice blue rhinestones glittered in the light. It was the brainchild of hours of watching Frozen in her apartment, and the closest Natalie could come to capturing Elsa’s dress without departing from traditional wedding couture.

  A little cry escaped Nadia. She pressed her hands to her mouth. “Is that for me?” she said afterwards. “Are you serious?”

  “Of course,” said Natalie. “Perfect for a snowy sleigh ride through the woods to your waiting transportation.” She unfastened the clasp, an ornate silver buckle with a tiny crystal snowflake in its center, and helped Nadia try it on.

  They were meeting with Tessa today to confirm the last-minute details for the reception and the ceremony. Much to the chagrin of the wedding’s three planners, both the bride’s and the groom’s mothers joined them at the table to go over the final menu and the layout for both the ceremony and the reception, as well as the seating chart.

  “I think there are too many people crowded at these long tables,” said Cynthia, lower lip pinched inwards with disapproval. “Smaller tables look so much nicer at receptions.”

  “Mother.” A warning note in Nadia’s voice.

  “I’m only saying.”

  “I like a big family dinner,” said Paula. “I think we should mix things up and have everybody’s family and friends sitting by strangers. Meeting new people—that makes things interesting at dinner, and more fun when the music starts. Don’t you think so?” She nudged Lyle in the arm.

  “I think we should leave things the way they are, Ma,” he said. “Tessa put a lot of work into this chart already.”

  “I did, actually,” said Tessa. “So I think it would be a little late to rethink the seating plan for this many guests.” She tucked the charts out of sight in hope the topic would be dropped. Besides, she still had the unfortunate subject of the floral centerpieces to discuss.

  Thus far, this meeting felt a lot like the others, and all three planners were feeling nervous that it might end like the others—with the bride near tears and the groom looking awkward and befuddled. Paula’s bracelets clacked noisily as she drew the seating charts from Tessa’s stack of materials before the wedding planner retrieved them again.

  “Now, I’m afraid we had to make a few small changes to the flowers,” said Tessa.

  “Really?” Nadia said, sounding disappointed.

  “There was a slight issue with the original design, but the artist has found some substitute flowers that he feels will capture the same spirit as the previous choices,” said Tessa, opening a photo file on her tablet with pictures of the new arrangements, minus a few of the roses and white tulip varieties from the original ones. “He’s substituted more white amaryllis for the largest white tulips, and introduced a double-petal white narcissus for some of the bud roses. I know it’s not exactly the same, but it’s very close.”

  It was as close as the florist could come on such short notice, with a last-minute delivery from a greenhouse in the neighboring state to tide them over until the electrical snafu was repaired. The receptionist had been apologetic and surprisingly helpful when they spoke again on the phone, so maybe this new business connection wasn’t as hopeless as it had seemed. Tessa crossed her fingers under the table as Nadia, Lyle, and their two commentators studied the new photos.

  “It’s still beautiful,” said Nadia, in the end. “I think I can live with this.”

  “Live with it?” echoed Cynthia. “For the prices they’re charging—which is highway robbery, in my opinion—how can you let them give you the cheapest bulbs in the floral world instead of roses?” She looked at Tessa. “Insist on roses when you talk to them.”

  “I think we should scrap ’em,” said Paula. “Time to pick someplace less artsy, anyway. How about that real good florist over on Fourth?” she said to Nadia. “They made a great big bouquet for Una’s wedding. It had about two dozen red roses in it and these great big sprays of baby’s breath. Now that was a bouquet.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Nadia, shaking her head.

  “It would really wow the guests,” pressed Paula. “Don’t you want things big for the big day of your life?”

  “It would be tasteless and overdone,” countered Cynthia. “This isn’t a bulk order for a Rose Bowl float. This is a hand-held bouquet for my daughter to carry down the aisle, not stagger to its end under the weight of three dozen cabbage heads.”

  “You’re ashamed of a little flash and glamour, aren’t you? My son can afford to buy—”

  “Enough!” The sudden declaration from Lyle brought silence from the warring mothers—or maybe it was his stern expression that did it. Nadia lifted her head from her hands and looked at him, too.

  “Nadia wants these white ones,” said Lyle. “They look good, and I can afford it, as Ma pointed out.”

  “You’re not the one paying for them, though,” Cynthia replied. “I’m covering those expenses, so I think I should have a say in the final decision, frankly.”

  “Well, I think Nadia should have the final say,” Lyle replied. “So I’ll pay for the flowers if that’s what it takes for her to have the ones she wants. And nothing’s too good for Nadia, so her mom should be pretty happy with things, if she wants her daughter to be happy. Besides,” he added, lifting the tablet to look at the centerpiece more closely. “I kind of like it. Those little green things in the mix look nice.”

  A moment of silence followed. “I’ll make a note to tell the florist you said so,” said Tessa. “They’ll be really happy to hear it.” She reached for the tablet and swiped to her email inbox.

  “Well,” said Cynthia—but without the fire in her usual flustered tone.

  “It’s your wedding,” said Paula, who sounded slightly injured. “I guess you know what you want.”

  “I think so,” said Lyle. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number. “Hey, Ramon? It’s me. I know we’re busy today, but go ahead and strip all those red and green ornaments out of the private dining room, okay? Yeah, I know, Christmas is only a week away, but those don’t go with the wedding reception’s colors. Just stick ’em back in storage, okay? Okay.”

  He hung up. “So, what else we got on the agenda?” he asked Tessa.

  No meeting had ever gone quite like this before, and it left Tessa momentarily unsure what to say. Lyle had never before expressed interest about anything except for the catering menu that his staff would be handling. Now, however, she sensed that he was braced for whatever topic she could offer.

  She, Ama, and Natalie exchanged glances. “How do you feel on the subject of bands versus a DJ for
the reception’s entertainment?” Tessa asked.

  Tessa pondered this shift in the wedding’s dynamics as she gazed at the fresh paint applied to the little parlor’s walls. Blake had brushed the first coat of red over its surface, leaving no drip marks or smears, the way Tessa’s roller typically did.

  She was beginning to think maybe he was right. A change from these modern bargain shades might be kind of nice.

  “Like it?” Blake was in the doorway behind her. “I think it’s growing on me. Just don’t tell anybody I said that,” he added with a half smile.

  “Don’t ruin your professional reputation, in other words,” she retorted, but with a smile also.

  “It’s essential in my business,” he said, and his grin fully emerged, even if it faded away as quickly as it came. “What’s that in your arms?” He gestured toward the notebook she held. She glanced down.

  “The wedding folder for Nadia and Lyle,” she said. “Now that it’s back on, I have a lot to do if we’re going to have this celebration in a week’s time.”

  “Congratulations,” said Blake softly. “I know you were pretty upset when it looked like it was canceled.”

  “Relieved is what I feel right now—but I’ll feel happier when I have time to let it sink in,” she said. “This was a sudden turnaround, kind of like a miracle. Or maybe… more like a sudden U-turn for a traveler on the road to matrimony.” She was thinking of Lyle’s sudden switch from passive participant to willing planner in the ceremony that marked his love for Nadia, which was a change she never would have predicted in a million years.

  Blake smiled. “I guess we all make a last-minute turn now and then,” he said, gazing at the half-dry wall.

  “If that’s a comment on my taste in decorating this place, I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear it,” answered Tessa. Blake’s brow furrowed briefly, then comprehension crossed his face.

  “I wasn’t talking about that,” he said. “No, I was… thinking aloud about something else.” He shrugged. “You know, life in general. Maybe choices that come up when we think we know the answer already. That kind of thing.” He gathered up some tools he had left in the room earlier: a chisel for opening the paint can, a screwdriver, some random hardware that must have been overlooked. He tucked the nails into the pouch of his carpenter’s belt.

  He was talking about life in general, Tessa thought. Or something more specific about life… “I suppose that’s true,” she said. “I guess I never thought about it in words before, but when you put it that way, it makes sense.” She glanced at him. “Are you… thinking about something in particular?” She held her breath that this wasn’t about something construction related, about Blake’s job. What if it was about something more personal? More intimate.

  “I don’t know,” said Blake. “Sometimes we think we see what we want right in front of us. It was there all along, in plain sight… then, just when we reach for it, something comes up to make us think it’s a mistake. You know how it is.” A sound like a sigh, possibly one of frustration, emerged like a deep exhale from Blake’s lungs. As incredulous as she was about this idea, Tessa could swear that’s what she heard.

  Her fingers toyed with the corner of the notebook in her arms. “Sometimes change is good,” she ventured. “Then again, sometimes the real problem is knowing what we truly want in the first place. Seeing it beyond the distractions.” Here, she thought about the prime example in her own life, the one that had led to this moment with Blake, along with everything else these past few weeks.

  “I almost turned around and walked away from Wedding Belles this year,” she continued, aware of the glimmer of surprise in Blake’s eyes at this confession, despite his intent expression. “But if I had given up, I never could have lived with myself. The ‘what if,’ the ‘maybe’—it would have killed me, wondering if I gave up just when I should have given it my best. All because I couldn’t see the turning point, where the light would shine through again.”

  It was Bill’s advice for good business sense, but Tessa wasn’t thinking of business at this point. She was thinking that maybe… maybe… Blake regretted that moment in the parlor, when they could have told each other about their feelings, but didn’t. If she regretted not telling him that kiss was something more, maybe he felt the same way. The exact same way, from the tingle of magic to the sweet taste of possibility that came from one perfect touch.

  Don’t give up, she thought desperately. What if it really is right in front of you, just waiting for you to say the word? What insanity was prompting this utter change was a secret known only in the depths of Tessa’s heart—her rational self was shouting for her to see how desperate this was after all she’d been through and all the chances they had dodged thus far.

  “That’s what I think, anyway.” She shrugged her shoulders. “But what do I know, right?” She looked at him. Wanting to ask what this was all about, and if there was some way she could help. Saying that the idea of the two of them together wasn’t so crazy seemed like a good start to her.

  “I think you know a lot,” Blake answered, with a smile that was tender, and allowed Tessa to feel a blush travel from her cheeks to her toes like a flame. “Maybe I should take your advice and figure out if my first instinct was right.”

  “Maybe you should.” Tessa hoped the blush was gone from her cheeks by the time she replied. She couldn’t do anything about the crazy way her heart was skipping beats at the idea that Blake really meant those words.

  Twenty-Three

  “Where are my pins?” Natalie rummaged through her emergency sewing kit. “Don’t worry,” she added, looking up at Nadia, whose face already betrayed slight concern. “I have them here somewhere. I’ll have it fixed in seconds, I promise.”

  What a perfect start to any wedding day, she thought privately—with a perfectly secure dress seam giving way along the zipper, one she would swear was tightly sewn by her machine’s closest stitch function. Her fingers pulled pins from the upside-down ladybug cushion, pulling the seam into place again.

  It was one fifteen at Nadia’s apartment, where Natalie was conducting a last-minute fitting before they were due to leave for the chapel’s guest house—one which had turned out to be either a mistake or a providential revelation, depending upon how you felt about discovering a broken garment thread mere hours before the big moment.

  The wedding was set for four o’clock, with the chapel just outside the city limits, in a wood bordering the forest park. Morning had dawned with a gray haze on its horizon, which had suggested doom to Natalie’s mind the moment she opened her apartment’s curtains, surveying the dusting of snow on the pavement from two days ago, which looked like grey sludge now, thanks to street traffic and fumes from the building’s basement furnace. Thick, heavy clouds blanketed the neighboring rooftop in a storm band, the kind that looked ready to cause icy roads and zero visibility in a curtain of freezing rain. Natalie had stuck her tongue out at them. Defiance had not banished them from sight.

  “Just a few minutes more,” she said, as the maid of honor handed her the scissors from her sewing kit. “Good thing I decided to check the zipper before we left for the church, right?” Her emergency sewing kit included a mini seam surger, but if this dress’s seam turned out to be worse than she thought, she wanted to be within range of a real sewing machine that would guarantee a perfect fix.

  “Are you sure this dress will hold together long enough for her to walk down the aisle?” Cynthia’s worried voice reminded Natalie of someone filing rust off cast iron.

  The mother of the bride was sporting a short formal dress for the big occasion, a spotted navy blue silk that might have been borrowed from the Sunday church scene’s costume rack for a Hollywood version of Picnic. Always refined and elegant, down to the white gloves, tiny diamond studs, and patent shoes—unlike Paula, who had chosen a magenta two-piece with a pencil skirt that swept the floor and enough sequins to light a casino billboard in Vegas.

  “Completely sure,” Natal
ie replied with a smile—albeit through clenched teeth holding her sewing pins. “Watch and see. And, hey presto, we’re back in business.” She pulled out the final pin after backstitching the end of the seam. It seemed sturdy enough now. It was just one of those rare sewing accidents, and not the dreaded curse that made Tessa’s eyes harden whenever it was mentioned.

  “I just pulled the zipper too hard when I tried it on again this morning,” said Nadia. “I’m nervous. I’m really nervous. See how much my hands are shaking?” She showed Natalie the tremor in them. “Three hours from now, I’ll be married. I just wanted to make sure that I hadn’t gained extra pounds. I felt so bloated after last night’s cannoli—now I just feel sick—and I really need everything to go perfectly.”

  “Hold still,” said the bridesmaid who was styling Nadia’s hair. “It needs two more pins at least in the back, to hold it until we get to the chapel.”

  “I’m having a hard time holding still,” said Nadia. “I’m going to be married in a few hours. Can you believe it? I feel like I’m dreaming. Look at me in the mirror, I look so—glamorous.”

  “I just hope you don’t freeze to death in that glass chapel you chose,” said Cynthia.

  “It has insulated walls six inches thick, according to the brochure,” said Natalie. Maybe not in the nicest tone she could have chosen, she reflected afterwards. Did false cheerfulness count?

  At the Wedding Belles’ headquarters, Tessa was loading up the last boxes of extra wedding favors, snowflake confetti, and her own emergency repair kit: a plastic toolbox filled with masking tape, super glue, sewing pins, tack nails and a hammer-screwdriver combination tool, a stout pair of scissors, and a three-blade knife which claimed it had a blade for cutting any substance known to mankind. Arms full, she nudged open the door with her toes, and heard the trill of her cell phone from her handbag at the same time.